Shattered Salvation
by Gamebird
Summary: This is the chronological compilation of the stories set in the Shattered Salvation AU, including Shattered Identity, Salvation of Acceptance, Bonus and Mature editions. It's a love story between Peter and Gabriel, set after The Fifth Stage.
1. Overview

**Title:** Shattered Salvation (Shattered Identity / Salvation of Acceptance / Continuation Scenes, and all Bonus Features and Mature Scenes)

**Rating:** NC-17. There are long stretches that are T/PG-13.

**Characters:** Peter, Gabriel, Angela Petrelli, Heidi Petrelli, Maury Parkman, Emma Coolidge, Noah Bennet, Arthur Petrelli, various others for cameos.

**Pairings:** Peter/Gabriel, Gabriel/Heidi, Peter/Emma, Angela/Maury, Claire/Gretchen, Micah/Abigail, mentions of other pairings (Peter/Nathan, Nathan/Heidi, Matt/Mohinder, Micah/Molly, original characters with canon characters, etc.)

**Spoilers:** Follows canon until The Fifth Stage, departs after that. Posits a pre-existing slash relationship between Peter and Nathan.

**Warnings:** Explicit sexual content, domestic violence (several times in the context of Peter/Gabriel, once in the context of Gabriel/Heidi), several instances of non-consensual sex (chapter 36, "Peter's First"; chapter 322, "Green Eyed Monster part 2"; there is also a very non-consensual nightmare in chapter 305, "Nightmare"; sex of dubious consent in chapter 351, "Sylar on Sylar"; outright rape in chapter 352, "Date Rape"), pseudo-incest (Gabriel, as Nathan, with Peter), moderate violence, one incident of graphic violence (chapter 252, "The Last of the Airbender"), some gore, a variety of powers used in conjunction with sexual activity (including using shape shifting to simulate various people you might have rather not imagined having sex), swear words, permanent death of non-main characters, temporary death of main characters, off-screen death of Matt Parkman

**Length:** A little over 1.05 million words. Complete.

**Summary:** This is _**a love story**_ that emerges _**between Peter and Gabriel**_, although it does not start that way and takes a while to develop. There are different supportive relationships between Peter and Emma, and Gabriel and Heidi that occur over the course of the story. "Gabriel" is Sylar whose mind was fractured a second time by Matt Parkman in an attempt to entirely subjugate Sylar's personality and recover Nathan's. The job was botched and the person who emerged initially had personality traits of both. The first major story arc, which was originally published as Shattered Identity, tracks Gabriel coming to terms with his new life and eventually opposing Arthur Petrelli's plan to cause another eclipse and artificially spawn people with abilities. The next major arc was published as Salvation of Acceptance. It is Peter's effort to stop an OC named Lilith who was backing Arthur and continues his efforts after he is defeated at the end of Shattered Identity. The next major arc is the Continuation Scenes after Salvation of Acceptance, as Peter and Gabriel strengthen and solidify their relationships with each other and their spouses, creating a polyamorous marriage.

All scenes originally published in separate stories as Bonus Features or Mature Edition have been integrated into the story, arranged chronologically, so you can read the whole thing start to finish in a single story. I have included a few chapters from other stories in the same AU, though I am not including longer works like the Adventures of Matt Parkman.

Please be kind for the early chapters. I had not yet settled on what kind of story I was going to tell and I had no idea it would become as involved as it did. I didn't even intend to have it be slash at first.

**A Guide to the Story Arcs**

Shattered Identity– Chapters 2-90  
O Sythan's Survival/Escape – Chapters 2-19  
O Sythan Joins the Company – Chapters 20-33  
O Petrellicest Porn – Chapters 34-42  
O Dark, Angsty, Dramatic France stuff – Chapters 43-57  
O Peter and Gabriel Gang Up Against Arthur – Chapters 58-90

Salvation of Acceptance – Chapters 91-175  
O Setup for Salvation of Acceptance – Chapters 91-109  
O Takeover of Halo – Chapters 110-124  
O Peter Joins the Rebellion – Chapters 125-154  
O My Favorite Chapter, "Watchmen" - Chapter 155  
O They Take Out Lilith and Deal with the Fallout – Chapters 156-175

Continuation Scenes – Chapters 176-393  
O A Whole Bunch of Sex – Chapters 176-210  
O Peter Overuses Healing – Chapters 211-236  
O My Second Favorite Chapter, "Watch Me" - Chapter 237  
O More Sex – Chapters 238-248  
O The Hunger Gets the Better of Gabriel – Chapters 249-273  
O Gabriel Goes To Therapy – Chapters 274-281  
O Molly Tries to Have Gabriel Killed, Peter Flips Out – Chapters 282-320  
O Green-Eyed Monster (Peter's Protectiveness/Jealousy Issues) – Chapters 321-349  
O Syko (Gabriel Tells About Sylar and Danko) – Chapters 350-363  
O A Bunch of Miscellaneous Stuff – Chapters 364-384  
O Halloween and Thanksgiving Stories – Chapters 385-389  
O Double Duty Series – Chapters 390-392  
O The End (Beginnings, aka A Lot of Backstory) – Chapter 393

**Other Fics Set in the Same Verse**

Peter/Nathan stuff:  
Parallelism  
Reminiscences  
Light Up  
Back in the Day  
Terminal Velocity

Peter preseason stuff:  
Scored  
Big Ben  
Social Niceties  
Ten Bucks

Other stuff:  
The Adventures of Matt Parkman (Matt Parkman, Maury Parkman, an original character named Patty who later shows up in Shattered Salvation)  
Best Victim/Worst Punishment (Adam Monroe, Eric Thompson)  
My Sweet Cherry Pie and Eight Surgeries Later (Adam Monroe)  
But It's a Good Pain (Daniel Linderman)  
Damned Either Way (Emile Danko)  
Oubliette (Peter)  
End of the World (Peter, Hesam)  
My Fanon For Noah Bennet (Noah Bennet)  
The First Step (Sandra Bennet)  
The Diary of Lyle Bennet (Lyle Bennet)  
The Nameless (the Analyst)  
Trial by Fire (Meredith, Sylar)  
Faithful Friend (Gabriel)


	2. Nathan's Point of View

They didn't want him to hear them. It wasn't a problem. He didn't want to hear them either. He didn't want to be here. He didn't even want to **be**. He was sitting on a bucket, face in his hands, trying to make sense of it - of himself, of them, of anything. He felt like he'd just woken from a long, deeply unsettling nightmare. He was having trouble thinking, feeling and understanding. He had the sense that the best thing he could do was to sit quietly and let them sort it out. Various parts of himself rebelled strongly at the idea of anyone other than himself charting the course of his life, but the feeling that he should remain quiet was very clear. Even if it was not, the threatening-looking man a few strides away, with the very large gun and the heavily-rimmed glasses, reinforced the idea.

He looked up at that man, who was gazing at him steadily and professionally. The gun was generally aimed in his direction, but no one could maintain a shooting stance for as long as they'd already been there. The man had relaxed his stance somewhat, remaining ready and alert. He was watching hands especially. The confused man on the bucket knew him, somehow. He was familiar. "N…" _Nick? Neil? Nathan? Wait… Nathan…_ No, that man wasn't named Nathan, but the man realized he, himself, was named that. Or might be. It seemed right, but somehow not. Maybe it was just a name he'd gone by for a while.

The man with the horn-rimmed glasses tilted his head slightly at Nathan's continued scrutiny. He broke the stare and looked past him at the three gathered there, talking quietly to one another. One had straight, dark hair and was wearing a jacket over a torn paramedic's uniform. He spent most of the conversation looking back at Nathan with a haunted look on his face. From time to time he clutched his hands like he wanted to be doing something violent. _Peter Petrelli._ The name came to his mind easily. He knew this man very well, like a brother. He tried to think of how, exactly, he knew him. A hundred memories seemed to flash before his eyes with an intense swirl of mixed emotions, but he could bring nothing into focus.

The second man was heavier in build and wearing a policeman's uniform. This was Matt Parkman, another man he knew inside and out. Nathan felt an unreasoning hatred and fear of him at that moment. Matt had done something to him, recently and quite profoundly. He was speaking rapidly and gesturing energetically to emphasize his words. Nathan could hear a few snatches of what he had to say. It didn't make sense, but the tone was angry. So was his face. He pointed at Nathan several times without looking at him, then made a decisive chopping motion with his hand. He seemed to be trying to convince the last member of the trio of something. This other man was a dread-locked black man who stood very still and only occasionally spoke. Nathan didn't think he knew him.

_Am I Nathan? Why am I here? What's going on? _He looked at the man with the gun. Very slowly, as if he was pulling a heavy weight from deep water, he managed to dredge up the man's name: _Noah, Noah Bennet_. He smiled slightly at the unexpected joy from getting his mind to do something useful instead of running in circles like a hamster in an exercise wheel. Noah frowned at him and shifted very slightly, tightening his grip on the gun at Nathan's smile. Nathan dropped his eyes and let his face fall. He didn't want to cause a problem. _Or did he?_ Mayhem seemed like an unaccountably attractive thought.

In fact… he needed to die. He needed them to kill him. That seemed very important. He needed to kill them and they needed to kill him. He pondered this thought. Why did he need to die? Clearly in his mind's eye, he saw a woman he knew to be his mother, staggering back from him and clutching her chest. A pair of scissors protruded and he knew he'd put them there. He'd killed his mother. He'd… cut the top of her head off? That too? He couldn't tell for sure how she'd died at the end. A half dozen other memories, faint and confused, came to mind of cutting the tops of people's heads off. That was very important… for some reason. Why had he done that? Why had he killed his mother?

He was sure he'd killed her. For some reason, it seemed like a shock. He remembered raising his hand and beginning the cut. He remembered her screaming. Peter Petrelli had been there. Why hadn't Peter stopped him? There she was, in his mind, his dark-haired, elegant mother, backing away from him, clutching the scissors in her chest. He covered his face with his hands, wishing he could block out the memory. Why had he killed her? A tear slid down his face. _Sylar doesn't cry._ It was a voice in his own head. He hated it instantly and entirely.

"I AM NOT SYLAR!" he shouted into the air. Matt Parkman fell silent. If Nathan had been looking, he'd have seen Bennet's gun pointed directly at his head again, but he wasn't looking past his own hands. They were shaking, badly. He told them, more quietly, "I am not Sylar," and balled them into fists. He pressed them against his forehead and rocked his head back and forth. He pressed them into his eyes and wished he didn't exist. His wish did not come true, but he heard the three men speaking to one another more animatedly. Maybe they would decide to end him. It seemed to be what they were discussing. He could hear that Peter's voice had entered the fray.

If he wasn't Sylar and he wasn't really Nathan, then who was he? He tried to remember. He had remembered Noah's name. Surely he could remember his own past? He could pull up images and facts, disconnected and some contradictory. Nearly all of them were foreign to him. It was like looking through a stranger's photo album. He'd killed people, he'd flown, he'd loved, he'd hated, he had family, children even, but he was alone. He felt hated and feared and disgusted with people. He didn't like what he was. He put his fists on his knees and snapped his head up towards Bennet. He had a sudden urge to throw himself at the man and make him shoot him. He tensed to do it just as Peter walked up next to Noah, a syringe in hand. It gave him pause.

Peter exchanged a glance with Bennet, then walked on, making sure not to block the other man's shot line. Nathan watched him walk over cautiously and stop beside him. Peter put a tentative hand on his shoulder. He started to move the syringe in and Nathan pulled back slightly, looking uncertain.

Peter's eyes were very sad. He was genuinely moved by Nathan's distress. "It won't hurt much. Just hold still." Peter gripped his shoulder more firmly.

Nathan thought he could trust him. He didn't know why, but that was what he felt. He held himself still as Peter applied the syringe to his throat with practiced ease and a gentle touch. Peter had done this before to him - he was sure of it. He tried to remember, but failed to get anything except a feeling of surprise and dashed hopes, seeing some unknown black man sitting before him, shaking or holding his hand. Peter waited, hand on his brother's shoulder, as the powerful drug took effect. At the last second, it occurred to Nathan that he might not wake up from this. _It would be for the best_, he thought.


	3. Peter's Point of View

**A/N: Bookend scene, other POV, mostly Peter's. **

Peter sat quietly even though he wanted to be pacing. He needed to be patient. Bennet had said it would take a while for him and Parkman to get there. It had already been hours, though. Sylar's body kept overcoming the tranquilizers. Peter was giving him doses that should have kept a normal human down for more than 24 hours. For Sylar, it only worked for an hour or so - Claire's healing factor, no doubt. Peter kept watch, trying not to get distracted or to sleep. It had been days since he'd slept.

Sylar's recovery time varied a lot. He needed to stay focused. He wasn't sure he could put Sylar down again if he woke fully, and he was afraid of what might happen if he seriously overdosed him. He snorted at that. He'd already seriously overdosed the man. His success in fighting him seemed mainly a fluke, or perhaps Nathan was still struggling against Sylar. It seemed like too much to hope for, but hope was all he had.

The body twitched, reminding him painfully of Nathan's movements last night (_was it only last night? Or was it night before last? I've lost track of time_.) He checked his watch. Time… it was significant somehow, but his tired brain didn't tell him why. One hour, thirteen minutes. He picked up the prepared syringe and moved to Sylar's side. No reason to wait. If the body was moving, he needed a new dose. He injected him again and a tenseness Peter hadn't noticed from where he was sitting drained away from the man. _More awake than I'd thought._

He reset the counter on his watch, turning at the sound of people arriving. It was Parkman and Bennet. Parkman came over to the body and jerked his chin upwards. "He out?"

"Yeah," Peter said tiredly. He went over to the bag of medical supplies he'd brought and prepped the next syringe.

"Good. Okay, I got a plan. I've been thinking about what I did last time and what I need is someone who can delete memories." Matt looked at Noah. "Like the Haitian."

Noah frowned. "That's not going to be easy. He's recused himself from this." He gestured at the body. Peter narrowed his eyes at Bennet, thinking about Rene giving him the code to that storage building.

Matt rolled his eyes. "Listen, I've had to…" he paused and changed tacks. "Let's just find him and get him here. I can handle the rest. Where is he?"

Peter didn't think Matt noticed, but Noah pulled back infinitesimally from Parkman. Peter glanced back and forth between the two of them as he finished filling the syringe and capped it. Noah answered mildly, "I don't know. He told me he was going back to Haiti. It's not a big country, but we won't be able to find him quickly."

Matt frowned and waved his arm, "Just call him! Find out."

Peter cocked his head, trying to hear if these were commands or conversation. Nathan had _not_ wanted to touch Parkman's hand in the hospital. It was like he'd been forced to do it. Peter had threatened to kill Parkman then. The hot surge of emotion was still there, but distant now. Peter had thought that must have been Sylar's actions, but Sylar was not driving Matt now. _Maybe I'm reading too much into it,_ he thought. He was so tired. He looked in the bag at the stimulants he'd brought as well. _Not yet._

Noah shook his head. "He's off the grid, out of communication."

Matt rolled his eyes again. _What is it with people? Everything's always so difficult!_, he thought. "Okay, fine. There's got to be someone else with memory powers. There's a whole carnival of people out there with special powers. All I need is a mystic, a fortune-teller, something like that. To roam around like they do, they'd **have** to have someone who could wipe memories. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made it this long. They'd have been found out."

Noah gave Matt a faintly condescending look that made Peter think the carnival hadn't been as invisible as they'd thought, but the expression was fleeting. "Yes, they probably have someone like that. Let's go find them." Noah looked back at Peter and said, "Is he good for thirty minutes, an hour?"

Peter nodded. Noah and Matt set off.

They came back most of an hour later with a dread-locked, middle-aged black man in tow. Introductions were perfunctory. Parkman squatted down next to Sylar's body. "Okay. Here's the plan. I'm going to disrupt his identity so he can't fight the memory wipe. Then you'll do your thing."

The black man looked at Sylar and said, "I restored this man's memories only a few weeks ago. You are sure this is the right thing to do?"

Parkman looked straight at him and said clearly, "Yes. It has to be done." The black man nodded obediently. Peter furrowed his brow and looked at Noah, but Bennet was looking at Sylar and didn't catch his eyes.

"Okay," Matt said to himself. He glanced around, took several deep breaths, and then turned his eyes to Sylar's face. Almost immediately the body twitched. It remained tense, struggling as if in a nightmare, as minutes dragged by. Finally the mental battle seemed to come to a head. Sylar convulsed briefly and exhaled as if deflated. He was still. Matt leaned away, falling back to sit. His nose was bleeding and he looked stunned. Peter grabbed a bit of gauze and went to him.

"Thanks," Matt muttered to him, holding the gauze to his nose. It was only a few drops, though, and Matt seemed to be recovering himself quickly. Peter looked back at Sylar, who remained still like a corpse. He frowned and shifted, reaching for the man's wrist and taking his pulse - only there was no pulse. Alarmed, he moved to Sylar's neck and tried again - still nothing.

"He's dead! What did you do to him?" he turned to Matt incredulously. If he'd wanted Sylar's body dead he'd have done it himself already! Or certainly not have called _them_. He wanted his brother back. It had been the subject of a long internal battle with himself - whether Nathan was still in Sylar, or whether, as Nathan had told him in one of his last lucid moments, his personality had been killed by the monster. This had been his last hope!

"I… snuffed him out, killed Sylar. He'll… he'll be back. He heals." Matt looked up at Noah as he stood. "Right?"

Peter gaped at him. Matt had just killed Nathan without so much as a second thought.

Noah looked surprised. "How would I know?"

"Claire." Matt didn't say anything else.

Noah's expression hardened. His voice was cold. "I went to a great deal of effort to make sure the Company never had the opportunity to experiment on Claire and find her limits. I don't know how mental powers interact with regeneration."

"You never had the Haitian…" Matt trailed off at Noah's expression and looked back at Sylar's corpse.

Peter shut his mouth and turned to the body. He began doing CPR. He tried, very hard, not to think that this was Sylar he was trying to save. _I'm trying to save Nathan. This is __**Nathan**__._ It didn't feel like Nathan. It didn't look like Nathan. His mind flashed back to what Nathan had told him, that he'd always see the man who killed his brother. Peter furiously cut off those thoughts and focused on his training. If he could just get the heart going again, maybe the healing would take over.

Minutes passed and finally he felt a pulse - thin and weak, but a pulse. "Hah," he panted and leaned down to Sylar's face. Very faintly, Sylar inhaled. _Oh God_. Peter leaned back and blinked. So he was alive after all. The knot in his chest eased somewhat. "He's alive. Again."

Matt shrugged as if this was inconsequential and expected, like Peter had just been overreacting. Peter felt a sudden desire to punch the other man, but covered it by rising and going over to sit on the five gallon bucket he'd been using as a seat earlier. "Do it," Pete ordered.

Matt squatted back to the ground. "Okay, come here," he waved at the black man, who stepped closer. "Now, I'm going to read your mind, and link with his." He gestured at the body. "I'll pull up memories and you'll delete them."

The black man cocked his head slightly. "That is not how my power works."

"What?" Matt stared at him. Peter inhaled sharply. _I should have never let Parkman touch him._ The knot was back in his chest, full force.

"I can restore memories, or delete them, chronologically, from one point in time to another. I do not remove specific memories, only time periods."

Hope stirred. Peter stood up and walked closer. "Then… just delete everything from earlier than… seven weeks ago. And everything in the last few days."

The black man nodded, but Matt was shaking his head. "No, you can't do that. I **broke** him. Broke him apart. There's no sense of time, no timeline, it's all a jumble. He doesn't know who he is. All the memories are mixed up. That's what keeps him from resisting."

"What about Nathan?" Peter asked.

"I couldn't get at just one. Both of them." At Peter's seething expression, Matt stood up and put a few steps between them, hurrying to explain. "I was going to remove all the other memories and then put Nathan's back together. That's the only way! I've fought Sylar before. He's too strong. I can't get to his mind as long as he's…" he pointed at his head, "intact."

The black man said slowly, "Then… if you have done this thing as you say, I can not help you."

Peter balled his hands into fists. He wasn't sure what he would have done, but at that moment Sylar opened his eyes. Everyone took a step back. Bennet pulled his gun, for what good it would do him.

"Hold on. Wait!" Peter looked between Noah and Matt, both of whom looked ready to act. To Matt he said, "You said he doesn't know who he is?"

Matt shook his head, eyes slightly unfocused as if he was listening to something only he could hear. "No, he doesn't. Doesn't know who we are, where he is. He's confused." He looked up at Peter and focused on him. "We can take him, now. If we wait, it might come back to him. His mind might heal what I did just like his body heals wounds."

Sylar sat up, looking around at them. Bennet and Matt took a few more steps back. The black man put himself even further away, having no interest in being identified as being involved too much in this. Peter knelt next to Sylar and touched his shoulder. Sylar turned to look at him, his expression oddly vacant and vulnerable. Peter couldn't help feel the slightest pang for his enemy, even if, at the same time, he'd rather Sylar were dead.

"Do you know who I am?" Peter asked softly. Sylar shook his head. This had its good and bad points, Peter thought.

"Do you know who you are?" Again, Sylar shook his head.

Peter tugged on the man's arm and Sylar obediently followed him. He led him over to the bucket and sat him down. Peter frowned at him, trying to think of what to say. Finally he said, "Stay here. Be quiet." He walked back to the others, gesturing at Matt to join him. Bennet took up a position between them and Sylar, gun ready. It would at least slow the serial killer down - and who knew? Maybe he'd get lucky and hit the right spot.

Matt turned to the black man and spoke, "If he puts himself back together, then you could do that - what Peter suggested - you could just remove everything but the time I put Nathan's memories in him?"

"Perhaps. How are the other memories aligned?"

"Aligned?"

"Yes. Are they aligned along his lifeline, or are they a single event to him?"

Matt looked away, thinking. He had no idea what the other man was talking about. "I don't know." He didn't have the vocabulary to have this conversation. He didn't know enough about his own power.

"Mm." The black man said nothing else. Peter looked back at Sylar, who was looking at them, from one to the other as if trying to work out who they were.

Parkman went on, "If they're a single event, can you do it?" He made a sharp chopping motion with his hand.

The black man nodded.

"Fine, then do it anyway. We can't risk Sylar getting away. He'll kill all of us. Or worse."

Peter turned back to them and cocked his head. He asked quietly, "What if you're wrong?"

The black man answered, "Then there will be nothing left. He will be empty."

Matt turned to the black man, ignoring Peter and his doubts for the moment. "It won't be empty. His mind will heal it. It's healing right now." He glanced over at Sylar and waved towards him. Sylar had covered his face with his hands. "What we have to do is remove everything we can and then guide the healing. I can do that - force him to remember being Nathan, just like before. And when his mind heals those memories into place, there's no reason for it to keep healing Sylar's memories." Matt made a lateral motion with his hand, indicating the negation. He paused for a moment and went on, "We can't take the time to find the Haitian. We have to do this now, or at least really soon. Or else he's going to come back as Sylar and-"

"I AM NOT SYLAR!"

All of them turned and stared at Sylar, who was staring sightlessly at his own hands. He repeated himself hoarsely, "I am not Sylar," and then balled his hands into fists and rested his forehead on them.

"Did he hear me?" Matt asked in a small voice.

"I don't think so," Peter said. More strongly, Peter said, "I'm not going to let you do that to him. He's not Sylar right now. Get the Haitian. Get someone who knows what they're doing and has done this before."

Matt answered sharply, offended, "I know what I'm doing. He was in my head for **weeks**. I was the one who put Nathan's memories there in the first place!" At Peter's odd look, Matt softened a bit and said, "Not that it was my idea. That one was your mother's."

Peter sighed. Yes, his mother. His mind shied away from the topic and he let it. "She might know someone else. Maybe in the Company files."

Matt took Peter's elbow. "I can do it, Peter," he said flatly. Peter pulled himself away from Matt and gave him a cold look.

Matt shook his head disbelievingly. "How are you going to keep him contained? I can make people do what I tell them, but with him it doesn't last! I can't block powers. No matter who he thinks he is, he can do everything Sylar can do."

"I'll keep him contained," Peter said. He had no other choice. He wondered if there was anything left of Nathan in that body and what he, himself, would do if there was not. Would he kill the man in cold blood? Sylar deserved it. What was it he'd told his mother? _No one wants him dead more than me._ True, but looking the man in the face it was a different matter. Especially with that vacant, conflicted expression on Sylar's face. Peter was just so _tired_.

Peter pulled out the syringe and started forward. Matt grabbed his elbow again. That was getting really old, really fast, but Matt didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care, since he was apparently being fairly cavalier anymore with making people do what he wanted. Matt said, "You think Sylar's just going to let you walk over there and inject him?"

Peter pulled himself away from Matt with a hard expression. "No, but Nathan might."


	4. Waking in Omaha

**A/N: Herein I amuse myself with the idea of Peter's (and Claire's) occasional stupidity in canon being due to brain damage from dying. If it seems like Sylar/Nathan is stoned out of his mind, that's true. He gets more lucid as the minutes tick by.**

He was dreaming of flying. It was fantastic. The air rushed past him and the land unfurled to the ends of his vision. He could see the curve of the Earth. He entered a cloud and all was white - so bright, painfully bright. The light shone through him, from him. He looked at his hands. They glowed. He glowed. He tried to fly downwards to get out of the cloud, but it seemed endless. He felt a surge of fear and realized he would eventually crash into the ground, so he reversed direction and went up. After what seemed like minutes of climbing, he wasn't sure he was still going up. There were no landmarks, no reference points. He couldn't even tell if he'd pulled to a stop. What had been a wonderful dream was turning into a nightmare.

He was burning up, glowing hot. He struggled against the cloud, which was suffocating him. He could hardly breathe. It was all over him, wrapping itself around him and crushing him. With a sudden gasp and a jerk, his eyes flew open and he was awake. A formed concrete ceiling was above him; a formed concrete wall on his right. He was laying on a bed or a gurney. He was also handcuffed to this same bed - even his feet. At the end of the bed was a man with dark, straight hair, in a dark jacket. He was sitting in the most flimsy-looking plastic chair imaginable. He was also asleep.

The room was maybe twenty by twenty feet, with an exposed, built-in toilet, a flimsy plastic table and a large, transparent view port. Through the window, he could see the top of a man's head, with wavy brown hair - someone looking down. He looked back at the sleeping man. He'd seen him before. _Peter Petrelli._ Yes, that was his name. He'd seen him… yesterday? A year ago? He couldn't tell. The sense of time was missing. Somehow this seemed as important as if he'd discovered he was missing one of his toes.

Maybe he was still dreaming? He lifted his right hand. How was it that the sleeping man hadn't woken when he'd made his own rattle and crash of waking? Had it been louder to himself than it really was? The handcuff rattled slightly against the frame, but no one seemed to notice. He focused on the handcuff and it vanished, disintegrating into dust. _Yes, definitely still dreaming._ He smiled to himself and looked at the sheet that covered him. _Might as well enjoy the dream._ With a touch of concentration, it floated off his body and towards the ceiling, dimming them like a cloud before the sun. His smile broadened at the thought. _Flying… like I was flying…_ In fact, it was almost like he was hovering a bit off the sheets. He was still wearing a tee shirt, pants and socks. _Odd. Aren't you supposed to be naked in your dreams?_

"Peter." A pause. The man on the bed looked at the window. The brown-haired man was standing, looking worried and leaning forward so he could see the man in the chair next to the door. _Am I Peter? I thought I was someone else. Maybe he's not talking to me._ He settled back into the bed.

"Peter!"

The sleeping man suddenly roused, jumping and coming to his feet as if he expected an attack. He looked around wildly for a second, taking in the waking patient, Bennet peering through the view port at him and… a sheet, floating near the ceiling. He stared at the sheet for a long moment and then looked at Bennet, who gave him a puzzled shrug. The sheet drifted away from the ceiling and settled back on the patient. Peter looked at the patient very warily, waiting for something more violent than a moving bed sheet.

_I guess this isn't a dream, after all. Too bad. I like to fly. Almost as much as listening to the time. I wonder why I can't hear the time?_

"Nathan?" Peter asked tremulously, since the man who looked like Sylar was now gazing upwards blankly, lost in thought.

The man turned to him with curious eyes. "Yes?" _Am I Nathan? I think I must be._

"Nathan, thank God!" Peter stepped forward and barely stopped himself from touching the man. Instead he rested his hand a few inches away on the bar of the bed. He couldn't quite bring himself to touch Sylar like he would touch his brother. Nathan tilted his head over and looked at that, but had no other reaction to it. Peter's caution seemed wrong to him.

"What do you remember?" Peter asked. He leaned forward a little and looked at Nathan's eyes, Sylar's eyes. They were strongly dilated. The cocktail of benzodiazepines and opiates Peter had given him, hoping to keep him unconscious for a longer period, were apparently still in effect. He was high, but not sedated. _Not a comforting combination_, Peter thought. At least he seemed calm.

"Not much." His eyes tracked slowly back and forth. "Why did I kill my mother?" His voice sounded curious, but no more emotional than that.

Peter shook his head. "You didn't kill her, Nathan, she's going to be okay."

"Okay?" Nathan tilted up his head and looked at Peter, blinking. "I put scissors in her heart. She died. She's dead. I did it. How can she be okay?"

"Uh," Peter frowned. "That's… that's not your memory, Nathan. Ma's fine. I know she is."

"Not my memory?" he said softly. "It's in my head. Whose memory would it be? I can see it, clear as day." He gestured with his right hand, which was still loose. He froze and stared at that hand. How did it get free? Wasn't that deranged stuff about disintegrating things and floating sheets just part of the dream? When did the dream stop and the reality begin? He began to feel a thrill of alarm.

Peter also stared at the free hand.

Bennet toggled the speaker. "Peter. Get out of there. Now." The door clicked as the lock was disengaged.

Peter backed up a step and the motion diverted Nathan's attention from whatever he was pondering. He snapped around and gestured with his right hand. "No! Wait!"

Peter's body locked up, refusing to move further. Panic from the last time this happened flooded through his body. There was a hiss from above as knock-out gas began to pour in. The sheet whipped up and over Peter's face, then wrapped around his head. He would have struggled with it if he could have moved. Now he was blinded by it. There was a feeling of motion, the sound of the door opening and then he was dumped on the floor, free of control but still tangled in the sheet. The door slammed shut behind him. Peter was outside the room. He tore off the damn sheet and looked up to see Bennet, surprised, eyebrows climbing his forehead.

Peter got to his feet and looked through the view port. Sylar looked asleep, like the gas had done its job. His right hand had fallen limply over his chest. "What was that about?" Peter asked.

Noah shrugged. "He attacked you. It was time for the gas."

Peter nodded rapidly. "Yeah, I know. That's fine. I agree. But… why did he throw me out of the room? He **had** me."

"Maybe he didn't want you to be knocked out. A sheet will make a temporary barrier against the gas."

"Why would he do that?"

Noah shook his head. "I don't know, but I think we should keep the room flooded and sealed. There was a good chance he had disintegration. This proves it. It's too dangerous to let him be awake."

Peter sighed as he looked in the room. "How long does it take for a regenerator's brain to die?"

"How long were you dead that one time, before Claire pulled out the glass?"

Peter thought about it. "An hour or two, no more." He winced at the memory. He was no fan of broken glass. The incident had given him a permanent, though mild, phobia of it.

"Did you notice any problems? Trouble remembering, brain damage?"

Peter frowned and shook his head. "I don't know. It was a bad time for me. I wasn't thinking straight for a long time. I blew up not long after that. I couldn't control my powers." He turned and looked at Noah. "I never thought it could have been due to… to dying."

"Dying can cause a lot of problems." Noah smiled gently, thinking about how it was Nathan's death that had caused this whole mess.

Peter spoke. "Then we can't leave him in there knocked out all the time."

"It's just until tomorrow. The ability neutralizing pills will be here by then. It's an old batch, but it's what I can get hold of. They should still work."

"An entire day? The gas works by suffocating the brain, Noah."

Noah looked into the room, thinking about how Parkman was right. They couldn't contain Sylar. How could he convince Peter of that, though?

Peter reached forward and turned off the gas, starting the process to cycle it back out. "We've got to give him another chance. He recognized his name. He didn't try to kill me. It's a start."


	5. First Talk

Peter winced as he pulled out the needle and switched an alcohol pad over the injection site, holding pressure on it. Noah frowned at him and reached over to take the bottle Peter had just used. He read the label - some kind of medium grade stimulant. _Well, there are worse things he could be mainlining._ He still wasn't happy about it. Stimulants made people sloppy. Not as sloppy as they were if they were as falling down tired as Peter was, but solving only part of the problem meant there was still a problem.

"You know, sleep has a lot fewer side effects than this stuff," Noah pointed out.

Peter giggled unaccountably. "Yeah, you got any laying around here?" He snapped his mouth shut and took several deep breaths. They were a bit too fast, but they helped. "Wow. That stuff hits hard." He blinked and shook his head at the friendly buzz he was already feeling. _Maybe I took too much._

"First time?" Noah asked.

"Yeah," Peter answered breathily.

"Hm." Noah put the bottle down. Peter was not the sort of person to do this stuff unless he felt there was no alternative. He had been set off by Noah's failed attempt to convince Peter that Sylar needed to be kept down and out for the next day. The argument had become heated, as Peter insisted that whatever of Nathan was left in Sylar would be irrevocably damaged by keeping Sylar on ice. Noah strongly suspected that Peter thought if he took his eyes off Sylar now, that Noah would kill him. That wasn't the case, but Noah would almost certainly take things further than Peter seemed willing to at this point. Peter still clung to the idea that Sylar's body hosted some portion of his dead brother, Nathan. Noah did not share this belief.

Noah Bennet had seen a lot of mind control over his years. He hadn't seen Sylar doing anything that thorough and intelligent mind control could not accomplish (though whether he'd call anything done by Matt Parkman "thorough" or "intelligent" was another matter). Making someone think they were someone else did not make them that person. No amount of clinging on Peter's part was going to make Sylar into Nathan. On the positive side, Noah reflected, they had managed to confuse Sylar enough that he didn't know who he was anymore, or at least for a little while. Gabriel Grey had enough psychological problems that a mistaken identity as Nathan Petrelli, senator, didn't even rank in the top five. After all, he was already going under the assumed name of a wristwatch. It was like someone saying their name was 'Dodge Viper'.

Peter stood up and looked in the room. Sylar was still passed out. "I should be there when he wakes up."

Noah shook his head slightly, sorting through some papers for the right incident form. Did he still have a copy of the form to report on aberrant behavior of a partner? _Ah yes, here it is_. "You know, Peter, if he kills you, your mother will never forgive me."

Peter gave him a long look and could not entirely stifle a chuckle. Noah went on, "You might want to wait until you can do it with a straight face."

Peter sighed and breathed deeply. It was slower this time. "How long will that take, Dr. Bennet?"

"You probably know more about it than I do, but I'd say a few minutes. You might want to drink some water, juice, something like that. Get something on your stomach."

Peter nodded and walked off down the hall. He stopped at the end and spent an unnecessarily long time looking back at Bennet, not quite able to leave.

"You have my word, Peter," Noah said into the silence. The other man didn't answer, but he did go out into the hall where the break room was. _Of course, I didn't say what I was giving my word for._ Noah sighed. If only it was that easy. He knew what Peter thought he meant and that bound Noah as clearly as any stated words. Hopefully it wouldn't matter. Sylar had been thoroughly suffocated. He'd started breathing again, sans CPR this time, but it would likely be some minutes before he was awake. Bennet filled out his form.

Peter returned carrying two bottles of orange juice. He stopped in front of the door, waiting for Bennet to buzz him in. "He awake?"

Noah shook his head and looked in the room briefly. "No. What ability do you have right now?"

Peter narrowed his eyes at Noah and lifted one eyebrow. "The same one I had when I took Sylar down."

Noah resisted the urge to roll his eyes or otherwise express his frustration with Peter's suspicions. He had seriously put his foot in it by arguing that Sylar should be left dead or nearly so until they got the ability negation pills. "Take his regeneration, Peter. It will help you."

Peter nodded slowly, his face clearing. _Why didn't I think of that before? So tired. I'm missing things that should be obvious._

Noah still didn't unlock the door though. He leaned forward and looked directly at Peter. He spoke slowly and clearly, as if he thought that would increase Peter's understanding. "Peter. Do you understand that if that man has healed his mind as quickly as Matt thinks he might, then you're walking into the room with Sylar?" Peter just stared at him with a hard expression. He went on, "The only reason he's still in there, right now, is because he's been unconscious almost continuously. He can disintegrate his bonds, control your body, and even with the doors locked he can get out of that room faster than the knock-out gas can take him out. Do you understand that?"

Peter shifted to face Bennet and cocked his head, narrowing his eyes. "Yes. I understand that. I understand that my brother's memories, his personality and his soul were put into that body. Maybe Sylar's… eliminated a lot of it. But I don't think he's eliminated all of it and _until I do_ _think_ he's eliminated all of it, then it's my life to risk going in there."

"By insisting he be allowed to wake up, you're risking much more than your own life, Peter. I can't stop him. I'll try and I'm sure he'll kill me for it, but you have no idea how many others he will kill when he gets out of here."

"**If** he gets out of here."

Noah took a breath and resisted the urge to argue the point. He also bit back the desire to repeat his earlier points about Sylar not being Nathan. Peter had his own interpretation of what had happened with Parkman's powers. It was very difficult to argue with someone who based their case on beliefs instead of facts. The fact was, it was almost impossible for either of them to verify or prove their side. It made for a difficult discussion, especially when lives were on the line.

"Open the door, Noah." Bennet frowned and unlocked the door. Peter walked in. He grabbed the table with one hand, taking the juice bottles in the other and moved the table next to the bed. He pulled up the chair and sat down, setting the bottles down. He could see that Sylar was watching him through barely cracked eyes. Peter reached over casually and rested his hand on Sylar's left, as if he was trying to wake him. It worked. The regeneration power flooded through him like a cool, refreshing shower on a hot day. His eyes stopped being itchy and dry, his muscle pains faded, the stiffness from falling asleep in that chair disappeared and the bone-deep exhaustion he'd been feeling became only a dull ache. Even the jitters and mania from the stimulants receded into the background.

He took a deep breath, but Sylar was on the move, sitting up and turning to him. Peter was brought back to the moment by the tang of ozone and an odd burnt smell. Sylar's left handcuff was gone and his right hand came up, two fingers together in a gesture Peter had seen too many times. Sylar's expression was intent and utterly focused on his forehead. Time seemed to slow down as adrenaline washed through his system in a heartbeat. Noah's prediction was coming true already. Peter grabbed one of the bottles and thrust it out in front of Sylar, an inch from his right hand. "Want some juice?"

To his surprise, it actually stopped him. Sylar looked between the juice bottle and Peter's forehead, seeming confused about what he'd been about to do. After a very long pause, he took the bottle. "Yes, thank you."

Peter released the breath he'd been holding and reached down to work the mechanism under the bed. "Here. Let me prop you up." He did so and sat down, opening his own bottle and taking a long pull. He might be feeling better otherwise - and he was, immensely so - but the regeneration had sharpened his hunger. _His hunger?_ He looked at Sylar, who had drained more than half of his bottle. How would the Hunger interact with a mind that wasn't used to resisting it? Sylar said, "That's great. I feel like I haven't had anything to drink in forever."

Sylar had made a very similar comment right after taking over Nathan for Thanksgiving. Peter looked at him sharply, but Sylar was taking another drink and didn't seem to mean anything by it. If it had been a genuine reaction before, then it seemed likely to be a genuine reaction now, from what was basically the same man. Sylar: who had killed his brother, assaulted his mother and terrorized his family. Those were just the recent offenses. Belatedly he wondered if Bennet had expected this - for his head to clear and him finally to be able to **think** after getting regeneration. He glanced back. Noah was standing and watching attentively from outside the view port.

Bennet was right though, he thought. He needed to find out who he was dealing with. As if that little demonstration of the Hunger didn't make it clear. Peter reflected briefly on his experiences on both ends of dealing with that power, that weakness. After considering it, he didn't think it was proof of anything. Peter had killed Nathan with the power in the future. It had overcome him and he hadn't been able to fight it, despite his best intentions. He'd nearly done the same to his mother, even knowing what was happening. That Nathan or Sylar might feel moved to use it now showed nothing. More important was that he had been distracted from it fairly easily. No bottle of juice would have pulled him away from it when the Hunger had taken him.

Peter took another drink and leaned forward. "Okay. What do you remember?"

Sylar cocked his head at him. "You keep asking me that. I remember that. You asked me that… before. And if I remembered who I was, who you were."

"Who are you? Who am I?" Peter watched his reactions carefully.

"I'm… you've said my name is Nathan. Nathan who, though?"

Peter's brows rose slightly. _He doesn't know that?_ "Petrelli," he supplied.

Sylar blinked and finished his drink. He studied the bottle for a moment and then it fell to dust. He brushed the dust off in irritation, as if he hadn't expected that. "Are we related?"

"We're brothers."

Sylar looked at him. "Oh. Nathan Petrelli." He said the name slowly. "That doesn't seem right. But…" He turned his head the other way and considered it. "The brother part fits, somehow. Oh! I remember, you and I were in a room… maybe this room… and… we were fighting about something." He looked around the room, his eyes alight for a moment. Then the expression faded. "What were we fighting about?"

Peter recalled the moment in Primatech's level five. The rooms were the same design as these in the Omaha facility, so he understood mistaking the location. He'd returned from the future, complete with Sylar's ability and the Hunger. He also remembered meeting a Gabriel Grey in that future who was emotionally stable and a good man, difficult as it was to accept. Was this, what was happening right now, how that person came about?

"We were fighting about… something you have, called the Hunger. It's a… an urge, to figure out what's going on in other people's heads, what makes them tick. It… manifests sometimes for you by making you want to kill people and open their brain cases." Peter tried to keep the revulsion out of his voice, but he didn't do a very good job of it. He recalled that Nathan's body's throat had been cut, but his head was intact. He wondered why that was, since Sylar could obviously fly. How had he gotten Nathan's ability? Had it come with Nathan's soul?

"My mother was so proud of me."

Peter eyed him, not sure what he meant by that. "Your mother is still proud of you, Nathan. You're a senator from New York, an attorney, served your country in the Navy, have a wife and two sons. There's a lot to be proud of," he finished defensively.

Sylar looked at him with curiosity. "I thought my mother was dead?"

"You said that earlier. She's not."

Sylar huffed. "Who… who was it that I killed then? …Ida?"

"You mean Heidi?"

"I guess so. Did I kill her?"

"No. She's fine too. She's your wife. You've separated, but… she's still your wife."

"Really?" Sylar smiled. _I have a wife. That's nice. And weird. I wonder what she looks like and if she knows I'm having this problem? Would it matter to her if she knew?_ He tried to conjure up what she looked like. The most important person to him, romantically, was blond, young and energetic… she could throw lightning and had burned him through time after time. He felt a warm glow about her. 'Heidi' didn't seem to fit as a name. He'd killed her too, though. Or at least, he thought he had. He also thought he'd killed his mother and apparently that was wrong. "I seem to have killed a lot of people. At least, I think I have. Is that why I'm locked up in here?"

Peter nodded quickly. "Yes… well, sort of. Nathan…" he shut his eyes for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain things. Even with the regeneration boosting his mind back to normal, all he could manage was, "It's complicated."


	6. Do you want to be a better man?

Peter rubbed his hands on his pants and finished his bottle of juice. He set it down on the table. Sylar turned unexpectedly and reached out for the empty bottle. Peter jerked back and for a moment Sylar paused, looking at that reaction. His eyes passed over Peter's face in a calculating fashion. He extended his arm slowly and took the plastic container, pulling back equally slowly. Peter looked away under the intense scrutiny. Bennet was still watching through the view port, he saw. He felt awfully watched at that moment.

"Why are you so afraid of me?" Sylar disintegrated the plastic bottle, unintentionally answering his own question.

"I'm not." Peter watched the dust fall. _If he didn't have __**that**__ ability, then he wouldn't be nearly so dangerous. I wish I could steal powers like my father could._

"You're lying."

Peter looked back at Sylar and something about the set of the man's face reminded him of Nathan. That was surprising. He studied the face, trying to figure out what it was that looked familiar. It was the way he held his lips and the slightly raised brows, making his face look more open and receptive, less feral and angry.

"Do you think I'm going to kill you, or your friend in there? I've been having this feeling that I _should_." Sylar cocked his head at Peter, looking at him so intently that Peter was sure the Hunger was kicking in. Any similarity to Nathan vanished.

Peter got up and paced back and forth restlessly. He didn't have another juice to distract the man and Bennet was right. If Sylar got carried away, there was no stopping him with what they had on hand. Peter had a full syringe in his jacket, but he doubted he'd get the opportunity to use it. Not as long as Sylar was acting like Sylar. He **had** to find a way to get to Nathan.

A flush of emotion passed through Peter. "You think so?" He glanced back at Sylar, who had freed his feet at some point and was now shifting to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Well," he shrugged with one shoulder. "It's a thought…"

"It's a thought." Peter kept pacing. His eyes were angry. "You like thinking about killing your brother, thinking you've killed your mother, maybe your wife? You like thinking about killing everyone you love?"

Sylar drew his head back and inhaled. Instead of thinking about his mother, the memory of the electric blonde came sharply into his mind, along with the salty sea breeze and the smell of her blood, so similar to the smell of her body, pressed against his. He knew her inside and out and for an instant, the fullness of that knowledge swept through him like a buffeting wind. He blinked at the intensity of the memory and swallowed nervously. He felt a wash of cold prickles cover his skin as he felt regret, remorse. He blinked and looked at his knees.

Peter stopped pacing. It looked like that one had shot straight through whatever defenses Sylar had and pierced him to the heart. Not for the first time, Peter felt a pang of sympathy for the man. _Too empathic for my own good. I ought to walk out of here while I still can_. _Bennet was right._ Instead though, he walked over and put his hands on Sylar's knees and bent a little to look into his face.

"Nathan. I love you."

Sylar looked up at him and his face shifted slightly - more sensitive like his brother, less calculating than the serial killer. Sylar opened his mouth to answer, but all he said was "I…" then he tilted his head, thinking hard. An expression of horror passed over his face. "What did you do to me?"

Peter hesitated, torn between getting away from the man and hugging him, because it was almost the same thing Nathan had said to his mother before leaving on Thanksgiving. He put his hands on Sylar's shoulders and rubbed twice, then said to hell with it and pulled the other man to him. Sylar hugged him back briefly and almost automatically, then pushed Peter away. It wasn't forceful or sudden, but it was firm and brooked no argument. Peter pulled the chair back a few feet and sat on the edge of it, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I need to tell you the truth."

"You have my complete attention." Sylar's voice was low, almost guttural. Peter couldn't tell where that level of emotion was coming from. Sylar was still reacting to Peter hugging him and had no idea what to do with the conflicting feelings he was having.

Peter gave a long exhale. "You were born as Gabriel Grey - a watchmaker's son. You developed a special power. You could take the powers of others by cutting off the top of their heads and looking at their brains. You started calling yourself Sylar and you killed a lot of people, including my brother, Nathan." Sylar was looking at him with disconcerting attention. Peter looked away from him and went on, "A few months ago we stopped you, took away your memories and made you think you were Nathan. Things seemed okay for a while, but then the new personality slipped. You were going back to being Sylar. So we stopped you, again. Screwed up your memories, brought you here. We can't let you be a killer." He shook his head slightly.

After a very long pause, Sylar asked, "Can you stop me from it?"

Peter looked at him, eyes hard at first and then softening at Sylar's (Nathan's?) open expression. It was as if he wasn't threatening, but actually asking. Peter looked back and forth between the other man's eyes. "We can try. **You** can stop yourself from it. You have before. And I know you will. In the future, you become a good man. I know it." His voice was fainter at the end, but it carried. Maybe, instead of getting to Nathan, he needed to get to Gabriel.

Sylar chuckled. "You've seen the future?"

Peter gave a short laugh in reply. "Yeah. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? But you know I'm telling the truth. You can hear it. That's one of your abilities, like turning plastic into dust. Seeing the future is just another ability."

"Do I have that one?"

"No." Peter hesitated. "I don't think so. Not anymore."

"Hm." He looked intently at Peter's forehead, intent clear.

"I don't have it either, if that's what you're thinking. Not anymore."

Sylar frowned.

"And anyway, that's not important," Peter said. "What's important is that you get control of yourself and stop being a serial killer or else bad things are just going to keep happening. You don't have to be that way. Think about Nathan. **Be** Nathan, if you still can. He was a good man. **You** can be a good man." He studied Sylar's face. It occurred to Peter that what he was doing didn't miss his mother much for insanity. He felt a wave of sympathy for her situation, with Nathan dead and a way to get him back, even if only a semblance, available to her. Peter had thought he'd never do anything so depraved, but here he was telling Sylar to be his brother. Was it that different to have Matt tell him the same thing? _Yes, because Sylar, Nathan, has a choice right now. Matt didn't give him a choice._

The other man looked away and sagged a bit. "I can't even remember my own name. Gabriel, you say? Huh. It seems a little early to be talking about the triumph of morality."

Peter stood up and put his hand on Sylar's shoulder, stepping close to him. He looked directly into his eyes. "You've started to kill me **twice** while I've been in here. Trust me," he dipped his head a bit closer, "it's not too early to talk about changing your life." Sylar leaned back from him, but he couldn't escape the touch without getting up. Peter stepped back and let his hand drop, giving him the space he clearly wanted. Would Nathan have pulled away from him? He thought not. On the other hand, Sylar wouldn't have tolerated him being that close against his will, either.

Peter went on, "I've had what you have. It's called the Hunger. It drives you to figure things out." _No wonder he's putting his head back together so quickly. It's not so much the healing factor, but his power to understand how things work. Those two together... _ "You can control it. I'll help you. I'll help you fight it. You **have** to fight it." Peter's eyes blinked and he felt a queasy turn to his stomach. He'd said much the same sort of thing to Nathan, trying to get Nathan to fight against Sylar's mind. _Déjà vu._

"You should have killed me."

"No. Don't even go there. You're stronger than that."

Sylar's head came up at the last sentence. Peter went on, playing on that theme, "You're strong. You can control it. You're in control of yourself. Even with everything that's happened to you, you're in control." Peter had a sense that Sylar and Nathan both had insecurity issues and might respond well to flattery. Besides, it was basically true.

Sylar looked at the view port, at Noah Bennet. Peter barked a laugh. "He can't stop you and you know it. He knows it too. Only **you** can stop you." He took a half step closer and Sylar looked back at him, glancing up and down his body as Nathan was wont to do, assessing his body language. "You have to **want** to be a better man."

Peter put his hand on Sylar's knee. The other man looked down at the touch. "The question is, do you want to be a better man, Gabriel?"


	7. Chess Game

"I think… that's a pretty big question for right now. Let me think about it." Sylar put his hand gently over Peter's and lifted it off his knee. He frowned, gave it a brief squeeze and pushed it away.

Peter nodded and stepped back. "Okay. That's fair. I need to get some rest. We can talk about it again later. Okay?" He dipped his head again, watching Sylar's face. He thought about taking the ability to discern lies, but the regeneration was just too useful. It was the only thing keeping him on his feet, for one thing. Sylar nodded.

Peter walked to the door and looked at Noah. He gestured at the door and it clicked open. He stepped through.

"That was impressive," Bennet said.

"Yeah… thanks." Peter glanced in through the window. His voice was gruff. "Let's just hope it holds. I'm going to crash in the next cell. Call me if there's any problem."

Bennet made a questioning shrug. "What do you think he's going to do when he gets bored in there?"

Peter shook his head. "I don't know. Give him a book to read or something. A deck of cards, maybe." With that, Peter went to the next cell and jammed the door open. He was still upset about Sylar (Nathan?) pushing his hand away. He didn't think he'd conveyed how deeply that had hurt him. Being pushed away after the hug was one thing, but to have his affection rejected a second time had stung, a lot.

He couldn't get past the thought that Nathan wouldn't have done that. They'd always been so close, almost ridiculously so. He knew, they both knew, it had engendered more than a few raised eyebrows and rude insinuations, not that those had mattered much to either of them. Even with the borrowed regeneration, he was tired and he knew that emotional rockiness came with the territory, without mentioning all the hell he'd had to deal with in the last few days. He'd been asleep no more than ten minutes when Sylar had woken earlier. _I'll deal with it… later._ Peter lay down and was passed out before his head hit the pillow.

Noah Bennet looked in the cell at the deranged, dangerous serial killer. How was he supposed to keep this guy occupied for hours, doing something that didn't involve being tortured to death by him?

XXX

Peter woke up feeling refreshed. He **loved** Claire's power. No matter that he got it most recently from Sylar - he always thought of it as Claire's. With it, he didn't need to sleep as much and when he did, he slept more deeply and more comfortably. When he'd had it before, he got by on only two or three hours a night, though it seemed now he'd put away a full eight hours. _Wow, I needed that._ He got up and stretched. He heard Sylar laughing. It was a happy, relaxed sound.

Noah's voice drifted through, "Yeah… I think that makes thirteen, but I got you four times so it's not like you're undefeated."

Peter walked out and past the partition between the cells. In front of the view port, Bennet had stacked up books and perched precariously on top of them was a chessboard. Noah was currently moving the white pieces back into place on his side while the black ones moved of their own accord. Sylar was leaned casually against the transparent material, the fingers of his left hand twitching as he directed the pieces back to their starting positions. Peter paused to absorb the strange tableau.

Sylar looked past Bennet at Peter. After a moment of having a neutral expression, he gave him a polite smile. Noah looked back, following Gabriel's eyes. "Hey, sleepyhead. Feeling better?"

Peter nodded, brushing his hair back out of his eyes. "Yeah, a lot better. You guys…" he waved at the chessboard, "go ahead. I think there were some frozen dinners back in the kitchen?"

Bennet nodded. "There should be. I could do with something to eat."

Gabriel agreed quickly, "I'm starving!"

_I swear, if you say it feels like it's been months since you ate, I'm going to kill you._ A surge of intense hate ran through Peter. He inhaled quickly and hurried off down the corridor, calling out, "I'll be back."

"Something wrong with him?" Gabriel asked Noah mildly.

Noah yawned and moved one of his pawns out. "Well, you did kill his brother, tried to kill his mother, assaulted his niece - my daughter, by the way, I don't know if I'll ever get over that - and tried to kill him… more than once." He studied Gabriel's counter-move. "I'd say he's been inhumanly forgiving, all things considered. You'd still be dead, if I'd had my way. What do you think you'd do, if your positions were reversed?"

Gabriel scratched an eyebrow. "Oh… it wouldn't have gotten this far. You and I have that much in common. I had something a lot more… sudden in mind." He looked thoughtfully down the corridor Peter had used.

"Mm." Bennet moved his knight out. "You still going to do it?" He didn't think he could bait Sylar into showing his cards, but it didn't hurt to try. They'd become comfortable with each other as the hours passed.

Gabriel sighed. "I don't **have** to." He looked uneasy.

Noah raised his brows. "No, of course you don't."

Gabriel frowned at him and said nothing. He looked at the chessboard, considering the strategies Bennet had used in the previous games and comparing them to his current opening moves, pairing them with his read of Bennet's personality and current mood.

Noah went on, "I was there, when you started. You didn't **have** to then, either. You didn't want to. Circumstances… events were forced on you. You tried to kill yourself afterwards."

Gabriel moved his piece. "Are you saying it wasn't my fault?"

"No. Not at all. You made your decisions. But the choices you thought were available to you… we manipulated you to think you didn't have any other choices. Once you started down that path… I guess it wasn't one you were interested in leaving."

Bennet added, "Peter wants you to leave that path. I think it's the best opportunity you're going to get."

"I've had others. It never worked out, before."

Noah looked at him. He wondered just how much of Sylar's memory he'd put back together. He suspected all of it, but if that was the case then he'd have expected something worse from him than getting thrashed in chess. Or maybe Sylar just really wanted to enjoy a few games of chess before moving on to something… messier. Serial killers probably didn't get much opportunity for friendly games. Bennet finished his turn.

"You could have allies in this."

Gabriel snorted. "You? You hate me. Him?" He jerked his chin in the direction Peter had gone. "He hates me too, at least… sometimes. Sometimes I can't tell. He thinks I'm Nathan." He moved a piece, then regretted it but he didn't bother to try to rescind the play.

"Are you? Is there anything of Nathan left in there?"

Gabriel looked at Bennet and his face relaxed. "Far as I can tell, Parkman didn't erase anything. I don't think he can, or he would have. It's all still there."

Noah sighed and gazed steadily at the other man. "Your move," Gabriel prompted.

"Hm." Noah looked at the board. He saw an opening there, but he wasn't sure if it was an entrapment. "Is there a way for us to deal with Nathan?" He took his bishop in hand and glanced at Gabriel.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes, but Noah couldn't tell if it was about the bishop or his comment. "Nathan doesn't exist. He's dead. He's gone. Where are you going to put that bishop?"

Noah looked at his hand. "Oh, wrong piece. I meant to move the queen. Here." He did so. After a moment he added, "You just said everything was still there."

"The memories, yes."

Noah exhaled. Peter wasn't going to like this, assuming what Sylar was saying was true. It might change everything.

"Nothing else?"

Gabriel cocked his head at him. "What else would there be? I only have one history now. I used to have two, but now I can't tell them apart. They aren't apart. They flow together, like everything I remember happening, happened to **me**. I remember being sure, before… before the fight. Before Parkman raped my mind." The chessboard vibrated slightly and Gabriel looked away from it, blinking. He looked back and moved a piece impulsively. "Before that, there were Nathan's memories and Sylar's memories and they were different - different people, different lives. Nathan was… unreal. Now… nothing's unreal. It all seems as real as anything else. Just one life. One really complicated, confusing life."

Noah's brow furrowed. He captured one of Sylar's pieces. "So… it's not a matter of Nathan being a separate personality… he's a part of you? He **is** you?"

"I guess so. What else would it be?" Gabriel asked again.

"I don't know. I hadn't thought of that as a possibility." He'd expected something more along the lines of multiple personalities, which was what he'd obviously had before Parkman had shattered his identity. Sylar's healing factor had taken all of those pieces and put them together into a single personality - neither Sylar nor Nathan.

Gabriel frowned at him. Noah and Peter both were obsessing about things that made him very uncomfortable. He was who he was and he wasn't interested in either of them, or Matt Parkman, trying to change that. He would resist any further alteration with everything he had. What they'd done to him was as perverse as though they'd cut off his hands and feet and switched them, relying on his healing to attach the severed parts to the wrong stumps. He knew that what had happened to him had changed him, but changing back wasn't an option. He made another move, watching Bennet and trying to read him. Gabriel paid little attention to the game, focusing on the other man.

Noah was pretty sure he was going to win this game, but in the larger context, what were they going to do with Gabriel? He'd lied to Parkman earlier about not being able to get in touch with Rene. The Haitian had been out of the country though. He would be here within a few hours, but what good was it to try to remove memories of being Sylar if Sylar himself couldn't tell which ones they were? Noah had good knowledge about how the Haitian's power worked and he suspected this fell outside his area of expertise. He wondered if Parkman shattered Sylar's mind again, if he'd be able to tell the memories apart, or if what he'd already done, followed by allowing Sylar to heal, had merged the two personalities irrevocably. That was what seemed to have happened.

Bennet took his next move and from the expression on Gabriel's face, his opponent saw that he'd committed himself to defeat. He didn't seem too upset about that, though.


	8. Decisions

Peter came back down the hall carrying three cooked, previously frozen, dinners. He stopped beside the door to the cell and bent to put the one on top through the slot at the bottom of the door.

Gabriel called out to him, "Hey, it's not like I can't get out of here if I wanted." The door unlocked of its own accord and came ajar an inch. Peter eyed it. When it didn't keep moving, he reached out with his foot and pushed it back shut. It locked automatically. Gabriel rolled his eyes and picked up his food. _Fine. Be that way_. He went to his flimsy table and sat in his flimsy chair with his back to the view port. It was the best he could do for a cold shoulder, since there was no way he was turning away food at this point. Last thing he remembered eating was pumpkin pie and although it had tasted good, there were way too many emotions around it for him to want to linger on the memory.

Peter sat down next to Bennet and handed him a dinner. Noah said, "Don't want to eat with him either, hm?"

Peter shook his head. "No. Last time we ate together…" he shook his head. That had been the most awful meal of his life. The whole time was spent sitting there staring across the table at the other man, who might have been Nathan or might have been Sylar or might have been both of them. His guts had been twisted into knots of ice the whole time, yet he'd forced himself to eat anyway to shut his mother up. He was still angry at her, so angry at her revelations, her secrets, her manipulations. But he hadn't been able to process any of that because of what happened next - the lightning, the transformation, the horror. His impotent rage at being casually manhandled, being powerless and forced to watch as Sylar kissed his mother, made grandiose announcements and then worst of all, sawed into her head after making flippant remarks about carving meat. The most awful part was that he hadn't been able to move to help her. He hadn't been able to get free. He was going to have to watch while-

"Peter!"

He started, eyes wide. Noah was shaking his shoulder. _I'm hyperventilating. I'm in shock. _His hands were shaking badly. His whole body was trembling and a cold sweat had broken out. He tried to slow his breathing and relax, but he was suddenly sick. "Trash can?" he managed to get out. Bennet was quick about it - quick enough. He dry heaved into it, but as he hadn't eaten yet, nothing came up. He panted and shut his eyes, trying not to think about that evening - _Don't think about it!_ - and instead focusing on his symptoms, cataloguing them, treating them.

Bennet patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and said, "I'll be right back."

Peter heaved again, knotted up by the cramps, then leaned back in his chair and breathed as deeply as he could manage until the shaking stopped. When he felt the worst had passed, he opened his eyes. Sylar was standing right up next to the transparent barrier, one hand resting on it by the fingertips. He had the most genuine expression of concern that Peter had ever seen on a face, any face. Peter bared his teeth at the monster and spun his chair around to face away. _That's not Sylar. Sylar would be laughing at me right now, assuming he was even bothering with me. Nathan… the only reason Sylar would care is Nathan_. He calmed rapidly after that. _Nathan isn't gone_. He seized on the thought.

He glanced up as Bennet came down the hall with a roll of paper towels tucked under one arm and two bottles of water in each hand. He handed one to Peter and set the others down on the ledge. Noah looked at Gabriel, who had taken a small step back, but who was still very close, hovering in both the figurative and literal sense. Although he'd gotten Sylar a drink too, Noah didn't feel disposed to giving it to him at the moment. He correctly judged Sylar's actions as the cause of Peter's breakdown. For Bennet, it was a reminder of what sort of person Gabriel could be with the slightest mishandling. They were really walking a tightrope here.

Peter wiped the moisture off his face and sipped cautiously. He didn't want to lose it again, but he needn't have worried. Thanks to Claire's power, his stomach had settled as soon as he got his mind off the incident. He looked at Noah, "Thanks, man."

"No problem. I think you've been through a lot in the last few days." Noah turned to his dinner and removed the plastic. _Mm. Salisbury steak - way better than cold cereal._ He looked up at Gabriel, who was still staring at Peter like he wanted to tear out his heart and give it to him. _Melodramatic idiot._ Noah glanced at Peter, who was looking down and moving the trash can back under the counter. Bennet made a shooing motion at Gabriel. He didn't want to eat with someone looking at him, or more correctly at his dinner partner, like that. It was annoying. Reluctantly, the other man moved back to his own table and sat down.

They ate quietly. Noah and Gabriel demolished their meals quickly. Peter picked at his, but eventually got most of it down. Noah thought about his last match with Gabriel and the things they'd discussed during it.

"Peter."

The younger Petrelli looked at him. When Noah didn't go on, he said, "Yes?"

"I talked with S-, Gabriel today and there are some things you need to know. I'm not sure that Rene can help."

Peter sagged a little. "No, that's not news. I figured that out myself. We have to kill Sylar to get Nathan." He remembered pulling the trigger on his father. It would be far easier to do it on Sylar, who thoroughly deserved it. Of course, his father had deserved it too, just not as much. "Getting rid of his memories isn't going to work. He heals them back and his mind, his ability, keeps working to figure things out and make it right."

Noah shook his head. "I don't think you understand. He didn't heal back like… like he was before." At Peter's look, Bennet shrugged. "At least, I don't think so. That's not Sylar and Nathan anymore, trapped in the same body. That's one person."

Peter looked in the room. Nathan had moved his chair so he could watch the view port. He looked up at Peter's face, scanning it, troubled for him. Peter sat back down. He didn't want to see Sylar's face looking concerned on his account. It made him uncomfortable. _One person? Nathan's… gone? Absorbed? Dead?_

"What- you mean- No, there's got to be a way."

Noah thought about that for a moment. "I'm sure there is. I'm just not sure the Haitian is that way."

Peter wadded up his paper towel and threw it in the trash. "Then… we do what you suggested and we keep him on ice until we find a way. You said Rene would show up with the pills. How long will they last?"

"For one person? I think a month, maybe a bit more. They're a little old, though. If we have to double them up for potency, then half that time."

Peter blinked at him. Noah said, "What?"

"Potency. Have you ever used ability negation drugs on a regenerator?"

Bennet paled. "The only regenerator we ever held didn't have any other powers. He didn't need pills." He looked in the direction of the cell. "This isn't going to work. Not at all. I can get one of the inhibitors. That should take care of it."

"Okay," Peter said faintly. _Keep him on ice until we find a way_. His conscience wouldn't let him alone though. He thought about his conversation with Gabriel about being a better person. He had meant it when he'd talked to him, though mostly he'd just been trying to find a way that would keep Sylar contained and everyone safe. What if it actually worked? Was it still right to pull the trigger on him? How could you really tell if a monster like that had reformed?

He pinched the bridge of his nose and ran his hand across his face. If there were two personalities and one body, he had no hesitation about getting rid of Sylar or Gabriel in order to save Nathan. That was so much not an issue that he didn't even consider it. But if there was only one personality and that was partly Nathan, then what did that mean? Was this still someone that needed to be kept unconscious 24/7? He'd thought it was barbaric and inhumane when Danko was doing it. It certainly wasn't any better if he did it himself.

He looked at Noah, who seemed untroubled with the idea of knocking Nathan (Sylar?) unconscious and keeping him that way for days or weeks. Peter asked, "How long… how long does that inhibitor keep a person out?"

"As long as necessary. What do you mean?"

Peter waved his hand generally, "I mean… is it like a vegetative state?"

Noah shrugged. "I don't know. I'm _good_ at bagging and tagging. The containment part was other people."

"Who would know?"

"Mohinder. Mm… no one else who's alive. Wanda Rhodes was in charge of that part of Danko's operation, but Tracy Strauss eliminated her. A few others would know general stuff about it."

"Where's Mohinder?"

"I don't know. Last I knew, India, but my information is months out of date. Your mother might know." Noah paused, "Why does it matter?"

"I've been burned already because I agreed to things without knowing what I was getting into. I don't want that to happen again. Not with Nathan depending on my judgment."

"Well…" Noah drew the word out, "He's staying in that room only as long as he doesn't want to go somewhere else. That's not going to last forever, no matter what we call him. If we don't neutralize him, then he goes wherever he wants to and does whatever."

"Is that really so bad?"

Noah gave Peter a look like the other man was touched in the head. "It is when it's Sylar, yes! Do you **not** understand the situation we're in here?" He felt like gnashing his teeth. He suspected they were about to have a replay of yesterday's argument.

"But you just said it wasn't Sylar. It was one person, both of them."

"Is it worth the risk? Is it **really** worth the risk?" Noah Bennet stood up, unconsciously using his height to intimidate the smaller man. Peter frowned at being loomed over. "You said earlier that he'd tried to kill you twice. And you think he's your brother! Can you imagine what he'd do to a stranger? Can you seriously let him loose on the world?"

Peter drew his brows together and sunk in his seat. "No. No, I can't. You're right. Get the inhibitor."


	9. Escape

**A/N: If it seems like some of Sylar's/Nathan's memories slur together and it didn't happen quite that way in canon, that's intentional. It's not an AU thing. His memory simply does not necessarily match what actually happened.**

Rene showed up on time with the pills that were no longer needed. He looked through the view port at Sylar, who was laying on his back in the bed, idly flipping through a National Geographic magazine that was five years out of date. Noah wiped at his eyes. He needed some rest and unlike Peter, he didn't think he should solve the problems of human frailty by using drugs or powers. His body needed sleep, so he would give it sleep. The Haitian had leaned close to the glass and seemed unusually intent on the captive. Bennet decided to hold off on getting any rest until he found out what had piqued Rene's interest.

Finally, the black man stepped back and turned to Noah, "Who is that?"

Noah scratched his right ear and craned his neck to look in without getting up. "I thought it looked like Sylar. Maybe Gabriel Grey. You don't think so?"

"No." He sounded very definite.

"No?" Noah stood up and leaned close to the glass as well, truly surprised. Rene had fantastic intuition about people, which was really saying something coming from Bennet. Rene had taken one look at the Sylar/Nathan hybrid while he was acting like Nathan Petrelli and virtually fled the country, without explanation. _What is it that he sees now?_

Peter walked up with a handful of additional possible reading materials to keep their patient busy until they had the neutralizer. He saw Bennet's pose and leaned close to the glass too, staring at Nathan. _What's he looking at?_

Gabriel bent down the edge of the magazine and looked at the scrutiny he was receiving. A rude gesture came to mind first, but that would be juvenile and unimaginative. He rolled off the bed and stalked over to the view port. Peter backed up, but Rene held his position a step behind and to the right of Bennet. Gabriel looked at them and at the window. He remembered shouting that he was Sylar here - _MY NAME IS SYLAR!_ He smiled at them. There was the Haitian. What did they think they were going to do with him here? And now? His smile remained steady, but it took on a slightly plastic quality.

"What are we doing?" Peter asked, uncertain.

Bennet sat back down in his chair. "Just… looking."

"Looking at what?"

Noah waved at Sylar, who was walking back over to his bed to continue reading. "That man."

Peter huffed. _Fine. Don't tell me. Not like we're not trying to be a team here._ "I found some more magazines. He's not going to sleep for a long time, so you might as well get some rest. The shipment will be here tomorrow."

Noah nodded and looked at Rene. "We're still trying to figure that out."

Rene nodded. Peter frowned, obviously missing important parts of the conversation. The evening did not get any better.

XXX

Gabriel hadn't given much thought to what was going on outside of his room. He didn't care - he simply didn't care. Sure, there was an entire world out there right now, but he didn't feel any great urge to get out in it. The only thing remotely appealing was flying to New York to get his job back, but that felt oddly false. Besides, he'd have to face his mother, Angela Petrelli, and he hadn't decided what he wanted to do about her. Kill her, yes, but… not really. He loved her! He was happy she was still alive. He needed to apologize to her. She needed to apologize to him, too. Making her beg was not out of the question, either, though he doubted he could reduce her to that with any of his many powers. He couldn't settle his mind on how to proceed. Laying in bed reading about rain forests and volcanos made for a convenient way to dodge reality.

Reality, however, had now taken direct aim at him. He didn't realize that until the door opened and all three of his keepers came rushing in - the Haitian, Peter and Noah. He sat up and looked at them blankly. It was too late to dodge.

XXX

His sense of time was still gone and he missed it terribly. Somehow, in the weightless, numbing fugue he found himself in, the lack of time bothered him even more than it did while he had been awake. Maybe it was because of the silence. At least if he could hear the time, then he'd have some connection to the world outside. Even without the comforting ticking, he knew it had been a very long while since he'd been awake.

He'd been betrayed. Again. He felt this cut so much more bitterly and deeply than he would have if he had still been Sylar. Sylar expected betrayal. The man who was laid out now though, wasn't Sylar. He didn't know he should have expected it. It was hard to believe that Peter's face had been one of those who came in the room and took him, face uncaring and impassive while Bennet shot him with a taser and Rene suppressed his abilities. He had done nothing to resist - not so much as raising a hand or pushing them back with telekinesis. He was sorry he hadn't fought back and also content that he'd done right. For Bennet and Rene, he felt it was professional and impersonal, whyever they had decided to do this to him. For Peter though… all that talk of being a better person, of being his brother, calling him Nathan, reminding him of his past… it was all for nothing and that was the bitterest dreg of all.

Why had Peter turned against him? His brother, his little brother, whom he'd always protected or at least tried to protect. Peter hadn't always appreciated his efforts or agreed with his methods. It was comforting that they would both have such similar abilities. What mystified him was how he'd only used flight whenever he was around Peter. He had so many other abilities that were more useful. He and Peter could have worked together, Peter borrowing his victim's powers before he stole them for good! But Peter would never do something like that. Gabriel wrestled with the 'why' of that. Scruples, he guessed. Ideals. Peter had always been too idealistic for his own good. But then what was he to make of Peter helping put him down at the end?

He remembered Elle. She'd had his number, in oooh, so many ways. She knew what he was. She brought out the monster in him. She liked him being bad. Peter would have hated her, if he'd known her. He couldn't find any memories that had both of them together, which was strange. Wouldn't he have told Peter about someone so important in his life? But then again, he didn't remember any other lovers he'd introduced to his brother. She'd sabotaged Gabriel and his most genuine attempt to reform and be a decent person, be a part of the Petrelli family. She didn't seem to understand, even at the end, what the logical conclusion was of being evil. There was no friendship or love or loyalty - only pain and suffering and death. He had given her all three and although he suspected she was secretly happy to have been ended, he was still sad that she was gone.

His memory swam slowly, turning and twisting. He kept coming back to the same scene of Angela Petrelli leaning over him, speaking to him. He remembered moving his hand and catching hers with it. How had he done that? Could he do it again? His head was so full of cotton that it made his dream about the cloud seem like a passing fancy. He remembered this feeling too, from before. He had to reach up and take the tube out of his nose. He knew he had to. He knew he **could**. He'd done it before, or nearly so. He'd reached up and snatched her hand. She'd claimed to be his mother, she'd called him Gabriel, ran her hand through his hair. She **was** his mother and he **was** Gabriel, but she wasn't Gabriel's mother. Funny how that made sense until he thought it out loud.

He wasn't sure how long he struggled with his muscles, fighting his body and the drugs they kept pumped into him. He was fighting to live, to survive. The answer broke upon him like an epiphany. His brother, his lover, his mother - he didn't need to live for them, he needed to die for them and for everything he'd done to them. He had to let go. He had to move on. It was the only way he would find his new life. He didn't feel any fear of it. He wondered why it had taken him so long to think of it. _Must be the drugs._ It was simple, really. He just stopped breathing. Everything followed shortly thereafter, with Claire's lovely ability keeping him aware and in control of his lungs until the end.

There was the angry beeping of medical devices and voices raised in confusion when he finally took a great breath, reviving. He was reborn. He'd come through the other side. And thank God, that damn tube was out of his nose! The two people working over his body backed up, eyes wide. The restraints on his limbs fell away at a touch of his will. The pair fled the room. He grinned.

_Sweet._

His heart sped up. He took a deep breath and blinked. He didn't waste time. He fell off the gurney, then slammed against the now-locked door, shirtless and barefoot. He didn't bother with the lock, but focused everything he had on disintegrating the internal components of the knob. He was still weak, still having trouble and could only affect a small area, but he knew what area to affect. The door swung open. Outside, there was the beginning of chaos as the man and woman from the room yelled at each other in their terror. It was a delicious noise to him.

He moved into the hallway. With every breath he exhaled, with every heartbeat, his body was purging the inhibiting drugs and restoring itself from death. The man shot him five times, missing four in his panic and putting several other bullets into the walls. Bits of concrete exploded from the impact and struck his bare skin. The pain woke him up and pissed him off. He closed on the man before he could reload and grabbed his jaw, lifting him from the floor. A quick scan of his face told him the man was uninteresting. He threw him aside, using telekinesis to smash him into the wall hard enough to knock him out. The woman had run to the end of the hall and was fleeing through the door. He blocked it with his power and flew to it before she could get behind and put some strength into closing it.

There weren't any alarms going off, no pounding feet of reinforcements on the way. He suspected that meant he had time. He forced her into the corner and lifted her off the ground. He leaned close and looked into her eyes - not special. His gaze fell to her bosom, then lower. He might still have a use for her, though. He looked back up at her slowly, taking in every detail of her helplessness and fear. She whimpered. He realized he was having a physical response. It was revolting and he staggered, disoriented by the conflicting emotions, sickened by what he thought he wanted. He wanted her and yet he didn't - not like this. He released her and she slid abruptly down the wall to the floor, where she crouched, gathering herself in case he attacked again. He shook his head and turned. He needed to get out, and quickly. It didn't matter that there wasn't back-up - he had to get out before he did something terrible.

She didn't make it easy for him, though. After he turned away, she shot him in the back and didn't stop shooting until she ran out of bullets. Half-paralyzed, he reached back clumsily with his power, throwing her against the wall, then repeating the gesture when he heard her picking herself up. After a few agonized breaths he could stand, his spine having knitted back together. She had a broken collarbone and who knew what else, but she was still trying to reload as quickly as possible. He took a step towards her and she froze, realizing there was no way she'd be done in time. "I'm sorry," he whispered to her, then turned and flew, as fast as he could through the narrow halls.

He didn't maneuver well. He careened off a couple corners in his haste and tumbling in the air, came to a concrete wall so quickly he didn't have time to get his arms over his head. All was black for a moment. He regained consciousness and staggered to his feet. _Probably best to take the rest of the way on foot_. He wiped blood out of his eyes. No one seemed to be following him. No one else seemed to be here. It wasn't a huge facility, but it all seemed moth-balled. Peter, Noah and Rene were nowhere to be seen. _How long have I been here? _He was deeply annoyed that he didn't know automatically.

Following 'exit' signs, he came to a door with a small window in it. On the other side he could see a well-lit, plain-looking lobby with a single desk. There was a man behind the desk, balding and wearing a grey suit. Amazingly, he seemed entirely unaware of the disaster that had happened in the bowels of the building. Gabriel finally regained the presence of mind to change his shape. He picked Peter Petrelli's face, but put on a plain black suit of the type Bennet usually wore. He illusioned his hair into place and covered the blood that had run down from the scalp wounds. He stepped out into the front office and gave Nathan's best politician smile to the receptionist. The man looked perplexed, but said nothing. _All the better._ Gabriel walked outside without hindrance and strode off down the sidewalk.

His bare feet slapped against the icy pavement - winter in Nebraska was not mild. Judging from the weather and lack of Christmas decorations, he assumed it must be January or February. _I've been out for months!_ Even through the regeneration, he was soon miserable and shivering. His body couldn't keep up with the whipping wind, not while wearing nothing but thin, medical-grade trousers… or whatever this thing was that he was wearing. Not that he wasn't grateful he had **something** on over his male parts! Everyone who saw him thought he was properly dressed, but the reality was a bit different and the freezing air did not hesitate to remind him. He kept walking, kept moving, scanning the storefronts for what he wanted. Fortunately he'd been in the middle of the city, whatever city this was.

He saw what he was looking for some time later. He wished, for the umpteenth time, that he could still tell time automatically. It bothered him like a missing tooth. Bothered him even more to realize this was how most people were in the world - never quite sure _when_ they were. He didn't want to be like most people. He wasn't like most people. He stumbled towards the store, but first he needed something. He turned aside to a snow-covered planter and knelt, digging into it like an animal.

He couldn't feel his hands or his knees. Both were stiff, but his hands still pushed the snow aside effectively enough. It became harder to shift the stuff and he paused. His hands had gouges in them - several fingernails were broken. He couldn't feel it, but this was no longer loose snow he was digging in. He moved around some of the material at the bottom of the hole. They were white rocks! He was expecting gray, or something else more prosaic. He would have smiled, if his face hadn't been so frozen. He managed to get four of the rocks into his hand and covered them with his other. He pressed his palms together and when he took them apart, he had three pieces of gold and a lump of crushed ice. _Must not have all been rocks. Didn't know that power didn't work on ice. Huh._

He struggled to his feet with his new finds and took a moment to adjust the illusion of his clothes to be spotless again. He hurried into the jewelry store before the cold entirely incapacitated him.

After that it was easy. The jewelry store was happy to call a cab for him, a favored customer who didn't argue about the low percentage of market rate they gave for the gold. The cab took him to a mall and waited outside while he found off-the-rack clothing in the most expensive store they had. It still wasn't half as nice as the tailored suits in his apartment. _I wonder if those are still there?_ His mother had a tendency not to move on after events. Or maybe it was just that she could see the things would be needed again in the future. In any case, he hoped his clothes were there when he got back. He had some lovely stuff - just not now.

Outfitted, he snagged a cheese-filled pretzel at the mall and found it was not nearly as tasty as he'd hoped. He still couldn't keep himself from eating it, but it deterred him from being tempted by the food court. _Again, with the 'haven't eaten in months' feeling! _The cabbie was happy to take him to an expensive hotel - Gabriel tipped him handsomely, paying at each stop. A bill to the maitre de got him all the toiletries he might want. A hot shower made him feel human again. He brushed his teeth and shaved. He pulled out a bit of glass and a sliver of metal that had become lodged in one of his feet. He got dressed and returned to the waiting cab.

Next he went to an upscale steak restaurant. He gorged himself with terrible manners, leaving enough bills on the table that the waiter didn't mind when he clapped his arm across the man's shoulders and pulled him around in a friendly fashion, by main force. The man laughed companionably as Gabriel acted drunk (as he should be, after all the alcohol he'd had with the steak, but he wasn't really feeling it). No telling what the waiter might let him do with enough money. He was a good-looking man. Nathan looked at him with an appraising eye. But no, the man was working right now - maybe he would just know someone? He slipped the waiter an extra hundred for the entertainment and headed out. The cabbie would know just as well, maybe better.

He stood on the curb, watching the cab back out from the parking spot and pull up next to him. How would he ask for someone to celebrate his escape with? What sort of celebration did he have in mind? His thoughts went back to the inexperienced female agent he'd pinned against the wall. He was simultaneously aroused and repulsed. He got in the cab, undecided about his lusts. "Back to the mall," he said. He didn't think he could deal with intimacy right now. All his thoughts about it were tangled up. Things that seemed exciting and arousing were also sickening and off-putting. There were other things he could do, other appetites to sate. For those, he needed a few more supplies.


	10. Song of Life

Gabriel sent the door smashing inward with a casual wave of his hand. He walked in like he owned the place, which, given inheritance laws, he soon would. He smiled. _Funny how that works_. It had taken forever to find this place, even though he'd been to it before. He didn't want to fly in the daytime and finding it at night had been impossible. He was here now though and he was going to get what he'd come for.

A young black man hurried out of the hall with an angry and confused expression on his face. "Wh- what's going on here?"

Gabriel paused. _Surely not. _The records and his inquiries had said his father was still alive and living here, albeit in a terminal stage of cancer. "Who are you?" He started to raise his hand, but waited to see if he'd get an answer without control or threat.

"I'm Mr. Grey's hospice worker. Wh-"

"Oh!" Gabriel interrupted, smiling. "Great!" Now he snapped up his hand, twisting his fingers and jerking the young man into the room. "Now, just hold still there. I don't want any interference for what I need to do." A variety of cords flew out from behind appliances. He examined several and shook his head. Finally he had two long enough for his needs. The cords snaked around his captive's hands and ankles. Gabriel ignored the man's eyes, large as saucers. He melted the plastic and copper together with a prolonged sear of electricity. The man's pained screams were almost musical. Too bad he didn't like that kind of music. He dumped the man facedown on the couch and moved on.

He took a moment before heading back to his father's bedroom. _A hospice worker - like Peter. Pity_. Moreso that he wasn't sure how he felt about that. His father had been so disappointed that Peter had become a nurse. _Time to go see the old coot and steal his power. Amazing how many times I have to kill my relatives before they stay dead._

He stopped at the door and sneered at the frail, dying man lying on the bed. The room stank of human misery and impending death. That amused him. How appropriate, what with all these dead animals decorating the walls, witnessing their killer's final death. He shook the man with telekinesis, not wanting to touch him. Samson Grey refused to wake for him. Disappointing. He considered trying to get the hospice worker to revive him, but he really didn't **need** the man awake. He'd just wanted to gloat a bit more before the end. _Might as well get on with it._

XXX

A half hour later, he was screaming with frustration. A lifetime of powers, lost! There was nothing there in the idiot's skull, except the very power Gabriel already had! He had thought that by killing his father and taking the man's power that he would get every power Samson had - perhaps dozens of powers, new, exotic, unexpected. He would be fortified against his enemies and set to get vengeance. Instead, **nothing**! Nothing of use, anyway. None of Samson's captured powers could be transferred - only his innate, original ability. He lashed out at the room, at the corpse, and at the medical equipment. The old man might as well have died months ago. It would have saved him the disappointment at least.

_My birthright. Useless! What a waste!_

Still growling with frustrated ambition, he walked into the partially wrecked living room and saw the hospice worker was still bound on the couch. "Hm." Not a bad looking man. Someone he could take his frustrations out on. Young, like Peter had been when he was working hospice. He walked over next to him. He was hearing… something. Something like music. He heard the man's ragged breathing and the beat of his heart, thudding along too fast in his chest because he'd heard Gabriel's approach. Gabriel cocked his head and finally crouched down next to the man.

"You. You sound… wonderful," he told him.

"Wh- What?" the young man stammered.

"I can **hear** you. I hear," he ran his hand possessively over the man's body, "your blood coursing through your veins, your lungs working, your heart pumping, thumping… like a drum. I hear the cymbals of your nerves and the strings of your muscles. It's… so beautiful." He felt tears come to his eyes. "I **want** you."

"Oh my God, no. No, God, no! No, get away from me!" The man began to struggle in earnest, ripping his hands from his bonds in his terror. As his arms came free, Gabriel shrugged and cut his throat, standing and stepping away to avoid the spray of blood.

"I didn't say I wanted you **alive**," he sighed and settled to wait until the death throes were over.

XXX

Several hours later, he came to himself. He was covered in blood and pieces of flesh. In front of him was a frame, roughly man-shaped and covered with the hospice worker's skin. He had the sure knowledge that he could get better in time, until the preserved body would look as good as the other trophies on display in this house.

"Oh my God," he breathed, staggering away as he realized the extent of what he'd done. He looked at his hands and remembered so clearly the obsession and the horror he'd felt during and after the first time the Hunger had driven him to kill. "Oh my God - my father." He stumbled back to the ruined bedroom, looking between his father's body and his hands. Mouth slack, he returned to the living room, looking around with new eyes, seeing all the bodies - all the animals, frozen forever, owned, possessed, absorbed. "Oh my God!"

He sunk to the floor, staring at his blood-stained hands. He had the Hunger. Again. His father had had the Hunger. _All of those animals…_ _not a hobby __**at all**__, that bastard! He could have warned me!_ He yelled inarticulately at the ceiling, cursing his father and cursing himself. He'd come here for power unimaginable and he'd shackled himself instead. He couldn't talk to people, not if he was constantly driven to kill them and own their bodies and turn them inside out or whatever the hell he'd done to that poor young man. _I skinned him. I made… a semblance of him. So I would have him forever. So his song would be mine, like a recording I can listen to over and over again. Oh my God, what have I become?_

No wonder his father got rid of him when he was a boy. No wonder he lived out here, alone, in the middle of nowhere. He had to. He'd **had** to. Getting rid of Gabriel… wasn't because he was tired of him or didn't love him. It was because if he hadn't, the boy would have been one of these displays.

His head spun. He felt dizzy. His mind was full of what he perceived as sound and music. His face was horrified as he listened. It was so similar to time. Instead of ticking, there was the beating of his own heart. Instead of the movement of the gears, there was the gentle slide and pull of his muscles. Tears came to his eyes again, but for sadness, not joy. He could hear it… it was the song of life. Every living creature had its music. The stuffed animals that his father had left meant nothing to him, but the man… what was left of the man in the shed still had a song for him. He could hear it faintly even from here, on his knees in the living room. The song would be better if he'd been able to preserve him more accurately. He knew this, intuitively.

Numbly, he picked himself up and went to the bathroom. He cleaned himself and walked out to the porch. _What the hell am I going to do now?_


	11. The Island

_I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't mean to kill him._ It repeated over and over in his head like a mantra as he sat, slumped, on the front porch in the cold February air. If he'd intended to kill him, he would have done it right away. He'd only tied the man up to keep him from interfering, from getting the police or doing something stupid and heroic like Peter was wont to do.

Gabriel didn't spare a thought for Samson Grey. Killing the old man didn't bother him in the least, not even the parts of him that were more certainly from Nathan. Nathan had done a lot of things in his life, in his military service, and although killing was still wrong and a sin, he also understood that sometimes it was necessary and justified. Samson Grey was terminal and he deserved it. His conscience hadn't given him a twitch. The young hospice worker he'd killed had been innocent. **That** was giving him fits.

_I can't be around people. It's not safe. I've got to get control. I can't live like this. I can't live like a hermit in the woods like my father. I can't! I'm a senator, for Christ's sake! What will people think? Maybe I can get control? Maybe if I know it's coming? What if it was just the once and it's sated?_ His mind flashed to all the different animals in the house. _No, just one will not work._

_I need to test it. I need to make sure. I overcame the other Hunger, I can overcome this one. I'm strong enough. What was it Peter said? 'You're stronger than that.' Yes, I am. I can win this. But how many people will I have to kill first?_ How many people had Sylar had to kill for their abilities before he had the power to be choosy and careful? How many more did he have to kill before he could walk away and leave someone alive and intact? _Too many. I can't kill that many people - that many innocent people. I have to stop this Hunger __**now**__. I can't go on a rampage like that. Not again, not again. I didn't mean to kill him._

_I'll have to test it._ It occurred to him that someone in Mr. Grey's condition would have around-the-clock service, so there should be someone else showing up eventually to relieve the young man he'd killed. It bothered him deeply that he was testing his control on someone who spent their life caring for the helpless. He'd much rather have had a criminal or a homeless person or a trucker or a waitress or almost anyone! Just… not a health care worker. He'd admired his brother, secretly, for his choice. It wasn't a path he'd wanted to walk, but he admired his brother's desire to help others, naïve though it was.

He sighed. He didn't get to be choosy tonight, though. He might as well get into his disguise. He concentrated and transformed himself into the black man, but this time, with the shift in appearance came a shift in thinking. He felt his personality change and flow, his way of thinking alter and his perception of the world distort. In a panic, he reversed it, grabbing at his face and running inside to the bathroom, where he stared into the mirror. He felt… different. The feeling faded quickly, but for a long moment there it was - that same, sickening out of body experience he'd had for so long after he'd died in that hotel room.

He didn't want to go through **that** again. Weeks of not being himself, culminating in… what had happened. The fight with Peter, the rape by Parkman, the betrayal in Omaha. Had his father's ability somehow contaminated his other abilities? Hesitantly, he shifted his face to that of Nathan Petrelli. Nothing else changed. His face was different, but not his mind. He tried Peter's face - no change. He tried Samson's - no change. He tried his first and so far only victim of the Hunger, and his mind shifted with his features.

He threw it off again. _Well, this is disgusting!_ "No wonder you did so many animals, Dad," he muttered to himself. It wasn't that his identity changed, but how he thought changed and it threw him off-balance. He didn't like it. He was very clear on who he was. His identity as… Sylar? Nathan? Gabriel? was very important to him. He shook his head. _Who the hell __**am**__ I? Must be some effect of the Hunger._

His father's ability was like an unevolved version of Sylar's. Sylar's ability had been cleaner, more efficient, more targeted. It didn't come with so many disadvantages. _Come to think of it, Peter's ability is an evolved version of mine then - no disadvantages at all, at least not with his original power. He's a lot younger than I am. They must have refined it, somehow. Twelve years younger. I wonder if that gap is significant? _Gabriel decided he could manage looking like the hospice worker for a few minutes at least without unsettling himself too much, but he certainly didn't like it. He'd just wait until the replacement showed up before shifting. The faint strains of the other man's music kept running through his head as he sat back down on the porch to wait. _I didn't mean to kill him._

He saw the headlights coming down the winding driveway some time later. _I've got to get a watch. Should have got one while I was at that jewelry store. _Somehow though, getting a watch would be admitting defeat, that he'd lost his ability, something that was an integral part of himself. He wasn't even sure when he'd lost it. _Pretty sure Parkman did it, but how? He can't take abilities_. He brought his thoughts back to the matter at hand and shifted into the black man's face as the car approached.

A stout, cheerful looking middle-aged woman got out of the car, getting a bag out of the back seat. He walked forward tentatively and stopped about twenty feet from her. "Hi," he said and smiled nervously. He was supposed to be more confident than he was being. Fearfulness and timidity were not strong features of the young man's personality. Gabriel felt a profound disjunction between his feelings.

"Oh, hi Paul. How's Mr. Grey this evening?"

"He's fine. Sleeping." Again he felt the words he was saying weren't the words he should have been saying. He had an urge to shift back to Gabriel's face but resisted it.

"That's good. Maybe a quiet night, then? I brought some knitting again. I'll get that shawl done if it's…" she trailed off, looking at the expression on Paul's face, which was indistinct in the darkness. "What's wrong?"

"Your music."

"My what?" She looked at the car. It was off; the radio was not on. "What are you talking about?"

He shook his head, brows pulled together in distress. "I can hear it. I don't want to hear it."

"Are you okay?" She started for him, but he backed up a step and put up his hand, forcing her back against the side of her car with telekinesis.

"Don't come any closer!" He was panting. He wanted to do it. He **had** to do it. He had to have her, to add her to his collection, to have two of them next to each other in harmony. He tried to fight it, but he found himself walking towards her, hand upraised, despite his wishes.

"Paul!" she screamed, struggling against his immaterial hold on her.

He knew exactly where to put the cuts and it wasn't across her forehead. His fingers flexed and he saw the blood. She screamed in terror and pain. He heard a sound like fingernails across a chalkboard as he finally found the strength to launch himself from the ground, throwing himself in the air and away from her. He flew as fast as he could, erasing the image of the black man and turning into Nathan. It seemed fitting, since he was flying.

XXX

He was truly miserable, depressed and suicidal. He was also freezing cold, but for now that was fine. He wanted to freeze to death. Maybe an animal would find him and eat him before he revived and that would end him. He hoped so. He just couldn't bring himself to do it more directly.

He'd found a tiny island in the Great Lakes. It was a jumble of rocks with a few dozen trees on it, covered in snow and ice. He was alone with his thoughts. Well, alone with his thoughts and a handful of rats, two of which were sitting in front of him in the ice cave he'd made for himself. He'd cleaned the bones with telekinesis and wrapped them in their skins. It was a sickening reminder of what depravity was lurking in his mind now. Killing rats didn't bother him, but he couldn't be around people.

He had to get control. He'd gotten control before, of the first Hunger. That his father had ended his days in solitude, surrounded by the bodies of his animal victims and was still busy adding to his collection distressed Gabriel. His father hadn't found a solution to it. But then again, his father had been weak. Angela had taken him down. He'd been obsessed with his schemes, with Pinehearst, pretending to be his father.

_Wait… what?_ He tried to work that out. He was his father, and yet he wasn't his father. How had that happened? That he'd killed his father at Pinehearst and yet he had still been alive, dying of cancer a few days ago didn't bother him. After all, his mother had killed him too and Arthur had come back. It seemed to be a family trait. Gabriel had lost track of the number of times **he'd** died and that was without counting the fleeting moments of death after being shot or concussed.

No, what bothered him was the clear memory he had of holding a bullet in the air, a bullet fired by Peter, and asking his father if he was really his father after all. Arthur had said he was, and Gabriel had known he was lying, so he pushed the bullet along its path and killed him. He tried to pull up memories around that time at Pinehearst. Just a little later, he and Peter had an argument in a destroyed lab and Peter had saved him, flying him out in the nick of time. That didn't seem relevant. So his father had lied about being his father, but it was true that he was his father. He massaged his temples. His head hurt. _Brain's frozen. Confused. Parkman. Hate him._

He shook his head to clear it and looked at the sky. There was a storm blowing in. The temperature was dropping even further. He wondered if he'd be able to stay here and let it freeze him to death. That was a really nasty way to die. He wasn't sure he could summon the will to stop breathing and make it faster. Even if he did, as soon as he died, his body would start repairing itself and he'd wake up minutes or seconds later. So he'd have to freeze to death in the time between stopping breathing and waking up, otherwise it was pointless. He sighed.

Hypothermia would be faster, if he could bring himself to dive into the frigid waters and stay there. He was concerned though that he'd just float around, wash up somewhere and someone would pull him out and he'd revive. Too bad there weren't sharks in the Great Lakes. _Hm, they probably wouldn't eat me though. Professional courtesy, since I passed the bar exam._ Come to think of it, it was unlikely that animals would find him out here that would eat him enough to kill him. More likely, eventually some boater would come by and notice him. Or even more sure, the weather would warm in spring and he'd thaw out. Then what would he have gained? Nothing but a long, horrible time and probably a lot of rat bites.

_This is useless! I have to get off this island. I have to get control. I __**have**__ to. But how?_ He needed someone who could take away his Hunger, without taking his powers. He thought about each of the people who knew who might be able to help him. The Haitian - he couldn't trust him. Not after the incident in Omaha. Bennet might know how to help him, but all he'd do is shoot him. Strange - he thought he could trust Bennet, just not talk him into doing what he wanted. Peter - he couldn't trust him either, and Peter couldn't take powers. Angela might know, but how would he talk to her without turning her into a mannequin? He'd already tried to kill her once and it had hurt him so badly that he still felt awful about it. _Still need to apologize._

Parkman seemed most likely to be able to do it, but he was even surer he wouldn't be able to stop himself from murdering the telepath. He didn't have enough regard for Parkman's life. While entertaining to do him in, it wouldn't help his control. Maybe if he just killed him and took his power he could use it on himself and make himself think he was someone else, someone who didn't have the Hunger. _Would that work? How insane do you have to be, to be successfully deluded into thinking you're someone else? I can't imagine I'd buy it for very long, anyway._ He shifted his weight. His feet were frozen.

What was it that Parkman had done to him, anyway? He'd been avoiding thinking too much about that violation for a very long time - pretty much since it had happened. It was too hard to process, too painful, and in his mind it was a large blank spot of no memories. But here he was on this island, freezing his ass off, literally, and he might as well face all his demons at once. He thought about it. Even in the cold, it made him sweat and tremble. He simply couldn't remember what had happened. He'd… died. He'd been in a hotel room, fighting another man, someone he hated, but who he couldn't focus on for some reason. His throat had been cut, he'd fallen and he'd died. He remembered the feeling of blood running down his chest, just like it had run down the chest of the hospice worker a few days ago.

He'd killed Paul the same way he'd been killed, he was certain of it. With the same practiced move, too. He raised his numb hand and made the motion. He knew that motion. It was **his** motion. But how could that be? He remembered… he remembered being the man who made that motion, fighting Nathan Petrelli in a hotel room, sure that he would win. What good was flight against Sylar's entire arsenal of powers? Gabriel cocked his head. _What the hell did Matt do to me? How am I both of these people?_

Maybe he wasn't either one. Maybe Matt hadn't done anything to him. Maybe something else had happened. Maybe he just had their memories, like he had a shadow of Paul's memory, like he had a sense of a rat's life (not something he really wanted, but there it was). _I can… absorb memories? And then I can't tell who I am? I must have absorbed Sylar's memories and Nathan Petrelli's too. And this Gabriel Grey guy. Maybe Paul didn't take because he wasn't special, or I don't get the full memories from people I kill during the Hunger._ His mind worked at it, trying to make the gears mesh, trying to figure it out, trying to make the pieces fit.

He felt like a jigsaw puzzle that had been put together with a hammer. No, two or three jigsaw puzzles that had been put together with a hammer and all the extra pieces thrown away. _Maybe that's what Parkman did - put me together. Maybe he… healed me._ He blinked. The idea that what Matt had done to him might have been done with an altruistic motive had never occurred to him. It was so foreign and difficult to believe. _No, that's ridiculous. _He shied away from the thought.

_Who the hell am I then? I'm some sort of Frankenstein's monster: fabricated._ _What was it Adam did at the end of that book? Didn't he go out to some island to live out the rest of his life alone? _He looked around at his current abode. _Weird._ His memories went back to childhood for both Gabriel and Nathan, although it was maddingly difficult to tell which was which. He was sure he grew up in two different places and that was the best he could manage. They merged and flowed like a dream. Family members seemed to shift from one environment to the other, though Peter didn't show up in the less affluent upbringing. Sylar was a more recent arrival. There was no serial killer childhood of torturing animals or stalking other children. Sylar just appeared… but he couldn't tell when, why or how. It was too blended with Nathan's past, or rather, with **his** past. It was one continuous narrative, knotted with contradictions and impossibilities like Arthur being his father and not.

_This isn't doing any good. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I have to get control of the Hunger. Then I can work on… this other problem._ The wind was picking up. He went back over the problems of control. _What I need, is someone I can't get to, can't kill, but is close enough that I can feel the temptation. Maybe someone to stop me from finishing. God, who would volunteer for something like that? Who could work with me that I wouldn't turn on and destroy anyway? Someone I can't kill… Aha!_

He knew the who. Now as to the how. After a few minutes, he had a plan. Nathan's memories provided him with all the information he needed. He staggered out of his cave, balancing on frozen legs and took off into the storm, heading south.


	12. Claire

**A/N: On the off chance someone is curious, Nathan's phone is a Trac-Fone type he picked up at the mall as part of the gear he picked up before visiting Samson Grey. **

"Hello?" Claire was wary of the "Unknown" on her caller ID.

"Hi, Claire. It's me, Nathan. I need your help!" he sounded pained.

"Nathan? How-" He'd been missing for months, with Angela saying he was dead and Peter saying they were working on it and neither of them giving her any details.

He cut her off. "I can't explain. Not over the phone. Are you still in Arlington?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'm just down the street from you then." He gave her the address. "I really need your help, Claire. There was no one else I could go to. Please come. As soon as you can."

"Of course," she was confused, but before she could ask for more information, he hung up. She looked across the room at Gretchen, who was looking at her.

"What was that about?" Gretch asked.

"My… bio-dad, Nathan. He's in trouble." She looked at the address she'd scribbled down. "He says he needs help. I'm going down to see him. Wanna come?"

"Sure. Better than Intro to Physics."

XXX

He paced uneasily on the roof of the boarded up warehouse. He was wet, starving and feeling weak from days of exposure. At least he could make himself look good, if he couldn't improve how he felt. He looked like Nathan Petrelli, dressed sharply and only slightly damp. He missed seeing Claire pull up to the building, but he heard her and someone else coming through the building, calling out, looking for him.

_Damn it! Why did she have to bring someone with her?_ He hurried to the roof access and dropped down the ladder to the hanging platform, then another drop to the floor below. Claire heard the sound of his landing and came towards him.

"Claire!" he called out.

"Nathan!" she broke into a run towards him. A willowy girl with long brown hair followed her more cautiously.

"No, stay back!"

Instead of stopping, she only slowed, looking around to see what the problem was. She came too close. He could **hear** it. "No, get back Claire! Get back. Now."

She stopped, but stubbornly did not move away. The other girl joined her. He could hear their music blending together, complementing each other. "No," he ground out through clenched teeth.

"What's wrong, Nathan?" Claire had figured out the problem seemed to be with Nathan himself.

"Get back," he said softly and looked up at her, an obsessive gleam in his eyes. Once again, she did not give ground.

_Fine._ He grabbed her with telekinesis and shoved her and her friend back. Gretchen stumbled and fell. Claire kept her footing and her eyes widened. "Gretchen! Run!" She reached down to help her friend and they started to escape.

"No!" He reached out again with his power and picked them up, swinging them to the nearby brick wall, moving them a safer distance from himself and pinning them there.

"Sylar." Claire's voice dripped with venom.

"No, no. Not really. I'm sorry Claire. I'm Nathan. I really am."

She laughed. "Yeah, right. Nathan with Sylar's telekinesis."

Gretchen said quietly, "What's going on, Claire?"

"That's Sylar, using a power to look like my dad, Nathan. He's a serial killer, of people with special abilities."

"No, that's not who I am. Not anymore. I know, it looks bad. And… I don't understand the half of it, but I need your help. I really do. You're the only one who can help me."

"Help you with what?" She struggled briefly against the telekinesis and gave it up as a bad job. Maybe if she just kept him talking.

He took a deep breath. "I have… the Hunger. I need your help overcoming it."

"You've already had your fingers in my brain, _Sylar_. I can't help you. And she doesn't have any abilities. So you're out of luck."

He frowned. "Claire, please. Please stop calling me that. It's hard enough for me to keep straight who I am." He looked at Gretchen.

"She's not special?"

"No."

"Is she special to you?"

Claire looked over at Gretchen and hesitated. Gretchen gave her a supportive smile. _You can tell the serial killer whatever you think you need to_, Gretchen thought.

"Claire," he took a single small step forward. He thought he could get away with that. Claire looked back at him, her eyes still full of hate for him. "This isn't Sylar's Hunger. It's his father's. And his father's Hunger isn't specific to people like you, or me. It's everyone. All living things. It's her," he jerked his head towards Gretchen. "It's your father, your mother, your neighbor, the people in those cars going down the street, in the convenience store. I can't **go** anywhere. I can't **do** anything that involves getting close to people. That's why I'm holding you away from me right now. If you get too close, I can't stop."

Claire's face stopped looking so hateful. She was listening to him. _Good!_

He went on, "Everyone's special to someone, Claire. She's special to you. You're special to me. I don't want to hurt anyone, anyone else. I never did."

She shook her head. "Now I know you're lying."

"I'm not. Please believe me, Claire."

She raised her chin. "You've told me to stay away. Fine. Nathan wouldn't keep holding me up here. He'd let me go."

He released her immediately, sliding her gently down until her feet touched the floor. "You're right. I'm sorry."

She stared at him, forgot herself and took a step closer, trying to get a better look at his face. He shook his head and gestured slightly. She felt pressure in front of her, pushing her back slowly. "No closer. Not until I'm ready."

She looked at Gretchen. "Let her go too."

"No."

"What? Why?" She was angry again. She'd almost believed him.

"Because," he said slowly, "if I hurt **you**, you'll heal. If I hurt **her**, she's dead. She's safer where she is."

Claire looked between Gretchen and Nathan. She was starting to think maybe he was Nathan. What was it Peter had been 'working on' with Nathan? Was it this? It would explain why no one saw him anymore.

"Did Sylar do this to you?"

He smiled a little and laughed hollowly. "Yeah, it was his idea. Stupid idea. But I've got to get past this, if I'm going to have a normal life… any chance at a normal life. Will you help me?"

She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, waiting to see how he'd react to silence. He stood quietly. Eventually he swayed on his feet like he was dizzy and Gretchen slipped on the wall. He snapped to attention and put her back in her previous position. He looked at Claire, still waiting for her answer, but not trying to force it from her.

Finally she said, "What will you do if I say no?"

He stared at the floor and spoke with a voice empty of emotion. "I don't know. I'll leave. Maybe Mohinder…" He shook his head. "Maybe he can help me. If I can find him." He smiled a little. "At the least, it would make him happy to get his hands on me."

"Okay. I'll help you. What do you need me to do?"

"Heh," he exhaled and gave a grin that looked a lot more like a grimace. She could see his teeth, white against the darkness. "You know Sylar's… what he does. This is worse." He looked back at her and she could see the expression on his face. It was the expression of someone who didn't want to be doing what he was doing, teeth bared against reality, against himself.

"Worse how?" she asked.

His voice was tight. "You'll heal, Claire." He swallowed. He could hardly breathe for what he was about to do. She felt his power tightening around her and lifting her to the wall again.

"Nathan? What are you doing?"

He shook his head. "I don't want you to move. I don't want to have to cut twice, to get the right spot." He slid Gretchen further away and turned her head so she wouldn't see. He hoped he could keep his concentration enough to spare her seeing it. If only he could spare Claire as well. With dread clearly visible on his face, he started to walk forward very slowly, trying to get as close as he could without doing anything more.

XXX

To his great surprise, it only took twice. Perhaps that was due to the depth of emotion both Sylar and Nathan felt towards Claire. Perhaps it was due to his previous mastery over Sylar's Hunger. But the third time, he was able to stop after only the initial cuts. He panted, hands on his knees, barely able to stand. Every part of his body hurt. He was sure Claire felt worse. Intriguingly, conservation of mass did not apply to her power.

"I think…" he started, "I think… I think I've stopped it." He stood up stiffly and walked over to Gretchen, where she was sitting curled up against the wall. She would have flinched away if he'd let her. He hadn't been able to keep her from seeing, but he'd at least kept her from getting away.

Claire coughed, her voice raw from screaming. She still managed, "Get away from her."

He waved a hand back at her. It looked dismissive. "I'm safe. I think." He tilted his head. "I can hear her. I can… appreciate it. I don't… I don't have to **have** it." He released the last of his hold on Gretchen. It didn't matter. He didn't need to hold her away from him, or keep her from getting anyone else.

She moved slightly, realizing she was free. Instead of fleeing as he'd expected, she charged him, sacking him across the middle. She slammed him back into a steel support. His head hit the back of it and all was black.

XXX

"Gretchen! Gretchen! Gretch, please stop." Claire tugged on the other woman's shoulder. Reluctantly, Gretchen stopped kicking the man and stomping on him and let Claire pull her away. She turned to Claire and sobbed against her, trying to pull herself back together. _How can Claire be so calm about this?_ she thought, on the edge of hysteria.

Claire patted her back while she looked at Nathan - or whoever that was. He still looked like Nathan, with a dark pool of blood under his head. His face, smashed under Gretchen's heel, was repairing itself. Just like she had. Just like Sylar's body would. She soothed Gretchen, wondering what to do. Finally she shook the other woman. "Gretchen? I need you to do something for me."

"Wha?" she sniffled.

"Gretchen, I need you to go back to our room and get me some clothes. Get that rope we used at Jesse's last time. And a knife and that little lantern of yours." Claire looked back and forth between Gretchen's eyes in the dim light. "Can you do that for me?"

"Claire… what he did to you…" Gretchen's face scrunched up again and she gestured past Claire at the skins in the distance.

"Don't! Don't look at that. Don't think about it. It's over now. Please, go get me some clothes. Okay?"

Gretchen nodded and left, numb.

Claire sorted through what was left of her clothes after they'd been cut off. She retrieved her cell phone and the contents of her pockets. Clad only in darkness, she walked back over next to "Nathan". His face was unmarred by the punishment Gretchen had given him. She'd sent Gretchen away mostly because she expected him to wake at any time. She was surprised he hadn't. He snored softly.

"You have **got** to be kidding me," she whispered.


	13. Noah

"Hello Claire," Noah said. She could hear the smile in his voice. He was always happy to hear from her.

"Hi Dad. I've got a problem I need help with."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I'm here with… Nathan. Nathan Petrelli."

There was a slight pause on Noah's end and then he said, "Claire, get away from him. Right now. Just leave. Tell him you have something you need to go do." His voice was no longer happy.

"No, Dad. He's asleep. And I'm not leaving until I understand what's going on."

"He's asleep?"

"Yes, he's asleep," she sighed. If he didn't look like death-warmed-over, she'd have assumed he'd enjoyed himself too much during the torture session and was having a post-coital nap. The few times he'd had any expression other than obsessive and focused during the process, he'd seemed in as much pain as she was.

"Then get away from him now, before he wakes up. I'll explain later. Where are you?"

"No Dad, you'll explain now. I know you know what's going on. **Tell me**."

"Claire…"

"Dad, you **tell** me what's going on, or so help me, I'll put this phone down, drag his body into the car and drive off. Then you won't know where either of us is. There's something wrong with him, really bad wrong, and I **need** to know what it is."

"Claire, he's dangerous. He's not well. He could hurt you and not even mean to do it."

"I noticed," she said flatly.

"Claire?" Her father's voice was questioning and almost stricken.

"I'm fine now." Which was a mystery to her. She felt calm and oddly practical about things. Maybe this was her body's way of dealing. She supposed it could be worse. "I need to know what's wrong with him. Where has he been all these months?"

Noah took a deep breath. "You're not leaving, are you?"

"Nope."

He thought that over. He didn't have much leverage. He needed to know where she was. "Five months ago, Nathan Petrelli was killed by Sylar." She pulled in a big breath. "Matt Parkman put Nathan's memories into Sylar's body. The one we burned… was a substitute. Right after Thanksgiving, the memory thing went wrong. Matt tried to fix it, but the fix just made him even more confused about… who he was. He's unstable, Claire."

"Where's he been since Thanksgiving?"

"At a containment facility. He broke out last week. We didn't know where he was. Until now."

"He went to Sylar's father's place and stole his ability. It gave him another Hunger and messed him up." She heard Gretchen's car pull up outside.

"He did? Oh…" Noah breathed as he considered the implications of that. He didn't have good files on the old generation. The directors had never shared that level with the agents, not even their top agents. Angela would know, however. "Claire. I've told you what happened. Now it's your turn. You've **got** to tell me where you are."

"I'm just down the street from the college." She told him the address.

"Okay, I'm on my way. I'll be there in a half hour, maybe less."

Gretchen walked in, still looking shell-shocked. Claire spoke into the phone, "Alright. Good-bye, Dad. I love you."

"Love you too, sweetheart," Noah replied and hung up.

XXX

Noah looked down at Nathan's sleeping form, lit by the small lantern. "What did he do to you, Claire? What happened here?" He looked around. It was hard to see in the darkness. Not that there was much to see, anyway. Claire had cleaned up the scene as much as possible. It was bad enough dealing with Gretchen's hysteria. She didn't want to see her father's reaction.

"Nothing I didn't heal from, Dad. No worse than last time." She sounded unemotional about it. He walked over and hugged her gently, stroking her hair. He looked over at Gretchen, who wouldn't look at him.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "He won't get another chance to hurt you."

"Dad," she stiffened and pulled away. "Is that Sylar, or Nathan?"

He furrowed his brow slightly and recalled Rene's certainty that the man was no longer Sylar. "I don't know, baby."

She looked at him steadily for a long moment and said, "Don't kill him until you do. He really, **really** seemed to think he was Nathan."

"What did he do to you? Would Nathan have done…?" he raised his eyebrows. He didn't expect details from her. He'd never had them after Sylar's first assault on her, which had eaten at him, still ate at him. As if the known quantity of the brain surgery wasn't bad enough, he didn't know if she'd been sexually assaulted as well.

She shook her head. "I don't know. I think… I think Nathan **did**."

Gretchen spoke up for the first time since Mr. Bennet had arrived, "He needs to die."

Noah looked and saw her fierce expression, angry on Claire's behalf. It told him a great deal about what had happened here. But she wasn't treating Claire as if she was _damaged_. That meant something as well.

He turned to Claire. _Might as well try_. "Claire, I need to know what he did to you." She shook her head and he held up a hand. "No, hear me out. You say he has the Hunger, or a form of it. And you've said it was different from last time. I need to know what… how it manifests, so we can find out who else he's attacked. And if he attacks anyone else." It was still in Noah's mind that he couldn't confine him. He'd called Peter and Angela as soon as he got off the phone with Claire, but he didn't have anything with him that would hold Gabriel if he woke. Shooting him and interfering with him just seemed like a fast way to get himself killed. Something he'd rather avoid.

She shook her head. "He's not going to attack anyone else. That's what he… what he said he needed me for. So he could overcome… stop killing people."

Noah shook his head. "Listen, let's all get out of here and let him sleep. Wouldn't want to wake him, would we?"

Claire narrowed her eyes at him and didn't move as he tried to lead her away.

"Claire… he's dangerous. Let's go."

She shook her head. "He's not dangerous anymore. I **paid** for him not to be dangerous. I'm going to get what I paid for."

"What?" he raised his voice in disbelief, unsure and fearful of what Claire meant by that. He looked at Gretchen. She met his eyes for a moment, then looked away at Nathan, who was rousing.

Noah took his daughter firmly by the shoulder and tried to pull her away. "Come on!" he hissed. She shook him off with a judo move he'd taught her. She gave him an angry look and pointed at Gretchen, then at him, then towards the way out. She mouthed, "Go!" He shook his head slowly, but led Gretchen out. At least **she** didn't fight with him.

He stopped outside the door and drew his gun, listening. It was quiet enough that he could hear, as long as they didn't whisper.

Nathan woke, hearing the voices and shuffling. He had a vague sense he was in danger. He was still very sleepy. He blinked and tried to sit up. His hands were tied. He almost took care of that, then hesitated. "Claire?" he looked around, seeing her form in the darkness, her light hair shining. She walked forward into the lantern light, where he could see her more clearly.

"Nathan, is that you?" Her voice was very even.

"Yeah. You tie me up?"

"Yep."

"Mind if I get loose?"

She snorted. "Can you?"

"Sure. Could." He didn't say anything else, scooting along the floor so he could lean back against the steel support pillar he'd been rammed into earlier.

"Are you going to?"

"Not if you want me tied up. You want me tied up, then I'm tied up." After a pause he added, "Thank you."

"Did it work?"

"I think so. You're right there, I'm right here and I'm staying tied up. Seems like it. Where's your friend? Is she okay?"

"She'll be alright."

"Good."

Silence descended for some time. He considered going back to sleep. Catching himself from slipping off again, he said, "Um… I'm sorry, but this is really uncomfortable and I haven't… I don't think I've slept in a… I don't know, at least five or six days. You mind if I get loose, stand up?"

"Go ahead."

He did so. She stepped a little closer. "How'd you do that?" she challenged him.

He held his hands out to her. "I… just… made the ropes go away. I can do that, now."

"How?"

"Um… disintegration. It's an ability."

"How is it you have Sylar's abilities?"

He grimaced and ran a hand over his face. "I don't know, Claire. I really don't. I don't know… who I am, what's going on, who wants to kill me or why." He paused. "No, I know the why. I can remember that."

"Are you Sylar?"

"No." Another pause. "Well, I don't think so. This is… someone said it was Sylar's body. So probably his fingerprints, DNA, I don't know. Science stuff. Ask Mohinder. But… I'm not him." He pointed at his head. "I have his memories. I don't know how I got them. I have… Nathan's memories. I don't know how I got them either." He reached out to her, but she stepped away and he stopped. "Claire, I know Nathan's dead. I'm sorry. I needed… I couldn't stop myself. I killed a man who didn't deserve it. I… I couldn't risk killing anyone else. I… I saw what happened to Sylar. I can see it in his memories. It's not going to happen again. And…" he lowered his head, looking up at her, "you **helped** me keep it from happening again. You stopped another Sylar from happening. **Thank you**."

She was silent for a long time. "Why do you look like Nathan Petrelli?"

"Because I needed to get you to help me."

"What do you really look like?"

He shrugged. "Just a guy."

"Show me."

"I don't think you'll like this," he frowned.

She gave him a small, tight smile. "You look like Sylar, don't you?"

He looked around as if seeking a way out. "Yeah." He still looked like Nathan for the moment.

"Show me."

He sighed, closed his eyes and shifted. When he opened his eyes, she had a hard, hateful expression on her face. He opened his mouth to speak, but shut it without saying anything. He waited while she stared at him for a very long time. Finally she exhaled decisively. He spoke, "Well… thank you. I'll be going."

"No, you won't." His head snapped around and he looked for an ambush. He'd been asleep for a long time, long enough - but nothing happened. She went on, "You're going to stay here until we work out what's wrong with you and until we're all sure you're safe to be out there."

"All?"

"Yes, all of us who know about you."

"Claire, they'll kill me if they get hold of me again. They had me… unconscious in a cell for months. I'm not going back to that."

"I thought you said you weren't dangerous anymore."

His voice was heated, "I wasn't dangerous **then**! I was just sitting there reading a magazine. I could have left anytime I wanted. I could have killed all of them. I **didn't**! And they came in anyway and put me away. I had a tube stuck up my nose with one of those neutralizers. Fitting, I suppose, but I'm not going back to that without a fight." He paused and looked at her. "Please don't make me fight you, Claire." He turned towards the roof access.

"Nathan!"

"What?" he paused and looked at her, angry. "Why do you keep calling me that, anyway? I can see by your face you don't believe I'm him."

She cocked her head, "Why do you keep answering to it?" Also, she wasn't keen on the idea of admitting she was having a reasonable conversation with Sylar.

He dodged the question. "What are we waiting for? Your father to get here? My brother? I know they're after me. Peter…" his face was dark. "I have to go."

He flew, using his ability to open the access before him. He ignored Claire's calls.


	14. Noah's Report

'_Ma - I'm sorry. I'll find you.'_ Peter stared at the photograph. It was a message written in marker from his brother's apartment wall. Someone had been in there just the day before. He hesitated to think there had been a break in, since the door wasn't forced. "What do **you** think it means, Mom?" He pushed it across the table at her.

"It could be an apology…" she sighed. She looked tired. She had grieved for Nathan, as had Peter, months ago. Both of them had accepted that he was gone, but that didn't mean there wasn't a hole in their hearts where Nathan had been. Now there was a deluded man out there who knew everything Nathan had ever known - all of their family secrets, all about them. Who knew what his motivations were?

"It could also be a promise of retribution," Peter said. "_'I'll find you.'_"

"Do you think that's what it is?" His mother turned her head slightly, eyeing Peter, lifting the corner of the picture but not looking at it.

"I don't know. I don't think Sylar would bother leaving a message for you. He never has for any of his other victims. Nathan…" He shrugged. "He didn't sign it. Last time I talked to him, he didn't know who he was. Didn't know his last name was Petrelli until I told him." Peter waited a long beat and looked from the picture to his mother. "He didn't… act… towards me like Nathan would have."

"Peter." His mother's tone was pitying. "I would like to think we were both certain this isn't Nathan we're dealing with. I thought we'd put that behind us."

He nodded and shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "If we've really both moved on, Mom, then why do we still have an apartment full of Nathan's things?" _And why do you have a high alert security force watching it after all these months, with special silent alarms to let you know when someone goes in there? What have you _seen_, Mom?_ He didn't bother to ask those questions. He knew she wouldn't answer.

He didn't need to see his mother's glacial expression. She finally said, "It's difficult to tell what was taken. Not very much, I think. Some underclothes, a gun, a picture of us together, a picture of Claire and her family." Peter looked up, his eyes darkening. His mother's expression was closed, her eyes narrowed. "Everything else is still there. Neat, tidy. Nothing else out of place. He didn't shower, or shave. Nothing in the trash. Security was there less than half an hour after the signal. They can't be sure if he triggered it on entering or leaving - perhaps intentionally."

Peter crossed his arms. "What about his address book?"

She shook her head slowly, "Still there."

_Then why would he want the pictures, if he's not tracking people down?_ "Maybe he wants to… reconnect with his old life?" Peter said.

"That's ridiculous!" his mother snapped. "He has no 'old life'. No matter how deluded he is, he should realize that."

He raised his voice and leaned across the table. "Is it? Would he? Isn't that what you had Matt Parkman program into him? A delusion that he was Nathan Petrelli?"

"We have to deal with the reality of the moment, Peter!" She was angry. Peter had never forgiven her for what she did to Nathan's body at the end. Or rather, to his mind. They had reconciled, but forgiveness was still distant.

"That's what I'm talking about, Mom. Trying to figure out what's going on in his head. He went to _Claire_." _Not us, not __**me**__._ He sensed the broken trust there. His brother would have, should have, come to him. "He pretended to be Nathan. Claire half thinks he **is** Nathan and **we're** the ones lying to her!" He threw up his hands, frustrated at Claire's lack of trust as well, but he really couldn't fault her for it. Nathan had always gone to great lengths for her and despite their difficulties, he'd been loyal to her. Since she hadn't known he was definitely dead (and Peter and his mother had disagreed on what they should tell those close to the family), it wasn't surprising that she still felt loyalty to Nathan in return. Apparently Gabriel's Nathan act had been very convincing.

The doorbell rang before Mrs. Petrelli could rebut. She put away the photograph and went to the door, escorting Noah Bennet to the table. "Hello Noah. I hope you don't mind Peter being here."

He looked at Peter, who looked less than thrilled to be there. "Of course not." Noah easily detected the tension in the air. He raised his brows but said nothing.

Angela sat down, as did Bennet. She said, "What do you have for me, Noah?"

Noah opened his briefcase and got out his papers. "As you know, last Friday afternoon, our subject escaped from the Omaha containment facility. He did it by feigning death, or perhaps through accumulated overexposure to the neutralizing compounds. Acquired allergic reactions have been known before, but it seems unlikely in a regenerator. In either case, he registered as dead. His guards followed procedure and attempted to revive him. They did, but he regained his powers immediately. He injured his guards and fled, using Peter's face as a disguise."

Peter frowned at that. He hadn't known the details.

Noah went on, "Sunday night, he arrived at the residence of Sylar's father, Samson Grey. Mr. Grey was in fourth stage, terminal lung cancer and unconscious most of the time, heavily sedated. Samson was killed following Sylar's standard MO of brain removal. It appears there was a struggle in Samson's bedroom, though whether this was with Samson or the hospice worker is unclear. Afterwards, Paul Washington, the hospice worker," Noah swallowed, trying not to think of what Claire must have endured just a few nights ago, "was killed by having his throat cut. He was skinned and… some attempt at taxidermy was carried out."

Peter's face folded in disgust. Angela's remained impassive. Noah looked between them at the reactions. _No surprise for Mrs. Petrelli. That confirms my theory about Samson's Hunger._

"It would seem this was a manifestation of the Hunger and probably carried out in a fugue or trance state. Samson's home was full of animals he had preserved. It seems likely this was a condition he had as well, though I didn't see any evidence of Mr. Grey, that is, the elder Grey, attacking humans."

"You wouldn't," was all Angela said to it. Noah figured that meant more that Samson was careful to hide his indiscretions than that he didn't have any.

Noah nodded and went on. "At approximately 8 pm, Sharon Scholten arrived to relieve Mr. Washington in his duties. She was assaulted with telekinesis by a person who appeared to be Mr. Washington." Noah almost missed the twitch of Angela's features. He hesitated and looked at her, hoping she would elaborate on why that was significant. Peter glanced between the two of them. Even with his remarkable perception, he'd missed the tiny tic because he'd been watching Noah.

Angela regained her famed impassivity and said, "Go on."

Noah nodded. "Ms. Scholten was injured, receiving surface cuts similar to those used to remove Washington's skin. Her attacker then flew away, though she has convinced herself that he ran away and she must have passed out." He moved his papers and checked something on them.

Angela asked, "She was not killed?"

"No."

"Hm."

"'Hm' what?" Peter asked.

Noah looked steadily at Angela, receiving a tiny nod. He turned to Peter. As he'd read Sylar's file and all the related information, he was fairly sure of what Angela was thinking on this. He could also hazard some of his own guesses and watch Angela's face to see if he was right. "The fugue state of the Hunger usually takes multiple experiences to overcome it - sometimes dozens. It makes it easy to locate individuals with the power before they get advanced, like Sylar is, was. That Gabriel was able to interrupt himself from his second victim is unheard of, but then again, I suspect we have no records of the layering of the ability either - one person having it more than once in their repertoire. For other powers, like your mimicry, gaining multiple powers of the same kind increases mastery and flexibility with it." Angela gave Noah a small nod, which was much more response than he was expecting.

Peter chewed his lip for a moment. "So, assuming I could hold more than one power and I gained both… say, Claire's biological mother's pyrokinesis and Flint's, then I'd have… what? Bigger, hotter fire?"

Noah nodded. "Yes. You'd be able to focus it smaller, control it larger, snuff it out more precisely and generate it faster, under more varied conditions like in rain or high winds."

Peter's brow furrowed. "What do you get with two sets of Sylar's ability?"

Noah looked at Angela, but she betrayed nothing. Finally he shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's never happened before. I know it might seem odd, since we're talking about two people with the power and you have a similar one, but these are among the rarest of the abilities. It would seem safe to assume though, from Gabriel's own comments and the different manifestations, that he is now operating under two instances of the Hunger."

Before Bennet could continue, Peter interrupted, "Why did he do it?" At Bennet's questioning look, he elaborated, "Why did he want his father's ability? What good is that to him?"

Noah looked at Angela, but she was no help. "We can't know that without asking him. It might be that he had some understanding it would expand his current ability to take powers. If he takes someone now and has leisure to carry out both processes, then he will have increased mastery of their power. Or perhaps he thought he would transfer Samson's accumulated abilities. It doesn't work like that, but he might not have known it. And then there's the possibility that he had decided to kill all of his family members." Noah hesitated. Peter had sat up and was looking at him very intently, for obvious reasons, given the subject matter. Peter gestured for him to go on, "Vengeance is very large in Sylar's and Gabriel's personality profile. Not so much in Nathan's, but it's still there. In your conversations with him in November, you said that he seemed to be confusing Angela with Gabriel's own mother. He might not know who his real family is and just intend to get rid of all of them. Gabriel has always had an unhealthy fixation with his family."

Peter nodded, but said nothing.

After a long moment of silence around the table, Noah went on with his report. "So… that was Sunday. After he flew off, we have no records of him until Thursday."

Angela cocked her head slightly. Noah responded to her gesture, guessing at the reason. "I've checked all my sources. There are **no** reports of additional… skinnings. It would be a very visible and unusual form of attack. That doesn't rule out missing persons, as he is unusually able to dispose of bodies. I'll let you know if anything turns up, but in his conversation later with Claire, he said he had only killed one man - presumably the hospice worker.

"On Thursday night, he appeared as Nathan Petrelli and contacted Claire Bennet, asking her to meet him in an empty warehouse." Noah paused and looked at his notes. His eyes glazed slightly as he thought of what must have happened. _Why did no one hear her screaming? Did she scream? How could someone be silent through that?_ He shook himself. "Thursday night… he met Claire and Gretchen and professed to be trying to control his Hunger. He said that he now desired to kill all living things, not just people with abilities." Again, he had Peter's undivided attention, but no reaction from Angela.

"He told Claire that he could control himself if she would… let him operate on her. He may have threatened Gretchen to get her cooperation. Gretchen was unharmed." His voice was somewhat faint as he stared at his notes, not looking up. "I have not been given the details of what happened, but both Claire and Gabriel seemed sure that it worked." He went on more strongly, "He fell asleep afterwards. I arrived, but stepped out of sight when he woke. Claire and Gabriel talked fairly amicably, considering events. He expressed his anger at being contained in Omaha and said he would fight any attempt to confine him again. The last thing he mentioned before leaving was Peter's name." He looked up at Peter, his face serious.

Peter's eyes widened slightly.

Angela exhaled. "That was Thursday night. It is now Saturday morning. No attempt has been made on our lives."

Peter's expression closed and his eyes slid to his mother.

Noah said, "What is it that you're not telling me?" As neither of them answered him right away, he went on, "I need to know. If you are to have me investigating this… if this is my case… then I need to know all the facts. My daughter has been assaulted by this… man." He wanted to say 'creature', but held off. If Claire could deal with it, he could. Or so he told himself. It ate at him though. He recalled telling Gabriel that he'd probably never get over what Sylar had done to Claire. And now the bastard had done it **again**.

Angela opened her mouth to speak and it was clear from her face that a denial was going to come out. Peter jumped in and said, "He went to his apartment yesterday. Took a few things. Left a message." He got up and went to the drawer his mother had put the photograph in. She didn't object. He slid it over to Noah and sat back down. Bennet looked at it carefully.

Very slowly, he said, "This… is written right-handed."

Peter's brows knitted together. He stood and came to look over Noah's shoulder at it. "You're sure?"

Noah answered, "Yes. I'm sure. And I'm also sure that Sylar, and Gabriel, are left-handed."


	15. The Offer

**A/N: As you will read, I am bringing this in compliance with The Fifth Stage. Hopefully, you, kind readers, will be indulgent and overlook any elements of previous chapters that doesn't quite mesh with that episode. As always, reviews welcome.**

The ringing of the doorbell was a welcome distraction from her thoughts. Things were approaching a cusp - a decision point in time - and her dreams had been more confused than usual of late. This usually meant that the many possible futures depended on some action of hers. Her vision would not resolve until the cusp had passed, but that might be anywhere from a few hours from now to a week.

She looked out the window to see that Claire was waiting on the step. _Yes, this is expected._ After all, it had been Angela who had told Claire that Nathan was dead, shortly before Christmas and then refused to discuss the matter after Peter had told her something different. Now that she'd seen Nathan, she would want a confrontation. Angela opened the door and gasped in horror. Sometime between looking out and pulling back the door, Claire had changed into Nathan.

"Oh!" was all she managed to squeak as he stepped into the doorway. She fell back, her hand flying to her chest. Ice water ran through her veins as it flashed into her mind that her inability to see the future might be due to her impending death.

"Hi Ma. Did you miss me? You don't mind if I come in, do you? It's partly my house, after all - terms of Dad's will and all that." The door swung shut behind him without his touch or apparently even concentration. The locks clicked into place.

Angela Petrelli continued to walk back slowly. "Sylar," she whispered.

"No… Nathan. And you **really** need me to be Nathan, Ma. Because _Sylar_ will have your brains for breakfast after a very long… and entertaining… night. And after you're dead… he'll get creative." He looked her up and down in a manner entirely out of line for her son. She couldn't stop herself from trembling for a moment. He said, "I'm sure neither one of us wants that." He met her eyes steadily until she gave a small nod. "Good. I came here to talk to you. Nathan would never hurt you. I'm very sorry that I did."

There was no one to scream to for help and of course Nathan knew that. Angela routinely let the servants go home early on the weekends, unless the family was having a function, which they obviously were not - hence his appearance on this Saturday afternoon, just a few hours after Noah and Peter had left. He gestured at a chair in the sitting room and moved to one himself. "Where are your manners, Ma? Have a seat. Let's have a nice little chat."

She gasped and stiffened, but nothing happened. He didn't force her into the chair like at Thanksgiving. He cocked his head slightly. "We could have this conversation standing, if you like."

"No, that's fine," she breathed, still on the edge of hysteria just from his presence. She lowered herself slowly to the seat, sitting on the edge of it, but at least it was of her own volition. Nathan sat down opposite her, his body language too relaxed and overtly dominant to be polite. She frowned at him. He ignored her disapproval.

His voice was slow and careful, every word considered and tasted before speaking it aloud. It wasn't how Nathan normally spoke and it was unsettling to hear him this way - as if everything else wasn't upsetting enough. "I've come here to get some things out in the open, off my chest. I don't want them bothering me for the rest of my… unnaturally… long life." He gave her a droll expression.

"You're a monster," she spat.

"Yeah," he agreed. He waved theatrically at the ceiling. "I am what you made me, Ma. Exactly what you made me - a Frankenstein's monster of mashed together parts: body of one man, brain of another, a few other parts mixed in for good measure - and a bit of a rat." He looked at her. "And you - you, Ma. You are my Dr. Frankenstein. You **made** me. Your vision, your order. You are my god, and like any good goddess you have the power of creation… and destruction. I worship you." He leaned forward and she leaned away in response. "I adore you. I admire you, really, I do. I want what you have. I covet it, and I'm not very familiar with not getting what I covet."

She blanched. Nathan would never have been so… literary minded.

After a pause, he said, "I'm disappointed in you too, Ma. You're doing the same things you killed Dad for. You were going to sacrifice _Peter_ at Kirby Plaza." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Have you even told him yet how he can get his full powers back?"

She sucked in air and said nothing, but her eyes flashed with surprise.

He hadn't been sure, but he'd suspected. That confirmed it. She knew how to fix Peter's power and she simply had not done so. He went on, "And erasing his memory? Has he figured that one out?"

Her eyes widened slightly. It was all the answer he needed.

"Of course not. Peter's always been blind. I knew the Haitian wouldn't have acted without orders and the board of directors wouldn't have touched one of us without your permission." He chuckled, a low, throaty sound. "God, it must have been such a coup to have me dead like that, after I'd defied you with Danko. You were going to have complete control of me, like a golem, an automaton… a fucking sock puppet!" He bared his teeth at her and raised his voice at the last. She wanted to upbraid him for his language, but feared antagonizing him. She remained silent.

He went on with a sneer, "You could have strung me along, with my mind half-broken, feeding me little morsels of my past and selectively informing me of who I was. I can see it all now, Ma. I had a lot of time to think things over on the island, even if I couldn't pull it together then, I got some sleep and it all came together. You can thank Claire for that. Her power… I have it twice over now. Everything's making sense. I know what you had planned. If you ever had trouble with me, you could have me reprogrammed like a malfunctioning computer. If that didn't work, you could just have me killed." He dropped his voice, but she could hear it still, each word a barb that sunk in and tore at her. "After all, all you'd need to tell your minions, tell Peter, like you did, is that this," he gestured to his body, "is Sylar. And everyone knows Sylar deserves to die."

"What do you want?" she said in a carefully controlled voice.

"Things you can't give me. And some you can. I'm going to make you an offer, and it won't be nearly as one-sided as the one Peter made to Sylar - but the terms will be very similar." She narrowed her eyes. What had Peter offered him?

He went on, "I'll give you Nathan." He gestured at himself with both hands. "Body and soul. And in return, you'll let me _in_."

She blinked. "In the family?"

He laughed loudly and she nearly jumped out of her skin at the outburst. "No! No, no. That goes without mention. You get Nathan Petrelli, _Petrelli _- he's a part of the family automatically. I mean I want in on the decisions. I want in on the board of directors. Of course, it's not much of a board right now, what with only the one member. Funny how all that talk of a new company went south after you got me killed in that hotel room. Both of me." He looked at her sharply. "Did anyone ever call you on that?"

She raised one eyebrow at him, less afraid than she'd been before, now that a deal was on the table that didn't involve her imminent death.

"No, I guess not. Like I said, I adore you, Ma. I admire you. You've pulled off things that never even occurred to me to try. I want you to teach me. But… I'm getting ahead of myself. I've made my offer. I don't expect you to be able to respond to it right now. I'm not in a hurry. You think it over, try to kill me a few more times or something like that and then we'll talk again later. It won't be hard to find me. I'm not going to hide anymore. You can call me at my house."

He stood up.

"Your house?" she looked confused.

"Yes. **My** house. **Nathan Petrelli's **house. I'm going there tonight, to talk to **my** wife and see **my** sons."

She blinked, "No," she said faintly.

He tilted his head at her, but when she didn't go on immediately, he started to leave.

"Nathan!" she called and stood. It was the first time she'd called him by name, by her son's name.

He turned slowly and came back. "Yes Ma?" he said softly, in a tone of voice very much like Nathan's and not like the odd hybrid that had been talking before.

"Heidi doesn't **know**," she said.

He nodded. "I know that. She **will**." Angela inhaled sharply, so he said, "You inherited your ability, Ma. So did Peter. So did Dad. So did your sister. It seems to me with the way these things can be inherited there's a good chance Monty or Simon will have them too. I don't want my sons to find out about their powers like I did - almost killed my wife; like Peter did - jumped off a building, would have died if I hadn't been there; like Gabriel did - turned into a murderer by a power he didn't understand and couldn't control. If my sons have an ability, they're not going to find out about it like that."

She nodded hesitatingly, but said, "Nathan… please. You've… you've done enough tonight making mothers terrified of their children." Her voice trembled. It almost broke.

He searched her face. "What are you suggesting?"

"Just… be… **sensitive** about things. Not like… here." She looked around, making it clear she meant his talk with her.

His voice was soft as he said, "Don't worry, Ma. Heidi hasn't done anything to me like you have. I'll be as gentle as I can be with her."

He left the room, letting himself out. When he was entirely gone, silence reigned in the house until it was finally broken by stifled sobs.


	16. Heidi

**A/N: This chapter is co-dedicated to Hazgarn, and also to Remo Con, who wrote a short fic involving Heidi that I would like to incorporate into the history of mine by mention. It's called The Unloved, here on FanFiction. It's an excellent story and I'd say that scene happened in the past of my story as well (sometime in early December). The funeral would have been a very quiet one.**

Nathan paid the cabbie and got out of the car in front of "his" house. As the cab drove away, he stood on the curb looking up at the place. It was a nice house, in a very nice, upper class neighborhood. Money had been no object, as it so rarely was with his family. He hadn't been in this house since… when? Almost exactly two years ago, he realized - sometime in February, 2007 when he'd come by during the day when no one else was home. He'd snuck in like a burglar to get the last of his things that mattered to him. That stung. Things had mattered, but he'd left the people behind. _Did I ever __**really**__ care about them?_ Peter's death had been so recent then… he hadn't been himself.

He walked up several steps and paused. _Am I really myself __**now**__? Is it fair to them to put myself in their life?_ He looked up at the windows, some lit, some dark. He was very aware, suddenly, that he'd only felt sane for a scant two days. _What if she's moved on? What if she doesn't want me back?_ _Will I kill someone else, someone important to her, because I'm jealous? That wouldn't be right. __**I**__ was the one who left. _ He huffed and turned. The cab was long gone. _I could find another, or just walk away. As soon as I ring that bell, though, I'm committed. I should talk to Carson, have him check her out first_. He realized it had been months. Would his private detective still be on retainer? Who had been paying his bills? Nathan couldn't remember if Carson's fee was paid automatically or per service. It would take days, maybe a week for a full report. _ I don't want to wait that long. Angela… my mother could do too many things if I wait._

He shook himself. _ Too much fear. It's fear talking. I'm not a coward. _He pulled himself together and walked resolutely up the steps, trying to ignore his doubts and putting the best face on things. He rang the bell and waited. There wasn't a lot in his various pasts that gave him guidance on how to act. Apology and contrition weren't things Nathan or Gabriel had been good at, though he did at least have some experience mishandling resurrection. He smiled to himself. He considered that Peter could have told him exactly what to do. Peter was so good with people, with understanding them. Nathan was a master at manipulating them, but Peter could see their hearts.

He was pulled out of his reverie by the door opening. He didn't know the woman who answered, but by the way she was dressed, she was a servant. He smiled politely. Her face told him that she thought she recognized him, but wasn't sure. "Hello. I'm Nathan Petrelli. Is Heidi in?"

"Of… course." Her eyes went wide at his name. _Well, she recognized __**that**_. "If you could just step in sir, I'll go get her." She hurried away.

He stood in the foyer, looking around. The rug was new. There was a new picture of Heidi's family taking up a spot where one of him and Peter had been previously. He looked at it, seeing how much Simon and Monty had grown. Heidi still looked the same. He smiled and touched the frame. She wasn't gorgeous like Meredith or Niki or anyone else he'd seen on the side, but she was a good-looking woman, very respectable.

He'd made vows, promises. He had responsibilities to his family. Somehow his conduct in relation to the vows regarding fidelity didn't bother him. After the third or fourth foray on the side, he'd quit caring. He was surprised that even standing here in the foyer, he didn't really care **now**, but he felt if he was to have a life, this was where he needed to start.

_It's either this or go back to the watch shop. What was it Peter said? 'Everyone needs something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to.' Got all three here, if I work it out._ He stepped away from the picture as Heidi's footsteps rang out down the hall.

She stopped as soon as she saw him. The expression on her face was neither welcoming nor surprised. She was angry. "Get out of here."

He didn't answer, or move to leave. She came closer. The serving woman made a brief appearance behind her, asking, "Ma'am, should I call…?"

Heidi shot back, "No, Mandy. I'll handle this," and came into the foyer with Nathan. Heidi understood that you didn't draw the authorities into family matters, even on members who weren't much part of the family. Mandy ducked out of sight. His wife studied him as if checking if it was really him, or someone with a disguise. He let her. He was confident of his face. Unless she'd developed an ability to see right through him, he was safe. _Now wouldn't that be amusing? She was always did see me for what I was._ He cut off that line of thought and tried to read her face. What was she seeing now?

She shook her head at him, dissatisfied with what she saw. "Get out of here. You're dead to me. I don't know what's going on and I don't want to. I'm done with you." Her voice rose with each sentence, the hysteria of seeing someone she'd thought was gone for good, come back into her life, endangering her stability.

Softly he said, "Heidi, it's my house. I've come to tell you the truth."

She barked a laugh. "The truth? Yes, I've heard it all before. The great Nathan Petrelli will explain everything. I don't want to hear it, you hear?" She shoved him, but it was like shoving a wall. He didn't move in the slightest - not a millimeter. She looked at him uneasily and stepped back. Something about him wasn't right, but she hadn't figured out what.

His voice remained low and calm. She found it infuriating. "You don't have to listen, but I have to tell you."

She shook her head and tried to shove him towards the door again, grabbing his arm. It was like trying to move a stone statue - impossible without leverage and she had none. "I told you to get out!" she cried.

"I'm not going."

She pushed on him again, desperately. This wasn't human, she realized. _I'm hysterical. I'm acting stupid. I'm not seeing things right_, she convinced herself. "It's dinnertime, Nathan. You have no right. No right to be here with us," she pleaded.

He took a deep breath. "Then I won't be there with you." He raised his voice so it would carry, but he knew it didn't need to go far. "Mandy? Please get me a plate and bring it to the study. I'll eat there." He looked back at his wife. "We can talk later. Whenever you're ready." He walked past her, allowing no argument. She wiped at her eyes, cursing herself for the tears of frustration. Ever since she'd had the kids, her emotions were no longer her own.

Nathan walked into the study and after a brief pause to size up the room, he walked around it, running his fingers along the shelves, the walls and the furniture. Impressions of the past flickered in his mind. The study hadn't been used much, or at least most of the books hadn't seen much use since he'd been here last. He touched the back of a leather sitting chair and the memory there turned his head and made him breath in deeply. Peter was clutching it with a white-knuckled grip, fighting back tears, only a few months before. Nathan reached for the rest of the scene, but it was elusive. He gathered Peter had told Heidi he was dead. She'd been angry. He sighed. She hadn't seemed sad and that bothered him.

He walked to the desk. It was an old desk of his father's and so layered in memories even without his power. He sat behind it. He'd always liked this desk, but it was too battered to look good in his office and so here it was. He touched it fondly and then grimaced. Heidi… had sat here on the desk, her legs around… her brother-in-law. Not Peter, but her sister's husband. Fairly recent - Christmas or New Year's, he couldn't tell, but the memory was graphic and much more detailed than the impression of Peter grieving. His lip curled and he felt the heat of anger flowing through him. _I wasn't here. I wasn't here_, he repeated to himself._ She thought I was dead. She'd been told I was dead._

He tried to calm himself and dispel the image of his wife, **his wife**, with someone else. It was not in his personality to see the hypocrisy of his feelings - or to care even if he did. What he did was one thing. What she did was another. Only the knowledge that she'd been told he was dead made it acceptable. Mandy came in with a tray and he almost didn't notice. He snapped himself out of it. "Mandy, was it?" he said before she left.

She swallowed. "Yes, sir."

He smiled at her, trying to dispel her nervousness. _It must be difficult for her to know how she should treat me._ "It's okay. Can you tell me who Heidi has for dinner tonight?"

"Oh!" her eyes lit up as she understood what he was asking. "No one, sir. Just her and the children."

He nodded. _Good._ "And… is there anyone else living here, staying here… that I should know about?"

She inhaled sharply and shook her head. "No, no." Her eyes darted around the room nervously. There were obviously things she knew, that he wouldn't be happy to know, but she was telling the truth so far.

He nodded. "It's okay. That's all. I don't want to cause you any problems."

She smiled falsely. "Oh, it's fine, sir!"

He gave her an equally false smile and gestured to the tray. "Thank you."

She nodded, seeing the dismissal for what it was and being relieved he didn't ask more questions. "Of course." She left.

He looked at the tray: pheasant, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans. It smelled wonderful. He ate, savoring it. He wondered if he even needed to eat anymore. He suspected he did, as he clearly still needed sleep - just not very much of it and he could keep himself going until he dropped dead from lack of it. In any case, with food like this he wasn't going to give it up soon.

The end of dinner for his family was signaled by Heidi and Mandy trying to hustle the boys upstairs without letting them see him. Simon came stealthing down the hallway anyway, having paid attention when Mandy had told Heidi who was at the door. He looked at Nathan sitting in the study, the boy's eyes wide. Nathan smiled warmly at him and the boy walked in, stopping a few feet away from the desk. He eyed his father like he was a stranger. _He hasn't seen me in person in what? Two years? A fifth of his life, almost._

Nathan pointed at his face. "I shaved the beard." Simon just stared. Nathan said, "Remember? You and Monty told me I needed to get rid of it."

Simon smiled, remembering. "Yeah." He chuckled, warming to his father. "Did you bring me anything?"

_Bring you anything?_ Nathan thought about that. _What does that mean?_ He hedged, "I didn't bring it with me. Maybe tomorrow."

Simon's eyes brightened at the thought of a mystery gift. "Really? What is it?"

"It's a surprise. I need to talk to your mother. Go on upstairs. You don't want to get in trouble."

Simon nodded and headed off. _Kids_, Nathan thought._ Just like adults, I guess. Always wanting someone to give them something. I need to get that restraining order rescinded._

Heidi didn't keep him waiting too long before coming into the study. She wanted to get this over with and him back out of her life as soon as possible. She stood in front of the desk where Simon had stood just a little before. "All right, Nathan. You're alive, but that doesn't mean we're together. I'm not even sure if it means we're still married, since you were declared dead. I'll have my attorney check into that first thing Monday morning." He looked up from where he was touching the desk in front of him, face impassive, eyes distant. "You said you had something to tell me?"

"Yes, I do." He took his hand away from the desk and set it down off to the side in what seemed to be an unnatural gesture.

"I've lied to you. My whole family has lied to you. We've lied to the world."

She rolled her eyes.

"What?" he said with a trace of heat.

"Your mother always said you had delusions of grandeur."

He puffed out air. "Don't trust everything my mother says. In fact, don't trust any of it. She's a pathological liar. She said I was dead, remember?" _True, but not the point. A topic for another night._

Heidi gave a reluctant nod, thinking Angela wasn't the only pathological liar in that family. She waited patiently for him to get done with his piece so he would leave.

He stood up. "There are people with special abilities, who can do," he shrugged, "really weird things. I can't think of how to explain this that it makes sense, so I'll just show you."

A large paperweight of a yellow butterfly trapped in glass floated off the desk. Heidi took a step back and looked at Nathan, whose face was clear. He lifted his brows at her, inviting a reaction. She took a step forward and looked at it. It drifted slowly closer to her, until she reached out and took it from the air. She ran her hands all over it, looking for strings or wires or magnets. She looked dumbfounded.

"How…?"

"Telekinesis." He scratched his brow, between his eyes. "I'm… pretty good at it." To demonstrate, several other items leapt up off the desk, waved in the air briefly and then carefully settled back to their original positions.

"I'm not on drugs? Hallucinating?" She walked over to the seat he'd seen Peter gripping and she sat down heavily in it.

He scratched an eyebrow again. "No. I'm sorry, but you're not. I told you this is hard to explain, because really, there's no explanation for it. No logical one though. I know people who try to bend science to explain it and they don't do a very good job. Might as well think it's…" He shook his head. He wanted to say _God's hand_, but he didn't believe in God anymore. Nathan had though, and Heidi still did as far as he knew.

She looked at him, "**This** is why? Why you…?"

She didn't finish, so he floated himself over the desk. She gasped. "Too much?" he said. "Sorry. I'll stop." He landed gently.

"No! No! If it's a dr-, nightmare, then you might as well. And if it's not… then…" she shook her head, not sure what to make of it. "You can **fly**?" He nodded. "The accident?" her eyes were accusing. He was glad she remembered.

He nodded again and looked down. "I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you. And your paralysis was healed the same way."

She inhaled. "You can heal people?"

"Oh! No, that one's not mine," he denied.

"Not yours?"

"I don't have that ability. Most people only have one - one ability. I have several. Here - here's another." He took a pencil from the desk and put it in her hand. She held it with a quizzical expression. He touched the end of it and it vanished with a sizzle.

"Ah!" her face tightened in pain and she gripped her hand with the other.

"What?" He went to one knee before her, looking at her hand. There was a mark on her palm, like a burn from a cigarette. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never did that to anything someone was holding. I didn't think…"

She laughed, surprising him. At his puzzled expression, she said, "You don't know everything?" She wasn't being sarcastic, just amused.

He smiled faintly back. "No, there's so much I don't know. So much." He stood and stepped away. "I keep… screwing up because I don't know things. I left because I…" he closed his eyes for a moment and opened them. _I came here to tell the truth._ "I left because I was a selfish bastard wallowing in self-pity. But I stayed away because I was dangerous. Things were happening that I didn't want you or the kids involved in." He had a moment of vertigo as he couldn't sort Nathan's memories of that time from Sylar's. _Was Nathan dangerous? Or was that Sylar?_ He pushed it away. She didn't need to know the details. "This… still isn't a good time, but years have gone by and I can't stay away. I don't want to stay away."

Her expression wasn't welcoming, but it wasn't overtly hostile. He said, "I'll stay away if I have to, but you had to know the truth." He wondered if someday soon he'd wake up to find that she didn't know anymore - her memory wiped by his mother's orders. It would be easy for her to do and impossible for him to reverse. He sighed. _And this would be for nothing. What a terrible way to live, never knowing._

At the sadness on her husband's face, Heidi stood up and walked to him. She gave him a small peck on the cheek and then walked back to her chair, sitting back down. He looked at her with surprise and warmth. _She kissed me? What was that for?_

"What else do I need to know?" she asked.

"Um… I don't know." He was still dumbfounded by the peck on the cheek.

"Can you do other things? Laser beams shoot out of your eyes? Run faster than a speeding bullet?" she giggled. "I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to mock you, but I don't know how to relate to this. It's… it's like fantasy stuff. Science fiction."

He frowned, but he agreed with her. "It's not nearly so funny when it's happening to you and you're watching your car drive out of control with your wife in the passenger seat and you can't control it." That sobered her expression immediately. "A lot of these powers are dangerous and a lot of the people who get them do bad things with them." He could hear her song in his mind, just as he'd heard those of all the people he'd walked past, the drivers of the cabs and people he'd talked to in the last few days. He pushed it away resolutely. He'd been sorely tempted several times, but so far he'd resisted. He knew the more he resisted, the stronger he'd get and the less the temptation.

"Are you… okay?"

_Was she saying something while I was listening to the music? Damn. _"I think so," he shrugged. _She always did see right through me._ "Oh! I have one power that's pretty harmless and kind of useful. You might like it." He walked over to the paperweight and covered it with his hand. He paused a moment and looked at her. "You don't… have any sentimental attachment to this, do you?" It had come from her grandmother's things after she died, but he didn't think it was a treasured memento.

"No… no."

He nodded and took his hand away, leaving a piece of gold as big as both of his fists together.

She stared at it and picked it up to see what he'd done to it. "Oh my God! It's heavy!"

"Yeah, gold is."

"This is gold? Pure gold?"

He nodded.

She turned it and shifted it. "All the way through, solid?"

"Yes. Except… well, maybe not the butterfly. But all the glass."

"Oh my God, Nathan! You can just make money out of thin air!"

He blinked at her. _Strange. I never thought about it that way. What does it say about my life that an ability more incredible and life-changing than winning the biggest lottery is just an amusing, sometimes helpful power? Virtually a party trick._

"Is it difficult to do?"

He shrugged. "No, not really."

"You could just make as much as you wanted?"

"Yeah." He looked around the room, thinking of the new rug, the pheasant, Mandy still working on Saturday night. "You're… you're doing all right for money, aren't you? The trust fund…?"

She nodded rapidly. "Yes, yes, we're fine." The money was the main reason why she'd never finalized a divorce and why she'd settled for separation. That, and their mutual Catholic background forbid divorce. Nathan had been a gentleman about it, she'd found when talking to her friends. His absence had hurt her deeply, but at least he hadn't been around to hurt her, cause problems, fight with her over the kids or her choices or her lifestyle.

The restraining order had been a precaution, a warning to him to let him know she was serious. He hadn't contested it. Her friends had assured her it could be far worse than simply being ignored. She sighed and put the now ridiculously valuable paperweight down. No wonder his family could afford to set her and her children up for life, so long as she was still a Petrelli. She looked up at him. He wasn't threatening to take any of that away.

"What do you want, Nathan?"

It occurred to Nathan that was the same question his mother had asked him earlier that day. His answer for Heidi was very different, because she was a very different woman than his mother. "I want another chance. I want a wife, a family - a life. I want to be forgiven for all the terrible things I've done. And for all the good things I should have done, but didn't." His voice rang true and earnest, more honest than she'd ever heard him.

She swallowed. She wanted to say '_yes, I forgive you, thank you for coming back_,_'_ but she'd been hurt too much too many times by him. He'd had so many chances to say something like this to her and he hadn't. The things she'd seen tonight were too fantastic - too hard to believe. She shut her eyes and thought about it. It wasn't like he was going to disappear just because she wanted him to. _No, he always disappears when __**he**__ wants to._

She exhaled. "Come with me to church in the morning, Nathan. Let me pray about it."

He nodded slowly. "Should I go back to the hotel tonight?"

She nodded. "Please. You're not staying at your apartment?"

"No," he said, without explaining.

She smiled thinly. _Still with the secrets. Well, he wouldn't be Nathan Petrelli without that._ "I'll see you in the morning at 8, then," she said and he agreed.

He called a cab and she walked him to the door, watching him leave. For once in his departure, no one was crying, suffering, dying, or calling after him in alarm or anger. Realizing that gave him a warm feeling that he thought he might treasure forever.


	17. Settling In

Peter put the phone down numbly. He wasn't even sure what he'd told the man. After staring at the wall blankly for a moment, he dialed his mother. She had to be told. She had to help him save his sister-in-law and his nephews.

"Hello?" She sounded tired.

"Mom. I just got off the phone with Mr. Milner. From church. Nathan… _Nathan_, went to church this morning with Heidi and the kids."

The answer was not the one he was anticipating. He expected panic and alarm. He got resignation. After a long pause, she said, "Yes, that's… to be expected. Nathan came by last night, after you and Noah had left. He had… an offer to make. I've been considering it."

Peter took a moment to remind himself to breath normally. _He came by last night and you didn't tell me? I'm to find out these things from old family friends who see him at church and wonder 'What the fuck, isn't he supposed to be dead?'_ "Are you all right, Mom?" His question was more in reference to her sanity than her physical state, though after the words came out of his mouth, it occurred to him Gabriel might have hurt her. He wondered what that said about his feelings towards his mother.

"Yes. He didn't touch me. Or even threaten me. At least, not very directly."

Peter ran his hand through his hair. _How I wish Nathan were still here, so we could talk about how hard she is to deal with!_ "Okay. Okay." He took another deep breath. "What was the offer?"

"I said I was considering it. I don't know if it's even worth mentioning. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Wh-" Peter cut himself off from repeating his question. Obviously, she didn't want to tell him or else she would have. Pushing never got him anywhere with her, tempting as it was. He shut his eyes and spoke, "Why would it not be worth mentioning, Mom?"

"Because there are certain things we may have put behind ourselves, as a family, and those things should not be revisited. Or," and her voice changed tone slightly, as if her throat had tightened, "perhaps this is a new thing and we should learn to… to deal with it."

He shifted his weight back and forth. "Mom? Mom, are you…" He blinked and thought about what he was about to say. He'd been going to finish with _'alone'_, but if she wasn't, she wouldn't be at liberty to say and if he pressed about it, he might put her in danger. Church had been over for more than an hour. Gabriel, Sylar, Nathan? might be with her at this very moment. "Listen, okay? This is just too much for me, I can't handle it. I'm going to go get some air and I'll call you back in… a half hour or so. Good-bye, Mom." He hung up without allowing her to say anything more.

XXX

It took him more than a half-hour. He couldn't get to Rene, but Claire had come up to New York for the weekend. Not surprising, given current events. Regeneration would have to do. After an angry argument with Noah and Claire both, Peter went inside his mother's house alone. He wouldn't risk them, but he carried his cell phone with the connection open, on speaker. They'd be able to hear what was happening.

He entered stealthily and snuck through the entry hall. His mother was watching the entrance alertly from her seat in the living room, as he looked in. "Oh! Peter!" she sighed and covered her chest with her hand. "You gave me a terrible fright. All I could hear was someone moving along so quietly. You should have said something."

"Mom." He looked around the room significantly. She followed his eyes.

"We're alone, Peter." After a pause, she said it again, a little louder, almost as if for the express purpose of being heard over his phone, "We're alone."

"You're safe? No one's here?"

"Well, Cassie is, but she's cleaning up after lunch. It's all right, Peter," she soothed. "I should have known when you rung off so abruptly earlier. He didn't hurt me. I think… he's a very confused man, but if we handle this correctly, he won't hurt anyone."

Peter looked at his mother's face. It was drawn, tired, like she hadn't been getting any sleep. He remembered that look from when Nathan and Danko's goons had been hunting her. He reached into his pocket and closed his phone. Hopefully they'd heard enough to understand that he didn't want them to hear anymore. If they didn't, then they could come to the door like civilized people and knock.

"Have you been sleeping lately?" he crouched next to her chair, looking up at her. "The dreams?" Her power was one Peter had never enjoyed having. The apprehension of waiting until something he saw came to pass was hard to deal with, especially as he nearly always dreamt about things he didn't want to see. So he avoided her ability, while having a unique understanding of why she schooled her reactions so carefully and didn't sleep easily.

"I had trouble sleeping, yes, but it wasn't the dreams. The things your br-... Gabriel believes." She shook her head sadly. Peter's brows pulled together slightly. Of all people to slip and almost call him his brother, he wouldn't have expected it of his mother.

"What does he believe?" He put a hand on hers.

"He knows he's not Nathan, but he's going to be that anyway and he doesn't think we can stop him."

Peter inhaled sharply. _Strange, hadn't thought of that. Here I was __**wanting**__ him to be Nathan, but the idea of him doing it on his own... I don't like it._

"We can stop him," he said firmly. "What else?"

"He thinks I had Sylar kill him on purpose."

Peter cocked his head. "How would that happen?" He tried to work that out. It wouldn't be the first time his mother had tried to kill one of her sons, as he was well aware. She'd done some awfully questionable things with Sylar as well, claiming he was his brother. Had she kept up communication with him somehow? He looked back and forth between her eyes. Despite his belief of the good in people, despite his love for his mother, he knew what she was. Or at least he thought he did. Was it possible that was true? He didn't dismiss it as ridiculous like he would have a few years ago.

She shook her head sadly again, "He's deluded, Peter. He's deluded. His mind healed wrong. He doesn't see the same reality we do. He sees conspiracies everywhere - people out to get him. He's afraid of you, Peter. He might say anything to you, to drive you away from everyone you can trust."

He turned that over in his mind and set it aside after a moment. He'd have to see for himself, but it sounded like she was saying that Gabriel **would** talk to him and that a physical confrontation, yet another showdown, might not be necessary. Peter said, "He was at church with Heidi and the boys. I'm going to go to their house next and make sure they're safe." He patted her hand. His mother nodded at him silently.

As he left the room, she called out, "Be careful, Peter! Please. He might still be there. He's more dangerous than you know."

He nodded and walked out, explaining things to the Bennets before they drove to Heidi's house, or what Peter thought of as Heidi's house.

XXX

Peter rang the bell and waited. Once upon a time he'd had a key, but he suspected Heidi had changed the locks. After Nathan had moved out, there had never been any reason for him to come back anyway. She opened the door herself, looking well and nicely dressed in Sunday clothes. She regarded him silently for a long moment. _Of course. Less than 24 hours after Nathan walks back into my life, here's his brother to drag him away again. _The partial smile on Peter's lips slowly drained away at her expression.

Finally she said, "He's not here. He left from the restaurant after church. Said he had things to do."

"Okay," he nodded. "Can I come in?" She held the door open for a long moment. He almost expected her to say no and shut it in his face. Finally she waved him in. He stepped in and stopped at the foyer. She walked around him, putting herself between him and the rest of the house.

"What are you here for?" She crossed her arms.

"I just wanted to make sure you're safe - you're okay."

She shrugged dismissively. "I'm fine. Why are you really here?"

He cocked his head. "That's why."

"Hm." She didn't believe him. She studied him, wondering why he wasn't leaving. _He's not here. Go away already, like you always do when he's not around,_ she thought.

Perplexed, he looked around the hall and the foyer. She thought he was trying to think of something to say. Instead, he was looking for signs of a struggle. Everything seemed in place except for one picture of Heidi's family. It was slightly off center. He recalled vaguely that there used to be a picture of him and Nathan there, displayed very prominently - one of the first things you saw when you came in. He reached out and adjusted it.

She sighed. "So, are you going to tell me why you're here, or do you want to apply for a job as a house keeper?"

He blinked at her. She really had no idea. And she was still just as angry at him as she'd been the last time he'd seen her, to tell her of Nathan's death. What was it his mother had said? That Gabriel would say things, things to drive people apart? He debated not telling her, but this wasn't something that was likely to go away - not if Nathan was going to church with her, probably even staying over last night. The idea of Sylar with Heidi turned his stomach. The best weapon was the truth.

"Nathan's gone through a lot lately. I heard he was back… with you." She took that the wrong way. He could see that. He always felt so clumsy talking to Heidi. Most women fell all over themselves to listen to him. It wasn't that he wanted her to be that way, but he didn't know why she disliked him so much. _That's not true. She said why last time I was here. _ "I wanted to make sure he didn't hurt you, or the kids."

She sighed. "Peter, Nathan and I have had our problems, but he's never been violent - not ever. Don't worry about me. Besides, I still have a restraining order against him. If he does anything, I'll have him taken away."

Peter tried to answer, but couldn't think of what to say. If Gabriel turned on her, she'd never get a chance to call the cops. Even if she did, what could _they _do? It was laughable.

Finally her impatience got the better of her and she said, "What is this all about? Jealousy? Did Nathan come back and see me and not you?" It had not been lost on her that Nathan hadn't mentioned Peter at all yesterday or this morning. To have that much time pass without Nathan talking about his brother was bizarre.

She saw Peter's pained expression and misread it. "Ah. So that's it. Well," she couldn't stop herself from smiling and putting one hand on her hip. _Amazing. I've been picked over Peter for once in Nathan's life. That's a first_.

Peter glared at her angrily and couldn't think of how to salvage this.

Still smiling, she said, "Like I said, he's not here. I'll sure you'll run into him sometime and you can talk to him then."

Voice tense, Peter said, "I want to see the boys."

"No." That was all she said. She didn't change her posture. Peter looked at her. She didn't look defensive or afraid - if anything, confrontational and triumphant. Somewhere in the conversation he'd lost track of what he'd thought was going on here. Remembering his purpose, looking at Heidi, he was sure that she hadn't been threatened or hurt. He exhaled and tried to calm himself. That was why he'd come here. His mission was done. He could leave now. _Might as well. Just getting myself in deeper here._

He nodded stiffly. "Okay. I'll go." He turned to the door and let himself out.

As he left, Heidi called to him in a dour tone, "I'll let Nathan know you were by."

"Sure," he snapped as he walked down the steps and then stalked down the sidewalk to where Noah and Claire were waiting in the car. Only then did he remember that the speaker on his phone had been on the whole time. He wanted to slap himself on the forehead. _What is it about that woman that rattles me so much? God!_


	18. Dinner

"Peter came by today."

Nathan looked across the table at Heidi. "Really? Huh." He helped himself to the rice pilaf and concentrated on using Nathan's table manners. For some reason, this was very difficult, as if it was a set of memories that hadn't survived Parkman's tender attentions very well. Sylar's less sophisticated ways threatened to make themselves known. He was clumsy with the utensils, though that might also be due to a compulsion to work right-handed while conducting himself as the elder Petrelli. No one seemed to have noticed as of yet, but it took up an unfortunate degree of his concentration at the table.

Heidi waited for his comment after he was done with the rice. He turned to give Monty a spoonful and passed the bowl to Simon. Then he picked up his fork and began to eat, as if the subject did not warrant elaboration.

She huffed a little. _Didn't he care?_ "I told him I'd tell you he came by."

"Uh-huh," he said between bites. He continued to seem disinterested. He thought he needed to make some polite conversation in return, but he couldn't think of anything to say about Peter that would be polite at the moment.

"Are you going to call him?"

A flash of irritation crossed his face. "No!" He caught himself at her surprised expression and schooled his face to be much more politic. _He's my brother. I'm supposed to talk to my brother. Even if I think he might try to kill me or I might need to kill him_. "Did he say I should call him?"

She thought about that. "No, I don't think he did."

"Okay. Then I won't call him." He took a drink of wine.

Heidi copied him, then asked, "You and he really had a falling out, didn't you?"

Nathan considered that. He thought of Peter's face when they'd come for him in the cell in Omaha. "Yeah. You could say that."

They ate in silence for a while. Finally she said, "Will you tell me about it?"

He put down his fork and thought about what to say that would be true, but not alarming. "You remember all those interviews I did, about the terrorists, last year?"

She nodded.

"And when we talked last night… I mentioned there were some dangerous people out there."

"Oh. Yes." She nodded again.

"Who's dangerous?" Simon interjected.

"Terrorists. Eat your dinner," Nathan told him as an aside.

"I don't have to do what you say!" the child blurted out.

Nathan looked at him and smiled with far too many teeth to be friendly. He laughed at the boy. Simon looked intimidated without Nathan having to say a word. Heidi felt uneasy. That didn't sound like Nathan's laugh, but he'd been away for years. Things had clearly changed for him. She told her son, "Simon, do what your father told you. We're talking."

Nathan took a sip of wine and went on, "Peter and I had a disagreement about how those people should be handled."

She nodded and thought about it. She tilted her head a little and asked, "Is Peter dangerous?"

Nathan furrowed his brow, making a puzzled line. He'd always known she didn't like Peter, but it seemed an odd leap to put Peter of all people in the category of 'dangerous terrorist.' "Well… he has abilities. He might be dangerous under the right circumstances… like… if he and I had a falling out." Her eyes widened slightly as she realized what he was saying. It was hard to believe, but it went a long way to explain Peter's odd behavior earlier. She was glad she hadn't told him Nathan had planned to come back for dinner. He went on, "I wouldn't go so far as to say he's… dangerous to anyone else."

After a pause he spoke quickly to add, "Peter is a good man. He was right, by the way. I was wrong. Doesn't mean we didn't part ways over it." She nodded. It was odd to hear Nathan admit he was wrong about anything, but if he ever did, it would be to say that Peter was right. That, at least, was the Nathan she knew.

She looked at her sons, who were eating and listening. She smiled at them, caught Nathan's eye and went on with her meal. Nathan followed her unspoken decree that they'd said enough on the topic for their audience.

He changed he subject, saying, "While I was out today, I saw that there was an orchestral version of Phil Collins' music playing all this week at the philharmonic, part of their modern series. I remember you really liked his work. I'd like to take you out. If you can tell me a night that would work for you, we could make it dinner and a show, just you and I."

She looked at him in surprise. "Like a date?" she laughed a little nervously.

"Yeah, like a date. Think of it as our… first date."

"A first date? You know what doesn't happen on the first date?" She wasn't entirely comfortable with Nathan eating dinner with them even now. Going out might lead to doing something intimate with him and that was, as of yet, not on the radar for her. She wanted to make sure he understood that up front.

He smiled, undeterred and Simon cut in, "I know what doesn't happen on the first date!"

Nathan looked at him and said, "You do? What's that, young man?" Heidi looked embarrassed. Simon was old enough to know things and yet still too young to have mastered discretion.

In this case though, it didn't matter. "She doesn't have to pay for anything! Not on the first date. On the first date, the man pays for everything!" the boy said.

Nathan smiled broadly. "Yeah, you're right, champ. She won't have to pay for anything." He looked at Heidi. "Pick a night. Dinner and a show. Nothing else." He looked at Simon. "I don't think I could afford anything else, anyway, like candy or flowers. Those will have wait. I've been out of circulation for a while."

Very quietly, Heidi said, "Thursday would be good." She swallowed and said more clearly, "What are you going to do with yourself now, anyway?"

He took up his glass and gestured with it as he spoke. "I'm going to restart my law practice, see what I can recover. Rebuild my base, my network - if things go right. The hours are flexible and I don't know how these first few weeks back are going to go. There might be a lot of loose ends for me to tie up." _People to kill, brains to examine, mannequins to make…_ he banished the annoying thoughts and hoped Angela got back to him soon about her decision. _That isn't who I am anymore. It's not who I want to be_. Of course, if he had to, to survive, he was sure he'd do all manner of things. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

He set his nearly empty wine glass back on the table, accidentally setting it partly on his plate. It tipped as he released it and he reached for it again too swiftly, clumsily, knocking it into the salad bowl and shattering the thin glass just as his hand closed on it. Shards drove into his palm and he was splashed with wine. He grimaced and pulled his hand back.

"Oh!" Heidi jumped up. "Oh, are you alright?" She hurried around the table to look at him. She looked at Mandy. "Mandy, get the first aid kit!"

He frowned as he pulled out several bits of glass and set them on the edge of the plate. "It's nothing. I'm fine. Just clumsy anymore, like I'm not really right-handed." He realized he could hide what he was doing from her with a turn of his wrist, but he didn't bother.

She stared at him pulling out an inch-long shard of glass, at least half-buried in his palm, which left no cut or mark on him. "Nathan?" she said questioningly.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'll explain _later_." She nodded hesitantly. To Simon, who was showing an undue interest, Nathan displayed his hand. "See, not a scratch. I was lucky."

Simon sniffed. "You still have wine all over your hand."

Nathan looked. "Yes, I do. I'll go wash." He took the plate with him, taking away the blood-stained glass and leaving Heidi to tell Mandy she'd overreacted.

XXX

Heidi found him later in the study, seated in the overstuffed leather sitting chair, poring over a photo album as if studying for a test. She saw it was an album her friend Cynthia had put together of her and Nathan's relationship. It started with pictures of them on the few dates they'd gone on, then their wedding, honeymoon and housewarming. She pulled up a chair next to him and looked over his shoulder. He was looking at the wedding photos, touching each in turn.

"Oh, look! There's Bridget, who you walked in on." She smiled and laughed.

"Walked in on?" He looked at her questioningly.

"Yes. She was in the back room with the photographer, taking… nudie pictures, I think. Something risqué. You never said exactly how much of her dress was off. Don't you remember? You used to always talk about that. Me and my wild friends," she teased.

He shook his head soberly. "I don't remember everything. I wish I had a picture of that."

She laughed again, trying to cheer him. "Oh, yeah, don't you? You said you were looking for a room to adjust your cummerbund or something. I think you knew exactly what you were doing. Don't be coy with me." She jabbed his side playfully.

He looked up at her and smiled. "Of course. We weren't married quite yet then, were we? There's never any harm in looking."

Her smile faded as she thought of the various times when he hadn't merely looked and not _before_ the wedding. She watched the next few pages pass silently. It occurred to her that although Peter was present in a few group shots, none of the close-ups of him had made it into Cynthia's final choices for the album. Of course, Heidi hadn't been very taken with Peter even then. He'd been sulky for much of the wedding, sitting outside and watching the sky, being an outsider to things and avoiding everyone other than Nathan.

"I don't think you've ever looked at this album," she said.

"Hm. Don't take it wrong, but after looking at it now, I probably won't again. But I need to see things like this. I'm glad you have it." He paused at a picture of his father standing with Heidi, hands possessively on her shoulders and looming behind her in a stance that looked oddly threatening. Perhaps it was the older man's smug expression or Heidi's uncertain one that gave the impression.

"What do you know about my dad?" he asked softly, setting aside the album and thinking about how his father had virtually arranged his marriage to Heidi.

"Arthur? He was a funny guy and not in a good way." She shrugged. "I don't know. He always gave me the creeps."

Nathan looked at her with his brows raised slightly. She was a great judge of character, other than her unwavering dislike of his brother. It made him wonder suddenly why she was being so chummy with someone like himself.

After a pause she said, "Your whole family is kind of weird. So what was all that about Peter? You said he had an ability?"

"Yeah. He can copy the ability of someone else."

"So… like if you can fly, he can fly?"

"Right. He used to be able to copy all kinds of things and had… I don't know, five or six or ten different abilities. Then Dad did something to him, and now he can only do one at a time."

"Oh. You can… lose abilities?"

"Yeah, apparently."

"So, do you copy the abilities of other people like he does?" He looked at her with slight alarm. She went on, "You know, you said most people only had one. I thought maybe it ran in the family?"

"Yeah, it does, but I get mine differently. About that healing power… let me show you." He unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it down. He pulled out a short, serrated pocket knife.

"What are you going to do?"

"It's okay. It will heal."

He put the knife at the top of his wrist. She grabbed his hand and looked at him, "You're not committing suicide or anything, right?"

"No, no. It's alright. Just watch."

She took her hand away and he pushed the knife in with a grunt, then drug it down between the bones of his forearm, nearly to his elbow. He'd picked the sharpest knife he could find for this so it moved through his flesh easily. She gasped and looked away, then back in fascination as he pulled the knife out. There was no sign of the cut other than his blood smeared on the blade. Before his most recent visit with Claire, a cut like that would take several seconds to heal. Now it was almost instantaneous.

"Oh, my." She ran her fingers over his arm, checking it. He handed her the knife and she examined it too. "Ow!" she said, looking at a nick she gave herself on the blade.

"Hey, careful. That's sharp."

"I know. It's just… they have fake knifes they use in the movies, retractable, you know?" She ran her thumb over the blade, pushing on it from the side. "Oh." She pulled her thumb back and looked at it.

"What is it?"

"It's gone."

"What?" He looked at her thumb. The nick was gone, healed over.

"I can… heal? Are these abilities contagious?"

"No, they don't work that way. Usually." He looked at her intently. There was a lot special about her, but if she had an ability it was latent or impossible for him to detect. It occurred to him that the Haitian's ability was undetectable to him. He cocked his head at her, scrutinizing her forehead and listening to her song. He didn't notice as she took the knife and sliced open her thumb with it.

"OW! Oh, that hurts! That was a bad idea!"

"What? Heidi, what did you do that for?" He pulled himself away from the Hunger. He grabbed her hand, a wealth of information about cuts and first aid coming into his mind, flavored with the memories of the hospice worker, along with flashes of similar cuts healing on Claire's skin. _Stupid power. Stupid memories. Got too much in my head already! I should have been paying more attention._

"Put pressure on it. Here, curl up your thumb." He stood and started to leave for the first aid kit, then thought of the blood that had been on the blade before, when she was examining it. "Wait." He picked up the knife and looked at her. "Just wait." He drove it into the heel of his hand, holding the knife under his hand and twisting. It hurt terribly, the healing not removing the pain - an alteration he distantly remembered gifting to Claire, but one he was unable to work on himself. A few drops of blood ran down the blade and he pulled the knife away.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Let me see your thumb." She held it out obediently, uncurling it enough that he could see the cut, but not enough for it to start bleeding again. He held the blade of the knife over it, tilting it so the blood ran down to the tip. He touched a single, large drop to her thumb. The slice closed perfectly.

"Oh!" she breathed, flexing it. "Wow! That worked. You **can** heal people!"

"Huh." He looked at the knife and watched as the red blood on it quickly turned black. He thought about how much he'd had to cut himself just to get those few drops. "I don't know how useful it would be for me to try to give blood though. It's something to think about." He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the blade, folding it and putting it away.

He looked at his watch, a Rolex Nathan had had in a drawer in his apartment. It was time to leave. He wondered idly if it kept accurate time. He couldn't tell anymore, being as time-blind as anyone else. _Instead, I get to hear everyone's heartbeat. Useless ability, unless I wanted to be a doctor._

"Before you go… about Peter," she said. "And I know, I'm the one bringing him up all the time now, but… Today, when he came by…" She looked at the floor.

"What is it? What did he say?" He felt a premonition of dread.

She sighed. "Nathan. I know a lot has happened to you in the last two years. You're so different it's almost like you're a different person." She smiled and stood, stepping over to him because he looked suddenly apprehensive. "Sometimes though I still see the old Nathan in you. It's funny. So much must have happened to you. All this stuff about powers and abilities… I can't imagine. It's a whole different world, a different life. It's changed you."

He didn't say anything, studying her cautiously.

"Peter… he said pretty much what you said about him - that you might be dangerous. Are you dangerous?"

Nathan's answer was immediate, "No. No, not to you, not to the boys."

She nodded, noticing he had left out the rest of the world, including his brother, but that didn't matter. She took his hand. "I didn't think so, but I wanted to hear it from you."

He smiled thinly and drew her hand to his lips, giving it a kiss. "I think I should go now." And he did.


	19. Peter

On Monday Gabriel went by his apartment, set off the alarm and retired across the street to watch the show. He was wearing the face of Paul Washington, the hospice worker. Nothing happened for the first hour. No one came - no goon squad, no security guys. Just as he was about to give up, Noah Bennet arrived and went inside. Gabriel followed him at a distance. Noah let himself into Nathan's apartment and shut the door.

Gabriel considered that he had the man trapped. There was a lot of information he might be able to get out of Bennet, but probably nothing he was willing to share voluntarily. He didn't think he could handle torturing Claire's father. He cocked his head at that. _This is new. Must have picked it up with Claire's… whatever, essence? when I took her in that warehouse. Stupid power. _He leaned against the wall and waited, unhappy with the limitations of his conscience.

Bennet came out 15 minutes later. He glanced down the hallway and froze, recognizing Washington's face. Gabriel blinked at that. It had not occurred to him that he'd be known in this disguise. _Should have thought of that._

Noah's fingers twitched, but he lowered his hand to his side, leaving the apartment door ajar. _There's no way in hell I'm getting my gun out or back in the apartment before he moves. I really need a partner._

The black man pushed himself off from the wall and his face shifted to that of Gabriel Grey. "See anything in there you wanted?"

Noah raised a brow and looked back at Nathan's apartment as if he hadn't just been inside. "No, not really. What are you up to these days?"

"Not much. You?"

"Keeping busy." Noah smiled politely, giving him nothing. Nathan had a corner apartment, so there was nowhere for Bennet to go unless he went back in Nathan's apartment and took the fire escape, or walked past Gabriel. For now, he held his ground.

"You shouldn't work alone. It's dangerous."

"So I've noticed," Noah said drolly.

Gabriel nodded and turned, walking away.

XXX

Tuesday he came back and set off the alarm again, watching from a different vantage point and using a passer-bye's face. No one came, though - not even Noah. He repeated it Wednesday and Friday without response. During the week he rented an office and got set up, talked to family acquaintances that might be helpful and introduced the idea of a law partnership with some likely candidates. He made a few discreet inquiries and confirmed his mother was still keeping up her social calendar on Sunday evenings. Her house would be empty then.

He dropped by, trying his key on the front door. To his surprise, it still worked. _She knows I had a set at Nathan's apartment. Why wouldn't she change the locks? Or have removed the keys?_ Of course, had his key not opened the door, he would have simply tumbled the lock with telekinesis, something he had been practicing. It would have been faster, he thought as he walked through the entry, looking at his keys and wondering if perhaps all of them still worked. The only person who'd changed the locks on him had been Heidi, who even now still hadn't trusted him with a key. He looked at the one to Peter's apartment. _Surely __**he**__ at least had the sense to change the locks?_

He had nearly reached the bottom of the stairs when he realized his assumption the house was empty had been wrong. He heard steps upstairs and Peter's voice called out, "Mom? You're back earl-" His brother came to the top of the stairs and saw who was on the first floor. His voice died in his throat and he stopped breathing.

Peter waited as the seconds ticked by. Gabriel, in the form of Nathan, stood unmoving several feet away from the base of the stairs, staring up at him. _If he was going to attack me, he's had his chance, even though we're pretty far apart_. He realized he could probably just walk away, remembering his mother's words implying Gabriel wasn't looking for confrontation anymore. He knew where Peter worked. He hadn't approached him anywhere that he'd known Peter would be. That he'd expected Peter to be _here_ seemed unlikely.

His lungs were beginning to burn, so he started breathing again. He reached out very slowly and set the sweater in his hands on the top rail of the banister. Copying his motion, Nathan put his keys away in his pocket. Peter took a step down the stairs. Gabriel backed up a half stride, but stood his ground when Peter took a second step. After a few more steps, Peter noticed small flashes of light from Gabriel's hands. He was rubbing his fingers together in a nervous gesture, possibly without realizing it. Sparks of electricity jumped from them.

Peter kept moving down. A few more steps and Gabriel's hands were clenching and releasing, with more of a discharge. He'd hunched his shoulders and pulled his head down. Peter stopped when the other man's hands ceased clenching and froze in a claw-like shape, each hand cradling a tiny ball of now-constant lightning. At Peter's last step, Gabriel had shifted one foot back, putting himself in a fighting stance. _ That's not unintentional nerves. I could almost jump on him from here. Probably what's setting him off._

With elaborate caution and telegraphing his actions, Peter sank down and sat on the step, leaning back against the railing of the stairs and mostly closing his eyes. He looked relaxed and for the most part, he was. If Gabriel wanted to attack him, he would, yet he hadn't. Peter didn't think he would still yet. He watched the man who looked like his brother through his lashes. Gabriel's lightning had ended with a pop as Peter leaned back. Gabriel straightened. To Peter's surprise though, he turned sharply and strode off, then turned again and came back towards him more slowly, judging his steps carefully as though the ground was untrustworthy. He stopped a little closer than twenty feet from him, then took a step backwards. He then seemed content with his position.

It was an awkward distance to have a conversation, but doable. _Why that far away?_ Peter thought.

As if able to read his mind, Gabriel said, "You sound like Claire."

_What the hell does that mean? I haven't said a thing. Why would I sound like her?_ Peter thought about that. The only thing he had similar to Claire at that moment was her ability to regenerate, which was a part of why he was confronting Gabriel. He had no idea how effective regeneration was against disintegration, but it should protect him from most other things Gabriel could do to him. _He can tell I have Claire's ability? So much for the element of surprise, assuming I was going to do something._

"What are you doing here?" Peter asked.

Gabriel glanced in the direction of their father's home office. "I came to get some of Dad's files. I'm restarting my law practice."

"Dad's?" Peter questioned. _You really think he was your dad?_

"Yeah. What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "Laundry."

"Laundry's in the basement, Pete."

Peter lifted his head a little and looked at the suspicious look on Nathan's face. "I was getting a sweater from upstairs. I keep clothes here. So did Nathan."

He challenged Peter's use of the past tense. "Hm. I still do. Speaking of places where I keep clothes, what's going on with the security detail at my apartment?" He rolled his eyes slightly, "I haven't disconnected the alarms yet because I figured Ma would just have them installed again. Has she said anything to you?"

Peter shook his head. "No, that's her thing. I don't know what she's got in mind. I haven't talked to her since Sunday."

"After you came to my house?"

"No, before." Peter hadn't talked to his mother afterwards, annoyed at his reception with Heidi and still outraged that he'd had to find out about Nathan's return from Mr. Milner. _Let her find out on her own_, he'd thought.

"Huh." It occurred to Nathan that he hadn't changed any of his locks either. There didn't seem to be a point to it. They were going to be in one another's lives regardless of locks. Rekeying them was just a waste of time.

Peter asked, annoyed, "Why do you look like Nathan? You could be **anybody**!"

"No I can't." He was calm about it. At Peter's disbelieving look, he said, "I can look like other people for a few hours, but not forever. There's only a few faces I can wear for very long, that I can wake up in and be comfortable in." _Gabriel, Nathan, Paul and Claire._ The significance of the last two was not lost on him, added through indulging his new Hunger. He knew he could gain other faces through it, but he wasn't sure if his psyche could take it, could assimilate the memories and personalities. When he'd first had shape-shifting and used it indiscriminately, he'd had a lot of problems. He was still finding new barriers and issues from Paul and Claire, like not being able to act against Noah Bennet. He gestured at his face. "I'm comfortable like this. It feels right. Didn't used to, but it does now."

"So you're going to live Nathan Petrelli's life?"

"I **am** living Nathan Petrelli's life."

"What about Gabriel Grey?"

"He burned too many of his bridges."

Peter gave him a heated look and Gabriel went on, "It's not like Nathan didn't set a lot of his on fire, but it's… a lot more recoverable."

"Are you going to 'recover' things with Heidi?"

"I hope so," Gabriel said neutrally. The date Thursday had gone very well. He'd even gotten a not-quite-chaste good night kiss. It was not lost on him that the more he sunk himself into Heidi's life, the more power Angela and Peter would have over him - the more they could threaten him, because he would have people he cared about whom they could get to. _Unless I eliminate Angela and Peter._

"Why did Dad pick Heidi for me to marry?" Gabriel took a step closer.

"What?"

"Dad picked Heidi for me. I didn't. I… I don't think he gave me any choice in it, but the memory isn't clear. Not all of them are, but she and I…" he shook his head. "We didn't date much, we were just put together and got married. She's not… she wasn't even really Nathan's type. Why did Dad pick **her**?"

Peter looked at Nathan silently. He remembered being very surprised by Nathan's engagement. It had come out of the blue and Nathan had never been able to explain to Peter, his brother, why he was doing it. During the wedding, Peter had felt it was so bizarre, almost a sham. He'd stayed away from everyone, trying to figure out what was so wrong about it. He'd been there for his brother, but everything else about it seemed surreal.

"I have no idea," he answered finally.

Nathan - no, Gabriel, he thought - put his hands on his hips in a gesture so like his brother that it made his heart ache. The man paced back and forth, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I've been trying to work things out, Pete. A lot of things are making more sense, but there's just more and more questions. I think maybe Dad was trying _breed_ people with special abilities. I was hoping Ma would have answered me by now." He shook his head.

Peter sat forward. His mind flashed to a conversation with Claude, where the bearded man had told him a story about Darwin breeding pigeons and had implied, no - asserted, that Peter had been so bred for humanity's 'maximum potential.' There was also the confession of his mother of experimenting on both he and Nathan as infants, injecting Nathan with a synthetic ability when it was clear he wouldn't have one naturally. Gabriel was right about there being more and more questions. He focused on the last thing he'd said. "What is it Ma should have answered you about?"

"My offer."

Peter tilted his head. "She wouldn't tell me the terms of the offer." At Gabriel's look, Peter added, "I'd like to hear them from you."

Gabriel stood very still for a moment and then turned to face him. "Sure. What you wanted - Nathan Petrelli, your brother - everything. And Ma makes me part of the board of directors for the Company. Co-member, equal in everything. Which means I get explanations. For everything."

Peter sucked in air. That was… such an emotionally charged, strange offer. He understood simultaneously why his mother hadn't told him and why she hadn't decided. _This is why he's living as Nathan. He thinks it will give him power, that kind of power._ "Do you know what you're asking for?" he asked incredulously.

"I have an idea, yeah," Gabriel said mildly.

_I wonder if you do? _"Mom said something else I'd like to ask you about."

"Yeah?"

"She said that you thought she'd set up Sylar to kill Nathan. Is that true?" _If anyone would know, Sylar would._

Gabriel looked up for a moment, thinking about it. Then he said, "No. I think she set up Nathan to be killed by Sylar. That's a little different, but an important difference."

Peter nodded slowly. _That makes a lot more sense. She doesn't need to talk to Sylar to set that up, just Nathan. And me. She was the one who suggested I take shape-shifting. If I hadn't, I could have followed them outside. I could have stopped it - I could have saved Nathan. _He felt a wave of grief at having been duped into complicity in his brother's death. He'd suspected it. This made it more certain. He sighed deeply. He thought about what Bennet had said about vengeance. It was hard, at this moment, to think she didn't deserve it. He felt his emotions rising. _Revenge has a certain ring to it. _"What are you going to do about her?"

"Ma?"

"Yeah, Angela." He didn't want to call her his mother at this moment. He knew it would pass, but right now he was angry.

Gabriel peered at Peter. After a long pause he said, "I'm not going to do anything _about_ her. If she keeps trying to kill me I might. I don't appreciate that very much."

"No revenge?"

Gabriel laughed a little. "No, I've got my revenge. **This** is my revenge." He gestured at himself. "She's got to look at me, every day for the rest of her life. She looks at me and she sees Sylar. That's my revenge - making her face exactly what she did. Her son's dead to her. She killed him. She has to deal with me, now." His voice was heavy with anger at the end.

Peter stood up, Gabriel's anger fueling his own. "That's not just a revenge on her."

Gabriel tilted his head at him. "You betrayed me too, Peter. I didn't need to be neutralized. That **had** to be your decision." He pointed an accusing finger.

Peter stalked towards him, which seemed to unnerve Gabriel, who said, "No! Stay back! Peter!" He backpedaled, backing into the wall. He glanced back to see what he'd run afoul of and when he looked back Peter grabbed his neck and shoved him back against the wall.

The younger man leaned in close, inches from his face, "You know what the hardest part is? It's not that I look at you and I see Sylar." He shook his head. "That doesn't bother me anymore. It's that I look at you and I see **Nathan**. You have _**no right**_ to be my brother. **None**."

"Pete!" he choked as the other man continued to throttle him, putting both hands into it. For a moment, in his panic, all he knew how to do was fly. Telekinesis, electrical control, disintegration - all had fled his mind. For a few tense seconds he thought Peter had somehow drained his abilities again. He might actually choke him out and he wouldn't regenerate, but then he found his power and shoved him away. He coughed and caught at his breath. Peter punched him before he could recover.

It knocked him back into the wall and Peter was hitting him again before he could focus. Two, three, four blows landed solidly before Gabriel could get his bearings and telekinetically throw Peter further away from himself, far enough that he could get a grip and hold him away as he tried to return. "Stop it! Ow." He wiped a single drop of blood from his face and wrinkled his nose. _Must have broken it. All better now though._ He grimaced at his brother, held in his power and only two arm's-lengths away. Peter's song was loud in his mind, so maddingly similar to Claire's and the loudest, clearest music he'd ever heard. He wanted to explore the differences and nuances, compare the two and combine them. He wanted to take his body part and explore every inch of it. It tested him sorely. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to do it.

He bared his teeth and released his hold. He looked down, trembling. "You're right." _I'm a monster. You've always been everything that's good in the world._

But those two words were all he said out loud. Peter panted. Somehow, the simple admission took all the wind out of his sails. Gabriel looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown. Shaking his head, Peter stalked off to the powder room where he wet a towel and ran it across his face. He didn't think he was crying, but his emotions were running high. _I need to calm down. Hitting him doesn't solve anything_. Oddly, he didn't think he was in any danger from Gabriel - and this was true.

After several minutes had passed and Peter had not returned, Gabriel came to the door. Peter hadn't thought to close it, being lost in his own thoughts. Gabriel put one hand on the frame, seeming largely recovered but still a bit wary. "I'm sorry."

Peter exhaled slowly and looked sideways at the man. "You're sorry? For mom setting you up to be killed and then making you into some kind of undead? For me having a telepath snuff out your identity and then putting you in a coma for months? You sorry for that?" He was still angry, but at events and circumstances, not so much at Gabriel himself.

The man with Nathan's face blinked at him. "Ah… no. I'm sorry for what I've done. To you. To other people. What I am… I can't change."

Peter put the towel down on the counter and turned to face Gabriel, leaning one hip against the sink. He looked back and forth between his eyes, searching.

Gabriel had a vulnerable, curious expression on his face. "Do you really… do you really see Nathan in me?"

Peter's brows pulled together and he tilted his head. "What do you think?" _Why would I have such an emotional reaction just __**looking**__ at you if I didn't?_

Gabriel's expression became serious. "I think I want a yes or no answer. It's important."

_He can detect lies. Well… this is one that deserves the truth anyway._ "Yes, I do."

Nathan's face warmed suddenly and his eyes teared. "Peter!" he stepped forward and hugged him, leaving Peter blinking in nearly as much surprise as when Gabriel had hugged him five years into the future. After a moment, he hugged him back, his feelings remaining conflicted.

Nathan broke away, gave him an awkward smile and said, "I'll go get those files I came for. Thank you. Thank you, Peter." He patted his brother on the side of the face in a familiar fashion and hurried off. He had sounded so sincere and grateful that Peter was left speechless. The younger man blinked and looked at the ceiling. _My mother has a lot to answer for._


	20. Homework

He walked into the Petrelli house like he owned it and at that moment Nathan felt he did. There remained the nagging suspicion in his mind he might be walking into a trap, but if he was, he was at least going to do it with his head held high. Angela was waiting for him in the dining room, the table clear of everything except her hands. There was only one chair other than the one she was in. The butler showed him to his seat. _Taylor, I think is his name. I wonder if that's a first or a last name?_

He regarded Angela for a long moment. He wanted to savor this. He'd finally given up on her responding to his offer, so he'd sent her a letter calling for a meeting of the board of directors of the Company, designating a time (now, which was in early April) and place (here at the Petrelli mansion). She had neither refused nor accepted, but seeing her sitting here now filled him with joy. She'd accepted - she just hadn't been able to bring herself to say so. Her expression was polite and distant. She wasn't giving an inch. He was so pleased about that. It would make this meeting all the sweeter to wring some level of respect out of her.

After a suitably long period for gloating, he said, "Thank you so much for attending this meeting of the board of directors, Ma. We have **so much** business to discuss."

Her tone was glacial. "Yes, we do. First order of business is why you're taking dance lessons. Nathan was an excellent dancer, advanced level at least. Yet you've enrolled in intermediate and your tutor says you're only passable."

It was his first warning of what he was getting into. He'd been very annoyed at finding traces of her security forces at every turn in his life. They'd even been in Heidi's house. "Ma," he rolled his eyes, "If you don't lay off having me followed I'll-"

She cut him off, "What? What will you do? You can't even dance!"

His nostrils flared and heat rushed to his face at her superior attitude. _What the hell does my dancing even have to do with the Company?_

"And now you are angry. You said you wanted to **learn** from me. My sons have been such a disappointment in this area. I had thought that **you** at least had some ambition, some desire to rise above your previous station." She looked down her nose at him. "For you, almost anything would be an improvement."

He felt another wave of rage boil through him. He brought his hand down on the table, palm down, slapping it. It was one of Sylar's gestures. It usually sufficed to make people shut up and pay attention to him.

She didn't jump or even bat an eye. "Who am I speaking to?"

That threw him and he answered without thinking about it, "Nathan. Nathan Petrelli."

"See to it that you remain Nathan Petrelli. I should not have to ask that question ever again. Do you understand me?"

He stared at her, wordless, fighting down the urge to obediently answer her as he'd done so often, growing up as her son.

"Now, your childish outbursts have shown that this meeting can not be a productive one, so I am ending it and we can reconvene next Monday at 10 am sharp. In the meanwhile, you have homework to do. Show some improvement by next week. If not, there will be no point in continuing our meetings and you will be a member in name only."

He barely stopped his mouth from dropping open. He rose from his chair as she did and snarled, "You will **not** dictate terms to me!"

She raised a brow at him. "Oh? Or else what, Nathan? Are you threatening me?" She laughed. "What could you possibly threaten me with that you have not already?" When he didn't respond immediately, she said, "You wanted to learn. Consider this your first lesson. Monday, 10 am." She walked off into the house, finished with him.

He let himself out, thinking he might electrocute the butler if the poor man got too close to him. He stood on the front step and tried very hard to smile politely at the world, all the while wanting dearly to give vent to his anger. He shut his eyes. _Next Monday. Just seven days. She set another meeting. With me. That means something. Means a lot. Calm down._

He got a cab and took it to his office, where he sat behind his desk. It was quiet, deserted. It was possible he'd have a customer inquire, but unlikely at this stage. He'd only been open a few weeks and hadn't yet procured any meaningful advertising. In front of him was a blank notepad. He was still steaming from Angela's treatment of him, but he was desperately trying to find meaning in it. Everything Nathan knew told him she was sending a message and not merely tormenting him. Sylar and Gabriel did not have the self control for it though. She needed to die.

He picked up a pen and wrote:

Dancing

Followed

Emotional responses - control

Ambition - Nathan, research

Threats - leverage, find some

He massaged his temples with the index fingers of each hand - another of Sylar's gestures. He pulled his hands down and looked at them. He added to his list:

Identity - slipping

He sighed and blinked and looked at the list. _Homework. Christ._ He wanted to start with the leverage for threats first, but he knew that was the least important of what he had written down. His pen hovered over "Dancing." What Angela had made sense of instantly, and he hadn't realized until now, was that this was really important. As he looked over the list, he decided it was indeed the most important thing on there. Everything else flowed from it, though him putting it first had been merely coincidental.

_If I don't have Nathan's skills, then I'm not really him. Or rather, it's hard to sell myself as him. I have a bad grasp of his identity. Anyone researching me would find holes. It's not hard to research me - she's already done it. I haven't been discreet enough. Is this what she'd trying to teach me, or is she just messing with me?_

He underlined "Dancing". He'd been taking the lessons because he'd asked Heidi out to a dance the next Friday night. Not all of his memories had come through the Parkman Process intact. Nathan **had** been a wonderful dancer, but Gabriel knew squat all about it and it seemed that Nathan's skill had been averaged. He'd found a tutor and had some lessons just the day before to brush up. She'd known and she knew what it meant better than he did. He frowned at the paper, recalling Peter asking him if he really knew what he was getting into, tangling with Angela Petrelli. Nathan had a renewed appreciation of Peter's lack of participation in the game. Sometimes the only way to win was not to play.

_Now what do I do to fix this?_ A part of him rebelled and insisted he should just intimidate her into working with him, but one of the things on the list was that he had no leverage at this point. _I have Heidi, the kids, my powers… what I know, I could get to Peter… this is useless. Threats are the least important thing. _He crossed that line out. It wasn't a bad idea, but it was premature to focus on it now and it was distracting to the part of him that just wanted to hack people's brains out.

_Dancing. Take more lessons? Go find Parkman and… well, that's an entertaining thought, but it won't help. Dancing lessons… Heidi._ He cocked his head. Heidi was just fine as a dancer, but she hadn't been assigned lessons through her teen years like Nathan had been. For him it had been either dance or a musical instrument - his parents had very strict ideas of the sort of skills a person needed in the upper crust. Frankly Nathan thought it was ridiculous, but it had served him well more than once.

He reached out and picked up the phone, calling Heidi.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hello there. It's me. Got a question for you." He perched the phone on his shoulder and looked at his list.

"What would that be?"

"You know that social we're going to on Friday?"

"Yes. I'm still looking forward to it." Her voice smiled.

"Well, I'm… I've gotten a bit, a lot rusty on dancing and I thought maybe we could take some lessons together. If you were willing."

"Lessons?"

"Yeah. I know someone, a tutor. Pretty good. He just does men, but I'm sure if I show up with a partner that would be fine. I'll talk to him first of course - if you say yes. I already have a time slot with him every evening this week."

Heidi laughed softly. "He just does men? Where do you find these people, Nathan?"

_Did I really say that?_ "He's… uh, a really good dance instructor. Come meet him, you'll see. He's funny too. Tell him what I said, he'll laugh." _And then he'll kill me._

"Okay. I suppose I could do with some pointers myself. Is this a way to get… oh, four or five dates in before our second, official date?"

Nathan grinned. _Thanks, Ma. I owe you one._ "You got me. But you'll do it? Tonight at 7?"

"I'll have to make arrangements, but yes, I can. Can you come by and pick me up?"

"Yep. Thanks, bye."

"Good-bye, Nathan."

He hung up and circled "Dancing", leaning back with his hands behind his head. He could now take lessons with Heidi, shore up things with her and pass off the lessons to anyone checking up on him as being at her level instead of his own. He leaned back to look at the list again. "Followed." _I could throw people off with changing faces… no, that's short-term and too easy to get caught. There has to be a solution that doesn't involve powers_. He got up and looked out his window, paranoid that even now, someone was watching him.

He backed away from the window and looked around his office_. I'm not here very much. I've had all kinds of contractors in and out doing things._ He walked around eyeing the furnishings, the vents and any irregularities in decoration. _I've got to have this place swept for bugs. _He looked at his list and at his laptop. _Can't trust anything. _

_She had nothing on the table except her hands. No records. I need to get a private investigator who isn't connected to the family, who doesn't think I'm connected, to get me some basic information. I need to know her butler's full name, for one. I need to know exactly what's visible to the public eye. I should have them check me out too. And Heidi. Peter? Naw, he likes his privacy. I should give him that at least. He isn't involved._

He drummed his fingers on the desk. _That's a start. I need to know what's easy to see. I'll go from there. Make some layers, find out what I can hide. Everyone was onto me about the Linderman connection. I need to do better next time, this time._

"Emotional responses - control." _Yeeaahh. She played me like a piano and I fell for it. Ego. Sylar's ego. Nathan has more sense. __**I**__ have more sense. I've got to get that under control. There was an acting coach I saw for the campaign… can't go to the same one. I could… go to the same one as someone else. Don't want to use powers, but that one's really easy and I know she's good, really good. Would prevent Heidi from wondering why I'm seeing a woman. Gabriel. I can look up her information online._ He turned to the computer and paused. _And if she has my computer bugged, she'll see my search. Hm. Public library it is then. I could check out a couple law books while I'm there._

"Ambition, threats, identity" _I wish Nathan had kept a diary._ He looked at his hands. He reached out and touched his desk, seeing glimpses into the past as the contractors installed it, as a salesman haggled over it, as another customer coveted it, as it was loaded into a truck. _ I've got to start spending time in the Petrelli house. Every inch of that place is a gold mine._

"Identity - slipping" Next to it he wrote "Peter". He looked at it for a while and then swiveled his chair, looking out the window. Peter didn't want anything to do with him, that much was clear. He sighed and turned back, scratching out the name. _I'll have to do the best I can. It'll work out._

XXX

At the next meeting of the board of directors for the Company, Nathan entered quietly, alert and thinking. His eyes moved restlessly across the room and his fingers touched each corner he passed. Taylor Grem, the butler, showed him to his seat. He thanked the man and stood behind it, folding his hands on the back. He stood at parade rest. Angela sat precisely as she had before. She raised one brow at him.

"Angela," he inclined his head.

"Nathan," she said in a less chilly tone of voice than he'd been expecting. It wasn't exactly warm, but it was polite.

"What business do you have to discuss with me today?" he asked, working to hold his features steady and to actually listen to her instead of react.

"You need to clean your own house, Nathan. No one builds without a foundation."

He considered that. _She probably means the restraining order. And reconciling with Heidi, which is going pretty well. Then there's a lot in my past I need to wrap up and explain, with the absence._

"Okay. What else?"

She raised both brows in an exaggerated expression of surprise, then lowered them. He watched her closely.

"Do you understand who you're dealing with?"

He waited a long beat and sighed. "No." _Does she mean her?_

"Well, at least you're honest," she snapped. "You need to. We can't go very far without that."

"Who am I dealing with?"

"Nathan, although I am your mother," she sounded put-upon, "it is no longer my duty to answer all of your questions, especially about elementary matters."

"I thought you were teaching me," he mused.

"You'll learn far more by doing than if I simply tell you."

_Then what use do I have for you?_ He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, trying to still his anger. He recalled an intimate moment with him and Peter lying on a bed, discussing their mother in friendly tones. It wasn't immediately helpful, as memories went, but it reminded him that he wasn't alone in being frequently frustrated with her. It calmed him, so it was helpful after all.

"So. Clean my house, learn who I'm dealing with. What else?"

"You have Mr. Bishop's ability. I have need of gold. Twenty pounds should suffice."

"Why?" he asked without inflection. She'd asked something of him. He had leverage.

"For the Company payroll."

"I want to see the records."

"They are not here. The steel bars are."

"The steel bars can remain here then," he shrugged. "I want to understand what I'm funding."

She glared at him. His exterior remained unmoved. Inside, he was amused.

"Fine."

He blinked at her.

"Don't look so surprised," she snapped. He fixed his expression. She went on, "I think we're done here then."

"No, we're not."

She raised her brows slightly at him.

"I want full payroll records and a financial report, including asset management and resource allocation. I want an employee roster, an organization chart for current and the last five year's structure. I want to know the names of all previous board members, their roles and responsibilities and who is fulfilling those functions today."

Angela studied him carefully. Finally she said, "You **want** these things… I think you should consider what you would say, if I were to refuse you. Don't ask for something you can't **require**, or get by other means."

He was silent. She hadn't refused him, but for the life of him, he wasn't sure what he'd threaten her with if she'd said no. He'd already savaged her family, her reputation and was only a motion from taking her life. About the only thing she had was her dignity and he was sure taking that would be harder than killing her.

She went on, "We'll have an abbreviated meeting next week, Monday, 10 am." _Abbreviated?_, he thought. _Shorter than the two meetings we've already had?_ She said, "You'll have your information. You can review it before our next regularly scheduled monthly meeting, which will be here on the 5th at 6 pm. Dinner will be served at 7."

She stood to leave, then hesitated. "There is a party at the Rockefeller's next week, on Saturday. If you think you are ready for a public appearance, you may attend in my place. Take Heidi. There will be dancing. I'll give you the invitation next week."


	21. Rockefellers

After the limo got moving towards the Rockefeller's, Nathan reached over and put a hand over Heidi's. "Thank you again for coming with me to this. I appreciate it."

She looked distant, like she was preparing herself to endure the evening. "Why are you going? I thought you were getting back into law, not politics."

_Law first, politics later,_ he thought. Aloud he said, "My mother wanted me to go in her place."

"Mm." Heidi looked back out the window. The distance between them seemed to grow without either of them moving.

Nathan gave her hand a squeeze, trying to bring her back. "You know those people with abilities?"

Heidi kept looking out the window. She nodded.

He looked at the partition separating the driver from the passenger compartment. It was supposed to be soundproof. "My mother… runs a company that involves itself with those people."

Heidi turned to look at him, listening.

He swallowed. What he was about to tell her was more dangerous than telling her about abilities by themselves. "I've been working with her. The Company finds people, tracks them, watches them. People who have abilities can be dangerous. The Company takes them out when they are. It's been in operation for decades. My parents… they were always involved."

She blinked at him slowly. He went on, "I didn't like some of how they did business. No oversight, no authorization. When they felt someone was a danger, they'd take them out. Rapists, murderers, thieves, controllers… there's people who can mess with your mind, make you forget who you are, change who you are, make you do what they want you to do. Some have abilities that make them strong or they heal, like I do. If they heal, police bullets won't stop them. Some can kill with a touch. Others have abilities that **make** them kill. That disintegration I showed you? Think about if someone used that on a person, directly. There are people who can walk through walls. No bank vault would hold them out, no prison can hold them in. The Company has been trying to keep people with abilities under control for a long time. I thought… I thought I could do it better. So I got the government involved. I told them… I revealed what we were."

Heidi continued to listen to him silently and intently. "It got out of hand. I'd thought… I was wrong, but I'd thought it would be limited to dangerous people, people who were taking advantage of others or hurting people. I couldn't stop things once they were set into motion though. They were rounding up everyone, no matter what they'd done. They went after Peter. And my mother. They weren't… I mean, they **could** be dangerous, but they weren't doing anything. Peter was a paramedic, for God's sake. He was trying to **help** people." He shook his head. "Eventually they found out about me and things went… even worse." He shook his head again, looking down.

Heidi turned her hand to twine her fingers with Nathan's. He looked up at her. He chuckled. "Heh. My life story - if anyone finds out what's inside, it all goes bad. Anyway, what this has to do with tonight is that my mother is trying to keep ties with groups that are influenced by people with abilities. This party, for one. There are people there who need to know I'm still out here, she's still out here and the Company still exists. She's sending me so they'll see me, know the Petrelli's aren't out of the picture after everything that happened." He concluded, "I thought you needed to know. I know… I keep a lot of secrets from you. I'm sorry for that."

She inhaled slowly. "Nathan… you've been more honest and open with me since you've come back than you **ever** were before." Her eyes went distant for a moment. "If you've been… fighting people with abilities, dangerous ones… that's why you left, so we wouldn't be involved? You were protecting us?" He'd said as much before, but she wanted to hear it again.

He nodded. _Well, that and Peter died. Or, I thought he did. He got betta! _He smiled at his joke, looking at Heidi and warming the smile to make it look like it was for her. It was easy enough. She'd dropped the restraining order a few days ago, since it was awkward and compromising for them to go out socially with it still on the books. He was grateful. He wanted to be in her life.

"Do you know who at this party has abilities?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No. I don't remember, assuming I ever knew." He looked at her cautiously. "I don't… remember… everything N-, I used to know." _Damn!_ He chastised himself for his mistake. _Why don't I tell her I'm a stranger named Gabriel while I'm at it?_

She nodded, saying, "You've been through a lot. Just knowing… changes how I think about things. Your mother? She has an ability?"

"Mrm," he said, realizing he'd said too much earlier. She cocked her head at him and he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that slipped in there, didn't it? Heidi, I really can't tell you about her, about her ability. I'm sorry, but I **can't**. Not right now."

Heidi nodded and patted his hand. "It's okay. I'm sure it involves manipulating people. She's always been good at that." Heidi scooted across the seat and turned to lean back against Nathan, who was blinking and looking shocked. He was glad she couldn't see his face. _That wasn't Ma's ability - that was Dad's. Or one of his. What does she think… that Ma's controlling me?_

It occurred to him that it wasn't far from the truth and as a theory, it would fill in a lot of holes about his memory and personality changes. He decided it was useful to let her believe that. He put his arm around her, enjoying the warmth of her body against his. _It's been ages… a lifetime._ He gently kissed the side of her head, breathing in her scent. He looked out the window and watched the scenery go by. He wasn't alone.

The party was as difficult as he'd expected it to be, given that he'd gone missing, been announced dead and been politically replaced. He alternately told stories that he'd been on an exclusive leadership retreat and that he'd been on an island avoiding "complications" from his stance against the terrorists. He let his audience fill in the blanks and connect the two on their own. The best lies were the ones the listener made up themselves.

His influence was definitely diminished. The only things he had going for him at this point were the immense wealth and power his family wielded. His career was laid bare to him by Gabriel's gift, ruthlessly picking out times when he'd thought his own merit had propelled him into authority and showing him how his path had been paved by the power of his name. It made him feel inadequate. He wondered why he'd never noticed how much of a tool he'd been. Gabriel was merciless.

His life had gone smoothly until he'd been manipulated into turning on his father. He was sure the hand of another family of influence was in there somewhere, though it was also possible he'd just been rebelling, feeling his oats and trying to prove to his father he was a man of reckoning. Instead he'd been wrecked. _Odd that it's a salve to my ego to think I was an immature idiot. I suppose that's better than being a dupe. Seems both of my fathers got their revenge on me._ He took some consolation in the fact that he'd killed both of them in return.

Shortly after he arrived, a close friend of the host came over with a great grin and a friendly hand, saying, "Hello there! If it isn't the scion of House Petr-" It was at that point that their hands clasped. The man's bearded face twitched with a nervous tic as he stopped talking suddenly and looked down at their joined hands. His free hand hovered nearby, but then he moved it conspicuously behind himself.

Nathan smiled politely at him and supplied, "Petrelli, Nathan Petrelli. You remember me." He pumped up and down on the man's hand. He remembered meeting the man at fundraisers in the past. He was a member of the Carlsons, a wealthy family currently located in the upper Midwest. He'd been a major backer and always struck him as an uncommonly good man.

"Yes, yes I do. I've met Nathan several times before." The older man nodded, his cheer returning, but it was clearly false. He looked down at his hand, trapped in Nathan's. He seemed apprehensive about it. "Of course. It's good to know that the Petrelli's are back in business after all. I see rumors of your death have been hardly exaggerated."

Nathan let his smile slip somewhat, but not his grip. "**Largely** exaggerated."

"Yes, of course. Angela sent you?"

Nathan finally released his hand, nodding and searching the other man's face. "Yes, she did. In person. You can call her if you want. She'll confirm it."

"Oh, I'm sure she would. No one would impersonate a Petrelli without permission." The man stepped away from Nathan like Nathan might attack him at any time. "It's good seeing you. Sorry about my… eh, confusion. It won't happen again. Give my regards to Angela." He hurried off.

_Great. I wonder if I need to kill him? He always seemed like such a nice guy. Of course, he might still be. It's just that I'm not._ Nathan sighed and caught Heidi's eye. He walked over to her and gave her a small kiss on the cheek.

"Everything going well?" she asked him.

"Yeah, I guess so. Just ran into one of those people my mother keeps up with. He saw right through me."

Heidi searched his face. "Is that such a bad thing?"

Nathan looked back at her, slightly puzzled. "Well… I don't know. He seemed to think so."

She shook her hair back. "Maybe you're just not what he was expecting."

Nathan looked at her, especially appreciative of her at this moment. _Moreso than Nathan ever was,_ a Gabriel-tinged voice in his mind said. His mood lifted to hear her confidence in him. He smiled. "Come on, let's get something to drink."

She nodded and accompanied him, saying very quietly, "It's still early. If you need to stay alert, get something light."

He shook his head and answered her in the same low tone, "I don't get drunk anymore. Not unless I put a lot of effort into it." He saw that she was looking at him and he added, "It's a new thing. From just last year." He settled for champagne anyway, to please her. It wasn't like the stronger stuff actually **tasted** good. Without the buzz of inebriation, there was little point in drinking it except habit.

After sipping together for a minute, she said, "Oh! I see someone I went to finishing school with. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all." He watched her cross the room. He liked the view. He tore his eyes away and went back to the business of making the rounds.

His next two encounters of any length were much more mundane. He was cornered by a man who wanted to argue with him about the no-fly list, seeming to think Nathan's previous involvement with Homeland Security would enable him to add or remove people from it. He was briefly sucked into another man's argument about how Giuliani was going to turn New York into a communist state. It was ridiculous. The man had had too much to drink.

His last discussion had more substance to it. It was with a sharply dressed, good-looking young Arab man who claimed he represented a group who could destabilize economies. That perked Nathan's interest. The man listed three collapses and one booming economy as being the work of his group. They were looking to cultivate interest in manipulating the money markets of first world nations and always on the watch for financial backers of the caliber of the Petrellis. Nathan had the impression the man was almost asking permission to play in the US sandbox. He wouldn't quite come out and say it though.

Nathan collected his card. It had a picture of an eclipse embossed on the back. Nathan flipped the card to face the man and pointed at the symbol. The man leaned in and looked, then smiled at Nathan. "One day, we'll blot out the sun." He sounded cheerful and certain. It was a bizarre thing to say.

Nathan looked at the card himself, silently. He looked up and said in perfect seriousness, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

The other man laughed loudly. "It's a metaphor! Haha! Just symbolism. Don't think too much about it. Call me, let me know, okay? There's always more money to be made." He moved on to someone else, working the room like a professional.

Nathan eyed the card, troubled. _Is it possible to blot out the sun? Why would someone do that? This isn't like blowing up New York. It's more on the scale of killing nearly everyone with that virus. Have they… were they the ones who caused the eclipses in the past? The scientists never could explain how we had two worldwide total eclipses that lasted so long. _Pocketing the card, he continued with the festivities. He wondered if Angela would explain it or tell him to find out on his own.

XXX

He was silent for most of the drive home. So was Heidi, seemingly lost in thought. Shortly before they returned to her house, she said, "What did you mean that you have to work to get drunk anymore?"

He looked sideways at her. "I have to drink high proof and a lot of it, on an empty stomach. Then it doesn't last very long. The drunkenness, that is." He furrowed his brow. He hadn't had anything serious to drink since he'd seen Claire. He wondered if he could get drunk at all now, with the enhancement of her ability. Apparently **she** couldn't get drunk at all, or so he assumed from the incident in Tijuana - what he could remember of it. His lack of memory there had nothing to do with Parkman and a lot to do with too much to drink. As Sylar, he'd been drunk several times, but it was difficult to get that way. Most recently had been the night before Thanksgiving as Nathan had tried to drown out Sylar's voice in his head.

"Why is that?" she asked, interrupting his thoughts before they became too depressing. None of his various component parts had enjoyed that evening.

He answered her, "The healing. It's a poison. My body purges poisons."

"Oh." After a pause she said, "So in addition to healing… um, wounds, you're really healthy all the time?"

He smiled a little. "Yeah. There's still a few things that affect me. I think viruses, but I'm not sure. I haven't been infecting myself to find out."

"Then there's old age. What would you eventually die of?" She was genuinely curious, but mostly asking herself.

He turned to face her, one brow going up.

"You **do** age, don't you?" she asked, looking at him.

He answered honestly, "I don't know. Other people with regeneration don't. My ability… I wasn't born with it. I got it from other people. I don't know if I get the immortality too. I suppose I'll know eventually."

She breathed heavily as the car pulled up to the curb, "You… you might live _**forever**_?" The driver got out and opened the door.

Nathan smiled thinly at her. "We can talk inside."

She nodded and invited him in. He hung up his jacket and put his hands in his pockets, thinking it had been a wonderful evening, all things considered. _What a matchmaker Ma is. First dancing lessons, now this. I wonder if she intended it? _He looked at Heidi and walked over to her impulsively, catching her hand. "Heidi? Thank you so much for going with me this evening. I looked across the room and there you were: beautiful, lovely. And I knew you'd showed up with me. With me!" He smiled warmly.

She smiled back, stepping close to him and kissing him lightly. His tongue pressed softly at her lips. She leaned her upper body away from him, looping her hands behind his neck and regarding him. He told her, "A man's gotta try, you know?" He looked away, cooling his ardor. They still hadn't been together, despite three dates and a number of meals. She leaned back slightly and rolled her shoulders with her fingers still laced behind his neck. The motion put her hips into him in all sorts of good ways. He breathed in and kissed her again. This time she responded readily, accepting him and pressing her body to his.

"Let's go upstairs," she said.

"Lead on," he answered, appreciating her form as they went up. _I thought you might never ask, that you could tell what I was like that man did at the party. Or… maybe I just wasn't what you were expecting._


	22. Conception

He looked around her bedroom. It was very much "hers". There was no sign that he'd ever been here. Comfortingly, there wasn't any sign of other men either. The furniture was the same, but everything else had changed: decorations, colors, knick-knacks and the small necessities of life that were sitting around. She was pulling the pins out of her hair. "Oh, no. No," he told her. She looked at him questioningly. "Let me," he said with an eager smile. She laughed a little and let him.

He ran his hands over her hair as it was. He hadn't been able to touch her this intimately in… ever. Nathan had memories, but he knew this body had never had this experience. He breathed her in and probed gently at her hair, finding the bobby pins that held her styling together. He pulled them out individually, pulling down locks of dark chocolate brown hair as he did. She leaned back into him, putting her hands behind her, resting them on his hips. He stroked his fingers through her hair.

She said, "As long you're back there, can you unzip me?"

He looked at the button and zipper and turned her so she faced him. She looked a question at him, but he just kissed her, running his hands into her hair. "Mmm," she responded, returning the kiss and pulling his shirt out. He put his arms around her and undid the button. His fingertips brushed the zipper. It began to move down by itself, leaving his fingers free to touch the exposed skin all the way down. She shivered. He brushed the top of her underwear, virtually a thong but with a wide frill of flat lace around a triangle of silk.

She stepped away from him to wriggle out of the dress. He unbuttoned his shirt and hung it on the corner post of the bed. His t-shirt followed it. She started to take off her bra. It matched her underwear. He objected, "No… not yet. Stages are good." She was also still wearing her stockings and heels. He smiled slowly and appreciatively. It was a good look on her. She seemed to appreciate him as well, sauntering over to place her hands into the band of his slacks. She pressed her body against his, looking up slightly at him.

He looked back and forth between her gorgeous blue eyes. He was swelling. Her smile deepened as she noticed. He leaned in and kissed her passionately, bringing his hands up to brush along her sides and over her back. She worked the clasp of his slacks and he stepped back a little to give her room. She pushed them down, taking his boxers with them. He stepped out of them and resisted the urge to interrupt things and hang them up somewhere. It was an effort, though.

She sat on the bed and waggled her eyebrows invitingly at him. He came to her and kissed her, slowly pushing her back into the bed as he joined her, until she was underneath him. Supporting most of his weight on his forearms, he brushed his body lightly against hers. She laughed and pushed him off her, to her left. _Ah, didn't think she was ready. She will be soon,_ he thought. Sylar knew a bizarre amount about how to please a woman. Nathan didn't want to contemplate how he'd gained this information. He knew more, a lot more, than even Claire did. There was something _wrong_ with that. It didn't keep him from using it though.

He tickled his fingers across her belly and she laughed again, turning her head to look at him. He lifted himself up and moved in to kiss her lips lightly, then her cheek. His left hand roamed up and down her body, confining itself to the bare portions of her skin. He was confident that when she was ready, she'd take it off for him. It was his job to get her there. He brought one leg up and over hers, rubbing, as his mouth found her earlobe. She still had her diamond stud earrings on. He caught the bauble in his teeth and sucked at it. It got a reaction, a stronger one than he'd expected. "Ooh! Oooh," she moaned. With a last flick of his tongue, he moved away. He'd save that spot for later.

He pressed his leg into her thigh rhythmically and moved his face to her shoulder, then her collarbone, kissing and nuzzling. He brought his hand up under her breast, but only rubbed lightly. She still had on her bra. He kissed down lower, his face beginning to brush the lace. She took a sudden breath and shifted position, reaching back to undo the garment. She shrugged out of it and tossed it to the side. He smiled, barely keeping it from being a smirk. He had other things to do with his mouth now, anyway.

He ran his left hand lightly over her breast. She ran her hands into his hair and over his back, where she could reach him. Her body was beginning to answer his even more enthusiastically. After kissing around her aureole, he finally brought his mouth down on the nipple itself, pressing his hand onto her other breast and kneading lightly. She arched her back eagerly and a moment later was getting out of her underwear. This time he did smirk. Once she was free, he bent his head back to his work and let his hand move tantalizingly lower until he was brushing her mound.

She tried to push him over onto his back. "No, no," he said softly. "Not yet. Stages, remember?" He slid his fingers lower, between her lips. Her breathing immediately deepened. He moved his leg up and down hers and this time she spread for him. _That's the signal_, he thought and left off her breast as he rose and put himself between her legs. For a moment he knelt there, massaging her clitoris, looking down at her and she looked up at him. Her mouth was parted and her face expectant, eager.

When he felt her hips start twitching under the influence of his hand, he pointed himself into her and leaned forward, biting his lip. He pushed into her slowly, looking up to watch her face when she started making small, aroused sounds. It was glorious. He could see, reflected in her expression, every sensation he was giving her. When he was about halfway in, he leaned down, carrying his weight on his elbows, and started kissing her again. He gave her slow thrusts, pleased that she answered each one with a matching rocking of her hips. She kept trying to push the pace ahead of him. He wasn't quite ready for that, but after she didn't stop and started panting against him he realized she wouldn't wait.

He pushed into her more aggressively, giving her his full length. She groaned with delight. He buried his face alongside hers and found her other earlobe, which he licked greedily. She arched under him, breathing even faster. He felt her climax approaching quickly. He breathed into her ear, "I love you, Heidi," as her first spasms began. He kissed her briefly and then lifted himself above her, thrusting energetically. It sustained and lengthened her orgasm and brought him closer, faster. Her fingers curled into the flesh of his sides, pulling him in, urging him on.

She wrapped her legs around him, her face beginning to draw into an expression of near pain. He had a strange awareness from Claire that that was exactly how it felt - over stimulated, too much, the muscles beginning to fatigue after clenching for too long. He'd muted her sense of pain from her and he knew, from her memories, that she felt robbed from it and resented him.

He pushed through it and kept rocking into her at an increasing tempo. After several moments her face cleared, though her eyes were still slightly unfocused. Looking into her face, he realized she was more beautiful than any shallow blonde Nathan had ever bedded. His thrusts became erratic. At first he tried to keep the rhythm, but she smiled at him and tightened her legs around him, making it difficult for him to go on. He made one last push and came into her.

He panted heavily, leaning over her, resting his weight on his hands on either side of her. She was smiling at him. "Wow… Nathan…" she laughed, a lazy, languid sound.

He pulled out and flopped onto the bed next to her, rolling face up. She immediately turned to him and lifted his arm, scooting against him. "It was good?" he said between breaths.

"Ohhhh… yeahhhh… It was good!" She kissed his chest. She moved her mouth towards his nipple.

He twitched away. "No, not yet. Not unless you want to go again?"

"No, still basking in the afterglow. You won't be ready again that quick anyway," she said, certain.

"Oh, you think so, huh?" He chuckled. "Remember that part about being really healthy?"

She was silent a moment, then said in a small voice, "Oh."

He sighed and hugged her to him. "You don't sound that thrilled."

"Nathan, I'm forty years old."

"Don't worry. I know. I'm not some horny teenager who can't wait." He shifted so he could look in her face. "I think… I've tried to show you that. You're important to me."

She smiled and nodded, moving up to kiss him. "You've shown me a lot."

After several minutes of lying in bed, breath slowing and bodies cooling, she stirred. "I'm going to get a shower," she told him and rose. She took a moment to take off her heels and stockings. He was amused to realize she still had them on. He watched her go, then rolled onto his back and grinned broadly at the ceiling.


	23. Invalid Reality

**Title: **Invalid Reality  
**Characters: **Hesam, Eli, Dennis Wells (OC)  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Warnings: **Mentions of blood and medical treatment, off-screen (probable) character death  
**Word count: **~3,000  
**Setting: **Shattered Salvation AU (though you need not have read any of that to follow this). Spring 2010, post season 4 (but the AU derails shortly after The Fifth Stage, and the carnival showdown/Claire flinging herself from the Ferris wheel never happens).  
**Summary: **Hesam is working as a paramedic when he gets a call for a stabbing. He arrives to find Eli in need and comes face-to-face with abilities.  
**Author's Notes: **If you've read The Diary of Lyle Bennet, then you'll have a tiny bit more background on what's going on. (But not a lot, because I haven't published the chapters between Diary and what happens here, so you don't know how Eli's situation evolved. Neither does Hesam, so I felt safe in leaving that out.) If you look really, really close, you still can't see Lyle here, but that's his ability, after all. It should be noted that I do not have a medical background and I apologize in advance for any mangled terminology or inaccurate treatment. Hesam's POV. 

It wasn't exactly a routine call, but I'd had similar ones before. Despite what you might think from watching those ER shows, my job as a paramedic isn't all stabbings and gunshots and delivering babies. Probably the most frequent thing I do is transfer patients from hospital/clinic/doctor's office A to hospital/clinic/doctor's office B. Then there's the calls to nursing homes, which I loathe but Peter was always pretty chipper about - might be part of why I loathed it. Of course I didn't have Peter with me today. He'd ramped down his hours a lot recently, taking up some second job he wouldn't talk about. Instead, I was partnered with a green, almost-still-a-trainee named Dennis Wells.

And instead of the usual boring routine of transfers or nursing homes, or even the more exciting drunk, non-responsive, or motor vehicle accident, today we actually did have a stabbing. We tore through the streets, lights and sirens running. Dennis was driving, because the one thing the man did a lot better than I'd expect out of an EMS tech was that he could drive. That was a tremendous asset and it made me forgive him a lot of other minor stuff.

I could drive okay, don't get me wrong, and I could drive circles around Peter (the man has never owned a car - it always surprises me that he even knows how to drive one, but for sure he doesn't do a good job of it when it's vital for us to make time in heavy traffic), but Dennis seemed to have a sixth sense for the road and a natural talent for guessing where the other drivers were going to dodge. Either that, or he was just damned lucky. As long as it was _his_ driving record that would take the ding, he could rely on luck all he wanted.

We arrived on scene first, which wasn't too surprising. We'd been practically next door in the scheme of emergency services, looking for a pedestrian who'd been hit by a car. He'd been struck and knocked down, some young white fellow, and then he'd disappeared. Reports varied on whether he'd limped off or just actually, immediately, right-before-their-eyes, disappeared. You can never trust eyewitness testimony.

Anyway, that's where we were when the stabbing call came in, so after looping out to the main drag and racing down to the next housing addition, we ended up not too far from where we'd started. It kind of made me wonder, yeah, but a stabbing isn't easily confused with getting hit by a car, so I thought I'd reserve judgment until I saw our patient.

Dispatch told me they'd lost touch with the caller almost immediately, but been called back twice more to ask for aid, again, losing the caller each time. So they couldn't give me details. We loaded up the usual assortment of gear we have to drag in when we're not sure what's going on and headed to the house. Not too surprisingly, no one answered the knock. I yelled a little, but no answer to that either. The door was unlocked and we're legally allowed to go pretty much wherever we damn well please when we think someone might be dying, so we went on inside.

As soon as we got in, a guy - white, swarthy, kind of a meat-head look to him - came out of the kitchen. He looked fine, on first glance, no blood or anything, but he was pale and diaphoretic (that's sweating to you non-medical types). He said breathily, "Downstairs. They're down-" and he vanished.

I mean, actually, immediately, right-before-our-eyes vanished. I blinked. I rubbed my eyes. I wondered if we'd caught something contagious and mind-affecting from the hit-and-gone we'd just been at. I looked at Dennis, whose eyes were bugging in his head. I said, "Where did he go?" like an idiot. Dennis didn't answer me. He was still staring at the spot where the guy used to be. So I decided there was probably a rational explanation for this, but it was more important for me to find my patient (if there was one, and this wasn't some kind of elaborate prank) than to figure it out.

I went in the kitchen. Dennis trailed behind me a little hesitantly. There was a door that might, given the layout of the place, lead to a basement. I've been in probably over a thousand homes. You start to get a feel for the floor plans. Builders try to make them all unique (I have no idea why), but there's an element of sameness there anyway. I tried the door. It was locked. Now who has a locking door to the freaking basement?

Just as I was thinking that, that fellow who had pulled the magic act earlier appeared right next to me. There was nowhere he could have come from except empty air. I liked to jumped out of my skin, but he was talking to me right away, saying, "He's in the basement. You gotta hurry! Come on!" He slammed his shoulder into the door. I jerked out of the way, the door frame busted, and he stumbled through the opening. I lunged at him and caught the fabric of his shirt, but before he fell down the stairs, he disappeared again.

Dennis made a really weird choking noise behind me. He'd seen the whole thing - guy appearing, guy disappearing. And apparently he didn't like it one bit. He muttered something about ghosts and ran off. Great. Thanks. What a waste of skin. He didn't even leave his gear, although I wouldn't have been able to carry it and mine too, but I could have at least come up the stairs to get it if it came to that.

I thought about going after Dennis to drag his sorry, superstitious rear end back, but I heard noises in the basement, like a scuffle. There might really be a stabbing victim down there. If it was a prank, I was probably safe. If it wasn't, then there might be someone dying down there. I edged down the stairs. I heard a voice, young and male, saying something threatening and vague and kind of distorted. I didn't catch the words. I called out and announced myself.

"Over here!" responded another voice, the deeper, more mature voice of the disappearing guy. I followed it to find two guys, identical, standing protectively in front of a third, who was sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall and bleeding. He wasn't bleeding too much now, but it was clear he'd lost a lot - and I mean a lot - of blood. It was all over the floor, footsteps having tracked it everywhere like they'd had a polka competition down here on top of it. There hadn't been any on the stairs.

I started towards the trio and was just wondering if they were identical triplets when two of them abruptly winked out of existence. Okay… I paused for a moment, doubting my sanity. Maybe there was a gas leak? Hallucinogens in the air? The guy who'd been stabbed was still there, so I went to him, hoping he wouldn't simply vanish too. He didn't, so I knelt and gave him a quick look-see. Next thing I did was pull out my portable radio and chew Dennis' ear off. He said he'd come help me. He said some other things too, but they they're not fit to print and it's not like I was innocent either.

I had an adult Caucasian (honestly, I had some doubts about that, but I'm not real good at telling people's races unless they're from the Middle East - to me, most Saudis look dramatically different from a Pakistani, for instance, but most Americans can't seem to tell the difference; I have the opposite issue, so, well, he was a whitish guy) in his 40s, about 200, 220 pounds, multiple chest stab wounds, defensive lacerations to the hands and outer forearms, and a deep gash on his neck, that, given the other injuries, I'd say was where someone tried to cut his throat and did a botched job of it. Poor guy.

He kept watching the rest of the room as I cut back his clothing and assessed. At first I thought he was just spacing out (common with shock and blood loss), but then it occurred to me it was too purposeful. It was like he was on guard against something… or someone. There had been no bloody footprints on the stairs, and he sure as hell hadn't stabbed _himself._ The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I realized what that meant. I resisted the urge to turn around and scan the room too. I hadn't searched the basement and I'd even known, heard, another voice down here. I'd just been too focused on the patient to think about it.

Very quietly I asked him, "He's still down here, isn't he?"

He nodded once. A new trickle of blood ran down his neck. Dennis wasn't here yet, though honestly, even if he'd hurried he probably wouldn't have been. I'd told him to grab the stair chair because the guy probably wouldn't stay conscious if he stood. Right now keeping him still was the only thing keeping him awake. I was going to be alone down here between a killer and his victim for at least another minute or two and that's plenty of time to get the crap stabbed out of you because you're trying to save the life of someone that someone else wants dead.

It seemed like I sat there for a really long time trying to decide what to do, but in reality it was probably only a couple seconds. If I kept treating him, maybe the perp would ventilate me a little bit for my trouble. If I stalled until Dennis got there, then two-to-one would be safer. But the guy was bleeding out right in front of me. As if he knew what was going through my head, another of those weird identical twin guys popped into existence right next to me and said, "I'll guard both of you." He stood up and faced the rest of the room. My patient sagged a little.

I looked up at the new guy. Where the hell did these guys come from? Where did they go when they vanished? I wanted to reach out and touch him to see if he was real or just an illusion, but I didn't. Instead I started trying to get an IV, which was hard to do given the victim's low blood pressure. I had to get some fluids into him fast. It was a wonder his heart hadn't gone into arrest already. He was tough, I'll grant him that, but I've worked some tough guys before - war vets, Holocaust survivors, the real-thing-outdoorsmen - and we're all flesh underneath. If being bad-ass prolonged a person's life, then Bruce Lee would have lived forever.

I was just setting up the lactated Ringer's solution when Dennis came to the top of the stairs. I don't know what it was about him showing up, but as his footsteps came down the wooden planks, the duplicate that was standing guard vanished. I guess he didn't need to be there anymore and that was when I started to think these phantoms were controlled somehow by the guy on the ground. Fortunately the twin disappeared before Dennis saw him, or else we might have had words of an even stronger variety, because no one goes deserting patients on my watch. Sometimes I really, really miss Peter and this was one of those times. That guy is freaking unflappable. I think bolts of lightning and fireballs could be going off around him and he'd still be calmly working his patient in the middle of it.

Dennis set down the gear and the stair chair, then knelt on the other side to help. I gave him a quick report while he elevated the bag of Ringer's and I started slapping bandages on all the perforations. The guy was still breathing, even though I'd been able to hear that he had a lot of fluid in his lungs. Now that he was getting more blood volume, he'd start bleeding more, which meant his lungs would fill faster and the probability of collapse was higher. We had to get him into the van and to the hospital.

I heard the clatter of more motion above us and for a moment all I could think of was the weird duplicates that might be up there doing something. Then I heard the police calling for us. Dennis yelled back. I nodded and said to our patient, "Okay, we're going to shift you into the chair and get you out of here."

"Wait," he croaked. "It's Bennet. Aye Bennet did this. Tell them-" Or at least, that's what I think he said. He started coughing, which caused red to blossom on the bandages I'd applied. I shook my head and told Dennis to help me and we wrestled him onto the stair chair as the cops came down the stairs. I told one of the cops I thought the perp was still down here, which meant I then failed to recruit the other to help me with the heavy part of lifting the patient up the narrow stairs. Not that the cops usually helped with that, but sometimes they did. They were more likely to lend a hand if the vic was a nice old lady, but nice old ladies usually weigh less than the meat-head we were hauling now.

We heaved him up the stairs and got him to the van, but he was unconscious the whole way. When I got the leads on him, he was in arrest. Dennis drove while I fought to keep the guy alive. And he was, technically at least, when we pulled in and the trauma team rushed out to whisk him away to the waiting OR. I came back later to inquire, but he hadn't made it. Sometimes I wonder if you just left a vic in place and worked them there, if they might survive, but that's probably stupid. Lying on the concrete floor in an unfinished basement, still bleeding slowly, with his attacker lurking somewhere nearby apparently waiting for him to finish dying… nah. We did the right thing getting him out of there.

One of the cops called me an hour or so after the incident to see if I had any information on the perp. They hadn't found anyone down there. Since I'd never seen him, all I could tell him was that the voice I'd heard had sounded male, young, and had a vaguely Midwestern accent. Maybe. I'm not so good at accents either, but he wasn't from the northeast. I told him about the victim's (whose name turned out to be Eli Stashwick) dying statement, but it wasn't much help. I did remember (but didn't mention) that we'd treated a Bennet for a stab wound about a year before. He'd been an older guy and was a friend of Peter's. I made a mental note to mention it to Peter later. Bennet was a pretty common name though.

I climbed in the cab after my chat with the cops (I'd been pulled into the office for the call, between dispatches). Dennis gave me a long look and said, "So… uh… that call, the stabbing?"

I looked at him.

"That was normal, right? Nothing weird happened." He looked at me intently, like he was begging for me to confirm it. It was clear he didn't want to accept what he'd seen, what I'd seen, and that if I agreed it was all normal and we hadn't seen anything odd, then life could go on like it had before. If I didn't, then… what? Ghosts? Strange clones of people that appeared and vanished right in front of you? The perpetrator must have had a power like that too, because somehow, despite being trapped in a basement that had only one exit, and he hadn't passed by me and the place had been swarmed by police, he'd gotten away clean. What sort of crazy can of worms did it open to imagine people had abilities like that?

It's not like I'd mentioned any of that hocus-pocus to the police. They'd have thought I was bonkers, just like we did at the accident scene right before we got called to the stabbing. "Totally normal. Nothing weird happened at all."


	24. Company Matters part 1

When he showed up to his first regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the board of directors, he found it already in session with Noah Bennet giving a report. There were still only two chairs at the table, now both occupied. Nathan suspected that was intentional, as was telling him the wrong time - or starting without him - whichever they had done.

Noah saw him and half-rose, an alert, dangerous look on his face. Bennet looked at Angela. Nathan missed the signal she gave him, because he was watching Noah's hand hover outside the opening of his jacket, itching for his gun. Slowly, Noah sat back down, never taking his eyes off the man who looked like Nathan Petrelli. _Obviously Noah wasn't told I was going to attend_, Nathan thought.

Nathan looked away from Noah dismissively as soon as the other man sat. He did his best to look unruffled and walked over behind Angela, taking up a resting pose behind her shoulder and slightly to her right. If he'd been in her position, he'd have been annoyed at being loomed over. She showed no sign of it. He waited silently.

Angela introduced him almost formally, "Noah Bennet, this is Nathan Petrelli, the new member of the board of directors of the Company. Do you recognize him?"

_What an odd way to phrase it_, Nathan thought._ He knows who I am. Why would she say it that way?_

Noah finally stopping staring at Nathan. He looked down at the table and to one side. "Yes." It was barely audible.

_Something just happened there,_ Nathan told himself.

"Good," Angela stated. "Then we can go on with business. You were saying?"

Noah nodded slowly and looked at his papers, sighing. His report was on four candidates for recruitment as agents and the progress that had been made to date in assessing their abilities and personalities. One of them, Nathan noted with a start, was a man who had been part of Danko's team, one Strauss had not gotten around to killing. He remembered talking to him once, but he wasn't sure if it was as Taub or Nathan. After each candidate's information had been covered, Angela handed him the four dossiers, offering them over her shoulder as if to a servant. She didn't bother to look at him. He took them wordlessly. His emotional control was getting much better.

"Do you agree to authorize first contact, Nathan?" she asked him.

He opened the first dossier, on a policewoman from Toronto who had killed a puppeteer after said individual had allegedly raped three women. The cop had left the service while under investigation. The investigation was dropped shortly thereafter for insufficient evidence of misconduct. She was now running a vacation lodge near a remote lake in Canada. Also, she was doing freelance assassination work for the New York mafia. Nathan frowned at the records, taking note not so much of the information but of what Angela and Bennet thought was important to compile about a person. _Never owned a pet. Interesting._

"Yes, but I'm going to keep these until next month."

Angela pursed her lips and turned to look up at him. "Noah needs them back. We don't keep multiple copies."

He slid his hands over the folders, feeling for memories. He was watching Noah put them into his briefcase, then back further in time. He saw Bennet choosing which pieces of paper to put inside. He pushed back further. He was watching him make copies, sorting the papers into neat stacks. His eyes slid to Angela's. "I think he'll do fine without them for a little while. If he needs them before the next meeting, he can call me next week and I'll bring them to him." Bennet looked up at him uneasily, the first time he'd made eye contact since Nathan had come in. His eyes fell to where Nathan's fingers were stroking across the folders. He looked back down and said nothing.

Angela turned back. "Very well. I concur. You have authorization to make first contact. We'll review protocols next month."

Noah left before dinner. It seemed to Nathan that the other man couldn't bring himself to sit at the same table as Nathan. Bennet's reaction didn't bother him. Thinking about it, he was more surprised he hadn't shot him on sight, given what Nathan had done to Claire just a few short months ago.

After the meal, Nathan gave his mother a report on the Rockefeller party she'd had him attend. "I only saw two things related to business. First was Jason Carlson. He knew I was an imposter from the second he touched my hand. He seemed pretty shaken by it. He must have had some sense of who I am."

Angela looked up at him sternly, "You are **not** an imposter, Nathan. You are my son. There have been changes, yes, but you **are** Nathan Petrelli. The Carlson's of all people should understand after what happened with Curtis."

"Curtis?" he asked.

"Oh, his stroke." She waved her hand dismissively. "That was ten years ago. You probably weren't paying attention. I think I know what's going on with Jason, I've run into him before. Try not to touch him in the future and if he puts both hands on you, kill him. There's a reason why he tries to shake everyone's hand. One is safe - two is not. You said there were two issues?"

He tried to assimilate what she'd said without betraying emotion, but it was difficult. He recalled Jason bringing his free hand around and almost, but not quite, adding it to the handshake. It had looked innocent enough. _What would have happened if he had?_

He swallowed and said, "Yes. This." He pulled out Hasan's card and handed it to her. She looked at the front for some time. He added, "See the reverse of it." She looked and pursed her lips slightly. He said, "The man who gave that to me, Abbas Hasan, good-looking fellow, he had a really nice Steve Harvey suit, said they would eventually blot out the sun. Oh, and they're looking for investors and backers to help destabilize the world economy." He watched her for a reaction.

He didn't get much of one. She looked up at him, guarded. "He did, did he?" She put the card down, not handing it back to Nathan. "You took Heidi with you?"

"Yes." He wondered at the change in topic.

"How are things going with Mrs. Nathan Petrelli?"

"Good." He gave her nothing - at least not until he understood why she was asking. They'd begun seeing each other after the party and he had plans to move in this week.

"Nathan, even if things are not going well with Heidi, you can't be seen with men. You know that, don't you?"

He blinked twice. He wanted to say a great number of things in response to that - foremost that he wasn't gay and he hadn't had designs on Abbas. But he knew the first was simply not true anymore (at least insofar as Gabriel was concerned, incorporating Nathan's memories and personality had brought along his preferences, which were broader than Gabriel's had been) and the second was obviously questionable since he'd even mentioned the man's appearance. It was highly unprofessional and he kicked himself for saying it. _That was a really nice suit, though._ Besides, things were great with Heidi.

"Yes, I know that," he ground out. _But she apparently doesn't know how things are going with Heidi. Point for me, then._

"Good, we're done."

He opened his mouth to ask about the eclipse, but let the question die in his throat. _I don't know enough to know what to ask. More homework. Glad I made a copy of the card before bringing it here._


	25. Three Months Gone

In the middle of May, Heidi walked into Nathan's law offices one afternoon. The receptionist smiled politely at her, then with more warmth as she recognized Heidi from the pictures in her boss' office.

"Hello!"

"Yes, hello. Is Nathan in?" Heidi asked. "You can tell him his wife is here and needs to talk to him for a few minutes, privately."

"Of course." The receptionist relayed the message and then directed Heidi to her husband's office. She didn't need the directions. She'd been here several times when he'd first opened the offices, but not since then. The receptionist was a new feature as he'd started to get income and clients. She was an older woman and Heidi found that comforting. As far as she could tell, the "new" Nathan as he sometimes jokingly called himself was much more faithful and devoted to her than the "old" one had been. She liked the change.

He opened the door for her when she arrived, with a concerned expression. She'd gone to see the doctor today, which had relieved him greatly. She'd been _sounding_ different to him for some weeks. When she'd commented last week she was nauseous as well, he'd been alarmed and insisted she go to the doctor immediately. He couldn't tell her what he heard. He was frustrated she'd almost laughed off his concern, telling him she wanted to wait a little longer before going. _Why wait? What if something's wrong?_ But it was her decision and now that she'd finally gone he was hopeful it was nothing to be worried about.

She looked happy, so he suspected it was good news. She still sounded different, but he'd noticed people's songs changed over time. Her's had just changed more abruptly than anyone else he'd paid attention to. Maybe it was because they'd become intimate? _Does love sound different?_ He didn't know. Even with everything he'd learned in the last few months, there was still so much he didn't know. Every answer gave him ten more questions.

"Nathan," she smiled and looped her hands behind his neck and pressed close to him.

"Mm," he smiled and looked at her through pleased eyes. She practically glowed. He thought it was a good look on her. He shut the door behind her with a flick of his fingers.

"I have good news," she told him.

"Oh? Clean bill of health then? I'm worrying too much again?"

She laughed. "You just wait. I'll give you something to worry about!" He grinned back at her and she studied his face. He was still waiting for her to tell him what was going on. _He really doesn't know, _she thought._ That's funny._

She decided not to keep him in suspense. "Mr. Petrelli, you are going to be a father again."

His face fell in what she hoped was surprise and he stared at her blankly. She had a few seconds of apprehension before he grinned like a maniac and picked her up, swinging her around. Her heels hit one of his chairs and she yelped. He put her down, but his enthusiasm was still infectious. He whooped excitedly. The lights flickered and popped. _You'd think it was his first time_, she thought.

He looked up at the lights with a sheepish expression for a moment. "Oops." He looked back at her and moved to embrace her, wrapping her in his arms and kissing her deeply, passionately. She pushed him away finally, needing the air. He was very happy to be holding her close, she noticed. She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him lightly, pushing him back when he tried to repeat his earlier passion.

"We're in your office," she reminded him.

"Yeah," he said breathily. "First time for everywhere." He tugged at her dress.

"No," she was still smiling. He let her push his hands away.

"I just want to celebrate."

"We can celebrate later. At home."

"Mm. Spoilsport." He leaned in and kissed her again, gently and tenderly. Then he stepped away, adjusted his slacks and went to look out the window, hands on his hips. "Wow," he said quietly. _That explains all kinds of things. How wondrous! Incredible. Maybe my ability is useful for something after all! I'll get to hear it growing…_

She walked up next to him and rested her head on his shoulder as he looked out at the city. After a long, lovely moment, she said, "We should think about names."

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"I won't know that for weeks, maybe months. You know that!" she teased.

He nodded and wrapped one arm around her waist. "You know I didn't pay much attention for Monty and Simon. But I will this time, I promise." He turned and put his hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes.

"I believe you," she said.

They looked at each other for a long moment before she said, "Really now, I want you to think about names. You didn't last time. Well, both times."

He nodded. "Okay, okay, I will." He tilted his head and looked off into the middle distance. "If it's a girl, I like the name Elle."

"Elle? That's pretty. Do we know anyone named Elle?"

He shook his head. "No. Another life." She nodded. Nathan still kept his secrets from her, but she could live with them. Secrets aside, Nathan's life centered around her and the kids, not his brother, his mother or his ambitions. She was overjoyed with what they had together. It was closer and warmer than anything she'd ever had before.

"What if it's a boy?" she prompted.

"A boy?"

She nodded.

He considered for a moment. "How do you feel about Noah?"

"Noah? He's that friend of your family's, right? Claire's adoptive father?"

He nodded. "I owe the Bennets a lot. More than you know. More than I can tell."

She nodded in agreement. "Noah is a good name. I like it. If it's a boy, then Noah it is."


	26. Company Matters part 2

The next month was June. Only a few weeks before, Heidi had told Nathan she was pregnant. He was still thrilled, catching himself smiling secretly as he thought about their times together and the times he could spend with his child. The idea of having a child of his own was still mind-blowing. How could Nathan have been so blasé about it? Of course, he hadn't exactly been wild about his wife, either. Gabriel thought he'd been an idiot. He had two wonderful sons whom he still hadn't talked to about powers. One of these days, he knew, he needed to talk to Heidi about the inheritability of abilities. He just kept putting it off.

Counting days and thinking back to when her song had changed, he suspected it was their first time together, right after the Rockefeller's party. Either that or the night he moved in. By mutual agreement, they had made no announcement, not even to his mother. He was eager to find out if Angela knew about it. The parameters of her precognition were very important to him. Without knowing her limits, he wasn't going to bother trying to plot against her in any real way. There was no point anyway, as long as she wasn't directly opposing him.

Nathan arrived early only to be told that Mrs. Petrelli had gone out. He looked at the dining room. It only had two chairs. After considering it, he decided to leave it be. It wasn't like he got tired doing something trivial like standing. (_Thank you, Claire._) They'd brought in the other chairs in last time for dinner. Come to think of it, he was probably under observation right now. He looked back and saw Mr. Grem some distance back in the parlor, where he could see Nathan. _Ah, yes._

He put his hands on first one chair, then the other, trying to filter through the many memories associated with them. The most interesting thing he saw was his father collapsing after his mother poisoned him. _Fascinating. I should be repulsed. Nathan would be. He hero-worshipped his father._

The doorbell rang and a few minutes later Mr. Grem showed Noah Bennet into the room, murmuring something that ended with "Mr. Petrelli." Noah glanced in his direction once but otherwise ignored him. Nathan ignored him in return.

He'd only seen Noah twice since he'd seen Claire and each time had stirred a wealth of unwanted emotions and impressions. He reminded himself never to take the essence of over-emotional young women. There was virtually nothing in Claire's memories that was of use to him and her feelings towards her family were annoying. They impeded him and made it harder for him to understand his own motivations. Those were indecipherable enough as it was. At least Washington's medical knowledge was occasionally helpful.

He directed his thoughts instead to the Company. He'd been surprised to find out things were happening with it. He'd assumed that after the discussion near Coyote Sands, things had gone nowhere and nothing had been done. That was what Nathan knew, after all. The truth was different. The machine of bureaucracy had been put into motion - it was just slow to gain momentum. Now it was beginning to roll along at a respectable pace.

Facilities had been located, resources identified and now agents were being recruited. Specialists would follow - a number had already been identified. Contact had been opened with the Consortium, a group similar to the Company that operated in China. What was oddly lacking was mission or strategy, something he hadn't been able to talk to Angela about yet. On the other hand, it hadn't been one of the things he'd asked for. Tracking the money had been helpful, but it didn't tell him where it was going to be spent in future.

Angela arrived a few minutes before the scheduled start time. She stood in the door and observed the room, slowly pulling off her gloves. After that pause, she strode to her seat, saying, "You should have started the meeting. I **know** what's going to happen. There's no reason to wait for **me**."

Nathan struggled to look impassive. She _knew_ what was going to happen? She'd always implied that her dreams were much less precise than she was saying now. He shook off his irritation and moved to stand in his previous position. Noah began his report immediately, talking about the initial contacts. Three out of four had responded positively, including both the agent Nathan had recognized and the policewoman whose file he'd looked at first.

Bennet had already contacted the Haitian about doing a more thorough interview with each. If results were favorable, he'd put them forward for induction the following month. If not, the Haitian would clean things up. They discussed Rene's salary as a consultant and independent contractor. At this point, he wasn't a regular employee, having resigned from service shortly after Sylar killed Nathan. The timing was interesting.

Angela said, "I think we should give some consideration to the induction process. What do you think, Noah?"

"I think it has always served the Company's best interests." His voice was level as always, but Nathan thought he detected suppressed tension.

She sighed. "Yes, that's obvious. But we will have other board members within the next year. We should consider how the current protocols look to younger eyes. Did you bring them?"

Noah stood and carried a single sheet of paper over to Angela. She pointed at Nathan. Noah offered it to him without looking at him and then walked back to his seat. Nathan took it, glancing over it. It was a standard oath of loyalty. He'd seen dozens of versions like it and even arbitrated some legal cases involving similar documents, when employees wanted to bring suits against their employers. He started to hand it to Angela, but then paused. She'd said this needed to be considered. He read it carefully. To his surprise, both Noah and Angela waited quietly while he did so.

He still didn't see why this was an important document. Finally he walked over to the table and stood midway between Angela and Noah. He set the paper down and looked from one of them to the other. "Do I need to mention Garner v. the Los Angeles Board?"

"Explain," Angela said.

"It was a Supreme Court case regarding loyalty oaths by the state of California in… I think 1961. In most cases they're too broad to be legally enforceable. I wasn't under the impression that legal enforceability had much to do with the Company."

His mother smiled condescendingly at him. He felt a surge of irritation at her expression. "No, Nathan. That oath is not enforced by the **law**. It is enforced by **power**."

He waited for her to explain. When she didn't, he resorted to asking, "What do you mean?"

She exhaled, clearly disappointed in him. "I mean that one of the board members mentally compels those who take the oath to follow it, including all provisions regarding obedience to the board and advancing the best interests of the Company. In the past, we have had a second or even a third board member who could act as a check against abuse, but at the current time, we no longer have a surplus of telepaths or persuaders."

He looked down at the document and picked it back up. _If someone is required, compelled, to follow this… oh_. He looked at her. "And this… all agents have taken this?"

"All of the mundane agents, yes. It's discretionary for people with abilities. The board votes on a case by case basis."

He looked at Noah Bennet, who was looking blankly down the table at Angela. _Obedience to the board?_ Nathan cocked his head at him. "Noah."

Bennet looked in his direction, avoiding looking at his face. "Stand up," Nathan told him. The other man did so, his face betraying a trace of his anger.

"Draw your gun. Cock it. Put it to your head." Nathan watched as Noah did exactly what he was told. His eyes rose to Nathan's and they boiled with hate.

Angela said quietly and quickly, "Nathan, he is a very valuable asset. Pulling the trigger would not be in the best interests of the Company. Please do not test this."

Nathan couldn't resist one last barb. "Smile, Noah."

The expression of stifled rage was absolute and Bennet genuinely struggled with the expression. He finally managed it, though it was quite forced. For a moment, Nathan basked in the knowledge that this man who had cut his throat during the eclipse was under his complete and utter control. This was the man who had hunted him and Elle. He had nearly shot Peter.

No, wait… that was Noah declining to take the shot and Nathan was thanking him later. This was Claire's father, who loved her dearly and was justifiably angry at him for harming her. Nathan felt suddenly nauseous. "That's enough," he said faintly. Nathan walked unsteadily out of the room, rushing to the bathroom when he was unseen and dry heaving noisily into the toilet.

He stared at himself in the mirror after wiping his mouth and face. _Did I really just do that? What would Peter think of me? What does Noah think of me for it? Focus, focus! It's just a moment of being petty. It doesn't matter. _He shook himself and left the bathroom, glad that the butler wasn't around to see him. He returned to find the table being prepared for dinner.

Noah regarded him coolly, with a far more collected expression than the other man would have expected out of him. Nathan still felt the full impact of his disapproval more strongly than he even felt Angela's. He cursed the stupid power that had inadvertently given him Claire's feelings about people. _Sylar's power was so much better. Powers are not made alike any more than people are. There's something unfair about that._

Trying to find something else to think about, he walked over to Angela and asked her, "Which board member do we have available who would be able to do this?"

She gave Nathan a long, hard look. Finally she said, "Maury Parkman. He is currently an inactive member."

"I thought you said there was no one else left of the old Company but yourself?" He thought about the organizational chart he'd received, which had listed only Angela and himself as active members. _How many inactive members are there?_

"No, you assumed it. I did not correct you." She shrugged slightly. "I thought Arthur had killed him anyway. It seemed likely my dreams were showing me that Matt had turned into his father. Apparently not. Maury has not been cooperative of late. If he will not work with us, then you will take his ability and we will continue without him. Matt is too unstable to recruit directly at this time and telepathy would be a fantastic asset for you - one that you will use many times."

There was no way he could keep the surprise off his face at that. It wouldn't be the first time his mother had deliberately fed him a power, but it was shocking to Nathan's sensibilities. It was also an object lesson of what she would do with someone as soon as they were not "cooperative". _I've got to stay alive. If not for myself, then for Heidi and our child, our children. If it comes to it, I'll have to do it._ Relief washed through him as he realized his mother had said nothing of the conception.


	27. You cannot live in fear

After dinner, Bennet left. The meal had been very stiff, but Angela had made an express request to Noah to stay and eat. Instead of sending Nathan off afterwards as she did Bennet, Angela asked him to come sit with her in the parlor.

"Have a seat, Nathan," she gestured to which one he was to take. He felt irked that she would choose his seating arrangements for him like he was a child. He sat where he was supposed to anyway.

"I have two topics to discuss. The first is more pressing. It is important you understand that, in the absence of explicit orders, agents of the Company have a great deal of latitude in determining how best they serve the Company's interests. Even with explicit orders, there are always issues of interpretation. This is especially true in cases of disputes between board members. It is also especially true of those individuals who have operated for extended periods under the oath." She narrowed her lips into a thin line and looked meaningfully at Nathan.

"I know what I did was wrong," he said sullenly. _Kind of takes the cake to be lectured on appropriate behavior by someone who's setting me up to murder one of her old friends._

"Nathan!" He jumped at her outburst. She went on, "It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong! Get that foolish idea out of your head this instant. What matters is that it was unwise - the practicality of it. You threatened an asset - a very valuable one, I might add - and you have cemented an enemy. You **saw** his reaction to finding you were a board member. If that did not speak volumes…" She fell silent for a moment, then went on icily. "Perhaps I have overestimated your perceptiveness."

He looked up at her from under his brows. It was not one of Nathan's expressions. _You know, _he thought, _the most practical thing for me to do would be to skin you alive, absorb your essence, cut off the top of your head and discern your power from your cooling brain matter. The only thing keeping you alive is Nathan's questionable morality. Probably not wise to encourage me to dismiss ideas of right or wrong. _Her eyes narrowed at him as if she knew his thoughts. For a long moment, neither spoke. Finally he said, "You said there were two topics?"

"I'm not sure I should even mention the other. I don't believe you can handle it. I've been meaning to activate Peter anyway." She sniffed.

He raised a brow and oddly, felt a wash of relief. "You'll give him back his full powers?" _Peter can take over. I can… leave. Or maybe we could deal with her together?_

She looked at him like he was daft. "Of course not! Nathan…" she rolled her eyes to indicate how little she thought of him.

He squashed the desire to choke her, to slap her, to do any of a dozen demeaning and violent things to her. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. He knew she was waiting for him to prove to her that he deserved to be told about the other topic. _Disputes between board members… Maury hasn't been cooperative… extended periods…_ He lifted his head and looked at her. She was staring off into the distance, but when he moved she looked at him. She'd been waiting on him. _She's still trying to teach me. It's just maddening the way she does it. I wonder if that's part of the lesson?_ He **had** gotten better at controlling himself. She was alive right now, in fact - untouched, even.

"How many of the agents are working for Maury?" he asked.

"We can't know." She watched him intently, as if trying to follow his thoughts.

_I was right. He's the one who made them follow the oath, he'd be able to change it at will and cut us out. There is no other telepath to check him._ His eyes darted back and forth as he thought about the financial records he'd looked at. "He'd be working within the structure, because otherwise he has no source of funds. Have you invited him to a meeting or met with him personally?"

"It is very unwise for me to meet with him in person under his terms. You, however, are much more able to throw off certain mental powers. Obviously, there are many elements within Parkman's repertoire that you will be susceptible to, but you are also proof that your body will eventually recover your mind. Or at least parts of it."

He stared at her. "I… you mean for me to confront Matt Parkman's father?" _And if he breaks me again, you don't give a damn because you'll just put me back together… even if I'm not the same person afterwards. I'm your wind-up toy, ready to be sent out again. How can my mother be so cold?_ It was somehow more shocking than her casual admission that she was going feed Maury to him so he would get telepathy, if the man didn't do what she wanted. It hadn't occurred to him that **he** might have to bring him in.

"Yes." She studied his face. "You can not live in fear, Nathan." She spoke in an almost gentle tone. After a beat, she went on in her usual aristocratic voice, "Besides, we can't send agents even as intermediaries for exactly the reasons you have deduced."

He stared at the floor. "His abilities are the same? The father's are the same as the son's?"

"No. He's much more advanced than Matt is."

Now he stared at her and he didn't bother to keep the emotion off his face. They were alone and she'd already given voice to his feelings about this. He'd also been shocked several times. _Not "if" he breaks me... when. Is this her plan? What would she gain from it? I've been "cooperating."_ He felt a cold sweat break out at the very thought.

After a long pause, she said, "Or I'm sure you could handle it much more easily if you rendered him unconscious and then took what you needed from him."

He shuddered. She looked at that. "I can't," he said.

"That's not true, Nathan."

He looked up at her suspiciously. _Does she have an ability to detect lies?_

She said, "If it upsets your sensibilities, make him unconscious and take him to the nearest facility. I can induce your Hunger and you need not worry about impotence."

"Impotence?" He stood up, outraged. _What does she think the Hunger does to me?_ "I'm not going to fuck the body, Ma!"

"Nathan! Such language. Do not speak to me in that manner. Of course you aren't going to do that!"

He sank back into the chair slowly. "Then what did you mean?"

"I meant if you do not believe your ability will function due to whatever moral qualms you have gained from my late son, then the situation can be forced. You can be triggered to indulge the Hunger just like you were originally."

He blinked at her. _Originally? Elle…_ His mind could go no further along that path. _She's talking to me like I'm Gabriel… or Sylar, not Nathan. Her __**late**__ son? _His heart hurt. _I'm dead. No reason to have scruples about it. What would Claire think of me though? Or Peter?_ He shook his head. _It doesn't matter if he breaks me. The only one who cares is Heidi. I wonder if she'd understand if I came back different - again. Would I even want her though, if I were changed again? I'd be a different person all over._

His mother spoke, interrupting his thoughts, "Take me to lunch next Tuesday. We'll discuss the details. Perhaps we can get through a meal without you suffering from your weak stomach."

He realized belatedly he must have been heard in the bathroom. He left without remembering to ask her about budget projections or company strategy. His thoughts had been entirely derailed with the dread that he was going to have to face a telepath even more powerful than Matt and the fear he'd succumb to the Hunger.

XXX

Tuesday, Angela walked into the room where the Haitian had been awaiting her arrival. He stood upon her entry and while she spoke. "Thank you for coming, Rene. This is a delicate matter of great importance to the continuation of the Company. I need to speak with Maury Parkman. He's in Los Angeles and operating independently. Given the extent of his knowledge, he must either rejoin the board or be removed. If he is removed, we must be prepared to find another telepath of similar power. To cover that eventuality, I'm sending my son Nathan with you. I authorize you to allow him to do whatever is necessary should Maury not accompany you back to New York. Do you understand?"

Rene's head tilted back marginally. He considered her words carefully before answering, "I understand. I can not agree to work with… that person you call your son until I have learned who he is."

Her brows twitched in irritation. "That's fine. He'll be here soon to take me to lunch. You can join us. How are your personal concerns proceeding?"

They discussed what of Rene's life he was willing to share until Nathan arrived. Her son let himself in and walked to the entry. He could see them from there, but he waited, eyeing the Haitian and giving them space to finish their conversation. Rene watched him, asking Angela without looking at her, "Do you feel safe with him?"

"Not entirely. But the same could be said of my previous son. Only Peter am I entirely safe with," she replied, sighing at the last.

"Hm." Rene said nothing else.

Angela walked out to meet Nathan, who smiled faintly at her. "Are we still on for lunch?" His eyes kept going to the black man.

"Of course, dear," she gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Rene will be accompanying us. I've made reservations at Blue Hill."

Nathan eyed the Haitian, who had walked up behind her. Angela stepped out from between them and silently regarded the pair. She was surprised that it was the Haitian who broke the silence, not Nathan. Rene asked, "Do you still believe in God?"

Nathan raised a brow and answered cautiously, "I've been going to church, if that's what you're asking."

Rene made a small shake of his head. "It is not. Where does your power come from?"

He didn't hesitate this time, saying, "It comes from me."

"And who are you?"

Nathan gave him an irritated look. _I'm getting tired of people not knowing who I am._ "I'm the person standing in front of you."

"Are you Nathan Petrelli?"

Nathan glared at him. _Yeah, really tired of it._

"Nathan, answer him," Angela urged.

Nathan turned to his mother and asked, "I need to know what this is about."

"Rene needs to confirm that he will be able to work with you in bringing in Maury. He just has a few questions, that's all."

_I don't like his questions._ He huffed, "That you're even asking is ridiculous. You know who I am. You were there."

"I know who you are pretending to be. That is not the same as who you are."

"How do you know who anyone is?" Nathan made an expansive gesture to indicate the whole world.

The Haitian looked at him intently. "Each person's identity is unique. You are not the same man that you were a year ago. What sort of man have you become?"

Nathan stepped very close to Rene, who stood his ground with only a slight narrowing of the eyes. Nathan's face was only a few inches from the other man's. He looked back and forth between Rene's eyes and then at his forehead, tilting his head slightly. _I've never had the opportunity to really __**look**__ at him. There's nothing there - like a void. Like nothing special at all. Like Heidi._ He narrowed his eyes, listening, trying to memorize what he heard so he could compare it to her later. Answering Rene's question was secondary - less important to him than what he was seeing and hearing. He leaned away. "I am trying to become a better man."

Rene looked to Angela. Her expression was guarded. Nathan had not given an answer she liked. For the Haitian, though, it was sufficient even if he was disturbed by Nathan's scrutiny. He said stiffly, "I will work with him."


	28. Road Trip

Rene found his new partner to be nearly as silent as he was. The man met him at the airport, wearing Sylar's face and introducing himself as Gabriel Grey. Other than the bare minimum words regarding their mission, he kept quiet. Rene found this very pleasing. Nearly everyone he'd ever been partnered with wanted to prattle on, wasting their moments like a barking dog, who, if it barks always, is never heeded. Noah Bennet had been an exception to this, or at least he was after an awkward first day.

It had bothered Rene to the point that he'd stopped speaking altogether for a time. When others thought he could not speak, they stopped trying to provoke inane comments from him. Obviously this was not the case with Gabriel. He believed the man simply didn't have anything to say to him. He also had the wisdom to realize this and the politeness to keep his mouth shut. The Haitian found this a comfort, especially on a very long plane ride.

Research had failed to locate Maury's place of residence, so they went to the Los Angeles office. It was a small affair with only three employees, none of whom were agents. They were support staff, coordinating shipments and providing infrastructure, working out of the same location as a short-haul trucking company. Rene had been there before so he was familiar with the layout. Parkman was not present when they arrived. By the time he showed up, the Haitian and Gabriel were waiting for him in his office and none of the employees recalled seeing them enter.

Maury walked in to see Gabriel sitting behind his desk, feet perched atop it. He hesitated and Gabriel's fingers crooked. The door closed behind the telepath who was at that moment trying in vain to use his ability. The Haitian was to his right, in the guest chair. Maury saw him belatedly and stopped wasting his mental energy. He'd get a better chance, he was sure.

Gabriel put his feet down and said, "Mr. Parkman. We have come to escort you to New York, where Angela Petrelli wants to discuss business with you."

"I'm not interested in going," Maury said conversationally. His eyes were moving between Rene and Gabriel.

Gabriel stood up. "That's too bad. It's not part of our orders. You're coming with us." He walked around the desk, hooking his hand around Maury's elbow. He stopped when he made the physical contact. A mental rapport flowed through his body, uninterrupted by the Haitain's power. Rene had exempted Gabriel from the effects of his nullification. It had been a mistake, but it was too late to correct it now.

Gabriel's arm struck out. Electricity coursed through Rene, dropping him to the floor and ending his effect. Maury took a moment to see who it was Angela had sent for him. He knew the Haitian and he'd seen Sylar's face before, but they'd never met. Arthur had kept Maury traveling and setting up fallbacks during his last days at Pinehearst, when Sylar had been there. He had obviously foreseen his "death." Parkman smirked. _These people are so blind._

From what he recalled reading about Sylar, he might be interesting to keep, especially if he could coerce some measure of loyalty out of him. Obviously Angela thought the same and she was the only precog he'd ever run into who still had her sanity: hadn't been driven into isolation, drugs or coma by what she saw. She always had an excellent sense of who might be of use to her in the future. _Tough old bat_, he thought and entered Gabriel's nightmare.

In Gabriel's mind, he was strapped down on a platform as he had been in Primatech's Level 5, neutralized as he had been in Omaha. The platform was in the middle of the entry for the Petrelli mansion. Maury turned and looked at the high ceilings. At the top of the staircase stood Peter and Heidi, but they were remote and unable to affect the ground floor. Peter was turned away, looking out a window. Heidi stared down at the scene below, but seemed powerless to affect it. The walls were mostly covered with mirrors that flashed with other images from time to time. This was the nightmare his mind had made when Parkman trapped him.

Maury walked around the room, looking at the various screens. "Oh my. There's so much here to work with… so many problems, so many issues. Sociopathy, narcissism, oedipal complex, identity issues, delusions of grandeur… just plain delusions over here," he waved at another screen. "These are all divided, compartmentalized. Yes, I do think you might be the most compartmentalized person I've ever seen who didn't go all the way and have multiple personalities." He looked at the man on the slab. He knew Gabriel could hear him, even if he might not remember the conversation later. "It would be easier that way, you know? Easier to segment, to justify, to rationalize. This way you always have to deal with everything. Can't shove off responsibility to anyone else." He frowned. "Why would you do things this way? People don't do things this way. This is the hard way."

After a long pause Maury said, "I could fix you."

Gabriel twitched. He trembled despite the neutralizer.

"Yes, I could. I see my son's work here. Probably his greatest work. I would have thought this much would have killed you. How did he keep you alive, I wonder?" Scenes of Gabriel and Nathan's deaths flashed on the nearest screen. "Hm. Seems that staying alive has never been a problem for you. Lucky son of a bitch. I can see why Arthur called you his son. Why did Matt fragment you so much? That doesn't accomplish anything unless he was trying to get rid of you. Was… Angela trying to get rid of Arthur's toy?" He smiled to himself. "Those two have always fought like an old married couple. Might be a reason for that."

Maury looked at a mirror, trying to pull up images related to what Matt Parkman had done to him. All he saw was himself. He tried again to find out what Gabriel knew of Angela's reasons for killing him. He found information, but it wasn't immediately useful. He gathered that Gabriel didn't understand it either.

He gave it up and moved on to another mirror-like screen. Parkman watched as sexual scenes played out on it. They were entertaining. "Now that's amusing. A… Let's see here, an adulterous, homophobic, bisexual rapist, infatuated with someone you've deluded yourself into thinking is your brother, who hates you and thinks you're someone else." He shook his head. "That must be awfully complicated. Here, let me see what I can do to make that worse… I'm sure your father will thank me." He pushed his hand into the mirror. It deformed under his touch, stretching and melting as he reached into Gabriel's life and altered him.

"Get away from him!"

He was interrupted before he got very far. He turned in surprise to see Claire Bennet glaring at him. Behind her was a young black man who was removing Gabriel's restraints. "Who are you?" Maury tilted his head. He did not sense any presence. These people must be manifestations of Gabriel's psyche, but without independent auras. They were actually participatory, rather than the window-dressing that made up Peter and Heidi. These two were doing what Gabriel thought they would do, as extensions of himself. Gabriel was fighting his way out of the nightmare as his body recognized the foreign influence and rejected it. "Ah, yes, the regeneration. I should have known. You people are always so tedious to keep control of."

Claire closed on him rapidly, but instead of shrinking from her, Maury stepped forward to meet her. He sunk his hand into Claire's chest. Her eyes bugged. He twisted, changing her. Gabriel struggled up from the platform and staggered towards him. Maury tilted his head at the approaching man. "Do you really want to do that? I'll-" Parkman faded out abruptly.

Rene caught Maury so he didn't fall heavily and alert the employees outside. Once Parkman was safely lowered, he looked at Gabriel's face. The other man blinked and took an uncertain step, looking around himself. He saw Maury on the floor and his hand came up, face contorted with rage. The Haitian caught his hand. No power emerged from it. For a long moment Gabriel glared at Rene but did nothing else. Finally he jerked his hand away and moved to the opposite side of the office, covering his eyes with one hand, trying to collect himself.

"Will you be killing him?" The Haitian asked. "I will not stop you, now that you are thinking."

Gabriel looked back for a second and then covered his eyes again as if he were sorry he'd looked. He was breathing heavily. "No. Why would I do that?"

"You are the Angel of Death, Gabriel."

He shook his head, but the thought had been planted. _I'm… Nathan! I don't want to be Gabriel. What am I even doing wearing his face?_ He shivered, trying unsuccessfully to shift his appearance to the senator. He couldn't reach it. It was as if Nathan was lost to him, a stranger.

He glanced over at the man on the floor, but the glance turned into a longer look. Maury was still, unresisting, unconscious. The strain of resisting the Hunger began to feel like a physical pain inside of him. Parkman had a power, an ability that would greatly increase his understanding of things, perhaps even of himself. His mother clearly wanted him to take it - she'd foreseen it. Who was he to resist the future?

He had the opportunity. No one would be stopping him - no one but himself. In a hoarse whisper, he said, "I have to get out of here. Let me **out**!" He pushed past the other man and shoved his way out of the room. He hurried through the office, surprising the employees who saw him run by.

He flew back to New York alone that night. Only once he was in flight was he able to force his features back to Nathan's. He left Rene with the unpleasant task of keeping Maury unconscious and getting him back. Nathan didn't sleep, spending much of the night sitting on top of the same bridge Tracy Strauss had thrown herself off. It was not lost on him that Maury had likely been the one behind warning him of her impending suicide, through his projection as Linderman. _Did he do that because he didn't want to see her hurt? She wasn't useful to my father._ His thoughts of his father were suddenly confused. He tried to shake the thoughts away, but they lingered like a stench.

He wished he could throw himself off. He felt violated. His mind had been _changed_ again, but this time more subtly, less completely. He hated it. He wasn't sure what Maury had done to him, but he felt shame, he felt disgust and he felt afraid for those he loved. There was no one he wanted to talk to about it except Peter and Peter... he might say he saw Nathan in him, but that just seemed to upset his brother, made him angry. Nathan held his head in his hands.

XXX

Rene looked at Maury Parkman, unconscious on the floor. He had three, maybe four employees in the office outside to worry about. One of them saved him the trouble of finding him by opening the door to see what was going on. "Mr. Parkman?" he said, looking at the man on the floor, then at the Haitian.

The black man said, feigning concern, "I think he had a heart attack. He fell. I sent my friend to get help."

The man's mouth hung open for a moment, confused. "Oh, um. Ah…" Glancing uneasily between Rene and Maury, he bent to take Maury's pulse, putting himself on the opposite side of the body from the Haitian and keeping a wary eye on him. Rene nodded slightly. The man had at least basic agent training, but he either had no field training, or he was stupid. The former seemed more likely, given his job description. He heard someone else coming to investigate.

A woman came to the door and looked down. "Oh my God! Is he okay?"

"He has a pulse. You should call an ambulance." The man shot Rene an uncertain look, still trying to figure out the Haitian's role in things. Rene followed the woman out. The man called out, "Don't let him leave!"

Rene had no intention of that yet. He verified that Gabriel was entirely gone. This was something he needed to know. Things would be far more complicated if the man was pacing outside or otherwise loitering, caught between the Hunger and his conscience - but Gabriel was nowhere to be seen. Rene followed the woman to her phone, pressing her too closely. The last employee, also female, came to her side to support her, glaring at him. Her gun hand was concealed.

He lifted his hands, showing they were empty. He continued lifting them and brought them forward quickly to both woman's foreheads. He disrupted them, knocking them out. Now he had only one to deal with. He turned and strode decisively to the room where the man continued to kneel next to Maury, now trying to wake him. He saw Rene coming and read his body language correctly. There was a brief fight, but it was settled in seconds.

Rene picked up the materials they'd gathered earlier in the office and went out to get the car. He brought it around and backed it up to the door, then went inside and pulled Maury to it. Getting him inside the vehicle was the roughest part. His back hurt afterwards. He tried to stretch, but it still hurt. He was sure Parkman had a number of scrapes and bruises now. He checked him over to make sure there was nothing too serious and put restraints on him. He went back to wipe down the relevant portions of the office.

When Maury woke up, the car was in motion. He was in the back seat, his hands cuffed together, as were his feet. There was a chain between them that also looped through the hand grip on the door of the car, rear passenger side. He struggled himself into a normal sitting position. He had just enough slack in the chain for that and not enough to allow him to get at the driver. Rene adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see Maury's face if he so desired. Then he looked back to his driving.

They were on the highway in California. Parkman looked around for landmarks and highway signs. He said, "Where we headed?"

There was no answer.

"It doesn't look like we're going to the airport. Where're you taking me?"

Silence.

"Come on, you black bastard. Tell me where we're going, God damn it!" he said with a large degree of heat in his voice.

This earned him a brief glare in the rearview mirror, but nothing else.

He kicked the back of the passenger seat, annoyed. One of his knees hurt and so did the small of his back and his shoulders, now that he thought about it. He watched various other cars on the road, wishing he had use of his ability. It would make short work of things, as he could control just about anyone he could see. But he didn't - no use wishing. He got comfortable and watched the signs. Apparently they were going east. He assumed either to a private airstrip or just driving all the way to New York. If the latter, that would be very tedious and he'd eventually get a break.

Several hours passed. He started watching the fuel gage over the Haitian's shoulder. It wouldn't be long now. Traffic had thinned and they'd entered an area more sparsely populated than they had been in. A sign indicated the next fuel station was in eight miles. Within a minute or two, they pulled over to the side of the road. Maury sat up alertly. They were just on the side of the road. There was nothing here.

The Haitian got out and walked around to his side of the car, opening the door. This pulled the chain out, which didn't give Maury any slack to back up. He looked up at the man uncertainly. With most people, even most people with abilities, he could read their intent as easily as looking at them – but not now. Rene was looking at the length of the chain, pulling the door open a bit more until it was taut. "Do you want me to get out?" Parkman asked.

The black man pressed his hip against the door so it couldn't be pulled shut and reached abruptly for his head. Maury yelled and thrashed, but Rene had worked out the length correctly. His victim didn't have enough slack to get his hands up and he hadn't brought his feet around where he could kick him. Within a second, he was unconscious again.

Parkman woke up some time later. The car was driving again. He shook his head. There was a faint pain in it. They were further into the mountains now. "God damn it," he muttered to himself and sat up. The fuel tank was full again, or nearly so. Rene had a drink in a large plastic convenience store cup. The car smelled of food. Maury was reminded he hadn't eaten since breakfast. "Hey, uh… can I get something to eat?"

He was ignored.

He cleared his throat. "I said, can I get something to eat? Please?" He asked in the most civil tone of voice he could manage.

That didn't work either.

"You know, you're going to have to feed me eventually."

No response.

He kicked the back of the passenger seat again. He spent some time examining the cuffs and chain. Although he figured he could tear the car door apart to get loose, it would be difficult and he'd be stopped before he made any headway. At one time he'd been decent at picking locks, but he didn't have any tools. Several more hours passed. Darkness fell as they climbed the Rockies. His stomach growled relentlessly. As far as he could tell, Rene had consumed all the food and drink he had purchased.

Maury was beginning to feel a bit piqued about things. He figured his captor would have to stop to sleep eventually. He'd get him then. In the meantime, the man wasn't going to sleep while driving, so Maury might as well catch a nap. He roused when the car stopped somewhere remote and dark. He blinked up to see the Haitian lean between the two front seats and reach for him, his hand on Maury's head before he could react.

The next time he woke, it was morning. He sat up blearily and watched the landscape pass. They were coming down out of the Rockies. The Great Plains stretched before him. He groaned. His head hurt. He was hungry. He was thirsty and he desperately had to urinate. This last was the most important.

"Hey… uh… I've really got to take a piss. Can you pull over and let me out?"

Rene looked back at him, at least showing an acknowledgement that he'd spoken.

After several minutes went by and a number of ideal locations passed behind them, he tried again. "Now listen here… if you don't stop and let me take a piss, I'm going to go in here and do my level best to get it on **you**. No matter what, you're going to have to drive for the next day or so smelling it. Do you really want that?" He huffed and added, "I'm not asking you to go to a rest stop or anywhere with people. Just… anywhere."

The Haitian looked back at him several more times, then pulled off the road. Maury opened the door as soon as they stopped. He could just barely get out and stand. He got back in a minute later, his most pressing need taken care of. As soon as the door was shut, they were back in motion.

"Hey, you got anything up there to drink? I'm dying back here."

Silence.

"Oh, come on! I don't think you've said word one since yesterday. At least talk to me. If you're not going to give me anything to eat or drink, then at least give me some conversation to keep my mind off it."

Silence.

"Fine. I'll talk, you listen. Let me tell you about my feelings on God and reli-"

Rene cut him off, saying, "Would you like to listen to music?"

Maury's mouth hung open for a moment. It occurred to him that instead of being offended by the 'black bastard' part, perhaps it was the 'God damn it' that had gotten him the look earlier. He vaguely remembered something about the Haitian having a religious fixation, but not in enough detail to know how to use it to manipulate him. "Um… yeah." He sat forward. "Find something classic, 60s, 70s maybe."

The Haitian set the radio to scan. After the first time through, he looked back in the mirror and said, "That was everything." His voice was a warning that he wouldn't brook having his time wasted fiddling with the radio on Maury's behalf.

Parkman grimaced. "Please. Let it go through again. I'll pick something, I swear." They didn't get many choices out in western Nebraska or north eastern Colorado - wherever they were. He made his selection. He leaned back and listened to 'There Goes My Baby' by the Drifters. He was tempted to talk about the song to his driver, but suspected that was a fast way to get no music at all. At least it was distracting.

A few hours later, the Haitian pulled off the highway and began to drive down rural roads. Parkman said, "Where-" He leaned forward. The gas tank was low again. "Listen," he said desperately. "Don't… You… You're an experienced field agent. Please, don't do that to me again. I know you have tranquilizers. You wouldn't go on this sort of mission without them."

Rene found somewhere remote enough, an abandoned farmhouse screened by trees. He pulled in, driving carefully up the overgrown driveway. Maury shook his head. "No. No. Please. Don't do this to me again. Use the drugs. I'll cooperate. I know why you came way out here, because you know I'm going to fight you. We don't have to fight. Please, use the drugs. You know it makes a difference. It makes a difference to **me**!"

The car stopped. The Haitian turned and looked back at his passenger. Maury said, "I'll inject myself if you want. Don't touch me again. Don't use that power to knock me out. I can't heal that. **Ever**." He couldn't read Rene's expression. It made him desperate.

Every time Rene shut him down, it shut down a tiny part of his ability forever, or at least until he could find a competent healer to fix it. Since Linderman's death a few years ago, Maury didn't know who he could go to. "I'm a director of the fucking Company! You're not supposed to bring me in fucked up, and that fucks me up. I'm cooperating. I'll take the drugs. Just don't…" He was breathing hard. "Please…" He felt like he was going to have a heart attack. He panted unevenly.

Rene exhaled and got out of the car. He opened the trunk and got out his kit. Maury sighed with relief. He swallowed. His mouth was very dry. The Haitian opened his door and said, "Leave your feet inside the car. Give me your arms." Maury did as asked and was injected in the muscle of the forearm.

He sighed again. "Thank you." The Haitian pursed his lips like he thought what he was doing was a bad idea and shut the door after he was done. They were back on the highway shortly.

One advantage of the tranquilizer was it kept him out for four to six hours, in his case closer to six. When he woke, he noted they didn't seem to have gone as far as they should have. He suspected the Haitian had caught a nap. He'd definitely stopped for food and fuel. Maury salivated as much as his dry mouth could manage. He begged for food. He was ignored. He was finally given a water bottle with a cup of water still in it. It was wonderful. He was thrilled. Further begging did not produce anything more, but the Haitian did eventually turn the radio on rather than listen to him whine.

The rest of the country passed by through the day and the night. He spent half of it asleep, so drugged that by the time they finally arrived he was groggy and spacey even when awake. He wasn't sure what time it was, but it had been daylight for a while. Afternoon maybe? His captor was looking a bit strung out, but Parkman was in no shape to take advantage of it. He stumbled into the Philadelphia containment facility, laid out on a bed and didn't bother to fight being restrained or neutralized.


	29. Cowing the Bull

Parkman woke up some time later, becoming aware of a high-pitched buzzing sound. It hurt. He twitched his head, but the sound was everywhere. He hated that sound. He'd heard it before, helped with setting it up. It was specifically designed to disrupt telepathy and a few closely related mental powers. To anyone else it was merely an annoying noise. To those who were sensitive, it made the use of their powers cause them intense pain.

The neutralizer had been removed. He blinked his eyes open, but his vision was fuzzy. He was cotton-mouthed again, or perhaps, still. His head hurt and it was getting rapidly worse. He could hear Angela's voice and feel someone fumbling at his right wrist. He made out what she was saying, "I'm going to take his restraints off."

When his hand was free, he reached up to his ear and pulled on it. The sound was terrible. He could barely think at the moment and certainly couldn't think coherently. He clawed uselessly at the side of his head, shaking it back and forth. Nothing made any sense, but he had to stop the sound. The more alert he became, the worse it was.

"Maury! Maury! Stop it!" Angela caught his hand. He jerked his head back and forth. He caught glimpses and flashes of Angela's thoughts through her hand. Each one was like an ice pick into his brain. He raised his head and slammed it back into the slab he lay on. The pain from it was overwhelming, but it also served to shove out and overpower the noise he was hearing, the mental agony he was feeling. It let him focus on what he needed to do. He bared his teeth and shut his eyes, trying to block everything out - everything. As he got his mind in order, the pain faded somewhat, but the buzzing sound was still like nails on a chalkboard.

He opened his eyes again, his breathing slowing. He twisted his hand free of Angela's, saying, "Let me go. I'm all right." She released him. He reached up for his head again, hesitating. He wanted to claw his ears out, but he rubbed his forehead and face instead. He jerked on his left hand. It was still strapped down.

Angela said, "Go ahead and let him go. He won't hurt himself now."

They let him up. He cradled his head and touched the back of it gently. He'd have a goose egg, but it wasn't bleeding.

"Would you like something to drink?" Angela offered him a plastic cup of water. He took it gratefully and downed it. She had a second and a third for him, which he also drank.

He looked over at the Haitian, then at Angela. "Turn that sound off, please. You have him here. You don't need it." The noise had to be irritating to the black man as well, cutting off at least half of his ability.

"I'm not so sure," she said crisply.

He glared at her, then looked away. He felt like shit. He checked his collection of plastic cups for stray drops at the bottom of each and finished those off. Angela walked over to a chair and sat down. He looked around. He'd been in a lower level cell earlier, maybe a 2 or a 3, when he'd been brought in. There had been a bed, he was sure of it.

Now they were in a level 4. Sleeping accommodations were a shelf to the side of the room. The main differences between levels 4 and 5 were venting and shielding. If memory served him right, level 4 was as high security as the Philadelphia facility got. It looked like Philadelphia, but the facilities were intentionally very similar to one another. He didn't deserve a 4. A 2 with some isolation would have done fine for him.

Since his feet had never been bound, he got off the platform now and sat on what passed for a bed. He rubbed his head again, resisting the urge to pull at his ears or try to cover them. It was no use. "So," he said, "Where are we at, Angel?" He smiled weakly at her.

"I need your help, Maury."

"Hell of a way to ask for it."

She exhaled slightly. "I am told that you were asked politely to come see me and you declined."

He rolled his eyes and looked away.

"Maury, there's no one left." She sounded a little sad, a little desperate.

He looked up at her, calculating. She smiled slightly and said, "None of the old members are still involved in the Company except us." He nodded, knowing what she was saying. "I can not allow you to break the Company and I will not allow you to run it. I am the designated chairperson. You were there when that decision was made and you agreed to it. If you are to continue to participate, then we must meet. We must talk. We must discuss the Company's direction and not work at cross purposes to one another."

He said nothing. He was tired, he felt lousy. He had no intention of addressing the issue brought up while he felt this way. It would be a decision made under duress if he did. Seeing he wasn't giving her anything, she stood up. "I will have breakfast brought to you. What would you like?"

He eyed her. "Bacon and eggs. No… sausage and eggs. Good sausage too. With some biscuits, butter and grape jelly." He smiled, warming at the thought of getting some decent food, being treated decently. "And orange juice, some hot tea and water." After a pause he added, "A towel to wash myself with and a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a comb, that sort of thing."

She smiled. "I'll get you breakfast."

Several hours later, he felt better: fed, cleaned and if not in clean clothes, then at least he'd been given basic toiletries. His head had cleared, so he could think. After Angela had left, they'd turned the sound off. He'd been watched over by a very bored, but patient Haitian.

Maury considered what she'd said. He'd been there when the decision about Company succession had been made, but so had Arthur and Daniel and all the others. Things had been different. Then, Parkman had not wanted a position of leadership. He had that already. He had the experience of being able to tell almost anyone he saw to do his bidding and knowing they'd obey. Being chairperson of the Company was laughable by comparison.

Besides, the directorship of the Company was full of people he couldn't use his ability on if he wanted. Arthur could shut him out - he was an accomplished and dangerous mentalist himself. Daniel was someone Maury depended on too much; he owed him too much. It was Daniel's job to bring Maury back after his mind had been savaged by those the Company wanted him to rehabilitate. Some were easy; some were not. Linderman was there to put him back together after Parkman's sense of self was mangled by those who were not simple to tame. One too many times of waking to the face of his savior had made it impossible for him to act against the man. It was much like the tattered loyalty so many of them felt towards Adam, but Daniel had never betrayed Maury like Adam had betrayed all of them.

Charles was another telepath. Angela's gift made her sanity critical. He couldn't upset her balance without losing their insight to the future. Kaito would know automatically what he was going to do and how best to resist it. His power was like a limited form of omniscience, never smart to tangle with. Victoria was hyper-aware of herself and every chemical change her body, or to an extent, his, might have. She could manipulate those within limits - a potentially lethal power. Carlos would see him coming. The others had similar defenses.

Another man might have felt challenged by the existence of these few he could not dominate, when the rest of the world might bow at his feet at his merest thought. Maury was not that other man, though. He was tired of never looking in the faces of people he could respect. Having found them, having joined the Company, he had no intention of screwing up the only people he could have a real relationship with, even if they didn't always like him - especially if they didn't always like him.

Their dislike was a constant, warming reminder that he was normal, that he **could** be normal, at least with them if not with the rest of the world. He didn't let normal people dislike him, when he allowed them to think of him at all. He didn't even let other specials think of him if he could help it. It was too dangerous. But he could let the other founders dislike him all they wanted, all they needed. It was **real** and when all the other members were alive, it was something Parkman **had** to allow. He loved it, cherished that authentic, real family they'd made for themselves, warts and all.

Now that they were very nearly the last ones, he'd given up on it. Pinehearst had wounded him in a way Linderman could not fix even were he still alive. Maury had spent much of his time whilst there toying with his memory of the man, his image. He was a figure of salvation for the telepath. When Arthur called on him to bring round other specials, Parkman thought of Linderman as the one who could save them from Petrelli's plot. It was disappointing that no one else saw Daniel as he did. Even Arthur's own son, who should have known better, had no respect for the man. It depressed Parkman.

'Everyone had their roles to play' as they all loved to say and Maury's role was not leader. They had no leader, not since they'd locked Adam up in the fall of '77. That had been the agreement. They'd worked out a line of succession for the chairperson not long afterwards and rules for the Company, new rules. With the destruction of Adam, Arthur had stopped following those rules. Angela, however, might not have. It was something Maury Parkman spent his time mulling over.

Angela Petrelli's return was heralded by the sound being turned back on. He grimaced and clutched at his ears again. He was still doing so when she entered a few minutes later, followed by Rene and a tall, thin man carrying a tray bearing lunch.

The man put the tray next to Maury on the bed shelf and left. Rene leaned against the wall and Angela drew the chair over to the older man, to join him in repast. Parkman eyed the food - barbeque beef and pulled pork, with buns to make sandwiches, pickle spears and chips. He'd always taken a perverse joy in eating rich food, especially non-kosher and obviously Angela recalled his preferences. Right now though, his stomach turned with the incessant noise.

"Can you _please_ stop the sound? He's right there. I promise not to do anything."

"I have your word?" she asked evenly.

He sighed and looked at her, raising his brows slightly and tilting his head. It was insulting that she'd even ask, but he wasn't offended. Too much had happened lately. Working for Arthur had likely stained her perception of him. He had a lot of broken faith to mend, having ended up on her husband's side against her.

His gesture was persuasive to her, because she turned to the black man and nodded. He walked outside. A moment later the noise ceased and he came back inside. Maury leaned his head back against the wall. "Good God I hate that sound."

"I wouldn't have to use it if I thought I could trust you." She picked up a bun and forked a few slices of meat on it.

Maury checked the drinks and took a healthy draught of his Pepsi, smiling bitterly at the distance between them now. "Ahh. It's nice to be with someone who knows you and cares. Do you have a file on what I like to eat, hm?"

She smiled. "No, just a good memory." She drank iced tea. "We have a lot of memories, a lot of times together. It would be a shame for all the rest of them to involve this cell."

He looked around. "Yeah, it would be. What do you have in mind?"

She shrugged. "Very little that you haven't already been doing. The greatest change is that I want you to relocate to New York and attend meetings. I'll have orders for you. My goals and yours are obviously different, though the media angle is something I want you to continue to cultivate. We have a second active board member at the current time, though I would characterize him more as a shadow member for now. He does not have the benefit of over thirty years experience."

"Who is it?

She looked down, taking up a salt packet and sprinkling a tiny amount on her sandwich. "My son… Nathan."

Maury snorted. "You mean that guy you sent after me yesterday? Or however long it's been? That's not Nathan. He calls himself Gabriel."

She nodded. She knew this.

"He's not going to make a year. In pieces, he's in pieces inside."

"I've seen that he _does_ make it, one way or another. You on the other hand, do not make it a year. Or perhaps that is your son. You are interchangeable in the timeline. One of you is expendable and will be expended. I had hoped it would be you."

Maury stared at her for a very long time, thinking that over, unbothered that she'd preferred him dead over his son. She was allowed to feel that way about him. Instead he was thinking it was stupid to gamble against a precog. Her prophecies didn't always come true, but they always indicated a likely future – a very likely one. Arguing with her about what she saw did no good. Harry had always done that. He was nearly always wrong, which just seemed to motivate him to argue against her more strenuously the next time. It annoyed everyone. "Then I need to find my son."

"I would think so, yes. I have been putting together a file on him. I believe he needs guidance. He is becoming indiscreet. The precognition has impaired his judgment. He no longer lives in the present."

Maury ate in silence for a minute, rolling that around in his mind. Finally he said, "You'll have to give me some advice on handling that. Anything I do to him he'll expect. He'll just endure it – won't make any difference. He's too strong for me to be able to rely on second chances."

"Give him choices. There must be different outcomes for each choice which means when you deal with him, you really won't know how things will turn out. If his future depends on his choices now, then he has to come back to now in order to see what's going to happen later." Parkman's brows drew together. She added, "We can talk about it more detail later, if you make your own choice correctly and I release you from here."

He nodded and considered what he'd seen in Gabriel's mind. "This Gabriel person, Sylar. You made him a _**director**_?" Did she really expect him to treat such a damaged person like one of the founders?

She shrugged. "Sylar has always been critical. It's why we've preserved him."

Maury snorted. "Critical to you, maybe."

She nodded. "To me, yes. But you were asking about **my** motivations in making him a director, were you not? It's not like there was anyone attending meetings to vote against me," she finished archly.

He nodded and looked away, eating a pickle. He acted disinterested, though they both knew he was not.

She went on, "The person I saw on the board was Nathan, stepping into the void Arthur had left, inheriting his legacy. Sometimes it didn't look like Nathan, but I always knew it was him. I always knew it was Arthur's favorite son. Sometimes Arthur was there, standing at his elbow, directing him, advising him. Metaphorical, I assume."

She sighed. "Last year Nathan was killed. My vision was that Matt would preserve Nathan and destroy Sylar. It did not work out as expected, though I think literally we achieved that. Matt put Nathan's memories into Sylar's body and programmed him to conduct himself as my son. Later he destroyed Sylar's identity, but he couldn't remove his memories. What reformed was this person you say is calling himself Gabriel. He is living as Nathan at the moment. How unstable is he?"

"Very. It's not even all him in there, Angel, and I'm not talking about Nathan's memories. You sure Matt didn't stick a few other folks in there for good measure?"

"He took… Gabriel took his father's ability. It layered with Sylar's. Samson's ability granted him impressions and a few skills – sometimes he gained abilities, but he couldn't retain most of them for long. It was limited, but I would expect the layering has removed that limitation. You say… he has memories of those he has… taken?"

He nodded. "Looks like. As much as he's got Nathan in there."

She breathed out. "How many?"

"I dunno. I only saw two. Blonde gal, looked familiar, and some black guy I'd never seen. Both young people, 20s."

She nodded. "I know who those are then. No others?"

He shrugged. "I didn't have time to a thorough sweep, but at the time he was marshalling his defenses against me. I think if he'd had more, he would have brought them out. On the other hand, I didn't see Nathan, but that might have been because he's integrated."

She pursed her lips and nodded. "I have been counseling him on self-control." She eyed Maury for a moment. "Apparently it has been working splendidly." Her voice was dry.

"He goes around looking like your son?"

She nodded.

He gave her a long look. "That _must_ be tough."

"It has been, but one gets accustomed to it. He's coming along."

"Huh." Maury tipped the bag of potato chips up and knocked the last of them into his mouth. A great deal had been said in the meetings about Sylar and Angela's visions of his future involvement with saving the Company and becoming part of the Petrelli family. That had always been known, but he'd assumed, as the others did, that it was more metaphorical than literal.

She said, "I had you contacted because we are recruiting new agents and moving back into full operating capacity. We need a controller of some kind."

He nodded. "I noticed that. You have a source of money, or are you using up the trust funds?"

"I have a source."

He nodded again. "I'll work with the new agents." It was very convenient of her to put his next victims directly in his hands. He wouldn't even have to bother looking for them.

"I need assurance you'll be doing this in the best interests of the Company, not solely yourself."

"Why would I do that?" he blinked at her. He hadn't seen any reason not to be entirely selfish about things. It was what she was doing. She hadn't asked if he approved this new director and hiding behind the thin veil of protocol about Maury's absence was ridiculous. He was entitled to a vote, even if, as chairperson, her vote counted twice in the case of a tie. If she was going to run the Company like Arthur had run Pinehearst, then those were the new rules and Parkman would play by them.

As if she were the telepath and not him, she said, "A Company director has rules to follow. If I am not assured you will follow those rules, then I will not work with you at all."

He snorted. "And then I'll get to enjoy the confines of this cell until I change my mind, eh?" She wouldn't kill him outright. She'd have to keep him around in case she wanted something from him later.

She stood, collecting the remains of lunch. "No. I will return here with Gabriel and have him do what I told him to do to you before."

Maury's eyes flickered. He hadn't considered that angle, which was stupid of him. It was the same leverage Arthur had held over everyone once he developed the final stage of his ability, except he hadn't tossed in murder on top of it. Angela had always been willing to take things further than her husband. Parkman admired that about her, even if it were inconvenient to him at the moment.

She added, "If you will not conduct yourself as a director, then I will have you removed from the position. What happens to you afterwards is immaterial. What I want is a telepath I can _trust_, Maury, as you were trusted in the past. We all have our roles to play and Gabriel's doing well enough with his, even if he doesn't know his lines by heart yet. He is the reason why you are expendable, why you and Matt do not both make it through the next year."

She looked very steadily at Maury Parkman, who understood she was identifying the murderer of either himself or his son. He waited several beats before breaking out laughing. "Angel! Angel! A woman after my own heart. Can I kiss you?" He stepped forward. Rene stopped leaning against the wall and strolled closer. Maury ignored him. He was looking at Angela, oddly pleased she was willing to have him killed. It made him feel good about himself that she had these very real feelings about him - her own feelings, not ones he'd given her.

She regarded him coldly. "No, you may not."

"A hug then?" He put both arms out expansively but this time did not get any closer to her.

"No. If I am going to have you killed, I'd rather not touch you beforehand."

He cocked his head and smiled softly at her. His voice was warm and cheery, at odds with his words. "Ice queen as always. So frigid. Won't even give a condemned man a last request?"

She smiled condescendingly at him. "You have shown me no reason to indulge you."

He sat back down, still pleased with things. The Haitian backed off slightly. Maury looked up at her and said, "What assurance do you need?" There **was** something she wanted from him. He'd give it to her and everything would be fine, like it had been in the old days. He missed the companionship of equals.

"Let me think about that," Angela said. "Tell me what you want for dinner. I'll have it brought round."

"Hm. Steak… No, prime rib. Medium rare. Give me a knife too, nice sharp one." He grinned at her, wondering if she'd trust him with one. "Some horseradish sauce, sour cream, a salad with vinaigrette dressing… and some kind of vegetable. Not a potato. No dessert unless you're chintzy with the portions."

"And to drink?"

"Wine. You always have good taste in that. Way better than mine. Just send me a bottle of whatever you think would go well with it."

She smiled at him. He was asking for a number of weapons and doing so quite deliberately. He hadn't misbehaved with the breakfast utensils. "I will have my butler bring it. Don't mistreat him."

"Mm." He raised his brows and smiled lazily. She saw herself out. Rene followed. Maury had the rest of the afternoon to wish he'd asked for a book or something. Although the Haitian was still watching him, he wouldn't respond and Maury didn't feel inclined to push it. He spent the time alone with his thoughts, which was a very rare occurrence for him. He thought about the old days and how much he missed them.

In the morning, Angela visited him again, this time with breakfast. He had enjoyed his dinner the previous night and sent back the knife without incident. He'd kept the wine bottle though, as he wasn't finished with it. The 'dead indian' as he called it, was put through the meal slot later. He had said nothing to Mr. Grem and didn't try to touch him or otherwise challenge the Haitian's blocking of his ability. It wasn't that he respected Grem, but he respected Angela. The butler was her creature. Maury kept his hands off other director's things. That's how it was.

Rene had left in the evening, since it wasn't like Parkman was able to get out of the room by himself. Routine video surveillance would suffice to keep an eye on him overnight. Maury was halfway through breakfast, chatting amicably, when he realized the Haitian had not returned. He sat up straighter, silently, and looked out the view port. There was no one there.

He reached out with his mind, lowering his defenses somewhat. He could sense Angela's presence, but as usual, not her thoughts. Not unless he pressed and he'd taught her himself how to block him out from casual eavesdropping. It would take an effort to overpower her, but he was confident he could do it. He had no intention of it, though.

He could vaguely pick up the mental ramblings of the butler who was outside the room, alternately worried about his employer's safety with him and fuming that his son wasn't pursuing the major in college he wanted him to take. Parkman looked back and forth around the room, then slouched again. He picked up his biscuit and buttered it. It didn't make any difference, in the grand scheme of things. He'd already made up his mind to work with her, if she'd allow it.

The rest of the meal passed normally. At the end, she called in Mr. Grem to help clear things away. She walked over and began to collect his toiletries and put them in a bag. He opened his mouth and then shut it. He'd figured it out. He'd passed her test. With no visible restraint on his ability, he had not used it to escape or seek revenge against her. He assumed she had the black man waiting around somewhere nearby to stop him, but he could easily cause her to kill herself with a fork before that.

She knew that as well, yet she'd given him his power back and ate breakfast with him. She'd seen him looking around, perhaps even felt his mind brush hers lightly and then move on. Maybe she'd dreamed that he'd already made up his mind, or maybe the real moment of truth, the pivot point, was when he picked up his biscuit and went on with his meal. He didn't know. One should never bet against a precog. It made him apprehensive about how he was going to sort out his son.

He departed with her, needing to make no comment or observation about being freed. She offered none. When they were outside in the clear, almost hot air of a June day in Philly, he asked the time and date of the next meeting. She told him. He promised to be there and left to oversee his relocation to New York.


	30. How to beat a precog

**A/N: This story relates primarily to the not-yet-published "Adventures of Matt Parkman," as I needed to work out some things about precognition before finishing up that story. So from the perspective of having read Shattered Identity, it's just familiar characters talking over something you haven't seen (though it should shed some light on Angela's role with Gabriel/Nathan). This scene takes place about a week after Maury was captured and drug into New York, so it's late June, 2010.**

Maury stopped by after lunch. He rang the bell at the Petrelli house and waited patiently. Mr. Grem opened the door for him, bowing his head and ushering him inside. He was expected and shown in to the sitting room while the butler went off to announce his arrival to the lady of the house. Parkman sank into a familiar overstuffed chair and sighed. The place was rich with memories. This was the first time he'd been in it for years.

Angela passed by a moment later, looking in on him and asking, "I'm going to get some cookies. I didn't get anything to eat earlier. Would you like something?"

"Oh. What kind?" He looked over to her.

"Oatmeal raisin."

"Hm. Yeah, I'll take a couple. Just… ah, soda, I guess."

She quirked her brows to give her disapproving opinion of his drink choice and went off. She returned with a tray a few minutes later, sitting it on the drum table between them. He took a cookie and chewed on it for a bite, then washed it down. He made a face at the soda.

"Dr. Pepper?" he asked her, unhappy.

"It's what I had. I've added Pepsi to the grocery list. We'll have it for dinner for you at the July meeting."

He grunted and frowned. "Cookie's good. Thanks. Did you make these yourself?"

"Yesterday, yes."

He smiled. "Hard to imagine you in an apron, being all Martha Stewart on us."

"You've seen it before."

"Yeah, just not very often." After another bite, he said, "So. How do I beat a precog? I have a premonition there's one I need to pull one over on."

She raised a brow. "We **are** discussing your son, are we not?"

"No, of course not. I meant you, but we can start with Matt if you want. I'm still a little sore about getting abducted, you know? And giving me this sludge…" He lifted his glass and shook his head threateningly.

She smiled. It slowly broadened from the thin excuse for a smile she usually used, becoming genuine as her eyes wrinkled around the corners and her face relaxed. She looked up from her tea to see him watching her slyly. She pulled open the drawer on the table, getting out a deck of cards. She pushed them across the table to him. Maury picked them up, took them out of the box and sorted through the deck.

He smiled, turning the cards and flipping through them casually. He shuffled like a professional, which once upon a time he was, at least in the sense that he made a living at cards. That was before he had a good grip on his ability. At that point he'd been using it almost reflexively, like it was a parlor trick and not the monstrous power it became later, as he'd mastered it. He shuffled twice more, flipping through them again. He set them down, caressing them one last time. It had been a long time since he'd had cards in his hands.

Angela addressed him, "Now, I could tell you what the top five cards were and stand a very good chance of being right - better than you would, at least until I'd thought about it. If we ate and talked for five minutes, I'd still be right. But… if you were to pick the deck and shuffle it now, then I'd be wrong. Do you begin to see?"

He brought his brows together. "But don't you know if I'm going to shuffle them or not?"

"No. You haven't decided, have you?" He shook his head. "Then how would I know?"

He chuckled. "But we're talking about seeing the future!"

"Of course. But I've altered the timeline by having this conversation with you, by reminding you of the possibility of shuffling again, by encouraging you to take actions that will change the results. What I'm trying to impress on you is the future isn't decided yet. All I see is a likely outcome, made less likely when I interfere with it.

"There are two important points to consider about the future - first is it can be changed through the actions of the seer, which can include revealing the vision to those it involves - just like with the cards. The second is it can turn out very differently than you might expect. Just because I see a thing doesn't mean the way I understand it at the time is the way I will understand it when it happens.

"For that, I present the case of Nathan Petrelli. I **still** see him in my dreams, Maury." She sounded wistful. She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked away. She could be more emotional with him than with most people. Not only had he seen her inside and out, but she'd known him for many years.

She said, "He's still there, in the future, in the present, and yet it's not really him." She looked back at Parkman. "Last year I was **sure** he'd be alive now. I'd _seen _it. Serves me right for getting too comfortable. There may have been things I could have done… I'm sure there are things I **did** do that caused it, but I didn't know it at the time. Even a precognitive can never be truly sure how things will turn out." She sounded bitter.

He sighed and bent up the top card, looking at it covertly. Angela said dryly, without looking, "Two of diamonds." He nodded - she was right, of course - and picked up the deck, shuffling it and thinking. He set it down and flipped up the top card where they could both see it - the eight of spades. He puckered his lips, flipped the card back with the rest and shuffled them again.

He looked to her. "So how do I do this? You said I needed to force him to make choices."

"The easiest way to beat a precog is to make the future dependent on their own actions. When they can step aside and be impartial, giving themselves the role of observer rather than actor, then the future is more solid, more defined for them. The more a precog meddles with their own timeline, though, the more you force them to stir the pot, the more ripples they cast into the reflection they see - the less they know what's going to happen. So if you can put Matt in a position where **his** actions, not yours, determine his future, then you'll have him."

Maury's eyes moved restlessly. He reached out absently and picked up the last cookie, eating half of it at a bite while he pondered. "But… if he's the one choosing…" he said around his cookie, "then how is it that _**I**_ have _**him**_?"

She smiled slightly. There was a predatory gleam in her eye. He glanced up and caught the look. She said, "You have to make sure you're putting the right choices in front of him."

"Won't he know?"

She shrugged, sipping at her tea. "Does it matter? If you hand me a four of spades and a seven of spades and make me choose between them, they're both still spades, you see. It doesn't matter you and I both know what suit they are."

"That's not much of a choice."

"Perhaps. It depends on what cards you need in your hand. You _are_ correct that you must give him _meaningful_ choices, ones that he must really pay attention to, ones that truly affect his future. You have to be willing to accept a degree of uncertainty, otherwise he will slip from your fingers time and again, as I did with Danko."

He raised a brow, not getting the reference. She didn't explain, finishing the cookie she'd reserved for herself. He looked down at the piece he had left and ate it.

"You must be willing to risk losing him in order to capture him, Maury."

He tilted his head at her. "What if I **do** lose him?"

"Then you can always try again."

He pursed his lips. "It won't be as easy the second time around. You know… he trapped me once."

"He won't do it again. He can't."

"What makes you say that? I saw what he did to Gabriel. I can't do that. I can't even start to do that."

"I've seen what he's been doing with himself lately. He's hardly conscious most of the time. He's addicted to the future. He's surrounded himself with puppets. He's under suspicion and does nothing about it. He's treating symptoms without any demonstration that he understands the illness. I'll give you his file before you leave."

"Addicted to the future, or addicted to something else?"

"The future, but to opiates as well - heroin and morphine, I think. It's hard to tell exactly what he's taking under the circumstances. I can't risk agents getting close enough to him to find out. Much of my information is circumstantial."

He rolled his eyes, looking disgusted and shaking his head. "What is it with you precogs? All of you are addicts. With you it was sleeping pills, with Isaac it was heroin and with Carlos it was mescaline." He shook his head.

"I didn't **choose** to take the pills, Maury." Her voice held a considerable edge to it. "I don't take them anymore. Not even when it seemed my life might depend on it."

He looked up at her steadily for a moment, then away. "I know. I think we all knew, even if we wouldn't admit it."

She exhaled and sipped her tea. After a long silence she said, "Perhaps you will see it in your son's mind. He **has** moved more quickly along the path than most others."

"But…" He let the question about why precogs were prone to addiction fall to the wayside. Perhaps it was just a condition of the ability, a phase everyone had to pass through. Fortunately, he knew it could be passed through and gotten over, even if the threat of relapse might hound them for the rest of their lives. "I hope I'm strong enough to make him act right."

"You can't, Maury. You know that. You've always made a point of how that's not how your ability works."

He glanced at her and looked away. She was right. It was such an easy trap to fall into.

She went on, "In addition, you should not go to him thinking that way. Give him his liberty. He must be free to choose. It's the only way." More softly she said, "I can't imagine he wants to live as he does, any more than you would."

Parkman glanced at her again and looked away, thinking she knew him too well. No, after a moment he reconsidered. He was glad she did know him that well. He smiled to himself. It was a good thing, like putting Pepsi on the grocery list.


	31. Compulsions

The first time he went to see Noah, it was a week after the detaining of Maury Parkman, in June. He felt compelled. The idea of finding him had been gnawing at him for days. Bennet was in a hotel room on assignment in Maine. Nathan was still upset about what he'd told Noah to do at the board meeting. Having had a lot of time to think over the injustice of mental control, he felt he needed to settle things with Noah. He knocked and waited, making no attempt to hide.

Noah opened the door and smiled slightly, giving him an undeniably sultry look.

_What? Why is he looking at me like that?_ Nathan thought. He stared at him, immediately thrown. Just the eye contact alone from him was weird.

"Come on in," Noah said with something of a come-hither in his voice.

"Uh…"

Noah turned and walked off into the room with a peculiar movement of his hips. Nathan stepped inside, still staring. _Is he shaking his ass at me? _His brain was so stunned that hardly anything registered. He didn't notice whatever it was Noah picked up, but he did notice the warm smile Bennet turned his way, his body still facing away from him. "Close the door. I like my privacy."

Nathan waved the door shut and was beginning to wonder if Bennet had been replaced by a shape-shifter - one with a perverse sense of humor. Or maybe this was a delayed nightmare from Maury. He didn't have the opportunity to think more than that before Noah moved and Nathan was shot in the face. Pain blossomed and his awareness of the world ended. He awoke and twitched, trying to move, but he seemed so sluggish. Noah was crouching near him, putting something away out of his sight. With a great effort he sat up halfway, then collapsed back. Every muscle in his body gave up. For a moment, even his heart did. The world faded to black.

He woke up to see Noah's suitcase near his face and see the other man wiping the room down - at least, as much of the room as Nathan could see without moving. Every voluntary muscle was paralyzed. Noah finished and walked over to him. He studied Nathan's face. Nathan struggled to at least be able to move his eyes to meet those of the other man. It was futile.

"Can you hear me?" Noah asked mildly.

Nathan continued staring forward. He thought maybe he'd managed some kind of twitch, but he wasn't sure. Noah squatted down next to him and said, "Nathan always was a sucker for the sex. I suppose I should find comfort that something of him is still in there, Gabriel. I don't think you'd have fallen for that by yourself. Of course, if he wasn't, I'd have already had the opportunity to end you." He looked up and behind Nathan, sighing. "I'm going to leave it to you to clean up the door. Sylar's DNA is all over it. You don't want to leave that there."

He stood, picked up his suitcase and kicked Nathan's leg out of the way of the door. It was hours before Nathan could move and hours after that before he was coordinated enough to get up and be effective. The brain matter and blood on the door had dried by then. Looking at it made him touch the back of his head uncomfortably. _What the hell did he do to me? My spot isn't even in my head anymore. _He noticed he also had taken two bullets center of mass. Just in case, he supposed.

_I've got to clean this up before the staff gets in._ He set to it. When he was done, he left a hundred dollar bill and a note about ruining the towels. He'd disintegrated them into the tub and washed down the ashes. He hoped they wouldn't notice the bullet pocks. He'd gotten rid of the flattened bits of bullet he was able to find, but the wood was marred.

XXX

In July, Maury joined the board meeting. Nathan didn't know what Angela had said to him to make him cooperate. He didn't much care. Obviously the Haitian knew, but not only was he not talking, Nathan wasn't asking. Parkman smirked at him when he walked in the room. Nathan tried to ignore him, reminding himself it was the man's ability to poke around in people's heads and that he'd done it to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people.

_It's nothing special,_ he told himself. _I was nothing special to him. Just another person to mentally molest before moving on with his life. I had a chance to end him. I __**chose**__ not to. __**I**__ had the power to make that choice. I made the __**right**__ choice. Why do I feel like I need to convince myself of that?_

As far as he knew, Angela had nothing to say about him foiling her precognition and not taking Maury's power. He'd avoided talking to her. It wasn't difficult. They never saw each other outside the meetings anyway. He wasn't sure he wanted to keep attending them if Parkman was there.

It was hard for him to watch as Maury read the oath of loyalty to three unsuspecting people, who listened and agreed, their agreement getting progressively more muted and wooden as he neared the end of the document. Nathan felt sick to his stomach, but he stood stock still next to Angela and watched with deadened eyes. _I am becoming my father. Is that so bad?_

His victory in letting Maury live seemed so hollow now, like such a mistake. _I'm losing myself,_ he thought. _If it weren't for Heidi, I'd go back to being Sylar - kill Angela, kill Maury, kill everyone who needs killing._ He thought of his little boy, as yet unborn and unannounced to the world.


	32. The Time for Talking is Over

The second time he went to see Noah to apologize, he was a bit more circumspect about it. Bennet had acted like nothing at all had happened the one time he'd called him about Company business and Nathan hadn't brought it up. He felt that his apology should be private and personal, not a requirement of employment. Of course he could order Noah to put his grudge aside, but that wasn't the point and Nathan would not lower himself to Parkman's level. He also suspected it wouldn't work. He was still trying to puzzle out how Noah had managed to shoot him last time. How could he construe shooting one of the directors as being in the best interests of the Company?

This time he adopted the face of the cashier he'd seen just a few hours before, touching his hand as he collected his change. He lurked in the alley that connected Noah's apartment to the parking area he used. Maybe he would get the chance to say more if Noah didn't realize at first it was him. His stakeout was eventually rewarded. He saw Noah walking in from his car, carrying a grocery bag.

A little before he came even with Nathan's hiding place, Noah's phone beeped. He stopped and looked at it for a long moment, then put down his bag and tapped some keys. _Text message,_ Nathan thought. _I'll let him finish that and then I'll talk to him_. Noah finished his message and picked up his bag with one hand, trying to put the phone away in his inside jacket pocket with the other. He seemed to be having trouble doing it as he moved. He walked quickly and decisively.

Nathan stepped out and got to say, "Hello," before Noah pulled out his gun and began shooting him. He staggered back. Most of the bullets were to his chest. One hit his neck, one his cheek and another glanced off his skull, stunning him. He fell against the wall, his healing pulling him back together quickly. He still had a brief period of senselessness. When he came to a second later, he blinked up at Noah Bennet reloading and pointing his silenced gun at his left eye. Nathan flinched. He had the impression that his involuntary movement stopped Bennet from shooting him again, but he wasn't sure.

Noah paused and Nathan did not move. He didn't speak. He wasn't keen on getting head shot into paralysis again. He hadn't even known that was possible. Finally Noah said, "Stop following me, Gabriel." He put away his gun, turned and walked away, picking up his groceries as he went.

_Dad!_ Some part of him was grieving. _Shut up, Claire, _he told himself and stood up. He knew it was pointless. The ghosts in his head weren't full personalities. They couldn't talk to him, they couldn't fight him or have anything meaningful with him. He'd tried. It was like talking to a videotape. It didn't mean, though, that he didn't feel certain emotions and compulsions from time to time. They felt as real as anything else to him.

He brushed himself off_. Bastard._ It was impossible to put any heat to it though.

XXX

The next time he saw Noah was in August. Bennet was on assignment in Tennessee with Peter, stalking an illuminator. It was a fairly harmless power - the ability to create lights, project color and make flashes. The power could be used to blind someone and Noah's vision had suffered from a similar attack years ago. It was the least dangerous of the energy powers, however. Nathan had to drop off a packet of information to Bennet about a possible partner of the target.

Nathan found Bennet where he was supposed to be, at campus corner, sitting outside at a table. He was reading a newspaper. Nathan thought he could just walk up and give the package to him, but he suspected it might be wiser to give him notice. He called from across the street.

He watched Noah pull out his phone and look at it. He pressed some keys, but he wasn't answering. It wasn't until the fifth ring that he finally put it to his ear.

"Bennet," he bit out as he answered.

"Noah…" What he was about to say about the package died in his throat. _Dad?_ He fought off the impression from Claire and tried to focus.

Bennet waited a second longer than necessary and answered formally, "Yes sir?"

It pulled Nathan back, reminding him that to Noah Bennet, he was an unpleasant member of the board of directors, a boss he was forced to serve. He told him, "I have the package you were expecting. I'm across the street from you. I'm coming over."

Noah turned and looked directly to where Nathan stood. There wasn't any searching the sidewalk for him - he just looked right at him as if he'd known he was there all along. Nathan took the crosswalk and went to his table, handing him the manila envelope. Noah took it without looking at Nathan. "Where's Peter?" Nathan asked, scanning the area. It had been a long time since he'd seen his brother, even in passing. In those few brief meetings, Peter wouldn't look at him and had little to say in the way of greetings to him, finding other places to be as quickly as possible. He sighed. It was much like how Noah wouldn't look at him if he could help it.

"He's making a connection. I'm covering him. You've made your delivery. You should go before you compromise things." Noah's voice was even, but he kept his eyes down, looking at the contents of the envelope.

Nathan nodded. He wanted to say more, but it wasn't the time for it. He walked away.

XXX

Four days later, Bennet was back at his apartment for a few days off. Nathan decided to try again. Maybe he could get past the "shoot first, no questions later" attitude by knocking on his door like a civilized person, instead of accosting him in alleys and hotel rooms. He stood in front of the door apprehensively. He didn't like getting shot. He healed immediately, but it hurt like hell. _Maybe I should just call him on the phone? No, too impersonal._ Shaking his head, he knocked five times and waited.

He never saw any motion at the eyehole, but Noah must have looked out first. Surely he didn't **always** answer the door with his gun drawn? Nathan flinched back and put his hand up defensively. The expected hail of silenced bullets did not come. He looked over his hand at Bennet and said, "Are you going to shoot me?"

As an answer, Noah dropped the gun barrel a few inches and shot him directly in the chest, pushing him back and knocking all the air out of him. He was still on his feet though. After he'd recovered his breath, he said, "I could make you stop this just by telling you to quit." He could also stop the bullets telekinetically and do a number of other things, but that wasn't the point. He wanted Noah to not **want** to shoot him. He was more than a little perplexed about how Noah even **could** shoot him, given the oath.

Bennet hesitated, seemed to think about that, then emptied the clip into Nathan anyway. This time he didn't keep his feet, but he did remain conscious. Given that his chest and stomach had just been riddled with bullets, consciousness seemed overrated. Sucking air from various points, he gasped out, "God **damn** you!" and started to get up.

Noah popped the used clip and smoothly brought out a new one. Nathan blinked at him as he put a hand on the bloodstained wall to push himself up, "Are you going to shoot me **again**?"

"Only if you get up," Noah said calmly, slapping the clip in with his palm and chambering a round. By the time he was aiming, Nathan was sitting on the floor again. Noah held the gun evenly, pointed at Nathan's head. Nathan started breathing harder and moved his head out of the line of fire. _Looks like the aversion therapy might be working_, Noah thought. Bennet lowered his gun slowly. The hate in his eyes that he so carefully hid was visible for once.

"Did that hurt?" he asked.

"Of course it hurt!" Nathan exclaimed.

"Good." The expression on Bennet's face was sadistic. Any pain he caused this man was deserved. This was the man who had _touched_ his daughter, sought her out and subjected her to indescribable torture. _**Twice.**_ He wasn't sure why Nathan wasn't stopping him, but there could be any number of reasons, starting and probably ending with his fragile mental condition. Noah wasn't interested in finding out. It was too pleasing to hurt him.

"I just want to talk!"

Noah shook his head, taking two steps backward into his apartment. As he moved he pointed the barrel of his gun twice at Nathan and was immensely satisfied to see he still flinched from it. "The time for talking is past, Gabriel." He shut the door.

After a moment, Nathan got up and pounded on Bennet's door. "Noah! Noah!" He was unwilling to make it a command. "Dad!" His arm froze in mid-motion towards the door as he realized his slip. _I can't even blame that one on Matt. Taking Claire was my own decision. And hers, sort of. _Shaking his head, he reached down and rattled the doorknob. _Locked_. He focused on it with telekinesis, feeling the tumblers and pressing them into position. He opened the door with the same power. It didn't matter. The apartment was empty - Noah had left, apparently out a window.

"Great!" He rolled his eyes and sighed, in one of Claire's annoyed gestures.


	33. Getting Ahead in the Company

**A/N: This is set near the end of The Adventures of Matt Parkman, between chapter 21 and 22, which puts it in July of 2010. I don't think you need to read the Adventures of Matt Parkman to follow the action, but you will need to gloss over the first part a bit.**

Patricia didn't go with Matt. She'd been told to. She'd gone as far as the car with him before starting the fight. He was done with her so thoroughly she wanted to rip his balls off, gouge his eyes out, grab his hair and slam his head into the frame of the car. He could hear her thoughts and he clearly wasn't happy about them, but there was no apology or contrition or guilt, not that such would have done anything other than set her off even more. He was angry. He was very angry and she knew if she pushed him too far he'd lash out at her. She wasn't afraid of him. She never had been and so she started the fight.

It was only verbal. He didn't make it mental because that wasn't fair and anyway she had an annoying habit of finding ways to disrupt him when he did that, if the argument didn't go her way. He'd commanded her not to hit him or hurt him, but he'd always been shy of putting too many limits on her. She wasn't worth being with if he did that. It left her a lot of leeway and she was very creative.

"I thought it was _**you!**_" she said hotly. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"It wasn't **me**, it was **him**," Matt growled, thinking he could end this by telling her to shut up and go away. Last time he tried that she'd dumped a can of paint on him that evening and he'd nearly taken his skin off with thinner to get rid of it.

"I don't give a shit who it _**was**_, Matt! I _thought_ it was _you_." She swallowed, wishing she could make him understand that it didn't matter to her that it may have actually been Maury. She wouldn't have even gone to his room if Matt hadn't kicked her out, so clearly this was his fault.

He glared at her over the top of the car. "Did it ever occur to you that it matters to _**me?**_ That's my _father_ in there. **He** was with **you**. If I touch you I'm… that's…" His lip curled in disgust. His father hadn't lured her into his room – Matt was sure of that. She'd gone there willingly, so she was the guilty party in this. "I don't want to ever touch you again." His voice was cold and hard. In a low, dangerous voice, he said, "Get away from me. Like I said in there, _I'm done with you_."

He looked back up at the apartment, wondering if his father would force him to take her with him. He guessed he'd find out. Technically Maury had told _her_ to go with _him_, not Matt to bring her along, so he wasn't disobeying orders by leaving her. He got in the car and when she opened the door he snapped a command at her, "Go away." She turned on her heel with a sharp, angry exhalation and walked away, leaving the car door open intentionally. It made him have to lean over to shut it. Only a few days before, he would have done something a lot worse than tell her to leave him alone, but his father's presence had brought consequences to his actions and an element of restraint to his conduct. It was something Matt hadn't had to consider for months. He drove off in irritation without taking his wrath out on anyone.

She stalked inside the apartment and walked directly up to Maury, who was on the phone. He said into it, "I'll call you back. … Yeah, no problem." He hung up and looked at her through slightly narrowed eyes. She'd come to him night before last, kneeling next to the air mattress he was using as a bed and fumbling at his blanket. She'd intended to curry favor with him as she'd been trying, desperately, to do pretty much since he'd arrived. He'd stopped her and sent her back to Matt with her lust quenched.

He hadn't really thought about how Matt would respond to it. Matt had put her out of his bed, she'd come to Maury, and the old man really hadn't touched her. He'd given her a fantasy – one that starred Matt, no less, and in quite a complimentary role – and sent her back. Maury didn't think he'd done anything wrong. Matt, it turned out, felt quite a bit differently. He'd been cheated on before and exceptionally sensitive to being cuckolded.

Matt didn't trust Patty (which was smart) and he'd misinterpreted one of his precognitive visions, thinking Maury would reject her and she'd come crawling back. Instead, the vision of Matt and Patty being together was the fantasy Maury had put into her mind. It infuriated his son, made him all the more angry because he'd foreseen it and misunderstood. He couldn't lash out at his father, but Patty was a fair target. He'd been hitting her one way or another since it had happened. Maury had had to pull Matt off of her twice now, but he hadn't run her off yet. She was persistent, Maury had to give her that.

She stood before him and opened her mind to the older man as Matt had shown her. She stepped closer to him, telegraphing her movements, thinking loudly about what she was doing. He was a man. She was a woman. She didn't want to be refused again, but she didn't know what it was she needed to do to gain his approval. She put her hands on his hips. He raised his brows slightly. She slid her body against his and looked into his hooded eyes. She wanted him to want her. She needed… no, wanted, one of them to want her and if she was ruined for Matt, then she'd try the one who had ruined her.

Maury raised his right hand to the join of her neck and shoulder, touching her skin, meeting her eyes and saying nothing. Her brows pulled together just slightly at the touch. She felt something mentally, but it was fleeting. She breathed more deeply, letting him inside in every way she knew. His hand moved towards her arm and rolled around the point of her shoulder gently, stroking in circles. It was a wonderful feeling – pleasant and warm without committing her to anything. She wanted more. His hand descended across the swell of her left breast. Her breath caught as he paused just north of the more sensitive portion, somehow knowing exactly where it was through blouse and bra. He smiled a little and his thumb swept down, rubbing back and forth. She smiled back, softly. She had him and she knew it.

Each pass of his thumb ran through her body, clenching her, making her clitoris throb distantly in echo as he brushed her nipple. His hand drifted lower, his fingertips crossing over her aureole and then across her belly. He stepped to the left and to her side, tilting his head slightly and keeping constant, mesmerizing eye contact. She lost herself in those dark orbs, hypnotic in their intensity. Her body responded strongly to his touch, to the anticipation. His fingers found the waistband of her slacks. It was elastic and his entire hand slipped boldly under it, pulling out her shirt and sending his questing digits beneath her underwear. His soft smile became a smirk and then she gasped at the feeling of his skin against hers.

He found her and without preamble, with a certainty that surprised her, his index finger slid over her clitoris and down deeper, then back up, bringing wetness from below to lubricate her. She gave a cry at the contact and leaned against him, breathing harder. She put her head down on his chest. He reached up with his left hand and ran it into her hair, pulling her head back so she was looking into his eyes again. He would see her and he would have her look nowhere else but at his face. The erotic intensity of that gaze was overwhelming. She stared into his eyes and let them absorb her. The world fell away – everything but the sensation of his touch and her response.

His fingers stroked across her surely and gently, in time with the throbbing of her body. She was wet. Her knees felt weak. She wanted more desperately, to wrap her legs around him and take him inside of her. She was back in that apartment, two years ago, with the three men she'd sold drugs to, the ones who raped her. She'd hated it at the time, but she'd often fantasized about it since. It didn't mean she'd ever seek them out, but she remembered how she'd felt. The arousal had been all-consuming. Her attempt to go along with it and keep some vestige of control had let her ride it out without terror or panic. They didn't care about her satisfaction, but it didn't matter. There were three of them and she peaked repeatedly whether she wanted to or not.

She remembered how they felt within her, one after another, filling her. The first was rough and forceful. It had burned. She hadn't been ready. But after he spilled his seed into her, the next slid in easily and she climaxed almost immediately, knowing she was being passed off, having found no satisfaction in the first coupling. The events and the sensations played through her mind with a gripping realism. She wasn't sure if she was there or it was a memory. She didn't care. She could feel their hands on her, the organ within her, their bodies pressing into hers. She let it take her.

The second had pumped into her steadily and mechanically with a regular rhythm that eventually brought her again. He was the only one who seemed to care about her. When he felt her spasm around his cock, his expression changed and he asked her if she wanted it, was enjoying it. She told him yes. He smiled, suddenly pleased and she'd realized he was screwing her not because he wanted to, but to maintain his standing with his friends. He felt pressured into it – not as much as she was, but it helped her to realize that. He thrust into her harder and came soon thereafter.

The last one didn't make it long. He'd been stroking himself and watching. He hammered into her so hard and so fast though that she came again, clinging to the mattress and hooking her legs behind him as the first held her down by the shoulders. It wasn't necessary, but he did it anyway. She'd fought them only enough that they had to force her onto the bed. The man who had her last had threatened to hit her and she'd stopped struggling, letting them get her clothes off and have her. He had held her for the first, stroking her face with his fingers while the other man fucked her. She hadn't bitten him. She even sucked at his fingers cooperatively and his eyes had glazed at that.

She'd felt so used, so alive and so thoroughly satiated afterwards it was obscene. She understood why many women didn't report rapes, not if some of the experiences left them feeling like this. She felt like an animal in heat that had been fought over and claimed and plowed. Tremor after tremor ran through her, every orgasm she'd felt then, every pleasure made real and immediate and present. She gasped and shuddered and was dimly aware she'd broken eye contact. She'd forgotten she even had it, the vision in her mind's eye being stronger than mere optical input.

She sagged against Maury Parkman, feeling his right hand against the bare skin of her neck, his thumb resting lightly against her pulse. That wasn't where she thought his right hand had been. It was dry and cool, without a trace of dampness from her body. Her face was nearly in his armpit from where she pressed against him. She could smell his deodorant, though since he'd showered just an hour before, that was all. He still had that 'old man' smell. He shifted her so her face was against the right side of his neck, her forehead against his jaw. Her breathing was slowing, her eyelids heavy. She gazed blankly at his neck and the very top of his chest. Grey hair peeked out. His skin was wrinkled and thin, splotchy. It was kind of repellant. It reminded her of her grandfather. Maury was old enough for that, she assumed. He tensed several times in series.

She looked up at him curiously and he stopped trying to stifle his laughter at the ridiculousness of the nearly fifty year age gap between them. He laughed. She glanced down at her clothing. Her shirt wasn't even untucked, but the pleasure had been quite real. Her panties were sodden. His chuckles faded and she put her head back against his chest. She pulled her thoughts together and focused. _That's what happened night before last, when I thought it was Matt? The whole thing was an illusion?_

_Yes._

_I like it. A lot._

He smirked. _Good. That __**was**__ my intention._

She let her hand drift down his front to his crotch. He tightened across the shoulders and swallowed. She hesitated, but he didn't stop her or otherwise indicate her touch was unwelcome. She caressed him through his slacks. He wasn't erect, but he was swollen and soft. She wanted power over him. She wanted to give him something – not just receive and have him walk on without needing her, wanting her. She looked up at him, kneading him gently. He looked at her and then away, breathing a little harder. It felt good, but he was very unsure as to whether he should let her. Doing so would make things different and he knew that even more clearly than she did. She hesitated and stopped working him, worried she was offending him, that he was only tolerating her.

He looked back and kissed her briefly on the forehead. She swallowed uneasily, her hand still on him, confused. She thought to him, _What will you let me do for you? Should I do this? …I want to do this._

He was silent for a long while, looking down at her with an intent expression. She could feel him sorting through her. She relaxed against him and let him, feeling another desperate surge of need to gain a foothold with him since Matt had rejected her. Their abilities were something she dreamed about. She had to offer him something he wanted that she could give. She didn't have an ability or contacts or money, but she had herself. It's what Matt had wanted from her.

He needed to know she saw this as a transaction, not a promise of love. He was uninterested in having her service him if he was going to have to deal with her sobbing later about how he didn't return her affection. However, he was perfectly willing to pay for his pleasure as long as the price wasn't too high. He didn't have any illusions that this was love or even fondness. He looked in her mind and saw she didn't have those illusions either.

_Go ahead,_ he thought to her. _Do it then, but forgive me if… I'm not a young man. You know that?_

She shut her eyes and put her head against his chest, unfastening his slacks. _I know. I've been with a few older men._ She tried not to think about those, but it didn't work. The two oldest had both been unpleasant, met at the movie industry parties she'd gone to. One had been high on who knows what and become distracted in the middle of the act, wandering out of the room naked with a boner. The other had poked at her for most of an hour, seeming vacuously pleased with himself and never getting anywhere. He finally stopped because he decided it was time to go back to the bar and have another drink. She'd felt like an appliance for both men. It made her hate Viagra.

He touched her cheek as she opened his clothing and pulled him out. He stroked her face with the back of his hand and kissed her forehead again. _You're not an appliance. If I wanted to pleasure myself I could._

_You could have __**anyone**__, _she thought, wrapping her hand around his thickness and caressing him. She lusted after that sort of power.

_I know. _ He didn't project anything else to her, even when she looked at him questioningly. He just smiled a little and stroked her face again. He was thinking he _could_ have anyone, but she was the only one volunteering.

She sank down on her knees and took him into her mouth, rolling his still somewhat flaccid organ with her tongue. He leaned back against the wall and got comfortable, shutting out her mind and focusing on the sensations she brought him. He didn't care to hear her side of it – not for fellatio. Even if she was one of those women who got off on it, giving head wasn't a pleasure he shared. Receiving it was a different matter. He put his head back and closed his eyes, groaning as she sucked and began to bob like a professional. She didn't hurry or make any indication that he was taking too long. He stayed out of her mind and enjoyed himself, imagining other women in her place, women he missed and wished he could be with again.

He let his hands play with the top of her head. When he was fully hard, he ran his fingers into her hair, gripping her. She didn't object. Instead she turned her head a little to ease her breathing and took him even deeper. She was ready when he started moving her head on him, fucking her mouth and the moist warmth of the back of her throat, ringing the head of his dick. Her tongue swirled against his shaft and pulled him in deep. He moaned in approval, pushing into her until he could feel her gag reflex teasing the end of his cock.

He let her go until she had control of herself again. She took several deep breaths and sucked on just the head, her lips wrapped around the flange of his tip. He watched her doing it for a few moments, then leaned back when she looked up at him. He returned to his fantasies, not wanting the eye contact. She alternated taking him deep in her throat and then working the end.

She was being patient with him. He appreciated that. He could feel his crest coming. He put his hands to her head again, just stroking her hair this time as his hips began to move against her. She tilted her head and took him deeply again. At the feel of himself entirely within her mouth this time, he pressed her face to his groin and groaned, losing himself in her. He pulled back as quickly as he could manage. She struggled for a moment, then swallowed.

He sighed voluminously. "Ohhh, boyyy. Thank you." He smiled lazily. _Well, I suppose I've fucked it up now. Matt will never have her – oversensitive bastard. He's an idiot. I wouldn't have done that the other night if I'd known he'd have a fit over it. No way I can salvage it now._ She tucked him away and took care of his clothing. He let her. When she stood up, he pulled her to him and held her against his chest, feeling the swell of her ample bosom between them. It felt nice. He rested his cheek against her hair.

He trolled through her thoughts. She was still concerned over what would happen to her. He found it a good sign that she didn't think one blow job was going to make him silly over her. She worried that if she tried to run the operation without at least one of them, she would fail or have to scale back dramatically. It wasn't that she wanted the organization anyway. It could crash and burn for all she cared, because she'd found something she wanted more. She wanted a piece of the super-powered pie. There were people out there with abilities and that was a lot more important than any amount of drugs or money or guns or even her fledging acting career.

He petted her back. _I need to get her out of here before Matt finds out about this and goes ballistic. _"Patty, there's a company you can join. I'll sponsor your entry. I think it's what you want, or at close as you're likely to get to it, anyway."

He winced a little at the thoughts she had next, thinking he **had** gone silly over her. She smiled smugly at him and he laughed, chucking her chin. "Yeah, you're good, babe, but don't get any ideas."


	34. End of Summer Lunch Party

Peter showed up very reluctantly to his family's End of Summer Lunch Party, as his mother was calling it. It wasn't that he disliked the idea of attending another of his mother's functions, not that he thought much of them anyway. It was that Nathan and Heidi were attending. Or rather, as he still thought of them, Gabriel and Heidi - and when he was angry, or still hurting over losing Nathan, he thought of them as Sylar and Heidi. It was childish, he knew, but he was still waiting for the man impersonating his brother to revert back to a serial killer.

He had to admit that Gabriel hadn't done anything to draw attention to himself, not in a way that mattered to Peter. There weren't any bodies, no wrecked lives and no far-reaching, ill-conceived ambitions Nathan's younger brother needed to thwart. It was a relief, really. He'd managed to get through nearly six months seeing the imposter once twice, in passing at his mother's house, when Gabriel was there with his ever-present Nathan-face, to discuss Company matters.

Nathan's boys were in high spirits as they ran through the house. Peter wondered where his mother was and how long it would take her to rein in her grandchildren's poor manners. He didn't say anything to them, even though, as their uncle, he had a right. He didn't want to attract their parent's attention. He noticed Heidi had put on some weight. She was wearing a very full dress. He almost thought (hoped? No, that would be cruel) that maybe she'd gained weight because she'd been under a lot of stress, but she looked too happy for that to be the reason. He didn't dwell on it. His own relationship with Emma had been wonderful at first, then rocky as she sorted out her own issues.

There were three other couples, friends of the family whom he got on with no better than his estranged "brother" and wife. One of them was one of Nathan's partners in his new law firm. Since he was out of his element, or at least out of his desired element, Peter quickly gravitated to talking to the hired help. He smiled and made them feel welcome. It made him feel welcome as well. He gave them a hand whenever his mother wasn't in the room, having received a few too many scathing lectures about how he wasn't to act as a servant while he was under her roof. When she was in the room he played nice for her sake and stood around being a wallflower, but when she was gone he made himself useful and helped out.

It was shortly before the meal when Nathan finally found him. Peter had been intentionally avoiding the man. He was starting to think he needed to quit calling him Gabriel, even in his own mind. He'd already slipped twice just today and referred to him as Gabriel to the people he was working with. They didn't understand the significance of Peter forgetting his brother's name, nor did they care - another reason for him to be thankful he was hanging out with the help. They weren't the sharks the guests tended to be at the Petrelli household.

The man who was posing as his brother took his upper arm and pulled him along towards another room. "Peter, come here. I have something to tell you." Nathan brought his brother with him, oblivious to Peter's irritated glance at being touched. Peter and Nathan had always been very close and very free with expressing their affection to one another. It bothered Peter to have Gabriel act the same way, as if he had a right to touch him like this because he looked like Nathan, perhaps because he thought he **was** Nathan. _No telling how far the personality drift has gone._ Peter looked upset and left it at that, not wanting to make a scene out of something so trivial. It didn't mean he liked it, though.

Once in the study alone, Peter shook off Gabriel's hand, which the other man noted briefly and then went on as if it hadn't happened. He was excited. "Peter! I wanted you to know before the announcement. I've been looking for you since you got here. You've seen Heidi?" He smiled conspiratorially.

Peter frowned and sat down. "Yeah, I saw her." He was disinterested and trying to school himself to think of this man as someone named Nathan, just not necessarily the Nathan he used to know. It was tough to make that distinction, given the face he wore.

Nathan looked back and forth around the room, disappointed at Peter's lackluster response. "And?"

Peter shrugged. "I saw her. I didn't talk to her. You know how it is between her and me."

"Oh!" Nathan's face lit up once more. "Then you don't know? That's it! I would have thought, with you being a… well, anyway, there's no hiding it anymore. I'm going to be a father!"

Peter looked up at Gabriel in shock, his mouth falling open.

Nathan went to one knee next to him, gesturing excitedly and putting one hand on Peter's shoulder. "Yes! That was my reaction too! Exactly! Isn't it amazing? It's like the first time for me… sort of. And it's wonderful!"

Peter shut his mouth and stared at him blankly, thinking Gabriel's reaction could not possibly include the nausea and emotional disruption he was experiencing from imagining his sister-in-law had become so involved with Sylar that she was going to have his baby. _What would such a child look like?_

"There's more!" Nathan leaned in, grinning madly. There had been no one he'd been able to share this with for the three months he'd known about it. Now that he could tell it, he didn't want to keep it in. Later, in front of the gathering, he'd be restrained and proper. Here with Peter he could let his true feelings out, even if he could tell from Peter's face he wasn't getting the reception he'd hoped for. At least he was listening - instead of shooting him like Noah did. Nathan told him, "It's a boy! We haven't told anyone that, even Ma. But," he shrugged, "I'm sure she knows anyway, you know Ma."

Peter nodded, putting a smile on his face for the other man. It wasn't hard, really. Nathan (Gabriel?) was so excited that it would have been very hard to remain unmoved in the face of such enthusiasm. Peter's heart had always been particularly easy to shift with sincere feeling. His smile softened and became genuine as Nathan went on, telling him about the latest ultrasound and moving his hands around animatedly. _He really is happy, really and truly happy. _

A huge part of Peter's resentment of the man melted away as Gabriel held out his hand and talked in loving, adoring tones about how small the baby was at this point and how he could hear its heartbeat, like a little drum in Heidi's stomach. Peter imagined he meant with a stethoscope - Gabriel didn't correct the assumption.

"…and we're going to name him Noah."

"What?" Peter was snapped out of simply basking in the positive emotional projection Nathan was lavishing on him by that statement.

"Noah. I was going to ask him to be his godfather, but he declined the invitation to come today. I'll have to go meet him." Nathan's face was troubled at that. He'd probably get shot again. _Maybe I should try sending a letter?_ He was thankful that Mr. Bennet had restrained himself from doing anything more. He hadn't looked for any more elaborate or certain way to hurt him, but he'd made his feelings regarding Gabriel, or Nathan, perfectly clear: come close to me in private and I'll shoot you; if you act civilized after that, then we can talk about whatever you came for (until I'm finished reloading). Considering what Claire had given him, Gabriel was willing to put up with a great deal from the Bennets.

"Oh," Peter said, thinking of all the water under the Bennet bridge. "Are you sure?"

"What's the worst thing that could happen? He could say no. I was hoping he'd… he'd see that…" Nathan stood up and paced the room a little. "I was hoping he'd see that if I was willing to have him as the godfather of my son, that maybe it would help heal what… what happened. I don't like the way things are there, Peter."

Peter looked up at him. _So is that why you keep bothering that poor man?_ Peter had become partners with Bennet in locating and talking to people new to their abilities. It kept him busy, as if his job with EMS wasn't busy enough. It also gave him plenty of opportunity to hear Noah Bennet's feelings about Gabriel tracking him down and confronting him in private. Since Gabriel had never done anything to the other man (other than send him a bill for a suit once, which Noah had preserved long enough to show to Peter and then tore it up into tiny pieces), Peter had wondered about his motives. Obviously there was something unresolved.

"Really, Nathan, I'm not sure that will fix things." At Nathan's fallen expression, Peter stood up and walked over to him. "I mean, it might. Let me talk to him, okay? You're not announcing that today, are you?" He reached out to put a hand on his forearm and then stopped himself. _This is why I don't like him. I want to respond to him the way I'd respond to my brother._

Nathan looked at Peter's abortive gesture and took his hand before Peter could draw it away entirely. "No, I wasn't. Not until I talked to him. You'll do this for me?"

Peter resisted the urge to pull his hand away. It felt just like Nathan's hand: light, warm, soft in some places and rough in others. "Yes, I will." He thought of how happy the other man had been about his child. Peter held onto that memory. The warmth of it melted the coolness he felt in his heart. "I'll talk to him."

"Nathan?" Heidi stood at the doorway, looking at the two brothers standing too close, Nathan holding Peter's hand. She didn't comment. "We were about to sit down."

Nathan nodded to her and gave Peter a quick hug. He patted his brother on the shoulder and walked to her. "I told him! And he's going to talk to Noah Bennet for me, for us."

"Oh," she smiled past Nathan at Peter, coolly. "That's nice. Let's go join everyone then."


	35. Angela as a Mother

**A/N: Michael Fitzgerald is a canon character. You can find him on the Heroes wiki.**

It wasn't until after the party, after he'd talked to Peter and finally managed to thaw his chilly reception with the younger Petrelli, that Nathan was able to clear his head and focus on what was important. He wasn't sure where Maury had gone during the August board meeting, but he'd been present by teleconference. Nathan realized now that his thoughts had been muddled for some time. Maybe the long absence of Maury was what had cleared his head. Instead he thought it more likely it was renewed hope from getting a positive response from Peter.

He didn't wait for the September meeting to get started seeking answers. He was finding the meetings frustrating. He wasn't getting the explanations he'd expected from the position. He returned to the Petrelli house. Angela was out, which was inconsequential to him. He brushed off Mr. Grem's repeated suggestions that he wait in the parlor or entry or better yet, come back at a later time. The house was partly his. His mother even still kept his room. It was the first place he intended to check. Once there, he looked back over his shoulder at the tall, thin man hesitating in the hallway, trying to work himself up to insisting Nathan leave. The door closed of its own accord. Nathan began his studies. He started with his bed.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, being lost in memories as he was, but he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. His mother (and at this point he could hardly think of her as "Angela" after hours of wading through Nathan's past) stood silently in the doorway. Behind her was the butler and a blond, heavily muscled man with faintly glowing tattoos. Nathan looked at his mother. Her face had an expression he would call compassionate on anyone else. On her, he was unsure of what it meant. She lifted her hand and turned her head fractionally, obviously addressing the men behind her, "Leave us." Both did, Grem without question and the blond with one last suspicious look at him over Angela's shoulder.

Nathan sat down on a battered wooden chair that stood in front of a small, also well-used desk. He waited to find out what she wanted. She walked over towards Nathan and paused an arm's length away. He noticed she was wringing her hands together nervously. Seeing he was looking at her hands, she stilled them. He looked up at her in puzzlement, brows coming together. "Ma?"

She stepped next to him and hugged him to herself, putting his head sideways across her chest. He tensed and after a second pushed away from her. She started to back away with an ashen expression, afraid she had seriously misjudged his purpose in the room, handling his old things. She had known there would be a time when she could approach him, but knowing exactly when it would occur was another matter. If she had the wrong moment, then everything would fail. He reached out and caught her hand before she could retreat. "Ma? I don't understand."

His gentleness in the face of her weakness calmed her fears. Her voice was very soft, vulnerable, as she said, "Let me hug you, Nathan. You've never been my son as strongly as you are now - not since the change. I don't know when you will be again, that I will be near you. I am not as unfeeling as you imagine."

His face drew together as if in pain. He nodded and stood. She walked forward and hugged him. They stood together quietly for some time. He felt an overwhelming love for her. Eventually he stroked her hair for want of something to do. He wanted only to comfort her. There was an odd tingle in his hand. He thought about what she'd done to him. He loved her anyway, which surprised him. "Are you sorry you killed me?" he asked softly.

"No," she said in much the same tone. "It was necessary. So many things are, as I'm sure you're finding out."

He exhaled. "Ma," he finally broke the hug, but they still stood close. "I can't forgive you. Not yet."

She gave him a melancholy smile. "I know. Maybe you never will. I haven't seen it that you do. But there are more lives at stake than your own. I hope you understand that."

He breathed in and stepped back, sitting down in the chair again. He put his head in his hands. "Ma, you tried to kill Peter. You thought you'd killed Dad. You **did** kill **me**."

She knelt next to him and put her hand on his knee, looking up at him. "Nathan… this is important. Listen to me." Her voice was still gentle. "Peter survived. He would have survived the explosion no matter what. Your father was going to kill you. He'd already tried once. The next time he would have succeeded. And **you** are **not** dead."

He looked at her for a long moment, then rolled his eyes and looked away. She stood up stiffly at his rejection of her rationale. He said quickly, "Okay, I'll give you the first two. The last though, that's just a technicality."

Her voice hardened to closer to her normal tone, "The last is patently obvious. You have an identity. You are legally Nathan Petrelli. You are accepted by nearly everyone who knew him as _being_ him. You have his memories, his affectations, his things, his family and his appearance. What more do you want?"

_I wouldn't mind Peter. We both know what you mean by "nearly everyone."_ He shook his head wordlessly and looked at the floor.

She spoke, "Would you like something to eat? Mr. Grem says you've been up here all afternoon. You must be hungry."

"I'm not sure I trust your cooking, Ma." He said it without heat, just as passing conversation. He didn't look up.

She didn't seem to take offense at it. She harrumphed. "You've eaten here a half dozen times without incident. Come into the kitchen with me and watch then, if you feel uneasy tonight. You can help."

He looked up at her. He'd thought for sure he'd get a rise out of her with that barb. Her expression was placid though, like she was perfectly serious. She smiled when he looked up at her. She said, "Come on. You can come back here later. Besides, you're far too important to me to poison right now." She stepped forward and patted his shoulder before walking out. After waiting a moment, he rose and followed.

As they walked down the hall, he couldn't resist another attempt to shift her back to the hostile matron he was more familiar with. "So how do you plan to kill me, next time?"

"With darkness, but it's not my plan." She shook her head. "I don't know what it means. It's very open to interpretation. I don't have any plans to kill you, though I'll admit to making sure we have means available to restrain you, should the need arise. I don't foresee everything, especially those things common sense guards against." She started down the stairs.

Inside, he was wondering what had changed her. _Why is she answering my questions? Was it a vision? Was it just seeing me in my room? Is there something else that's happened?_ "Is Peter okay?"

She stopped on the step and turned to him. After looking at him a moment, her eyes slid to the side, almost like she was trying to think of who he meant… or using a power to locate him. She looked back at him. "Yes, he's fine." She started back down the steps.

He decided to press his luck as far as it would go. "Do you have a power to see him? Right now? What did you just do?"

She didn't stop, but she glanced back at him. "I thought about the visions I've had of him, the ones that haven't come to pass yet. They seem as strong as they were before. They start to fade when the timeline changes. They distort and crack. His future is still clear, which means there's nothing happening to him right now that's much of a danger to him."

"What's going to happen to him?" he asked.

"The same thing that happens to everyone, Nathan. Don't obsess about it. One thing about seeing the future is that you see the end of everyone."

He wanted to ask more, but they had an audience as they reached the bottom of the stairs. The two men who had been with his mother before were waiting in the parlor. They came out and looked at Angela. Taylor nodded and left for other parts of the house without any visible signal. All he needed was to see his employer's face to know he didn't need to worry. Nathan wondered at that. He'd always had such a hard time reading her. Maybe if he spent every day working with her it would be different. Noah seemed to be a good read of her moods and now that he thought about it, so was Peter. _Empathy's never been my strong suit._

She introduced the blond man to him, "Nathan, this is Michael Fitzgerald. Michael, this is my son, Nathan." The man's tattoos were no longer glowing. He shook Nathan's hand firmly. Angela went on, "I've retained him as a bodyguard for the time being. Perhaps in a few months we'll find other employment for him."

"A bodyguard? Who is he protecting you from?"

"Our business affairs have been noticed. It seemed prudent to take precautions." She turned to the tattooed man and said, "My sons are to have full access to the house and grounds whether I am here or not. In my absence, and lacking any conflicting directions from myself, you are to do as they say." Michael nodded. Nathan tilted his head slightly at that and applied Sylar's gift for understanding things. His eyes narrowed. Angela took two steps towards the kitchen and then looked back. Fitzgerald was scowling at Nathan, who was peering at him intently.

"Nathan? Please come with me," she said.

He turned and followed her. Once in the kitchen, he waited to see if Michael had followed them. When it was apparent he had not, Nathan turned to his mother and said, "So that's what you've been having Maury do? Pull on specials the same whammy you're having him do on the agents?" He wasn't happy. "I thought that was voted on by the board, on a case-by-case basis."

"Michael was incarcerated. Incarcerated members are to be rehabilitated whenever possible and practical. Maury rehabilitated him."

Nathan sat on a stool while Angela busied herself getting things out of the refrigerator and freezer. She handed him a small bag of jumbo shrimp and a knife. "Here, cut these. Small pieces," she said.

"That's what you're calling it now, 'rehabilitation'?" _Am I 'rehabilitated'?_

"Oh!" She sounded annoyed. "You sound just like Peter!"

"He's right most of the time, you know."

"Would you rather I had left Michael where he was for the last two years? He volunteered for the procedure, although to be honest I'm sure that was mostly due to being in solitary confinement for so long." She looked at the untouched bag of shrimp. "Cut them, Nathan. I want them bite-size."

He scratched his nose and looked around the room. There was no one there except them. It was a bit odd. He was sure the maid should be around somewhere and she usually doubled as a cook. He took his finger and drew a slit along the bag, then began to cut each shrimp into bite-size pieces using his ability. It took a lot more concentration than using a knife, but honestly he didn't get much opportunity to use his powers anymore. He certainly hadn't used this one in a long time. _Hm. Last time was… on her, I think. If you don't count things I've done in fugue._ It took a lot of precision to avoid scoring the cutting board. _Practice makes perfect._

He glanced up to see her frowning at him. Seeing his look, she rolled her eyes at him and went on with preparing the vegetables and pasta. He grinned widely. Angela knew the moment had passed - the window to the son she had raised was closing. She was moved by it, but it had been a long time coming. It wasn't like she hadn't known, even though she'd been surprised by how some events had played out. She turned away to add the pasta to the boiling water.

Her vision had told her this was a pivot point. If she had failed, then within a month or two he would give up on himself and revert to Sylar after a bad encounter with Peter. Both of the remaining Petrellis would be killed. More importantly, he would go on to take control of the Company and use it for his appetites, ignoring the group's true purpose. When their rivals rose against them, he would be powerless, struck down and destroyed. A dark future would reign.

If she succeeded, then the inevitable reversion would be months away and it would be to Gabriel, not Sylar. Peter would live, which was important because he was as critical to the future as Gabriel. There was hope in that future, even if there was also great difficulty. She held her hand to her chest. It hurt with an ache that had been there for a very long time. _Goodbye, Nathan,_ she thought.


	36. Peter's First

A month had passed since the party. The boys were off in school during the day. Heidi was now five months pregnant and her hormones were getting the better of her. She didn't intend to be mean, but she was. Nathan was patient and loving, but he was also human. He'd taken to working late, which only upset her more. He came in one night just before dinner and she threw him out for having the temerity to think he could come in as dinner was served, eat and then retreat to the study until she went to bed. She yelled at him. She made a scene. He left angry. Her words were still ringing in his ears as he showed up in front of Peter's apartment. Somehow it seemed right to go to the residence of the person she most didn't want him to be with.

He rang the bell and waited, wondering if Peter would even be there. He worked a rotating shift at the hospital and there was no telling when Bennet might rope him into a road trip on Company business. A shadow moved over the eyehole. Nathan waited calmly. It did not occur to him that his brother might not let him in. After too much time had passed, he cocked his head and said, "Come on, Pete. Let me in. I know you're in there."

Peter opened the door, partway, regarding him.

Nathan started to step in, but Peter didn't move. After a second of being too close, Nathan stepped back, looking at Peter quizzically.

"What are you doing here?" Peter asked, plainly affronted by Nathan's mere presence darkening his doorstep.

Nathan shrugged and pretended to remain oblivious to the cold shoulder. "Heidi threw me out. I got rid of my apartment last spring. Wanted to go somewhere I knew." He looked off to the side and shrugged one shoulder. "Talk to someone."

Peter sighed. "Threw you out… why?" _How is your marriage __**my**__ problem, Sylar?_

Nathan looked around the hallway and then directly at Peter. "Are we seriously going to have this conversation in the hall?" His voice held a touch of heat at the unwarrantedly cool reception.

Peter looked him up and down, then shook his head and opened the door. _Nathan always came to me when he had problems. I went to him. I guess… that hasn't changed._ It was kind of comforting.

Nathan waited until the door was fully shut behind him. Then he wandered around the apartment, looking it over. It hadn't changed much since the previous fall. It was still spartan, mostly empty. One of the walls had clippings and pictures on it, but instead of being people Peter had saved, it was people with special abilities Peter had helped. Nathan wandered the open space of the apartment, saying, "It's this pregnancy. It's making her… tense. She sees things where they aren't, accuses me of things. Am I ever glad I picked an older receptionist." He shook his head.

Peter asked, "You want something to drink? Water?"

"Yeah, that'd be fine. You have anything stronger?"

"No, I don't." Peter got two bottles out of the fridge.

"Oh, yeah." Nathan nodded and recalled Peter's opinion about alcohol. You could get him to drink some with a meal, if it was socially required, but that was where his interest in it ended. Nathan looked at some of the pictures on the wall. It occurred to him that it was a handy roster of potential victims. He twitched and walked away from it after thinking that, looking for something else to look at.

Peter handed him the water, looking from Nathan to the wall. Nathan said suddenly, "I'm not looking at that. It's not… I'm not looking at it."

Peter didn't say anything, taking a seat on the battered yellow couch he'd rescued when a neighbor moved out. The last time Nathan had been in his apartment had been Thanksgiving. Nathan paced uneasily, looking around the place with nervous, unsettled energy as if he was thinking much the same thing. After a long silence had passed, Peter said, "It's been a long time. Since you were in here."

"Yeah," Nathan said. "Was it… is it a mistake for me to be here?" He turned and looked at Peter directly, intently. He often telegraphed when he was listening for lies, Peter had noticed. _I wonder why he does that? He doesn't have to._

Peter answered vaguely, "I don't know. You said you wanted someone to talk to."

"Yeah. Yeah." Peter watched Nathan move across the floor, standing in the doorway to the dining room. He walked uneasily across the empty room, raising his hands as if touching the air or feeling something there. He stood in one place, head tilted as if listening, then crossed to stand on the other side of the room. The table wasn't there anymore. Peter had gotten rid of it and the chairs both. He watched as Nathan, Gabriel held up one hand, two fingers together in the motion Sylar used to cut into people's heads.

Peter wasn't outraged or shocked. Instead he was curious about what Gabriel was seeing and what it meant to his fractured, now reformed, mind. This was where one of his component personalities had turned on the other. It was where Nathan had won out and Sylar had been defeated, though Peter hadn't thought of it that way until just now. He'd seen it before as the most wrenching event of his own life. He'd considered getting another apartment altogether, but so much had happened afterwards that he hadn't gotten around to it. By the time he had the opportunity, the man who was in the dining room now had been neutralized in a cell in Nebraska - no threat to anyone, or so it had seemed.

His examination apparently complete, Nathan came out and sat down next to him. In his defense, it was the only seat available in the room. Peter moved to the opposite end of the couch. Nathan looked at that and then rolled his head, looking away. "Peter. The woman I love just threw me out. I assume maybe I can go back tomorrow. But in the meantime, please don't act like this."

"Like what?" Peter said defensively.

"Like I'm some sort of pariah, that's what. Like I'm a leper you don't want to get too close to. Like I'm a monster who might… might do **that** again." He gestured at the dining room.

Peter considered that and shifted on the couch so he was no longer as far as possible from the other man. "Nathan," he used the name with some difficulty, "You're not the only one who's had trouble with this, with all this."

Nathan turned to him suddenly, "I know. I know that. I'm sorry. I know you think I have no right being what I am, looking like what I look like. But… that's who I am, Pete. I've stayed away from you, because… because I think that's what you want. Certainly it's what Heidi wants. You used to be my world. I **know** that." He tapped his temple. "And every time I'm with you since then… you're pulling away." After a long pause, he said, "I need someone. I want someone. Someone I can talk to, at least. We used to have that."

"I had that with Nathan," Peter said neutrally.

The other man nodded. "Yeah. You had it with **me**." He looked at Peter, whose eyes narrowed slightly.

Peter watched him for a long moment, recalling how hurt he'd been in Omaha when Gabriel had pulled away from him repeatedly, spurning casual touches and comforting proximity. It had made Peter certain that the person he was dealing with might have Nathan's memories, but it wasn't him. Now he had someone who had Nathan's memories and wanted to have the same relationship they'd had before... and it was Peter who was pulling away. Finally he said, "Why the change?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

Peter searched his face and realized he'd been misunderstood. "No, the change. When… after Parkman worked on you," he noted Nathan's expression flattened and stilled, "after that, you were a stranger, most of the time. You were Gabriel. You could wear Nathan's face and you answered to his name, but you were confused. You weren't him. You didn't want… you didn't react to me like you did at the party, like you're doing here. Why did that change?"

"I got Claire's ability."

Peter blinked at him. _How does regeneration help?_

As if able to read his mind, he went on, gesturing at his head, "It rearranged my head. Took out all the contradictions. Made me stop being crazy. It fixed me. The second time, in February. The first time it helped a lot, but you're right. I was confused about who I was. The second time, I wasn't confused anymore. I'm…" he shrugged, "Not always sure who I **have** been, but I know who I **am**. Does that make any sense?"

Peter leaned forward slightly, looking at the man. "A little." _So, he doesn't think he's Gabriel posing as Nathan. He really thinks he __**is**__ Nathan. Or near enough._ Peter turned around in his head how he felt about that. _Does that mean he __**is**__ Nathan?_ Hope still burned in his heart. _Anything is possible._

"Have you had dinner?" Nathan's voice broke into his thoughts and pulled him out of his reverie.

"What?" Peter replied. "Um… no. I was going to have a sandwich or something later."

His brother pulled out his phone. "How about I call in some Chinese or a pizza or something?"

Peter nodded, "Sure."

Nathan dialed. "I didn't get dinner at home," he explained grumpily.

Peter nodded.

An hour later, Peter had heard all the details of Nathan's problems with Heidi. He agreed they were hormonal, probably normal and something to be endured. She'd get better, eventually. Nathan was still frustrated about it. They'd also stopped having sex, which seemed to coincide with the emergence of her suspicions that he would soon be cheating on her. Peter prescribed ice cream, chocolate, flowers and flattery. Nathan said he'd follow the doctor's orders.

They carried the trash from dinner into the kitchen, the conversation having shifted to Peter's work schedule and how difficult it was to balance with Company business. Peter dropped his stuff in the can and turned, finding Nathan right next to him doing the same. Nathan looked up, realizing how close they were, too close. His eyes traveled up and down Peter's body for a moment and then across Peter's face. His expression dulled and he started to step away.

Peter reached out for him. Nathan let him pull him around to face him again. He studied Peter's face. Very deliberately, Peter raised his hand to Nathan's jaw and stroked it along the light stubble there. _He looks like Nathan. He thinks he is Nathan. Is that good enough? Is he Nathan? _He didn't know. His body clearly felt it was.

Of course, his body had gotten him into this crazy relationship with his brother in the first place, with one too many reactions to Nathan's frequent touch, until finally Nathan had noticed. It was only a matter of time after that until they acted on it. He opened his mouth slightly and tugged on Nathan's chin. Nathan leaned into him and put his lips to Peter's mouth for a moment, hesitating, looking at Peter's eyes. Peter pressed into him and he deepened the kiss.

Nathan put his hands on either side of the wall and Peter leaned back against it, thrilling to the intimate touch he'd been denied for nearly a year. _Sylar? Gabriel? Nathan? God, he looks like Nathan, acts like him, smells like him, tastes like him…_ He ran his hands over Nathan's sides and chest, pulling his shirt out to touch his skin around his waist. Nathan kissed him passionately, then lightly across the face. "How do we do this?" he breathed.

"Huh? We're doing it," Peter said, bringing his hands higher under Nathan's shirt.

"No… I mean… Uhh…" Nathan leaned his body into Peter's letting him know how he felt about things at this point and making it awkward for Peter's hands to continue roaming. "I mean, I don't have all my memories," he ground out.

Peter didn't exactly freeze, but everything shifted into a lower gear. "What? You mean… what do you remember?" _He's here, he's doing this. What the hell?_

Nathan exhaled, gathering his wits and reigning in his desire to dry hump Peter into the wall. "I remember we were together, we… I don't know the details. There aren't any. I assume we've…" He swallowed and muttered, "I hate Matt Parkman. I fucking **hate** him for what he's done to me."

Peter removed his hands, having the awkward feeling he'd been touching a stranger.

"No!" Nathan stood back and caught at his hands, a pained expression on his face. "That's… Peter, that's not unusual. There's a lot of things I don't have it all for, that I have only partial recall. I know we've been together. I want to be again. I just don't remember… exactly what we've done. What you like, that sort of thing." He moved his head back in for a kiss, desperate not to ruin the moment with his problems. _Shouldn't have said anything and just went with it. He probably wouldn't have noticed. _He'd mentioned it though, precisely because if Peter **had** noticed, and had thought it meant he wasn't really Nathan, that there would never, ever, be a second time.

Peter breathed him in, thought it over and kissed him back. Their exchange became heated again, kissing, touching, loosening clothes and exploring. Peter told him, "Bedroom."

As they entered, Nathan took off his clothes. His shirt was already unbuttoned. It and the t-shirt were off, followed quickly by his slacks. He pulled the boxers down with them and put the whole set carefully on the footboard of the bed. Peter was watching him, smiling at the sight. Not only was Nathan's body pleasing to him, but he was greatly buoyed by seeing him carry out one of Nathan's personal quirks. Nathan turned and frowned a little at Peter for still being fully clothed.

"You want to do this?" Peter asked him.

"Yeah," Nathan breathed, searching Peter's face. There was a darkness there, an uncertainty and a distance, but Nathan trusted him, putting his faith in Peter's hands.

Peter took his shoulder and turned him to face the mattress. "Lean over." He did.

Peter got out a tube of lubricant from his nightstand and rubbed his free hand over Nathan's back. Peter liked the feel of his skin. Obviously, Nathan liked him feeling it. He stretched and moaned under his touch. Peter leaned over his body, folding himself around the other man and rubbed the bulge of his groin against Nathan's bare ass. He humped him twice, Nathan pushing back into him the second time. He put his face on the back of his neck and nuzzled. He got a receptive guttural sound in response.

Content that his partner was ready, he put his hand between his legs and urged them spread. He opened his fly and removed himself - a little early, but if he waited, it was likely his hands would be slippery. He dispensed lube onto his hand and moved his fingers between Nathan's cheeks. The other man's breathing quickened appreciably. Peter smiled. One thing was for sure, he was a lot more responsive than he used to be - not that he'd ever been dull, but he responded strongly to Peter's every touch.

"What…" Nathan tensed as Peter's fingers began to probe at him. "What are you going to do?" He looked back, hair tousled.

_Really handsome_, Peter thought. _Drop-dead gorgeous, in fact._ "I'm going to fuck you in the ass, Nathan." It was stronger language than he normally used, but he was feeling more intense than he usually did. For one thing, Nathan was not generally so compliant, following his lead entirely and desperate for his affection. If Peter's own mind had not been so clouded with lust, he might have thought more about that and more about how Nathan had said he didn't remember the actual sex. For the other thing, Peter was human. In the back of his mind, there remained some similarity between this man and Sylar. The idea of pounding Sylar, dominating him completely, was irresistibly arousing to him. He acted on it without thinking it through.

He loosened him with one finger and then another, hearing grunts and groans of surprise and anticipation. Peter positioned himself and started to push in gently, still clothed other than his organ projecting from his opened pants. Nathan was tight, too tight. After several failed thrusts, Nathan said, "You're going to have to push harder, Peter. You're not going to hurt me." He'd reached down and was stroking himself with one hand, holding himself up with the other.

Peter grimaced, pulling back and forth a bit, working into it. "That's not the point. I don't want it to **hurt**, either." He bit his lip and withdrew, working his brother with his fingers again and applying more lubricant. "Just relax. Relax yourself. You've done this before." Nathan grunted inarticulately, but his muscles relaxed enough that Peter thought he could make a second try at it. This time he was successful at entering and started pushing in and out in small strokes. Nathan was so tight it was heavenly. Nathan groaned as if through clenched teeth and put both hands on the mattress, pushing back against him, causing Peter to thrust in nearly his whole length.

"Ohhh! Yeah," Peter said, gripping Nathan's hips and bucking into them more solidly. He found a rhythm quickly, thrusting steadily and pushing into him, using the pressure of his fingers to guide Nathan's response. Nathan kept up with him, panting and being used, being filled and pounded and thrusted into. Peter reached a crescendo, clenching his teeth and trying to keep to the rhythm he'd been using. It was working - it was driving him right over the edge. When he finally came, it was a wave of pleasure that washed through his whole body, making him shudder with the force of it. Breathing heavily, he leaned over Nathan's body and kissed his back gratefully.

It occurred to Peter, belatedly, that this was just about the least intimate position he could have chosen. _Probably why I picked it. I'm… I'm being an asshole. _The realization was surprising to him. "Come on, roll over. Let me help you out."

He pulled out and Nathan rolled over, sitting on the bed, flushed and still panting. He didn't have an erection at all, having stopped touching himself as soon as Peter had entered him. Peter kissed him, not thinking about it, and ran his hands over the other man's body. Nathan responded and was soon hardening again. Peter took him in his hand and started stroking, fingers rubbing along his length expertly. Nathan was clearly aroused, but he seemed to be having some sort of trouble. He stared at Peter, kissed him briefly, then looked confused, his eyes almost glazed like he was about to come. His hips, his whole body was moving in time to Peter's ministrations, but he pushed away from the other man suddenly. "No! No. Stop, stop. I've… got to take a shower."

To Peter's surprise he pushed him away and went to the bathroom, starting the water running and getting in immediately. The water had to be freezing, since he didn't let it warm up, as Peter knew well. Nathan didn't curse the temperature. He was silent. Peter walked into the bathroom after him and looked at the closed curtain. He could hear Nathan panting, his breathing slowing and calming. Peter took a washcloth, ran it under the sink's water and washed his hands and himself off, tucking himself back into his pants. He'd change later because he had the smell of sweat and sex all over his clothes, but for the moment it was enough.

He put the lid of the toilet down and sat, listening to Nathan shower and wondering what had just happened. _Was it the position? Was it that… if he didn't remember… does that sort of make him a virgin? Did I… did he really want what I did?_ He thought back to Nathan's reactions. They were strong when they were kissing or touching, but very subdued by comparison when Peter started penetrating him. _His sounds… could have been enduring it instead of enjoying it._ He thought about the complete lack of erection after Peter had thoroughly fucked him. Most men would be rock hard at that point, ready for their own release.

_Was it that I was taking the lead too much, on top of him, pushing him around?_ Nathan had always been dominant, though not ridiculously so. He was flexible, but if Peter had turned him to the bed, told him he was going to tap his ass and then proceeded to do so without even asking permission, Nathan would have rebelled at some point. Peter had been heady with lust at that point. He hadn't noticed the lack of resistance other than to be turned on by having turned the tables on his lover (and perhaps on his enemy). He frowned. Now his partner would rather take a cold shower than be with him. It was off-putting, to say the least.

_How do I salvage this?_ The shower turned off. Nathan looked out and at the towel rack. Peter handed over a towel wordlessly. Nathan dried in the stall. _Yep, he's pissed. Bad, really bad body language there and I doubt, him being Nathan or Gabriel or whatever, that he'll even admit it. Too much ego to admit I hurt him._ Peter thought about just letting it be. It would end any physical component of a relationship with the man and likely make him distant as to the touching as well. If he hadn't felt so strongly it was his fault, he probably would have done just that. As it was, Nathan wasn't giving him a word of accusation or blame. It made him feel worse for it.

His brother stepped out of the shower with the towel wrapped around his waist. He looked at Peter blankly. Peter racked his brain trying to think of an appropriate subordinate come-on. It was easier being dominant - you just said what you wanted. Now he had to appeal to someone who didn't want him, and persuade him to let him do him. "Can you… help me?"

Nathan took a step closer, looking at him. He couldn't see what help Peter needed, but he didn't speak. He didn't trust himself to speak. Peter did his best to look needy and vulnerable, which earned him Nathan stepping closer, into arm's reach. Peter looked up at him, breathing a bit harder. That was all he could think to do - be passive, look aroused and see what happened. "You can come closer," he invited.

Nathan tilted his head to the side and did so, his knees brushing Peter's. Peter spread his legs to either side and Nathan stepped between them. He pulled Peter against him, thinking his brother must be confused by his sudden departure earlier. He rubbed his fingers across Peter's face, across the smooth skin on his cheeks. He had stubble lower, but Nathan liked the smooth parts better. He pushed him back a little and leaned down to kiss him, turning his face up to him. Peter let him set the intensity, which was gentle, slow and moderate. He stood back up and ran his hand through Peter's hair. "It's okay," Nathan said.

Peter looked from Nathan's face to the towel, which had slipped somewhat. He looked back and forth again, opening his mouth slightly and licking his lips. Nathan blinked as he gathered what he was being asked. He reached down and tugged at the towel. "Go ahead." Peter pulled the towel away and put it on his leg. He looked up at Nathan again. Nathan was swelling again, sensitive to every puff of breath he felt from Peter.

"Go on," Nathan urged.

"You want me to?"

Nathan blinked again. "Yes." _Why does he need to ask?_ But his ego was definitely stroked by the question. His penis twitched upwards.

Peter nuzzled his belly and reached up to cradle his shaft, aiming it for his mouth. At the last moment Nathan pulled away with a grunt. Peter waited. This was not unexpected. Nathan ran his hand over Peter's head and through his hair. He knotted his left hand in his brother's hair, an odd, distant expression on his face.

_Oh, don't you pull my hair. I hate that_, Peter thought, but he smiled a little and relaxed his neck, letting Nathan pull his head to the side. As long as he wasn't actually pulling on his hair and was just moving him, just holding his head in position, that didn't bother Peter. He'd been with men though who thought of hair as something to yank on and most of the time Peter had plenty of fringe for them to get a hold of. He hadn't appreciated the experience. He'd shaved his hair short, but it had since grown out.

Nathan was content to stretch the line of his neck to one side, exposing his throat to the fingers of his right hand. He slid his fingers across his neck, lingering on the younger man's throbbing pulse, rubbing over his windpipe and up under his chin. Peter realized Nathan was panting again. He looked up and could see that Nathan's eyes were sliding in and out of focus. He was hard and throbbing less than an inch in front of him as well.

"Now," he said, nudging himself closer so Peter could take him in without touching him with his hands. Peter opened his mouth and let Nathan guide himself into him. As the head passed his lips, Nathan groaned. "Oh, God!" He pulled out and released Peter's hair, putting his hands on the countertop next to him and the wall on the other side. He hunched inward and came across Peter's chest, making two involuntary thrusts. He leaned against him. Peter put his arms around his waist, holding him there until his breathing steadied. _ He got off just from… that. That's… different. Not entirely Nathan. Sort of. Just not entirely._ Peter thought about it. Holding the other man to him, he thought he could deal with it.

"I'm… sorry. Your shirt." Nathan backed away from him.

Peter handed him the washcloth he'd used earlier. "Here." He took the towel from his knee and blotted at himself, smiling. "If it's a choice between my mouth and my shirt, I'll take the shirt." He smiled up at Nathan. "I understand the mouth happens, sometimes it's cool, but this is awfully polite. Thanks." He got enough off to unbutton his shirt and take it off without getting sticky. It amused him and comforted him - Nathan had always been quite the clothes-horse. If _Nathan_ had a choice between swallowing or getting it on his precious clothes, he'd be swallowing every time. It was the opposite of most people Peter knew and made it easier to accept the other changes.

Nathan grunted and went out to get dressed. _Probably disapproves of my priorities_, Peter grinned to himself.


	37. Giving to Get

**A/N: Set in late September, maybe early October of 2010. For those who don't follow the various other media Heroes is published in, Eric Thompson from the show has a son named Eric Thompson, Jr. He is also an agent of the Company (or he was until the Company was disbanded - I haven't been able to figure out what happened to him after that in canon, so I've said they brought him back to the reformed Company in my AU). Eric Thompson the younger is the character mentioned in this chapter.**

Maury found the room he was looking for and called Thompson out of the class he was leading for field agent training. He needed to understand what had happened with one of Thompson Jr.'s cases involving Micah Sanders and he needed a better understanding than he had gotten from the case file. He'd read over it three times and finally concluded Eric was hiding something. He hadn't called ahead to warn the man and he'd brought Michael Fitzgerald with him in case there was trouble.

Thompson looked at the blond man uneasily when he walked out into the hall. Maury shut the door behind Eric. He raised his brows and tilted his head, gesturing for Michael to hold him. "Cooperate with this, Eric. No one needs to get hurt."

The command worked enough for Michael to get both hands on the other man's arms, turning him to face Parkman, who stayed far enough away he couldn't be kicked. Thompson's face was furious, his lips tight and eyes narrow. He wasn't sure what this was about, but for one of the directors to pull him out of his class and have a goon restrain him wasn't a good sign.

"Don't fight me. I need to see your memories." The old man turned his head and shut his eyes as he pulled down the hastily erected defenses Eric had put up. He dug through until he found the topic he was looking for, then sifted the memories more carefully for details. He found what he wanted and withdrew.

Thompson snarled at him, but didn't speak. Maury had examined a less-than-complimentary period of one of his assignments where he'd taken things into his own hands, going much further than his orders had allowed. Embarrassingly, it had not turned out well, though he'd survived, at least.

Maury thought about what he'd found and said, "You need to fill out your reports more carefully. I'd prefer more fully and accurately, but if you're going to lie, you need to at least do a better job of it. If you do a lousy job and I catch it beforehand, I'm going to come after you to find out what really happened - just like now. If you lie on a case and it fucks me up because I don't figure it out in time, you better hope like hell it kills me, because if it doesn't, I'm coming for you. You'll be lucky if you have enough brain cells left afterwards to write your fucking name."

Thompson glared at him silently.

Parkman went on, "It's a hell of a lot easier just to tell the truth. No one reading these reports is a goody-two-shoe. We've all made our bones. Your father was not only tolerated in this company, but promoted, and you know what kind of man he was - the same kind of man you are. You don't have to hide what you are. You just have to keep it under control. He managed it. So can you." He nodded to Michael. "Let him go."

Thompson stepped away from Michael and exhaled, frankly surprised he was getting off so lightly. He'd been misrepresenting his reports for years now, going outside his orders… He curbed that thought, kicking himself mentally for thinking such a thing in front of a telepath.

"Go on. You have a class to teach." Maury waited until Thompson went back in the room, then walked off down the hall with Michael two steps behind. He paused and turned when he heard footsteps running up. Patty stopped about twenty feet from them, looking between the two hesitantly. Parkman waved at his companion. "Go wait at the car, Michael. I'll be out later."

She waited a moment while the blond bodybuilder left, then said, "He um… Mr. Thompson told us we could take an early lunch." She chewed on her lip. "I heard your voice when you called him out."

Maury looked her up and down. She looked like she was doing well. "How's the agent training going?" he asked conversationally.

She smiled and walked closer until there was only ten feet between them. "It's good. We spent this morning at the gun range and then for the rest of the day it's all law and police procedure - how to get away with assaulting and kidnapping people. I didn't think anyone could make that subject kind of boring, but..." She smiled thinly and her voice softened as she twisted her body back and forth wistfully. "I was really glad to hear you. It's been… what, three months?"

"About that," he said neutrally. He hadn't come here looking for her. It hadn't crossed his mind and neither had _she_, not for at least two of the three months since he'd last seen her. A knot of others walked by, heading out after Eric's early dismissal. In the distance Maury saw Eric choose to head off the other direction instead of walking down the hall towards him. He understood the man being peeved at the moment, but Maury didn't think he'd bear much of a grudge. He'd known Thompson and his son was just like him. As long as he didn't make his humiliation public, it would be swept aside.

She waited until they were alone, then halved the distance between them again. "Do you… um… do you want to go to lunch?" she asked hopefully.

"Not really." He could tell what she was up to and he was waiting for her to move on. He was too old for her and she was too dangerous for him. What they'd done before… well, it had certainly been enjoyable, but he couldn't expect to make a habit of it and she _shouldn't_. She needed to find someone her own age and so did he, assuming he found anyone at all. He didn't think there was anything left for him in life in that department. Given how shoddily he'd treated most of the women in his life, he didn't think there _should_ be.

She knew nothing of 'should', though, but she definitely knew what she wanted. She smiled and stepped even closer, so she was only an arm's length away. "Do you want to do something else?"

His face twitched before he could stop it. She smiled more broadly at his reaction and offered, "The classroom's empty."

He sighed and shut his eyes. He almost wished he could say no. He ought to. This wasn't like that hooker in Vegas or that horny housewife he'd run into in Atlantic City. He _knew_ Patricia. They had a history and unless he crapped out in the next few months (which was fairly likely, all things considered), they were going to work together in the future. He couldn't pay her to go away after they were done. Warping her mind to make her stay away from him was impractical. More to the point, he didn't want to do it. "Classroom's empty," he muttered.

She slid her hand into his and his eyes flew open at the uninvited contact. She met them and his expression was hard, but she didn't release him. They stood for a moment while she waited to see if he would push her away. He waffled, caught between responsibility and desire. When he didn't move, she projected, _Let's go. Did you like what I did last time? I want that again._ She hadn't forgotten how to reach out to his mind.

His expression softened and he moved forward with her. He'd be damned if he'd let her lead him down the hall like a little boy. _What's one more time?_ he told himself.

She shut the door behind them and jammed it with a chair. _Sit down_, she urged him.

He put his hand on the back of another chair, but didn't sit immediately. _Do you… Why do you want this so much?_

She looked him squarely in the face and thought, _Because it's __**good**__. No one else has ever done that to me. It's complete. It's in my head. No one's touching me. No one's raping me for real. It's just a fantasy. I __**want**__ a fantasy. I don't want the reality of someone fucking me. You… _She faltered, unwilling to project that she doubted his ability to perform. She knew he could climax, but she'd offered herself to him twice and he'd declined, each time satisfying her with his ability instead of his body. For all his power, he didn't threaten her. That he could have her in an instant and yet he'd never bothered made her feel safe with him.

He sat down slowly, shaking his head and sorting through her thoughts. As she had before, she felt it and she let him do it. It wasn't like she could resist him any better than Thompson had, but she made it easier by not trying.

After what had happened to her, actual sex had become a mechanical process for her, devoid of feeling. It was why she had no problem with giving herself to a man. It was like driving to the store with someone. She had no emotional investment in the act. With Maury, she'd blown him last time and he'd obediently enrolled her as a Company agent. (He grumbled to himself mentally, but it was true, no matter how much he told himself it hadn't changed anything. She was pretty, it had been good and he was human.) She didn't want as much from him this time – she just wanted him to pleasure her. The act itself was fantastic. It had every sensation of physically being with someone and none of the drawbacks or emotional numbness. She could relax and enjoy it.

She lowered herself between his knees and unbuttoned his pants. He asked her, _How does giving me a blow job factor into your fantasy?_

She smiled at him, not looking up. She tugged down his zipper. _Would you have come down here if you didn't think you were going to get something out of it?_

_Mm. No._

She pulled his pants down with his assistance to free himself. She tugged the underwear out of the way and pulled out his flaccid organ. _Well, there you go then. Gotta give to get, sometimes._ She leaned down to lick his glans, lapping at it several times before sucking it into her mouth and kneading it with her tongue and lips. He tensed and put his head back, spreading his legs a little more. "Whoa! Wow." He huffed and gripped the edge of the seat. _She's not wasting any time, that's for sure._ She sucked and pulled at him, able to take all of him into her mouth at this point. He moaned as her lips caressed him and aroused him, teasing and stimulating. He let his eyes glaze over as he stiffened.

She brought up her right hand to grasp his shaft, pumping slowly as she worked his tip, applying a truly delicious amount of suction to him. His cheeks clenched and he put his hands to her head, wanting to grip her and steer. He'd had a couple women tell him they found that very annoying, for a man to take their head and move it for them, but something about the sensation of his dick inside a warm, soft and wet orifice begged for him to thrust into it. It was probably instinctive. His hips rocked him slowly in her mouth.

He stroked her hair fitfully and then chafed the top of his thighs. She reached up with her other hand and caught one of his, twining their fingers together. He looked down and she up. He jerked his gaze elsewhere, but he didn't pull his hand away. _I'm getting emotionally involved_, he thought. _This is stupid – stupid, stupid, stupid!_ He took his other hand and fisted it into her hair, bobbing her on him more forcefully despite, or perhaps because, he thought she wouldn't like it. She didn't complain. She took her hand from his shaft and swallowed his entire length, letting him push it all into her. She had to turn her head and look away to take him that deep. He stole another glance at her to make sure she wasn't looking at him anymore. When she seemed comfortable, or at least willing, to keep up the pace and depth he'd urged her to, he took both his hands back to the edge of the chair.

She rubbed his thighs with her hands, raising herself up to get a better angle. She was deep-throating him more thoroughly than last time. He started groaning and grunting with every long draw on his organ she made. She went all the way up, sucking and swirling her tongue across him, then a breath or two and all the way back down to the back of her throat, where she bobbed a few times before repeating the process patiently and methodically. She slid her hands around behind him and rubbed at the small of his back. He reached up and touched her hair gently, on the cusp of coming. It was soft and silky. He pushed her down against himself when he finally came. She gagged, a little surprised, then swallowed as much as she could manage with him still in her mouth.

She sucked him clean as he lay back limply, twitching a little. He smiled when she was done. "Yeah… you're still real good," he said breathily.

"Mm," she said and put her head down on his thigh, her breath making his penis cool uncomfortably.

He reached down and pulled his underwear over himself. When she started to shift, he said, "Stay there. That's nice. Just… touching you. You touching me. I don't get that much." He touched her head softly, stirring her hair and caressing her ear lightly.

"I don't understand," she said softly. "You could have this from whoever you wanted."

He smiled a little. "Yeah, and I noticed Matt was only sleeping with one woman too."

Despite his request, she lifted her head to look at him. She blinked and rolled that around in her mind. He listened, having shut her out earlier for the act. She'd imagined that Matt just didn't want to have to explain his ability to other women. Several times he'd told her how her most attractive feature was that she wasn't afraid of him. He'd seemed desperately attached to that trait, though it was inconsequential to her. She still didn't follow why, if Maury wanted something like human contact, he didn't just tell people to be with him.

Parkman pushed her head back down against his thigh. _Young people_, he thought. It wasn't a fair characterization, since he'd run into people of all ages who thought that way. Certainly _he_ had felt that way until he was nearly fifty years old, but he still thought of it as an immature mindset. It was Charles who had finally taught him to change his ways. He was the only telepath Maury knew who had a loving, well-adjusted life. He'd envied the black bastard. He still talked with him from time to time – the Dead Telepath Society.

Patty felt a pang of annoyance at being pushed down, but complied, wrapping her arms back around his hips and stroking the top of his buttocks. He petted her hair gently, finding an itchy spot at the base of her neck. He scratched it for her idly. She snuggled her head against his leg and wondered if there was something special about her that appealed to mind-readers.

"No, that's not it. I don't think I can really explain it." No matter what he told someone to do, there was always a difference between compulsion and free will. He couldn't control emotions, though he didn't know if he would if he could – not for intimacy. Some people wanted their partners to be willing and engaged and some didn't care. These days, he was one of the former. He hadn't always been that way. He pulled her up so she stood on her knees between his legs. He put his hands carefully on either side of her face. "It's a little easier if I have skin contact," he said to her questioning expression. "Are you ready for your turn?"

She nodded. "Is this hard for you?" she asked.

"No. Do you have anything specific you want?"

She smiled. "Surprise me."

He lifted his hand to run it through her hair, letting the other fall to her shoulder. For a moment she was puzzled at why he'd broken the skin contact he'd just mentioned, then she realized it was all part of the illusion. He smiled at her in confirmation of her thought. She moved her head back and forth and raised her right hand, looking at it. It felt real. It looked real – completely and entirely real. "This is all… in my head?"

He stroked her hair again and nodded. His fingers would never catch in tangle and her hair fell back into lovely, perfect waves after he'd touched it. "It's like a dream – a shared dream. You slept with Matt. You were in some of his dreams, weren't you?"

She nodded. It wasn't a good memory, even though Matt had tried his best to shield her. His dreams were generally bad – nightmarish visions of the future or drug-induced hallucinations. She hadn't appreciated being part of either. Maury grimaced. "Well… he's not a good example."

He reached down and began to pull her blouse off. For a moment, Patty crossed her arms and pulled away from him, sitting back on her heels. She regarded him steadily. He raised his brows. She was testing to see if she had any control here. She had very little while he was paying attention, as he was now, but there was nothing keeping him from letting her have her way. She pulled off her blouse herself and tossed it aside, then unfastened her bra. His smile widened. She had a lovely body – a little heavier than ideal, but here in their shared mind's eyes, it was perfected and her form was everything she wanted it to be. His eyes went back and forth slowly from one breast to the other. She giggled and came up on her knees again so he could reach her.

He put his hands on her shoulders first, then slid them down the outside of her arms. He cupped her elbows and leaned forward, shutting his eyes. He put his forehead against hers. She shut her eyes too after a moment. When he leaned away and she opened them, he was a different man. He was a professor of graphic design she'd had a class with that spring. She'd thought he was devastatingly handsome, yet to her frustration, he didn't date students. She grinned wickedly and leaned forward to kiss him. She suffered a moment of uncertainty – Maury had come in her mouth.

He took the initiative and pressed his mouth to hers, the bristles from her teacher's moustache ticklish and abrasive against her upper lip. _You're not really kissing me, _he thought to her. _Don't worry about it._ She opened her lips and his tongue slipped inside. He tasted like cinnamon gum. She vaguely remembered he'd been chewing some when she stayed after class to talk to him about an assignment… and ask him out. It was marvelous that Maury could find details like that. She pressed herself against him and kissed him more passionately.

His hands drifted inward to caress her breasts, weighing them, stroking the soft skin and kneading the pliable flesh. "Mmm," he said into her mouth, turning his head so he could plunge his darting tongue deeper within her. His fingers finally closed on her nipples and it was her turn to moan against him as he rolled the erect flesh between his fingertip and thumb. She shut her eyes and wrapped her hands behind his neck, rubbing over the nape of it and the short, shaved hair. She ran her hands higher into his dark, dense hair. She pressed forward into him, making it difficult for him to continue with teasing her nipples so he let one hand run down further and slip inside the waistband of her slacks.

There was a distant noise, an echo almost of the door opening and a respectful male voice asking, "Mr. Parkman? Oh!" She tried to turn to look, but she could feel a ghostly impression of Maury's hands on her face, trapping her attention. For a moment she was mortified that someone had walked in on this, but then she realized they'd see nothing but him holding her face and she fully clothed. She was only exposed to Maury, even if, perhaps, she was breathing a bit too hard and probably flushed with passion as well.

Even as her professor continued to kiss her and fondle her, she could hear, very separated from herself, as if from a great depth, Parkman's voice say, "No, come on in, Michael. You can help me reach a few places I don't have enough hands for." She could even feel his breath puff against her face as he spoke and thought she heard footsteps come up behind her. She ached to look. In the vision, her teacher kissed her more insistently as his hand found her clitoris. His fingers began to swirl gently across it.

She lost track of the alternate layers of reality, unable to focus as he evoked a wave of sensation from her with those slight touches. She had to break from the kiss to pant against him and make small mewls of pleasure. He dropped his other hand to her hip and pushed down her pants. She jerked slightly to feel a shadow of other hands, from behind her, accomplishing the action in reality – or what might have been reality. Her skin felt cool where it was newly exposed, whereas her top still felt comfortable, like it would if she were still truly clothed.

"Oh," she whimpered and panted against his shoulder as his fingers were relentless against her, making her so addled she couldn't bring herself together enough to do anything about the feeling of a hand between her legs from behind, slowly stroking her lips and finding her vagina. "Oh! Oh!" She bucked a little as a thick finger slid into her, probing and opening her. She spread her legs further, cooperating. It had to be the man Maury had shown up with. She was about to be fucked by a stranger. She couldn't even see him. He added another finger and she didn't care.

It might have been something Parkman was doing or maybe it was just the situation, but she was wild with lust. She bent forward and shuffled backwards, offering herself to the man behind her. Her professor kept his hand on the front of her sex, rubbing and teasing. She moaned against him as he lowered his mouth to her neck and nibbled at her, his moustache brushing across her skin.

She felt the other man's organ against her, rubbing back and forth across her opening. She realized he was lubricating himself because he was enormous. Again she tried to turn and look, but the man in front of her bit her firmly and suddenly, pulling her against him and holding her with one arm. The other hand changed pace, settling directly on her clit and rubbing it determinedly. She was so close she thought she might orgasm any moment. It was only the tension and anticipation of being filled by the man behind her that held her off.

She felt his hands on her hips as he began to press into her. He was huge against her opening, larger across than she was. She had no idea how she was to accommodate him, but no one was asking her. The mustached man moved up to her ear and sucked the edge of it, breathing on her. His free hand stroked up and down her back as if trying to sooth her while the pressure on her vagina mounted to almost unbearable levels. She whimpered.

The man stopped pressing himself fruitlessly against her and pulled back a little. He held his organ and stroked it up and down across her, wetting himself again with her fluids, and then pushed in as much as she could take. She cried out against it, not quite objecting as his flesh parted hers, finally widening her enough that he could enter. She panted and groaned, shaking with pleasure and a burning pain. Distantly she heard Parkman say, "Slower. Don't hurt her."

He pulled back and repeated the process a third time, working her first with what felt like all four thick fingers of his large hand. She wondered briefly if she'd be the same after this. She doubted it, but she wasn't about to stop it. The third time he pressed into her, he finally got his entire head within her and she heard him hiss with pleasure as she gasped. Parkman shushed him. The man started rocking back and forth, moving within her only a tiny amount but each motion sent racking waves of pleasure through her. She climaxed almost immediately, unable to hold off any longer. Her pussy couldn't possibly tighten around the enormous heft within it, but the muscles tensed and spasmed anyway.

She cried, not just crying out, but vocalizing continuously as he kept pushing into her, one inexorable inch at a time. He was long in addition to thick and she couldn't imagine she could take him entire within her. He was going to make her though and Maury was letting him. She couldn't fight it. She collapsed gradually into his lap, letting the other man hold her up by the hips.

"Well, as long as you're down there…" Parkman pushed down his underwear, or maybe it was her professor. She had no idea. There was no possible way she could form a coherent thought at the moment, not with the love sausage of doom still plowing its way into her snatch. Her teacher was hard and thick and he put the head of his manhood against her mouth, pushing her down firmly enough so she had to open and take him or lock her teeth against him. She let him in, but she couldn't think enough to suck him properly. It didn't matter. He turned her head and shoved his entire length into her, burying himself. She could smell his maleness strongly, but his organ didn't choke her or even trigger a gag. She guessed this much, at least, must be illusion.

The man behind her seemed all too real. She kept hovering on the edge of pain from his size and he was finally starting to move more freely within her, gripping her hips tightly and pulling her back and forth on himself. He still wasn't all the way in. After working her tirelessly for some time, the pain began to fade and pleasure took front stage. As if he sensed that, he finally pushed all the way inside her. She started to moan, then screamed, but she still had her mouth full of cock. All that happened was a strong vibration in her throat and a strangled noise that made her professor gasp with surprised gratification. She tried to struggle free but he put both hands on her head and held her there, forcing her to take it from both ends.

The other man had her hips and rocked in and out of her faster and more surely. She cried out with every thrust, each one was too much, but it only seemed to intensify the satisfaction the man in her mouth got out of her performance. Every movement from behind thrust his cock deeper in her throat. She didn't know if she could asphyxiate in an illusion, but it felt like she was dancing on the edge of passing out, though whether from pleasure or suffocation was anyone's guess.

She could feel her tortured sex building for another orgasm. She had no idea when this was going to end. It had gone on so long already. It felt like the man behind her was nearing his end and she was sure the man she was sucking was about to lose it. He was grunting madly and his fingers were curled into her hair, nails biting against her scalp. With a final jerk of his hips and a tug on her head he came within her, holding her to him so she couldn't even swallow properly. Sperm and drool overflowed from her mouth. Her eyes fluttered back in her head as her own orgasm began to shake her.

Feeling it, the man behind her began to use her roughly and she struggled to scream again as it felt like he would tear her insides apart. The final straw was when he shifted his hand around and thrust one meaty thumb into her ass, worming it in and flexing the digit inside of her. Her body quivered and surged around his shaft in a prolonged, intense climax. Unbearable, powerful waves ripped through her and didn't stop until the man inside her reached his own peak, slapping into her solidly and filling her with his seed. She shuddered and then sobbed from the intensity as she finally got her mouth free of the first man. She wasn't unhappy - she was dazed, shaking and stunned, her eyes out of focus.

The man before her put his hands on either side of her face and slowly drew her up. She panted and tried to focus on his handsome face. A ribbon of cum hung from her slack lips. It felt cold against her breast. When she finally managed to see him clearly, his features shifted and it was Maury Parkman. She smiled a little raggedly, still struggling to get her bearings. "Not done yet," he murmured and she felt the man behind her pull out in one very long pull, letting her know exactly how much had been within her.

Her eyes bugged and she tried to fall forward against her patron, but he held her away. All she could say, over and over, was "Ah! Ah! Ah!" with every breath. She felt her body slowly calm as she let Parkman hold her up. He did so with surprising ease.

He said softly, "And… once… more." There was another shift in perception and her shirt - all of her clothes - were back on. Her mouth did not taste so strongly of semen even if she was indeed drooling a little. Most important of all, she didn't feel like her female organs had been ruined. She turned weakly and looked behind her. Maury let her, putting a hand on her back to steady her. She still felt wobbly, though not as much as she had in the fantasy. There was no one there. The chair she'd jammed in front of the door was still in place.

"I wouldn't do that to you," he said quietly. "Not without asking, at least."

She swallowed and wiped her mouth, then turned back to him and buried her face against his neck in relief. She'd hoped it was fake, just part of the illusion, but she hadn't been sure. He put his arms around her lightly. She was over stimulated and perhaps overwrought, but she was immensely pleased with him. He smiled. "Guess I still know how to show a girl a good time."

"Oh God, Maury, you're the best! I don't ever want to be with anyone else."

He laughed and hoped like hell she was kidding. He knew she wasn't, not entirely. That scared him.

"I should have known," she said. "No one can be that big unless they're a porn star." She turned her head to lay it on his shoulder.

"Well… maybe I changed the dimensions a little bit," he said noncommittally. He'd been in Michael's head. He was confident that if anything, his portrayal had been conservative. The man couldn't have a woman unless she'd delivered vaginally and even then he had issues. It was actually a bit of a problem for him.

He turned and put his face against her hair, whispering very quietly, almost too quietly for her to hear, "Thank you for being nice to me."

"What?" She pulled up and away to look at him, brows pulling together.

He stood so quickly the chair scooted back. He turned away while he pulled up his pants and fastened them. "I've got somewhere I've got to be. You need to pull yourself together and get lunch." His voice was brusque and businesslike. "Thanks," he said casually, like she'd done nothing more for him than bring him coffee. He walked to the door and moved the chair out of the way. "Clean up," he said curtly and left without looking back.

She watched him go without speaking. She wasn't angry at how he'd left. She'd heard what he'd said. She'd heard the tone of voice he'd used for it and he'd never sounded so vulnerable.


	38. Nathan's First

**A/N: Warning: Non-consensual sex scene.**

Nathan applied himself to following Doctor Peter's prescription for his injured marriage: ice cream, chocolate, flowers and flattery. The medicine worked wonders. Things were going good - he'd almost say great, except for the level of caution he had these days. That is, they were going good until his wife went to lunch with one of her friends and saw him and a client discussing her case. It didn't help that it was a young, good-looking female client. No amount of trying to explain they'd been discussing her father's estate had mattered.

He stalked off to Peter's apartment. No one answered at the door and this time there wasn't any motion behind the eyehole to make him think Peter was merely avoiding him. After debating going to a hotel, he pulled out his phone and called.

His brother picked up after three rings. "Hello?" He sounded guarded. There were sirens in the background. Nathan hadn't called him for… ever on this phone. Although Peter remembered the events of a few weeks before quite vividly, he didn't trust mere caller ID to identify someone.

"Hey, Pete. It's me."

"Oh, hey. Nathan. Make it quick. We're on a call. Not there yet."

"I'm at your apartment. Outside it, actually. When do you get off work?"

"Midnight. Should be back by one, maybe earlier. Heidi again?"

"Yeah. Can I go in?"

"Sure. I'll see you later."

"All right." He hung up, infinitely pleased with how Peter's tone had relaxed when he'd heard Nathan's voice. He took out his keys and checked to see if his old key still worked. It did. He shook his head at this thoughts regarding this and went inside.

XXX

He woke to the sound of the door being unlocked. He blinked sleep out of his eyes and sat up on the couch. He watched as Peter came in. Peter hung up his jacket and satchel, rubbing at his eyes as well. He looked at Nathan. "Run out of ice cream?"

"No, she saw me having lunch with a client. She overreacted." He wiped his hand across his face.

"Hm. Did she _over_-react, or just react in a way you didn't want her to react?"

He considered it. "Overreacted. I haven't so much as looked at another woman, Pete. Not that… I don't have interests, but…" he shrugged. It didn't seem right while she was pregnant with his child. Besides, he had a lot of complicated reasons not to be with someone right now.

"Huh." Peter stretched and staggered a little. Nathan put out a hand from across the room and righted him with telekinesis. Peter looked back at him warily, uncertain. "You do that?"

"Yeah. Looked like you were going to fall."

"I'm fine. Just tired. We found a healer last week, me and Noah. Up in Michigan of all places, being a faith healer. I borrowed her power. It drains me to use it, but there was a three car accident, five people involved, one of them a little girl…" he sighed heavily and opened a bottle of water, taking a generous drink.

"You want to hit the sack? I'll clear out."

Peter looked at Nathan and raised one eyebrow. "Let me think about that." He walked over to Nathan and looked down at him. The idea of getting his mind off his day was very appealing. _He wants me_, Peter thought_._ Nathan blinked up at him. He walked on to sit with him on the couch. "Last time, I was kind of inconsiderate. I'd rather you led this time."

"Do you think that's…" he wanted to say 'safe', but he hadn't explained to Peter how dangerous what they were doing was. Peter usually carried Claire's regeneration. It didn't help him in his medical work, but it gave him tremendous security when dealing with new 'specials.' _Maybe he could heal himself? _Nathan doubted it. He'd thought Peter would have noticed Nathan's problems last time, but apparently he had passed it off as passion. After his uncomfortable reaction with Nathan's admission regarding his memories, he wasn't about to talk to him about the Hunger. "Do you think that's what you want?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Okay. You need to rest or anything? You could take regeneration from me." He offered Peter his hand, sincerely hoping he'd take it.

Peter shook his head. "No. Healing is too useful. I have too many chances to use it. I'm fine."

He looked at Peter's face. He looked tired. "No, you're exhausted. This is a… Maybe some other time." He stood up, wiping his hands nervously on his legs.

Peter stood too and grabbed him by the elbow before his brother got away. "Hey. I said I wanted to. I'm not going to force you or anything, but I **do** want to." He looked at Nathan's uncertain expression. "Please?"

Nathan nodded at him slowly and turned to kiss him. They kissed quietly for some time. Nathan brought his hands up to Peter's neck and face, stroking his skin, feeling his ears and running his hands through his hair. It was different than Nathan's pattern, but Peter was happy about it. When his body indicated he was happy enough, they went in the bedroom. Nathan looked him up and down and said, "This time, you lose some clothes."

Nathan undressed as well. When they were both bare, they resumed where they'd left off in the living room, standing together and exploring one another, hands roaming, fingers touching, moving slightly and swaying. Peter noticed he'd been maneuvered to put his back against the wall. It gave him something to brace against as Nathan pushed into him and kissed down his chest, nipping at him just enough that Peter could feel his teeth.

Peter had begun to breath more deeply, feeling a wonderful relaxation despite his hardened part. Nathan looked at Peter's heavily lidded eyes and kissed him on the jaw. "So… how do we do this again?" He reached around the small of Peter's back, cupping his ass.

Peter roused somewhat. "We'll need lube. I'm not **that** good." He looked down. "And you're too big." Peter started to shift away from him to get the lubricant, but Nathan blocked him by putting his hand on the wall.

"Where is it? Nightstand?"

Peter nodded. Nathan took his hand from the wall and gestured behind himself, eyes slightly unfocused. The nightstand opened and the tube flew into his hand. The cap unscrewed itself. "Handy ability. I've always liked that one."

Peter didn't say anything, thinking briefly of being trapped in his seat at Thanksgiving, watching Sylar gorge himself on pie. He shook the thought away.

"Now what?" Nathan asked.

Peter cocked his hips up and lifted one leg, crooking it at Nathan's hip. "Hold me." Nathan looked at the leg and Peter blinked as it felt secure, hanging in the air. _Telekinesis again_. He tried to relax_. I told him to do it. It's actually pretty convenient._ He pushed his nerves away. Peter went on, "Now, take the lube, put it on your fingers, reach down and loosen me up." After Nathan started, Peter squirmed a bit on one leg. "Um… one finger at first. Then two, then… with you, three. I should be ready then." He breathed deeply and tried to relax, but there were several things about the situation making him tense. He'd lost his erection, but Nathan didn't seem to notice.

When he was ready, the manipulation had taken his mind off the other things and he was aroused again. Nathan maneuvered himself in, pushing awkwardly. "Wrong angle," Peter gasped, trying to shift with one leg still held up. Suddenly his other leg came off the floor too as he felt his entire body raised and positioned. Most every muscle clenched tight as some perverse version of Thanksgiving played out in flashes behind his eyes. "Nathan!" His tone of voice would have set off alarm bells to anyone, even if they didn't know him, but Nathan just pushed himself against Peter.

"No, stop. We're going to have to start over, I'm not ready anymore," he said, gasping.

Nathan's answer shocked him to his core, "No." He took hold of Peter's hips and pulled him down onto him.

"Ah!" he cried out. "Nathan! You're hurting me." He would have struggled more, but his body from his midsection down wasn't his to control. He put his hands on Nathan's shoulders, trying to ride him. He considered briefly trying to gouge Nathan's eyes out or do something else extreme. Nathan didn't respond verbally, staring fixedly at his chest and moving himself against Peter more gently. Peter hoped that was a cooperative response. It was the only thing that kept him from going into full fight mode. Peter worked on relaxing, trying to focus. The more gentle thrusts were heartening even if Nathan wasn't talking at the moment. It worked and Nathan began to push within him.

Peter gritted his teeth at first, then opened his mouth, panting. He had to relax or else this was going to be a lot worse than it already was. It was surreal. Nathan didn't seem to be paying attention to him at all, just focusing on his body. He was thrusting inside him, shoving Peter's back roughly against the wall, supporting the other man's weight with telekinesis. The ability freed Nathan's hands, but he wasn't doing much with them yet. Peter noticed his eyes were glazed and his teeth were clenched, but he didn't seem near release yet - just getting started.

Nathan started pumping into him in earnest, his hands moving slightly up and down Peter's sides. It was good, very good. Good enough that Peter could finally get his mind off the telekinesis holding him up and Nathan's bizarre behavior. He put his hand to himself and let himself go in the feeling of being filled so completely, held effortlessly. The intensity of his brother's face was almost feral. The sensations began to overwhelm him and he felt his climax on its way. He grabbed Nathan's neck and pulled his face to him, kissing him deeply as he came. _Maybe it will be okay._

He released Nathan at last and leaned back against the wall, continuing to take Nathan's thrusts, but they slowed even if Peter couldn't feel any decrease in size or pressure. Nathan was big enough that Peter always felt every inch of him. Peter looked at his face. The older man looked confused and perhaps… hurt? He was looking back and forth at Peter's body - his arms, his hands, his chest, his neck. Peter felt his skin ripple suddenly, being pulled slightly at multiple spots along his body. "Nathan! What? That hurts!" He thrashed, now sincerely trying to struggle off of him, only to find his entire body frozen. He couldn't even use his arms. They were forced out to either side, splayed. Nathan brought his hands up, fingers outstretched towards Peter. The pain became more intense. Peter felt Nathan spend himself inside him.

The pain along his arms and across his chest disappeared immediately. Nathan groaned and panted, shutting his eyes and leaning forward into his brother, resting his forehead on his chest. "Oh God Peter. I almost did it."

"Let me go, let me go, Nathan." Peter was terrified. The whole experience was too much for him. It was partly due to the whole-body block of telekinesis, but mostly because of whatever it was Nathan had 'almost' done to him.

Nathan lowered him slowly and Peter got his feet underneath him. He got away from Nathan quickly, retreating to the opposite side of the room. He wanted to run away, but that wouldn't solve anything. He settled for putting the bed between them. Nathan sunk down to his knees, staring at his hands, breathing heavily, still facing the wall. Peter looked at his clothes and pulled on his pants. He felt vulnerable. He didn't want to be naked anymore. He saw Nathan's head turn slightly to see what he was doing. The man turned back and his shoulders shook once. Peter pulled on his t-shirt. Seeing Nathan shudder made him want to scream at him, but he controlled himself with an effort. He walked closer.

"Go on," Nathan whispered. "I'm not safe. Go. I'll leave later. I won't come back. I'm sorry." His voice broke at the last.

Peter sunk down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. To his own surprise, his hand was steady. Nathan shrugged away from him. "Just go."

Peter waited, touching his back anyway where it was impossible for Nathan to shake him off without getting up. He rubbed in large circles. _Why did he do that to me? What was he about to do? I know why I'm upset, but why is __**he**__?_ Nathan shook again like he was choking back a sob. Peter said, "Tell me what's wrong." When his brother didn't answer, he tried again, "What did you almost do?"

"I almost killed you!" Nathan cried.

Peter raised his hand off Nathan for a moment and then touched him again, stroking. "Why?" _Why would Nathan want to hurt me? Or hell, even Gabriel or Sylar. Not like this, at least._

"I… you sound loud. You're so loud." He trembled. "I can't block it out. I get distracted - the sex - I lose it. Can't keep it under control. I told you to take my regeneration. Just in case. I should have left when you didn't! God, if I'd done it now, without you having that, it would have killed you." He turned and looked at Peter, his face haunted.

Peter nodded slowly, still stroking soothingly. "It's the Hunger, isn't it?"

Nathan nodded. Peter recalled his own terrible track record with it. If he hadn't had it himself, he would never have had the sort of empathy with Gabriel and now Nathan that he did. He would have stubbornly thought that Gabriel's lack of control was due to lack of trying. Having had it himself and turned it mercilessly and without hesitation on his family, he didn't blame the man. _Wonder if Mom did that on purpose?_ He would confess some confusion about why it was coming out during sex, but apparently that was when Nathan's control was weakest.

Nathan went on, "The first time I didn't know, with you. I've never had any problem with Heidi. But last time, the more turned on I was, the harder it was to control. I had to leave, that's why I took a shower. Then… the other was so fast, in the bathroom. I didn't really have time." He flashed Peter a small smile.

"What do you mean when you say I'm loud?"

Nathan shook his head. "I don't know. You're loud. I hear you. I want you. Not sexually for the Hunger, but… I don't know. I guess it's a channel, or just… I get distracted. You're so close, right there and when I **have** you and you can't fight me… I can't resist it. I couldn't resist it." He looked at his hands.

"Nathan, you **did** resist it. I'm right here. You didn't…" He couldn't tell him he hadn't hurt him. He'd hear the lie. He'd also frightened Peter and turned what had been a difficult, but ultimately endurable experience into a nightmare. Peter exhaled, remembering the things Noah had said about the version of the Hunger possessed by Samson Grey. "You didn't cut me. You didn't skin me. I'm fine."

Nathan turned and looked at him. He took Peter's arm and turned it so Peter was looking at it. A sub dermal bruise started at the wrist and ran up his arm, getting fainter as it went. Peter bit his lip slightly and let it go. Nathan said, "I was **that** close, Peter. If I hadn't been **so** close to climax, if I hadn't come at that moment, I would have finished you."


	39. November

**A/N: November board meeting.**

Maury had been warned by Angela that Nathan was not doing well. So when he saw the man's vacant expression and the near-constant, nervous electrical discharge from his fingertips, he wasn't surprised. He walked towards him, then doubled back and switched to the other side of the table, putting it between himself and Nathan. It seemed safer. Angela sat at the head of the table and Nathan stood where he usually did to her right. Maury gave him a sweeping, probing scan, poised for a hostile reaction to the mental touch.

There was none. He wasn't even noticed. Nathan was hardly thinking at all, his subconscious lost in unpleasant reminiscences, snatches of nightmares or dreams or reality roiling through his mind almost randomly. More consciously, he was trying to decide if he should kill anyone else before trying to kill himself, or if he should just keep killing people until he was stopped. It was a daydream at this stage, though clearly if he couldn't pull himself out of his depression it would become more than that.

Parkman pulled out his chair and sat down, puckering his lips. Angela hadn't bothered to have the seats taken away. Nathan had learned his place and kept to it whether there were chairs or not, even if he didn't seem to have any understanding of the conditioning he was being subjected to. Maury stared evenly at Nathan for a while longer, noting the man wasn't paying any attention to the silence or how the meeting wasn't underway. The older man looked at Angela. She frowned at him and moved her eyes back towards her son, without moving her head. She met his gaze again.

"Get him to sit down," Maury said, closing his eyes and focusing his thoughts.

Angela turned to her son and said sharply, "Nathan!"

He nearly jumped out of his skin. "Sit!" she commanded, like she would to an inattentive dog. He did so immediately and without resentment. Maury could sense that his mind had blanked at the command, voiding itself of the distractions he'd been embroiled in before. This was a good thing, as it meant he was able to focus on the now if he needed to. Better than Matt had managed when he first got hold of him. However, his emotional responses were off. Parkman kept a constant read on his subject's surface thoughts.

Angela spoke to her son, saying, "Nathan, Maury is going to help you deal with the consequences of absorbing my ability. Do you understand?"

He looked at her blankly for a moment, struggling to focus. His eyes narrowed. Maury felt a growing wave of hostility and hatred, images of Matt Parkman and his desire to murder him flowing through Nathan's mind. His attention swung to the telepath. He understood all right. He understood she was proposing Maury be allowed to alter his mind. The older man held up his hands, palms outward and empty, thinking, _Calm down_.

It didn't work like he'd intended, though it did distract the man from the idea of killing him. Nathan's head twitched back and he started breathing harder. Fear shot through him. He bit his lip and gripped the edge of the table. What he was not doing was calming down, even though the command reverberated through his mind for some time, setting off shocks of panic and tension. The prospect made him react like a traumatized gunshot victim might to having a cocked gun put in their face. It scared him to death, but he had enough self-control, enough dignity and pride, that he tried to hide it.

Maury turned his head towards Angela, waiting a beat before his eyes followed. "You're going to have to get him to let me do it."

"What?" she looked baffled. "You can't do it anyway?"

He regarded her evenly. "Do you want him intact, or a zombie? Those are your choices. If you want him intact, you need to talk him into letting me do it. If you can't, I can always try the other way, but I don't guarantee results you'll like."

She exhaled and pursed her lips. After a beat, she said sharply, "Nathan, you have failed me."

He looked away from Parkman to her, surprised. He blinked at her. "What?" What she was saying made no sense to him in the context of her conversation with Maury, not that he'd been following it closely.

"You have failed me. I sent you on a simple mission last June to get Maury and if he resisted, you were supposed to take his ability. You did no such thing. You were disobedient and stupid, letting your conscience get in the way of your power, just like you're letting your emotions interfere now with what needs to be done."

Nathan glanced uneasily over at Maury, who looked unconcerned that Angela was discussing her attempt to have him murdered.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you!"

Nathan's head snapped around to face his mother. He exhaled an angry breath. Maury noted he was pulling together a little, his emotional responses getting stronger. That was good – Parkman could use that.

"Love and empathy are all well and good, Nathan, but you have to learn to control yourself. It is **paramount**. You must be able to close off your anger, your fear and yes, when necessary even your love. **You** choose when you experience them and you do so at appropriate times. You are too powerful for it to be any other way. Do you understand me?"

He looked sullen at the lecture, but nodded.

"I want an answer, Nathan." Her tone was frosty.

"Yes," he said evenly, bringing his head up and regaining an element of the self-control she was trying to berate him into utilizing.

Maury lifted his brows slightly and puffed out his lips. He shook his head back and forth in a sort of 'maybe' gesture. Nathan glanced over at him, but Angela snapped at him, "Look at **me**, Nathan. Do I need to get a ruler out and rap your knuckles with it, as if you were a child?"

Nathan's eyes flashed at her.

"Control yourself or you're no son of mine."

Maury brushed against her mind. She tensed, then put aside her automatic reaction and tried to listen for him. _Lay off the mother/son stuff. Go back to the failure. Hit his insecurities, his self-worth._ Parkman was still listening to Nathan's thoughts, getting a feel for how to manipulate him, what specific levers worked on him.

Unaware of the mental conversation, Nathan said with something of a growl, "I'm not much of your son anyway."

She sniffed. "No, of course not. You're not good enough. You're given simple missions and you don't complete them. You want to be a member of the board, yet you don't comprehend what we're trying to accomplish. You need to get your abilities under control and yet you are resistant to allowing Maury here to work on you."

Nathan's head twitched like he wanted very badly to look at Maury, but he managed to keep his eyes on his mother.

She exhaled slowly. Her voice became softer, modulated, but still biting. It was as if she was genuinely asking rather than railing at him. "Do you think there is any point to me trying to utilize you? Can you pull yourself together long enough for us to get this latest disaster ameliorated somewhat?"

Nathan inhaled a great breath and let it out slowly. He combed his fingernails through one eyebrow and shook his head slowly back and forth, looking at the table. Maury lifted his chin, sensing the agreement long before Nathan verbalized it.

"What is it… What… What is it he's going to do?" Nathan got out haltingly.

"He's going to go inside your mind and suppress your ability of precognitive dreaming. It is a very difficult ability to possess, requiring an enormous degree of emotional stability, something you are sorely lacking in. You are not ready for this power, as I would have **told **you if you had bothered to **ask** before **taking** it!"

He hung his head. "I didn't **mean** to take it. I told you, it just happened."

"And that is exactly my point!" she said shrilly. "A trained and prepared mind does not absorb every power they come near. That was Peter's problem and you remember how it turned out for **him**."

Nathan twitched backward, his face looking pained. He bit his lower lip and blinked. His emotional reaction to her mention of his brother was so strong that Maury put up a hand to her in addition to warning her off mentally. Nathan shut his eyes and tried to keep them that way, but he couldn't. He moved his hands restlessly. What defenses he had, the mental cohesion to resist the influence of another, vanished as his mind turned on itself.

Maury said to him, "Are you going to let me into your head to fix that, or are you just going to wallow in misery until you lash out at anyone close to you… like Peter?" He wanted to make sure he understood the trigger right before going in and to get a feel for which was more important – protecting himself or others.

"I'm…" Nathan's voice caught unaccountably. "…sorry."

It was enough of an answer. Maury made a small, familiar gesture to Angela so she knew he was starting the process. He tilted his head, shutting his eyes so they wouldn't be dry afterwards. Nathan pulled a breath in suddenly. His eyes, still open, became sightless.

Maury stood in what might have been the Petrelli house after a death metal band armed with spray paint and pick axes had had their way with it for a month. It was very dark, lit with erratic strobe lights. Gabriel, or Nathan, it was impossible to tell, was busy in the corner violently molesting someone. Parkman looked around at the rest of the place. Whatever was happening there wasn't precognition and that was what he was here for - not for self-flagellating rape fantasies.

The stately mirrors along the walls had been replaced with funhouse mirrors, most shattered. He found one that was mostly intact and pulled up the precognition through it. It was a bright moment, with a nimbus of pure, steady light around it. Gabriel was proud he'd gained this power. It proved, it epitomized, some great fragment of love for Nathan's mother. It made him feel like part of the family, part of **a** family, a family he valued and very much wanted to be a member of. He felt comfortable in it, at home at last.

Maury's brows drew together as he turned the precognitive dreaming around and looked at it from different angles. Yes, Gabriel had had a number of disturbing dreams, but he wasn't obsessing over them. He didn't recognize them in his conscious mind as prophecy.

Maury had seen Angela's early memories, her early dreams and her perception of them was much like Gabriel's now - infantile and ignorant in a literal manner. Unfamiliar with the power, Gabriel couldn't separate the impressions from mundane dreams. Unable to exert the self-control Angela had been practicing and honing for decades, he saw nothing explicit, only metaphors and vague premonitions that could be anything.

Parkman stepped away, letting the precognition fall back into place unfettered. There was no reason for him to obstruct Gabriel's ability. It wasn't the problem. He looked around, his eyes falling on the coarsely grunting, sexual creature in the corner. That was… much more likely to be the problem. He walked over to it.

Over its shoulder, he could see the victim du jour was Peter Petrelli. His brows pulled together at that. Gabriel seemed to be in the middle of reliving a rape… and it wasn't just a fantasy. Flashes of Peter's face lit up in the strobe effect. He looked angry, frightened, in pain, violated.

Maury couldn't help but remember snatches of Peter growing up. He recalled him most clearly as a lanky, awkward teenager flouncing around the Petrelli house, pestering his mother and trying to get her to pay more attention to him than to her guests in the Company, who were merely old friends of the family to him. It was an image that colored all his perceptions of the younger Petrelli, unfair though that might be to the man he had become. It made the attack particularly troublesome to Maury.

Parkman stared intently at the thing doing this. He'd seen the confused attraction, the lust even, when he'd entered this mind in June. He'd dismissed it as unimportant in the same way he didn't seriously believe Gabriel would make a pass at Angela, oedipal complex or no. For one thing, the likelihood getting Peter to cooperate with his fixation seemed so remote as to be laughable. He hadn't considered the man might just snap and assault him.

But was that what had happened? Premeditated attacks rarely bothered people this deeply. If they did, then the person didn't carry through with it. He put a hand to Gabriel's shoulder. The creature looked at him and Parkman saw into him, through him. He played through the event - the actual event, not this twisted recollection playing out before him.

Parkman had seen worse things in people's minds, having been dispatched for decades to deal with the mentally unstable. This one held a personal flavor to it he found unusually distasteful, but he tolerated it because he was a professional and this was a job, an assignment, like any other. The incident had begun as _consensual_.

He skimmed further back, immediately bringing up their first coupling in September. Peter had _initiated_ it! Mostly - he certainly hadn't been victimized. There was no indication in Gabriel's mind of using coercion, subterfuge or abilities to force it. Back before that he had to dig through deeper memories which he assumed were Nathan's - they held the markers, but he really couldn't tell until he looked at them in context. Maury blinked in surprise. Nathan and Peter had been… _**lovers**_?

"Oh, good Lord," he said. "Matt put **that** into you? No wonder you're confused." Suddenly a lot of other things made a whole bunch more sense. Parkman flashed to a memory of his own, where Arthur had railed to him that his sons had offended decency, betrayed morality and desecrated the Petrelli name. He'd raged that he'd kill Nathan for it if it was the last thing he did - Nathan was older, he should have known better and he was going to pay for it.

At the time, Maury had thought the wrath was about the lawsuit, the possible future Angela had seen where the Linderman Group was discredited and destroyed, leading to the implication of the Company itself. Even though Arthur had mentioned his continuing fury over Peter being a "faggot", Maury had read that as an extension of his extreme and to Parkman unjustified disappointment in Peter's choice of career.

Maury agreed it was awful weird to have any man be called a 'nurse' - the term always made him think of sucking a tit - but as a set of skills and duties, it seemed honest enough. Maury had been raised in a Jewish household to think there were two honorable professions every family needed: doctor and lawyer (an accountant was acceptable, but not "necessary"). Nurse was close enough for the former and the Petrelli family already had the latter, so Maury didn't see what the problem was. On the other hand, Arthur had been unhappy about Peter before the kid was even conceived, so there was that.

Parkman had not been privy to Arthur's thoughts for a long time at the point of Arthur's outburst to him about his sons' misbehavior. The elder Petrelli's own mental powers allowed him to block out others very effectively and he did so routinely. Maury had never dabbled much in the minds of Arthur's sons either. Their social circles didn't intersect much and when they did, at the Petrelli gatherings, Parkman had specific targets he was shadowing who took up most of his concentration.

_I wonder if Angela knows?_ He suspected she did. He suspected, now that he really thought about it, that it had been one of her visions to reveal their sons' secret. It struck him as uncommonly difficult to have to choose between protecting your sons' incestuous affair or assisting your husband, even if only by inaction, in murdering one of them for it. It lent an odd new dimension to Angela's decision to kill Arthur.

An agonized scream got his attention. Gabriel had finished with the foreplay and was now moving on to tearing Peter apart, tearing himself apart in the process. _Yes, yes, this is what's been upsetting you. Let's get it under control and you can go back to… whatever. I really need to ask Angela about this_. He didn't know if he was supposed to suppress tendencies like this in her children, or leave them be.

Then there was the fact that this was **not** Nathan having sex with her other son, so maybe Angela didn't care and Gabriel could be relegated to the status of just another lover Peter had taken over the years. He didn't know. He set about to fixing what he could. It really wasn't his business how the Petrellis managed their personal lives. They were all adults. They could do what they wanted. He decided he wouldn't bring it up to Angela after all.

In any case, rape aside, the aggressor had clearly and always been Peter. Nathan's memories held hundreds of times when he'd declined to act on his urges. Even for the first time, he'd tried to talk Peter out of it. The reluctance and impropriety of it played something of a role in Gabriel's current issue, but it wasn't the main problem.

He reached into Gabriel's psyche much more directly that he had before. The main problem was very basic. He wasn't gay and yet he was driven into a homosexual relationship, having love and attraction for another man and yet being repulsed by the situation. The feelings were there both for and against. The internal conflict had found a convenient outlet in violence and self-loathing, breaking his ability to restrain the Hunger.

Bottling it up wasn't a good option, but he didn't see anything wrong with putting a few strictures in place: blocks against doing anything that would endanger his partner and an inability to perform in an assault. Nathan more or less cooperated with those as commands, but Maury could feel the beginnings of a general resistance. He wasn't going to have much longer. He'd already spent a lot of precious time deciding what to do.

For the essential dilemma, he went with a simple divert for him to treat male partners as female, leaving it to Gabriel to reconcile this with reality. He was fine with women as long as he had some feeling for them, so Maury just altered the internal coding. It still meant Gabriel would be unable to perform in some aspects, but at least he would be able to find expression for the drives he had. He left the performance issues in place he'd inflicted on the man in June. It was amusing without actually being debilitating. Even more amusing to Maury was that Gabriel still hadn't figured out what was wrong with him - he knew himself that poorly.

Gabriel started fighting him harder. Maury could feel the rising pulse and increased respiration. He could affect these artificially and he did so, slowing the inevitable. He covered his tracks, concealing his work. There was also a last thing to take care of, which was the whole reason why he was in here - Gabriel's inability to cope with what he'd already done to someone he had deep feelings for.

To start with Maury smeared the memory, blocking specifics and granting him a surcease from tormenting himself. Secondarily he nudged him towards acceptance. If he was a rapist, then he was a rapist. Get it out in the open and move on. Denial was one of Parkman's pet peeves. It caused endless problems for people as they tried to warp themselves to fit someone else's ideals. Obviously Gabriel and Nathan had relationships that were consensual. If he could keep from getting obsessed with the ones that weren't, then he'd be freer to pursue the ones that were.

Everything was tightening, becoming brittle as he worked. He was having to exert more and more energy to get anything done carefully. It was getting difficult to breathe as his subject's physical state transferred to himself. Maury thought he'd done enough. He didn't care to overtax his aging body - one of these days he was pretty sure he'd die doing this crap. It hadn't taken such a toll when he was younger. He slipped out, blinking his eyes open and focusing on Nathan, who collapsed to the table with a few twitches and residual tics.

Nearly a minute later, Nathan sat up, rubbing his eyes. They hurt. He was confused. He'd been depressed, badly so and very angry at himself. He wasn't quite sure about what now. He tried to think of what it was, but nothing really came up. He'd been with Peter… it had gone badly… was that it? The Hunger had almost gotten the better of him. He looked at Parkman, who was eyeing him intently. He suspected the man was reading his mind. His lip curled in disgust as he tried to think of the most revolting thing he could to put him off.

Parkman smirked and looked at Angela. He said, "I don't think the dreams are going to bother him for a while. It will probably surface slowly, over time, but you'll have plenty of opportunity to teach him how to handle it. I'd suggest starting with being able to identify which are prophetic and which are normal. That's not real clear in there right now."

She nodded to him and looked at her son. "Nathan?"

He turned to her attentively, eyes clear, features still clouded with anger, but it was directed outward. He looked like a man who was dealing with the world outside himself, not the one inside. When she said nothing, he said, "What, Ma?" in a tired voice.

"Go tell Cassie we're ready for dinner."

He rose and drew his brows together. "We're done? What about the board meeting?" He glanced around, wondering why he was even sitting in a chair instead of standing behind her. Oh yes, Maury had been supposed to block out his ability to dream the future. He looked at Parkman uneasily. He guessed it had worked, but he really couldn't tell. He felt ill, nauseous with the idea that he'd been altered. He swallowed it down and looked back to his mother as she answered him.

"We can not have a meeting until all the members present are able to deal adequately with the matters presented. There's nothing we can't table until next month. Maury has had enough exertion tonight. I don't want to put him through any more."

Nathan looked at Parkman and huffed, then went off to talk to the maid. Parkman smiled softly at Angela. She was so good at using the truth to lie.


	40. The Massage

Peter felt the icy grip of fear pass over him as it became clear how close Nathan had come to killing him. He swallowed and nodded. "Then we'll try other things. Not this. It sets you off to be in control?"

Nathan hesitated, thinking. "No. It sets me off for you not to be able to resist me. To know you can't get away. To have you close to me and helpless… that sets me off. Under any circumstances, but especially when I'm… uh, distracted."

Peter nodded. He tugged on Nathan's arm. "Come on. Get in the shower - get cleaned up. I'll go in after you."

Nathan was quick in the shower, again not willing to wait for the water to warm up. He passed Peter wordlessly in the bathroom, leaving the water running. Peter got in and soaked in the heat, looking at the peculiar bruises on both arms and a Y-shaped one on his breastbone. He'd seen he had one under his chin as well. As he lathered, he heard the front door close. He stuck his head out of the shower. "Nathan?" There was no answer. _Crap_, he thought.

After he got out of the shower, he called Nathan on the phone. There wasn't an answer, as he'd expected. He left a short message, telling his brother to call him - "it doesn't have to be over." They'd gotten through worse things. Nathan didn't call back.

XXX

Weeks passed, and then a month and more. Peter was surprised to get an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at Nathan and Heidi's. He talked to his mother about it. The holiday was no longer one of her favorites either, but she was going to attend. It was polite and she refused to be chained to the past, or so she said. Peter wanted to see Nathan again - not to do anything or even necessarily say anything. He just wanted to look his brother in the eye and let him know he wasn't afraid. That was probably as important to Peter as it was to Nathan.

As Thanksgivings went, it wasn't one of the better half of those he'd attended, but at least it didn't even approach the worst. It was merely uncomfortable and stiff. Heidi still didn't like him, but she put up with him. Nathan was distant and his mother was frequently lost in thought. The boys were rowdy. The food was excellent and the event was mercifully brief, with no other guests to complicate things. No attempt was made to extend it past the necessary obligations. The usual pleasantries were made about being thankful for being together as a family. Peter suspected that Heidi was the only person at the table who believed it this year.

After the meal was over, Heidi stepped away with his mother, discussing some element of the pregnancy. Peter helped Mandy collect the dishes, ignoring the woman's refusal of his help. Nathan followed Peter's lead, which ended Mandy's chiding. After Mandy took a load into the kitchen, Peter said, "I work tomorrow until midnight again. I'd really appreciate it if you could come by. I need to talk to you."

Nathan looked at him with dull eyes. "I'll see."

"I came here today for **you**, Nathan. Please come by." The other man nodded as Mandy came back out for more dishes. Nothing else was said of it.

XXX

Peter had not been sure he'd show up, but he did. Nathan slipped into the apartment past him and looked around uneasily. "Take your coat off," Peter directed. Nathan ignored him and patrolled through the apartment silently, searching every room, even the closets, touching the walls and the upper parts of furniture. Peter pursed his lips, annoyed that Nathan thought it might be a setup. He would have said something about the suspicion, but at least he'd come.

Finally Nathan came back to him where he was leaning against the closed front door. His expression was flat, unreadable. Peter put out his hand. "Coat?"

Nathan sighed and looked around the apartment again as if trying to think of somewhere he hadn't already looked.

Peter rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not going to hurt you. No one's here to get you. This isn't a setup. You know I'm telling the truth. Is there some other way you want me to say it, to make you feel better?"

Nathan frowned heavily at him, but took off his coat and handed it over.

"Thank you." He hung it up and walked into the living room, which had a small table in it and four chairs. Two were pulled out to one side, facing each other. Peter gestured to one. "Here, have a seat." Nathan ran his fingers across the top of the chair's back, looking between it and the table. They were new, actually brand-new or nearly so. Peter had bought them a month ago. He started to sit, but Peter caught his shoulder and turned him to sit backwards on it. It occurred to Peter the gesture was the same he'd used in the bedroom for the first time and like then, Nathan had complied without argument or comment. "Take your shirt off." Nathan turned to look at him and gave him a long, level stare.

Peter explained, "I'm going to give you a massage. Upper body only. It's non-sexual. No one's helpless." At Nathan's very slight nod, he added softly, "I want to be with you. This is how we'll start. Think of it as therapy." _Because I sure need some._

"Why? Why a massage?"

"Because it feels good. You'll give me one after I'm done with you. I like massages. Now take off your shirt." He nudged him slightly and was pleased Nathan did as he asked. He picked up the massage oil he'd put out on the table in case Nathan showed. He set it back down unused though at the sight of Nathan's bare back. He ran his fingers lightly over the skin. He still felt nice, no matter what had happened last time. Nathan arched his back for a moment at the touch and then leaned forward onto the back of his chair. "I like touching you," Peter said softly. He also liked Nathan's reactions, a lot. Taking his mind off it (_what was that I said about non-sexual?_), he picked up the oil and applied it liberally.

He worked the oil into the other man's back. "You've had massages before, haven't you?"

Nathan's head tilted back, but he could only catch the edge of his expression. "Professional ones? Real?"

"Yeah, real. Not… euphemisms."

"Yeah, dozens of times. Maybe scores. A few years ago I fell off this… uh, em." Peter felt the muscles along his back bunch and tighten.

"What happened?"

"Nothing. I was wrong." He shook his head.

"Nathan, you said you wanted someone to talk to. I'm here. I'm listening. Talk to me. What did you fall off of?"

"It wasn't me," he said quietly.

Peter cocked his head, putting his thumbs along either side of Nathan's spine and working his way down. Nathan made small pleased noises at his motions. "You mean it was Sylar." The trace of relaxation he'd gotten vanished as the other man tensed again.

After a pause, Nathan twisted to look at Peter's face. He nodded, looking at Peter, trying to judge his reaction. Peter raised one brow at him and pushed his shoulder. "Turn around. I know who you are. I wasn't done. Now tell me about it. You fell off…?"

Nathan exhaled and turned, relaxing more under Peter's hands. "Yeah… a building. Couldn't catch myself entirely with telekinesis. I… had a pinched nerve, some bruising. Went to a chiropractor, then a masseuse next door that he worked with. Every day for a couple weeks. She was good. Mmn." Peter was able to up the pressure again, working deeper as Nathan relaxed. It was odd to imagine Sylar going to the doctor like a normal person, trying to explain injuries most likely attained in the course of killing people.

"You're really tense," Peter said, rubbing the outside of Nathan's shoulders, moving his whole upper body slowly.

"I've got a lot to be tense about," Nathan rejoined.

Peter chuckled. "Would it bother you if I asked you some things that will probably make you even more so? There's a lot I need to understand."

Just asking the question caused Nathan to shift and breath unevenly. "Go ahead."

Peter leaned forward and kissed him between the shoulder blades. "Thank you." He ran his hands slowly up and down the other man's back, trying to sooth. "You said you hadn't had any problems with Heidi." He paused, knowing Nathan wasn't going to like where he was going to take this.

"You mean, with the Hunger?"

Peter nodded, though Nathan couldn't see it. "Right."

"Uh-huh."

Peter went on, "Have you had any problems with children?"

"What?" Nathan twisted to look at him again. His face curled in disgust.

"Stay with me, Nathan. This is important. I know you haven't hurt the boys. I **know **that. Okay?"

Nathan nodded. "Where are you going with this?" He sounded angry.

Peter took his hands off him. "You said it set you off for someone to be helpless. You're going to have an infant soon. Have you thought about this?"

Nathan sucked in air and stood up, getting away from him. "God, Peter! Yes. I'm fine, I'm fine with kids. They sleep in the same house with me, you know? It's not just helplessness. It's **you**, most of all, but people with abilities, when I've _got_ them, it's both Hungers working on me at once. A baby… no, that's not a problem. Unless the baby has abilities, I can't imagine it ever would be." _Claire had her abilities as an infant. _"If he does, then… we'll see. I can't…" He couldn't continue. He literally couldn't think that he'd hurt a baby, especially his own child, but Paul Washington's skin stretched over a frame filled his mind. Before he'd done that, he wouldn't have thought he could do it either. It was unthinkable. And what was it he'd done to Peter? He couldn't remember much of anything beyond getting frustrated with the position and lifting him bodily with telekinesis. After that it was kind of vague until the end.

He looked back at Peter. There was no one else he'd told and as far as he knew, no one else who knew. No one else who would be watching him, watching out for him. The Bennets and his mother knew he had the Hunger, but so had Peter and Peter had been oblivious to its real effects until it had almost killed him. "You have to help me, Peter," he said quietly.

Peter gestured slightly at the chair. "I'm trying. First I have to understand."

Slowly, Nathan walked back to the chair and sat, facing away. He shivered as Peter's fingers stroked across him. For several minutes, they didn't speak as Peter set to the work of delivering a good massage and relaxing the other man. Obviously, he wasn't going to relax if Peter kept asking him upsetting questions, so he just left off and worked on his body. When he was nicely slumped over the chair, Peter smiled at his work. "Come on, time to turn around. I'll do your front."

"Uhh… do I have to?" Nathan got up and turned around. Peter smiled at Nathan's chest and kept smiling as he put his hands on it. He caressed him, avoiding his nipples but enjoying touching him and seeing Nathan twitch and make small groans. _I could get used to this._ Peter was steadily and intentionally desensitizing himself, replacing the sensations of his last encounter with better ones.

After the initial familiarization was over, Peter leaned in to knead and rub. Nathan asked, "What else do you want to know?", sighing under the ministrations.

"Mm. How are you with bondage?"

Nathan raised his brows. "Um, what? You mean, like being tied up?"

"Yeah. **You** being tied up. You into that?"

Nathan's face scrunched as he tried to avoid laughing. Peter was working on his short ribs. Peter shifted away from the area. "Um… I guess it's okay. Not really into it though. I've never done anything… erm, had anything done to me more elaborate than my own tie. And… handcuffs, once, but that was awkward."

Peter cocked his head and looked at Nathan's face. _What had he been about to say?_ "I didn't really think so. You're a dominant. They usually get off more on the 'tying people up part', not being tied. Probably interacting badly with the Hunger."

"A dominant. Huh." Nathan frowned.

"So me tying you up won't work for sex. Or at least, it won't work for you. What turns you on?"

Nathan looked at him blankly for a moment. If he hadn't had his hands on the other man's body, Peter wouldn't have noticed how profoundly he tensed. Everything locked up without him even twitching. "You do," Nathan said mildly, his voice betraying nothing.

Peter stopped rubbing and went back to stroking, not commenting on why. "I do?"

"Yeah," Nathan said faintly and looked away. After a pause he said, "Things are good with Heidi. Pretty vanilla, but they're good. She enjoys it. A lot, I think. Or at least she did before… the pregnancy advanced. She's been weird lately."

"Breathe, Nathan."

"What?"

"You're not breathing. Breathe."

"Sorry." He breathed, but he kept looking away.

Peter scooted his chair closer. He noted Nathan jumped at that. Finally he said, "Is there something that turns you on, that you don't want to talk about?"

Nathan gave him a blank look again. This time Peter recognized it for what it was - Nathan attempting to get all the emotion off his face. "If I didn't want to talk about it, then why would I tell you about it?"

Peter looked at Nathan's collarbone and neck, rubbing his shoulders, but not making eye contact. The position brought him very close. Eye contact would be overkill and make it too intimate. "Because I'm trying to talk to you, Nathan. Trying to figure out what we can do." _And I need to understand why you did what you did to me. If there's anything of Nathan in you, why did you do that?_

Nathan didn't answer. Peter kept rubbing at his shoulders, finally getting some release there. Nathan sighed and looked away again. "There's a reason why I haven't been with anyone else, Peter."

Peter waited, but he didn't go on. _It's like pulling teeth. Might as well…_ "What reason is that?"

"I'm a… Sylar was a rapist."

Peter hesitated. _Had Nathan been…?_ "You… haven't been with anyone else? At all?"

"No," he said firmly.

Peter exhaled, trying to relax himself. _No one else, no one else. I asked him to do it. He wanted to leave. He knew I wouldn't want what he was going to do._ "So **that's** what turns you on?"

Nathan sat up suddenly, moving back a little and shrugging his shoulders to shake off Peter's hands. Peter leaned back, giving him space. Nathan said, "I don't know! It's… complicated. Sylar, Gabriel wasn't…" he gestured at Peter. "He wasn't bisexual either and here I am. Nathan… I still have that. I appreciate other men too, not just you. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt Heidi. I'm perfectly satisfied with her, and with you. But there were a couple strangers I… I really wanted to. I could have. I didn't. It made me sick, what I wanted to do. It's not **me**."

Peter looked into Nathan's eyes, "You don't want to hurt me? Do you remember, last time, me and you, when I told you to stop? I said I wasn't ready and you said **no**? I told you that you were hurting me and you kept going?"

"I…" Nathan's mouth worked, but nothing came out.

_At least he has the good grace to look shocked,_ Peter thought. He knew the Hunger could seriously cloud judgment. He also knew Sylar and later Gabriel had somehow overcome most of the compulsion.

Peter leaned in and kept going even as Nathan shrank back from him. He put his hand on the other man's chest. "I'm dealing with it. But I want you to know. You said the first time you didn't have the memories anymore, couldn't remember what I liked?" Nathan nodded. "I don't like it rough. If I say it hurts, stop. **Stop right then**. I don't want to hurt you, either. I don't care if you can heal. I want to bring you pleasure, not pain. I want to _get_ pleasure - _not_ pain. Anything I have to _endure_ isn't something I'm going to want to do again. Don't use telekinesis on me. Not without my permission, not _**ever**_ without my permission. You **ask** first. Every time you've used that on me, it's been bad." Nathan paled. "Oh, and don't pull my hair."

Nathan's brows knit. "I… uh, sorry," he got out, feebly.

"No, you didn't pull my hair last time. That was fine. You can touch me, run your hands through it, that's great. What you did was fine. Just don't yank on me." He laughed a little, hollowly. "Any part of me. If it's attached, I want it to stay that way. I'm trying to set boundaries here, because we need them." _Oh, do we ever._

Nathan smiled faintly, still reeling from the impact of what Peter had said. "Okay."

Peter leaned back. "Now come back here. You've gotten all knotted up again. I have to redo everything."

Nathan leaned forward, saying nothing. He was pale.

Peter hesitated. "Is there anything else I should ask after I get you calmed down again?" He was serious. Peter felt like he kept tripping over landmines, assuming the man who acted like Nathan, sounded like Nathan and apparently wanted to be Nathan, **was** him. Then when he scratched the surface and got under his skin, he found out he was only partly there, like opening a book and finding chapters from multiple stories. It made it hard to follow the plot. If Peter hadn't felt that Nathan was being as honest with him as he could be, he would have been out and shut of him. Everything he knew, though, said that the other man was reaching for him at least as much as Peter was reaching back.

"No… I… I don't know." He thought about the other effects of Samson's power - the memories and impressions of Paul and Claire. He didn't want to talk about them. After a pause, he added, "I love you, Pete."

"I've kind of gathered that." He smiled. "I love you too."

Several minutes later, Peter's fingers were sore, but Nathan was leaning back, entirely relaxed, eyes shut. He'd enjoyed Peter's hands all over him, a fact that his slacks made abundantly clear. He wasn't asking for anything more. He was still trying to sort out what Peter had told him. _Did he really tell me to stop? Why can't I remember that? I remember him talking, but it wasn't important, like it was far away. I've blanked before on people when the Hunger kicked in, or even when I was just listening too much to their song._

Peter ran a hand down Nathan's thigh and enjoyed the soft sigh and slight noise he made in response. He looked at the other man's groin and considered how generous he was feeling today. He didn't want the man frustrated while he gave him a massage. Or worse, accidentally bumping him with **that**. _Is the Hunger lessened if he's spent?_ He tugged at Nathan's pants and unbuttoned them.

Without opening his eyes, Nathan said, "I thought you said this was non-sexual." _Why is he doing this? Did I misunderstand?_

Peter grunted. "I said the massage was. This is different."

"Mm." Nathan scooted down a bit more, lifting his hips and pushing his slacks down enough to free himself. "I'm not going to complain." He kept his eyes shut, oddly not wanting to watch.

Peter breathed on it and Nathan's manhood throbbed in response. Nathan groaned as well, reaching down to hold the edges of the chair. "You put me right over," Nathan said, shaking his head. "I don't know why."

"Yeah, I've noticed that. It's nice. Flattering." _That's different too, in a good way, I guess. Nathan was never __**this**__ sensitive._

He wrapped his hand around the other man's shaft and Nathan bucked at the touch, panting suddenly. Peter looked up at him, but Nathan's eyes were still shut. He stroked up and down it several times. Nathan put one hand on Peter's head, running his fingers through his hair as his cheeks clenched. His breathing had become faster, uneven.

_That seems awfully fast,_ Peter thought_. Is he as close as it seems? I've hardly touched him._ Peter bent and ran his tongue up his length, from the base towards the head. He didn't get there before Nathan spasmed, spurting onto his own chest. Peter leaned back. _Okay… he was. That's almost ridiculous. I've got to remember to keep my hands off him if I want him to last in bed. If we're ever in bed again._

Peter released him, saying, "Let me get you a towel."

While Nathan cleaned himself off, Peter took off his shirt and tossed it on the floor. He straddled his chair and sat. Nathan got up and recovered Peter's shirt, shaking it off fastidiously. He laid it on the table next to his own. Peter smirked at that. Hopefully his brother was relaxed and satisfied.

"You ever given a massage?" Peter asked as Nathan settled in behind him and dispensed oil into his palm.

"Mm. Not that didn't end in having sex with someone." He put his hands on Peter's back and gently smeared the oil across him. It wasn't entirely true. Paul Washington had been a physical therapist in one of his vocations, including a handful of different massage techniques.

Peter glanced back. "I know what I just did, but I'd rather not have this lead to that."

Nathan's hands hesitated for a moment. "You're not interested?"

Peter sighed and looked away. "I'm still dealing with last time." He couldn't think of how to be except honest. "You scared the crap out of me, Nathan." He broke out into a sweat and trembled slightly, trying not to think about being frozen in place and fucked against his will, of having to work to make it passable, acceptable. It hadn't bothered him to choose to touch Nathan. The idea of being touched in return was hard to take.

Nathan looked at his hand and at Peter's skin, realizing Peter was damp all over. It wasn't the oil. Very softly he said, "And you **still** asked me to come here?"

_I can't let you be a killer. Or a rapist, though I didn't know about that one when I asked you to come. I have to know what's going on with you and you're the only one who can tell me. I'm trying to save you._ Aloud, Peter said, "I love you, Nathan."

Nathan shook his head, bringing forward Washington's memories and elements of his personality that stuck to the skill set. "You're an idiot." He put his hands on Peter's back again and started rubbing with long, sure strokes.

"I'm a what?" Peter said in surprise. Nathan's tone had changed, like a slightly different voice. It wasn't Sylar's… Peter didn't know what it meant.

"An idiot. You heard me. You should have run, or killed me when you had the chance. You keep giving me these chances to hurt you. It's stupid."

He pushed Peter forward so he was leaning on the back of the chair and started strokes up his back, one after another, pushing with his thumbs. Each stroke overlapped slightly with the previous one as he worked out from his spine and then back in. It was a very different style and much more forceful.

"Not too hard," Peter grunted. He was pleased that Nathan immediately softened his touch. The direction of the conversation, coupled with being manhandled, had not sat well with him. He relaxed a little.

"That better?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Nathan worked effectively and quickly, not saying anything else. Peter thought he was doing a really good job for someone who hadn't done it before. His fingers probed slightly, seeking and finding exact pressure points and working them. He certainly knew what he was doing. Peter was breathing deeply and felt a wonderful lethargy through him in minutes. "Turn," Nathan said. Peter staggered when he got up. He hadn't realized how relaxed he was. Nathan put out a hand to him, to guide him physically, not using his power. Peter sat back down, now facing his brother.

Nathan's eyes traveled over his chest almost clinically. He got started with a touch as sure and certain as it had been on Peter's back. Peter said, "You're pretty good at this. You're better than I am."

Nathan grunted. Peter felt his hands twitch, almost leaving his skin, then returning. Nathan said, "You've added a lot of muscle. Been working out?"

Peter let him change the subject. Besides, this felt really great. It was fast, thorough and deep. He'd only had a massage like this from a physical therapist he'd dated once. "Yeah."

"Where at? You go to a gym?"

"In the dining room - jogging, rope, crunches, push ups. Just resistance stuff."

"It's working. You're in good shape."

"Uhn." Peter leaned back. "Oh! That's great."

Nathan had stopped, putting his hand flat on Peter's chest and leaning forward as if listening. Peter blinked. "What are you doing?"

"Listening to your heart, your lungs." Nathan sounded distant.

"Enhanced hearing? I didn't know you had that." Peter was familiar with every power Noah Bennet thought Nathan had, or might have, at the moment. Enhanced hearing wasn't even on the "might have" list. If he was adding new abilities, Peter needed to know.

"No. I don't." He smiled at Peter, a distant, relaxed expression. "You sound great. As always." He got up and walked over to his shirt, running his fingers over the fabric of Peter's shirt. He pushed away Washington's life, regaining Nathan's by touching Peter's shirt, feeling Peter in it, wearing it. Peter was Nathan's touchstone, the thing that made him Nathan. He suspected that meant a lot more than he understood. He picked up his own t-shirt and slipped it on. "I have a client whose father had a stroke - the lady I was talking to at lunch, when Heidi saw me. Anyway, I met her father too, at his home. He didn't sound right." He shook his head.

Peter simply watched him, feeling too relaxed to move and being puzzled by what Nathan was revealing to him. His tone had changed back to what Peter thought of as "normal" for Nathan. Nathan went on, "I knew Heidi was pregnant weeks before she went to the doctor. I didn't know what I was hearing though, what it meant. It was just…" he waved his hand in the air as if trying to indicate something only he could hear, "it was different. I kept telling her to go to the doctor." He smiled at the memory. "I was sure there was something wrong. I'm glad there wasn't." He pulled on his t-shirt. "I can hear him whenever Heidi is around. He's beautiful. My little boy." He stared off into space, smiling happily.

He looked at Peter. "Thank you. This was a good idea. I'm sorry I hurt you last time. Thank you for giving me another chance." Nathan pulled on his dress shirt and began buttoning it.

Peter nodded. He wanted to ask questions about what Nathan was talking about, but the moment for questions seemed over. Nathan took his coat from the closet and came over to gently run his hand through Peter's hair, tousling it possessively. "Call me sometime. Nights are good for me, while Heidi is asleep. I go out a lot then. I fly. She knows that. I don't sleep much. When it's clear, I go out over the ocean, watch the boats." He looked distant again. "If it's cloudy… you should see it over Manhattan. The city lights the clouds from below, the moon on them from above; they're so white! They glow. All the stars are so clear and crisp like diamonds on a velvet field." His voice was soft and mellow.

"Nathan…" Peter said, moved, "I'm glad you have that… that time. It sounds wonderful, awe-inspiring, really." He could imagine what it was like to hang in the sky, feeling the air around himself. He'd been flying enough to enjoy it. It was so quiet up there, but Peter had never had a chance to watch the scenery unfold like apparently Nathan had. Once upon a time, Nathan had hated his power, called himself a 'flying freak'. Peter wondered if time and use had mellowed him, or if Gabriel had.

Nathan chuckled. "I don't get very good phone reception up there, so if you get voicemail, don't worry about me." He walked to the door. "Love you." Peter nodded and Nathan walked out.


	41. Healing

It was a few weeks before Peter called Nathan. A woman had died at work, right in front of him. She'd been trapped in a car after a bad wreck. The ambulance had arrived after the fire department. They wouldn't let the EMTs get to her, as the engine was burning and the car was leaking gas all over. They tried to wash it away and douse the fire, but it was already in the compartment.

Peter believed if he could have gotten to her, he could have kept her alive even if he had to heal her repeatedly. By the time he was allowed to go to her side, she was too far gone for his ability to bring back. It healed injuries - it didn't raise the dead. He'd tried anyway and he'd passed out. Hesam thought he'd fainted. Peter was sure it was more than that. Luckily they were near the end of their shift, because Peter had recovered only very slowly.

After he'd called Nathan and asked him to come over, it occurred to him that the last thing he needed right now was more upsetting drama. Still, calling his brother had felt right. He'd done it without thinking about it. Nathan arrived almost immediately, smelling faintly of cigar smoke. Peter inhaled as he let him in. "Where've you been?"

"Seeing people. Cultivating contacts. I might run for reelection next year."

"At one in the morning?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," Peter said, walking over and sitting on the couch, wondering what unsavory people Nathan was 'cultivating' these nights.

After hanging up his coat, Nathan joined him. He started to speak, then fell silent, staring at the floor as if disconnected. Peter blinked at him. Nathan held a finger up to him and leaned closer, cocking his head towards him. "Peter. What's wrong with you?"

Peter's brows climbed. "You can… What do you hear?"

"Your heart's skipping. Irregular. You're different. Off-key. Damaged, maybe?" He looked at him intently. "What happened to you? The Haitian?" Nathan stood, a hint of righteous fury clouding his features.

"No, it was at work." Peter looked at him, searching.

Nathan leaned in close to him, a threatening expression on his face. "Peter?" He reached out and touched Peter's shoulder, feeling the memories in the cloth.

_He doesn't believe I'm him_. "I'm your brother, Nathan. I'm Peter Petrelli. Is there something I need to say to prove it?"

Nathan drew back slowly. "No. No. I just had an awkward conversation with Mom last week. She won't tell me how to get your full power back."

Peter stared at him. _She knows how to do that?_

"I thought maybe she'd decided to do something to you. What happened at your work?"

Peter told him.

Nathan rolled his eyes and sat back down, reaching over to touch Peter on the knee, patting him. "That's my Peter. Always trying to save the world. You know, if there's one thing I've learned about powers is that most of them have a downside and they don't come with instruction manuals. Two things, I guess. Be careful. Sounds like you could have died."

Peter nodded. "I think… I think if I'd given it everything I had, she'd be alive. But I'd be dead." He looked at Nathan with sorrowed eyes. This was the real reason he'd called him. He'd failed the woman, a stranger to him, because he valued his own life more than hers. He felt like a hypocrite.

"I'm glad you didn't," Nathan said softly.

"Yeah." Peter gazed off into the distance, hearing her scream in the car, himself trying to get to her, Hesam trying to give him a sedative because he'd been so agitated - they'd nearly come to blows over that. Fortunately, or perhaps not, she'd only screamed the once, succumbing to smoke immediately after. He knew she wouldn't make it when that happened, but until then he could have done it... assuming he too hadn't been lost to the fumes. If he had been stronger, or faster, in addition to being able to heal her… if he'd had regeneration to protect himself while he helped her….

"My mother knows how to restore my full ability?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

Peter looked at Nathan. "You're sure?"

Nathan looked off to the side for a long moment. "I have only her body language to go off. She won't answer me. She says that she's your mother and it's family business." He grinned, shark-like, still staring at the floor. "That I have no right to insist on family information as part of the board. " His smile changed to a smirk. "She won't tell me as your brother, either. There's only so far I can push it without taking the top of her head off and looking for myself." He shook himself. "That wouldn't help anyone. Besides, I can't do it." He looked at Peter, who was leaning forward, studying Nathan's expressions carefully. "I can't," he told the younger man. "I can threaten it, scare her, but I can't do it. Not unless I lose myself."

Peter asked slowly, "What do you mean, lose yourself?"

"Let the Hunger do it."

"That wouldn't give you anything but her power. How do you know you'd dream the right thing?"

Nathan looked at him steadily. "It gives me more than that, now."

Peter looked even more intently at him. "What does it give you?"

Nathan shook his head. "I'm not talking about it." He stood up and went into the kitchen. Peter waited on the couch. His brother came back with two bottles of water. He handed one to Peter.

Peter started, "Can I ask-"

Nathan cut him off. "No."

"Okay. But you have to tell me one thing for me to drop this."

Nathan looked at him and finally gestured impatiently with the bottle. "Go ahead."

"Is it safe for me not to know? Does it hurt people - whatever this is you're not telling me?"

Nathan frowned. "If you don't count the victim - and I gather you're familiar with the process - then no. The only person it hurts is me." He took a drink.

"You?"

"I said I'm not talking about it and you said if I told you your 'one thing', then you'd drop it." Peter kept staring at him, trying to will the other man to explain. Nathan added, "If you can't honor that, I'm leaving."

Peter leaned away, looking off at the wall of special people. "Okay," he sighed. He'd run into a lot who didn't understand their powers and had to have them explained to them. The Company files and Noah Bennet's own exhaustive information about powers had been invaluable. Peter knew more than he'd thought possible about abilities - more practical information than Mohinder knew theoretical.

But fairly frequently they ran up against unexpected variations - latent secondary powers, unusual drawbacks or a power they just hadn't seen before, like Nathan's current layering of intuitive aptitude. Sometimes it was just a difference in approach or application, usually depending on personality. A great deal of a person's power was related to their personality and attitude. He'd been amused to discover people could have 'power impotence' - losing their ability through depression, panic or lack of confidence. He didn't think his own power was suffering from that. He felt fine - just not at the moment.

After a pause, Nathan said, "So anyway, now you know Mom knows. Or she might."

"Huh," Peter kept staring at the wall, thinking again that if he had all his powers, the woman wouldn't have died. It would be easier to help the people they found who had abilities, as well. He could borrow their power and demonstrate it, understand it, at least to some extent. He needed to find a way to get rid of powers, permanently, without resorting to the Shanti virus. He'd been told that it was useless to try using it again on Sylar. As a previous recipient of it, he now carried antibodies against it and was immune. He'd considered it as a way to get rid of the Hunger, but it wouldn't work.

"Come here, Peter."

He pulled himself out of his morose thoughts. "What?"

Nathan shifted on the couch, putting his back to the arm of it and moving one leg up. "Come here. Lay back against me."

Peter frowned. It wasn't that he didn't like the invitation, but he wasn't sure what was on Nathan's mind. He didn't like the idea of being in his arms… not after the incident in the bedroom.

"Please? I'm not going to hurt you." Nathan spoke softly.

Peter moved over to him with great reluctance, breathing shallowly. He leaned against his brother tensely. Nathan put his arms along Peter's, not enclosing him. After a moment he reached up to Peter's shoulders and shifted him against himself. "Lay flat against me. Try to relax."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm thinking that if you feel my heartbeat, yours might even out."

"Oh." That made sense. It also ruled out intimacy, or at least, intimacy of a sort he didn't want. He relaxed his body, slumping against Nathan. After a minute, he was feeling warm and better, breathing more deeply. He was also feeling something else. "Um… don't get too happy about this or I'm going to be the one leaving, okay?"

"All right." Peter wasn't sure what Nathan did or thought about, but his erection faded quickly.

Nathan put a hand over Peter's chest, which made him twitch with nerves. Nathan didn't take his hand away, just resting it lightly on him. He relaxed again, leaning his head back on Nathan's shoulder. "What do you hear?" Peter asked.

"It's better. Stronger. Not skipping so much. Can you feel it?"

Peter nodded a little. "Yeah." He felt oddly like he was literally drawing life and strength from Nathan. He'd never done that before, even though it was in the files as a common feature of healing. Generally, a healer transferred their own power into a person, healing them with their own energy. It was possible to reverse the flow and draw someone else's energy into yourself, but not everyone who had the power figured that out or was disposed to do it. Draining someone else sickened them, or killed them if they put enough juice into it. "Am I hurting you?"

"A little. It's okay."

Peter started to get up. Nathan didn't let him at first. Peter made a small, pained noise. Nathan inhaled suddenly and took both hands off Peter, letting him sit up. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have held you. Please stay."

Peter turned and looked at him evenly. He didn't resent Nathan holding him as much as he'd expected, but perhaps that was due to the immediate apology. He also knew, at least intellectually, that he was overreacting. Nathan looked fine. Whatever he'd been draining hadn't been fast enough to overcome his regeneration. Peter did feel a lot better, but he could tell he was still off-center. He patted Nathan's knee and leaned back, shifting to get into a comfortable position.

Nathan put his arms lightly on Peter's and asked, "Can I put my arms around you?"

"Yeah. It's okay." Peter leaned his head back on his brother's shoulder and sighed. It felt good - warm, secure and safe. He knew it was an illusion. He needed to stay alert in case something happened. Helplessness… He fell asleep.

XXX

He woke up to the slight rustle of paper. He jerked as he remembered his last waking thoughts. Nathan had one arm wrapped securely around him. It tightened slightly at his movement. The other was directing an old copy of the newspaper, one Peter had cut an article out of for his wall. It was floating in the air next to him as Nathan read what was left of it.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Nathan said.

Peter struggled free of him, which wasn't hard since he was released as soon as he started upwards. Nathan sighed when he left, though.

Peter looked at the floating paper, then down at himself. He seemed… fine. In fact he felt great, better than he had in months - maybe better than he'd felt with Claire's power coursing through him. Nathan let the paper float to the floor. "Sorry if I woke you. I was trying to be quiet."

"What time is it?"

Nathan's face twitched in irritation. His features smoothed as he looked at his watch. "Ten till six. You didn't have something you needed to do this morning, did you?"

"I thought you said… if I was helpless and you had me…"

Nathan's voice was soft, "Yeah, but that's if I'm using telekinesis, you're struggling to get away and can't, and we're having sex. None of that was happening." He looked Peter up and down, smiling faintly. "It's tempting, I'll admit. But… not worth it." Even more softly, as if he didn't intend Peter to hear it, he added, "I'll take what I can get."

Peter swallowed. He felt **really** good. His body felt good and was responding as it often did in the morning. He ran his hand across his face. "I need to… I need to take a shower. Clear my head."

Nathan nodded and stood. "Well, I need to get home or there will be questions. It'll be light soon and I don't stay out flying after that." It being the middle of December, Nathan was cutting it close as it was. He collected his coat and took off, leaving Peter feeling unfinished and unsure of his feelings.


	42. Reunion

A week before Christmas, Peter called and asked, "Are you ready for Christmas to be over yet?"

Nathan replied, "I have to admit, the boys are getting on my nerves. Heidi's been out with her sister and her husband today, shopping. I hope." He'd never talked to Heidi, or anyone else for that matter, about her dalliance with her sister's husband. It had happened while Heidi thought Nathan was dead and since he still couldn't bring himself to forgive her for it, he just shoved it out of his mind most of the time. But when she was out spending time with the man in question, it was harder to do. He was feeling cranky about it. He'd felt rather off-key since he'd seen Peter a week before.

"I took tomorrow off. I'm done shopping already, but I'm booked straight for the next week starting with an afternoon shift. Holidays are always rough. Can you come over tomorrow evening?"

"Sure. What time?"

"Whatever's good," Peter said.

"Okay. I'll see. Probably around 10 or 11."

XXX

Nathan showed up a little before 11. Peter looked worn down: not just tired, but exhausted. "Are you okay?" Nathan was concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I thought I'd get better resting up. Hasn't worked though." He swallowed.

"And you're going back to work tomorrow for a straight week in the roughest part of the year?" He paused, listening. Peter's song was subdued, as it had been the last time he'd seen him, after he'd tried to raise the dead with his power and failed. "You've been healing people."

Peter gave him a crooked smile and walked over to flop on the couch. "Hey, who doesn't want to be with their family for Christmas?"

Nathan eyed him, thinking about how he'd been unconscious in a lab for last Christmas. He considered that Peter had apparently booked himself for work both Christmas Eve and Day. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're no good to anyone like this, Pete."

Peter looked at the wall of specials. "Will you help me?"

Nathan looked at the wall, misunderstanding. "I thought Noah called off operations until after New Years, unless there was an emergency. I haven't heard there was one."

"No, there isn't. When you were here last time, you… I can draw off of you, recharge."

Nathan smiled and then tried to fight his expression back to neutral. Peter looked up at the end of his struggle. "What?"

"I'm your fix."

"My what?" Peter's brows came together.

Nathan ignored the question. "Yes, Peter, I'll help you. And I'll come back every night this week. Think of it as my contribution to a merry Christmas."

Peter said, "This isn't the sort of thing you can heal so easily with regeneration."

"Then I'll make sure to tell you when to stop."

"Okay. Come here then, because I'm tired and I don't want to go over there."

Nathan sat down on the couch. "Do we… again?" He pantomimed laying back with Peter in his arms. It had been very pleasant, very comforting, even if he'd felt more exhausted afterwards than he'd felt for months.

"No, I just need your hand. This is going to be a little sharper than before, because I'm going to do it a little faster. Okay?"

"Sure. Don't go too fast. Anything I need to know about this before you do it?"

"No, don't think so." Peter took Nathan's hand in both of his and closed his eyes.

After a few minutes, Nathan said, "I'm not feeling anything."

Peter opened his eyes for a moment, breaking concentration. "I know. It's not as easy as I thought to reverse it. Last time it just sort of happened."

Nathan said, "Last time I was trying to… oh. Try again."

Peter looked at Nathan's face for a moment and then shut his eyes, trying again. This time it was much easier. Instead of trying to steal something from someone, he was taking what was being offered. Energy flowed into him like the reverse of the suction he felt when he healed others. It filled him slowly, satisfying, feeding a craving he hadn't known he had until that moment, scratching the most annoying of itches. He opened his eyes what seemed like minutes later. He saw that Nathan's expression was troubled. He was looking at his hand, which was flowing black and red. The healthy pink tone was being pushed up his arm by advancing waves and ribbons of discoloration. Peter broke away from him.

"You were supposed to tell me when it was too much!"

"It wasn't too much." Nathan lifted his hand and examined it clinically, as if detached from it. It stayed mottled black and red for thirty or forty seconds, then suddenly the regeneration overcame it and it flooded with natural color. Nathan's face relaxed and he blinked, exhaling sharply. Apparently it had hurt.

"How much was that?" Peter asked.

Nathan shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have a gas gage. But I'd guess that would have killed me several times over if I didn't have a double dose of Claire's power. Since getting that, nothing has taken more than a second to heal. Not even Noah Bennet's tender greetings."

"He's not still shooting you, is he?"

"No. Thank you for that." He still sounded distant and strained.

"Are you okay?" Peter felt great, full of energy and ready to do anything. Nathan looked less well.

"I'll be okay. Like you said, the regeneration doesn't overcome it entirely."

"I can transfer it back."

"No." Nathan pulled his hand away and leaned back. "Do some good with it."

They sat quietly for a moment, Peter feeling wonderful and Nathan thinking about how depressed he suddenly felt. Peter looked over at Nathan, eyes sweeping up and down his body.

"Nathan, tell me. The Hunger - does it make you tired afterwards, or energized?"

Nathan drew his brows together and looked at Peter. It was an odd question. "Not so much tired as… uh, spent. Satisfied. Like I finally have something I've always wanted. You know that."

"No, I was always interrupted. Never got to finish it."

"Never?"

"No. Glad I didn't." Peter thought to himself, _I'd hate to have an ability in my head from that. I'd hate it, hate myself even more for having finished._

"Why do you ask?" Nathan said.

"I wondered if it was something you felt more keenly when you were… feeling good, or if it was something you were driven to when you felt low."

Nathan rolled that around in his mind, dredging up Sylar's memories. He nodded in one of Sylar's gestures. Peter frowned at that. Gabriel said (and Peter could see clearly it was Gabriel), "No, definitely a feel-good thing. There was one time in Texas, I was put off of a girl with perfect memory. I couldn't… didn't want to do it. Performance issue, maybe." He smiled blandly at Peter. "Anyway, given what happened to me, I'm thankful. I wish I could cut out a third of my memories as it is."

"Nathan?"

The other man twitched. "Huh?"

Peter considered that. _Does he have a split personality in there that's just buried really deep? Or was that just a glitch because I asked for something only Sylar would know?_

"Just making sure you're with me."

"I'm tired, but I'm with you."

"I'm thinking that the Hunger might have some trouble manifesting right now."

Nathan blinked at him, trying to process that. His lightning fast mind, which he'd taken for granted for most of a year now, was operating in low gear. "Okay. What's that mean?"

Peter tilted his head. "The last time you were here, you said there were three things that made it manifest, besides me - telekinesis, helplessness and sex. Does it take all three?"

"Um… I don't know. I had you held with telekinesis in Ma's house and I let you go. I've had sex with you… oral sex and it didn't matter." He smiled. "Of course, I'm kind of pushover for your mouth." He laughed to himself.

Peter laughed back. "Is that it? I thought it was just… just me touching you there at all."

"Well, that's good too, but nothing like… even just thinking about it." He made a gesture and Peter could see that indeed, Nathan was showing a bulge. Nathan blinked up at Peter, wondering where his brains had gone as he realized the direction Peter's questions were leading. "Wait. You're saying… you want to? You? Not just me, but you?"

Peter's voice was steady and low. "I think it might be safe. What do you think? Do you remember what I said about what I didn't like?"

Nathan nodded too quickly. "No force, no telekinesis, don't hurt you, stop when you say stop and don't pull your hair." His words tumbled out.

Peter chuckled. "I take it that's been on your mind a bit?"

"Yeah," he answered breathily. He'd replayed that part of the conversation endlessly, trying to work out how (and if) he'd raped his brother. He'd at least scared him so bad that he was entirely put off of letting Nathan touch him, uneasy even in an embrace. Nathan didn't know what to make of it.

"Okay. Well, thanks for studying. Let's see how you do on the pop quiz."

Peter stood up and took Nathan's hand, leading him into the bedroom. Nathan looked at the part of the wall where he'd had Peter before. He looked back at Peter, who was undressing.

"Hey, let me finish that, okay?" Nathan walked over to Peter and finished unbuttoning his shirt for him.

"I can undress myself," Peter said petulantly, but didn't interfere with Nathan's gentle, sure fingers.

"No. You can undress **me**. Your top, my top, then your bottom, my bottom. Deal?"

"Sure," Peter shrugged. _Clothes fetishist. He's always been that way. At least it's harmless. Not like he's humping an Armani. Or humping me in an Armani. Now that's an image… Might have to try that sometime. I'll bet he'd go bonkers for that._

Peter did not take as much pleasure out of disrobing his partner as Nathan did. He suspected Nathan would have been happier if he'd had more on to take off. When they were both naked, Nathan tugged at his lip and eyed Peter. "What did you have in mind?"

"Get on the bed with me. You in my lap, me in you. I'm not ready for you in me yet, so don't try."

"I'm not going to." Nathan bit off the urge to apologize again. He didn't know why he'd done what he'd done. It had just seemed like what he needed to do at the time. "When you're ready."

Peter climbed on, wondering how this was going to work: how to get a dominant personality turned on by being penetrated. Nathan didn't technically need to be aroused, anymore than he'd been the first time. While he was thinking about this, Nathan got out the lubricant and moved in front of Peter, guiding him back onto the pillows. "Um…" Peter blinked.

Nathan hesitated, but when Peter didn't go on, he applied lube to his hand and then to Peter's cock, massaging it to hardness. He moved up even with Peter's hip, putting one knee up and one down. He handed the lube to Peter, tilting his hips in invitation. _Okay, that works. Give him a game plan and then let him lead. Kind of skipped the foreplay though. Can't have that._

Peter didn't get out any lube right away. Instead he ran his fingers over Nathan's ass and admired his view of it and of his slightly pendulous balls. He handled them. Nathan sucked in air and clenched a little harder on Peter's shaft. "You are **so** responsive," Peter whispered.

"It's kind of embarrassing. I should last longer. I do with…" Nathan panted a reply, not finishing the sentence. It seemed wrong to talk about his wife at this moment.

Peter turned his body so he had a better angle to fondle Nathan. "I'm not so sure it's how long you'll last at a stretch that I'm going to worry about tonight, but how many stretches I can make you last."

Nathan's body tensed at that, in a good way. Peter put his hand on Nathan's knee, which moved cooperatively when he turned it aside. Now he could put his hand to Nathan's groin, running his fingers over the rock-hard, silky shaft. "Oooh," Nathan groaned. "You don't want me to hold back for later?" he ground out.

"Nope." Peter grinned, running his fingers around the top, absolutely loving how Nathan was already trying to thrust into what little touch Peter had given him. Nathan's hands left Peter's cock to wrap around his own, pressing Peter's hand tighter around his shaft. Starting at the base, he pulled upwards once, firmly, and then buckled over on the downstroke, gasping and quivering.

Peter laughed, pulling his hand out. _Okay, this __**is**__ ridiculous. Maybe if we do it eight or nine times more, he'll get a little more endurance._

Peter rolled off the bed and came back from the bathroom with a towel. He handed it to Nathan to clean up. Nathan said, "I could have just called that to us, you know."

"I'm not comfortable with that," Peter said unequivocally. He got back on the bed. Nathan didn't argue. Peter leaned in on all fours and kissed the other man gently. Nathan tossed the towel up on the headboard where it landed perfectly (or was perhaps assisted with telekinesis, as Peter couldn't see it). He pressed into the kiss, tongue moving in Peter's mouth.

He pushed the younger man over onto his back and leaned over him, swallowing his mouth for several seconds before backing off. Peter's hands were on Nathan's chest, tweaking and stroking. Nathan kissed him across the face and down the jaw, lightly across the neck and then to his chest. He took his mouth to one nipple and his fingers to another. "Ah!" Peter's back arched off the bedspread in appreciation.

Peter moved one hand and slid it between Nathan's legs. He could just reach the head of his re-inflated member. He touched its wetness with his fingertips. Nathan began panting again and shuffled forward, letting him get a grip. He returned to Peter's face, kissing him violently for a second. Pete snapped his mouth shut and jerked his head away. Nathan backed off as suddenly as he'd started. After a frozen moment, Peter turned his face back to his brother and started stroking Nathan's cock in short movements. "It's okay?" Nathan breathed.

"Don't do that again, but yeah, it's okay," Peter nodded and took the back of Nathan's head with his free hand, pulling him back down for a more gentle kiss. It was long, slow and sweet, their tongues tumbling together, exploring as Nathan rocked his hips to fuck Peter's hand. He grunted, but he was at least lasting longer this time. He brought his hands up and ran them through Peter's hair, knotting one in the longest part, the other cradling the side of his face. He held his weight on his elbows. Peter looked up to see an expression of unfocused ecstasy as he came again, against Peter's hand, his side and the bedspread. "Oh… God…" Nathan said. He looked back down at Peter, able to see him now. He kissed him again, slow and deep and gentle.

The towel was back in Nathan's hand. Peter glanced around. _Where did that come from?_ Nathan wiped up what he could. Peter scooted back, searching for the lubricant. He finally found it. "I'm ready. Come here. That… earlier position was good." Nathan copied it and this time Peter did what Nathan had intended and put his fingers into the crack of his ass, finding his opening and massaging it, stimulating it, loosening him. First one finger, then a second.

Nathan leaned over his hips, losing focus on Peter's member several times. He couldn't keep up a rhythm but it didn't matter. Seeing his brother so taken by his manipulations was more than arousing enough to keep Peter ready. He went to three fingers just to hear him moan and start thrusting against his thigh, panting. Peter looked at that and sat up, pushing Nathan over and taking his brother's shaft in his free hand.

"Oh, no, you're going to make me-"

Peter smiled. "Oh yeah, I am. I'm going to make you. You'll be so ready for me you won't feel a thing."

He coordinated his motions inside his ass and on his shaft. He had no more than to sync them up and slide his hand up and down his member three times before he spilled. Nathan lay on his side and gasped like a fish out of water.

Peter moved around behind him, hand still working within him as Nathan twitched helplessly.

"I know this wasn't the plan, but I don't think you can even sit up right now."

Nathan shook his head. Peter waited a beat to make sure this wasn't a negation or argument. Nathan nodded, "Go, yes. Please," he gasped out.

Peter moved behind him and lay on his side, spooning him. He lifted Nathan's leg and aimed himself in. It didn't take more than finding the right spot - he was relaxed, ready and slick. It was loose and lovely. Peter could push in and out immediately, easily. Nathan groaned and sighed and lay still. He looked content, but Peter wanted more participation. After he was inside as much as he'd get at this angle, he reached around and put his hand on Nathan's now-flaccid member. _I thought so. Anal just doesn't do much for him unless he's the one driving. This has got to be the weirdest sex I've ever had with a man. Or maybe just the weirdest man I've ever had sex with._

"Nathan," he said between thrusts.

His brother blinked and looked back at him.

"After I'm done, I'm going to roll you over and suck you dry." He felt a twitch from Nathan's cock. He smiled. "Oh yeah. You get ready. I'm going to put my hands around you, both of them, and lick the top of you until you start fucking my mouth." He now had enough hardness to get a grip and start moving his hand up and down the shaft in time with his thrusts.

"I'm going to make you fuck me for so long, by not letting you have too much. Not too much, not at once. Just think about it. My tongue on your head, my lips over your cock, sucking, licking, drawing you in. I'll make sure you've got a good view." Nathan's hips started twitching in time to the cadence of his words, which matched Peter's own thrusts into his ass. Nathan put his head down and panted, eyes shut.

"Eventually I'll take you all the way in and-"

"Ah! Awgod." Nathan hunched and bucked violently. Peter released his shaft before he came, pumping into his partner's body with renewed vigor. He rolled Nathan over fully onto his stomach and spread his legs. Peter sank in full inch and more further into him. Nathan groaned and squirmed. Peter thrust in and out and within seconds was nearly whimpering as his own peak approached. Nathan's ass was still clenching with a climax prolonged by his relentless thrusts into his prostate. He released abruptly, spending himself within the other man. Nathan was moaning and almost struggling from the longest orgasm he'd had in his life. Peter put his hands on either side of Nathan's body and panted, still feeling aftershocks. Nathan was trembling.

When he'd recovered himself, Peter leaned back and patted Nathan's hip. "Roll over. I've got a job to do."

Nathan shuddered into the bed and shook his head. "No, please," he gasped.

Peter blinked and leaned forward. "'No, please', for real? Or 'no, please', do me right now?"

"For real, for real. God. For real." He panted heavily like he couldn't get his breath.

"Okay, it's okay. I won't." Peter touched his ass but Nathan jumped so he took his hand off. He got up carefully, not touching him. He walked around where he could crouch by the side of the bed, near Nathan's head. He put his face in line with his brother's. "Nathan? Are you okay?"

Nathan focused on him slowly. "Yeah," he said roughly. "Go on. Shower."

"Huh," Peter said. _I've heard that before. And you'll run off while I'm in there._ He looked at Nathan still panting and twitching, even if his breathing was slowing. _Well, he might not be able to so much as stand for a few more minutes, so maybe not_. He wanted to be proud of himself. He'd never fucked someone into such a state of oblivion before. On the other hand, he'd never had a partner who reacted so strongly to him either, over and over again. He just hoped when Nathan regained his senses he was as mentally happy about it as he'd been physically. Peter was very clear there was a difference.

Peter turned on the shower to warm it up, but went to the living room instead. He carried in a chair from the other room and sat, still naked, at the foot of the bed. He waited, watching the other man's breathing slow and become steady. "Mmpf," Nathan said, rolling his head back and forth in the bedspread and inhaling his brother's scent.

"I'm here," Peter said softly before Nathan did anything else private, thinking he was alone.

Nathan's head jerked up and he regarded Peter blankly for a moment. Peter's heart stuck in his throat at that expression, until Nathan rolled over onto his side and propped his head up on his elbow. "That was… more intense than I think I can handle, Peter." He was smiling though.

Peter gave him a crooked smile and decided it was okay to feel immensely, masculinely proud of himself.

"Why aren't you in the shower?" Nathan asked.

"I thought you might run off on me again," Peter said.

"Run? I don't think I can **walk**. God. What was that? Four times in… half an hour?"

Peter shrugged. "I kind of hope it was longer than that, but maybe. You were pretty fast. I was serious though, I could-"

He stopped as Nathan perhaps unconsciously shifted one leg down, covering his groin. "Go get in the shower, Peter. I promise I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay." Peter couldn't help but swagger on the way there, though.


	43. Friends with Benefits

Patty waited a couple weeks before calling Maury. Finding his phone number wasn't too difficult. He was a director and many agents had the director's numbers in case of emergency, if something needed to be escalated and they couldn't contact their immediate superior. She didn't have much of a conversation, though. He was busy. He was short with her. He hung up on her.

She called back a few days later. Maybe he really had been busy. It wasn't like he didn't have a lot of Company work to do. Maybe she'd called at a bad time. He answered on the second ring and made sure it was her. After that, he was abusive and mean and told her in no uncertain terms that he didn't have time to spend coddling new agents. She was not to call him again unless it was about business, then he hung up on her. Again. She turned off her phone carefully and thought about it. Her heart hammered in her chest. All she'd wanted to do was talk. She tried not to think about how she felt – used and cast aside just like Matt had done to her. Instead she threw herself into her new job.

That worked for a while. When her training was done they shipped her off to Portland on assignment, then Odessa. Thanksgiving slipped by while she was in Texas. It was lonely and unmarked. Most of the agents had families. Those who didn't seemed more content with being loners than she was, or perhaps they just had more practice at it. She didn't ask. She was shipped back to Philadelphia to support project management at the new Pinehearst facility construction in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Christmas stole up to her as the days marched past. She devised a plan: if she couldn't call, she'd visit.

Finding out where he lived was easier than she'd expected. Apparently it was well known among the agents that the directors spied on each other constantly, so her inquiries didn't stand out. They tended to use outside security firms, but various Company employees got called in often enough that she only had to go through three people before she found one who knew what she needed. He could even show her the live security feed on Maury's apartment.

She sank down in her chair and looked in wonder at the dingy, green-painted abode. She'd expected… more. Angela Petrelli lived in a mansion. Gabriel, or Nathan Petrelli, or Mr. Grey, or Sylar or whatever that shape shifter was calling himself this week lived almost as well. The third director lived in a rundown, one bedroom apartment in Philadelphia decorated in a style out of fashion for at least thirty years. It wasn't obsessively tidy or terribly messy – it just looked lived in and comfortable in a shabby sort of way. He had an area set up for a home office in the fairly large living room, a cramped kitchen and bathroom, and a single bedroom.

"Does he ever have anyone in there with him?" she asked, gesturing at the bedroom on the screen.

Chuck laughed. He had straight, chocolate brown hair and sideburns that came down to the corners of his mouth. It was a strange style, but he was strange too, so it fit. "Uh… Mr. Parkman? Are you kidding? He's like… ancient. No, he never has anyone in there with him. I mean, not even in his whole apartment. Wait… he had some computer tech there last month, installing a video conferencing set up, so I suppose he's not one of those weirdoes who's too paranoid to let other people see where they live. But he doesn't have guests, if that's what you mean. I don't think he has any friends at all. He's all business, all the time."

She thought of several things to say to that, but none of them were appropriate to share. She nodded, thanked him and went back to asking general questions about security to cover her interest in this particular person and place. That evening she stopped by but Maury wasn't there. She tried the next morning but he was still out. She wondered if he was there and not answering. She hadn't heard anything, but maybe he could sense her through the door and hadn't moved. She went to the Philly containment facility. She'd heard he did a lot of his work there from the backup security station on the first floor.

She badged herself through the outer door, but the inner was restricted to the facility manager, regional manager and directors. She knew he was there. She'd already asked at main security. She knocked and waited. He opened the door and gave her a dull smile. "What do you want?"

She swallowed. "I want to talk to you." He frowned. She added, "You told me not to call."

"Not unless it was about work." He sounded tired, resigned.

"I don't want to talk about work," she said defiantly.

"I gathered."

He was still standing in the doorway, regarding her. She stepped closer, casting her eyes downward. "Let me in," she demanded softly.

He took a deep breath and stepped back. She entered. The door swung shut. He walked over and sat down, wheeling his chair over to a screen and rattling the mouse next to it. She felt dismissed, so she looked around the room. It wasn't very big, intended to be used in emergencies or for special projects. It also doubled as a secure office. File cabinets covered three walls and computer hardware the other. In the middle was a U-shaped set of monitors with stations for two observers and a clear area at the end set up as a desk.

Maury fiddled around on the screen for a bit and then turned back to her. "I've turned off active monitoring in here. For now." When she didn't say anything, he said, "Did you come here for a repeat?"

_Not really_. "Yeah," she said. She walked over to him and ran a hand over his shoulder, then down his chest a little, teasing. She leaned over him, pushing his chair back, waiting a few beats before going lower. He looked forward into her cleavage, which was her intention.

He reached up and put his hands on her shoulders, pushing her away before she could kneel before him. "That's not why you came here. How about we talk?" He felt the hurt his rejection caused. It passed through her like he'd slapped her, but she backed off and sat in the other chair.

She sighed and turned in place, rotating her seat one way and then the other. Her thoughts were in turmoil. "I want to be with you," she said, her voice small.

He looked at the ceiling. "I know. I got that. You're too young for me, Patty, and I'm too old. Go find some nice young man your own age."

She glared at him, thinking he hadn't been too old for her the times they'd been together before, indignant that he would dictate who she should be with based on age alone. She looked away. No 'nice young man' would come with his assets.

"What about the other agents?"

"I don't want to be with them," she said sullenly. "They're not interested in me anyway."

He chuckled. "Oh yes they are." She looked over at him. "They look at you when they think you're not looking. They think about you, about being with you. I know how people are. I know _men_." He looked her up and down. "You're a lovely woman, Patricia. You'd make any man you decided to share yourself with very, very happy."

_I want to make __**you**__ happy_, she thought, clearly intending him to hear it.

He didn't respond to the projection. "There's a couple of them you've looked at yourself. You ought to ask them out, find out what they're like. The only men you've been with…" he trailed off, eyes distant as he confirmed what he'd only skimmed over in earlier encounters. He shook his head. "They're not good examples – high school kids, pot heads, johns… Matt wasn't in a good place."

"You've been nice to me," she interjected earnestly.

He sighed and blinked and looked away from her. _Yeah, and this is what I get for it – a bunch of emotional angst. What was that saying? Time wounds all heels._ "I'm not the only one who could be. Go find someone else."

She thought about leaving right then. She thought about it and discarded it. "Make me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I don't want to go. I don't want to find someone else. I'm not going to unless you _make_ me."

He laughed and shook his head ruefully. "Patty, Patty… I don't have to use my ability to never see you again."

She blinked. He'd seen her hired into the Company. He could see her fired. She hadn't thought about that. But it was okay, she reasoned. There were other groups out there and she knew that now. If he wouldn't have her, then she'd find someone who would, eventually.

"That's not what I meant," he grumbled.

She snapped her head around, glad that he'd confirmed he was reading her mind. He glanced up at her briefly, then away, annoyed.

"Well, what did you mean?" she said. "Are you just going to tell me to get lost and expect me to do it?" She sniffed and looked away, leaning against the desk at the end. She was fighting back tears, her emotions roiling. It made him sick to listen to it, angry that she felt that way. He had a tendency to lash out at people when they made him feel bad about himself, guilty for hurting them. He felt a hot surge of that hate now. It showed on his face and she saw it, but didn't know where it came from. She started crying. She thought it really was over.

_And it should be,_ he thought, almost trembling with the effort of suppressing his rage. _It should be. Let her run out of here weeping and she'll never come back. She'll be out there, somewhere else, hurting and I won't have to deal with it. She'll get over it (but not really) and move on and it will be a wound in her heart for the rest of her life._

He swallowed and set aside his anger. He stood just as she tightened and straightened, about to leave. She hesitated at his movement. He walked to her, face blank, and put his arms out to her, his face gentle even if he was still seething inside. He was trying to be a good person. He was trying to be kind. He didn't need to hurt people and make things worse.

She stood and he embraced her lightly. She blinked and twisted her hands into his shirt, putting her head down against his chest. He still smelled like an old man. It was fast becoming a scent she associated with comfort. He stroked her back very softly and said, "Tell me the truth: how much of this is a calculated act?"

She stiffened a little against him, then relaxed. "Some. Not all of it. I'm…" _so sorry, so alone, so afraid. Don't leave me, don't make me leave, want me, God, please want me_. A new set of tears flowed down her face. _I just want you to need me so you won't get rid of me._

He put his mouth against the top of her head and hugged her more firmly. Her hair smelled of vanilla and berries – one of those scented hair products, no doubt. _Women_, he thought. They had too many emotions. He didn't want her and he didn't think that he was, ultimately, what she needed. She didn't need to _hurt_ though. He soothed her. He was calming down, more comfortable in his self-control. He thought about how Matt had projected to him the last time he'd had to deal with a crying woman, and made him back off from his usual angry reaction. He'd taken it to heart and given that moment a lot of thought, both in what it meant about Matt and about himself.

"Put your arms around me," he murmured. She did, sliding her arms under his and sighing against him. The little hitches in her breathing started to even out. He turned his head so his cheek was against her hair and rocked her back and forth a little. She leaned into him, letting him hold her and salve her loneliness, reveling in it.

He brought a hand up to her hair and stroked it, thinking. Christmas was coming up. It stressed a lot of people out. He wondered what she was going to do. He pulled the information out of her. She had no idea what she was going to do – probably spend it much as she had Thanksgiving, unless he had no plans and she could talk him into dinner.

Her family was in Plano, Texas and they disapproved of her, strongly. The last time they'd seen her she'd shown up with her drug-dealing boyfriend Nick in tow. They had not been impressed. She'd left only two days into the five day stay she'd had planned. She'd spent this last Thanksgiving alone in her apartment in Odessa rather than go visit them.

"You need friends," he said.

She surprised him by answering immediately, "So do you."

He stiffened a little and shifted. She started to push away from him and he didn't let her. She gave in to it and stayed where she was. "My friends are none of your concern, Patty."

"Do you even have any?" she said into his shirt.

"That's not the point."

_Isn't it?_ She left it unsaid. He _didn't_ have any. Not really. Not unless you counted Angela and she was pretty distant. It was just a business relationship and they both knew that. He wondered if he should try to make it something more? Everyone else he'd been friends with was dead or gone - mostly the former. His best conversations were with Charles and he'd been dead for years now. He hadn't really thought about it, but his life was more sad and empty than hers. He shook it off. He'd think about it some other time.

She sniffed and pushed away from him firmly. He let her. "I want to be your friend." _If you won't let me be your lover._

He smiled and reached up to brush away the tear tracks. After a long pause, he said, "Okay." She looked surprised. She was. He let his hand fall to her shoulder and drift down her arm. He patted her, but avoided her hand when she tried to catch his. To sooth her hurt expression, he asked, "Do you want to spend Christmas with me? I'm going to drop off some candy to our inmates and talk to the guards, just hang around. The holidays get some of the prisoners antsy. I try to stick around in case of problems. You can come with me."

She smiled. "Yes, yes, I'd love that." She leaned forward to kiss him and he turned his face.

"No. Don't kiss me."

She looked puzzled. "Why?"

"Because I don't want you to." He looked grouchy about it.

"Can we do other things?" She smiled coyly and moved a bit closer, touching his hip.

He furrowed his brow at her and started to ask why she was all the time going on about sex, but then he looked at her. She was 24. It had been months. Other than being with him in October, she hadn't been with anyone since Matt in July. It was the longest dry spell she'd had since she was sixteen. From his perspective it was non-stop action – from hers, pining away. He rolled his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, we can do other things. What'd'ya think I'm going to turn you down?" He chuckled. "I thought you just wanted to be friends, though."

She gave him a sour look. "I didn't _just_ want to be friends. You know that." She huffed and put her hand to his crotch, fondling. He shut his eyes and she rubbed him intently, putting her body against his and laying her head on his chest. He brought a hand up and stroked her hair. He had swollen enough that she could feel him filling. He moved over to lean against the counter and she sat down in her chair, rolling it over to him.

He looked at the office chair critically and said, "You can adjust the seat lower. Might help."

She moved it to the lowest setting and opened his pants, pushing them down to his knees. He didn't like how dangerous that would be if he were caught by surprise and pushed them down the rest of the way, stepping out of them. She reached for him and he said, "Wait."

He took a deep breath and looked at the far wall for a moment. She looked up at him and waited. He ran a hand into her hair, unseeing, mussing it thoroughly. He pulled it loose and started again, running his fingers in at her hairline and letting his palm rest on her forehead. He clenched his fingers into her hair. She was concerned, unsure of what he was going to do next. "Shh," he said. "It's okay. I think you'll like this. It just takes me a little while to set it up. It's going to feel… odd for a minute or so. Don't move."

She breathed deeply and looked around, otherwise holding still. Abilities were weird and many of them took concentration. She trusted him, obviously. She felt a prickling in her sex. She shifted slightly, thinking it was just an itch. It changed, but it didn't go away. She felt a flush of heat and she inhaled sharply. She looked up at him, his hand still on her forehead; his fingers still in her hair.

"Yeah," he said distantly. "That's me. Stay calm. Almost done."

Her clitoris throbbed once and his penis twitched as if in response. Her eyes were drawn to it.

"That's all," he said. "I need to keep my hand on you though. Otherwise it will be numb." He gave a slight pressure on her forehead to indicate what he meant.

She nodded, not sure what she was agreeing to, and opened her mouth, moving forward to take him in. A second after touching her lips to him though, she jumped and leaned away, licking her lips. He smiled. She tried again and this time she dropped a hand to her crotch and looked up at him with a perplexed smile. With each touch of her lips on his penis, she felt a warm, wet touch on her clitoris and the sensitive hood of flesh around it.

He continued to smile at her and nudged forward with his hips. She dropped her eyes back to the matter at hand and brought both hands back up. She stroked her fingertips over him, feeling the sensation across herself. She slid her hand around his shaft, feeling a fullness in her vagina. She moved her lips back to his tip and it felt like someone was giving her cunnilingus – just a light touch – but it intensified as she began to suck him and then swirl her tongue around his glans.

She spread her legs and leaned forward into him, making him shift his hand to the side of her forehead, across her temple and above her ear. She breathed harder and laughed. "Wow, that's really strange. It's… it's like I'm… I'm the one who's…" She trailed off, shaking her head.

"Yeah. Certainly motivate you to do a good job, won't it? Not that I have any complaints, mind you."

She exhaled and then twitched as she felt the air blow across him and thus herself. "Wow. Okay then." She grinned and ran her tongue along the side of his shaft, then gathered him into her mouth entirely. She moaned softly and started sucking and working him. He wasn't entirely stiff yet, but he was getting that way. She ran her hands up and down his thighs, then one between his legs. After a moment of insistent exploration, he shifted and widened his stance a little bit. He could see what she intended to do, which made him glad he'd taken the extra time to cover all the bases, so to speak, with the link.

She brought her hand to her mouth and wet her fingers, then thought, _Are you okay with this? Some guys aren't…_

_It's good._ He wasn't partial to it, but it wasn't a bad thing. She was doing it for herself anyway. She was getting into it faster than he'd expected. The other two women he'd done this with had been very put off by it at first.

Her hand went back to the cleft of his ass and probed gently. She swallowed and stopped to breathe for a moment, then licked and sucked steadily at the head of his cock while her finger pushed upwards against him. He opened his mouth to say something about her fingernails, then shut it. She felt them as much as he did. It was one of the advantages of this. She moved more carefully, teasing against him and rubbing in little circles while she mouthed his penis.

She moaned into him again and sunk his entire organ into her mouth as she pushed her finger into him. He was fully erect now and she felt it like it was both penetration and clitoral stimulation together. Every touch to the head of his cock translated to her nub. She deep-throated him and hummed, breathing heavily through her nose.

Eventually she backed off and began to deliver long, slow licks all over him. It was an odd pattern, but she liked it, wishing he would take her for real. She thought it as a question to him.

_No_, he answered.

Her mind grumbled about why not, but she didn't project it clearly so he ignored her. Oral sex was the realm of prostitutes and short-term lovers for Maury. Vaginal sex and kissing were reserved for long term partners. Telepathic gratification didn't really have a category as he could create such an illusion on someone who wasn't a sexual partner just as easily as on someone who was. He didn't have to be emotionally involved or aroused to do it.

She worked a second finger into his ass and scissored them back and forth slowly. He twitched and shifted at the new sensation. She returned to taking his whole length into her mouth, working him up and down, bobbing and sucking and licking. She whined with pleasure, taking him as deep as she could so she could feel it all through her body. He smiled; pleased he didn't need to encourage her to take him all the way. She was happy to do it and it was working on both of them. He held himself off while her arousal built towards a peak. It didn't work well for them to be out of sync while linked.

She sucked him with a singular determination and he felt her orgasm beginning. He let the feeling flow through himself as well. He'd already been close. It moved him and he rocked in her mouth, spurting into the back of her throat. She choked a little, then swallowed him down and let him slip from her mouth as she panted against him, feeling the aftershocks of her climax. She pulled her fingers from him and twitched. He cut the link – a much faster process than establishing it in the first place.

She smiled languidly and leaned back in the chair, stretching. He admired her form for a second, then went to get his pants back on. "That was good," she said. "And weird. Matt… Ah, is it okay for me to talk about Matt and me… to you?"

He shrugged. "I don't care."

She looked at him steadily for a moment. He shrugged and sank down in the other chair. He wasn't really feeling like listening to her at the moment, enjoying the sleepy afterglow of sex. She wanted to talk though, so he left her to decide on her own how motivated she was to yak at him.

Apparently she was motivated, because she said, "Matt said he could feel sex from my side, feel what it was like to have him in me and that was… I guess that was pretty good. He liked it a lot. This was kind of the same thing, sort of. Except it was me feeling what I was doing to you, so that's the reverse, isn't it?"

"Mm." He looked disinterested.

She looked cross. "Are you listening to me at all?"

He focused on her and tried not to look disgruntled. "Of course. I was just thinking about how nice that was – what you did. Thanks."

"Oh." Her temper defused in an instant. She remembered what he'd said to her last time, thanking her for being nice to him. She rolled her seat next to his and put her hand on his, smiling softly.

He sighed and looked at her hand. He turned his over to squeeze hers for a second, then let go and turned it back palm-down on the arm of his chair.

"You want me to find someone else," she said, not as hurt by it now as she had been earlier, when she thought he was rejecting her.

He raised a brow at her. "I think it would help you." _And there's a really good chance I won't be around in a few months._

"But…" she stroked the thin skin on the back of his hand and lingered over the callous on his knuckles. "You won't… I don't have to…" She laughed. "This sounded better in my head, you know?"

"Yes, I know. We'll still be friends." He turned his hand and brought hers to his lips, kissing it lightly.


	44. That Draining Feeling

The next night, December 20, Nathan met him on the stairs - his brother coming down just as Peter reached the landing for his apartment. "You were on the roof?" Peter asked.

"Yeah," Nathan said.

"Don't you ever think… someone might see you?"

Nathan shrugged. "Who are they going to see? It's dark. You'd be amazed how many people never bother to look up." _Besides, it's not like I fly around looking like __**this**__. Witnesses wouldn't even have the right race. Wouldn't hurt to find that invisible guy though. He might be worth killing for. Maybe. What's one more murder on my conscience?_ He sighed, hating himself.

"Hm." Peter unlocked his door and let them both in. Peter noticed the smell of alcohol on Nathan as he went by. "Were you waiting long?"

"No, not really." Nathan walked over to one of the windows and pushed the curtain aside. "Your neighbor beats his wife."

"What?" Peter came over to look.

He pointed with his chin. "That apartment over there. Third window from the left." The window was dark now.

"How long ago?" Peter asked.

"About an hour."

"You were on the roof for an hour?" He looked perplexed.

"No, I was there an hour ago. I saw the show, didn't care for it, and left. Got a drink. Actually felt the buzz this time. It was weird."

Peter looked out the window for a long moment, memorizing which apartment. He wasn't sure what he'd do about it though. Domestic disputes were hell to deal with as an outsider. "How bad?" he asked softly.

"Knocked her around some. Nothing a little makeup won't fix." Nathan sighed and released the curtain.

"It only escalates," Peter remarked, walking off.

"Maybe. It's not like he killed her," Nathan said. _And then cut the top of her head off and stole her ability. Sometimes I really loathe who I've been._

Peter looked back at him. Nathan had an odd tone of voice. His older brother was looking at his fingers, rubbing them together. A few sparks of electricity flew between them.

"You're not going to do anything to him… are you?"

"No." He didn't say anything else for a moment. Peter shrugged off his behavior. Nathan seemed to be in a dark mood. He asked Peter, "How was your day?"

Peter stretched and sat on the couch. "Amazingly good, considering the time of year. Angina, a sprain, and a diabetic seizure. Nothing I needed to heal, so I went through the ER and found a broken hip with a shattered femur." He smiled slightly, remembering how touched the elderly lady had been at his attention. She'd been very sweet and insisted on kissing him on the cheek. He hoped the heavy painkillers they'd already put her on would muddle her memory. "How was yours?"

"A little tense. Jacobson's having a financial meltdown. He was storming around the office, causing problems. I sent him home. He's being foreclosed on. I think I was a little harsh with him."

"That's too bad." Peter knew Jacobson was one of Nathan's junior partners. It seemed odd that he'd had his office no more than a year and he already had junior partners. Peter didn't pretend to understand how the legal profession worked, though.

"Last night was great. Thank you," Nathan said quietly.

Peter gave him a crooked smile, almost a smirk.

Nathan came over and sat a few feet away on the couch. "You look smug," he told Peter.

Peter laughed. "I think I should be!"

Nathan smiled and looked away, embarrassed. "Yeah." He looked back at Peter. "Aside from the fabulous sex, I came by in case you needed a recharge. How are you doing?"

"Pretty good." Peter cocked his head at him. "Does it hurt you? I mean, other than while I'm doing it?"

Nathan raised his brows. "You mean the…" He held up the hand Peter had drawn power through the night before. At Peter's nod, he shrugged. "I don't know. I've felt… subdued. Not really depressed, just less… less." Actually he'd felt awful, testy and irritable but he wouldn't admit that. He'd had to restrain himself from snapping at people all day. Peter was trying to help people. Nathan was trying to help him. It was the least he could do.

Peter nodded slowly and looked at Nathan carefully. He looked normal. Peter wished he did have a gas gage to check. "I only need a little." He shifted closer and reached out. Nathan gave him his hand and stared fixedly at it.

Peter set his teeth together and drew in a breath, watching this time. From his very limited experience, discoloration was one of the last stages of draining, usually indicating irrevocable damage. Obviously, Nathan had recovered, so he wasn't sure what the limits were or if the regeneration was masking the effects. The energy flowed into him easily, without effort on his part. Peter suspected he wasn't mentally suited to drain people, but apparently Nathan was able to push the power into him if Peter let him.

Ugly black lines spread from his hand across Nathan's. He glanced at Nathan's face. It was drawn and pale, but he showed no other sign of pain. Around the black came lines of rash-like red. The black areas flowed together into grey splotches, shifting and increasing, getting darker. Peter took his hand away. Nathan breathed suddenly. Peter looked at him. He hadn't noticed the other man wasn't breathing. Nathan looked at Peter's face and said, "I'm okay. It's okay." The color had already returned to his hand. He held it up, flexing his fingers, smiling falsely and pretending it didn't hurt as though someone had taken a blow torch to it.

Peter sighed and leaned back. He felt flooded with energy again, as if he hadn't just finished a full shift. _I could go down and sign up for another one, or catch a few hours sleep and then go in for the 6 am shift. _Except that he didn't think he could possibly sleep now. He leaned back and shut his eyes anyway, feeling the power course through him. _I feel so alive! Maybe we can reprise last night. That was awesome!_

He understood something he hadn't been able to before. Noah had told him a story of a woman with this power who never discovered the ability to heal - or at least never used it. She became a serial killer, posing as a prostitute at truck stops. The Company caught up to her after the police had failed to bring her in. She'd fought and got her hands on Claude, who'd tried to talk her into stopping even while she was draining him. He'd begged Noah not to shoot her and that she'd stop. She didn't. Bennet pulled the trigger before it was too late. Claude had resented him for it.

When Noah had told him the story at first (as a cautionary tale about partnership), Peter hadn't understood why the woman didn't stop. How could someone get so swept up in a power that they'd keep hurting someone, especially with a gun to their head? Peter breathed, feeling the air, almost tasting it. He could see how someone could get addicted to this. His body was still thrilling to it. It was the opposite of healing. Instead of leaving him tired and drained, it made him alive and full.

He felt the couch shift as Nathan stood up. "I need to be going," his older brother said.

Peter smiled. "You're not up for a rematch?"

"I'm not up for much of anything." He headed for the door.

Peter jumped up and hurried to him, smiling seductively as he caught at his brother's arm. "Hey-"

Nathan shrugged him off violently. "Get your hands off of me! You've had enough already."

Peter's face went instantly to surprised and he stepped back.

Nathan hesitated in the doorway. He looked back at Peter, "I'll be back tomorrow night." It almost sounded like a threat.

XXX

The next night, Peter got to his apartment in the early AM hours to find it unlocked. He opened it cautiously. He heard nothing. With all the people who had special abilities that Peter had run into in the last year, there could be any number of them who had tracked him back to his apartment. There were more than a few who hadn't appreciated any attention at all from the Company. There'd been several he and Bennet had taken down, a necessity in preventing them from harming others. Any of those could have had vengeance-minded partners or friends.

He considered the wisdom of entering. Noah was an hour or two away and regardless of the situation, Peter was loath to get Nathan involved. Nathan couldn't be entirely trusted during sex - violence was out of the question. Plus, he'd been very unsettled when he left the night before and Peter had yet to figure out why.

He opted for an intermediate route. Swinging the door wide, he flattened himself to the wall next to the door and waited, pulling the taser out of his satchel along with one of the new paralytic darts Bennet had given him. He listened, but couldn't hear any movement. He wasn't sure what it was he sensed, but his skin prickled a second before a young black man put his head out the door to look down the hall. Peter didn't give him a chance to look back the other way and see him. He put the taser directly to the man's neck.

The man fell to the floor with a crash, as if his feet hadn't really been under him. Peter rode him down and reapplied the taser, since a half-second's charge wasn't enough to reliably put someone out. Although the man was clearly immobilized by the taser, he wasn't going unconscious. He was trying to say something. Peter didn't give him a chance - too many powers had vocal components. He pushed the dart into his jugular and kept the taser on him until it took effect.


	45. Nathan Has a Bad Day

As Noah mounted the stairs to Peter's apartment, his phone beeped. He stopped and checked it. Nathan was within a short distance. The tracker he'd put in Nathan's phone months ago had been especially handy. He looked at the walls and ceiling. Given the building, Nathan was probably within fifty feet - most likely inside Peter's apartment.

His expression darkened. Peter shouldn't have called Nathan in. From what little Peter had shared with him of Nathan's condition, an immobilized person with abilities was the last thing Nathan needed to deal with. Though on the other hand, to Noah's surprise, Rene had reported to him that Gabriel had deliberately refused to take Maury Parkman, when Gabriel virtually had orders to do it. That was puzzling. Bennet didn't like puzzling. He put his phone away and continued to the door.

Noah rapped lightly on Peter's door. It was opened quickly. The apartment smelled like fresh coffee. "Mm. That smells nice," he said mildly, stepping inside and looking around quickly.

Peter jerked his head towards the kitchen. "I'll get you some. It's regular, not decaf. Is that okay?"

"Sure." Noah asked, "Is Nathan here?"

Peter gave him an odd look. "No. I wouldn't call him for something like this. He's not ready."

"Yeah, okay," Noah nodded hastily in agreement. Maybe Nathan had just left his phone behind, or discovered the tracking chip and removed it here. He knew Peter and Nathan were back together. Peter had not said as much, but Noah knew how to read between the lines.

Peter pulled out a cup. "Anyway, I put him on the couch. He's started moving, but I don't think he's up to talking yet. I'm just letting the dose wear off."

Bennet peered into the living room, frowning at the man on the couch. "I have stronger, if we need it."

Peter winced at him, "You said those could kill anyone but a regenerator, which he's obviously not or he would have shook that dose off by now. Why would you even carry something like that around? What if you use the wrong dart on someone?"

Noah looked at Peter's relaxed manner. _Not a regenerator? Peter has no idea._ "There are a few regens I might need it for. When you need it, you need it." Peter frowned at him, disapproving. As far as he knew, the only regenerators in existence were Claire and Nathan, with Peter as an occasional third. While he had to admit it was a good idea to have a non-lethal way to put Nathan down, it still raised his hackles. Nathan had been nothing but helpful lately and even if he was still struggling with his issues, he was trying to get help. He was trying to get better.

Noah walked into the living room while Peter poured coffee. He squatted down a few feet out from the captive. He'd recognized him instantly and it had confirmed his suspicion. Bennet looked between the two staring eyes. Sluggishly, they tracked towards his own. He glanced back to see what the younger Petrelli was up to. Peter was taking a little longer than expected getting coffee, so he pulled out one of his darts. He moved forward to apply it.

The black man had enough range of motion to say, "Ugk!" and pull back, but not enough to get away.

"Shh," Noah said, injecting him. He palmed the dart as Peter came out and pretended to be taking the man's pulse.

Peter said, "I poured myself another cup too. How's he doing? Did he say something?"

"No. His pulse seems fine, but I don't think he's going to be moving any time soon."

Peter's brow knit. "Really? He was moving earlier. Made eye contact even." He handed off the cup to Noah and took the man's pulse as well. He looked at his eyes and checked for responsiveness. "Okay, you're right." Peter rubbed his eyes. "You want to move him then?"

Noah nodded. "Yes, I think we should. I can keep him under wraps until I get to a holding area in Philadelphia. He's out. You can get some sleep."

Peter shook his head. "No, I'm fine. Really. It's been a crazy week. I've just felt awesome. Really great. Little bit of sleep seems to do it for me."

Noah looked at Peter for a long moment and said, "Help me get him in the car. I'll call you if I need help. It might be hours before he wakes up."

"That's okay," Peter said cheerfully. "I can come with you. They wouldn't let me pull another double shift. I don't go into work until the afternoon."

Noah sighed. "Peter. I'm trying to tell you that this is a part of the process you shouldn't be part of yet. Containment is **different**. We've argued about this in the past. There are risks I can't let you take."

Peter took a deep breath and looked down at the man on his couch. He didn't owe him anything. He'd broken into his apartment. He had the nagging feeling he was missing something, though, and it wasn't just that Nathan hadn't called or come by on time like Peter had expected. "Okay. But call me when you know something. I want to know what he was doing in here."

Bennet nodded. For the first time, he looked around the place. "Is anything missing?"

Peter shook his head. "A few things have been moved, I think, but I didn't have much in here to start with."

Noah walked around looking at things. There didn't seem to be anything out of place. He lingered in front of the wall of where Peter kept stories of people with abilities they'd worked with, where once he'd had pictures of people he'd saved as a paramedic. He looked from Peter to the black man to the wall uneasily.

"What is it?" Peter asked.

"There's a lot a person like him could do with this information, Peter."

"What do you mean, 'a person like him'? Do you recognize him?"

"I mean a criminal with abilities who breaks into people's apartments. Let's get him down to my car." Noah hoped Peter didn't notice he didn't answer his second question.

XXX

The trunk popped open and Noah sat on the edge, looking in at his occupant. "I know you can hear me, Gabriel. As much as I would like to cut pieces off and watch them grow back, I'm not going to. Maybe I'm over that. I'm also not going to tell Peter that was you in his apartment. You can clean up your own mess. I've gotten my hands dirty enough already." He leaned and looked at the man carefully. The black man's eyes tracked to his slowly. "There's nothing keeping you from using your powers, is there?"

In response, his skin rippled and shifted until his features settled as Gabriel. It seemed to be a very slow, painful process. Noah cocked his head at that. _Why wouldn't he shift to Nathan? Why is a standard dose paralytic working on him at all? Maybe I overestimated how much it would take to put him down. Huh._

"You'll be fine in a few hours, maybe less. I'll be back for the car tomorrow." He shut the trunk.

XXX

After an hour, Gabriel was able to get himself out of the trunk. He was stiff and sore. It was as if his regeneration wasn't working anymore. He couldn't imagine it was the paralytic. The problems had started the night before, anyway. He leaned against the back of the car and waited for the sluggishness to leave his body. His phone had rang once while Noah had the car in motion. Now it rang again. He looked at the caller ID - Peter. He worked his mouth. He was pretty sure he could manage talking without slurring too much.

He answered, "Yeh."

Peter sounded concerned, "Nathan! Where've you been?"

"Sawry I'm late. Be 'ere soon." _Maybe I was wrong about the slurring._

"Are you drunk?"

"Mebbe. Be 'ere soon."

"No, no. Sober up. Don't be… whatever while you're that out of it, Nathan."

"Okay." He hung up. It seemed simpler. He worked on the phone a bit with numb fingers. Eventually he pulled up the previous missed call - also Peter. He didn't bother checking the other missed calls from the day before. They were almost certainly from Heidi. He hadn't gone home, he hadn't gone to work. After he'd left Peter's place, he'd struggled too much with steering in flight. He could still fly, but he became disoriented easily and overcompensated. He'd landed - no, actually he'd crashed - and walked for a while, finally stopping in a bar to warm up and get a drink. He was also uncommonly cold. He hadn't been this cold since the island. The alcohol had helped, but he'd ordered as strong as they'd serve, drank heavily and passed out soon thereafter.

He'd woken up in the drunk tank at the police station and was able to bail himself out with some difficulty. By then it was afternoon. After a greasy, unappetizing meal in a diner, he'd walked back towards Peter's apartment. He'd said something rude - he now did not recall what - to a driver who swerved near him while he was using a crosswalk against traffic. There had followed a confusing fight Nathan won with great difficulty, being very put-off for not being able to use his powers. His regeneration did not seem to be working full force at that point either. The man's girlfriend (or wife, or whatever) chased him down the street. He'd ducked into a storefront and changed his face to Paul's to evade her.

Once at Peter's, his brother came home and attacked him, paralyzed him and let Noah take him away. The first break he'd had all day was that Noah seemed to take pity on him for an unknown reason and left him to fix this on his own terms. _I'm probably going to have to pay for that kindness,_ he thought morosely of Bennet's unexpected discretion. He stretched a little. He figured he was safe to walk back to Peter's apartment. Noah hadn't taken him very far, probably for that reason. His thinking was muzzy. All he could think of was getting back to Peter, though he'd forgotten why.

A little while later, he banged heavily on Peter's door with his fist, then leaned against the frame and waited. He was too close to the door for his face to be seen. Peter called out, "Nathan, is that you?"

"Yeah," he answered.

"Step back, please. Where I can see you."

_Why's he being all cautious now? Not like I can't get in there again if I want._ He leaned back and swayed slightly on his feet, looking at the ceiling. _Water stains up there. Why does Peter live in such a dump? It's not like Dad disinherited him out of the trust fund or anything._

Peter opened the door, taser still in hand. He studied Gabriel closely. Very clearly, articulating the word carefully, he said, "Nathan?"

"Yep." Gabriel walked forward. Nathan's brother stepped back warily and let him in, shutting the door behind him. Gabriel walked over to the couch and threw himself down on one end. He leaned his head back against the wall. "The day I've had, Peter. And last night. God." He sounded weird, even to himself.

"You… you feel like you're not yourself?"

Gabriel didn't notice anything odd about Peter's tone or that he was still next to the door, holding the taser. Gabriel told him, "I feel like crap, Peter. Terrible. I didn't go to work today. Spent the night in jail. I feel sick. There's something wrong with me. I'm… maybe I've been poisoned? Drugged?" He waved his hand around the apartment. "And I mean before… earlier. I feel like I'm dying inside. Again."

"That was **you**, earlier? In here?"

"Yeah." Gabriel's brows pulled together. _Wasn't I __**not**__ going to tell him that? What was that cover story I came up with while I was walking? Damn… forgot it._ "Um… forget I said that. That wasn't me. Someone else. I's wrong."

Peter nodded slowly, clearly unconvinced, "Right."

Peter regarded him silently, turning thoughts over in his head, looking for the piece that would complete the puzzle. It seemed unfathomable that Nathan would act like this without a reason, a cause. _He isn't __**that**__ crazy._ Finally he said, "Do you mind if I come closer?" He walked over and picked up one of the chairs, but Gabriel had his eyes shut.

Gabriel said, "Fine. Finish me. Might as well."

"What?" Peter cocked his head and set down the chair.

"Finish me. Take it. Take it all. Go help someone with it." He put out his hand. "I'm trying to think of why I came here, why it was so important to get here. I think that's it."

Peter inhaled sharply, suddenly understanding. He took three long steps to the other man, ignoring the outstretched hand and put his palm directly on Gabriel's forehead. He poured his healing power into him until his vision began to dim. It was an expected sign that he had healed someone as much as he could recover from within a few minutes. Peter swallowed and staggered, but Gabriel reached out and caught him, pulling him to the couch.

Gabriel scooted back from setting Peter down and looked at his hands. He touched his forehead. "What... what did you do to me?" He looked around the room, eyes widening. "What…?"

Peter pushed himself up to sit properly with a weary effort. It also moved him a little further from the man who continued to look and sound like Sylar, not Nathan. "You gave me everything you had, didn't you?" His voice mixed disbelief and accusation.

Gabriel was still confused, thinking back on the events of the previous twenty-four hours. They seemed incomprehensible now. "What are you talking about? The healing?"

"Yeah, the healing. I should have known, since I didn't just feel like I had a full tank but a couple in reserve." He shook his head slowly. "Everything. It was you pushing it, not me taking. I only opened the channel. That's why it didn't work at first when you weren't trying. The regeneration made you look okay on the surface, but I should have known." _I should have known my brother would be willing to kill himself trying to help me._ It was odd to think that and look at Gabriel's face.

Gabriel regarded him. "I… I was trying to help you. Help you help people."

Peter huffed. "Well, it was dumb. You did too much."

"I thought the regeneration would…" He shrugged.

"I told you that wouldn't protect you," Peter said peevishly. He looked at Gabriel with his eyes narrowed. "Could you… change?"

Gabriel looked down at himself. He was pretty rumpled from being in Noah's car. Since he'd altered his appearance while in the trunk, his clothes no longer looked as rough as they probably had before. He couldn't recall how bad they'd been, but given his adventures he was thankful that shape shifting permanently altered his clothing as well. He focused and shifted his clothes to pristine. He looked at Peter, wondering vaguely why Peter cared about his clothes. That was Nathan's neurosis, not Peter's. "That better?"

His brother continued to look at him oddly. "Sure, I guess so." Peter looked away and wiped his hand across his face. "Just hard to take."

"Huh. Sorry." Gabriel's thoughts returned to the debacle that was yesterday.

Peter continued to look off across the room. "Yeah." After a long pause, he said, "You need to call Heidi. She's worried."

"What'd you tell her?"

"When she called, I didn't know anything, so I told her that."

"Okay." Gabriel stood. "I might as well go. You… need to get some sleep. I'll talk to her in person."

Peter tilted his head to one side and said, "Don't go looking like that."

Gabriel looked down at himself, perplexed. "What is it? What's wrong with how I look?"

Peter looked him directly in the face, running his eyes over every part of it. Gabriel's hands suddenly flew to his face. After a moment, it rippled and shifted. "I'm… I didn't realize," he said.

Peter shrugged. "It's just an ability. It shouldn't matter. You're still you, no matter who you look like." _And I've got to realize, deep down inside, that the man I've been with lately looks like __**that**__ naturally, not like Nathan._ His memory flashed back to Nathan telling him on the rooftop that his appearance as his brother was only an illusion. At the same time, it was **this** man who held what was left of Nathan and **this** man who had nearly killed himself trying to help people he wouldn't even see.

"Sounds like you're trying to convince yourself," Nathan said warily.

"Maybe. But you're right. You should go see Heidi."


	46. With Apologies to Your Wife

Nathan trudged up the stairs to Peter's roof with a slow tread. It was nearly 6. He probably still had enough darkness left to get home safely. He opened the roof access and looked around. It was flat and deserted as always. He paced across it to check behind every projection. He usually wasn't this careful, but he didn't feel ready to leave yet. He scuffed up some of the roofing material that was loose. _They need to reseal this. I'll bet it's what's causing those water stains_.

He walked over to the edge and looked down. _And to think Peter threw himself off a building like this, without being able to fly - certain I'd catch him or… maybe feeling that if he couldn't fly, it wasn't worth living. I don't know - I can't imagine him thinking that. He's never been suicidal. Just me._ He took hold of the curved iron railing at the top of the fire escape, then took his hand away and looked at it. Rust flakes covered his palm. He brushed them off. Bored, he began to pick at the rust on the railing.

He stopped suddenly and walked away. _I need to go. It's getting late._ He flexed his knees. Before he took off, he heard the sound of a door opening and closing. He decided he needed to check on that first. He went to the edge of the building and looked over, finally noticing a man walking off down the street, bundled up. _Oh, well. Nothing important_.

He paced uneasily, trying to think of anything else he needed to work out before he left. He looked at the low-hanging clouds. They were holding the darkness for now, but they wouldn't for long. Pre-dawn light would start filtering through and he would be more easily seen. He checked his watch. _Good thing this is the longest night of the year. Or is that tomorrow night? Maybe it was last night. But it's a really long night._

He started to pace again and stopped. _What am I doing? _ He answered himself immediately,_ I'm procrastinating because I'm not looking forward to having my butt chewed off by my wife_. He looked at the door that led back inside the building, to Peter's apartment. It was tempting. _No_, he told himself. _Heidi_. He turned and flew. He skipped in and out of the clouds, coming out long enough to orient, then retreating back into their cover. He touched down easily on the balcony. His ability to steer was back. He was thankful. Crash landings _hurt_.

The door to the balcony, which he and Heidi had been leaving unlocked by mutual agreement for months now, was no longer that way. He felt a surge of anger and hurt. There was a note taped to the inside of the glass door. He leaned down and squinted at it. It said, "Knock." _Great. Just so she can make sure of exactly when I got in._ He considered opening it anyway, but then she'd know he hadn't knocked and that would cause a fight by itself. He knocked. _Might as well get it over with._

Their room was adjoining the solar where the door was. Heidi came out, shuffling and bleary-eyed. She still smiled to see him, which warmed him a lot. He enjoyed the smile while it lasted, expecting the diatribe to start shortly. She opened the door and stood aside to let him in. As he'd expected, her smile faded. He took a step towards her with a hand extended, but she stepped back, angry. He dropped his hand and waited for it to begin. She said less than he'd thought, saying only, "So what's the story this time, Nathan?"

He'd expected accusations, worry, anger and vitriol. He didn't expect her to ask him for his input. He blinked twice. "Um… I hadn't thought of one." Which was the truth. For whatever reason, he hadn't thought about a cover story or a lie. He'd simply come home. It was a very un-Nathan-like thing to do. He realized he'd failed on a cover story to Peter as well. Gabriel just wasn't much of a liar.

"Why don't you try the truth then?"

"Uh," he said unhelpfully. He was conflicted, with a strong feeling he should make something up about a secret Company assignment and the urge to just tell her and quit lying. Or rather, not to start the cycle again. He'd been through that. It hadn't helped. She'd taken the truth fairly well so far. "Okay."

He told her. He omitted the relationship with Peter for obvious reasons and rearranged the events of his day so it sounded like he'd been put in jail for the fight. Despite his ability to shrug off alcohol, she was still sensitive to him seeking it out during times of stress, which was exactly what he'd done. He also glossed over Noah's trunk and his shape shifting. It was an ability he hadn't discussed with her yet since he didn't want to give her any ideas that he might not be who he looked like.

At the end, she sighed and sat down on the settee, turning sideways on it and putting her feet up. She scrunched her toes like they hurt. He thought about Peter's idea for making-up through massage and pulled an overstuffed chair next to it. He reached out slowly and slipped off her house slipper from the nearer foot. "Oh, Nathan…" She shook her head and sounded exasperated with him, but she still put her foot on his thigh. He smiled and started on her toes. Maybe there was something to this massage business after all. She wasn't about to let him touch her hands, for instance, or her face, but here she was sticking her feet right in his lap. _I've got to start somewhere. Non-sexual my ass_.

"Mm," she gave him a small smile for his attention to her foot, but it didn't stop her from asking, "Why didn't you call me? None of that would explain why you didn't call."

"I wasn't thinking right. And I didn't have my phone in the jail cell." He pulled on each toe, straightening it, then rubbed the ball of each one individually before moving to the next.

"Why didn't you call me when you got out? Must have been before 5. That's… at least 14 hours ago."

"I told you, I wasn't thinking. I broke into Peter's apartment and stayed there until he got home." He started on the upper pad of her foot. Paul's memories were sketchy on feet. It hadn't been a part of his training. He'd been more into core manipulation with a little general fitness and chiropractic/joint treatment thrown in. It wasn't that hard to extrapolate though.

"When was that?"

It took him a moment to figure out what she was asking. He had been thinking about her feet. They were very nice feet - a little swollen from the pregnancy, but still nice. "I don't know. After 1. Maybe 2." He rubbed down the outer line of her foot, moving around the sole.

"And now it's six-thirty. It just seems like there's some time unaccounted for there, you know?" She eyed him. It seemed odd to her that he'd tell her he was at Peter's if he was doing anything there she would disapprove of. She had some strong suspicions about the nature of Nathan and Peter's often unnecessarily-close relationship. It was not something she liked to think about.

"I stalled. I didn't w-, I didn't want to get chewed out here." He ran his fingers lightly across her sole.

"Oh! That tickles a little," she said. He lifted her foot and kissed each of her toes lightly. She said petulantly, "You deserve worse than being chewed out."

"Mm. Do I?" he purred, kissing down the sole of her foot, rubbing her heel slightly.

"Ohh… that's nice." Her tone had changed. She had finally relaxed. She shifted her hips and moved her foot out of his hands, running her toes along the line of his jaw and across part of his face. He smiled at her. He was beginning to suspect that Peter's little trick was going to spare him a lot of abuse.

She said, "Okay, I know: you have to rub the other foot too."

He murmured, "I wouldn't dream of only doing a job halfway, madam," and switched.

"And… you have to go shopping with me today."

He grunted resentfully. "I have to go to work."

"No you don't. You weren't there yesterday and no one knew where you were, so I told Helen to cancel your appointments for the rest of the week. I didn't know how long you'd be gone. It's just today and tomorrow. You didn't have anything set up for Christmas Eve anyway. You can call her and tell her to reschedule things for next week. Spend some time with your family, Nathan." The last was clearly an order.

He grumbled. Shopping was uninteresting. He hadn't slept all night and nothing restful the night before. Drunken stupor didn't count.

"Unless you'd rather be on my bad side?" she threatened.

"No," he said promptly, finishing with her other foot. He scooted the chair sideways and pulled the nearer lower leg onto his lap. _There are more ways than one to stay off of a woman's bad side._

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm moving **up**." He looked at her significantly, letting his eyes slowly roam up her full body.

She laughed. "I see that. You know we can't do anything, right?"

"No, there are certain things you don't want to do because of the baby. There's still a lot of other things we **could** do." He began massaging her calf. She didn't object. Eventually he proved his point. It didn't get him out of shopping, though.

Christmas Day was spent lazing around. In the afternoon, the boys went two houses down to visit a friend's and compare their newest acquisitions. Nathan and Heidi sat on the couch together, enjoying tea and some fresh biscuits.

"It's almost been a year since you've been back," she said.

"Hm," he nodded, then his brows came together. "God, the time has flown. There were things… things I swore I'd talk to you about, tell you about." He looked towards the door, thinking of his sons. "This is a good time, I guess. As good as any."

"What is it?" she asked.

"This is about abilities. They're inheritable. We need to watch Monty and Simon. They're getting old enough that… that they might manifest soon, if they have it."

Heidi nodded. She wasn't nearly as surprised as Nathan thought she should be. "I've thought about that. Since you, Peter and Angela all have these powers… when does it usually start?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't fly until I was nearly 40, but Claire survived a house fire when she was a baby."

"Claire too?" she cut in.

"Yeah."

"It's… like a dominant trait then, right? All of your children will have an ability?"

"No, not… not really. It's more complicated than that. And my family… there's a synthetic formula, or at least there was, it's been partly destroyed, that could give someone an ability. I…" he experienced a moment of mental vertigo, trying to sort out whether it was Nathan or Gabriel who had been given an injection and what he should tell Heidi regardless.

She leaned forward perceptively, "What is it?"

"Nathan… I was given an injection as an infant, of the synthetic compound. For Peter it was inherited. For N-… me it was chemical. That doesn't make a difference for powers, as far as I can tell." He stopped, looking at how she was peering at him intently. "What?"

"You're just so strange sometimes. I don't know. It's nothing. So Monty, Simon and Noah might have abilities or they might not and they might start anytime? Not much definite there."

"Yeah, but most of them seem to start in the 20s or late teens, I guess. Young adults. Still, we need to keep an eye on them. A lot of powers are destructive. Most people don't take it well… learning about their ability." He thought of his own disturbing experiences. "If we can trust them, when they get older, I want to tell them. Partly that's in case they have abilities, but also I want them to understand what's going on in the world, what's really going on."

"What power will they get?"

"I don't know. I'd say it was random, but I've also run into several cases where children have the same ability as their parent. Peter's is almost the same as Dad's was. Mine doesn't have anything to do with either of them, Claire's isn't related to mine or her mother's."

"Your father and Claire's mother had abilities too? How do you people find each other?" she laughed a little. "Is there like a super-power dating club you register with? Or am I the only normal person out there and everyone has this secret?"

He laughed and looked at Heidi. The smile slowly faded. "Heidi… I think my father picked you for me to marry for a reason." Her face instantly sobered and she paled. He went on, "I don't know what that reason is. I've tried to find out. It doesn't matter - I **love** you - but you… I thought I should tell you."

Very slowly she said, "You think… I have one of these abilities?"

"I think you might. Or maybe he just thought you'd be a good wife and mother. He could see the future, somewhat." Nathan shook his head. "There are some powers you can't tell unless certain things happen. Like Peter's ability to duplicate other abilities? It's useless unless he runs into someone with an ability. If he didn't, he'd never know he had one. There's another guy I've worked with whose power is to stop other people's powers from working." Nathan leaned towards Heidi, regarding her closely. There were similarities to her song and Rene's, but he couldn't tell if it was significant. "I've thought sometimes you might have that ability."

She stared at him for a long moment and shook her head. "No, that's not possible. You can fly near me, you heal, I've been right there. I was touching that pencil you made disappear." Her brows furrowed. "Would I have to be touching **you**?"

"No, probably not. But you'd have to _want _to block it. And you'd have to have manifested your powers. If someone had thrown me out a window five years ago, I'd have fallen and died. Last year I just flew away. Maybe you haven't started yet."

She shook her head again, having more difficulty dealing with this idea than the whole idea of abilities. "But… why do you think I have _that_ power? Maybe I can turn things into silver and I just never thought to try. I mean, who goes around trying to do things like that?"

"When you first get your abilities, you'll probably do it without control. Midas' touch - accidentally turn something into gold you would have never wanted to turn. Or like I flew out of the car in the middle of the highway. That's why we have to watch the boys." After a pause he added, "I can detect powers to some extent, when I'm close to someone. I can tell how they work, a little, how their brain works. All except this one guy I worked with. I look at him and see nothing unusual at all, but he has an ability and a strong one. He's a good judge of character like you are."

"A good judge of character? That's an ability?" she scoffed.

"No, seriously. It's like a side effect. He understands how people's minds work better than I do. I only understand their ability. He understands **them** more. You can't tell me, Heidi, that you don't see people as they are more than most."

She exhaled. "I'll believe I have an ability when I have one. Until then, that's your thing." After a pause, she asked, "How is that Peter only has one ability at a time and you have a lot? I mean, since you have the same power."

"I… uh, I never said we had the same power." _Did I?_ He thought furiously about it, trying to remember their every conversation about abilities. They hadn't had very many, but they spanned a lot of time. Maybe he'd said something off-hand?

"You do, though, don't you? You get other people's powers and so does Peter. Why do you get a lot of them and he only gets one? Is he just… not as good at it as you are?" She clearly wanted that to be the case.

"We… uh, don't get them the same way."

"How do you get them?"

"Um…"

"You're about to lie to me."

He looked at her in surprise. "Precognitive lie detection? That's a new one."

She didn't realize he was joking and took it seriously. "You're not nearly as good at lying as you were a few years ago. You **were** about to lie to me. Why? You've told me you can _fly_, Nathan - and do all these crazy things. Why lie to me now?"

He looked down and smoothed a crease out of his slacks. "I don't think you'd want to stay married to me if you knew. I'm not doing it anymore."

"How bad can it be? You don't have to kill people or anything, do you?" He looked away, tensing. She swallowed. Her voice dropped. "You **do**? Oh my God, Nathan!"

"I don't do it anymore," he said in a very small voice.

"How many…?" She pulled her legs up under herself, putting a hand unconsciously on her stomach, protecting her babe.

_This is a nightmare - one of my nightmares. I've had this one. I've seen this._ He covered his face with his hands. _How did talking about the boys turn into a confession? How many have there been? Forty? Fifty? Sixty? Somewhere around sixty, I think. I've lost track. That's sick. Peter hasn't killed anyone. Or at least, I don't think he has. Nathan probably didn't get over a handful if you don't count indirect and military action. Of course, Nathan's schemes could have killed thousands. Put me to shame._

"Too many," he finally said.

"Why?"

"To get their ability. I couldn't control it at first. When my ability started, I had to know. I had to know what was making abilities work. It drove me. It controlled me. I couldn't stop myself."

She was silent for a long time. He continued to hold his face, wishing he could hide more thoroughly. No amount of running would fix this though. Erasing her memory might work, but she was the one he suspected of having that ability, not himself. Eventually she said, "I thought you said your first power was flight."

He sucked in air abruptly as his gut turned to ice. He thought rapidly and said, "I didn't say that. I just said I **could** fly. Not that I flew first."

"No, you said just a few minutes ago that when you first got your ability, you flew out of the car and couldn't control it."

_I did say that._ He didn't say anything else, holding his breath. She asked, "Does flying make you… no, you… you weren't… killing people back then, were you?"

_Yeah. But that was another life._ "No."

"Is that why you were trying to round up people with abilities?" Her voice was confused, accusing.

_That would have been a good plan - have them all in cells and I could pick which one I wanted like from a menu._ "No!" He jumped up. "I have to leave. Heidi, I'm sorry." He took a step towards her, but stopped when she drew back. There were tears in her eyes. He hadn't seen. He'd been looking away. "I have to leave. I'm sorry," he repeated and hurried off, out the front door. He walked down the sidewalk, feeling his world crashing around him. _ If only I'd lied more… but I don't want to live a lie. Not anymore._


	47. Rocky Road

A few hours later, Heidi had left the boys with Angela for a sleepover. Her mother-in-law seemed happy enough with the last-minute request, which was surprising. Heidi thanked her and didn't give a reason. Angela didn't ask. Later, she'd think that was even stranger.

Heidi went to the hospital and waited for half an hour until Peter's ambulance returned from a call. He got the message he had a visitor in the emergency room waiting for him. He wasn't expecting to see his sister-in-law. She wasn't thrilled to see him either. "Peter, we have to talk. It's about Nathan," she told him. His expression immediately shifted to guarded.

She saw that. Her expression, likewise shifted, but to livid. "You **knew**. You bastard. You **knew**."

"Heidi, what's going on? Is everyone okay?" Peter lowered his voice, talking slowly and quietly, hoping to stop her from boiling over.

"No, everyone's **not** okay. Nathan **told me**. He told me what he's done. And you knew all along. What were you _thinking_? Is he safe?"

"Uh… yeah, I think so," he said weakly.

"You THINK SO?" Several people who had been trying to avoid paying attention to the simmering fight now gave it up and watched openly. "He's back in my life, with our kids, our _baby_, and you THINK SO?" At that moment she wanted nothing more than to slap Peter with everything she had. She clenched her teeth.

"Okay, okay," he made a soothing gesture and looked around the emergency room. He could see that the triage nurses were both watching him carefully, waiting for some signal from him to indicate they should call security. "Hang on… Heidi, I'll get off work, **now**," he added at a flash of even greater rage from her, "Right now, and we'll talk about it. Okay?" She didn't answer immediately, so he said, "Okay?"

She nodded, exhaling.

He walked back to the staff area and looked for his supervisor. He didn't find her, but he found Hesam talking to one of the nurses, preparing for the next call. "Hey. Can I interrupt here?" Hesam nodded. Peter said, "I've had something bad come up, personal."

"On Christmas Day?" Hesam looked concerned for him.

"Yeah. Holidays. They suck." _Do they ever._ "Anyway, I've **got** to handle this. I can't find the shift super. I know I've still got a few hours, but I've got to deal with this. Tell her I had to leave."

Hesam looked at Peter's apprehensive face and nodded. "Sure thing, man. Good luck."

"Sure," Peter said and left. Heidi was still waiting for him in the emergency room, very angry and very pregnant. One of the triage nurses was finding a great deal of humor in the situation. The other was more discreet, but she was dealing with a patient. _Great_, Peter thought. _Just what I need at work. At least she didn't say anything much._

After they got outside, Peter turned to her and said, "I have to know - are the boys okay? Are _you_ okay?"

She stared at him. "You think they might not be? Is he **that** dangerous? And you never said a DAMNED WORD?"

He looked heavenward for a second. "No, no, Heidi. I…" Well, actually he hadn't been sure early on. By the time he'd gotten to her house, Nathan had already been there and gone. That was his mother's fault. She'd known and said nothing, either not caring what Gabriel might do to Nathan's family or else secure that he wouldn't hurt them. It seemed like a stupid risk to take when the future was clearly malleable.

She went on, "You **knew**. I thought you thought he was hitting me. He thinks I have one of these abilities, Peter!" That got Peter's attention. "You didn't think it was safe **then**! Now he says he's felt driven to _kill_ people?"

"You… have an ability?"

She looked at him levelly, searching his expression. "I think… I think he called it precognitive lie detecting."

Peter stared at her blankly. "I've… uh, never heard of that one." He'd heard of precognition and lie detection. He just wasn't sure how they combined. It didn't sound like a very powerful ability, but not all powers were equal.

"He said it was new."

"How does that work?" he asked.

"I guess I know when you're about to lie to me."

He opened his mouth and then closed it.

"Like there. You just changed your mind."

"Uh… yeah." _Well, I've heard of stranger abilities._ "Where is Nathan right now?"

"I don't know. He left. I went by your apartment, but you weren't there so I called the hospital and they said you were on duty."

"Maybe he's at Mom's."

"No, I just came from there. I left the boys with her."

Peter eyed her. _How much does she know? If Nathan can't lie to her…?_ "He could be anywhere."

"I didn't come here to find Nathan, Peter. I came here to find **you**. Whatever happened to him, happened to him, but you _helped!_ It didn't happen to you. You covered for him." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "He _killed_ people. He said he couldn't control himself. It's like he's two different people! Did you use mind control on him or something? Almost every time abilities comes up as a subject he mentions it and his voice always changes. Sometimes he even talks like he's someone else, like in the third person."

Peter's mouth formed a thin line. _I think that answers what she knows. She'll know if I'm going to lie._ "You know… he's been a little unstable this last year." Peter felt a stab of guilt for telling her the same thing his brother had said about him years ago, even if it was true this time. He'd hated it then.

"No! Don't try to feed me that line again. Delusional, unstable, depressive! Those are your mother's lies. Maybe he used to be, but he's been more sane in the last year than he **ever** was before. He is **not** crazy right now. He's just… upset. Please don't lie to me."

Peter let his shoulders slump. He nodded. "Yeah, he's not crazy now. He was last year. I had him fixed, sort of."

"Fixed?"

"I had a man use mind control to… fix him."

"Peter…" she looked at him, searching. "Peter, this is my husband, the father of my children!" Peter looked away, his face closed off. She hesitated. _What does that mean?,_ she wondered. "Is he…?"

Peter looked back at her with a haunted expression. "Heidi, I don't know if I can talk about this. It's… a family thing."

"Do you think I'm not part of the family? His kids aren't part of the family? Why do you think I'm standing here, trying to talk to **you** of all people? You're his **brother**! He listens to you, he loves you. Every time he disappeared out of my life it was into **yours**! I'm just so worried." She started crying, cursing her rampant hormones. Peter put an arm around her shoulders awkwardly and she turned into him, crying on his chest. He shifted and put his arms around her as she sobbed in front of the hospital.

She sniffled, her voice muffled by her position. "He's changed so much, Peter. Sometimes I wonder if it's really him at all." Peter patted her head. This was not a position he wanted to be in ever again. His heart ached with the pressure that he was facilitating a lie that could tear Nathan's family apart. He didn't know if he would make things better or worse by telling the truth, or if he should just stay silent.

Finally he said, "Tell him that. Ask him. Maybe he can explain." It felt like such a cop-out though.

She shook her head against him. "He can't talk about it. We were talking earlier. That's why he left. I need to know what's going on!" She stepped away and dug through her purse for tissues. She carried them everywhere these days, never knowing when a mood swing would hit.

Peter watched an elderly couple slowly approaching the emergency room. They watched the pair with interest as they made their gradual progress towards the entrance. "Come on," Peter said. "Let's get you home."

XXX

Peter drove her car. She said she was still too upset to handle the car herself. She was calm by the time they returned home. She hurried out of the car to go inside, in case Nathan had shown up while she was gone. Peter cut her off at the door. "No. Let me go first," he said.

"What? You think he'd do something to me?" She covered her belly instinctively again.

"Just… let me go first," Peter repeated. Nathan's break-in of his apartment was on his mind. While Nathan hadn't done anything to him then, Peter hadn't given him a chance. If Nathan was in his right mind, Peter didn't think there was anything to be worried about. He wasn't sure what state of mind he was in, though.

Peter walked through the house and called out for his brother. There was no answer. Heidi followed him closely despite his admonishment for her to wait in the garage. He turned to her, "I don't think he's here. Did you try calling him?"

"No," she said.

Peter nodded and pulled out his phone. He was answered on the third ring. Nathan's voice said, "Hello, Peter. How are you? Aren't you still at work?"

"I'm fine. I'm at your house with Heidi. Where are you?"

Nathan's voice was calm, speculative. "I'm on a bridge, watching the water go by, thinking about things. She told you?"

"Yeah. Come home, Nathan. We need to talk about this."

"As Noah told me once, I think the time for talking is over."

Irritated, Peter said in a commanding tone, "No it's not. You have a family. Come home." After a pause, the line went dead. Peter looked at his phone with narrowed eyes.

"What did he say?" Heidi asked.

He looked at her worried expression. "We were disconnected."

She frowned. "You mean he hung up on you."

"Maybe. Let's give him a few minutes in case he wants to call back." He looked at her. "How's the pregnancy been going? You're what… seven, eight months along now?"

"Eight, so maybe a month left, if I go full term. Everything's swelling!" She sat on the couch. "First it was just my feet and hands, but now it's up my wrists and ankles. They're right that it's a lot harder to have a baby when you're older. I can hardly watch TV anymore either. The other day I saw a dog food commercial that showed a little puppy growing up and becoming old. It made me cry. I'm just so frustrated with these mood swings!" She sighed. "I know it hasn't been easy on him either." She started sniffling again. "Oh God."

"Do you have any ice cream?"

She shrugged away the unwanted tears. "Yes! Nathan bought all kinds for me. Was that your idea?"

Peter laughed. "Yeah. I get to listen to the women in the maternity ward and hear what they're grateful for. I'll get you some." He walked off to the kitchen.

"You're going to make me fat!" she called after him, but she didn't tell him not to get her any. She looked at her rotund body and muttered, "Fatter, at least."

When he came back, she was holding her stomach with an odd expression. "Everything okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she smiled at him. "He's just kicking a lot."

"Really?" He handed her a bowl of rocky road. "Can I…" He made a small gesture at her belly.

She raised her brows at him and after a pause said, "Yeah. He's right here. Or his foot is, at least." She gestured to the top of her expansive stomach.

Peter sat down next to her and let her put his hand where it needed to be. He smiled softly as he felt the movement under her skin. "I've… I've never felt that before. By the time I see women with child they're in labor or distress." His brows jumped as he got a particularly energetic kick. He grinned. Heidi smiled at him.

She told him, "You should get married Peter. You'd be a good father." Peter looked at her. "Or… get a spouse. Whatever."

Peter laughed. "I **do** like women you know. I've been seeing someone for over a year now. Her name's Emma."

"Really? You like her?"

"Yeah, I do." Peter moved to an overstuffed chair. "She's great. We still have our issues though, just like you and Nathan. That's normal. You've just got to keep working at it." He got his phone out. "Let me see if he'll even take my call." He dialed. He didn't expect an answer and was thinking about what he'd say to the voicemail when Nathan finally picked up.

"Hello, Peter." He sounded resigned, but at least he'd answered.

"Hey. What's wrong?" Peter asked.

"You know what's wrong."

"I know, but I want to hear it from you."

"She's going to find out. If I keep talking to her, she's going to find out. She can't handle that. I can't put that on her, not now. The doctor said she could have the baby anytime from now until the end of January."

"We can work something out, Nathan."

"I'm not going to wipe her memory, Peter. I'm not my father. This isn't going to be that way. I'm not going to lie to her. It's okay to not say, but I'm not going to lie."

"I realize you can't." Peter glanced at Heidi. She was watching him intently, following his end of the conversation. _What an inconvenient power for her to have_. He never thought he'd find himself in a situation where he wanted to mislead someone who hadn't done anything wrong. "Nathan, if you come home, we can figure something out."

"I can't talk to her, Peter. If I talk to her, she'll ask. If she asks, I have to tell her. I can't have her know this."

"You might be underestimating her."

"Peter, you can't even **look** at me as Gabriel. She's carrying my son!"

That stung, precisely because it was true. Peter shut his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nathan, if you talk to her and it doesn't work out, you haven't lost anything. Come home and at least try. You can't run from this."

"No, I've got a lot to lose."

"What? There's nothing you don't already lose by running."

"If I don't talk to her, then she'll never know the baby isn't Nathan's." Peter felt his blood run cold. The other man went on, "She'll never know she was in bed with another man, that I seduced her with Nathan's face, his memories of her. I betrayed her trust. She'll never know I took advantage of her."

"No!" Peter said. He didn't know how to deny it. He'd never thought of it that way. Nathan was a part of Gabriel. Keeping Heidi away from him had been inconvenient, dangerous and difficult, all the moreso after Nathan had talked to her and she was convinced he had returned to her. It had seemed easier and safer to leave her in his hands. But it meant everything Nathan was saying was true.

Nathan ignored him, saying, "If I leave now, she'll think it was Nathan leaving, just like he's left before."

"No, no, Nathan!" He ran his hand through his hair, agitated. He stood up. _If he leaves her, Gabriel won't live Nathan's life anymore. I'll lose him. He'll go back to being Sylar._ He couldn't think of what to say to stop it. Perversely, he couldn't tell which was more distressing to him - losing Nathan or Sylar's re-emergence.

Heidi came to him, holding out her hand. "Give me the phone. Let me talk to him."

"Here's Heidi," Peter said before handing it to her. He shook his head and paced. If anything would drive Nathan from Heidi, it would be his regard for her, his love for her and his desire not to hurt her. It was a horrible reason to leave someone. It was like committing suicide, giving up, which Nathan was clearly willing to do. Peter recalled his brother's peaceful, untroubled face as he fell from the building, giving himself over to Sylar's control.

Peter wondered when Nathan had fallen in love with Heidi as much as he clearly was, that he was willing to die to protect her like this. He hadn't felt this strongly before the change. He'd been relieved that his duties in the relationship were discharged. He took the separation with equanimity.

Her voice trembled as she spoke to the phone. "Nathan? I don't need to know. You don't have to tell me. You don't have to tell me anything. I won't ask again. You can't tell me right now and I'm okay with that. I want you to come home, come back. Please."

Nathan's voice was thick with emotion when he said, "Let me think about it," and hung up.

She offered the phone to Peter and stumbled to the couch. She collapsed on it, sobbing. He sat next to her and stroked her back.


	48. Faces

Nathan touched down gently on the balcony. Standing next to the door, he could see lights inside and hear voices distantly. He took a moment to stroll around the balcony and look at the roofs of neighboring houses. He looked at the cars in the street. He hadn't seen anything to cause alarm, though he'd surveiled the place for nearly an hour before coming in.

The door was unlocked. He moved in by levitating and settled to the floor where he could see the two people talking below. He was at the top of the stairs in the doorway of the solar.

"…then after all that," Peter was saying, "I get the sandwiches, we start to eat them and before either of us gets a single bite, we get a call!"

Heidi laughed. "Isn't that the way things work?"

"Yeah, it was a terrible day, except for that call. Really relentless. But I wouldn't give it up for the world. It's so hands-on." Peter was smiling. Nathan leaned against the doorframe and sighed.

Peter glanced up at the sound, slight though it was. "Nathan."

Heidi followed his gaze and put her hand to her chest. She didn't speak.

"Come on down. Join in," Peter offered. "We were just swapping war stories." His voice was friendly and companionable, like he hadn't been wondering if he'd ever see Nathan again.

Nathan walked down the stairs slowly. He smiled a little at the two of them. "You guys seem to be getting along really well." He walked to the end of the couch that would put him between Peter's chair and where Heidi was sitting on the other end of the couch with her feet up. She put her feet down for him to take the seat.

"We were both worried," Peter said. "Everything okay now?"

Nathan shrugged. "I think so." He turned to Heidi. "Give me those feet again. Are they still hurting you?"

She shifted them into his lap and he started pulling her house shoes off. "Some. They're worse at night."

Peter watched Nathan run his hand up under her slacks and along her shin, seemingly having forgotten there was anyone else in the room. The younger man smiled. It was either some sort of alpha-male, this-is-my-woman display or else Nathan really was entirely focused on Heidi. In either case, Pete was a fifth wheel. Peter stood up and said, "I need to get back to the hospital and see what I can do about my shift. I'll leave you two to it."

Nathan looked back at him. "You're not going to be in any trouble, are you?"

Peter shrugged. "I'm at the end of a seven day stretch and I pulled doubles every day they'd let me." He shook his head. "I don't think they'll give me anything worse than a warning. I think all the guys who would have had to pull shifts instead of me would have too much to say." He put on his coat and let himself out. _Besides,_ he thought, _they saw Heidi, she was upset, she's nearly to term. Who's going to get onto me for helping a lady in her condition?_

He was standing on the street trying to decide whether to walk or call a cab when Nathan came out behind him and said, "Hey! Pete!"

"Yeah?"

Nathan looked up and down the street, eyeing a passer-bye for a moment before turning to his brother. "You **are** going to Ma's New Year's Eve party, aren't you?"

Peter looked off at an approaching car. Nathan also scrutinized it closely. Peter ignored it after seeing it wasn't a cab. Nathan studied it for several moments longer. Peter said, "I was invited. You want me to go?"

"Yeah, I would. I'll see you there." He started back up the steps, leaving Peter to feel irritated because he didn't have an opportunity to argue about it. He hadn't planned on attending. He hated events like that. Right now though, telling Nathan to stick it didn't seem like the right thing to do. The next car was a cab and he was able to flag it down without a problem.

XXX

The New Year's Party was as disappointing as Peter expected. He mixed for a while and enjoyed talking to people until some of them began to get too loosened up from the beverages. He was glad that his mother at least was staying sober. So was Nathan, of course. Heidi hadn't come and it was not the sort of event someone in her condition would want to be at anyway. Peter had the very real sense that a verbal faux pas here could cost more than the usual gaffe.

He thought about the party Hesam and some of the guys at work had tried to talk him into attending - the ones who wouldn't be working tonight. People were going to be dying and here he was watching the rich and powerful socialize. So it was that he was sitting alone with a virgin screwdriver when his brother came over to sit next to him, putting his arm around him and giving him a squeeze. "You don't look like you're having any fun," Nathan said.

Peter pursed his lips and shook his head. "Not my thing, Nathan. Not my thing."

"Well, it needs to be. For a while. I want you to pay attention. Listen. Watch who talks to who, especially now that everyone's lubricated."

Peter looked at him sideways. "What am I looking for?"

Nathan looked over the room alertly, eyes snapping from one group to another. "Anything out of place. Especially mental powers. People who seem to know too much. Anyone who seems familiar to you but you can't place them. Don't go anywhere alone with someone."

Peter exhaled and looked around the room. Nathan seemed deadly serious, far more so than Peter had seen him in the last year. On the other hand, he hadn't seen him in the last year except in private at his apartment and with Heidi. He thought about how Nathan had scanned the street Christmas night, when he'd come out to make sure he was coming to this party. Seeing the way he was acting now, Peter was reminded that Nathan had joined the Company board of directors. "What's going on?" he asked cautiously.

A couple walked by. Nathan put his arm around Peter again and gave him another squeeze and a sloppy smile. "Yeah, that's great!" he said loudly, as if to his brother. After they were gone, he dropped his voice so low Peter had to lean in to hear him. "Those guys over there are with Halo Group." He vaguely indicated a half dozen people, mostly Arabs, who had been drinking liberally and were getting raucous. "Those over there, the Chinese, are from a group a lot like the Company. They're just here saying hi."

Peter nodded and asked, "Why should I be watching Halo? I talked to a couple of them earlier and they sounded like an investment firm."

Nathan nodded. "Yeah, they run numbers. Used to be Kaito's thing."

Peter looked at Nathan and said nothing. Nathan had only answered half his question, but "Kaito's thing" had been calculating probabilities. Apparently there was a great deal his brother had been learning and getting involved in that Peter knew nothing of.

Nathan swallowed. "I'm pretty sure they're bigger than that too, a real threat. Watch them. I'll talk to you later." He gave him another unnecessary squeeze and did a great impersonation of being besotted as he got up. Nathan staggered a little.

"Hey," Peter put out a hand to steady his brother without thinking. _Good act, I'll give him that,_ he thought. Nathan looked at him. Peter said, "Come by my apartment later. I have a project I need your help with. We can talk then." Nathan smiled and reached out to pat Peter's cheek, then tousled his hair. Peter pulled his head back and looked around to see who had seen them. A few years ago he would have thought nothing of it, but now it seemed too intimate for public consumption. His reaction fit perfectly in the act Nathan was putting on. From his big brother's expression, he'd expected it. Peter felt played.

Nathan spun and walked off, holding his arms up and saying too loudly, "Abbas! You scoundrel! Tell me what the price of gold is in New Delhi!"

XXX

There was a knock at Peter's door at four. He'd gone home around twelve-thirty, after the immediate celebration of the New Year was over. He hadn't seen anything he hadn't been seeing for years at his parent's events, despite his extra vigilance. He blinked at the time and got out of bed. He was glad he hadn't bothered to wait up. At least he'd caught a few hours of sleep. He checked the peephole as he pulled on a t-shirt. It was Nathan. He opened the door and his brother came in.

Instead of walking past him, Nathan leaned in abruptly and kissed Peter full on the mouth. Peter's brows rose in surprise, but he went with it, opening his mouth and returning it. Nathan put his arms around him and seemed to breathe him in, exploring his mouth. The door swung shut by itself. Peter broke the kiss to look at it warily. He turned back and pushed Nathan against the wall next to the door, continuing where they had left off.

After a long minute of stoking his ardor, Peter pulled back, leaning his upper body away from Nathan. He looked at the ceiling and bit his lip. "Let's slow down here. I don't think we even got to 'hello'."

"Then we've got a long way to go yet," Nathan said, reaching out and tugging on Peter's shoulders, urging him to come back to him.

"No, no." He shook his head. Nathan frowned. "I have something I want to do."

Nathan's brows rose. "Oh? Will I like it?" He smiled hopefully.

"Maybe. I want you to change."

"Change?"

Peter nodded, watching Nathan's expression carefully. He could see the moment when his brother understood what he meant. His smile disappeared and his eyes darkened.

"Into Gabriel? Right now?" Nathan's brow furrowed.

"Yeah."

To Peter's surprise, Nathan pushed him back and away from him. His lip curled slightly in disgust. "We were… kind of in the middle of something there."

"I hadn't expected it to put you off that much. I thought you'd…" At Nathan's expression, he trailed off. Obviously Nathan had far different feelings about it than Peter had anticipated.

"That's the face of the man who **killed** me."

Peter's voice hardened, "It's just a face. You're still the same man underneath. I need to come to terms with that." He narrowed his eyes at Nathan's revulsion. "And so do you. It's not a different personality, is it?"

"No! I don't have that problem. Seem to have most others, but not that one." He hung his head.

"Change then," Peter said simply.

Nathan looked up at him. "You're not going to like it."

Peter cocked his head. "Have you ever heard of desensitization?" Nathan nodded. Peter went on, "The only way I'm going to get over it is if I see it. If I'm with you, I'm going to accept all of you, not just the parts I like."

Nathan gave him a long look, almost a glare. Finally his features rippled and shifted. He grew four or five inches, his brows were heavier and his features less chiseled but not much less attractive. Peter looked up, having forgotten how much taller Sylar was than Nathan. Or rather, how much taller Gabriel was. For a moment they studied each other, then Gabriel reached out a very long right arm and hooked his fingers under Peter's chin. Peter inhaled sharply at the touch, not liking it. It was much harder than he'd expected to keep in mind this was the same man he'd been kissing with abandon a few minutes before.

He swallowed and held his ground as Gabriel pushed off the wall and leaned in to his mouth, tilting Peter's face slightly to meet his. His lips were soft and insistent, but Peter found great difficulty in responding. He opened his mouth mechanically and tried, but his whole body was tensed like a coiled spring, ready for fight or flight. He refused to shut his eyes and imagine someone else, keeping them open and staring back into Gabriel's watchful eyes.

Gabriel's fingers dropped from under his chin to stroke the side of his neck as he tongued Peter's mouth. He smiled against him for a moment and then went back to kissing him, pressing a bit harder. If he was bothered by Peter's unresponsiveness, he wasn't showing it. His thumb rubbed over Peter's windpipe and then crossed to the other side. His hand moved in, the webbing between his thumb and fingers touching Peter's throat.

_That's a choke hold, _Peter thought. He jerked his head back, looking down at the hand in confusion and a hint of disgust. Gabriel hadn't been putting any pressure on his throat, but it was creepy regardless. An expression of anger and determination crossed the taller man's face. His hand went behind Peter's neck, wrapping long fingers around him and bringing him back to his lips with a grip that brooked no dissent.

Peter twisted away and said, "Stop it!" Rage flooded through him and he knocked Gabriel away from him violently. He swept up his left arm to knock away Gabriel's right from his neck and then grabbed the other man's left shoulder with his right hand and spun him away from himself. For a second he thought Gabriel was going to attack him as he recovered and brought up his hand as if for telekinesis. Nothing happened. With a snarl Gabriel dropped his hand and stalked away.

Peter turned to face his retreating back, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. He realized he was able to get angry and act on it a lot faster when Nathan looked like Gabriel than he could if he looked like his brother. If Nathan had done that to him in his normal face, Peter might have froze up or pulled away, but he wouldn't have used a judo throw on him. The thought troubled him.

Peter reached back to rub his neck. It was tender. Gabriel had tightened his grip even further as Peter had broken away. _I'll probably have bruises tomorrow_. He felt a simmering anger. He didn't like getting marked. Now the other man paced back and forth in the living room like a hungry animal. Peter had the odd feeling that he was on the wrong side of the cage at the zoo - somehow inside the lion's enclosure instead of safely outside it. _Hopefully bruises are the worst of it_, he thought.

"Nathan?" he asked uncertainly.

The other man looked up at him from under heavy brows as he paced, managing to look very threatening. "You wanted Gabriel."

Peter's voice rose slightly in alarm. "Are you… a different person?"

"No, it's a different role: mannerisms, habits, accent, preferences. I grew up acting like this. I'm not going to forget it after a year of pretending to be Nathan Petrelli."

_Pretending?_ Peter thought. He blinked.

Gabriel stopped pacing and stood perfectly still for a moment. "It's what you wanted, isn't it?" He started forward towards Peter with a menacing expression.

"No! Stop!" Peter backed up, but he was already at the wall. Gabriel halted immediately though, drew himself up and exhaled slowly. He turned on his heel and went back to pacing.

Peter watched him silently for several turns. _If this is Gabriel, then I see where Sylar comes from._ "Why did you stop?"

Gabriel ceased moving instantly and raised his head to face him. "You didn't want me to?"

"No, no! I want you to stop. You're scaring me. I just… don't know why you did."

Gabriel tilted his head slowly as if Peter was a curiosity. "Because those are the rules. You say stop, I stop. Those **are** the rules, aren't they?"

Peter nodded quickly, too quickly. He felt relief wash through him that some boundaries still existed. The ground rules he'd laid down early in their relationship boiled down to not hurting each other, stopping when asked and not using telekinesis on Peter. It bothered Peter a great deal that the first two had not been self-evident to Gabriel or Nathan. He was calmed that the other man was willing to follow them even when he clearly didn't want to.

Gabriel matched his nod, but much more slowly. He walked to the couch and flopped down on it, managing to do it in a manner that looked decidedly low class, almost vulgar. He took up the whole thing with one leg on it and one on the floor, one arm on the arm of the couch and the other flung across the back. "Doesn't mean I like them, though," he said sullenly of the rules. Gabriel put his head back and shut his eyes.

Peter edged over to the couch. He touched the arm of it and looked down at Gabriel's left leg and foot, which was sprawled across it. "Get your shoes off my furniture," he said, affronted that in either face, Nathan would disrespect his stuff. He was also testing the waters to see what Gabriel would do if he challenged him.

Gabriel didn't bother to open his eyes. "Hmpf. You're concerned about **this** thing? Ha." He put his leg down anyway, scooting a little so he slouched to the degree he wanted.

Peter sat down tensely, forcing himself to sit back normally instead of forward on the edge. Gabriel didn't move, which helped a lot. Peter turned to face the other man, looking at him, studying his face in repose. Peter breathed deeply. He relaxed himself deliberately. It was a bad start, but nothing was happening right now. He needed to relax. People often based the tone of their response on the tone of whomever they were with. If he was calm, it made it more likely Gabriel would be calm. Though at the moment, Gabriel looked far more relaxed than Peter was.

After several minutes passed, he felt like he'd attained an inner balance again. He shifted forward, closer. Gabriel's left arm was flung up on the back of the couch and it was the closest part to him. Peter looked at it. _Desensitization_, he thought. _Let's get started_. He reached up and put his hand over Gabriel's, picking it up and turning it. Gabriel opened his eyes and watched him for a moment, then shut them again without comment or reaction.

Peter looked back down at Gabriel's palm. His hand was larger than Nathan's, the fingers longer but more slender. It was soft all over with the scar of a small cut on the heel of his palm. Nathan's hands were rough with old callous along the edges and one of his thumbs had been smashed in an accident while in the Navy.

Peter put his right hand over Gabriel's, comparing the size. Gabriel's fingers curled into his, twining them together. Peter sucked in a breath at the unexpected motion. Gabriel released him. He exhaled and managed to smile at his own nerves. He stroked his fingertips along the man's palm and looked up to see Gabriel smiling at the touch, eyes still closed. The smile soothed him. _He was holding my hand_, Peter thought. _That's all._

Peter turned Gabriel's hand over and looked at the back. His eyes caught on the watch he was wearing. It was the same one that had been pictured in one of Isaac's paintings, except this one was pristine, unbroken. It said "SYLAR" on the face. Peter touched it, turning it to get a better look. Gabriel pulled away almost immediately. This time Peter didn't startle. Gabriel took the watch off and handed it to him. He sat up a little and observed Peter as the younger man took the watch and examined it wordlessly.

Peter turned it over and looked at the back, seeing a few characters in Russian and under it an emblem and "SYLAR" repeated. He looked at the band and ran it through his fingers. He offered it back to Gabriel, who took it. Gabriel put it to his ear and listened to it, a far-away expression on his face. "I fucking hate Matt Parkman. He stole this from me." He took away the watch and looked at it, bitter.

"He stole your watch?" Peter cocked his head.

"No, I used to not _need_ a watch. I could hear the time, instead of this other crap. Now I hear your heartbeat - it's elevated, but not as much as earlier - that was delicious, by the way." He looked up and leered at Peter. It was unsettling. "I hear your breathing - still not relaxed entirely. I hear the tension in your muscles, especially your back, creaking along your spine and pulling at the tendons. I don't want to hear that. I want to hear the **time**! I wore this kind of watch because I liked it. It was sentimental. Now it's just a fucking watch!" He snarled and started to throw it across the room, but desisted at the last moment. He tried to work himself up to it again but couldn't.

He looked at the timepiece for a long moment and then handed it to Peter. "Here. You have it. I can make as many as I want. It's a good watch. It doesn't deserve to be broken. You can use it instead of that digital thing you wear."

Peter took it and looked at it again. He wasn't sure what he'd do with a watch that had Sylar's name on it. Wearing it was out of the question. "You know, I think I'd much rather hear all that other stuff you mentioned than the time," he said.

"You would," Gabriel sounded disgusted.

Peter laughed. Gabriel smiled at him.

Peter turned the watch over in his hands. "How did you get this? Nathan doesn't have a watch like this."

Gabriel pulled out the tail of his shirt and ran his finger along the edge. A strip of cloth sheared off neatly. He wrapped this around his wrist, tying it loosely. Then he shifted. A few seconds later, he looked almost exactly the same as he did before, but his shirt was tucked in again and the strip of cloth was now a new Sylar watch. "Like that," he said. "Like I said, I can make as many as I want. Comes with the shifting. Clarice called it ability extension. If I don't have something there, though, I can't make an actual duplicate of it. Just a seeming."

"You could start a watch shop!" Peter said jokingly.

"Why bother? I can make gold."

"Oh. Yeah." That sobered him.

Gabriel pointed at the watch in Peter's hand. "That one used to be a Rolex Nathan had. I think Dad gave it to me for a birthday… I don't know, five or six years ago, maybe a few more."

Peter turned it over again. "I'm sure it was sentimental to Nathan." He wondered if it still counted now that it didn't look like a Rolex. _It isn't a Rolex, anymore than this man is still Nathan._ That was a **very** unsettling thought. He looked up at Gabriel and narrowed his eyes. _Is this what he really is? Is this man what Nathan really is underneath and everything else is just an act like Nathan's drunkenness at the party? If so, why was he willing to sacrifice himself to help me heal people? Why did he want to be intimate with me? He sought __**me**__ out. He acts like he loves me._

Gabriel didn't see the confused, uncertain expression. He was looking at the timepiece and answered Peter's last spoken words. "Not really. Trust me, I'd know. I'm not on good terms with Dad right now anyway."

Peter furrowed his brow at him. "What do you mean? Dad's dead."

"No, he's not," Nathan said as if it was an indisputable fact. All of Peter's internal speculation about Gabriel or Nathan's personality issues were instantly obliterated.


	49. New Year

"Dad's alive?" Peter looked shocked.

"Of course he is. All we did was shoot him in the head. I've been shot in the head at least a dozen times - mostly by Noah. Hurts like hell, but you get over it." Gabriel shrugged. "Well, I get over it. I suppose most people would just die. Dad had Claire's regeneration through you and according to our sources, he had it even before that so it's doubled. I'm sure he was fine."

"But… the Haitian was blocking his powers."

"And Noah cut my throat with a box cutter during the eclipse, when I didn't have any powers either. Not just suppressed - but none. They came back after it was over. It's not like Rene stood over him for very long. The building blew up." He looked at Peter, who was still trying to process the news. "Before you say he might have burned to death, let me remind you that I was burned to death too at Primatech - really painful way to die, by the way, though I tried to freeze myself to death once and that was even worse… I couldn't go through with it. Anyway, the burning didn't take either, though it took me a while to put myself back together."

"You're sure he's alive?"

"Yeah," he slouched on the couch again with his eyes shut.

"Does Mom know?"

"Yep."

Peter felt a surge of sullen anger at her for not telling him. "Where is he? What's he doing?"

Gabriel remained slouched, eyes shut. "He's part of Halo Group. We're pretty sure he's working on making another catalyst. Not sure how long that will take him, with the powers available to him, but if it was easy he'd have already done it."

"Halo? That's… was he there, at the party?" He sounded alarmed.

Gabriel opened his eyes and turned his head, but remained still otherwise. "I don't think so. What did you think? See anything odd?"

Peter shook his head. "No, nothing."

"Of course there's no telling what he can do now. He must have twenty or thirty powers, if he can hold that many at once." He sighed longingly. "What a waste."

Peter rubbed his chin. "The catalyst isn't useful unless you have the formula."

"That's no problem. There's a dozen or more people who can make that. Ma has people working on it as we speak."

"She's… what? All over again? Why would she do that?" Peter stood abruptly and paced.

Gabriel watched him from hooded eyes. "She says we need it. I'm mostly muscle, Peter. I see different things than she sees and I can't make as much sense out of it. I have to trust her on this."

Peter turned to face him and put a hand on his hip, cocking his head. "You **do** trust her?" He didn't catch the meaning of Gabriel's admission about _seeing_.

Gabriel waggled his head slightly and rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Mostly."

Peter looked back and forth between Gabriel's eyes. _He does._ He inhaled and blinked. _When did that happen?_ Peter ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?" Gabriel asked mildly.

"I mean, you know all this. What's happening? What's going to happen next?"

Gabriel sat up suddenly and shifted into Nathan. Peter cocked his head at that, wondering why he'd feel the need to change. Nathan steepled his fingers and put his elbows on his knees. Peter realized his suit had upgraded when he shifted too - Gabriel hadn't been dressed as well as Nathan had been at the party. That was hardly surprising, given Nathan's feelings about clothes. Peter hadn't noticed earlier.

Nathan said, "The future's not set in stone. It's more like it's carved in wax. If you can figure out where to apply heat, you can mold it, change it. First you have to understand what you're actually seeing. To make any sense of it you have to detach yourself emotionally from it, see it impartially instead of how you want it to be. If you let your heart get involved, you see it in metaphors and it gets hard to sort out. It's really tough to do."

Peter cocked his head. "That's part of why Mom's… the way she is?"

Nathan nodded. He empathized with her. He went on, changing the subject a little, "We're trying to infiltrate Halo and obviously they want to do the same to us. We've got Molly, we've got Maury and he's got Matt under control now. _Bastard_. We have the Haitian. Then of course there's muscle, like agents or Noah or Claire. Or me."

"Wait… Maury Parkman?"

"Yeah," Nathan sighed.

"I thought he was dead."

"Common misperception. I guess he just put an illusion of his death into people's minds. I'm sure Dad was in on that. Ma thinks the same. She keeps trying to talk me into killing him." Nathan's shoulders slumped and he stared at the floor.

Peter looked at him. "Is Maury on our side?" He filed away the part about his mother encouraging Nathan to commit murder. He'd come back to that later.

"Sort of," he scratched the side of his jaw. "Listen, Pete. I came here to find out what you'd seen and maybe unwind a little. That was a pretty tense evening for me. You didn't see anything unusual?"

Peter looked upwards and thought about it. He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. Would have helped if I'd known what I was looking for."

Nathan nodded. "I thought they had a telepath there. Turns out just an aura reader or something like that. Maybe some fringe precog. I'm not sure. I'll need to think about it some more. We don't want to tip our hand if we can help it." He stood up. "I need to go."

He walked over to Peter and leaned in to kiss him, taking his elbow. Peter didn't move to meet him. Gabriel's face was still in his mind. An inch before Peter's lips, Nathan paused and changed to give him a peck on the cheek. Nathan smiled, bittersweet. "I'll see you." His voice caught and he started to walk on.

"Hey," Peter caught his arm as he passed. He looked at his older brother, searching. "What was that?" Peter asked. _Why would he care, if he didn't love me?_

Nathan raised a brow, but otherwise his expression was carefully unreadable. After a long pause he said, "I expected this. It was good while it lasted. I'll see you later." He pulled on his arm. Peter didn't let go.

Peter said, "Don't leave me." Nathan's expression softened. Peter added, "I've lost you twice. Don't make it a third time."

"You're not losing much, not anything you want, anyway."

Peter shook his head slowly. "You don't know what I want. Don't pretend to know."

Nathan looked at him for a long time, then looked away. He shifted to Gabriel and then looked back to Peter. "Does this make it easier?" He jerked his arm roughly out of Peter's grip, the beginning of a sneer on his face.

"No. Come here," Peter grabbed the taller man and pulled him down sharply for a passionate, rough kiss, so hard it hurt his lips where they were smashed against the other man's teeth. Gabriel's eyes widened and this time he was the one not responding while Peter was insistent and unceasing in his attentions. After several seconds he shuddered and shifted back to Nathan. Peter broke off for a moment and searched Nathan's face, but he didn't get long to do it before Nathan was kissing him again.

Nathan brought his hands up to caress Peter's face as he kissed him, leaning into him so forcefully Peter had to step back to keep his balance. "Mmpf," Peter said. Nathan broke the kiss and moved his mouth to Peter's neck, tugging aside his shirt to nibble on his shoulder as well. Peter took the shirt off and tossed it on the couch. Nathan's hands immediately began to roam over his skin as his mouth worked down from his shoulder to his collarbone. It raised gooseflesh and made Peter moan with pleasure.

Peter began tugging Nathan's shirt from his slacks and unbuttoning it. He was foiled by Nathan's amorous attentions to his chest. He kept getting in his way. Finally Peter pushed him back with a laugh, "Okay, hold still. Let me do this."

Nathan grumbled, then ran his hand through Peter's hair and around to the back of his neck. Peter pulled away from his hand and said, "That's still sore. Stay away from the back of my neck."

"Mm. Sorry. I want you so bad sometimes." His voice sounded strained.

Peter looked up at him from the buttons and flashed him a stunning smile. He pushed Nathan's shirt over his shoulders and down his arms. Nathan shrugged out of it the rest of the way and pulled his t-shirt off. He laid them neatly over the arm of the couch and then returned to the object of his affections.

Peter slid his arms along Nathan's side and brought them up, hugging him. He laid his head on the other man's chest and sighed. Nathan made a small thwarted grunt that all the parts he'd wanted to get to weren't available. He hugged Peter back, stroking his hands restlessly up and down the younger man's back. He kissed his shoulder and followed it up Peter's neck as much as he could.

"You're really after me tonight, aren't you?" Peter murmured.

"I want you," Nathan said, breathing heavily. "I want to be **in** you."

Peter raised his head and looked at Nathan's face. The younger man's body tensed from head to toe.

Nathan said softly, "Will you let me?"

Peter's expression became very serious. He shook his head, but what he said was, "Nathan… you have to be gentle - **very** gentle. Can you do that?"

Nathan nodded.

Peter looked back and forth between Nathan's eyes. "Can I trust you?"

To answer, Nathan leaned in slowly and kissed Peter ever-so-lightly on the lips, caressing the other man's lips with his own before pulling back. "Yes, you can trust me. I'll be gentle."

"Okay," Peter said in a small voice. He backed away from Nathan a few steps, then turned and walked into the bedroom. Nathan followed him.

Peter stood next to the bed and stripped out of his pajama pants. Nathan did likewise with his slacks and boxers. He turned to Peter, who had a guarded expression. The younger man asked, "How do you want me?"

Nathan smiled at that. "A lot of different ways, but for tonight just sit on the bed, lay back. I need to be able to see you."

"Hm." Peter did as requested while Nathan got out the lubricant. Peter said, "Don't skip the foreplay."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Nathan said, moving next to him. He tossed the tube down where it would be handy later and nudged Peter's knee with his own. Peter spread his legs and Nathan stepped between them.

Nathan ran his fingers along the top of the other man's thighs, looking down at him. Peter was looking at him with his lips slightly parted, a very uncertain expression on his face. Nathan told him, "You're afraid."

Peter raised his brows slightly. "You said earlier that was delicious."

Nathan smirked. "You don't see me having any trouble staying hard, do you?"

Peter glanced down. He was almost entirely deflated, but Nathan was threateningly full and hard. He frowned.

"I'm not going to do anything you don't let me do," Nathan said as he leaned over Peter's body. His member lay against Peter's and pushed into his stomach. The rest of his body brushed Peter more lightly. He brought his head down and kissed Peter's chest, sending his left hand up to caress his face while the right was on the bed, supporting much of his weight. Peter bit his lip and shifted uneasily under him, uncomfortable that he couldn't roll away quickly. "Take your mind off of it," Nathan suggested. "I'm going to take my time… and stop anytime you ask."

Peter nodded. After a long beat, he scooted down under Nathan's body, putting his face more even with the other man's. He kissed him hesitantly and lightly. Nathan returned the light touch, kissing his face and cheek, curling his hand around Peter's head to cradle it. Peter brought his arms around Nathan and stroked down his back.

"I love you, Peter," Nathan said. He felt an answering twinge from Peter's organ. "God, I love you," he said as he pressed his body against Peter's, pushing him into the bed. Peter gripped him more strongly. Nathan thought, _So that's what turns __**you**__ on - professions of love. How sweet. I should have guessed. What a pair we make._ He smiled to himself and went on in that vein, since it was getting the reaction he wanted, "I want you." He kissed him, lips only. "I need you," he kissed him again. This time Peter opened his mouth to receive him, but Nathan left him unsatisfied. Peter was stiffening.

Nathan shifted his left hand down to grip Peter's shaft. Peter's eyes widened and he moved his hands to bring Nathan's head back down to his mouth. Nathan kissed him. Peter's tongue entered his mouth and explored him. He held Nathan's face to his as Nathan began to stroke him. Peter moaned in his throat.

Nathan twisted his head slightly to free himself. Peter let him. Nathan said, "You make me complete, Peter." He kissed him on the cheek and then levered himself up so he stood between Peter's legs again. He kept stroking him. Peter was breathing deeply as he looked up at him. Nathan told him, "You make me whole. You make me want to be a better man. Whenever I think I'm going to do something wrong, I think about what you'd do, what you'd think of me for doing it. You bring me to myself, Pete - what I want to be."

Peter blinked and began to pant. Nathan took his hand off him. "Calm down a little." He reached over and picked up the lube, dispensing a lot to his right hand. He smeared some on his cock and then slipped his hand under Peter's balls and into his crack, quickly finding the spot he wanted. Peter twitched, his expression becoming apprehensive again.

Nathan took hold of his shaft with his left hand. It had softened somewhat. He told him, "I love you. I love looking at you. I love touching you, seeing you move in response." Nathan slipped one finger into him as he continued to stroke him. Peter clenched and then looked upwards, making an effort to relax. Nathan went on, "Listen to me, Peter. I want you to like me, to like being with me. I need you. I want you to enjoy this as much as you can." Peter was fully stiff again and beginning to pant. He worked in a second finger. Peter brought his chin up and moved his hips in response, thrusting into Nathan's left hand.

Nathan was silent as he continued to stroke Peter and opened him enough for a third finger. Peter shifted and squirmed at the increased pressure. He shook his head. "I'm going to come."

"No, you're not," Nathan said confidently and released the other man's shaft. Peter looked up at him like he'd lost his mind, then he felt the head of Nathan's cock against himself, pushing inward. He clenched his teeth, but Nathan was already past the entrance.

"Peter," he said sharply. His brother looked at him with a glazed, distressed expression as he fought the urge to scuttle backwards away from Nathan. "Stay with me, Peter. Listen to me. I love you." He pushed in slightly. Peter tensed all over, his face paling and his expression edging over to fear. His hands moved restlessly over the bedspread, looking for something to grab hold of. Nathan stopped moving and rested his hands palm down on Peter's hips. "Stay with me - we're here, now. Look at me. I'm looking at you. I don't want to hurt you. I'm trying not to hurt you."

Peter swallowed, seeming to get back in control of himself after a moment. "You're not hurting me." He was still panting, but it wasn't from arousal anymore. Nathan had been right - he hadn't come. Nathan waited, not moving his hips while Peter calmed a little. "Go ahead," Peter said, bracing himself. Nathan moved slightly but there was no give to his position. Peter deliberately unclenched his teeth and opened his mouth, trying to will his other muscles to relax as well. It was a connected system, after all. He'd heard that screaming would help, but he wasn't up to that. He stuck with open-mouthed panting.

Nathan rubbed his hand over Peter's flaccid organ, massaging it lightly. "I care about you, Peter. You matter to me. You make me the man I am, the man I want to be." He pushed in with his hips and there was a little bit of room. Peter grunted. "I'm trying to be gentle with you because I love you, Peter. I want you to want me. I want you to let me do this." He made a little more headway. Peter was erect enough he could take him in his hand and start pumping.

"I love you. I love you so much." He started making small thrusts.

Peter gasped at first and blinked, panting heavily. With a grimace, he brought his knees up and outwards, opening his body. He told Nathan, "Hold my knees up - with your hands. Push them back. It'll stretch me a little, give you a better angle."

Nathan hesitated, "Am I doing this wrong?"

"No… I'm just really tense."

Nathan chuckled. "I can hear that." He kept up a smooth rocking rhythm and added more lubricant to his shaft, pulling it out as much as he dared. He was fairly sure if he removed himself entirely, he wouldn't be able to get back in. He ringed Peter's skin around his member with lubricant too and then pushed to and fro to get it spread inside him. He took Peter's knees and pushed them back as he did so. Peter gasped again at the feeling of getting several more inches slid into him. He shut his eyes.

"Don't check out on me here, Pete," Nathan added. "You're part of this."

Peter shook his head. He said, "You're just big under the best of circumstances. I'm okay."

"I'm almost all the way in."

Peter nodded, his eyes still shut. "I can feel you."

Nathan took hold of Peter's hips and steadily pulled him down the rest of the way onto himself. Peter groaned at the full contact. Nathan released him and took up the other man's cock with the hand that was slick with lube. He started stroking more regularly, matching his hand with the still abbreviated motions of his hips. His other hand rode Peter's hip, fingertips touching him, pressing with each thrust. It took a long time before Nathan was able to slide in him easily. By then Peter was fully erect and hard.

Peter was finally breathing more naturally as well. He began cocking his hips to meet Nathan's thrusts.

Nathan asked, "Can I go faster?"

Peter nodded.

"Harder?"

Peter hesitated, then nodded.

Nathan increased his tempo. "I love you," he breathed. "I love this. I like seeing you under me. I like feeling myself in you. It's really great. Thank you, Peter. Thank you." He gripped Peter's hip more securely with his free hand, steadying him. Peter put his head back and began breathing more deeply, taking his thrusts. They rocked his whole body as Nathan stroked him in tandem with the motion.

Peter felt his body finally responding to the constant stimulation. His orgasm was approaching. He bit his lip, shutting his eyes and trying to blank his mind. He didn't want to think of the previous time, when his body had approved of the treatment with its reaction. After a moment, his cock throbbed under Nathan's hand, spurting. Nathan smiled and watched his brother come across himself. He released the member and put both hands on Peter's hips, thrusting into him harder and faster as he clenched around him. Peter grabbed handfuls of the bedspread and braced himself, but otherwise seemed lost in the moment.

Nathan drilled into him silently for a minute longer before his efforts became fitful. He climaxed with a sudden cry and slumped forward, leaning on his hands, braced against the bed. "Oh… oh God that was good." He blinked at Peter, who gave him a crooked smile. Nathan pulled himself out and leaned in to kiss him. "Thank you. Thank you for trusting me."

Peter sighed. "Thanks for being trustworthy."

"Was that okay?"

"That was fine." Peter looked down at himself. "I'm surprised I came. You did great." Peter slapped Nathan's forearm lightly. "Go wash up. I'll be in there in a moment."

Nathan nodded and pushed himself upright. He went to the bathroom and started the shower, getting in immediately.

_What is it with him and the cold showers?_ Peter thought._ It would be a lot more comfortable if he'd just wait for it to warm up._ He closed his legs and rolled over on his side, curling up a little. He was glad it was over, though he was sure it would be a lot easier next time. His brother had been true to his word - gentle and careful. Nathan had been testing him, he thought, though he wasn't sure if the other man was doing it on purpose or subconsciously. Testing him to see if he'd still have him after seeing him as Gabriel. Peter thought about the things Nathan had said to him during the sex. He replayed the words. They warmed him. He relaxed and stretched out a little more.

He noticed he was starting to dribble off his chest onto the spread so he got up. He went in the bathroom and used the hand towel to clean up.

"You out there?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah."

"Can you come in here?"

Peter replied, "Right now? It's a little tight in there for two."

"That's okay. I want to test something."

Peter pulled back the shower curtain and looked in. The water was warm now at least. He stepped in and asked warily, "What are you going to test?"

Nathan looked at his expression and said, "Just me. Don't worry. Let me have your hand. Just relax and let me do the moving."

Peter's brow furrowed in confusion, but he stepped inside and offered his hand. He was blocking the shower from Nathan. It sprayed across Peter's back and ran down his legs. Nathan took his hand and put it to his cock, which was still (or again?) partially erect. Peter started to take hold and Nathan pulled his hand away with a sharp inhalation. "No. Let me. Just relax and let me do it."

"Okay," Peter said uncertainly. Nathan rubbed Peter's hand against his cock and curled his fingers around his shaft, putting his hand over it and pumping up and down. "I suppose jacking off with my hand isn't the weirdest thing you've ever done." _It certainly is weird, though._

Nathan shot him a quick smile and then turned intent again. He stroked himself firmly, becoming fully erect. Peter glanced around the shower and saw nothing more interesting to look at than Nathan's face, so he watched that. Nathan's expression was self-absorbed. He took Peter's hand and rubbed it over the head of his organ, brows pulled together. Peter had to work to leave his hand relaxed and not react, just letting Nathan touch him to himself. After a minute or two, Nathan sighed and said, "Okay, now you. Touch me, stroke me."

Peter rolled his eyes and wrapped his hand around Nathan's cock. The reaction was so immediate it sobered him. Nathan tensed all over and began to breathe heavily. He bit his lip and blinked. Peter hesitated. "Go on," Nathan said. He stroked up and down three times before Nathan orgasmed.

Peter's eyes widened in surprise. He'd thought it was funny before that Nathan had come so easily when he touched him, flattering that he was so responsive. But clearly there was something specific about Peter's intentional touch that was setting him off. "What the hell, Nathan?" he said incredulously.

Nathan slumped against the wall of the shower, leaning his head on it. "Okay, that proves it."

"Proves what?"

"I'll explain later." Nathan shooed him to stand at the front of the shower, under the head, so he wasn't blocking the water. Nathan washed himself off again. When he was done, he got out and Peter started washing. The shower simply wasn't big enough for two people to do anything meaningful in it at the same time.

When Peter got out of the shower, Nathan was nearly finished getting dressed. The younger man hadn't spent much time in the shower either, so he suspected his brother had been planning on skipping out on him again. Nathan was sitting on the bed putting his shoes on. Peter walked in the bedroom, holding the towel and dripping on the floor.

When he saw Nathan's face as he watched Peter naked and wet, he chuckled. Peter posed for him, stretching lazily. He swung the towel behind his head, holding an end in each hand and stretched back, making the muscles in his chest and stomach ripple and flex. Nathan sighed. The left shoe in his hand was entirely forgotten.

Peter dried himself off slowly, taking every opportunity to show off. Nathan's smile broadened until he was grinning appreciatively. When he was dry, he walked over to Nathan and tossed the towel over the other man's shoulders. Nathan put both feet on the floor and Peter climbed on his lap, sitting near his knees so there was more than a foot between their bodies.

Peter said, "You looked like you were going to run again."

Nathan didn't answer him. He was staring fixedly at Peter's bare chest. With another man, Peter wouldn't have minded the obsessed expression. With Nathan it could easily mean things he didn't want to provoke. He grabbed the towel and slid off backwards, going over to his dresser. He flipped the towel over his shoulder and looked back. Nathan was looking away, rubbing his face. He didn't look disappointed, but rather relieved. _I thought so_, Peter thought.

Nathan hastily put on his other shoe as Peter pulled on some pajama pants. Peter looked at the clock. It was a little past five. He figured he could catch a few more hours of sleep before work. "What time do you have to be home?"

Nathan stood up, finished. "By eight. Eat breakfast with Heidi. Any earlier would make explanations a lot easier though. She knows I was staying out late for business." Nathan started for the door.

Peter intercepted him. When Nathan stopped, Peter said, "You said you'd explain."

Nathan looked past him to the door. Peter put his hand on the front of his pants, startling him. He groped insistently. Nathan pushed him away. "Stop it!"

Peter looked down at Nathan, seeing him swell again. Nathan misinterpreted the look as a precursor to being touched again and stepped further away. "I stop when you ask me." He sounded very guarded.

Peter didn't respond to that, since he **had** stopped. He walked to the bedroom door and leaned on the frame so Nathan couldn't leave without passing him. He waited.

Nathan adjusted his slacks and gave Peter an annoyed look. "Last June Maury Parkman got a hold of me. He gave me some hang-ups. That's one of them. I wasn't sure until before Christmas, with… doing things with Heidi. I kept thinking it was other stuff that was setting me off. It's not. Just someone touching me intentionally. It puts me right over every time."

Peter's brow furrowed. "Maury? Why would he do that?"

Nathan rolled his eyes. "I think it's his idea of a practical joke. I was also obsessed with Noah, but I think I've gotten over that."

Peter straightened. "Obsessed… sexually?"

"No! No." Nathan shook his head adamantly. The mental image accompanying the question was very disturbing on several levels. "With… getting his approval. It's stupid. I shouldn't even care. You would not believe how important it is to me to find Dad. I don't think I can be trusted once we do." He shook his head. "Mom had Maury work on me again in November, but I can't tell what he did. Took me months to work this stuff out - just what was causing it."

"Mom…?" Peter's gut clenched. _What has Mom been doing to him? As if last year wasn't bad enough? I've got to get involved and find out what's going on._

"Yeah. She's still pissed I didn't kill him when she tried to feed him to me."

Peter blinked. The degree of control that must have taken Nathan was not lost on him. Peter walked over to his brother, who hugged him abruptly.

Peter began, "Wh-" but Nathan shushed him and continued to embrace him, swaying slightly. He didn't run his hands across Peter's bare back, but just held him tightly. He put his forehead on Peter's shoulder. "I really need you," Nathan told him thickly. "I can't lose you."

Peter hugged him back more firmly. "I'm here, Nathan. You can talk to me any time."

After a moment Nathan released him and kissed him. "I will, but not now."

He started to leave but Peter didn't let go. "Don't run off while I'm in the shower, okay? If you do that again, I won't shower until you're gone." He pulled Nathan back close to him and smiled seductively at him. "You don't want me all dirty and smelly, do you?"

Nathan grinned back. "What, lubed up and smelling like sex? That is **not** a turn-off." He chuckled. "I'll take you any way I can get you. But… okay - no running off while you're indisposed. Can I go now?"

Peter still held him. "I'd like more of an explanation." He wanted to press harder than that, but Nathan clearly didn't want to talk about it. It was the whole reason he'd been trying to bolt after the shower.

The older man shook his head and looked to the door again. "I'm tired, Pete. I don't want to think about this anymore tonight. It's not urgent, no one's getting hurt if I take a little time." He kissed Peter lightly. "I have enough nightmares without adding this one to the queue." Most of them involving darkness and being alone, or Heidi and the birth, but Nathan didn't say that out loud.

Peter dropped his arms, letting him go. Nathan kissed him again. It was longer and more lingering. He left.

XXX

Two days later Peter Petrelli was in a diner talking to Noah Bennet. Their next case was fairly straightforward. They were to recover files from a man named Ulstein who worked for the Treasury Department in DC. Stealth was a priority. If all went well, they'd be in and out of his office without anyone being the wiser.

"Do you have any questions?" Noah asked at the end of his overview.

Peter shook his head. "If it's that simple, why do you need me?"

"Never work alone if you have a choice. An extra pair of eyes might be very helpful." Noah looked Peter over, noting his unblemished hands and clear face, paired with the finger-mark bruises on the back and sides of his neck. "Speaking of partners, it's hard not to notice someone got you by the scruff of the neck a couple days ago. That would be… what, New Year's Eve? I'd imagine if someone tried to frog-march you somewhere you'd have fought back."

Peter frowned and touched his neck. The bruises were about as dark as they were going to get - an ugly blue tinged with green. It was a clear imprint of a hand. "No. It's nothing."

Noah searched his face and asked slowly, watching carefully for Peter's reaction, "Are you okay, Peter? Is **everything** okay?" His tone left little question as to what he was really asking. There was a lot of Peter's body he couldn't see and a lot of injuries that wouldn't leave a visible mark. To make it even harder for Peter to deny, he added, "He broke into your apartment a few weeks ago. Do you need _help_?"

"No." His voice was firm on that. Peter stared at his nearly empty plate for a long moment. Noah's scrutiny did not end. He went on, "He's doing pretty good, actually." He looked up and met Noah's eyes. "He didn't do anything I didn't let him do."

Noah pulled back, his face hardening slightly, eyes tightening. He said, "That's the same thing Claire tells me."

Peter frowned again. He didn't like the comparison - not at all.

"He's dangerous, Peter," Noah said softly.

"So are you," Peter responded with heat. "Lighten up on him, okay?"

Noah raised his brows and said, "It looks more like he needs to lighten up on **you**."

Peter exhaled angrily and calmed himself. This wasn't an argument he wanted to have with Noah, who had taken on something of a fatherly role with him in regards to their partnership. After a beat Peter changed the subject, saying, "I need to understand what's going on with the Company, the board, this Halo Group." He saw Noah's eyes twitch downward towards the file they'd been discussing. "So this is part of it?" Peter tapped it with his finger. "Treasury Department, investment group. Makes sense. Is that why you want me along? In case Dad shows up? I can't keep him off you, Noah." At that Noah's eyes widened considerably and he swallowed. Peter waited for him to speak.

Bennet said, "All right. You don't want to talk to me about Nathan. How are your biscuits? Mine are pretty good." He took a deliberate bite.

Peter laughed. "Is that your way of telling me you can't talk about it?"

"Mm. It's my way of telling you your mother will have my guts for garters if I get you too involved. She's made it very clear you're to be kept out of the loop." He studied Peter's face. "I assume your brother has let some things slip, but obviously he hasn't told you very much or you wouldn't be asking me." He took a sip of his coffee. "If one of the directors isn't telling you everything, then it would be out of line for me to do it for them. They're protecting you, Peter."

Peter huffed and looked out the window at the passing cars. "I don't need their protection."

"Oh, yes you do."

Peter looked back at Noah intently. Bennet added some sugar to his coffee and didn't look at him. "Okay," Peter said. He knew he wouldn't get anywhere pressing Noah and he had too much respect for him to try it anyway. "I'll ask Nathan. It's pretty tough to pin him down though."

Noah said carefully, "The board meeting's on the 6th. I'll be making a report on what we get from Ulstein. The information will be freshest in his mind afterwards. We'll probably be done at 8 or 9. He tends to walk home, but he doesn't look like himself when he does."

Peter nodded slowly. "Thank you, Noah. I know what you're saying."


	50. Everything I Know

The weather on the night of the 6th was miserable. It was sleeting and cold with a shifting, fitful wind. Peter sat in his car, assuming Nathan would avoid the weather and drive, but watching anyway just in case. He didn't think much about the butler leaving at 8:30. It was roughly the time his mother would dismiss him for the night. It was only when he realized the man wasn't getting into a car that he looked at him a second time. Peter tugged his hood closer over his head and pulled up his scarf. He got out of his vehicle. Sleet stung the exposed portions of his face so he kept his head down as he hurried after Grem.

The butler was walking more slowly. Peter caught up quickly. Grem paused in front of an alley and looked down it as if he heard something. Peter walked towards him. He got about 20 feet away when he was suddenly yanked through the air and into the alley, raised off the ground and slammed against the wall hard enough to drive the breath from him. He barely kept his head from hitting the wall. The pressure didn't let up, forcing the roughened edges of the bricks into his back. He couldn't breathe.

Grem walked closer, hand raised, eyes narrowed. They flew wide when the man recognized him. The hold released immediately and he slid to the ground with Nathan now stepping forward to catch him. "My God, Peter! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't realize it was you. Are you okay?"

Peter got his breath and pulled away from him. Nathan backed off. He was going to have some new bruises, but fortunately these wouldn't be as prominent. At least in the alley they were out of the driving sleet. After an awkward pause, Peter said, "You expect to be attacked while walking home?"

"It's happened before," Nathan said neutrally.

Peter didn't know what to say to that. If it was a realistic concern, then Peter walking up on him unannounced was dumb and Nathan's reaction had been justified, at least to an extent. His back had other things to say about it though. After another awkward pause, he said, "Can we go somewhere? It's cold and I want to talk."

Nathan nodded. "If you're okay going to my house?" Peter nodded. Nathan added, "Heidi's been having those fake contractions, Braxton-Hicks, I think they're called. I don't want to stay away any longer than I have to."

"Do you want me to take a look at her?"

Nathan's nodded. "That'd be great, Pete. Make me feel a lot better. She tells me it's nothing to be worried about… but I worry anyway. Anyway you can tell how long it will be would help. I need to know… when." His voice sounded choked at the end, but they'd just stepped out of the alley and back in the wind.

"Okay," Peter nodded. "It's not that precise though, you know? My car's over here." Peter gestured back the way he'd come and headed that way.

Nathan caught up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Peter looked at him and smiled a little. Nathan relaxed.

XXX

"I'm home! Peter's with me," Nathan called out and hung up his coat. He shifted his appearance, ridding himself of sleet and dampness, straightening his clothes. Peter looked at that, setting his first aid bag next to the door. "You use your powers constantly, don't you?"

Nathan looked back at him. "I love my abilities. Just wish I had better ones."

"You've got, what? Ten of them?"

Nathan looked off to the side and considered. "Hm. No, eleven now."

"Eleven?" Peter reached out and took Nathan's shoulder. He was **very** familiar with Nathan's file, having written a lot of it himself lately. "Now? Who?"

Nathan looked at him guardedly. "No one was hurt." He shrugged Peter off. Peter let him. Heidi walked in, or rather, waddled. She'd taken up the stride peculiar to gravid women.

"Hi Peter," she greeted him. "How are you doing? Take your coat off if you're staying. Would you like something?" She was much warmer towards him than ever before. The events of Christmas night had called a truce between them.

Peter smiled to see her, trying to shelve his apprehension about Nathan's increase in powers. He hung up his coat. "I'm okay. Something hot would be nice. Do you have some decaf coffee?"

"Sure. I'll go make some." She stopped to give Nathan a kiss.

He ran his hands across her arms lightly. "Everything okay?" he murmured to her.

"It's fine. You worry too much." She waddled off towards the kitchen. Nathan glanced at Peter and then followed her. Peter found his way to the parlor and sat down in an overstuffed chair.

Once in the kitchen alone, Nathan told Heidi, "I'd like Peter to check you, if that's okay?"

She turned and gave him a quizzical look after getting out the coffee. "God, you **are** worried. A house call?" She laughed. "I told you I had contractions for two weeks before Simon was born. I've only been having these off and on for two days."

He leaned against the counter and watched her busy herself with the coffee machine. His eyes lingered on her, dark with concern and haunted by his fears. When she was done, he said, "After that, Peter wants to ask me some things - privately. Are the boys in bed?"

"Yes, I sent them up just before you got here. Can you go up and check on them?"

He nodded. "Will do." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek before heading out. As he passed to the stairs he told Peter, "I need to check on the boys. If you could go talk to Heidi? I don't think I want to be there when you examine her." The idea of seeing Peter doing something intimate with Heidi made him want to throw one or both of them through a wall, even though he was perfectly aware of how silly that was under the circumstances.

Peter nodded and went to the kitchen. He made small talk with Heidi about the pregnancy. She suggested the guest room for doing the exam. He went back to get his bag and passed Nathan who was now sitting in the parlor, his expression troubled. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said tightly.

Peter got his bag and came back, stopping to look at Nathan. "Really, what's wrong?"

Nathan rolled his eyes and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. "Peter, you're about to go touch my wife… privately. I love you. I love her. Go do what you have to do." He looked away.

"Ah," Peter said and walked off quickly. He'd never been on the receiving end of a jealous husband after an examination of some kind, but he'd had the displeasure of witnessing it a couple times. The quicker he got it over with and the fewer details Nathan needed was probably the better. Heidi was much more comfortable about the process and was pleased when he confirmed she wasn't ready.

They both returned to the kitchen where Peter disposed of his gloves and washed his hands again out of habit. Heidi poured up three cups and handed Peter's to him. She said, "This talk you're going to have with him - what's it about? Can I be there?"

Peter sighed. "It's about things he doesn't want to tell me, about the Company. I doubt he wants you to know either. I intend to press him pretty hard. It… would be better if we were alone."

She considered that and nodded as they walked out. "Okay. I'll be upstairs. Yell if you need help. I'm pretty good at twisting his arm," she said of Nathan as they walked into the parlor. She handed her husband his coffee and told him, "You should go to the study. More soundproof. Tell Peter what he needs to know. You keep too many secrets as it is." She kissed Nathan's cheek after he stood up and then she headed upstairs.

Nathan looked at Peter. Peter said, "She's fine. Everything's good."

Nathan nodded and watched her slow progress up the stairs. "How long does she have?" he asked in a strangled tone of voice.

Peter said, "Pregnancies don't come with timers, but it will happen eventually no matter what. Not in the next few days, I'd say. The calmer you can keep her the better. No more running off and upsetting her, okay?"

Nathan nodded soberly. He exhaled and led the way to the study.

Nathan shut the door behind Peter and turned to face him. Peter took a seat and looked back. Before he could speak, Nathan said, "Precognitive dreaming. Angela Petrelli. September, 2010."

Peter's mouth opened but nothing came out for a moment. Finally he said, "How?"

"Something Dad taught me. I don't have to kill to take powers, but it's damned hard to do it that way."

"Oh." Peter studied Nathan's face. He was pretty sure he was telling the truth. He wished he'd swapped healing for lie detection. He'd used healing only under dire circumstances since the incident at Christmas. It was still a great help, but being certain of Nathan's statements would do a lot to set him at ease. He suspected that taking one of Nathan's powers now would end the conversation entirely. He would have to trust him. Peter asked, "What about that hearing thing? What's that from?"

Nathan sat down behind the desk. "That's from Samson Grey. Associated ability, like Sylar can detect if people have powers. I guess I can detect life, but it's a pretty stupid ability."

"Okay," Peter said. He didn't think that was a stupid ability at all, but then again he'd thought flight was wonderful. Nathan had thought it was stupid as well, freakish even. "About the dreaming - does Mom know?"

"Yeah. I told her, back in October. All I have is nightmares. She said that's all she had for years too. Said I'm too emotional and it won't get better until I'm not so conflicted. Like that's going to happen. Apparently a lot of people lose their marbles with this power. She's been showing me how to just block them out. That's easier, but then of course I can't see the future."

"If it makes you feel any better, I never had much luck with her ability either. It wasn't nightmares so much, but just confusing."

Nathan shook his head. "They're definitely nightmares for me."

Peter quirked a brow at him, but his brother was staring at the floor, eyes unfocused. Peter said, "What are you seeing?"

"Death. Most recently they're about Heidi. She's giving birth. It's somewhere else, not a hospital, somewhere she doesn't want to be. She's alone, she's afraid, she's screaming. There's a lot of blood." His voice shook. "She's screaming for help and no one comes." His fists clenched and released.

Peter got up and walked over to Nathan, putting a disquieted hand on his shoulder.

Nathan looked up at him, distraught, his voice catching. "I don't know how to stop it, Pete. I don't know how it even happens. They don't make it. Not her, not the baby. I've seen them dead. I tell myself that maybe it's a triggered hallucination put in there by Parkman… maybe on Ma's orders to get me to do something... I don't believe it though."

Peter's concern was on his face, but he couldn't think of what they could do. Heidi was safe upstairs. "You said the other night the future wasn't writ in stone. It can be changed." He frowned. "No wonder you're so worried about her."

"Fuck yes," Nathan said vehemently and looked back down. Peter's brows pulled together. Nathan rarely used that word. Even though he was on the verge of tears, it seemed out of place in Nathan's mouth, more fitting in Gabriel's. Peter hugged him anyway. It didn't matter anymore - certainly not when he was being tortured with visions of losing his wife and son.

Peter said, "She's not in labor yet. We'll just keep an eye on her, all the time."

Nathan nodded. "I've taken off work," he said and added, "These agents have been tracking us, me and Ma. I assume they're the ones who are going to take her, or they're scouts for whoever will. I got one of them out on the street a couple weeks ago, right after Christmas. I've been trying to make myself a target, but no luck other than that. There were three but the other two ran. I figured one was enough and Parkman could take him apart. He did, or he said he did and there was nothing there." Nathan snarled in frustration. "If it wasn't so likely, I'd take Maury apart myself."

"I don't think I know what you mean."

Nathan shook his head. "No, it's… complicated."

"More stuff the directors have decided I shouldn't know?" Peter's voice was edged with irritation.

Nathan nodded.

Peter huffed. "I gather that keeping me in the dark has been a topic of conversation at these meetings. Why?"

"If you know the future, you might do something, even accidentally, that would change it. Then we'd lose the tactical advantage - assuming we even have one."

"Am I that important to the future? The world will go on without me, you know."

Nathan looked up at him then. "No it won't, Peter. You're critical. So am I. It's why Ma's been so desperate to keep me alive in any form, even after I killed her son."

Peter didn't know what to say to that. Into the silence, Nathan said, "Ma like to had a fit when she found out I had her ability. That's what she said she was having Maury do: muzzle me somehow, help me block it. Far as I can tell it only worked partway, but obviously I can't talk to her about the dreams anymore. I guess I'm lucky I don't sleep much."

Peter rubbed his shoulder sympathetically, but there wasn't a lot he could say without knowing more. As if he could read his mind, Nathan looked up at him and sighed. "Okay, go sit back down. I'll tell you." When Peter was sitting on the couch again, leaning forward and paying close attention, Nathan went on, "Dad has telepathy on his own. He would have picked up Rene's ability when he gained your repertoire. We know he was always able to give orders and anyone who heard him had to obey them."

Peter smirked slightly. "Except the dog."

Nathan smiled too at the memory. "Yeah, except Iggy. So the process is you get hold of someone, trap them in their mind with telepathy and get to work on them. You erase everything inconvenient to you and since you're in their mind, they can't hide from you, they can't refuse to listen and they can't get away. You're right there, you see it, you take it out. Telepathy and memory manipulation by themselves are really powerful. You use them together and you get synergy - they compliment each other.

"Once you've taken out everything you don't want, you start giving orders. You're in their head - they can't pretend they misunderstood you or get away with hackneyed interpretations. You can see which orders their basic personality will conflict with, which ones they'll fight and be able to get some leverage against. You can deal with that by cutting away more of themselves or tweaking the orders a bit, maybe burning it into them with more force. Again, it's a synergy - combined, the powers remove each other's weaknesses.

"You can create the perfect Manchurian candidate or fanatically loyal followers. There are other abilities that let you change personality at a core level, but the Company never used those on a routine basis. They never had regular access to them. Dad might though."

Peter blanched. "You mean the Company **did** use this process on people routinely?"

"Every agent. Every single one of them, Peter," he said quietly.

Peter blinked. "Wh- What?"

Nathan nodded. "They have an oath of loyalty all the agents take when they start their career. Requires absolute obedience, up to and including suicide orders. There's no way a person can apply something so broad without a lot of free will, but it's worded so the agent ends up having to interpret everything as much as possible to fulfill the interests of the Company, as expressed by the upper management, the directors. Obviously strong willed people, over time, can work around parts of it… I guess. But once a Company man, always a Company man.

"It's why we needed a telepath. We can only do it partway right now, but it's only a matter of time until we pick up someone cooperative who has the other abilities. Rene's not a candidate for day to day stuff like this. He used to do it, but he's grown a conscience since… since what Angela had done to me. In any case, Maury's advanced enough with telepathy he can twist it to compensate. It's not as clean, has a higher chance of inducing insanity, but we're doing it anyway. Better crazy than disloyal, I guess."

Peter turned it over in his mind. "That's terrible, Nathan. That's… that's awful." He physically recoiled from the mental rape Nathan had described, his features clouding, lip curling in disgust. A part of his mind pointed out that it wasn't too different from what his mother had had Matt Parkman do to Nathan. Unable to handle it, he moved on to considering the agents Nathan had spoken of who were following him. "These people… they wouldn't even be working against you voluntarily. They're victims."

Nathan shrugged. "Victims or not, they have to be stopped. They're involved. The future I've seen has my wife and son dead. I could give a fuck about their free will if they're the ones who do that."

"Have you told anyone about this?"

"Who can I tell? Just Ma and Maury and they know about the dreams, I've told them. I gave them the agent I caught. They **know**. They're not doing anything. There's no one else I can go to." He voice caught and he stopped talking. Nathan shook his head, brows drawn together in pain. His hands began clutching at his clothes. He started rocking in his seat, then caught himself and stopped with a sudden inhalation just as Peter began to rise to go to him.

Nathan straightened up, smoothed his expression and looked professional and unworried. He waved Peter off casually. The younger man blinked at the transition, which didn't involve the use of abilities at all. In a level, rational voice, Nathan asked, "I'm fine. Sit down. What was it you wanted to talk about anyway, that was so important you staked out Ma's house and chased me through the sleet?"

Peter eyed him, sinking back to the couch. Nathan looked perfectly calm and attentive. If he hadn't seen him falling apart seconds before, he would have never guessed. Slowly he said, "How long can you keep that up?"

"Keep what up, Peter?"

"How long can you just shut off your feelings?"

Dryly he said, "Maybe one day I'll be able to do it in my sleep like Ma can. I can't fall apart right now. It wouldn't help anything. What did you want to talk about?"

Peter exhaled. He didn't like whatever Nathan was doing. It reminded him of how he'd acted drunk at the party or the stark transition between Nathan and Gabriel. Peter said, "I need to know about the Company and what they're doing. They're doing things to you. It's affecting you. I need to know what's going on."

Nathan smiled thinly. "It's not just about me. You remember last year, you told me that I didn't know what I was getting into?" The older man smirked at him. "You were so right. Ma's going to use you and I to bring down Dad. That's the simple version. The problem is I don't know the details. Neither does she, really. We're having to feel our way through this with glimpses and pieces of the puzzle. We really need one of those probability guys. Do you want the longer version?"

"Of course," Peter replied.

Nathan shrugged. "It won't help you. But fine. The longer version is that we've got agents, specialists, people with powers we've been recruiting - all those first contacts you've been making? We talk those over and pick who to follow up with, who to approach. They all have their roles to play. We have investments, facilities, resources. We have laboratories working on the formula, working on augmentation and blocking processes, working on weapons and drugs. That paralytic you used on me isn't off the shelf. We have neutralizer darts just finished that Bennet should be carrying next time you go out.

"We have three other doubled-up agent teams like yours that will start operations in the next two months or already have. Rene's on one of them. Parkman's on another - Matt, that is. Raymond's on the third. He comes highly recommended from England and he's managing European operations. We've opened relations with the Consortium in China and are keeping up with Yamagato in Japan. We're monitoring the ILD in northern India and Halo Group in Saudi Arabia and the US. We hold the European market and the US, as such things go, though there are at least seven other groups co-operating in the same areas with different goals. They don't conflict with us, so we stay out of their way.

"There's a couple scattered groups across the globe we're trying to come to terms with - small ones, cults of personality. They don't have much reach beyond their own abilities, which are usually physical or emotional. The powerful stuff, dangerous stuff, always involves knowledge.

"All of this involves supervision and direction or more frequently personal involvement. I only spend about half my time in the law firm. The rest of the time is spent herding cats for the Company. Ma and Maury are the same way. I understand why they had twelve directors before. We're not even trying to accomplish much of anything except keeping the lights on.

"We don't know much about our enemy. The important points are that Dad has layered precognition and time/space manipulation. Regeneration too, but that doesn't matter much. He doesn't have to steal powers anymore. All he has to do is be near them, like you used to be. If this fight's going to be solved with powers, then it's already over and he's won."

Peter sat quietly, absorbing that. It was a much more thorough answer than he thought he'd ever get out of anyone claiming a last name of Petrelli. Somehow it didn't answer his basic questions though. When it was clear Nathan was done, he asked, "Are you sure Dad's the enemy?"

Nathan smiled. "Very perceptive, Pete."

"What does that mean?"

"I've given you all the information I can - everything I know, without the details, and excepting the things we've decided not to tell you."

Peter took a deep breath and looked away, frustrated. Nathan chuckled and said, "It's like that for me too, Pete. I thought I'd get some explanations out of all this. All I have is more questions."


	51. Empty Nest

They talked about other things for a while, with Peter probing for details on some of the Company business he hadn't heard about. He was especially interested in the other groups. Nathan filled him in with what he could recall offhand.

After a few hours, Peter looked at his watch (it was still that "digital thing", Nathan noticed with annoyance) and said, "I need to get going pretty quick. I've got the midnight shift and with the sleet, I'm sure we'll have plenty of calls." He stood up and stretched, twisting his head back and forth. "Oh, one other thing. Come here."

Nathan had risen with him and now came around the desk.

Peter turned and pointed at his neck. "Look at this. **You** did this to me and this is a week old now. I've had people asking me questions, questions I shouldn't have to be answering."

Nathan reached up to touch the greenish spots, stroking his fingers over them lightly.

Peter looked back at the touch and caught sight of his expression. It wasn't displeased, which offended Peter. "Hey," he said. "You do **not** do this to me. Do you understand that? Nathan? Gabriel? Either one of you."

Nathan's eyes drifted to Peter's. He gave him a guilty smile and looked down, an odd look on his face. "I understand you. I won't do it again." He reached up to touch Peter's marks a second time. Peter resisted the urge to slap him away, since he didn't feel he was getting the reaction he should be, even if Nathan had said the right words. His brother drew him over and kissed his neck lightly.

"What are you _**doing**_?" Peter asked.

"Hopefully I'll never do this to you again. Let me enjoy it while I've got it." Nathan kissed a different spot.

Peter turned away, which was fine with Nathan since the bruises were mainly on the back of his neck. It hid the look of disgust Peter had. After another round of having his bruises fondled he pulled away, shaking Nathan off. "Don't… don't do that. That's creepy. It's not right. I don't like that. I don't like even _thinking_ you get off on hurting me."

"I didn't get off from it. I don't want to hurt you. But I do want you to be mine."

Peter gave him a hard look. "I belong to **me**."

"Okay," Nathan looked at him mildly.

Peter was angry now. "What do you mean 'okay'?"

Nathan remained unruffled, but on the other hand he'd shown remarkable control over his emotions already tonight. Peter couldn't read him right now. Nathan said, "I mean I agree. You belong to you. You set the rules - I follow them. You don't like it rough. I'm sorry I hurt you. I should have… had that…" He blinked as if struggling to find the words. "…more in the forefront of my mind."

Peter stepped closer and looked him directly in the eyes. He wanted - he **needed** to feel he was getting through. "Do **not** mark me. I'm not _yours_. I'm with you because I _**want**_ to be. I'm not going to be with anyone who doesn't treat me the way I want to be treated. Do you understand me, Gabriel?" He used the other man's name deliberately, because he knew this was **not** Nathan's fixation he was addressing. Nathan had never been violent in the least - a little pushy or insensitive at times, but never violent.

Nathan blinked at him slowly. "Don't call me that in this house." Somewhere behind his eyes Peter saw an unspoken threat.

Peter took a deep breath and considered what Nathan was saying, instead of reacting emotionally to his expression. It was Nathan's house and Nathan's life he was living here. Calling him Gabriel threatened that and regardless of his name, this family and the trust they'd placed in him was very important to him. Peter glanced around the room and looked back at him. "You've got a point. I agree. I won't. But _do you understand_? This is important to me."

Nathan nodded soberly and said, "I understand you." Very slowly and with great emphasis he said, "I won't do it again." _Much as I might want to._ After a beat he smiled and added, "You're mad at me."

Peter exhaled and stepped away from him, feeling he'd gotten through to the other man. "I'll get over it."

"No, no, that's not my point." Nathan sounded pleased. Peter eyed him. "You're _mad_ at me. You haven't been comfortable enough with me to be mad for… a long time. Months maybe. Not since the party at the end of summer, really. You wouldn't be mad if you were still afraid of me." He paused and looked at Peter appraisingly. "You **trust** me."

Peter relaxed himself and rolled his shoulders somewhat. He looked at the ceiling. "Okay. Yeah, I do." _Within limits, but it's a start._ He hadn't thought about how careful he'd been in dealing with Nathan, how cautious he'd had to be. Now that he thought about it, getting in Nathan's face about something was quite a departure. Peter was comfortable with him. It seemed like a good description for it.

Nathan smiled warmly.

Peter shook his head. "I still have to go. I have work." And comfortable or not, he was still annoyed. Explaining to Emma had been the worst - or rather, not explaining. Everyone else at work had accepted his line about a drunk manhandling him at his mother's party. He opened the door to the study and walked into the hall.

Nathan followed him. "You know, Peter, if you ever need money-"

"It's not about the money. You know that. It never has been."

"I know. But the money's easy. What you're doing is harder."

Peter smiled at him and put on his coat. He glanced up the staircase towards the master bedroom. "Keep an eye on Heidi. Call me if anything happens. I'll drop everything. Okay?"

Nathan nodded. Picking up his first aid bag again, Peter headed out.

XXX

Nathan knocked around downstairs for a few minutes, thinking over the conversation. He was amused that Peter was miffed about the bruises. He wouldn't do it again for that reason - he didn't want Peter to be angry with him. He'd really loved seeing them there though, a tangible sign they'd been together. It made him smile.

The house seemed awfully quiet. He leaned against the banister and _listened_. Very faintly, he could hear his sons sleeping, strains of music concealed in their every breath and pulse of heartbeat. He'd discovered that here at the base of the stairs he could hear most of the house. The acoustics were best there. He cocked his head and started up the stairs. He couldn't hear anything else.

He walked in the master bedroom. "Heidi?" She wasn't in bed. In fact, the bed was undisturbed. At this hour, in her condition, she should be in bed even if she was only resting or dozing. He and Peter had been talking for hours. He looked in the bathroom, but his blood had already turned to ice water. He knew it was empty. "Heidi?" There was no answer.

He walked back into the bedroom and stood there for at least a full minute, unable to think. There was nothing out of place, like she'd never made it to the room. Out of nowhere the thought came to him that maybe she'd come downstairs earlier to get something from the kitchen and then stayed there to give them privacy.

He walked out of the room and didn't bother with the stairs. He vaulted the railing and flew down to land roughly on the ground floor. He staggered on landing as if he'd fallen as much as he'd flown, wondering distantly why that was. He pushed open the kitchen door, but she wasn't there either. Her purse was sitting on the shelf where she usually kept it when she was home. He called out, nearly shouting, "HEIDI!" There was no answer. He put his forehead to the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. _I should have kissed her before she went upstairs._

Methodically, he searched the rest of the house, even sneaking into his son's rooms, checking closets, the attic, the garage and crawlspaces. He was glad the boys didn't know. He'd already made contingency arrangements for full-time care for them for two weeks. He'd told the nanny and Heidi it was for him to help her with the baby, but he knew it was so he could recover, at least a little, from the loss.

He collapsed into the chair in the parlor. He pulled out his phone and stared at it. It was too late to call the nanny. He'd do it in the morning. He couldn't leave to sulk or mourn on a bridge or watch the clouds. He needed to stay in case one of the boys woke. He dialed Peter.

His brother answered, "Hello?"

"Hi, Pete." His voice sounded tired and drained even to himself. "They took her. It's over."

"What? What?" Peter sounded alarmed. Vaguely, it occurred to Nathan that he should be feeling something himself, but right now all he felt was resigned and empty.

He said numbly, "They took her. While we were talking. She's gone."

"Gone…?"

"They probably teleported. You said to call if… if anything… So. Good-bye." He hung up and rested his head on his fists, rocking it back and forth between them.

XXX

The doorbell rang and then after a long pause it rang again, but he didn't pay it any attention. When the pounding started on his front door, he finally got himself up and went to let Peter in. He didn't really want to talk to Peter, but he didn't want the knocking to wake his sons. He said nothing, just opening the door and walking off back to his seat.

"What happened?" Peter asked, pacing restlessly. He looked frantic.

Nathan fell in the chair again like a puppet with its strings cut. He didn't feel anything but hollowed out, like an animal that had been gutted, the most important part of himself torn away. "I went upstairs. She's not there. I searched the house. She's not here. She's gone. Taken. It's over."

Peter looked around the room. It seemed the same as it had been earlier, but somehow emptier now that he knew Heidi was missing. "Are Monty and Simon okay?"

Nathan nodded. "Slept through it."

Peter swallowed. Nathan went on, "I already have arrangements for them while I… pull myself together, if I can." He looked off to one side, his brows pulling together slightly in distress. "Two weeks. I should-" Something inside of Nathan snapped. He ended.

When Nathan didn't go on, Peter knelt next to him. "Nathan?" His brother kept looking off to the side, eyes unfocused. Peter pulled him forward into an embrace. He didn't resist, but he didn't respond either.

Finally Nathan patted him as if it were the younger man who needed comfort. "It's okay, Peter. It's okay." His voice sounded odd, like Gabriel's.

Peter leaned back for a moment and looked at Nathan's strained face. He wanted to rail at him that it wasn't okay and he knew it, but Peter just hugged him again. Nathan had never dealt well with losing loved ones. No one really did. Psychologically, Gabriel was much more resilient. When Nathan had remained wooden for some minutes, Peter moved to the couch. "We'll find her. You said the Company had Molly working for them. She can find Heidi, then we'll go get her."

The older man shook his head. His voice still didn't match his features, as if he was literally coming apart inside. "I don't want to find her. I've _seen_ it, Peter. I don't want to see it… myself. She's dead. They're both dead by the time we get to them."

"No! No! Nathan…" Peter put himself in front of him, taking his chin and making him look at him. "That's just a possibility. We can change it. It doesn't have to happen that way."

Nathan blinked at him. "Pete… it **does** happen that way."

"No, it doesn't **have** to. We've saved the world before when everyone was predicting the end. New York didn't explode, the virus wasn't released, the world didn't break apart. We can do this. You've got to help me."

Nathan stared at him blankly, retreating inside his mind again. Peter pulled out his phone and walked away from him. He looked at it for a long moment, then back at Nathan. It wasn't a conversation he wanted to have over the phone. He walked back to his brother and shook his shoulder gently until he looked up at him. "If I leave for a few hours, will you stay here?"

Nathan said, "I have to. Until the nanny can get here in the morning."

Peter nodded. "Good. I'll be back before then." He left.

XXX

The door to the Petrelli mansion was opened by his mother's bodyguard. The man looked about as annoyed as you could expect for being woken at midnight. Peter didn't bother with preamble. "I need to see my mother, now. Go tell her I'm here and I have to talk to her. It's an emergency."

That wiped the irritation off the big man's face. He went. Peter looked around the room. He had an odd feeling of being watched. He studied the room carefully. Although no one was there, he still felt it. He closed his eyes and thought. The other time he'd felt this was the moment before Nathan had looked out his apartment door, before Christmas, when he'd broken in. Peter had felt him before he'd seen him. He was feeling something here, but he was sure it wasn't Nathan.

His mother came out, tying her nightgown around herself. "Peter?" He looked at her and said nothing, trying to decide if it was safe to talk with the other presence in the room. He wasn't worried about the bodyguard, who had followed Angela out. She inhaled slowly at his silence. "It's happened then. I thought we still had a few weeks, maybe a month. There's nothing to be done now. I'm sorry."

Peter's eyes flashed. "No," he said. "We're going to find her. We're going to save her. You're going to help me. She's carrying your grandson."

Angela tilted her head slightly. She didn't need to speak to let Peter know she didn't share his point of view on the child's paternity. It was an odd attitude for her to take, given how much she facilitated Gabriel's impersonation of her son.

"Tell me where Molly is," he demanded.

"No."

"What?" he stepped towards her, reaching an open hand to her, his expression caught between pleading and outraged. "Ma! We'll find her."

"Peter, if I tell you, you're only going to risk yourself. This isn't something one person can do alone."

"I know that! That's why you have to tell me."

She looked at him intently, appraisingly. "You'll have to find Molly yourself. I'm not going to help you." Angela turned away and walked back to her room. The blond muscleman stood aside for her to pass and then stepped between her and Peter. Peter glared at him briefly, then turned on his heel and walked out.


	52. Preparing for Launch

**A/N: Holy crossover, Batman! Fringe will not have a prominent role in this fanfic. It's just a convenient background element. I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn't watched it.**

Peter pulled out his phone on the way out to his car. He'd called his work on the way over to his mother's place and made vague excuses involving his pregnant sister-in-law. It was nearly the truth. Now he dialed Noah.

His partner answered on the fourth ring. "Um… Peter?" He sounded sleepy.

"Noah. Heidi's gone missing. Nathan thinks she's been abducted by enemies of the Company. My mother seems to think the same. What's your take?"

"Um." Peter could hear Bennet take a deep breath. "Yeah… it's uh, it's possible. There was… there was going to be an attack."

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh."

"Tell me more." He started his car and pointed it in the direction of Noah's apartment. It was hours away. "Wait. Where are you?" It occurred to him if Noah was at the board meeting earlier that night and he was already asleep, then he probably hadn't driven back home.

"I'm… why?"

"Because I'm going to come get you. I need your help."

Noah seemed to fully wake all of a sudden, "I'll meet you. Where?"

"Come to Nathan's house. Do you remember the address?"

"Not sure I've ever been there," Noah said cagily. Peter gave him directions even though he was pretty sure from Noah's tone he knew exactly where it was. "Okay. I'll be there in an hour. Is Gabriel there?"

"Yes. Is there a problem with that?"

"I hope not." With that ambiguous answer, Noah hung up.

Peter shook his head and took the next left, heading to his apartment to pick up a few things before going back to Nathan's.

XXX

Peter hurried up the steps to see Noah waiting near the door. Noah waved at the house. "No one answered."

"Yeah, he's not handling it well. He's shutting down," Peter said and opened the door. He hadn't locked it when he'd left. Nathan was still sitting where he's last seen him, staring at the floor like a broken robot. He didn't even acknowledge their presence. Noah turned to Peter, who said, "I need to know where Molly Walker is."

Noah's eyes flickered to Nathan, who was still staring off into space. Noah said, "Last I heard, Matt Parkman was asking for help on adopting her. He's living in Boston while on assignment with the Fringe Division. She's probably with him."

Peter looked over at Nathan for a minute. He turned back to Noah. "Will you help me? It's your godson."

Noah sighed and shut his eyes for a long moment. "I don't know why he did that."

"Asked you to be the godfather?"

Noah nodded. Peter said, "Why did you accept?"

"If any child needs help, that one will. Of course I'll help you. That's why you called me. You knew I wouldn't say no." He made it sound like an accusation.

Peter smiled. "Yeah. That and I wanted to see if I could squeeze any more information out of you. Nathan told me all kinds of things, but not what it has to do with me or him or Heidi. You said you knew there was going to be an attack?"

"Yes. Angela has guards with her at all times and a security detail watching her house - this one too, by the way. There have been at least two incidents of other agents being seen. Gabriel caught one who was part of a team of three. I wasn't involved in the interrogation. I gather it didn't yield anything useful except to confirm we're dealing with people with powers and no compunctions against using them."

Peter shifted his weight back and forth. "Do you know **why**? What are they after? If they want to stop us, a sniper round would do just fine for most of us. Maybe not him, but the rest of us." He indicated Nathan.

"They need you. And him. Whatever they're going to do, you're components of it."

"What are they going to do?"

Noah shook his head sadly. "I don't know, Peter. I give my reports, get my orders and go on. They talk mentally sometimes when Maury is there. He coordinated a discussion between them at the December meeting. It ended with Gabriel telling your mother that he'd find a way to save you with or without her help. That part was out loud, verbal. The rest wasn't."

"Save **me**?" Peter thought about that. Early December - that was when Nathan had told him his mother knew how to get his full powers back. Nathan had thought she might have done something to Peter because of an argument his older brother had with her. He said, "I'm not in any danger. Heidi is."

Noah shrugged. "I've been at this a long time, Peter. They're getting ready for something. They're having private discussions. They're arguing about direction and priorities and how to respond to some upcoming event. They're not in agreement and I feel that dissension very clearly."

Peter looked down and nodded. He took a deep breath and said, "Nathan told me about the oath of loyalty."

Noah was silent. It confirmed everything.

Peter rolled his head back and forth and rubbed the lingering soreness at the back of his neck. He couldn't think of what to do for his friend. The issue with Heidi was more urgent, anyway. He asked, "Is that all you know?"

"It's all I can tell you."

At Peter's look he said defensively, "Everything else is just speculation, Peter."

"Then speculate."

"No. I **can't**. My orders are explicit." Noah gestured at Nathan. "If you can get him to tell me to tell you, then I can. But since he hasn't told you himself, I doubt he'll do it. He's sitting right there, listening to us and he's not saying a thing. What I **can** tell you is that I don't think I know anything that would help you."

Peter sighed. "Okay. Let's catch a few hours sleep and then we'll drive to Boston. I want to be there by six - see if we can't catch them before they head to work."

"We could just call."

"No," Peter shook his head. "We need to be there in person." He waved at his brother. "We'll leave him here. I don't think he'd do anything to Matt, but he might and this isn't a good time to be testing his control." He started to walk off, "Here, let me show you the guest room." As he went he pointed out the kitchen in case Noah wanted anything. After showing him in Peter went back to the parlor and knelt next to Nathan.

He stared into the other man's eyes, so familiar to him after all these years, until there was finally a flicker of recognition in them. It took a distressingly long time. Nathan twitched slightly as if any level of response to the world around him took a great effort. "Nathan," Peter asked. "What is it you won't tell me?"

Nathan's voice sounded hoarse, unused, but at least it was Nathan's voice, for the most part. "You won't stop. I'll lose both of you."

Peter swallowed. _That's why. It makes sense. You won't tell me because you think I'll die if I help you._ After a beat he said, "Does it save Heidi?"

"They're dead. They die. I thought it was a choice. Now I can't tell."

Peter tilted his head. "A choice?"

"Yes," Nathan looked more miserable, if that was possible. "You or her, her and the baby or you." His voice broke. He jerked as he tried to keep control of himself, blinking furiously.

Peter inhaled slowly. "That's not a difficult choice, Nathan." _A woman with her baby who never wanted to be part of this, or a man who knows what he's getting into. That one's easy._ He stroked his brother's arm.

Nathan looked away. "I know. I know, Pete. You were my world." He reached out and tousled Peter's hair. "Go. Find Parkman. He'll tell you things you don't want to know, because he can see the future too. If it can't be stopped, you'll be back and we'll go together, because I've seen it - I will see it."

Peter huffed. The fatalism was irritating. "Do you know where she is? Can we just short-circuit this?"

Nathan shook his head. "She's in a building. We're in a building. Concrete walls, crappy blue and white ceramic tiles on the floor with blood all over them… there aren't any landmarks or signs. How we got there wasn't important."

Peter asked, "Is there anything else? Is that the big secret you and mom have been hiding? That I might die trying to save Heidi?"

"Might?" Nathan said dubiously. "Hff. Ma says there's a number of ways for it to play out. The more I tinker with the timeline by explaining it to you, the less likely it will come to pass as we've seen it. Since it sucks anyway, I can't see the harm in it. Ma's certain if we don't let this happen, worse things will be - the dark future, she calls it."

Peter asked, "She thinks… Heidi's death, maybe mine, is required to prevent something worse from happening?"

Nathan nodded. Peter shook his head dismissively. "She's had some pretty hare-brained ideas about necessary sacrifices before. They've been wrong too. We'll save Heidi. Don't give up on me, Nathan." He leaned in and kissed Nathan on the forehead. "Come on, get up. Get upstairs and get some sleep, or at least lay on the bed and rest. The boys need you. I need you. I'm not dead yet and neither is Heidi or the baby."

He tugged Nathan to his feet and marched him up the stairs. Nathan pulled a pillow off the bed and lay on the floor. Peter looked at that and sighed, but didn't say anything. He went downstairs to sleep on the couch himself, setting the alarm on his phone. He didn't think he'd sleep. He had too much going on in his mind. His schedule had gotten turned around a few days ago when Jackson, the primary supervisor at work, had the bright idea to rotate him to the midnight shift. Jackson had told him sarcastically this way his relatives and in-laws wouldn't interfere with his work. Fat chance of that.

XXX

The next morning, Peter stood in Matt Parkman's dining room, looking at a large corkboard that covered most of one wall. It was labeled "US" and "THEM" at the top, neatly divided in two with white tape. On the "US" side were pictures of government agents, mostly FBI. Near the bottom were wallet-sized pictures of Molly, Matt, and his Company partner David Wilcox. Under each picture was information about the person, usually limited to title and organization, but a few also had phone numbers and abilities.

He bent down to look at the phone numbers under Matt and Wilcox's names. He pulled out his phone and input them. If he needed to get in touch with Molly again, he would need the contacts. Besides, since Matt seemed to be walking the straight and narrow these days, or at least trying to, it might be good to talk to him sometimes. Maybe he could give him some insight on what to do about the programming Company agents received.

One of the FBI agents, a willowy blonde woman, was listed as a clairvoyant. Lined up on either side of the tape were people from pharmaceutical and bioengineering companies. With a frown, he noticed three Pinehearst employees. He hadn't known Pinehearst was still in operation after having their headquarters blown up. Pharmatech was also up there - it was another group with Company ties.

Clustered away from the tape on the "THEM" side was a fairly random assortment of people and criminals. Nearly all of them had powers and about half of them had a second picture pinned to their mug shot. The second picture was of their corpse, in most cases, mutilated or mutated. There were colored threads connecting individuals from one side to the other. He recognized one of the deceased as a sonic projector he and Noah had contacted back in September. He looked like he'd been burned to death.

Matt walked in. "Okay. Here's the address. She's in France."

"France?"

"Yeah." He handed Peter a piece of paper with the address. "I'm not going."

Peter nodded. "I know. Not asking. I don't think it would be safe to put you and Nathan in the same room."

"You mean Gabriel?"

Peter rubbed at his eyes. "Yeah." _Noah and Matt never call him Nathan._ "Listen, I've got a second favor to ask of you."

"What's that?" Parkman sounded unaccountably wary.

"I need you to see what you can get out of Noah Bennet without hurting him. He knows something about the future, something my mother or Gabriel has let slip and he won't tell me." Matt began shaking his head. Peter went on, "No, Matt. I've thought about this. He's not going to like it, but he understands why I'm doing it. I don't think he'll resist it." This was why he'd insisted he and Bennet come in person. He'd left Noah in the car so he could talk to Matt about it.

Matt said, "No, he'll **have** to resist it. And anyway, I won't. I don't do that sort of stuff to people I know. Not anymore. It's… too painful. Peter… come look at something."

Peter followed him into Matt's bedroom. He pulled out a sketchbook from under his bed and flipped through it. The last drawing, in colored charcoals, stared up at him. It was Matt Parkman with his throat cut and the top of his head missing. In the foreground, someone's hand was reaching for the body. The drawing was made as though from the perspective of this person. In the background stood an older man, looking down at the scene and smiling. It looked uncannily like Arthur Petrelli.

"He's alive," Matt said.

Peter swallowed. "I know." It was upsetting to see confirmation of it though.

Matt's eyes widened. After a beat he flipped to the previous picture. It was of a brown-haired woman with a babe ripped from her womb by c-section, still connected with the umbilical. The woman's face was turned away, but she looked dead. The baby was blue where he wasn't covered with blood. Both were surrounded by a shining golden aura. There were blue and white tiles on the floor beneath them, blood splattered across the floor. Peter shuddered. _This was what Nathan saw. Multiple people with precognition are all seeing the same thing. What does that mean? Is it unavoidable? It can't be._

"That's the woman who's missing?" Matt asked cautiously. Peter nodded, but didn't say anything. Matt flipped to the next page back. It showed Noah Bennet stabbing a man Peter thought was Gabriel in the chest while a blurred figure in the background reached for them. Gabriel's face looked like it had been riddled with bullets. Matt closed the sketch book. "The ones before that are related to my cases. I stopped drawing after… after seeing my death. I'm not going with you. I don't want to die. The one with my death has the same tile pattern as this other, I guess that's Heidi? If I don't go there, it can't happen."

"I wasn't going to ask you," Peter said numbly. _How many of us have to die to preserve this supposedly better future? Is it really worth it, Ma?_ Peter looked down at the address. France was a long flight away. He felt he understood enough now of why his mother didn't want Peter to know what was unfolding. He couldn't stand by now that he knew. If his acting would save these people and change the future, then act he would.

XXX

Gabriel was sitting on the steps outside Nathan's house when they returned around ten in the morning. Peter got out of the car and walked over to him. Noah followed a few steps behind. Peter asked, "What's going on?"

"I woke up like this." Gabriel turned his hands over and indicated his face. "Nathan's gone. I called the nanny. She's here. I told her I'm a friend of the family and Nathan had to leave - emergency."

"Nathan's… gone?"

"Peter, it's not his life if you take all the people out of it."

Peter rolled his eyes. The fatalism was **really** irritating. "All the people aren't out of it. None of them are yet. Get up and pull yourself together if you can. We need to go to France. That's where Heidi is. Can you carry me?"

Gabriel did not stir. "I don't think I can fly."

"What?"

"I said I don't think I can fly. I can't do anything. I can't shift back to Nathan… I can't. The only thing I seem to have left is telekinesis."

Peter blinked at him and sighed, sinking down to the step next to the other man. He put an arm around him and looked up at Bennet, who had an unreadable expression. Losing powers during times of great stress was not uncommon, especially for depression or grief. It just hadn't occurred to Peter.

He said, "Okay. Change of plans then. We'll get tickets and take a plane. Might work out better, because then Noah can come with us. He's the only one no one's predicting to die, anyway." Peter smiled. Neither Noah nor Gabriel looked amused. He patted Gabriel's shoulder. "Look at it this way - there's no chance of a surprise eclipse happening and getting dumped in the middle of the Atlantic."

Gabriel shrugged, unmoved. "Okay."

XXX

One very long transatlantic plane ride later, they checked into a hotel in Paris. Gabriel's French was a little rusty, but he still spoke it serviceably. Peter was glad to notice this as it meant Nathan's memories were still there even if Gabriel wasn't able to summon any of his personality to the fore. The next morning they'd take their rental car south to the address they'd been given. Peter hoped she was still there and hadn't been moved. If she were, he'd just call Matt back for a redo.

He shared a room with Gabriel, whose only input on it had been to specify two beds. Once in the room, Peter tried to go to him but was rebuffed. Gabriel told him, "No. Stay away." His tone was gentle, but he didn't allow argument, settling in on his bed and turning his back. Peter sat on the other bed, frustrated Gabriel was mourning people who weren't dead yet, mourning losing Peter when he was right there. He might even be _causing_ deaths by emotionally checking out.

_Maybe another night of sleep will help_, he thought. He thought of his hospice training. There was a time to engage with a grieving person, but unless they were contemplating harming themselves or others it was best to give them space when they asked for it. He slept uneasily, made worse by the occasional sounds of suffering Gabriel made in his sleep, distressed by whatever the visions showed him.


	53. Searching

When he woke, Gabriel remained distant. While the other man showered, Peter crossed to Noah's room and knocked. Bennet was finishing getting ready. He invited Peter in and handed him a Kevlar vest. After looking at Peter's shirt, he handed him a lightweight undershirt. "Here, use this. You'll be sweating after an hour with what you have on."

Peter turned his back and changed. He didn't see Noah's eyes lingering on the fresh bruises purpling his back. As he put on the vest, Noah said, "So how did Gabriel react to Heidi being taken?"

"Like you've seen. He's in shock, depressed, can't seem to bring himself to think there's any chance to save her. I hope he engages pretty soon or we'll have to leave him in the car."

"He wasn't violent?" Noah asked.

"No. The opposite. He just shut down." Peter pocketed a taser and checked the type of darts in a dart gun. He refused to carry a regular pistol or anything that had a good chance of killing, a choice he made over Bennet's well-reasoned objections. He did have a knife, but he carried that because it had too many uses outside of combat.

"What about before?"

"Um…" He holstered the dart gun, content with fast-acting tranquilizers. He tried to think of how Nathan had acted before she was taken. "He was fine. Worried. He knew it was coming, but he didn't expect it that night."

"Would you say he was frustrated?"

Peter looked at him, not sure where the line of questions was going. "I suppose so. He was certainly hair-trigger. Let's get the rest of this stuff packed up. I don't think he needs to be carrying a weapon. I'll see if I can get him into that older vest of yours. It should fit him okay, even if he can't change it with shape-shifting."

Noah nodded and let him change the subject.

XXX

They arrived at the address two hours later. It was an unassuming-looking white concrete building in a light industrial district. The sign out front had been painted over, making it unclear what company owned it or was currently in residence. The parking lot was empty. The building looked vacant and perhaps abandoned.

Gabriel had remained silent through the drive despite Peter's repeated attempts to engage him in conversation. Peter and Noah got out of the front of the car. As Gabriel started out the back, Peter put his hand on the door and said, "No. Stay in the car."

The other man pushed the door open anyway and got out. "Fuck that. I'm not your trained dog. I had enough of that 'stay here' bullshit with him, back in the day." He jerked his head at Noah, who was regarding him coolly.

Peter backed up a step, surprised as much by Gabriel speaking as he was by his ill temper. It also marked only the second time Gabriel had refused outright to do what Peter told him. The first time had gone very badly for Peter. Noah said, "I seem to recall that ended with a man getting murdered when you couldn't control yourself."

Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out, straightening to his full, rather intimidating height. "Thank you, Noah. That really brings me back." He shook his hands a little, loosening them. "Let's let this dog off the leash, shall we?" He threw his shoulders back and held his head high, moving forward aggressively towards the main entrance. Noah glanced at Peter, who looked worried. Both of them followed.

The double doors unlocked and flew open before him, barely staying open long enough for Bennet and Peter to get inside. The front of the building was offices and conference rooms. Gabriel started through them haphazardly, throwing open doors and tossing furniture with his power. Noah took a much more methodical approach. Peter ranged between them, staying free to react and trying to cover both men.

After a very short time and a lot of unnecessary destruction, Gabriel stalked back to Peter, threatening him with his body language. "Wrong address! She's not here. Did it ever occur to you that Matt Parkman isn't the most reliable man in the world? That he might have motives and reasons for giving you the wrong location? Maybe even the wrong continent? Do you know what happened to the last precogs who were inconvenient to your father?"

Peter bristled and did not back down. "He didn't lie to me. They must have moved her." Matt had been determined to find a way to avert his death. Peter shoved away the suspicions. Matt was one of the good guys… or at least he had been at one time. He'd gone considerably off the deep end after, or perhaps before, the incident with Sylar last year. He'd abused his powers in sick ways only a telepath could do. Rumor had it that Maury had reined him in last summer and he was trying to reform. If anyone should understand second chances, Peter thought Gabriel should.

Noah exited the last conference room, stepping around the scattered chairs Gabriel had left in his wake. He looked between the two men, who appeared a moment from coming to blows. He interrupted, walking between them and forcing them both to get out of his way, "We're not through searching here. There's the whole shop floor to go through. Stop bickering and get to it."

Gabriel glared at Noah's retreating back, but moved on to the rest of the building. The shop floor was cluttered with old equipment, much of it covered with tarps and all of it covered with dust. There were small enclosures and labs dotting the enormous room along with a stockroom cage. Around the outside edge of the room was an elevated ring of more offices and storage areas. In the dust on the floor were a multitude of fresh tracks, but it was impossible for him to tell anything more about them. He knew nothing of tracking.

Gabriel looked at the tracks and shot a bolt of lightning at a nearby pallet of water-damaged packaging, keeping the current going until the wood and cardboard caught fire and was burning brightly. Peter grabbed his free arm. "Stop it!" Gabriel tried to shake him off, but Peter didn't let go easily. Gabriel stopped the lightning and used both hands to shove Peter away from him, making him stumble and knocking him down.

Peter told him angrily, "Let's just search the place and get out. We're not here to torch it!" He got up and brushed himself off.

Gabriel snorted at him and headed up the stairs to the walkway. He started tearing his way through the rooms there. Noah paused next to Peter and said, "Is it just me, or is he in full Sylar mode?"

Peter grabbed a fire extinguisher and started using it on the burning pallet, trying to douse his anger at the same time. "As long as he's not cutting anyone's head open, I guess it's okay."

Noah cocked his head at Peter and said, "My standards are a little higher than that, Peter. I think I can handle this. Stay here." He turned and followed Gabriel up the stairs. Peter didn't think anything of it. Between the intermittent noise of Gabriel's rampage and the blasts of the fire extinguisher, he didn't hear how it started.

XXX

Bennet moved up behind Gabriel without any difficulty. The other man knew he was there, he just didn't register Noah as a threat until he'd sunk the dart into the side of his neck. Gabriel spun, his eyes wide in surprise. Noah had expected that too and hit him right in the nose with everything he had. Even for a regenerator of his capabilities, it was a stunning blow. Bennet followed it up by kicking his knee. It didn't break, but it put Gabriel off balance for another precious second. He just had to keep him off-center long enough for the dart to take effect. He didn't think it would be long, as he'd gotten into the jugular.

Gabriel threw out his hand and his power stuttered against Noah, pushing him back in starts and fits. He pressed him into a wall, but the power faded quickly. Bennet smiled. It had been long enough. Gabriel looked at his hand and said, "Crap."

Noah went for his taser. Gabriel went for him. They were much too close for Noah to get a weapon out before he started taking hits. Luckily for the older man, Gabriel initially went for body blows, not realizing the main force of them was dispersed by the vest. They scuffled. Fairly quickly the man who was much more experienced at hand-to-hand fighting won out with an elbow to Gabriel's face followed up with the heel of his hand against Gabriel's healed nose. It won him enough time to electrocute him with the taser.

The taser, in turn, gave him enough time to strip off Gabriel's vest and handcuff him. Gabriel blearily tried to rise. Noah kicked him back to his knees and this time something cracked. "Stay down. We're going to have a little talk about manners and how you treat people who are important to me."

Gabriel smiled up at him, laughing silently. Noah said, "You think it's funny?" He drew his knife and sunk it into Gabriel's shoulder, twisting it. The man cried out in pain. "Do you like to be hurt? Scream for me. Beg me not to." He twisted the blade again, lacerating the muscle. This time Gabriel gritted his teeth and said nothing, snarling at him. Noah sneered back. Nothing put off a masochist like the idea someone else was enjoying giving them pain. It took all the control out of their hands. Sylar had been driven by a need to control and understand. What he needed to understand was that he wasn't in control.

XXX

When Peter hung up the fire extinguisher, what he finally noticed was the silence. He looked around, listening. He could hear a murmur of Noah's voice, followed by a sudden pained cry from Gabriel. He took the stairs two at a time and hurried along the walkway. At the far end he saw a shadow of movement. As he ran up, Noah came out, putting a hand on Peter's chest and pushing him back. "Peter, you don't need to be part of this. Stay back."

"What are you doing?" He was trying to look over Bennet's shoulder. He could see Gabriel was on his knees and handcuffed, however that had happened. Blood was dripping from his nose and down his arm from his shoulder. As Peter tried to push past Noah, Bennet's hand slipped from his chest to his arm, down to his lower arm. He heard a clatter and felt the cool snap of metal close around his wrist. "What?" He jerked his hand. Noah had cuffed him to the railing. Peter managed to grab a piece of his shirt as he backed up, but Bennet twisted away and got out of reach.

"I told you to stay out of it," Noah said in a calm and even tone of voice. He walked back to Gabriel. To Gabriel he said, "Where was I? Oh yes, conduct. I know you got away with a lot of things while you were Sylar, but if you want to remain within the ranks of civilized people, you're going to have to observe certain standards. To start with, you do **not** beat your sexual partners."

Peter's mouth opened, then shut with a snap. There'd never been much question in his mind that Noah knew, but to hear him say it was surprising. Especially when coupled with a largely untrue assumption about their relationship… or at least Peter thought it was untrue. Instead of considering it, he looked at the scene. It was eerily familiar. He reached for his dart gun and waited. Bennet went on, "If you're lucky they love you and if that's the case they certainly don't deserve to be hit. At the very least they're putting up with you. You can return the favor."

Gabriel's eyes shot past Bennet to Peter, then back to Noah. Noah said, "If I ever see a mark on Peter's body again indicating you're not treating him right, I'm going to find you and cut something off that you **will** miss. There are ways to make that permanent." He leaned close to Gabriel's ear. "Don't motivate me to find those ways.

Noah stood up again. "You will not throw temper tantrums with your powers. You are a **weapon**. Your powers do not come with a safety other than your self-restraint. You will show some respect for the lives and property of others by controlling yourself **and** your emotions, even and **especially** at times like these. Just because you have a problem doesn't mean you get to inflict problems on everyone else. Just because you **can** push people around doesn't mean you **should**. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes." Gabriel wrinkled his nose and snorted, blowing out a stream of bloody mucus. He shook his head a little to shake it free. Noah tilted his head and looked at Gabriel's face. He stepped closer and pulled his shirt sleeve over, looking at a spot where he'd stabbed him earlier. It healed before his eyes. He looked at his watch. _That was fast_, he thought. Gabriel turned his head slightly and looked up at him out of the corner of his eye.

Noah met his gaze and for a long moment, neither of them moved as both realized the terms had changed. Finally Bennet said, "Civilized behavior. If I tell you to stay here, will you do it?"

Gabriel said, "Say please." He deliberately made it an order, the first one he'd given Bennet in over half a year.

Noah's brow twitched upwards and he stiffened slightly. He realized how much he'd taken it for granted that he could push Gabriel around without retaliation. After a beat, he said, "Please."

Gabriel looked away. "Okay."

Noah walked over to Peter, getting out the keys to the handcuffs. He tossed them to the younger man, not commenting on Peter having to holster his dart gun before catching them.

"What was that last about?" Peter asked very quietly.

Noah answered in the same low tone, putting his hands on the railing and looking off into the shop floor beneath them. "The neutralizer wore off. I can't hold him anymore. Let's see if he can follow basic orders like 'sit' and 'stay'. He was never very good at it when Angela partnered me with him before."

Peter unlocked the cuffs and handed them back to Noah. "My back?"

Bennet nodded. Peter went on, "It wasn't what you thought. I snuck up on him in the street. I surprised him. He threw me against a wall. It was sleeting - my face was mostly covered. He didn't know it was me. He stopped as soon as he recognized me."

Noah whispered, "What if it had been someone else, someone he didn't recognize? There are other innocent people who might be out in the weather. What if one of them surprises him? He doesn't have any mental powers to wipe their memory, but he's really good at getting rid of bodies. How do you know what he does when you're not there?

"He's not killing people, Noah."

"Are your standards that poor, Peter, that only murder is wrong?" Noah glanced back at Gabriel and said, "That is a man who desperately wants to meet expectations. Don't set them too low." He glanced back again and said, "Dammit."

"What?"

"There went my other set of handcuffs. Destructive bastard." Noah shook his head and looked heavenward. Gabriel had disintegrated his cuffs and was wiping his face off, scowling at the whispered conversation.

Bennet drew his gun again and started to leave. Gabriel called out, "Can I get up now?"

Bennet turned back to him, pointing the gun at him. Gabriel flinched away, but didn't tell him to stop. Noah even waited a beat to give him a chance to do so. When Gabriel didn't, Noah snorted and said, "No. You can't. Sit there and don't get up until I say so. I'm going to finish searching this place for **your** wife, **carefully**. You sit there and think of all the places she might have been that you missed while you were on your little rampage, or the clues to her whereabouts you might have accidentally destroyed." Noah stalked off, shaking his head.

Peter walked over to Gabriel and patted his shoulder. Gabriel leaned his head against Peter's leg. "Did I deserve that?"

Peter answered, "Yeah, part of it. Other than that one time, you've been pretty good with me, but you're out of control with your powers. Don't rely on them so much you forget to think." He patted him again reassuringly. It wasn't like Gabriel didn't have a lot of stresses at the moment.

Gabriel said nothing.

Peter squatted down in front of him and looked at his chest. Gabriel looked down at himself. "What?"

Peter huffed. "Matt Parkman showed me some drawings he made of the future. One of them was this… what happened here. Except in the drawing, you'd been shot in the head… a handful of times, and Noah was getting ready to stab you… right here." Peter touched a spot at the top of Gabriel's sternum, right under the join of the collarbone. Gabriel's expression flickered and he drew back warily from Peter's touch. That was where he'd moved his spot. Peter looked at him. "I was waiting for that to happen. I was going to shoot him with a tranquilizer. It never happened."

"Maybe it hasn't happened yet."

Peter shook his head. "No. In the drawing, I'm pretty sure that was me in the background and your arms were drawn behind your back. I can't imagine you in that position while he was stabbing you unless you were bound."

Gabriel exhaled. "Okay. So I didn't get worked over as hard as expected by Mr. Bennet. What of it?"

Peter gave him a crooked smile. "It means the future's already in flux."


	54. How to Save a Life

Peter called Matt while they waited for Noah to finish a detailed search. Matt called back right as Bennet walked in and waved Gabriel to his feet using the barrel of his gun. He holstered it after giving the other man a disgusted look. Gabriel's hand twitched and a pop of static electricity went off. Bennet's head snapped back around at the noise. Gabriel turned away and looked over Peter's shoulder at the new address he was writing down. Thankfully it was still here in France. Close by, in fact, if his sketchy memories of Nathan vacationing in the country were reliable.

"It's just a few miles from here," Peter said after he hung up. To Noah he said, "Did you find anything?"

He shook his head. "If she was here, it was only for minutes. She wasn't kept here. There were a number of tracks on the shop floor, but none in or out except ours."

Gabriel put his hand over his face. "He knows we're coming. He teleported her here when Molly looked for her, then he teleported back after she was done." He considered that if correct, this meant Matt Parkman hadn't lied about the location. That was surprising.

Noah nodded. "That would fit."

"Let's just go up to the front door and knock," Gabriel said, putting his hand down. There was no point in fighting it.

Peter shook his head. "No. Let's go see what we're dealing with, then we can decide what to do next."

XXX

They faced a medium-sized brownstone surrounded by a wide lawn devoid of landscaping of any kind. It had a high iron fence around it and a closed gate. Inside, there was a small parking lot with a dozen or more cars. The sign outside declared it to be a mental health facility.

"She's in there," Gabriel said.

Noah asked, "You're sure?"

"I think she's in there," Gabriel corrected without taking his eyes off the place.

Peter sighed. "What do you think, Noah? Disintegrate some fencing and just walk in there?"

"You and I can't take bullets," Noah said in response.

"I could take his regeneration," Peter offered.

"NO!"

Both men turned around to look at Gabriel, who seemed as surprised as they were at his outburst. "No. I mean, don't. If she's hurt, if she's not dead, you can heal her."

Noah turned to Peter. "He has a point."

Peter nodded and looked back at the building. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to walk up and knock. I can see cameras. They probably see us right now. It's not like they don't have warning."

Gabriel snorted but said nothing. If Arthur was on top of things enough to know exactly when Molly would be looking for Heidi, then he certainly knew they were out here right now. Gabriel wanted to just get this over with so he could figure out who was dead, who was alive and what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. It was a completely callous, self-centered point of view.

His brows pulled together slightly. _I really am squashing Nathan right out of my head._ He wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but every time he tried to do more than skim memories he felt an edge of hysteria. It was easier to play at being Sylar and pretend he didn't care. It **was** a pretense though. He didn't like who he was being.

"Okay." Peter apparently came to a decision. He was in the driver's seat. He took the car up to the gate entry. It swung open before he could reach out to signal the front desk.

_Told you so_, Gabriel thought.

They walked up together. Peter put a sultry smile on his face that made him look so attractive Gabriel blinked at him even as Sylar. The younger man turned it full force on the receptionist while Noah and Gabriel stood back. Gabriel pulled his attention away and wandered over to the double doors leading into the facility. They were metal, set into concrete and reinforced. He felt around the edges with telekinesis as he divined how to open them. Peter continued chatting in French, but he was getting nowhere. The receptionist didn't know anything useful or she would have told him - there was no one there named Heidi, no one pregnant, no one named Petrelli.

_It's time._

Gabriel started. _That wasn't me!_ It had been a voice in his head. It resonated with emotion and desires, a depth of thought in the few words that was breath taking. He blinked as he recognized the mental control. It was feather-light and departed as soon as the message was conveyed. He bared his teeth. _I hate telepaths._

He looked back at Peter and Noah. "It's time." He blinked again, having not meant to say the exact same thing as the damned voice. They both looked at him, not realizing he wasn't entirely his own man anymore.

Noah said to the receptionist, "We're going to have to search your facility." He walked over to Gabriel and nodded. His read of Peter's conversation with her had been the same as Gabriel's. There was a time to resort to force. Peter was always a bit slow to reach that point. The receptionist objected, but no one was listening to her.

A single delicate arc of electricity jumped from Gabriel to the door, shorting the circuitry controlling the locks. As they were programmed to do, they failed open. Telekinesis made short work of the rest of the locking mechanisms and the doors swung open. He walked in.

They faced a T corridor, the longest part stretching ahead of them with doors on either side. In the distance they could see a cart in the hallway and a staff person standing near it, having taken no note of them as of yet. _Left._ Gabriel growled in irritation. If Heidi's life hadn't been on the line, he might have fought it harder. He felt trapped.

"We go left," he said and started that way. His long strides ate the hallway in moments. He looked back to see Noah and Peter still standing in the intersection, apparently discussing their options. _Hurry._ He walked back quickly, unwilling to leave Peter behind.

He brushed past Noah and came within inches of his brother. "I know where she is. We don't have much time. Please."

"You're sure?" Peter asked. He backed up a step, but Gabriel came forward, keeping the same intimate distance between them. Peter gave him a wary look.

Noah added, "We don't need another display like earlier. There are people here."

Gabriel glanced aside at Noah and then back to Peter, looking in his eyes. "I'm **sure**." His voice was desperate and certain.

Peter said, "Okay. We go left."

Gabriel strode down the hall again, leading them to an unmarked metal door with a card reader next to it. The door clicked open as they arrived. Gabriel looked at his companions and raised a brow, frowning. _Hurry._ He jerked back around, inhaled sharply and went through the door as if driven. He clattered down the stairs and waited impatiently at the bottom.

Noah said calmly, "Gabriel, slow down. You're leading us into something." He looked at Peter while he said it, who nodded at Bennet.

Gabriel grabbed the side of his head suddenly as if in pain and grimaced. "I **know**! She's dying. I can feel it. We have to hurry. We've… I'm being summoned." He clenched his teeth and seemed to be fighting with himself.

Noah looked another warning at Peter. Peter shrugged and made a helpless gesture with one hand. "We came in the front door. He's leading us somewhere. We may as well go." Peter reached up and took Gabriel's shoulder. The other man was blinking, trying to throw off the compulsion. "Let me go first. You tell me where to go and that's where we'll go."

Gabriel panted under the strain of not immediately following the orders he'd been given. "Down the hall. Sixth door. Blue and white tile. I've been there. I know what's there. I've seen it." He looked tortured, like he was seeing it again. Gabriel opened the door. He went into the hall first, but waited for Peter to go ahead of him down it. Gabriel's steps were heavy with dread, pushed onward solely by the commands.

The sixth door was ajar. Peter could see the cheerful, antiseptic blue and white tile from the hallway. He also saw a smear of red across it. _No,_ he thought desperately. _The future's already been changed. We can't be too late._ He pushed open the door and saw his worst fears realized. The painting had not lied.

Heidi was on the floor, naked and opened, her baby on the floor next to her. There was less blood than he'd expected, but there was still too much. Peter went to his knees next to her and checked for a pulse, but he was sure it was too late. Her body was still warm, but it was cooling. _If we'd arrived only five minutes sooner, maybe less!_

He picked up the baby carefully. It was dead and limp, his skin blue from asphyxiation. Peter supported the tiny body as if it were alive anyway. He looked up at Gabriel, who stood in the door, tears running down his face. Every illusion and every pretense Gabriel had carefully built since he'd lost Nathan and come apart in New York had come crashing down. The woman he loved and the baby he'd cherished, lay dead before him. He couldn't even breathe. Noah looked around his shoulder, took one glance and looked away, blanching.

Peter put his hand on the baby's chest.

"No! Wait!" Gabriel surged into the room, a note of hope in his voice as he realized what Peter was about to do. He knelt on the opposite side of Heidi's body from Peter and looked across her with wild eyes. "Not **you**, Peter, **me**! You said you thought you could have saved that woman in the car if only you had enough. Take it! Take everything I have and make them _**live**_!" He reached out, leaning over and putting his hand on top of Peter's, on top of his baby boy.

"I…" Peter hesitated. "I'm not going to kill you. Maybe some from you and me together will be enough…"

"No, it's not," Gabriel sounded certain. "There's two of them. Take it **all**. Don't risk it." Echoing Peter's own words, he added, pleading, "This isn't a hard decision, Peter."

Peter looked at the intact umbilical. He had no idea what difference that made. _We don't have time to argue about this and figure out the best way. _He suspected the longer her body cooled, the harder it would be to bring them back.

He turned his hand, twining it with Gabriel's. He held the baby to his body with his other arm. A great burden seemed to slip off the other man's shoulders. He looked happy. Peter looked at his hand and hesitantly opened the channel. He was almost addled by the surge of energy that broke through, slamming open the door to his soul.

Gabriel pushed his life force into Peter in an unceasing flow. There was no slow twining of black and red lines, no gradual darkening of grey splotches into black. The darkness advanced steadily and rapidly up his arm and across his chest, pausing there while his other arm and probably his legs lost their vitality.

It was more rapid even than Peter had been told life draining was. He tried to pull his hand away but Gabriel wouldn't let him, gripping tightly even though his flesh had begun to char. Peter tried to shut the door to stop the flow but all he managed to do was slow it. Gabriel groaned in disappointment. "No, Peter. Do it. You need it. You'll only get one chance. It's what I want. It was a choice after all. Just… not between you and her." His voice was rasping, begging, catching in his throat.

Peter shut his eyes. Even trying to block it, he could still feel Gabriel's life energy falling into him, being absorbed by the ability he'd borrowed from the faith healer. He opened his eyes and looked down at Heidi, down at the babe in his arms. If he failed, he would have killed Gabriel for nothing. If he succeeded, he would have still killed him, but there would be two other lives in his place. It was what Gabriel wanted. It was what Peter would do if he had been able. It was what he'd tried to do for the woman in the car accident.

Peter felt he had no right to take this from him, no more right than his mother had to hide this from Peter, rightly fearing he'd sacrifice himself if given the chance. He looked back at Gabriel and nodded, watching the blackness sweep across his neck and face as Peter gave up his resistance. The power sputtered and stopped as Gabriel's body stiffened, hardening in place. Peter looked at his hand.

He knew instinctively that wasn't all of it. He would have to reach for the rest. He would have to take it, like cutting the throat of a gut shot animal. To get that last bit of life he would have to do it himself. He couldn't merely open the channel and have Gabriel deliver it to him. He struggled with himself. Would he need it? Would Gabriel recover from what he'd already lost, or would he be forever drained, comatose? If he didn't have enough and Gabriel was right that he would only get one chance…

Peter shut his eyes and concentrated. He felt like he was raping someone, defiling himself as much or more than Gabriel. What he was doing was more profound, deliberately snuffing out the last spark of life within his lover's body. He felt something go at the end, with a sucking pop. There was still something left, but he couldn't bring himself to reach for the rest. He told himself it was just shreds anyway. Gabriel's body lost the internal tension that had been holding it upright. It fell over Heidi's, embracing her in death.

Peter shook. The effort to contain what he had was immense. His body was on fire. He looked at his hands, expecting them to glow with radioactive fire like he had before the explosion. There were spots dancing in his vision. Everything seemed to glow slightly, tinged with golden light, but his hands looked normal. He cradled the baby's body and put his hand back over its chest. He tried to pour the healing into the tiny form like he had done so many times with others, but it was like pushing against a wall. He gasped out a rough sob of frustration. This was what he'd run into with the woman in the car accident. He'd tried until he passed out then and it had done no good.

He put his hand on Heidi's chest and tried again. He pushed with everything he had, but there was nothing. It was like he was trying to heal a chair. Unliving tissue wouldn't receive the power. His head gave him a warning stab of pain from trying too hard to do the impossible. He knew he couldn't push until he passed out or he would lose his tenuous grip on the power Gabriel had given him.

Clenching his teeth, he rocked back and forth holding the babe to himself, trying to think of a better way. He looked at Gabriel's collapsed body. _Why didn't we try his blood? Maybe it would have worked like Adam's, _he thought belatedly. There'd been no time - he'd thought only of the healing process he'd been using for months. Of course, they didn't have a syringe and Adam had been a natural regenerator, like Claire. As a borrowed power, Peter didn't know if Gabriel's would work the same way.

He looked down at the baby, wiping its face. He was a handsome boy, his head undistorted by passage through the vaginal canal. He had strong features. Peter's heart ached. For a moment, the ache was greater than the very real physical pain he was feeling from holding in so much life energy. He put his hand on the boy's chest again and focused with everything he had on opening the channel and pushing his life into the little body.

The ache in his heart grew stronger. He thought of the baby, remembering feeling him kick from inside Heidi's belly on Christmas day. He blinked as he felt something give, the barrier yielding. The baby gasped and the body weakly convulsed. _That's it! Again!_ He focused again, summoning up feelings and memories, using his empathy to trigger the healing, as far as he could tell. A second door in his soul groaned open, one that had been left shut for a very long time. He shuddered, feeling himself change from head to toe, as profoundly as the pain he'd felt when his father had stolen his powers. This, though, was the reverse. It felt **good**.

A second later, the baby began to struggle and kick. Peter could feel his tiny heart beating erratically, his breath coming in gasps. He wasn't done yet. He emptied himself of Gabriel's life, pouring it into the child. For a moment, it seemed to be enough. The baby seemed stable, then began to struggle and labor again, heartbeat stuttering out of rhythm once more. Peter looked at the umbilical. He was sure that if he cut it, the baby would survive. But if he didn't… it was a conduit.

He hadn't tapped himself yet. He set to it. It was hard to find truly happy memories with Heidi, but the sorrowful ones were just as genuine. He'd connected with her through her grief and worry, comforted her and held her. He let that guide the energy, pushing it through the child and into her. It was faster. He knew what he was doing now. The link between the living babe and her body seemed to ease the transition. His vision grew dim and blacked out, but he went on until he felt nothing more. Unlike Gabriel, there was no one there to take his last spark or else he would have given that too.


	55. Salvation and Damnation

Peter came to groggily, feeling like he'd been beaten with knobby sticks. Strangely, the first sensation he registered after the physical pain was the loss of Gabriel. Somehow while he'd been holding the other man's life within himself, he hadn't really been dead. Now there was a void in his heart that hurt as badly as his body. The next thing he noticed was the baby was no longer in his arms. He clutched for it and sat up, blinking and trying to clear his eyes. He felt dizzy and sick.

"What do I do? What do I do? Peter? Should I tie this? It's… it's _leaking!_" It was Noah's voice, shaken and upset. Peter tried to focus on him. His heart swelled when he heard Heidi's voice in response say, "Just… tie it in a knot." _She's alive! It worked!_

He shook his head and wiped at his eyes, getting blood and fluid on his face from his filthy hands. _That was dumb,_ he thought. He could finally see though. Heidi was still laying on her back, her baby on her chest. His cord had been severed and tied. Noah was struggling to tie the end that emerged from her belly. Peter reached for the baby and started doing a basic check to make sure the airway was clear, the cord was tied properly and he wasn't in distress. He seemed healthy and responded to Peter's examination by complaining loudly. All three of them grinned at the sound.

He handed the child back to his mother and shrugged out of his shirt. He propped Heidi up and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"Oh my God, my stomach," she said, her voice catching. She also stared at the charred shape Noah had pushed off of her earlier. His handprint remained on it, as if the top inch of the body was ash and the rest was gooey.

Peter looked at the open c-section. "I don't have anything here to fix that. Unless… Noah?"

Noah looked at him and then at Gabriel. He said roughly, "You're not doing that to me for a gut wound. She'll make it!"

"I don't have to take that much! It's an incision, not death," Peter said testily. _Why would he even think that?_ He was finding his thinking muddled and his emotions unsettled. It wasn't a very big cut, no bigger than had been needed to remove the baby. It was surgical and straight.

"I'll be all right," Heidi volunteered, which was ridiculous. Peter looked at her to tell her so and she asked him, "Who was that? You… killed him?"

He looked at Gabriel and stopped breathing. After a long pause, he said, "That was Nathan. He gave his life for you."

She peered at the body, which was only somewhat recognizable. "That's Nathan?"

"He was shape-shifted. It's an ability he had, to look like other people."

She looked at him blankly, not understanding. "He's dead? That's him?" She looked at Noah, who was crouching next to her. She handed him her baby. He took the little boy with a grunt of surprise, holding him like he might break. She pulled and pushed at the charred body. "Nathan? Nathan?" Her voice began to rise in hysteria.

Peter reached out and pulled her away. At that moment, something happened. A form, wispy and insubstantial, came through the wall behind them and moved next to Heidi. Peter leaped to his feet. She looked up and cowered. Noah stood and stepped back, turning his body sideways to shield the child, whom he now held firmly to himself. He pulled his gun. For a second, all was still, then the man-shaped form reached out and touched Heidi's head. She screamed. Peter leaped at it, passing right through it. He turned and came back.

The barrel of Noah's gun twitched to avoid Peter, but he put it down seeing as there was nothing material to shoot at anyway. Peter put his hand into the bright gold and white light above Heidi's head and felt a searing pain, like his power was being drained away. Then a dozen, a score or more different abilities flooded into him in a rush and then cycled back out just as quickly in a bizarre feedback loop. He was filled and drained a second time and then thrown back against the wall, empty of abilities and stunned.

"Dad?" he said feebly, trying to regain his wits. He got to his feet. The room seemed to reverberate and flash with energy. Heidi had stopped screaming and was now oddly silent. She'd turned towards the immaterial form and was staring at it fixedly, holding her hands up as if to fend it off. Whatever she was doing seemed to be causing the projection to shed light from itself in arcs and wisps, losing cohesion even as it pulled some sort of energy out of Heidi's body. What was left of the ghostly shape retreated through the wall as Peter staggered in its direction.

Noah holstered his gun and reached down to help Heidi to her feet. He was unsuccessful. As of yet, she had no stomach muscles to speak of. "Peter, help me get her up. We've got to get out of here." Peter agreed. He couldn't stop shooting looks at the wall where the wraith had disappeared. The two of them got Heidi on her feet. She started to take her baby back from Noah, who told her, "No, you can hardly stand by yourself. I'll hold him for now."

He looked at Peter, who was also barely on his feet, with a strange grey pallor to his skin. _What I wouldn't give to have Gabriel here to help me out,_ Noah thought. He shook his head against it and looked out. The corridor was empty, but they could all hear a disruption and voices down the hall. When he looked back, Peter was helping Heidi into his Kevlar vest. She was still mostly naked, but there was nothing to be done about it.

They went back the way they'd come. A gun barrel in the face did a lot to back people off on the first floor, although there were plenty of alarmed calls. The police would be here imminently, he knew. They got out and into the car. Noah drove, having handed the babe off to Heidi as soon as they got her into the car. The gate opened automatically when they approached it. Noah went simply for distance, putting an hour between themselves and the incident before stopping.

By that time, Heidi had expelled the afterbirth. The car was a mess. Noah knew much more about birthing babies and female anatomy than he'd ever wanted to know. Peter reported there was no bleeding and he'd used surgical tape for the time being to seal Heidi's incision. She needed proper medical care as soon as possible or else there would be infection. They stopped and went through the trunk. Heidi dressed in Nathan's slacks and shirt so that she was at least covered.

She looked at the fact that Peter and Noah had Nathan's suitcase and clothes with them. She said, "That was **him**?"

Peter leaned on the side of the car in the cold and covered his face. He nodded. _I killed him. I killed him. He loved me. I think I loved him - not just Nathan, but __**him**__. _He ached inside. He wanted to wonder why he had done it, but he only had to look at Heidi and the baby to know. The questions ran through his mind ceaselessly despite it. Heidi was silent for the rest of the ride, suckling her son and resting.

Back in the car, he told Noah, "I can't think. I'm trying, but that took everything out of me. I think I must have gotten something from Dad when I touched him. There was an energy there. It was strong. Mom said I couldn't do it alone. She was right. She knew." He paused, then added, "I'm sorry, Noah. I'm rambling."

Bennet looked back at the mother and child in the rearview. He said to Peter, "You've been drained. Don't forget that. I'll talk to you later about it. Get some sleep if you can. We'll be at the hotel in a few hours and I'll go find a doctor for Heidi. We'll all get cleaned up and I'll take the car somewhere to get cleaned, get some women's clothes, and we'll talk about what to do next."

"Baby clothes," Heidi interjected.

"What?" Noah asked, looking back again.

"We need baby clothes," she repeated. "And diapers and wipes."

"Oh." Noah looked at Peter.

Peter shrugged, settling back as if to try to sleep. "You're the one with two kids, Noah. Not me." He smiled slightly. He was glad they had a baby they needed to worry about. It was a bitter, small comfort. He still hurt, body and soul.

XXX

One moment Gabriel was insensate, unaware. The next he was awake. He felt sure he should be in pain, but he didn't feel much of anything. He blinked up at the aged man squatting above him. His face looked very kind, for some reason.

"Dad," he said. Something was missing. With that one word, he felt something was gone that he had expected to be there.

"In a manner of speaking." Arthur Petrelli stood up.

Gabriel struggled to his feet after him. He felt very unsteady. His skin felt gritty and odd. His joints were loose. "How is this? Am I dead?" He looked around. He was still in the same room, but Heidi, Peter, the baby, and Noah were gone. It was empty. The blood was still on the floor, along with quite a few more smears and skid marks. There was an outline of black ash around where his own body had been. He brushed some of it off of himself.

"Of course not." Arthur held up his hand. It glowed and flashed briefly with a golden light. "It was **you**, after all. The body will survive for a time without the soul." He studied Gabriel. "But the soul might last forever without the body." He looked philosophical.

"I…" Gabriel didn't finish it out loud, only thinking, _I'm the catalyst?_

Arthur smiled benignly, realizing he was talking to a child. "No, you are not. But enough of that. You are diminished and that can be rectified. I have an annoyance I need to get rid of and a traitor to teach a lesson to. You have an enemy you need to crush and a power you need in order to rule. Our many needs flow together like threads in the loom of fate. I'll be right back."

Gabriel hardly had time to blink. His mind registered that Arthur vanished and reappeared a few inches to the left of where he had been before, like a skipped image. When he returned, though, he had Matt Parkman with him. The other man looked supremely startled. Incongruously, he had a sandwich in one hand. "Wah?" Matt said, gaping. Arthur released him.

Matt looked around in surprise. He looked at the tile on the floor. "Oh… _**shit!**_" He looked at Gabriel, who was blinking at him, realizing Arthur's intentions. He'd seen this too in his nightmares, but it hadn't been something he'd felt the need to struggle against like what happened to Heidi. He hadn't even bothered to tell Peter about it.

The door shut by itself. Arthur retired to the side of the room, leaving them to each other. Gabriel swallowed and looked down at his wife's blood all over the floor. Matt looked at it too, but didn't place it even though he'd drawn that happening as well as his own death. It didn't look the same without the bodies in the middle of it. _Obviously I'm not the first he's killed here_, Matt thought. He looked at Gabriel and attacked him mentally. He wasn't interested in going down without a fight.

Matt tried to repeat the process he'd instigated more than a year ago, tearing Gabriel's mind apart. But despite the many setbacks and difficulties Gabriel had experienced in that year, despite his current spiritually weakened state, he was immensely stronger mentally than he had been. Matt scrabbled for a hold against him but it was like a lion attacking an elephant - even when he managed to tear something loose, it didn't stop the whole.

Gabriel could feel that Matt was not the equal of Maury, at least not in this field. Maury could roll his mind and keep him down for minutes at a time and in his current state probably a lot longer. Matt was fighting with everything he had just to keep Gabriel from acting. He wasn't making much progress in hurting him. Matt's powers had significantly diverged, developing as precognition rather than mastery of mind control. Precognition had unhinged Parkman, despite his best attempts to not lose himself. It had that effect on nearly everyone. One of the few survivors of it had been mentoring Gabriel for months. It showed.

After several minutes of battling wills, blood began to leak from Matt's nose. Gabriel saw an opportunity and reached for the easiest, most familiar power he had. It was the hardest for Matt to block. His telekinesis picked Parkman up and slammed him into the wall hard enough his head bounced. The mental attack ceased. He started to stalk closer and stopped, realizing if he got too close, if he started, he wouldn't be able to stop. Although he wanted to kill Matt Parkman, he also didn't want to kill anyone at all. It would stain him. He stood indecisively, rocking on his feet. He looked at Arthur, who was watching him wordlessly, waiting patiently.

Matt came to groggily and slid down the few inches of wall to his feet. Gabriel held him there until he got his bearings and stood on his own. He released the hold entirely at that point. Parkman eyed Gabriel warily, wiping at the blood on his face. "All right then. Go ahead," Matt said.

"I don't want to kill you," Gabriel said.

"Yeah, but you're going to." Matt sighed, knowing it was inevitable.

Gabriel opened his mouth to deny it, but nothing came out. He'd seen his nightmares. He looked at Arthur again, who continued to wait.

Matt looked between the two of them. "Is he making you do it?"

"No." After a pause he added, "Not yet."

Matt looked at Arthur, considering his chances of getting anywhere with negotiation, pleading or reasoning. He didn't bother. He suspected he would have better luck with Gabriel, even if the man hated him with a passion as he'd just seen in Gabriel's mind. It said something about the state of affairs that a deranged serial killer was the more sympathetic choice of the two. Looking to Gabriel he took a step closer, but stopped when Gabriel took a matching step away from him. That sign of weakness, of fear, changed Matt's course of action and removed what slim chance he had of getting out of this alive.

Matt jerked his head at Gabriel, deciding to try intimidation instead of empathy. "You're afraid of me. Afraid of having your mind messed with?" He took another step forward, forcing Gabriel to step back as well. "Afraid of losing what sanity you have? I **made** you. I took Sylar apart with my mind and tore him into pieces. I **destroyed** him." He backed Gabriel into a corner. "I can destroy you." He started to step forward again to deliver his final statement demanding Gabriel help him escape or else, but he'd come too close already.

Gabriel caught him in a full body lock and lifted him from the floor. He still didn't want to kill him. He felt the Hunger surging around him like a python, constricting, making it harder to breath as a free man with each passing moment. It hissed in his ear of all the things Matt had done to him, all the changes wrought in his life, the pain he'd experienced. He couldn't listen to it without thinking about all the good things he'd found. Heidi's body was gone when he'd awoken. He hoped that meant Peter had succeeded. He prayed that's what it meant.

In the meantime, he had this… _person_ to deal with. He pushed him a little further away, settling him so most of his weight was carried by his own legs. He kept Parkman's mouth shut. Matt's mouth hadn't done him any favors lately. Arthur pushed off the wall and walked over closer to Gabriel, standing next to him and looking at Matt. He said, "Telepathy is a very useful power. In this case you get a double bonus in precognition. As you know, another very useful power. There is a set of powers that defines the overman, sets them apart from man like man is apart from the apes. You want to be special, different, and you are. You feel that yearning within yourself to be better than everyone else, because you **are**. It's a fact.

"You were bred for it. You've been groomed for it. You've been prepared for it for much longer than you've been aware." Gabriel looked at Arthur and felt a seething hate at the idea of being so completely manipulated. Arthur smiled at that and somehow Gabriel knew the hatred of manipulation was exactly what Arthur was smiling about. "We are **gods**, Gabriel. You weren't named after an angel by mistake." He studied Gabriel for a moment and then went on, "Think about Peter, the founder of an entire church." Gabriel's brows drew together in confusion. Arthur said, "Who would you rather have in charge of your religion - him… or me?"

Gabriel blinked and his grip on Matt slipped somewhat as he tried to comprehend what Arthur was saying. He reestablished it, but he didn't think to shut Matt's mouth again. Matt said, "He's insane, Gabriel. He's nuts. You're not a god. You're just a man! You know the difference between right and wrong. That's why you don't want to kill me!"

Gabriel shut him up. He didn't want **that** ringing in his ears for the rest of time if it came to pass that he did kill Parkman, which seemed pretty damn likely, foredestined as it was and with his resolve weakening. It wasn't like he hadn't fantasized about it hundreds of times. Only after he'd had a vision of doing it had he stopped finding the fantasy entertaining. Perhaps if he hadn't been so distracted about Heidi and the baby's fates, he would have cared more about Matt's… or maybe not.

Arthur walked closer to Matt, walking around him slowly. "The difference between right and wrong… it's a false construct. It is a weak mind that allows itself to be governed by the dictates of others. That's all morality is - an attempt to manipulate, to control. I don't want to control you, Gabriel. I want to free you to attain your own self-mastery. You must overcome yourself. We come from worm to man and much of us is still worm. You are the meaning of the world. You are the overman, the ubermensch. It's your job to tell your lessers what's right and what's wrong. Not to accept the preaching of people like this."

The older man gestured at Matt. "Consider what he's done to those people he's had control of. Scores of times to all those people he's turned - telling them what to do, what to think, how to feel… how to feel about him." Arthur looked at Matt, who paled. For a moment Arthur spoke to Parkman rather than Gabriel, saying, "I find false love to be the worst sort. Ironic, really." He turned back to Gabriel and gestured at the other man. "Look into his mind - you'll see that no one has been safe from him, no matter how loved, how close… oh, but you can't, can you?" Matt was sweating.

Gabriel felt a reckless surge of Sylar's Hunger at not knowing, at not being able to see what Arthur could see and having the answer to that ignorance only a few arm's lengths away. He looked at the door, but he didn't really want to go through it. He wasn't breathing hard. The Hunger had stopped hurting. It was more of a mere ache, and one he could ignore if he wanted. He walked up to Matt, feeling no greater need close to him than he did as he walked away. _I… I don't need it. I want it, but I don't need it._ He turned and blinked, looking at Arthur. _I wonder what he'll do if I don't take it? Can that even happen, given what I've seen?_

Arthur came closer to him and leaned in, saying conspiratorially, "Did you notice something there?" Gabriel looked at him, eyes wide. "You didn't think of right, or wrong, or Heidi, or Angela, or Peter, or your mother, or me. Not God, not practicality or need or utility. Nothing. Not a single one of those **crutches** you've been using for years. All you had to do was realize, fully and completely, what you wanted. You have overcome it." Arthur looked proud. Matt felt hopeful, so much so that he actually smiled uncertainly. He'd thought he was a goner for sure.

Arthur seemed to skip in place again, like a bad film and Gabriel felt a cool, dry hand on his brow coupled with a moment of dimness. Gabriel's hold on Matt tightened to painful levels as he brushed past Arthur and raised his hand to begin the first of many incisions. Arthur turned, watching, and said, "Once we were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape."

**A/N:** **Poor Matt. He doesn't even get to finish his sandwich. Arthur's ideology draws largely from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which is the book he was reading when Peter wakes up just after Arthur stole his powers. Some lines are quotes. Others paraphrased. The writers for the show have said that book was significant in many ways.**


	56. Parkman's Last Words

Gabriel came to himself sitting in the corner, slumped against the wall. He was a bloody mess, as he'd expected from the last time he did this. He shifted form immediately, cleaning himself as much as he could. Matt's skin was arranged over an actual human-shaped wire frame. It looked remarkably like him, in a sick sort of way. _Dad is so thoughtful_, he speculated with sarcasm, since the frame hadn't been there before.

Parkman's body was laid out off to the side. It looked like one of those posters you see in a doctor's office, the body sans skin, showing all the muscles. Except this one was also missing the top of the skull and had some extra adipose tissue around the middle. He supposed the skullcap was laying around here somewhere. He wasn't in a hurry to find it.

He sighed, sorry that he'd killed him, especially after he'd decided not to do it. _That wasn't worth it. No power is worth that._

Matt's voice sounded in his head. _I'm kinda glad to hear you say it, at least._

_Shut up, Matt._ After a beat, he added, _Shut up, Claire. Shut up, Paul. Shut up, stupid rats that make me want to hoard scraps of cloth and seeds. Because of you, I can't enjoy eating cashews anymore. And where the fuck is Nathan, anyway? The only person I __**want**__ to talk to isn't around._

There was a long silence. _Good_, he thought grumpily. He wasn't very happy with his situation. _How am I going to explain this to anyone? I don't think they're going to buy that he took control of me and made me do it. Well… Angela probably will. I suppose they might. It's not like the world isn't crawling with people who can control and influence other folks._ He looked over at the body and decided he might as well get to cleaning up.

_Um… there's no one here but me, man._

_What? Matt?_

_Yeah._

_Uh… you're… you're not dead? You're in my head?_ It seemed like a perverse reversal. Gabriel looked apprehensively at the body. He didn't have anywhere to put Matt's consciousness. There was no body for him to be in… except Gabriel's.

_Ah… yes, and no, sort of. Don't worry, I'm not a permanent resident, but that would be funny, wouldn't it? We could fight over your body like old times! _Matt waited a beat. Gabriel did not laugh or find amusement in the situation in the slightest. Matt went on, _Well, I'm just hanging around for now. Everyone's got to be somewhere, ya know?_ Matt Parkman's mental voice sounded unaccountably cheerful.

Gabriel blinked. _Am I going completely crazy?_

_No. But you've got to get that precognition crap under control. It will eat your lunch. Well… I suppose you know about that, Hunger and all, but seriously, it makes you crazy. I think that must be what's wrong with that Arthur dude._

_Hm… yeah... I suppose._ Gabriel agreed just to agree. The subjects of Arthur and the Hunger were at the top of a long list of things he didn't want to discuss with Matt Parkman, ever. After a bit of silence had passed, he realized something he did want to talk to the other man about and asked,_ What…? But everyone else I did that to was just a set of memories. They couldn't talk to me._

_They weren't psychics, were they?_

_Uh… no._

_There ya go. I talked to Usutu a dozen times or so after he died. I figure I'll go look him up as soon as I'm done here. He has a few beefs with Arthur too._

_Done here…? Are you going to…_ He couldn't finish the thought, but he clearly feared what Matt could do to him now. He was in seriously uncharted territory, at least for him. Matt sounded entirely too confident of himself. If the tables were turned now and Matt was vindictive…

_No. You didn't mean to kill me. He made you do it. I see what you are. I'm not saying I'm sorry I did that to you last year, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to you, really. I'm kind of proud. Ha, like fatherly proud. I __**made**__ you. I really did! Hahaha! My dad was impressed, by the way. Not that I cared. But no, I'm not here to make you crazy or give you sexual hang-ups or anything like that. I just wanted to say my good-byes and ask you for a few favors, since you seem like an okay guy now that I've had like six hours to pick through your subconscious while you were… doing your thing._ Only at the last did he sound unhappy. A hint of revulsion crept into his voice.

Gabriel looked at Parkman's body dubiously. _Six hours?_

_Yeah. You can tell the time. It's in there._

And it was. The time, the glorious time, was there, ticking away. Five hours, forty-six minutes and 32 seconds… 33… 34… Gabriel leaped to his feet. _What? How?_

_Eh, I'm the one who blocked it to start with. It seemed like such a core part of Sylar's identity. I thought if I took that out, maybe it would sabotage the Hunger or your ability to understand things. Didn't work, but I didn't know that at the time. I fixed it. Think of me as the world's finest watchmaker._

An absurd level of gratitude flooded through Gabriel, so much so that he suspected Matt was manipulating his emotions. If he'd given him back the time, he didn't care if Matt made him do the chicken dance. _You said you had a favor to ask? Tell me!_

Matt laughed. _Okay, calm down. I want you to get Molly into a good home. Get her some help. I've… not been everything I should have been for her. I think you'll understand when you see her, really see her. You've got oodles of money and that's a good start, but find someone to take care of her who can deal with someone like her. Then… I want you to go talk to Mohinder. You'll need to tell him I'm dead. He knows I talked to Usutu, so hopefully it won't be a big shock that I have some last words. Things didn't… end well between us, either time. He… he might even be happy I'm dead, I don't know. But regardless, I have some things you need to tell him…_

Gabriel listened. _This is going to be… awkward. Well, that explains a lot about Mohinder and those road trips back when I was Sylar. I didn't realize. No doubt Nathan would have picked up on it instantly._ He shook his head, then thought of something else he wanted to know of Matt. He interrupted the directions to ask, _Hey, speaking of Nathan, what the hell happened there?_

_What do you mean?_

_He's gone. I woke up and he was just gone._

_You still have the memories, right?_

_Yes._

_So…?_

_What?_

_Yeah, what? That's all you had to start with, doofus. Memories and a set of programming you never bothered to get free of until lately, from what I can tell._

Gabriel's mind was blank for a moment. _Oh._ He wondered if Matt was telling the truth. Nathan seemed so much more a part of him, of his personality, than just a set of memories and compulsions. After a pause, he went on, _So… wait, what do you mean?_

_I mean you haven't __**lost**__ anything. It's still there. You just dropped the façade. I don't know __**why**__, that's kind of like up to you, like whether you wear boxers or briefs. Have you noticed that you wear boxers as Nathan and briefs as Gabriel?_

_What does… stay out of my clothing choices!_

_Well, I got bored after the first couple hours… it's always worth a laugh to see what people would be most embarrassed for others to know about them. I'm not even going to mention some things I __**could**__ mention. Like the rat thing… I'll tell you what, that's hilarious. Comedy gold, man. And what's better is you did that one to yourself! Hahaha! Anyway… there's nothing missing. At least, nothing from Nathan. Of course there's these big holes over here…_

_What?_

_Yeah. Not sure what that's all about. It's like someone pulled something out of you. Get attacked by a psychic vampire or something lately?_

_Ah… no. Not that I know of._ He wondered if something happened while he was unconscious or in trance. He didn't think there was any point in asking Arthur. Not if he was even remotely like Angela. He wasn't even sure what a psychic vampire was, to be attacked by one.

_Okay. Well, something's missing._

_What is it that's missing?_

_That's the essence of it: you know, it's not here for me to identify._

After a tense pause, Gabriel decided to get back to matters he could do something about. He thought about Heidi and Peter, trying to remember who was important in Nathan's life. He focused, trying to summon his appearance. His face did not change. _If there's nothing missing from Nathan, then why can't I shift?_

_For one, you need DNA or something from him. You know that. How long has it been since you touched Nathan's real DNA? I'm not talking about that bit of hair you keep in your wallet or some dead skin cells. For two, I can see plain as day you don't want live a lie for either of those people and that's what this has become for you. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that if you walked up to some hoity-toity political type and you wanted to be Nathan, you'd be him in a second. Assuming, of course, it's not the DNA thing._

_Oh._ He wondered if Angela still had that body in a self storage unit. He kind of hoped not. What an undignified spot for a final resting place. He knew there had been a funeral, but he'd never checked to see what they buried. He suspected, actually, that truly long-dead DNA didn't count. Well, if he wanted to pursue those political aspirations he'd been working on, then he'd have to check that out. _Okay. What about Janice and Matty?_

It almost seemed like Matt sighed. Gabriel hoped he did. Relentlessly cheerful ghost Matt was unsettling to him. _I… I took care of things with them back when Maury picked me up. They think I'm dead already and I had a chance to work that out how I wanted._

_Ah. Was there anything else?_

_Yeah. I'm taking my memories with me. You don't get to see my embarrassing secrets, so there. I'm going to leave the abilities, since if I took them Arthur would most likely find some other poor schmuck to hijack and have you kill. You know, I didn't even get to finish lunch. My sandwich is over there in the corner. If you're going to clean up, then don't forget that. There I was standing in my kitchen and yank! What an asshole! You're lucky I was even dressed, speaking of undignified. Oh, and one other thing… Tell Arthur Petrelli I'll be waiting for him._

_Er…?_

_Yeah. Tell him that. I'm not the only one, either. That's it. Good-bye. Be good, or else I'll be waiting for you too, doofus._

_Uh… Bye?_ He looked around, having an odd feeling of being alone, of vacancy. Of course, he hadn't been able to see anything to start with, so he couldn't be sure. _Am I even crazier than I was, or is there really an afterlife? For telepaths, but not the rest of us. And he's really cheerful about it. I killed him, and he sounds happy. That is… really weird. _He shook his head uneasily and set to the business of converting Matt Parkman's corpse into unidentifiable dust. The irony that this seemed a mundane task was lost on him.


	57. The Answer

After he cleaned up the mess from Parkman, Gabriel considered starting on the blood from his wife. He ran his hand over it - a part of her, a part he didn't like seeing left behind. He sensed the scenes that had put it here. What he saw sobered him. Heidi wasn't the only one who had been held captive here - she was only the latest. He saw the conflict between Arthur in an ethereal form, Peter, Noah and Heidi. He kicked himself for not having thought to check the room for impressions already, wondering how much he'd blotted out while cleaning up Parkman.

It would appear they had definitely survived. He watched Noah Bennet hold his child to his chest protectively while trying to menace Arthur Petrelli's astral form (or whatever that was). He smiled to himself and wondered if he'd get a chance to be a father to the babe. If he didn't, he couldn't think of a better godfather he could have chosen.

He started cleaning again. He didn't think about why he was doing it. He was just filling the time until Arthur returned from wherever he was. Time passed and he amused himself tracking exactly how much time it took him to do each task - a tile, a quartet of tiles, the entire room. When everything was clean except for a single pile of telekinetically swept up dust, he sat for seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds, wondering how much longer it would be.

After that, he began to wonder how long Heidi had been in this room, trapped here. He had caught glimpses in the impressions, but his sense of time was sketchy through the visions. It had taken them roughly sixty hours to get to her. He was annoyed that he had such poor sense of time for events before Parkman had fixed that for him. He grumped about it for all of sixteen seconds, too thrilled with his new (old) toy to sulk about it longer.

He looked around the room and drummed his fingers restlessly on the tile. _This is really boring. And insulting._ Finally he shouted, "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" It echoed back to him oddly. He tilted his head at that. "GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!" That also echoed. "Bring me a sandwich" did not echo. Nor did "Dinner." He tried them. (He'd disintegrated Parkman's sandwich, something he'd regretted almost immediately, but done was done.)

_What __**am**__ I waiting for?_ He stood up. _I'm waiting for someone to tell me what to do, where to stand, where to sit, what to eat and remind me that I'm using the wrong fork or using a juice glass for water._ He recalled a variety of prods and corrections Angela had directed at him nearly every time they were together, by words or glances or small gestures he was supposed to be alert enough to notice and was taken to task for if he did not. _Why did I allow that? I didn't __**have**__ to._

What was it Arthur had said? That he didn't want to control him. It was all Angela wanted to do, it seemed. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, especially given that both of them were intent on using him for their ends. One thing he was sure of, he was tired of waiting here playing janitor. He walked out. The hallway was deserted. _Why didn't I think of this three hours and thirty-five minutes ago?_ He closed his eyes and smiled as the seconds slipped by until it was three hours and thirty-six minutes ago. He was thrilled. _This will never get old. Thank you, Matt!_

He set off down the corridor and back up the stairs. The doors gave him a few problems, but nothing he couldn't overcome with his abilities. Let Arthur or whoever fix them after he was gone. He paused as the ground floor door swung shut, remembering Noah's admonishment about needless destruction. There was something to that. With a twitch of his brows, he walked out to the lobby, forcing those doors as well. Apparently someone had fixed them since he'd ruined the circuitry that morning. Now they needed to fix them again.

The receptionist gaped at him. She was the first person he'd run into. Her thoughts littered the surface of her mind. He saw them so easily it was difficult to sort out what she had said and what she'd merely thought. She was frightened to see him. He saw her memories of Peter, Noah, Heidi and the baby leaving earlier. With a start, he realized he was standing there doing nothing while she'd already hit a panic button for the police. _Oh well, hardly matters. It's dark out anyway. _Hewalked out, ignoring her. He had what he wanted from her already.

Remembering the cameras, he strolled down to the edge of the property and across the road, putting a line of trees between himself and the facility. He heard a distant siren. After he took to the air, he could see the flashing lights of the approaching car. _Only one. Not very flattering, but they don't really have any reason to know what I am._ He flew north towards Paris. He didn't know if they would be at the hotel, but the plan had included returning there if things went well.

They were there. They were safe. It made him happy, content. He saw motion through the window, though the curtains were still drawn. He floated closer and listened to the sound of their voices - Peter and Heidi were talking. He could make out the tones, but not the exact words - something about a doctor. He didn't care anyway, he just wanted to hear them. He wished the baby would cry so he could hear it with his own ears, but apparently he was asleep. Gabriel rested his head against the glass and shut his eyes, letting his fingertips touch the window lightly, stroking it. His old life seemed so far away from where he was at that moment.

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do with himself. He'd killed a man, which for Peter and Heidi was a pretty unforgivable sin. He didn't think they'd buy that he'd been forced. He didn't think he wanted to fight their fears for another year or even months to regain their trust. After all this time he still didn't have Noah's trust. The man had tortured him for things he hadn't even done - and a few he had, but those didn't count as much.

He let out a shuddering breath. It would be so easy. He'd been given a power that would turn them. They'd love him. They'd trust him. If he did it, he'd never love or trust himself again. He shook his head slowly, moving it across the glass, feeling the colder material on either side of where his head had warmed it. Even Arthur Petrelli found such false love abhorrent. The idea of sinking lower than **him**…

There was a faint rasping noise. He opened his eyes to see Peter looking at him with an expression of utter shock, having pulled the curtain aside. He wasn't the only one surprised. Gabriel started, flew backwards and up, then hesitated for a second before going up as fast as he could, gaining altitude and velocity. When he was high enough, he went supersonic. He headed west. He'd spent enough time here. It wasn't a life he was ready to step back into.

Eventually the ocean was beneath him. Five hours and forty-two minutes later, he arrived at New York. He flew to the Petrelli house. Angela was, after all, the only one likely to understand what had happened without the need for explanation.

He broke into the house and sat in the sitting room in the dark. He brooded in silence. He was unsurprised that she came out to see him very shortly, adjusting her house coat.

She flipped on the light and regarded him coolly. It wasn't the reception he'd hoped for. She spoke in a lofty, affronted tone, saying, "What are **you** doing here?"

He looked up at her from under his brows. He threw some tiny bit of lint on the floor, something he'd been picking at idly from the arm of the chair. "I just wanted to talk," he said sulkily. He was pleased her thoughts were not the open jumble of the receptionist. He wasn't sensing anything from her. He'd feared he wouldn't be able to block out the thoughts of others. It would have made it difficult to interact, to say the least.

Her silence stretched on. _So much for understanding._ He rolled his eyes. _Fine, I'll go._ He stood and looked at her, wishing she would shrink from him, but he couldn't bring himself to threaten her. There was no fear in her eyes, only sadness and resignation. Something about the way she was looking at his face made him raise his hand to it. He rubbed the stubbly growth there. His brows climbed. _I look like Gabriel. She was expecting Nathan. _It was like Peter using that name to address him in Nathan's house. It was jarring and inappropriate - embarrassing even, like being caught underdressed at a formal event.

"I'm sorry. I just let myself in. I wasn't thinking. I have no right to be here. I'll go."

Before he could get more than a step away she said, "No. Please stay. I would like… to have some conversation." She walked to her seat. "If you would join me, Gabriel?"

He eyed her, noting the use of his name. She wasn't trying to pretend he was her son. He appreciated that, especially in light of what Matt Parkman's ghost had revealed to him. He took his seat, trying not to slouch as much as he had before. He knew better - he knew how to sit and eat and act right, he just usually felt an absurd sort of rebellion against doing what other people wanted him to do. He wanted to prove he didn't **have** to do what they told him or act as they wanted and they couldn't make him do it. He sat up straighter on her account anyway. He wasn't feeling rebellious at that moment. She'd called him Gabriel.

She spoke into the silence, saying, "I had a call from David Wilcox yesterday afternoon, our agent in Boston. Matt Parkman didn't go to work that morning, citing personal reasons. When David went by to check on him, Matt seemed fine and David stayed for lunch. He said they were in the middle of conversation when he turned to get a cup of coffee and Parkman vanished."

He nodded and sighed. "Yeah. Arthur fetched him. I killed him. He… did whatever that was you'd said you'd do to me. 'Induce' was the word, I think."

She breathed in. "Yes, although Arthur's methods are very different from my own."

He tilted his head and looked at her steadily for a bit. "I noticed that. I'm still trying to decide which I prefer."

She raised a brow at him and smiled. It made him laugh. He said, "You know what the stakes are here, right?" Despite everything Angela had done to him, he didn't think he could bring himself to hurt her. Threats were another matter, though.

"Oh, yes." She did not look concerned. He'd expected nothing less. "But you don't. Not yet. You're still thinking small. If that's how you wish to live…" She shrugged eloquently.

_Ah, yes, that's the Angela I know and love - insulting and encouraging at the same time. I've got to stick around for the humor if nothing else._ Aloud he said, "How big do I need to think?"

"However much you're comfortable with. Nathan had an idea of the scale, but he was off by an order of magnitude. You have his memories. President was a good start, but it was hardly the end and he knew it. I'm sure Arthur talked to you." She looked at him, as if inviting him to speak of what Arthur had said.

"Arthur seemed to think I was a god."

She snorted. "Arthur thinks **he** is a god."

"Well, to be fair, he is. Or, close enough. I kind of like the idea of being a god."

"Having been an oracle for decades, I can tell you its over-rated. Look at where it's gotten him. Is that the sort of life you want to lead? He's practically a fugitive, an outcast from society. You have worked _so hard_ to gain the trust and love of others, Gabriel. Is it really worth throwing that away?"

He turned a piercing stare on her and said sullenly, "I've already thrown it away, had it thrown away for me. I didn't… want to take Parkman. It's like Arthur threw me off a building and I landed on Matt, and now I'm going to be accused of murder."

"Who has accused you?"

He shook his head and looked away. _I know they __**will**__. They __**should**__._

"Back to the issue of godhood. You went to church as a boy."

He twitched his brows. "Every Sunday and Wednesday," he said tiredly. He'd hated it. It was one of the worst parts of Gabriel's childhood. He'd especially hated being left to the tender mercies of the priest's favorite grandson and his friends. The old priest was a nice enough guy by himself, but he utterly and completely refused to see that 'his boys' were doing anything wrong. His mother had beaten him for telling lies, for even making the accusation. Angela's face was overlaid with Virginia's. He was pretty sure which was which, but not certain. Nathan's childhood church experiences had been much better. It was no wonder his belief in God had survived so far into adulthood.

Angela went on, "You're familiar with the life of Jesus Christ."

His head jerked up and he glared at her. _She is __**not**__ going to lecture me about the Good News, is she?_

She was not. "Would that be the life you would choose for yourself, if you could?"

Uncertainty clouded his features. "What do you mean?"

"Jesus did nothing that wasn't according to God's plan. He did not deviate in the slightest. Doubt was as far as he got, temptation without indulgence. Perhaps he had free will to do so - we can't know - but he did not live his own life. He lived the life God had set before him, treading the path God had given him. He had no personal friends, no friends at all outside of his mission. He had no lovers, no children and no future that wasn't the future God made for him. Perhaps he chose that. Perhaps he was even fulfilled by it." She paused, making sure she had his full attention. "Would **you** be, Gabriel?"

He blinked, recalling Arthur's comment about who would lead the church of his religion. His breathing sped up. He shifted uneasily.

"No, not really… that's… that's not…" He shook his head and looked down.

"I've been down this road, Gabriel. This is where it leads. Don't believe the immaculate conception either. She wasn't a virgin, even if your conception didn't involve sexual contact."

His head snapped up.

"Oh? He didn't get to that part? Well. He's delusional, Gabriel. You're not the only one, either. Not even the first of many. Victoria…" She shook her head sadly. "She met a sad end, for such a brilliant woman. It took her so long to see through Arthur, Daniel, Bob and the others."

He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, massaging his temples with his index fingers. "What… what is he trying to do then?"

"The next stage of human evolution. He envisions a world with overlords, gods, people with powers such as your own, like Peter's, like his. Each one controlling vast numbers of worshippers, servants and sycophants, indulging themselves because they **can**. He thinks this will save the world, putting it in the hands of those strong enough to enforce their will on others - instead of nations, he would have these cults of personality. It's an arms race, where the ultimate ability is a deterrent and a doom's day weapon. He would hold the threat of the apocalypse over everyone's head, using it to ensure obedience. As if he doesn't understand some would destroy the world for the same reason they came to their power - simply because they **can**."

He sighed. Many of Sylar's kills had been made with little other justification than that - because he could, because it was easy and he wanted to. Which was exactly what Arthur had talked about - he'd just wanted to do something and so he did. Arthur seemed to think that made it right. No, he'd rejected the ideas of right and wrong. It wasn't right, it simply was. _Is there a need for morality if you can take anything you want?_ He thought back to Bennet lecturing him about the same thing while he was on his knees. _What was it he said?_ _'__**Especially**__ in times like these.'_

Angela went on, "We formed the Company to save the world, Gabriel - to save it from the destructive power of these abilities. How to accomplish that salvation was never something we agreed upon - not really. Most of our 'solutions' involved ever-greater levels of destruction, until finally it seemed the only way we could move forward was by eliminating larger and larger numbers of people in order to cow the rest."

Gabriel tilted his head. "That's not still at the core of your plans?"

She grimaced and shrugged. "I don't know! I am not claiming to be perfect, Gabriel. I am not claiming my plans are flawless or divine or that they'll preserve the future. I **want** them to and obviously they're the best thing I've been able to work out. That's why there is a **board**, with more than one director. We **argue**, we **disagree**, we might even fight. That's healthy, it's allowed. One person holding all the power is not right, not for the Company and not for humanity. That is the core of my objection to my husband's ideology. We must resist him. We must resist the dark future. Inaction is not an option. Peter's approach of saving one life at a time is very noble, but it does little in the face of the world. Don't you see that?"

He looked away. He was wondering if perhaps saving one person at a time **was** the solution. It seemed so impractical, though. Like he'd told Peter - what Peter was doing was **hard**. After a long silence, he said wearily, "What action is it that you're trying to have me take? Just tell me. I don't like the constant manipulation."

"I could tell you how to live your life, Gabriel, but you won't do it. I don't have any leverage with you, not like I had with Nathan. I can only hope you'll see things as I do. If you chose Arthur's route then we will part ways just as Arthur and I did."

She said it like they'd had an amicable separation. "You tried to kill him!" he said.

"I was defending my son," she said. "As I will defend you, if I can."

He gave her a surprised stare.

She said, "If I could have you do one thing in your life, it would be this: love. Love others and learn to love yourself. I don't mean that infatuated narcissism you have. I mean actually love yourself. Be comfortable with who you are. See yourself reflected in the eyes of those who love you and be worthy of them. They are the greatest mirror you'll ever have, the greatest check on ill behavior you will find - especially given the characters of the people who love you now. You have chosen to surround yourself with some of the strongest, best people I know. I don't think that's an accident. It may be difficult, but anything worth having usually is."

Gabriel inhaled slowly and released it. He nodded and moved to stand. She rose with him and said, "One thing before you go. Do you have the catalyst?"

He looked at her intently. It occurred to him he now had the ability to pry open her mind and dredge out every secret and explanation he wanted. She blinked at his expression uncertainly. He looked away, turning his threatening gaze elsewhere. She'd said she would defend him. There was no way he would harm her, if that were true. "No."

"Arthur has it, then?"

"I think so. He held up his hand to me. It glowed… yellow, or gold. He said it was **me**. Do you know what that meant?"

She eyed him. Finally she said, "No."

He turned to her and leaned towards her, turning his head slightly as if to listen to her. "I want to see into you." His gaze bored into her. She knew more than she was saying. He wanted that information. Heidi and his child had been killed for it. _If only I could convince her to share it with me willingly._

She raised a brow and took a step backwards. "Do not lower yourself to this, Gabriel. You might not come back from it." She didn't look afraid, just wary.

He looked away sharply. It was as if the Hunger was working on him, but now he didn't need to kill to use it. "That's why I'm asking. There's no reason why I'm not taking it except I…" His expression was pained. He looked away.

She nodded slightly, sparing him from having to say it out loud. "I have told you the truth. You can hear lies. I'm not lying to you. I don't know what the catalyst is. Charles said it was love. Ishi believed the same thing. It wasn't something Arthur was able to manufacture on his own. He had to get others to create it for him."

"Love?"

"Yes. Not just any love. It was much more specific than that but I wasn't given the details. It wasn't important before. Adam brought us the catalyst and it was always available to us. Obviously Arthur knows how to get it. Now that he has it, he can create people like himself, with some trial and error. Please think about that, Gabriel. He will pick people who will use their powers unchecked, like he is no doubt encouraging you to do."

He nodded. After a long pause, he said, "On more prosaic matters, my son has been born." He hesitated, realizing Angela had never asked if Heidi or little Noah were okay. He tilted his head at her. Even now she appeared unsurprised.

She smiled warmly. "That's wonderful news, Gabriel."

He was still deciding how he felt about her not asking. Either it was a callously casual assumption they were fine, or she knew it already. "He's in Paris. They'll need paperwork. I'm going to talk to Haroldson about getting together some documents for them."

She nodded. "He has them ready. All they need are the dates."

_Then she knew._ It made him feel much better. "Why wasn't I able to see past their death and you could?"

She sighed. "We've discussed this, Gabriel. You're too emotionally involved. It was the end for you. Nothing that happened afterwards mattered. My predictions about my sons, about Arthur, have always been the least reliable and the most difficult to understand, precisely because they're the most important to me. They're also the easiest for me to alter unintentionally, which is why I said nothing to you of it. You must distance yourself. Until you achieve that, the futures you see will be tainted by your desires, your fears."

He shook his head and paced across the room. "How do I do that and still love? You're telling me to do two different, contradictory things!"

"I think it has been a very stressful few days for you," she answered archly, demonstrating with her tone that she had little patience for his anger. "You have what you need. We can discuss this later, when you are calmer."

He exhaled and looked at the ceiling. She was right. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He pulled his hand away and looked at it. It was one of Nathan's gestures. He smiled softly. That made… many things possible. "Okay. Later. I have things to do." He nodded and headed out to find Haroldson.


	58. New Beginnings

He dialed Peter's number. He wasn't sure if it would go through. The first day they'd been in France, none of them had cell phone service. Surely by now, though, they'd made arrangements with some international carrier or whatever was needed to make the phones work.

"Hello?" Peter's voice sounded uncertain, like he wasn't sure who was calling him. In the background, the baby cried. Gabriel smiled, listening to that wonderful sound. He wished he'd been there in person when his boy had first breathed, first lived. The impressions from clairsentience just weren't the same. He couldn't touch them or hold them or feel their warmth.

"Hello?" Peter said again. Gabriel opened his mouth to say something after listening to little Noah take another breath, but then the line went dead. He frowned at the phone. _Well, that's what I get for crank calling him. I guess he doesn't have caller ID._

He dialed again. This time Peter's voice was annoyed. "Yes? Hello?"

"Peter."

He heard him suck in breath. After a long beat, during which the baby made fussing noises in the background, but not actual cries, Peter said, "Gabriel?"

"Yes. It's… good to hear your voice." He felt like his heart was in his throat. He could hardly talk.

"Yeah… You too. You're alive. How did that happen?" Peter sounded suspicious.

_I knew I needed to do this face to face._ "Dad. Your Dad, Arthur."

"Uh-huh." He sounded unconvinced.

He shut his eyes and sighed. _Come on, Peter. It's not like coming back from the dead is all that unusual for me._ He hadn't really questioned it himself. "Okay, listen, I know… I shouldn't have called. I should… well, fine. I have some paperwork I'm having sent priority to the hotel. You should get it in the morning. It's Noah's birth certificate, passport and a doctor's certification that he's okay to fly at this age. I've included a letter with local contacts and the story they've been given. Noah… uh, Bennet should understand it."

He heard Heidi's voice in the background. He couldn't make out what she said, but Peter's response was, "No… well, yeah."

"Can I talk to her?" Gabriel blurted out.

After a beat, Peter said, "Okay." As he handed the phone over, he said something else to Heidi, but this time Gabriel couldn't hear the words.

"Hello? Nathan?"

He inhaled sharply and felt a shiver, like his features were trying to shift of their own accord. With an effort, he remained as Gabriel. _Stupid subconscious. Won't shift before I call so I can use Nathan's voice, but __**now**__ you want to shift._ "Heidi. I know I sound different. I'll explain when you get home. I **love** you. I'm so glad you're alive." His voice became abruptly thick with emotion, so he stopped.

"You… you do sound different. I love you too. Thank you. Thank you for calling." Her voice was stilted and stiff, which he more or less expected as he didn't sound remotely like Nathan. He heard the baby make a fussy noise again. It was louder, like the phone was closer to him now. _She must be holding him_, he thought.

He took a deep breath and was about to speak when Peter's voice came through. "If the package comes in, I'll call Mom with our flight information. I'll talk to you later." He hung up without waiting to see if Gabriel had anything to say.

Gabriel closed his eyes and rested the edge of the phone against his forehead. Peter was suspicious. Gabriel had heard, clearly, the unspoken message that he was to communicate with them through Angela and not try to call again. Feeling conflicted about it, he complied.

XXX

Gabriel was waiting at the house when they returned from Paris. Angela was with him at his request. She had given him two drops of Nathan's blood, which seemed to help, but at the last minute he'd reverted and been unable to shift back. Angela said nothing about it, but patted his arm several times in a distant, but still comforting manner. The nanny had taken the boys to Angela's house for the night so that Heidi could get the baby settled in as easily as possible. They'd get to see their new brother, and hopefully their father, in the morning.

Peter gave him a wary look and took several steps out of his way to stay away from him as he carried in his luggage. Bennet walked straight to Gabriel and handed him Nathan's bags without comment. Gabriel blinked at that. _Since when am I on good terms with Bennet, but not Peter? What the hell?_ He'd expected a distant reception. After all, last time they'd seen him he'd been dead, but this was more than he'd thought. He looked after Peter's retreating back and gave him a dirty look. Angela was helping Heidi with the baby. Gabriel craned his head to see, but didn't move closer. Bennet bumped him with his duffel bag and said quietly, "Go inside the house."

He looked at Bennet's face and huffed. He did as asked. Or rather, as he'd been told. Peter came out the door as he got to it and stepped back rapidly, maintaining distance. Gabriel eyed him and moved into the house slowly so as not to press him. Bennet went around him, putting down his suitcases in the middle of things. Gabriel cocked his head at that. Noah had put himself, deliberately, between himself and Peter. "What's going on?" He looked between the two of them.

Bennet straightened and looked him in the eye. "He thinks you're Arthur."

Gabriel blinked. "Ah… how would I disprove that?" _That's a stupid thing to think. Arthur wouldn't even bother._

Bennet reached out a hand to put on his shoulder. It was a quick motion, and Gabriel flinched back and jerked away, hitting Noah with his power and gripping him with telekinesis. He had no interest in letting Noah put his hand that close to his throat if they seriously thought he was Arthur. Angela and Heidi paused in the doorway. Gabriel relaxed his grip on Noah so he could breath.

Bennet said, "You can put me down now."

"Can I?" He looked past Bennet to Peter, who was watching him warily. Peter hadn't bothered to pull a weapon, but then again, pulling a weapon wasn't Peter's first instinct. Gabriel looked at Bennet's hands. He twisted them with telekinesis to see they were empty. Peter was not the only one who was suspicious.

Bennet shifted against the grip. It was tight enough to hold him an inch off the floor, but not much otherwise. He said, "If you were Arthur, you would have seen that coming."

Gabriel looked at Peter, whose expression had downgraded from wary to angry. Angela said, "For God's sake, Gabriel, put him down! Let's all get inside and we'll talk. It's cold. We have an infant here!" She ended by muttering something about men that made Heidi smile.

He put Noah down and the women trooped in. Heidi walked closer to him, setting down the infant carrier. He saw Peter start forward a step, hand out as if to stop her. She ignored him and looked up at Gabriel's face. "You're… Nathan? Nathan, too?" She looked at Angela, who had called him by a different name.

He waited until she was looking back at him and shifted. It was quite a struggle and physically painful in a way it hadn't been for him since only a few days after he gained the power. At the end, he looked like Nathan. He took a deep breath to steady himself.

"Does that… hurt?" she asked.

"Yeah, not usually though."

She cocked her head and stepped even closer, examining him closely. He had an odd moment of déjà vu, remembering her looking at him nearly the same way when he'd come back last February. Softly he said, "I'm still the same person I was last year."

She embraced him and he her. She melted into him and he buried his face in her hair. He shook once and then stopped it, holding himself tense until the emotion dulled enough for him to relax without giving in to it. He distantly heard Angela shooing people out of the entry, telling Bennet to get little Noah and bring him in the other room.

When they were gone he pulled back and kissed her softly. It deepened immediately. She pressed herself against him, finally breaking the kiss and curling in his arms, against his chest. "Oh, Nathan… it was horrible." Her voice broke and she began to sob uncontrollably like she hadn't since the ordeal had started. He held her tightly.

"I know," he said softly. He'd seen it. Dozens of times, really. Now he saw it again in flashes from her mind. He shut them out quickly, fearing he'd be overwhelmed, focusing on the physical sensations of her. He saw Peter and Noah both come to the hallway and look in at the sound of her crying. Angela came to pull them away and they went. He smiled bitterly. They all wanted to protect her and all of them had failed. They'd saved her, but they hadn't protected her. _The same could be said of Claire,_ he thought. He kissed the top of her head and held her to himself.

_Claire…_ He blinked. He had no memories from Claire. They were gone, he realized with a start. Quickly trying to take stock of himself, Paul was gone as well… but not the rats. _Figures_. He resettled his arms around Heidi, giving her his handkerchief to blow her nose. _What does that mean? Matt had said there were holes… things missing. It's not like it's a part I actually wanted, but why would I have lost that?_

"What happened to you?" Heidi asked.

"When?"

"You… I saw your body, the body of that other man you were when we walked up. Gabriel?" At the sound of the name on her lips he instantly and painlessly shifted. _Dammit!_ He scrambled for Nathan and couldn't reach it. _It's not the fucking DNA!_ He growled at himself inwardly.

She had taken a half step back at the change and now eyed him cautiously.

"I'm sorry. I can't control it anymore. This is the face that goes with this body."

She looked at him. "What?"

He shut his eyes and told her, so he wouldn't see her expression. "This body was born… like this. I'm not Nathan Petrelli. I was given his memories, most of them, and mentally coerced to think I was him. For a long time. My name is Gabriel Grey. I love you, but I'm not the man you thought I was. I'm not even the man **I** thought I was. I finally… I finally got through the last of the programming, the mind control, about a month ago." He waited, silently, with his eyes shut.

He heard her sniff, a leftover from her tears. She touched his arm, then the other. He opened his eyes. She was looking at him uncertainly. She looked at his face. "Where's Nathan? The real Nathan?"

"He's dead. He was killed last year. There was a funeral." Heidi nodded. He said, "Angela…" He looked at the door for a long moment, then back to her, "Angela had this bright idea that he'd never really die if she put his memories into someone like me." He had a ghost of a smile. "I don't think it's worked out quite like she expected."

She was still touching his body, lightly. His eyes widened suddenly. _She's exploring me. She's not rejecting me out of hand._ He wanted to crush her to himself, but he suppressed the urge. _What was that… stages? Yes, stages. And this is one of the first ones - touching, looking, deciding if you like what you see._ She looked up at him, still very uncertain, "Do you want… to be married to me?"

He was unable to contain himself at those words, grabbing her and sweeping her up into her arms. She let out a startled cry. "Yes! Yes!" he told her. He looked into her face, breathing hard. She was surprised, but not scared. After a long beat, she laughed and kissed him chastely. "Oh, my stomach! I'm not sure… I… Okay, yes, that sounded like I was proposing to you."

His face collapsed. "You weren't?" He put her down slowly, his blood turning to ice.

She seized on his arms. "No… I mean yes! We're already… What I **meant** was if you wanted to **stay** married."

He looked at her, searching her face. "Yes," he said with absolute certainty and bent to kiss her.

XXX

At Heidi's startled cry, Peter and Noah both jumped up again. Angela, who was now cradling the baby, hissed, "Sit!" at them. Noah sat immediately. Peter turned and looked at that. If Nathan hadn't told him about the oath, he wouldn't have thought anything of it. As it was, he was hugely resentful of his mother. He looked daggers at her. She said, exasperated, "He's not going to hurt her, Peter."

That reminded him of why he'd stood. He walked quietly to the entry and looked out. Gabriel had Heidi in his arms and was holding her. He heard something about marriage. He rolled his eyes and walked back, thinking dark thoughts about his sister-in-law's morals and judgment.

Noah looked at him levelly and said, "It's him."

Peter nodded and fell into his chair. "I know."

Angela asked, "Why are you so uncertain about him?"

_Because I killed him,_ Peter thought. _I killed him myself, pulled the last life right out of him, his soul came away into my hand… or I would guess that was his soul. It was __**something**__._ To his mother, he said, "I just can't believe Dad let him go without a reason."

"Oh, there was a reason," she said.

Peter looked at her out of narrowed eyes. "Care to enlighten us?"

"No." She smiled at the baby as he squirmed. To Noah he said, "You have a very precious godson."

Noah smiled slightly. "He's your grandson, isn't he?"

She shook her head slightly. Peter noted that. She'd denied it when he'd asked her for Molly's address too. He supposed her refusal had required him to go to Noah, which had somehow changed the course of events. Angela said, "He's my daughter-in-law's son. And he's a very, very special little boy." She bent her face to the baby and cooed.

Peter rolled his eyes again and looked away.

Noah asked, "Would you consider Gabriel Grey to be a member of the board of directors?"

Angela gave him a long look. "Yes, I would. It's just an alias for Nathan Petrelli. You know that."

Peter snorted and muttered, "It's the other way around, the way I see it."

Gabriel and Heidi came to the door. Gabriel showed her to the couch next to Noah. He looked at the rest of them and said, "Coffee, anyone?"

Peter didn't look at him, saying, "Water. Harder to poison. Bottled is even better."

Everyone stared at him. He ignored them. Angela finally said, "Decaf if you have it." Gabriel was still looking at Peter, a wounded expression on his face. Noah stood up and reached out to clap a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. The motion snapped him out of it and he dodged aside. Noah took a short step closer and reached out to repeat the gesture more slowly. Gabriel watched his hands like he was expecting to be attacked.

"Let me help you," Noah said. "Come on." He nudged Gabriel towards the kitchen. He had to do it a second time before the man moved.

Gabriel went into the kitchen with Noah's hand on his shoulder, pushing him on. Once inside, Noah gave him a pat before Gabriel stepped away from him, turning to face him warily. Noah ignored him and looked around the kitchen. After a moment, Gabriel went over to the coffee machine and started making coffee. Bennet asked, "Do you have any liquor here?"

Gabriel glanced back at him. "That cabinet next to the refrigerator, bottom shelf, at the back."

Noah bent to look in the cabinet in question. "Wow, that's kind of hard to get to." He reached in past some pans and brought out a bottle of Scotch. "This will do."

"I don't drink much anymore."

Noah brought the bottle over next to Gabriel and took out two glasses. He filled them and pushed one to Gabriel, who eyed it. "It's your liquor, in your glass, and you saw me pour it," Bennet said, thinking that Gabriel was being almost as suspicious as Peter. He suspected he knew the reason for it, so he spaced it.

Gabriel picked it up and sighed. "You're being **awfully** friendly. What gives?"

"It's not like Peter's going to do it."

"What does Peter have to do with this?"

Bennet took a small sip and smiled blandly. "Peter's why I'm in here. I care about him. I think I've said as much. He obviously cares a lot about you and that matters to me."

Gabriel looked back in the direction of the others and sipped his drink while the coffee perked. When he didn't say anything, Noah said, "I've seen people get drained before - energy drain, life drain, whatever. For those who survive it initially, there's always a period where they're not themselves: hateful, suspicious, ungrateful. Sometimes violent, but I don't think we need to worry about that with Peter. It brings out all the darker elements in a person.

"He knows it, intellectually. I talked to him. He was okay while we were away, but the more emotionally provoked he is, the harsher he's going to be. You might want to stay away from him for a week or two. If you don't, or you can't, then you have to expect him to ride roughshod over you." Noah looked straight at him, very serious, at that last. Very slowly, he added, "Can you handle that?"

Gabriel nodded and looked away. "If I can't, I'll stay away. Or I'll call you." He looked at Noah, glancing at Noah's drink. "Can I do that?" Noah nodded. "Don't shoot me anymore," Gabriel added.

Noah tilted his head. "Is that an order?"

Gabriel stared off into space, his eyes unfocused for a moment. "No. It's a request."

Bennet nodded and finished his drink. He poured himself another. "So that's Peter. You seem to be doing fine, much better than the last time I saw you. Tell me about that."

Gabriel got out four coffee cups and went over to the refrigerator. He rooted around and came out with a bottled orange juice since he didn't have any bottled water. "I woke up. Arthur must have revived me somehow. He implied as much. I don't know how."

"You feel okay?"

Gabriel shrugged. "I did after a while." He'd felt awful at first, but hours later after finishing with Parkman, he'd felt better. He wouldn't say he felt 'good', since after all he'd went to Angela's house vaguely intending to take advantage of her somehow, but at least he wasn't rampant like Peter was. He figured he'd go ahead and keep the nanny for the next two weeks. He had no plans of seeing Peter. It wasn't lost on him the man still hadn't said hello.

Bennet nodded. "That's good then. Heidi's alive, the baby's alive, you're alive, Peter's alive, I'm alive. It's all good."

Gabriel looked at his half-finished drink and emptied it. "No, it's not. I killed Matt Parkman."

Bennet spluttered and stiffened. "What?"

Gabriel turned to look the other man in the eyes. "Arthur teleported him to France, asked me to kill him, I declined, so he put his hand on my head. When I woke up, Parkman was dead and I had his powers."

Bennet shut his eyes for a moment and exhaled. "You have telepathy?" He opened his eyes and looked at Gabriel.

"Yeah."

Bennet was silent, staring at him. Gabriel poured the coffee. "I'm not reading your mind, if that's what you're thinking."

"What I was thinking was I know you didn't want to do that. Rene told me you'd declined on Maury." He hesitated and went on, "It's not like you haven't known where Matt was and how to get to him… for months. If you'd wanted him dead, you wouldn't have done it at a time like this."

Gabriel pushed two cups of coffee to Noah and tucked the orange juice under his arm. He paused to regard Noah, who was picking up the cups. "You believe me, don't you?" he asked in genuine surprise.

Noah lifted his brows at him. "Gabriel, if anyone is going to believe Arthur Petrelli made you kill people against your will, **I am**."


	59. Dear Jeffrey Dahmer

**A/N: Leave it to a telepath to know which buttons to push.**

The next day Gabriel left his house in the morning intending to walk the few blocks to where he'd set up Nathan's law offices. He hoped he'd be able to force his face into Petrelli's once he got there, because he still hadn't managed it. It had made things awkward at the house.

From there he would work on whatever the issue was with Molly. He'd already discovered, with a few phone calls, that she was missing. Given that he'd killed Parkman three days before, the disruption to her life was understandable. He figured someone would know where she was. _Kind of funny, actually,_ he thought, _the girl who can locate anyone can't be located._

He was surprised to see a man he recognized waiting at the entrance of an alley. _That's… Wilcox, isn't it? Matt's partner, the agent. _He remembered him from the board meetings, taking the oath. Gabriel slowed his steps. Wilcox nodded at him and gestured for him to follow him into the alley. He was wearing combat gear, as such things went in the Company - a degree of concealable armor and carrying a full assortment of silenced guns and discreet weapons. Gabriel followed warily, looking around carefully, watching the environment.

Once he was well out of sight of the street, the agent turned and opened fire on him, aiming determinedly for his upper chest. He was knocked back much more forcefully than he'd expected, his concentration blown. Instead of reloading, the man drew his knife after he'd emptied his gun and thrown it aside. He advanced on Gabriel, who grabbed him with telekinesis and pushed him up against the wall.

Gabriel got to his feet. _ I'm not healing very fast. What the hell did he do to his bullets? Do they have neutralizer __**bullets**__ now? _He looked at himself. He was definitely healing slowly. He watched two slugs pop out. He advanced on Wilcox, who was struggling silently against the force holding him. "Why did you shoot me?" Gabriel asked. The agent made no answer, but Gabriel could see it in flashes from his mind. He had a letter. He was supposed to give Gabriel a letter if he couldn't kill him outright.

With a twist of his other hand, the letter was pulled from Wilcox's pocket and flew to Gabriel. He unfolded it, took a last glance at Wilcox, and read it.

_Dear Jeffrey Dahmer of the super-powered world,_

Gabriel blinked and felt himself go cold.

_You killed my son. While it would be fitting to kill yours in turn, I'm not going to. I'm not __**that**__ depraved. Besides, your boy is special. You should ask Angela about that. She's not telling you everything. Instead I'm going to introduce a bit of misery into your life, since you were the instrument by which Arthur injected some into mine. I haven't betrayed him, he's an idiot, and you can tell him that for me next time you see him. Have you considered why he chose Matt instead of me? I'm just as easy to get to, you know, and you could already see the future._

_You won't be safe from anyone, no matter how loved or trusted. You've entered the big leagues, now, but it's not from your own merit. Daddy bought your way in. Matt tells me not to bother with you because you're so pathetic you couldn't pull a fly off a pisspot. I'm inclined to agree. You're nothing without your powers. That's why you need more of them, all the time. You're nothing special. I've seen hundreds like you, maybe thousands. Arthur's going to make more and no one will even remember who you were._

_Your life belongs to me now. You live or die at my whim, pencil-dick. Oh yes, I know why you like Nathan's body so much._

_Yours,_

_M_

_PS - I have Molly. If you threaten me directly, if you attack me in any way, I'll break her. She's already cracked as it is._

A surge of white-hot rage ran through him. His hand trembled on the letter. For a moment, he couldn't see anything but his wrath. He wasn't sure which part of it made him the angriest. Then he saw Wilcox's knife coming down for his chest. He'd lost concentration and the man had freed himself. He jerked back and the blade sunk in an inch or two from the intended target. He realized with a surge of terror the man had been aiming **exactly** for his sweet spot.

The fear, coupled with his misdirected rage, made it impossible for him to focus on the man as he swung and stabbed at him again and again. _I've got to stop him. Maury did something to him!_ His hand was sliced open as he raised it to call electricity. It fizzled, shorting on his own blood. A moment later he lost a finger trying to bring it up to use telekinesis. _Dammit! I hope that grows back._ He used his mind instead, lashing out inexpertly with Matt's power, telling Wilcox to stop, to drop the knife, to get on the ground. It worked.

He dug through Wilcox's thoughts, finding a block, a mass of snarled thoughts and commands that was sending the man on a suicide mission. David knew the attack was futile, but he'd been spurred on by all manner of goads and triggers until he didn't care. Gabriel couldn't pick them apart. He knew nothing of mind control, really. He reached around inside himself, but Matt had taken his memories with him. No guidance there. Traffic continued to pass the mouth of the alley. From time to time, so did pedestrians. He didn't have all day to puzzle this out with intuitive aptitude. He needed something quick.

He decided to just wipe out the last couple days of memories. Surely that would cover it. He set to Wilcox's brain like it was a chalkboard and he had a long eraser. He scrubbed out chunks and parts. David fought him, but he also knew nothing of combating mental powers. Odd, really, since his partner had been a telepath. It seemed ridiculously easy to roll his mind under and turn it, as if he'd been assigned to Matt specifically because he was so vulnerable. Gabriel felt a temptation to do more than erase. He resisted it, removing the block and hastily tearing apart the triggers, the conditions and the orders.

David began to thrash and buck. Gabriel backed up, confused. _Did I do something wrong?_ The man convulsed, his head hitting the ground solidly once, then twice, before Gabriel used telekinesis to stop him. It was too late though. He quivered instead of convulsing. A pool of dark blood spread quickly under his head. _What the hell?_ He bent to the man, tilting his head and scanning. There was nothing there but a fading light, memories slowly dimming with death and brain hemorrhage.

_I killed him!_ At a sound, he looked up to see someone standing in the mouth of the alley, peering at him. An old man saw him kneeling next to the body and shrugged. He walked off as if he'd seen nothing of consequence. _Well, thank God this is still New York City, where no one gives a damn. I don't have much time. _It was broad daylight. He couldn't move the corpse without being seen and it was only a matter of time before someone came by who cared. He stripped it of anything useful and disintegrated it.

He changed his plans and headed for the Petrelli house. He had some questions for Angela. She needed to know. He was nearly there when he saw Noah Bennet leaning against a car, reading a newspaper. It was awfully cold to be standing outside doing that. He cocked his head at him and slowed his steps. _Run!_ Gabriel blinked at the flash of projected thought. Noah dropped the paper, revealing a gun he'd been concealing beneath it. He flipped the gun neatly in his hand and started shooting.

Unlike Wilcox, he was an excellent shot and he hit exactly the spot he was aiming at. A bullet in that place wouldn't immobilize Gabriel unless by some chance it lodged there, but it disrupted his whole body for a moment. He hit the ground. Noah went for head shots after that. Gabriel wasn't sure what happened next. He didn't see Noah Bennet grab him by the shoulder and pull him up, his arms flopping back behind himself as Bennet pulled a knife with his other hand. He raised it to stab him while a figure in the background closed on them, reaching out. It was Matt's drawing come to life.

Gabriel came to and heard a sickening pop and a muted cry of pain from someone other than himself. He was grabbed by the shoulder and lifted like he weighed nothing at all. As his eyes regrew, he could see that Michael Fitzgerald was dragging Noah and him inside the house. His tattoos and his eyes were glowing brightly. Noah's arms flopped loosely at the wrong places. Angela was holding the door open. She said something inane to a witness about street performers and shut the door.

Bennet focused on him and kicked Gabriel in the balls with everything he had, given the awkward position. Michael dropped Gabriel and lifted Bennet, grabbing the offending leg. Angela leaped at him. "No! Don't hurt him!" Gabriel curled in on himself and rolled to the side. He was definitely not healing as fast as he used to. After a much longer period of agony that he ever wanted to experience again, he pulled himself back together and got up, making a last adjustment to his mistreated parts. He walked gingerly over the few steps to where Michael and Angela were kneeling next to Noah.

Michael was quickly and efficiently stripping the man of a wide assortment of weapons. Angela was staring at Noah, aghast. Both his arms were clearly broken and the side of Noah's face was smashed like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer. Angela rose, "I'm going to call Peter!"

"He can't help this," Gabriel said.

"Yes he can!" Angela's voice caught. She gasped and struggled for control of herself, then hurried to the phone.

Gabriel looked down at Noah with a sad expression on his face. Bennet tried to kick him again. He stepped a little further away. Noah struggled to lift himself, groaning in pain as he tried ineffectively to use his arms. Michael shoved him back down much harder than necessary. Noah's head bounced on the wood floor. He blinked and tried to orient himself. Gabriel took a step forward again. He probed as gently as he could at the other man's thoughts, very aware of what he'd done accidentally to Wilcox.

This time the commands were different. Instead of a single, easy to perceive block, they were interwoven with Bennet's personality - his loyalty, his morals, his vengefulness. It didn't look like something he could take out without taking out Noah himself. _Make me sleep,_ Bennet thought at him quite clearly, aware of Gabriel's presence in his mind.

_What?_

_Make me sleep. I can't stop. Make me sleep. Please, Gabriel. Please. I'll kill myself to get to you._ The moment of clarity was suddenly swept under a wave of irrational desire for revenge. Noah started to struggle up again.

Gabriel concentrated, focusing on making him sleep, fall unconscious, be torpid. Angela returned at that moment and could see he was doing something to Noah. "No!" she screeched. "Don't do it!" She flew at him, striking him, driving him back. He saw clearly in his mind that she thought he was a monster, he was hurting her friend, she knew he'd already killed one man with this power and if she didn't stop him, he'd kill Noah too. He'd never wake from what Gabriel was about to do - she'd seen it. She felt very strongly about Noah, he was surprised to see. He grabbed her wrists and stared at her, unable to block out the images. They overpowered him - her mind was that strong.

He was a monster. He'd killed her son. It wasn't supposed to be that way. It wasn't what the visions had shown her. She was cradling Nathan's body, crying out in anguish. He was a monster. He was lounging in the sitting room, a hair's breadth from killing her, threatening her, telling her he was Frankenstein's creation. He knew what he was. He was a monster. He was toying with Claire Bennet's skin while she hung against the brick wall, knitting herself together to the tortured, helpless cries of her lover. He was caressing it, rubbing his face into her hair.

He was almost thankful when Michael punched him in the face and stove it in like he'd done to Noah. He dropped Angela and was knocked back into the dining room, scattering the chairs and fetching up under the end of the table. It was a blow to the side of the head much like Noah's. Michael didn't hit people straight in the face unless he wanted to kill them. Gabriel saw Michael advancing on him. As quickly as he could, he reached out with telekinesis to stop him.

To his surprise, it didn't work. It slowed the man and made an expression of concern cross his features, but it didn't stop him. A lancing stab of pain pierced Gabriel's head, to accompany the throbbing ache where he'd been hit. He'd never tried to use telekinesis on someone with super strength, at least, not in the way he was using it now. Michael's eyes and tattoos glowed more brightly as he bulled through the mental obstruction.

He picked Gabriel up by the throat, squeezing in a manner that for him, was downright delicate. It was an odd reversal. Years ago Sylar had run across Michael and used telekinesis to choke him out. Gabriel felt his windpipe crunch immediately. Blood flow to his brain cut off. He had time for one order and it had to be short. He wasn't sure why he picked the one he did: _I am Nathan Petrelli._

It worked though. Michael dropped him and stood over him, looking confused. In the absence of orders to the contrary, he was supposed to do what Angela's son told him to do. At the moment, he wasn't menacing Angela, so throttling him seemed out of line. He watched Gabriel carefully as he coughed and regenerated his face. When it seemed the other man wasn't going to get up and cause problems, Fitzgerald stalked back to Noah, who was trying to crawl to his gun.

Gabriel let his head fall slowly to the floor. He shut his eyes. _She thinks I'm a monster. After all these months, all the talking, all the working together, all the dreams, the willingness to defend me… She thinks I'm a monster_. He shuddered. The reality of the past few days hit him all at once. His wife had been abducted. She'd been tortured cruelly, provoked and inspired with fear until her body spontaneously went into labor from the stress. She'd begged for release, she'd struggled for hours, alone and terrified, not knowing if anyone would be able to save her. He'd seen it. In his nightmares he'd felt it, felt her helpless terror that even now she wouldn't speak of.

When her body had not expelled the baby on schedule, Arthur had removed it from her and stopped her heart, never once speaking to her. Angela thought he was a monster, a monster like Arthur had become. He'd killed Matt Parkman. Maybe if he hadn't been so ambivalent on the subject, Arthur couldn't have made him do it. He could have resisted more. He'd given in too easily. He'd been relieved even, when Arthur had made him do it. It was satisfying.

If he hadn't done it, Matt would never have given him the time, he would never have been free of Claire and Paul's memories. He was grateful to Arthur for making him do it, for everything it had given him, for freeing him from the moral burden of having chosen. It proved he was a monster. Peter knew it. He knew what he was. His brother's hateful look when he'd tried to hand him the orange juice… Peter. His mother had called Peter. He shut his eyes as tears leaked out. He didn't want Peter to see him like this. Even more, he didn't want to see how Peter saw him. He broke and sobbed against the floor, losing all control of himself as his world spun around him.

Beyond his distress he heard Angela telling Michael, "You'll have to put it directly in him. Don't throw it, he'll only catch it and use it against you." He opened his eyes to see a blurry Michael approaching him. He scrambled to his feet. At his motion, the man fairly leapt at him. He tried to fly, to escape to the side, but was yanked back by his suit. It tore, but not before stopping his forward motion.

The dart slammed into him with so much force he was surprised it didn't shatter rather than injecting him. It worked as designed though. After a short struggle, he felt his powers leave him. Michael picked him up him by the back of the neck and carried him over to Angela like he was a helpless kitten. He felt the bones in his neck creak.

Her expression was impassive. She handed a green bag to Michael. "And again every ten minutes. Use the timer. Don't let go of him."

Michael nodded and carried Gabriel into the sitting room, where Michael sat down on the settee and put Gabriel on the floor. The fingers of his left hand remained tightly curled around Gabriel's neck, leaving him just enough space for breathing and blood flow. Fitzgerald pulled a timer out of the bag with his right hand and used it. Gabriel reflected on how Maury was right. Without his powers, he was nothing, nothing at all, nothing but a monster. He shuddered as tears continued to leak down his face.


	60. Noah's Injuries part 1

**A/N: I'm not a paramedic or a medical person in any way, so if I've screwed this up or overlooked obvious stuff, it's all my fault (and leave a review and tell me, so I can do better in future!)**

Angela watched as Michael unceremoniously carried Gabriel by the neck into the sitting room. Noah craned his head around to follow their progress. He clenched his eyes shut after they were out of sight. Angela gathered his various weapons, wallet, cell phone, keys and other effects and put them up on the hall table. She sunk to her knees next to his shoulder, resting a hand on his chest. He opened his eyes.

"I have to," he whispered to her. He was clear on what had happened to him. He'd been commanded, turned, ordered mentally to carry out Maury Parkman's instructions and bring down Gabriel. Noah had been given a lot of leeway on how he choose to accomplish his mission and he'd deliberately picked one that was likely to fail if Angela was not on board with it. It wasn't that he was resistant to harming Gabriel, but he was reluctant, very reluctant, to thwart Angela's plans with the man. He'd played one loyalty off another and this is what it had gotten him.

"I know." She studied his face impassively.

He shut his eyes again. He was breathing hard. He started to get up, being forced to put some of his weight on his arms. He called out in pain. He had little leverage, so she was able to push him back down without too much difficulty.

"Do not get up, Noah," she said in a quiet but commanding tone. "What is it you think you need to do? Tell me."

"I have to stop him. He's a danger to you." His brows drew together and he set his teeth. "To everyone."

She spoke much more softly, saying, "I've taken care of it, Noah." She touched his cheek. His eyes darted to hers, then down at her hand. He looked alarmed by the contact. "I'm going to take care of him. You don't need to do it. Do you understand?"

He nodded and let out a breath. After a beat, he asked, "Right now?"

"Very soon. Was that all you needed to do?"

"No," he shook his head. "You've got to call Maury. Take him to Parkman. That was everything. Stop him, kill him, call Parkman, take him to Parkman. You'll do that?"

She nodded.

"I'm trying to believe you," he said, looking away. He knew she was lying, but he tried to convince himself she wasn't.

"You should," she soothed. "You've seen Gabriel is powerless now. Michael has him. He'll stay that way. As soon as you're taken care of, I'll call Maury. You know I wouldn't let something like this happen without talking to him as soon as possible."

"Huh," he breathed. That much was true.

"It **was** Parkman who told you to do this, was it not?"

"Yes." He bared his teeth for a moment before losing the expression. Maury had imposed no need for secrecy on him. Bennet was angry about being used so foolishly, squandered and sacrificed because one of the directors was upset. If Gabriel was really the sort of threat Maury had instructed him to treat him as, then this was **not** the best plan to bring him in. The only reason it had worked was precisely because Gabriel was not the danger Parkman said he was.

Her lips made a thin line and her visage hardened.

Noah went on, unable to keep himself from trying to convince her to help him, "He's reverted. He's become Sylar. He killed Matt Parkman, took his ability. It's only a matter of time until he comes for you. That must have been…" He winced as if struggling against a different pain than that from his body. He breathed harder as if talking was an effort. "He must… must have been coming here for that. Doesn't make sense." He panted with the exertion of fighting the mental commands, of trying to separate his own thoughts from those created and imposed by the orders. "I can't make sense. I told him to make me sleep." He looked up at Angela. "You **have** to sedate me."

"I will. Peter is on his way even now. All you need to do is stay calm until he arrives. If I have to, I'll use one of the tranquilizer darts, but I'd rather have my son give you proper care." She reached out and took his chin, turning his head to look at the side where Michael had hit him.

"Jaw's not broken. Cheekbone is. Not sure what else. Still have my teeth, but they're loose. Can't hear on that side."

"I'll make sure you're taken care of." She put her hand on his chest again. "We can't have valuable agents being disabled like this."

He craned his head again to look in the direction of the sitting room. Angela spoke again, "Noah Bennet! I have told you that I will deal with him. It is no longer your concern."

He looked at her and whispered, "I worry about you, about Peter… with…" he grimaced. "with… him." Parkman's commands were warping his perceptions and he could feel it. He was making irrational assumptions and poor decisions. He struggled against it. Even though it was mostly an exercise in futility, it wasn't entirely so. His fight with himself bought Angela time, or in this case, Peter. Limited amounts of stalling was within his ability.

"Of course. I'll be careful. So will Peter. Michael's not about to let him go. Tell me about your trip to France. I want every detail. Talk to me, Noah. It will distract you from things you shouldn't be worrying about anyway."

He blinked several times and tried to think about the trip. She was right – it would distract him to have something else to do. He was compelled to use every tool at his disposal to get to Gabriel and complete his mission. If he had to concentrate on a different task, it would keep him from thinking about how his target was only a score of feet away. He told her in as much detail as possible. Every time he faltered, she asked a question. They'd only gotten to the hotel when Peter let himself in.

He hurried to Noah's side, saying, "Whoa. You really did get it. Mom, _**what happened**_?" He put his bag down and knelt on Noah's right side, opposite his mother. Noah craned his neck around again to look in the direction of the sitting room.

Angela said, "Maury Parkman ordered him to try to kill Gabriel. Noah chose to attempt this outside my door, which I'm certain was intentional. Michael stopped him and…" She gestured at Bennet. She believed, correctly, that he'd picked her house for his ambush so he'd be noticed and stopped. It was a clever dodge, requiring a great deal of focus, compartmentalization and willpower, but Noah had done similar things in the past.

Peter asked, "Gabriel did this?"

"No, Michael did." Angela huffed, exasperated that her obvious comment was misunderstood.

"What did Gabriel do?"

"He didn't do anything, Peter! Please take care of Noah for me. He needs to be sedated. He is still driven to complete his mission."

Peter looked down at Bennet and focused on his training. He didn't know why he hadn't done that immediately, letting himself be distracted from someone who needed his help. He blamed Gabriel for that, since he needed to blame him for something. He put on his gloves.

"Noah?" he asked.

The older man finally stopped looking in the direction of the sitting room. He turned his head to face Peter. "Yes?"

"Tell me what happened, how you got hurt."

Angela gave her son another stern, reproving look, but he ignored her. This time his question was medically necessary. As long as his patient was sensible, it was better to get from him what his injuries were and how they came about. It was also helpful to assess his mental state.

Peter ran his fingers along either side of Noah's neck and looked at his eyes while he did it. The muscles were tight and knotted, but none of the vertebrae seemed out of place. He decided he would be safe to lift the man's head and did a quick sweep over his scalp. The back was wet with blood, but it was tacky, not fresh and not spreading. He pulled out a penlight and checked dilation response.

While he was doing that, Noah told him, "Michael grabbed me… right arm, pulled it back, broke it. I hit him with my left, then…" He shut his eyes, trying to recall exactly what had happened. It had been so fast. "He pulled on my right, pulled me off balance. It hurt. I took the knife in my left and swung towards his gut. He jumped back and let me go, hit me on the side of the face. I…" Noah trailed off for a moment, blinking. He'd had a few moments there where he didn't know what had happened, when he'd been knocked out or at least knocked senseless.

Peter got out a pair of scissors. "I'm going to have to cut away your shirt. Keep talking to me. I need to know what I'm treating here."

"He knocked me down, next to my gun." He grunted as Peter's cutting jostled his arm fractionally. "I picked it up, but I was slow. He got my left arm and snapped it. Upper arm. Then he put me under his arm, grabbed Gabriel and came inside. That was all."

"No other head injuries?" Peter folded the fabric away. He could see the bone under the skin, but it hadn't punctured it. There was a lot of internal hemorrhaging. Peter got up and went to Noah's left side, shooing his mother away. She stood and took a few steps away, where she was out of the way but still able to help if necessary.

"No. No, wait, he pushed me into the floor. I saw stars, but it didn't put me out."

"I suspect you have a mild concussion." Peter knelt and began to cut off the left sleeve. It, too, had not punctured the skin, but there was not nearly as much bleeding or damage to the muscle. The shoulder was dislocated as far as he could tell – the deltoid wasn't shaped right. He probed at it enough to be certain.

"Yeah, I agree." Noah frowned. "I don't think I was out of it for more than a few seconds, if that."

Peter nodded. "Do you have any other injuries? Were you taking any medications?" Noah shook his head slightly to both questions. Peter ran his hands down either side of Noah's ribs, then across his abdomen and up his chest, watching his face for any pain reaction. There was none until he ran his hand over the man's sternum. "That hurts?"

Noah nodded slightly. "Where he pushed me down."

"Can you move your feet?" Noah did so. "Think you have any spinal injury?"

"No."

"Legs good?" Peter pushed on his hip, then his left leg.

"Yeah, they're fine."

"Okay, I need to look at your head before I give you any painkillers. I'm going to lift it up here." He moved back around to Noah's head. He took his light in one hand and lifted his head with the other. "Come here, Mom. Hold his head right here for me." She hastened to comply. He shone the light across his bloody hair and massaged the scalp lightly, looking for fresh blood. He found the tear. It was only a half inch long. There was also bleeding from his ear. "Noah? Can you hear me all right?"

"I can't hear out of my right ear."

"Do you have a headache?"

"Of course. I've been concussed." He hesitated and shifted uneasily, breathing harder suddenly. "And I've been fighting this damned command."

Peter rested his hand on Noah's head. He looked at his mother. "You can put him down." She did so gently, studying Peter's face. She didn't like what she saw. He told her, "Let me over there, where you're sitting." She moved out of his way again and he knelt on Noah's right side, looking at his face. Noah repeated his report to Peter that he'd given to Angela earlier. Peter traced the edge of the injury and turned Noah's head. He looked at his right eye carefully.

Noah said, "Brain damage?"

"Brain hemorrhaging," Peter corrected. "I'm just checking. I don't see any signs of it and you're not confused or perseverating. Do you feel nauseous? Have numbness or tingling anywhere?"

"No. What's perseverating?"

"Repeating yourself, not understanding what's going on or what happened to you. If all my patients were as clear-headed as you are, my job would be a lot easier. Do you feel dizzy? Room spinning?"

"No."

"That's good. I think you'll be fine." He looked at his mother. "I brought splints, like you asked, but I think we should get him to wherever he's going to be before I put them on." He looked her in the eye and said, "You're still firm - no hospital?"

"None," she said decisively.

Peter huffed, but he didn't argue with her. "I'm going to give him some painkillers now and when those kick in I'll bind his arms. Then if you can get Michael to move him, I'll put the splints on afterwards."

Noah shook his head. "You can't." He grimaced.

"I can't what, Noah?" Peter asked.

"You can't… Michael… he's watching Gabriel. He can't help you." He shook his head so forcefully he shook his whole upper body. He cried out in pain again and stilled.

Peter took the painkillers out of his bag without comment and filled a syringe. Angela tried to sooth him, "It's all right, Noah. I'll have him restrained. He won't go anywhere." She walked over and took his handcuffs from the hall table. She watched while Peter moved back to Bennet's left side and examined his arm much more carefully and intently. He warned Noah he was going to move it and did so. Prepared for the pain, Noah winced but was soundless.

Peter looked at his mother. "Where are you going to put him?"

"The maid's room. We should keep him on this floor, shouldn't we?"

Peter shrugged. "Whatever's easier. It's out of the way, but easy to get to. What are we doing longer term? The bones will start to set in a couple days. Without x-rays, I can't be sure I've positioned them right."

"I'll talk to Claire," she said.

Peter nodded. He addressed Noah, saying, "I think I can use one of your veins here rather than looking for one in your leg. It's a simple closed fracture on this side. The right is fragmentary. I'm going to rotate your forearm here." He put his hand over the elbow joint to steady it and rotated at the wrist so he didn't move the upper arm. He found a vein, tied it off just below the elbow and made the injection. "That should take effect pretty quick. If you tolerate it, I'll give you more before I do the splinting." He pulled out bindings from his bag.

Noah smirked and looked over at Angela. "I tolerate drugs pretty well, I think you'll find. Especially opiates." After a beat he added, "I'm feeling it."

Peter glanced between the two of them and then back to what he was doing. He was aware Noah had some odd, sometimes almost contradictory ideas about drug use. He didn't use any himself and he was highly critical of those who did, but when their use was forced on him by circumstances, he seemed to take an inordinate pleasure in them. It reminded Peter of a recovered addict, but he'd never asked.

He applied wrappings to secure Noah's arms against his body while his mother went to get Michael. Then he went ahead to scout out the room and the route to it. He stripped back the blankets and prepared the bed, returning to find Noah panting, eyes shut. "What's going on, Noah?"

The injured man exhaled forcefully. "I need more drugs, Peter. I need to be out, or close to."

Peter looked at him clinically. "This isn't because of the pain, is it?"

"No."


	61. Noah's Injuries part 2

**A/N: Peter has regained his full ability of multiple powers at once. As soon as he nears Michael, he gains his enhanced strength. He has also, at this point, gained Heidi's nullification and Angela's precognitive dreaming, but he has intentionally blocked off Gabriel's powers for fear of getting too many at once and being overwhelmed in the face of a man he currently perceives as an enemy. **

**Peter is also still suffering from having his life force drained severely, which tends to manifest as a short temper, depression, suspicion, easily confused and various negative emotions. He's terribly raw at the moment.**

Michael came out of the sitting room with Angela. Peter glowered at him, the most direct and recent cause of his friend's misery. Fitzgerald saw his expression and wouldn't meet his eyes. Peter shook his head and gave directions for Michael to lift Bennet. He realized he could have done it himself, and probably more carefully, but Peter wasn't sure he wanted to let anyone know that yet. Michael picked the other man up easily, but not as steadily as he should have. Even with the sedatives, Noah hissed through his teeth. Peter grimaced, thinking he should have done it himself regardless.

Noah was taken to the room and set on the bed, evoking another gasp and small sound from a man whom Peter knew was normally very stoic about injury. Peter tensed, coiled like a spring, but anything he might do pull Michael out of the way was likely to jostle Noah. As soon as Michael stepped back, Peter snarled at him, "_**GET OUT!**_" Intimidated by the force of Peter's expression and the emotion in his voice, he went.

Even Bennet was taken aback by Peter's reaction. After the big man was gone, Noah said, "Little rough on him there."

Peter fussed over Noah, saying, "He's incompetent! He knows you're hurt. He's the one who did it. He doesn't have to make it _**worse**_." Peter huffed, trying to figure out how to get Noah aligned on his back and in the middle of the single bed. Michael had put him down so that initially much of Bennet's weight was directly on his left arm, then instead of picking him up and repositioning him he'd pulled him over onto his back by the wrappings. With Peter's new strength, he could do it, but it would be obvious unless he got rid of his witnesses.

He took out another syringe and filled it with the next dose. "I'm going to put you out now, or as close to it as I can get. Then I'll put you where you need to be on the bed and splint your arms." He took Noah's pulse for a while and checked his blood pressure by palpation. He wanted to be sure he was stable before increasing the sedation.

After he was satisfied, he gave Noah the injection and turned to his mother. "Can you go find me some ties or something so I can hang an IV bag off the headboard?" She nodded and went. While she was gone, Peter gingerly and carefully picked Noah up, getting him into the right position. The man was nearly, but not quite, unconscious.

He pulled up a sheet to Noah's waist and laid out his splints, tapes, and assorted ties where he could get to them easily. He hoped his mother didn't notice he had plenty of material to attach the IV bag on his own. He'd just wanted to get her out of the room. She returned as he thought that, armed with a small assortment of items. He set them on the nightstand and went on to removing the bindings.

When they were off, he put his materials in place around Noah's left arm, leaning across him to get to it. After everything was in place, he probed gently at his arm, locating the fracture points. He ran his hand around Bennet's shoulder, testing the relative positions of the bones. It was dislocated. He glanced down at his patient, who looked uneasy, but insensate. Peter spoke to him anyway, saying, "This is going to hurt. Hold still if you can." He pressed and lifted, drawing on the smallest part of his newly enhanced strength to accomplish the relocation of Noah's shoulder with the minimum of motion to his arm.

Noah's eyes flew open and he struggled, making a strangled, surprised sound. "God that hurts!" he got out a moment later.

"Hang on. Not done yet." Peter moved his hands down to the fracture points and pinched the upper one and his elbow, gripping firmly. He pulled the elbow down until the bones slipped into alignment. Noah grimaced and sucked in air. "I'm done," Peter said quickly. "I'm going to secure it now. That was the worst of it." He finished with the adjustments and leaned back, stretching. Holding a position that awkward should have made his back hurt. It didn't. He knew he could thank Michael for that, but he didn't feel all that grateful at the moment.

Peter sighed. "Now for the right." He smiled at Noah, who was rapidly slipping back into foggy insensibility. His right arm was considerably worse than the left. Peter worked out where the larger fragments were, wondering if he should insist the man be taken to a hospital. The main issues were inflammation and muscle spasms as Noah's body was likely to react badly to any bone shards being out of place. He laid out everything he needed and went through in his mind what he'd do to straighten the limb. He rehearsed again, a little nervous about the procedure. His mother hovered in the background.

Before he did it, he turned to her and said, "You said he was going to be driven to go kill Gabriel, right?"

"Yes," she nodded.

Peter bit his lip and looked at Noah. "Even with his arms like this?"

"Yes. He was trying to get up before, more than once."

"We need to strap him down then. Let's do that first, because when I set this arm he's going to come up off the bed if we don't."

They made the arrangements after some searching of the house for appropriate materials. Peter reflected he should have found it disturbing that his mother had quite the collection of materials for restraining people. He decided not to dwell on it. Once his patient was secured, Peter went over the process once more. He put his left hand on Noah's right shoulder and held it down firmly. With his right he drew the arm straight from the elbow, watching the shard under the bicep retract to its proper position.

As he'd expected, it was painful enough to wake Noah up with a yell. If he hadn't had enhanced strength, he wouldn't have been able to hold him. He manipulated the limb until he thought it was correct, pressing firmly on the shoulder to prevent Noah's abortive writhing from shifting his arm. He hesitated until Noah had stopped moving and was merely breathing heavily. Peter told his patient, "I'm going to take my hand off your shoulder. Don't move, or I'll have to do that all over again. Do you understand?"

Noah nodded shallowly. He did **not** want to go through that a second time.

Peter applied the splint left-handed, then carefully switched hands to put his left on Noah's elbow and did the finer work with his right. Once it was secured, he could let go and finish the ties using both hands. Bennet blinked at the ceiling. "That… yeah… that kind of hurt too," he said faintly.

Peter nodded. "I suppose that's why they make people fully unconscious for it. I've never done it on anyone who was awake."

Noah couldn't help giving him a small smile. "**Now **you tell me!"

Peter smiled back at him. He didn't add that he'd never set a bone on a living person, awake or asleep. He knew the technique and he'd seen it done several times. He'd practiced it in the course of his medical classes for advanced field trauma, but it wasn't the sort of thing you could get much hands-on experience with. Paramedics were supposed to take cases like these to the hospital for a full doctor to deal with, with anesthesia.

He had nothing here to continuously monitor blood pressure or heart rate, making him very reluctant to give Noah enough to make him unconscious. He was too close to it now for Peter's comfort. Noah was already drifting off again.

He looked back to see his mother looking very pale, leaning on the doorframe. He walked over to her and stripped off his gloves. He patted her arm reassuringly. "He's going to be all right, Mom."

"Thank you," she told him, recovering herself somewhat.

He headed back to the bed and dug out a new set of gloves. She asked, "You aren't finished?"

"Not quite. I need to get him on a steady drip for fluids and painkillers, get him a…" He glanced over at her and pursed his lips. "Get him taken care of on the other end. Probably best if you're not here for that. I'll come by every six hours or so to change things and check on him. **Don't move him - at all.** Keep Michael away from him - he'll hurt him. You can call me if there's any problem. I need to wash his hair and clean up his face too, but I'll do that later and get some ointment on those surface lacerations."

"How are you going to wash his hair in the bed?"

"I'll put a basin under him and do it slowly. They have ones shaped for it. I did it all the time in hospice care. I'll get one while I'm out. Compared to getting him immobilized and stable, it's not urgent. He's pretty out of it though. I'm going to take care of the other stuff before I leave." He set up the IV and then turned to apply the condom catheter and incontinence device. He pulled the sheet back and silently looked at his mother before reaching to take anything off. She absented herself. Noah woke up enough to grumble something inarticulate and vulgar about the process, but as it wasn't acutely painful, he fell back asleep.

Peter finished and covered Noah up again, folding the other man's pants and boxers and setting them aside neatly. He stripped off his gloves again and set the IV drip fairly low. He planned to be back in an hour or so to finish dealing with the facial injuries and scalp wound. Noah's arms would have swollen by then and he'd need the splints adjusted because of it.

Peter stood at the door looking at his friend for a long moment. He wanted to beat the crap out of someone over this. Two of his three possible candidates were right here in the house. The one he really wanted to hurt was probably still restrained and powerless, but that made Gabriel not a target for Peter. He wanted him to fight back or at least be able to, stupid as that was. He shook his head and walked out, pausing only to give Gabriel and Michael dirty looks before he left.

XXX

Noah woke up to the feeling of someone rubbing his neck. It felt nice and so did he. He had a feeling of pleasant numbness, like his body was far away and anything happening to it didn't matter much. He started trying to fight that off. He had something he needed to do. In the meantime, who was rubbing his neck?

He opened his eyes to see it was Peter. "What are you doing, Peter?"

"Giving you a massage. You're stiff."

"You don't have to do that." He felt uncomfortable about Peter touching him this intimately. It was not a contact he wanted. He liked Peter, but this sort of thing struck him as inappropriate.

"If you're this knotted up while sedated, you're going to have a lot of trouble when you're off it."

Noah shifted his hips slightly. "What did you do to my rear end? Feels like I have a piece of cardboard crammed up my crack."

Peter smirked and cradled Noah's head with his right hand. With his left he pulled out the pillow and set it aside, then reached over for the empty basin. He said, "I've heard that complaint before. But if you're going to be so sedated you're barely conscious, then you have to have equipment. It's a lot easier than cleaning up accidents."

Noah grumbled and looked around the room. He was feeling a little more clear-headed, although with the ability to think came thoughts of his pressing need to deliver Gabriel to Maury Parkman.

"Where's Gabriel?" He moved his fingers and clenched and released his fists. "And what are you doing?" He lifted his head out of the basin, trying to turn it enough to see what Peter was up to.

"I'm going to wash the blood out of your hair." Peter didn't answer the other question. He looked down at Noah's restless hands. He had a pitcher of warm water waiting for use, but he didn't reach for it yet.

"You don't have to do that, Peter." Noah repeated to him tensely. It made sense, but the idea of Peter washing his hair made him **really** uncomfortable.

"I'm not going to have you lying here being dirty."

Noah continued to shift uneasily, moving his feet and looking around the room as if disoriented or confused. He was breathing harder. "Where's Gabriel?"

Peter reached over and turned up the drip on the IV. He lifted Noah's head out of the basin and slipped a towel under him before lowering him back to the bed. He put the basin aside. "I don't know."

Noah's agitation increased markedly. "I… you have to help me, Peter." He clenched his teeth. "He has to be taken to Parkman. Your mother was going to do that. Did she do it? Tell me she did it, Peter, please. I need to be told she did it."

Peter nodded and made calming motions to him. "I'll go find out. Calm down. The only way I can leave to find out is if you'll lie here very quietly and don't move. Can you do that?"

Noah stared at the ceiling. "For a little while, yes. Maybe… half an hour, fifteen minutes." His breathing remained elevated.

Peter walked out, stripping off his gloves. He waited outside the room for a minute, listening to the silence in case Noah tried to get up. He didn't think the man could, given the release for the strap across his chest was partly under the mattress and his legs were cuffed to the footboard. There was a lot of play in them, though.

When he didn't hear anything, Peter went on to the kitchen and tossed his gloves in the trash. He got himself a drink of water and then looked in the pantry. He pulled out some applesauce and soup, reading the labels. His mother came in. "You're done already?" she asked.

"No. He's upset about Gabriel. Wants me to tell him that you gave him to Maury. I'm waiting for the sedatives to put him out again."

"You should tell him that. He'll rest easier. Tell him Parkman has him and everything's taken care of."

Peter looked over at her for a moment, then back at the soup can. He didn't like the idea of lying to Noah, but he was pretty sure he needed to in this case. He said, "You're going to need to feed him in the room. Keep him on a soft diet. Don't give him too many dairy-based or milk-based products in a meal. He won't have much appetite either. It's okay if he skips a meal. If he refuses two, then let me know."

She nodded. Peter put the can down and asked her, "Where **is** Gabriel?"

"He's taking care of Company business," she said curtly.

Peter snorted and shook his head, disbelieving. He put the food back in the pantry and changed the subject because he could feel his blood beginning to boil at the very idea of Sylar running around loose again. "Did you talk to Claire?"

"Yes. She'll be here tomorrow evening."

"_**Tomorrow?**_" He gave her an upset look, his anger from the first subject transferring to the current one. "Why can't she be here today?"

"Noah's condition isn't life threatening. Claire has a life." His mother was eyeing him cautiously, like he was dangerous.

He cocked his head at her, trying to fathom her motivations for not having Claire get here as soon as possible. Her expression towards him made an impact as well. He didn't want his mother looking at him like that. He tried to calm himself and be reasonable. "He's in a lot of pain, Mom."

She sighed. "I know that, Peter. It will take her several hours to get here and several hours to return. Tomorrow works best for her schedule."

He rolled his eyes. "I'll call her then!"

"No! You will **not**, Peter."

He turned to face her directly and moved up to her threateningly. His mother stiffened and did not give ground. "Why not?" he asked with a clipped tone. "I have a patient in there in a lot of pain, a friend of mine, and I can't sedate him properly without equipment we don't have. You're telling me his cure won't be here until tomorrow evening and I can probably get Claire here on the next flight if she knew I needed it. Why wouldn't I do that, Mom?"

"Because I am telling you not to." Peter shook his head, clearly intending to ignore her wishes on the subject. She went on, "We can't let him go until we deprogram him, Peter. Until I know the extent of the subversion, the agents are suspect. I can't keep him in one of our facilities."

"We could just keep him here."

"Exactly, Peter." She spoke with a trace of condescension she very rarely used with him. He heard the tone. "We're _already_ keeping him here."

He looked at her angrily. He wanted to keep arguing, but he knew it wouldn't go anywhere he wanted. His mother wasn't making any sense to him. Personally, he thought Maury going after Gabriel made perfect sense. Matt Parkman was missing, probably dead. Sylar killing one of Peter's family members had certainly motivated him to stop the man. Maury was just doing the same thing, even if Peter didn't approve of his methods.

Why she would defend Gabriel when he'd clearly been duping them for months, maybe longer, biding his time for his chance, was beyond Peter's comprehension. He'd imagined she had Michael holding him because she was going to do something to him. He hadn't asked because he'd been distracted with Noah and perhaps secretly didn't really want to know. Now to find out he was back at large, doing Company business?

A lot of things weren't making sense to Peter and hadn't since a few days ago in France. The man he'd been tricked into loving had turned out to be a deceiver of the first water and it had turned Peter's heart inside out. He felt like the whole world was grating on his nerves.

He exhaled forcefully and shook his head. He went back to Noah's room to check on him. The man was unconscious when he entered. He reduced the drip rate slightly. He was still trying to find the sweet spot of sedated enough, but not too much. He checked blood pressure and pulse rate, satisfied things looked okay. Lost in thought, he lifted Bennet's head and replaced the towel with the basin, setting to washing his hair out mechanically.

He was adding more water for a final rinse when Noah's eyelids fluttered open. He looked blearily around the room. "Where am I?"

"You're in Angela's house, the Petrelli house."

"You're… why are you washing my hair? Am I dreaming?" He sounded confused and distressed that the world wasn't making sense at the moment.

Peter smirked at him. "No. You had a scalp laceration. Your hair was bloody. I'm cleaning you up."

"Oh." He blinked and almost went back to sleep. He roused suddenly and looked at Peter, eyes unfocused. "You're gay, Peter." This seemed to concern Noah.

"No, I'm not. I'm not interested in you anyway, so you have nothing to worry about." Peter spoke calmly, but he lost the smirk. He was pretty sure Noah was so out of it as to not really understand what he was saying. Bennet was a very open-minded man, but he was still a product of his time. The other man mumbled something about being worried about Peter and Gabriel, then fell back asleep.

Peter took the basin away and dried his hair. He looked for the tear. It was bleeding again, but only a little. He found it, applied ointment and taped gauze to it as best he could without shaving away hair.

Peter eyed the IV drip. He turned it down the smallest increment he could. He took out supplies for treating Bennet's face and used them. The man reacted to the contact, but he didn't wake. He stripped off his gloves again and drug the chair over to sit at Noah's bedside. A quarter hour passed while he watched. Peter rubbed his forehead and then his eyes. Since he was on the midnight shift at work, it was now well past the time he usually went to bed and his body was telling him about it. He knew if he kept sitting there quietly, listening to Noah's steady breathing, he'd fall asleep in the chair.

He reached into his bag and pulled out an incident report with a clipboard. He turned it over to the blank side and wrote out care directions for Angela to follow, or have the Cassie the maid or Taylor the butler follow, in treating Noah. He filled the page, not wanting to leave anything to chance, even though it boiled down to leaving the man alone and calling Peter if there were any problems. After he was done, he found his mother and reviewed them with her and answered her questions about it.

He'd felt terribly out of sorts since France, easily confused and obsessing about things. He was sure there was something he needed to be doing about Gabriel, but he couldn't bring it to mind. He pulled out his phone and set the alarm for four hours. He went upstairs to his old room, smiling at the memories it evoked for him. He lay down on the bed and got some sleep.


	62. A Mother's Touch

Gabriel remained lost in his thoughts as twenty minutes passed, then thirty. Michael gave him injections as directed. He heard Noah groan in pain once and he heard Angela's voice speaking to him soothingly. At least he imagined it was soothing. All he could make out was the tone. She was speaking too quietly for him to get the individual words.

Peter arrived. Gabriel heard his voice clearly in the hall, initially alarmed, then settling down to a calm, practiced and professional banter. After another minute Noah made another cry as Peter did something in the course of examining him. Fitzgerald's fingers twitched. It occurred to Gabriel that Michael probably felt responsible for Bennet's pain. He felt sorry for him. He'd just been doing his job.

Angela came in, carrying Noah's handcuffs. "How much time do we have?"

"Seven minutes," Michael said, looking at the timer.

"Very well." She went to her knees in front of Gabriel, who looked at her dully. She put a hand on his knee. He shifted it away from her touch. Michael's grip increased marginally. He winced. Angela told him, "Gabriel. Gabriel, I don't know what you saw, but… please understand, telepathy is a very difficult power. Most people who have it don't like to use it, unless… unless they are very cruel, or very certain of themselves.

"It can show you things you don't want to see, show you things about another person you didn't want to know. It's like precognition in that respect. People are never what you want them to be. They may be selfish, egotistical and mean. They may have thoughts you don't want them to have. Do not let those dark thoughts blind you to the good ones."

Her hand faltered towards his leg again and he moved it further away. Michael tightened his hand. Gabriel made a strangled sound against the pain. He had no regeneration to help him endure it. Angela looked at Fitzgerald and he relaxed his grip to a more tolerable level. She huffed. "He's not ready to listen to me yet." She handed Michael the handcuffs. "Cuff him, hand to foot."

She looked back at Gabriel, "Gabriel, stay **here**. It's not safe for you outside. **Please** stay here. Remember what I've been trying to teach you about emotional distance, blocking? Use it. Your mind is being affected by what has happened to you recently. Stay here." This time when she reached for him he didn't move away. His expression was still untrusting.

"Wait a moment," she said to Michael and she walked over to get a box of tissue. She returned and knelt much closer to Gabriel's face. She started to wipe off the tear tracks from earlier. He tried to jerk away from her, but Michael turned his head back. "Let him go," she told him and he did. Gabriel reached up and rubbed his neck. It hurt badly, like it had been stuck in a vise for half an hour.

Angela reached up slowly to wipe his face. He tried to forgive her for how she saw him. He dug for more tender moments in Nathan's memories and brought up one where she'd sat at his bedside reading him a story. He must have been twelve or thirteen at the time, because Peter was very small. He hadn't felt jealous of the new addition to the family, but sometimes he felt resentful of how much of his parent's time the baby absorbed. She'd sat next to him as he was fevered and sick, reading him the entire story, giving him her time and her attention, caring for him. He let her touch him and sighed, looking away, thinking about how he was doing the opposite of her instructions for emotional distance. "Thank you," she said softly.

She cleaned him up and looked at the face of the man who wasn't her son, touching his chin and the line of his jaw with her bare hand. He glanced back at her briefly, a grateful look for her attentions, then away again. She rose. Gabriel didn't fight with Michael about being cuffed, even if it was an awkward position. Angela said to Fitzgerald, "I need you to pick Noah up and carry him to a bed. Peter can't heal him directly so we'll give him standard medical aid for now." With a last concerned look at Gabriel, she picked up the bag of neutralizer darts and left.

Three or four minutes later - he couldn't tell exactly, which was very annoying - Michael came back, looked at him and gave him another injection. He grumbled to himself, but it seemed pointless and undignified to fight with the man about it. Gabriel didn't feel in danger from Angela anyway. Being at her mercy was inconvenient, not threatening. He trusted her. Fitzgerald paced up and down the hall uneasily and finally came back to sit on the settee. Gabriel turned to look at him. "Do you live here?"

Michael grunted in some manner Gabriel suspected was affirmative. He knew the answer was yes - Gabriel was just trying to pass the time.

"You like your job?"

He got a similar grunt.

Gabriel sighed and looked out towards the hall, giving up on conversation with the brick. "What are they doing?" He asked this rhetorically, but it got the best answer.

The blond man said, "They're working on him, I guess. Gave him painkillers, straightening what I broke."

Gabriel ran his free hand over his face. Even through half the house, they both heard Noah yell. Michael stood up and paced the hall again. With the degree to which Angela liked Noah, entirely platonically, he thought Michael had good reason to be anxious.

A half hour and three injections later, Peter came out, gave Gabriel and Michael both nasty looks, and left. Gabriel was never so relieved that Peter hadn't stayed. Angela followed him out shortly and unlocked Gabriel's cuffs. The timer went off. She shook her head at Michael when he hefted the bag of remaining darts at her. "Gabriel, will you talk to me?" she asked him.

"Do I have a choice?" He looked past her at Fitzgerald for a moment, then back at her.

"Yes, you do," she said, her voice stern. "If you won't speak to me, then you can leave and take your chances outside, on your own. If you will, then I will go get you some tea. When your powers are back and you feel more like yourself, we can have a chat."

He didn't think that was much of a choice, but it was classic Angela. He narrowed his eyes at her, feeling a bit sensitive about things due to Maury's letter. "I don't have to have my abilities to talk to you. I feel like myself **right now**." After a pause, he said, "Send **him** to get tea."

Angela turned to the muscle man. "Can you make tea?"

"Uh… yeah."

She nodded at him and he left to do so. Gabriel got off the floor and sat on the settee. After a moment, he pulled out the letter and reread it. He put it away, not caring to share it with Angela directly. The contents were embarrassing. "Maury is angry I killed his son."

"That's not unexpected."

"Yeah. I should have thought about it. He turned Noah against me. And Wilcox, but you know that."

"Noah is not turned against you."

He looked at her intently. She went on, "He is very upset about what has been done to him, but he does not blame you for it."

Gabriel grunted. "And you?"

"I don't blame you either." She folded her hands in her lap.

"Should I try to help Noah?"

Her voice was tense. "I would prefer you refined your technique on someone else first."

"He asked me to make him sleep."

"He told me that," she said briskly. "He is heavily sedated right now, so that is no longer necessary."

He looked at her. _She thinks I'm a monster._ It tore at him. He blinked and looked away, searching his mind for something to distract himself. "Maury says there's more you're not telling me about little Noah."

She exhaled slowly with an expression on her face indicating what she'd like to do to Maury for telling him that. "Gabriel, I do not wish to share my thoughts with you."

He turned his eyes on her, boring into her. She fixed hers on his chest. A long moment passed where Gabriel couldn't quite get past her cleaning his face earlier. As long as that was in his mind, that tender, motherly touch, a kindness he didn't think he deserved, especially from her, he couldn't bring himself to violate her. His power wasn't working anyway at the moment, but they both knew that was just a matter of time.

Michael came in with tea, oblivious to the silent battle of wills. He served Gabriel first, then Angela. She seemed very relieved at the interruption. Gabriel went on as if there had been no standoff. "He also says he has Molly and if I move against him directly, he'll kill her. No… that's not what he said. He said he'd _break_ her."

Michael retreated after leaving the tray next to Angela. He looked uneasily between them. Angela looked to him and said, "Go see if Noah needs anything. Stay with him. Let me know if he wakes." Michael gave Gabriel a last uncomfortable look and went.

When he left, Gabriel said, "How can I tell how many of the agents he's gotten to?"

She sighed. "You can go to them, one at a time, and look into their minds. He can't hide things very well from another telepath. What we usually call memory manipulation is needed for that. What you find, you can try to undo. In fact, you'll almost certainly have to, since your presence will probably trigger them, assuming they're not already hunting you. Even now, Noah is driven to get at you." She frowned at her tea and blew on it to cool it. "Maury will bore quickly of the game. I do not think he had strong feelings for his son and in any case, he knows he will have Arthur to deal with if his actions against you inconvenience Arthur's plans."

Gabriel sipped the tea even though it burned his mouth. His regeneration was coming slowly back online. He'd clearly lost the layered effect. It had probably happened the same time he'd lost Claire's memories. "He implied he was going to go after the people who loved and trusted me the most." _Peter, Heidi._ He looked at her.

"That may be so, or it may be an empty threat to frighten you. Heidi can defend herself better than you know. I don't believe Maury will go after children."

"He has **Molly**! She's only a year or two older than Monty."

Angela huffed and said nothing. He glared at her and then looked away. Still looking away, he said, "What about Peter?"

She adopted a tight, even tone of voice she used when she was being guarded. He was getting better at reading her cues. "He is the same as he was last night."

He looked at her. He was really tired of the secrets. He was tired of having to fight off the urge to use his new ability to pry those secrets from her. Abruptly, she said, "Your powers are recovered. You need to leave." She stood up. He rolled his eyes and rose as well. _She's right. If I stay here, I'm going to do it eventually. My self-control is shot. Hell of a week._

He said, "I'll start with the facility here in town, then Philly, then Washington. That's probably as far as I'll be able to get today. Do they **all** have these neutralizer darts? They're really inconvenient," he complained petulantly.

She smiled warmly at him. "Yes, dear, they do. They're standard issue now. Try to keep the body count down." She came over and tugged him down to give him a peck on the cheek. She patted his cheek like she did to her sons and walked off towards Noah's room. He shook his head and left, feeling very much like he was wearing the wrong face today.


	63. Favors Unasked For

By the end of the day, no one else was dead, although one Company employee now had a permanent twitch and another was in a coma. Gabriel hoped these could be healed later. Maybe they could coerce Maury into straightening them out. Gabriel wasn't nearly as good at what he was trying to do as Maury was, but fortunately Parkman hadn't taken much time to instill the orders. It was like he didn't care if his agents were found and disabled. Gabriel had found nine people Maury had turned against him and scanned through two dozen or so others he had not. It seemed somewhat random, with a heavy weighting towards those people who were effective in fighting people with abilities.

He flew back from Washington in the dark, feeling spent and exhausted. He considered his options. He could go home, which was where, if he were Maury, he would definitely have struck - perhaps Mandy or the nanny, assuming Angela was right about Maury being reluctant to strike children and Heidi being able to defend herself. Or he could go check on Peter, who was such an obvious target, alone and relatively powerless, that Maury must surely have moved against him. If he had Molly, there was no hiding people from him. He'd know, or he could know, even now, where Gabriel was.

He had refined his technique considerably, getting plenty of practice in picking apart the constructs of Maury's commands. A few were clumsy and quick, easy to disarm, like Wilcox would have been if he'd known what he was doing. Most were tied intricately with the person's personality and motivations. Those had been the most difficult. Unable to choose between Heidi and Peter, he decided to return to the Petrelli house first and see if Angela would agree to let him look at Noah. He would be one of the difficult cases, but maybe he could at least let him rest more easily until he could dismantle the commands. _It shouldn't take long,_ he thought.

He raised his hand to knock and paused. With an effort, he shifted his face to Nathan's. He'd spent most of the day going around as Noah Bennet, so as to approach people without setting them off. He opened the door and went in. Nathan didn't need to knock. He belonged there.

Angela was finishing dinner. She stood up immediately upon seeing him. "Nathan! You should have called. I didn't know you were back in town." Her voice was so warm and welcoming that he felt nauseous and confused. _Is she mental? I was just here this morning!_ She went on, "Please have a seat. I'll get you a plate."

He sat down and looked at the table, then at Michael and Taylor, who had been eating with her. Michael waited until she was in the kitchen and said what Nathan was thinking, "You… you're the same guy who was here this morning, right? When you looked like Sylar?"

He nodded mutely. _My family is so crazy._ The food was good though and very welcome. He hadn't eaten since breakfast. His mother chattered on about the New Year's Eve party and a social she was hoping to go to next week for Millie's niece. He interrupted, "Millie? Kelly's mother?"

She looked at him and her face froze for a moment. There was a fractional glance towards the other two men at the table. "Yes."

"Oh. Things are good with them these days?"

She shrugged. "The Houstons are good people. Millie has been getting help."

"Mm. Speaking of getting help, I came by to see if you thought there was anything I could do for Noah. I heard he had an accident." He felt ridiculous saying it that way, with Michael right across the table. But if Angela wanted to play like he was two different people, he'd follow along. Michael winced slightly.

"We can go see him together after dinner. I'll be taking him his meal then anyway."

She turned the conversation back to other events and he finished eating. He followed her into the kitchen while she prepared a tray for Noah with the maid's help. Noah's jaw and cheekbone were broken, so his food required more treatment than normal. Nathan carried the tray, letting her go first. He had the odd feeling upon first seeing Noah that he should be wearing Gabriel's face, but he shook it off. Noah's eyes widened on seeing him, then clenched shut. Nathan set the tray down on a chest at the foot of the bed. He walked over to a chair Angela had sitting at the bedside.

He sat. Noah's head snapped over to look at him and he started trying to move, but also obviously fighting the compulsion. He was bound to the bed with a strap across his chest and under the mattress. He had splints on his arms he was now moving, though each movement was clearly difficult and painful. An IV bag hung from the headboard.

Angela asked, "Should I sedate him more strongly? He's on the dosage Peter recommended for the pain, not enough to keep him unconscious."

Nathan said, "No. I need him awake. Please be quiet, I'll need to concentrate."

He tilted his head slightly and felt through the commands. Almost immediately he gave a counter order: _Not now. Later. No need to do it now. Relax._ It didn't directly conflict with what Bennet had been told to do, but it would calm him down while Nathan worked - unless Noah chose to ignore it of his own free will. Noah fell back against the bed, breathing hard. Once he wasn't hurting himself, Nathan could get to work picking apart Maury's work. He unraveled it bit by bit. It was tedious. Nathan took his time, forgetting his other obligations for the moment. Seeing as Bennet wasn't showing any significant mental fatigue, he continued until he was done.

To the best of his ability, Noah cooperated. This was better than Nathan had had from the other people he'd worked on that day. It was very helpful and also disturbing that Noah had a lot of experience with getting his mind tinkered with, enough so that he knew how to be of assistance in the process. His thoughts were a little fuzzy from the drugs, but it wasn't a hindrance. He showed Nathan a number of tricks he hadn't thought of.

When Nathan was done, he reached further, dredging up older things, looking for something specific. Noah twitched, realizing that Nathan wasn't leaving his mind once the deed was done. Now he tried to fight him in earnest, but it was difficult since he'd already let him inside his defenses. What had been simple before became a violation as Bennet resisted with everything he could muster. Noah tensed against the bed, his mental struggle finding a physical outlet.

"Noah… Noah, relax. You know who I am. I'm ordering you to relax and let me do this."

Angela shifted beside him, unsure of why he needed to use a verbal command. It had already taken a very long time.

Noah didn't relax, but he stopped actively fighting, his mind at a stand-off between his will and the order. He asked, mentally, _What are you doing to me? You're doing something._

_Yes, and that brought it to the surface._ He had found the oath. He dismantled it - every clause and amendment, of which there were a ridiculous number he had accumulated over the years. Several of them were contradictory. Bennet struggled against him once more with everything he had, obligated to do so by the very command Nathan was taking apart. It helped a lot that he was a director. It limited his fighting to resistance.

That resistance was still thwarted mainly by Nathan's entrenched presence within his mind. Despite the violation, Nathan pushed on, tearing it out bit by bit. He hoped Noah would forgive him later. He felt a flash of fear go through Bennet, fear of the unknown, fear of what Nathan meant by what he was doing. After the core of the programming was removed, Noah relaxed slowly, letting his resistance fall aside as Nathan took out the peripheral sections.

Before he withdrew, with the oath eliminated, Nathan asked, _I can put it back in if you want, right now. If I leave, it leaves with me and no one knows._ He considered the almost unbridled fear and hints of joy washing through Noah. He knew the answer to his next question, but felt obligated to ask anyway. _What do you want me to do?_

_Take it with you. I don't want it!_

Nathan nodded slightly and ended the mental contact. He leaned back and breathed a great sigh, rubbing his head. It ached, even through the regeneration.

Noah's eyes were huge. He looked around the room, eyes resting on Angela, then Nathan. He shut them before he betrayed himself. "Thank you," he said gratefully.

"You're welcome," Nathan answered calmly. He looked at his mother. "It's done. I took out all of Maury's commands. He's under his own will now."

She nodded, giving him a searching, guarded look. She looked very untrusting of him. Nathan ignored her. He was already thinking about what he needed to do next. He stood and let her take his seat, where she put a tentative hand on Noah's. After a few moments she stopped peering at Nathan and turned to Noah. She asked the man on the bed, "Would you like dinner?"

XXX

Nathan walked into the sitting room and took a seat, properly, like a gentleman should. Some part of his mind wanted to sprawl like Gabriel. He ignored that part. Now he had to figure out where he wanted to go next. Where he **needed** to go was home, to check on Heidi and his sons. She needed him.

She'd had a very rough week, to say the least. She'd slept only fitfully last night, holding him and worrying that something would happen to her or little Noah. She only marginally accepted him as Gabriel. He had to reassure her frequently. He was sure she'd be pleased to see him as Nathan. His own hours of sleep had been spent holding the baby. Heidi was terrified someone might take him if he was left unattended for even a moment.

Peter would have to wait.

His head hurt. He weighed his need to go versus the possible danger he was in his condition. He was very worn out. He could feel it through the healing, which was really saying something. He'd had an emotional breakdown this morning. If there was a conflict, he was pretty sure he wouldn't deal with it well. It didn't matter, really. His presence was needed whether he was in good shape or ill. He got up and slipped out, making good-byes only to Mr. Grem, whom he ran across on his way out.

By the time he got there, Mandy and the nanny had both been sent home for the evening. His house seemed fine otherwise. The boys were misbehaving by still being awake far after their bedtime, having taken advantage of his absence and their mother's problems to sneak back downstairs after the nanny left. They were glad to see him, having been given who knows what excuses for their father's disappearance. It gave him an opportunity to tousle their hair and listen to their thoughts. At least on the surface, they seemed fine. He didn't want to go deeper and left it at that. After an appropriate reunion, he sent them to bed with a stern warning and went to check on his wife.

He found Heidi in the bedroom, lying on the bed, curled protectively around little Noah. When he came in, she stirred, clutching protectively at her baby until he turned on the light. She said, "Oh! Nathan! I'm so glad you're back!" She sounded very relieved to see him. She sat up and he came over to hug her.

"You could have called, if you were worried," he told her. "If there was anything wrong, you should have called right away. Is everything all right?"

He leaned back and looked at her, putting his hands on either side of her head, pushing her hair back from her face. He saw a flash of thought from her that she wanted him to come back on his own and then there was a curious blankness like his ability cut out abruptly. He felt very tired. It had been a long day. He took a deep breath. She was peering at him intently. "Are you… all right?"

He sat next to her on the bed, holding his suddenly aching head. "No… wow, migraine all of a sudden. I guess… I guess I'll go get some aspirin. We have aspirin?" It occurred to him he hadn't needed medicine of any kind for over a year, at least.

"Yes, we have aspirin," she said. "In the cabinet in the bathroom, next to the prenatal vitamins."

He started to get up. It felt like his head was about to fall off his shoulders. He staggered, fighting the urge to sit back down. Somehow he knew he had to get away… get further away. He stumbled forward and fell against the door of the bathroom. It hurt to breathe.

Heidi came up behind him. Her presence made it distinctly worse. "Nathan? Are you okay?"

"Heidi," he panted. "Heidi, get away from me. Please. Go. Other side of the room. Gah!" He clutched his head. There was blood coming out of his nose.

"Nathan!" she cried in alarm. He couldn't speak, feeling like he was beginning to choke. After a moment, she did as he asked. He could breathe again.

He crawled into the bathroom, getting to the opposite side of it, and reached out with telekinesis to shut the door. The door didn't move. "Oh, crap," he moaned. He struggled to it and closed it manually. He went back and held his head. It felt better, noticeably better. As soon as he thought he could stand it, he got up and washed his face off. He noticed he had dark rings under his eyes. He was pale and sweating. _This is what I get for overdoing it all the time. Either that, or she has a poison power instead of just turning off my regeneration. Hm. Poison wouldn't have stopped the telekinesis or telepathy._ He heard Heidi crying softly.

He opened the door, feeling another wave of negation from her. "Heidi? Honey?" She looked up at him from where she was sitting against the wall on the opposite side of the room. "You have an ability. You can turn off other people's powers. I did a lot of things today, apparently way too much for my body to handle without the healing power I have. You're turning it off." He felt his knees start to buckle. "If you can figure out how to stop it, please…" He sank down, clutching the door and trying very hard to keep his voice calm. "Please stop it. I'll be back." He shut the door and retreated across the bathroom again. Even just this little distance was a help. That and having the door shut.

When he'd caught his breath again, he went back and cracked the door. "Heidi?" She didn't answer. Panic surged through him. He looked out. She was gone. "Heidi!" he shouted. His abilities were functioning again. The baby began to cry, wakened by his call. He ran to it.

Heidi came to the door as he picked up little Noah. He saw her. "Oh my God, Heidi, you scared me. Are you okay?"

She stood at the door, sniffling. He felt fine, holding Noah to himself. "I'm fine," she said uncertainly. "I thought if I was further away… Are you okay?"

He nodded. She walked in slowly. "You're sure?" she asked.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine now. You must have stopped it," he said.

She reached out and took the baby from him. He felt the migraine come back instantly. "No, give me the baby." He took him back from her and the pain faded.

She gave him an odd look. "What?" she asked.

"Uh… You're still doing it, but while I'm holding Noah, there's no problem."

She looked at the baby, stroking his back as he fussed. She looked at Nathan, hoping for answers. "What does that mean?"

"I have no idea." He thought about Maury's letter saying Noah was special, his mother's refusal to tell him what it meant. _Great. As if I don't have enough weird, unexplained crap in my life._ He sighed and smiled faintly. "I guess I get to spend another night holding the baby." It sounded lovely and to be honest it was at any individual point. As an entire, it wasn't as restful as one might hope.

She rested her head against him and he shifted Noah so he could put an arm around her. "You can hold both of us."

"Mm," he said ambivalently.

XXX

His phone rang a couple hours later, around eleven. He shrugged away from Heidi's sleeping form and nestled Noah next to her. Very cautiously, he pulled his hand away from the baby. He felt fine. _Good, doesn't work while she's asleep. Good to know._ He grabbed his slacks off the clothes stand and hurried out to the solar, pulling the phone out as he went. It was his mother.

"Hello?" he said quietly.

"Hello, Nathan. I have good news."

"Yeah?"

"Peter has brought in Maury for us. Mr. Parkman's abilities are much diminished around your brother. This is very important."

"He…" He fell silent, recalling that Peter had done nothing to heal Noah Bennet. At the time he'd thought Peter was still drained from the ordeal of raising the dead, but perhaps he'd inadvertently borrowed Heidi's power. Or intentionally, if he thought he needed it to fend off Arthur. Or me, he thought belatedly. "I think I know where he got that."

"Oh?"

He considered her secretiveness. The desire to do the same thing to her warred with the feeling he should break the cycle by being truthful. Truth won out, as odd as it seemed while wearing Nathan's face. "Heidi. She turns me off." He caught himself. "No, what I mean is she turns off my powers. All of them. Not that she… never mind." _Embarrassing and untrue line of thought._

"Ah." His mother sounded disappointed. After a beat she went on, "Well, Parkman is here. I'm going to have a talk with him. How are things there?"

"They're fine. As far as I can tell, he didn't do anything here." He heard Maury say something in the background. He asked, "What did he just say?"

"He said your house was off-limits, too personal, and he didn't go there."

"And Peter isn't?" He assumed that Peter had brought Maury in due to Parkman trying to pull a whammy on him and getting the same reception Nathan had received from Heidi. Only Peter had meant it.

His mother ignored his question and said, "You should come by and see how things turn out."

"No, really, I think I'll stay here. Peter can quell his mental abilities and you have Michael for anything physical. You can handle it."

He heard her exhale forcefully, but she said only, "Good-bye," and hung up.

He grumbled to himself and sat down where he could watch the snow softly falling outside. _At least that's taken care of. I could go help, hear what he has to say._ He looked back in the direction of the bedroom and recalled the one thought he'd seen in Heidi's mind, that she wanted him to be with her not because she asked him to, but because he wanted to be there. _Which do I want: to go lay next to my beautiful wife and finally get some rest, or go listen to some cranky, creepy telepath who has a grudge against me? Tough decision._ He went back to bed.


	64. Maury's Capture

Peter pulled into the garage and parked. He glanced in the rearview mirror at his passenger. Maury Parkman had a bloody nose and split lip, but neither looked very serious. Peter had gotten him more with body blows. He'd have quite a collection of bruises along his ribs and one knee, with a wrenched shoulder thrown in for variety. Right now he was handcuffed and sitting up, looking disappointed in himself. Peter thought it was a good expression on him.

What was funny was that if Maury had approached Peter differently, he might have been able to talk him into doing exactly what he wanted to command him to do. But he hadn't. Maury had assumed Peter and Gabriel were on friendly terms and Peter still retained the healing power he'd had for months. It had been quite a shock to find his telepathy thwarted almost instantly. The old man rarely misread people as thoroughly as he had Peter. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that no matter how much the white sheep of the family Peter was, he was still a Petrelli.

As soon as Peter got out of the car, the door connecting the garage and house opened. Michael Fitzgerald came out. Peter had called before bringing Parkman over, so they expected him. Peter circled the car and opened the rear door. Maury made Peter pull him out by not helping with the process. The bloody-faced man looked at him sullenly. Peter handed him over to Fitzgerald, who hesitated noticeably upon taking Maury's arm. He looked intently at Peter, who made what should have been an unnecessary gesture for him to take the older man inside the house. Michael did so, steadying Parkman more than holding him.

Angela was waiting for them. A flicker of concern crossed her features at Maury's face. It deepened for Peter's. The youngest Petrelli would soon be sporting a black eye. He had a red, scuffed mark on his jaw and his knuckles were bandaged. "Oh, Peter!" she said and moved to him, looking at him carefully. "You're all right, aren't you?" She looked back and forth between his eyes, her face very serious.

"I'm fine. He didn't get to me." Peter stood patiently until she seemed satisfied and stepped away from him, still eyeing him from the corner of her eye. After a moment she turned her full attention to Maury, who gave her a faint, pained smile.

"Uncuff him, please, Peter."

Peter exhaled and went to do so. Between Michael's strength and Peter's ability to nullify abilities, the chances Maury could cause trouble were slim, especially if his knee was bothering him as much as indicated by him favoring it. Peter unlocked the handcuffs and glanced up. Michael was giving him an odd, appraising look, sizing him up. Peter narrowed his eyes and stepped back. It didn't make any sense that the big man would want a piece of him, but that was certainly how it looked. Peter walked slowly back to his mother, stopping between her and the other two men. He turned so he could see her and them both.

Maury stretched and rubbed his right shoulder. Michael kept his hand on Parkman's arm at all times, keeping contact but not restraining him. "Get me a chair, would you?" the older man asked. No one moved to accommodate him.

"Peter, please?" Angela asked. At Peter's worried look, she added, "It's safe."

He brought one out from the dining room and put it down next to Parkman, who lowered himself to it gingerly, extending his injured leg. Michael stood next to him with a blank expression and his hand on Parkman's shoulder. Peter finally worked out that physical contact must bypass or override the nullification. That meant Maury now had Michael and any commands he gave him would probably still hold even after contact ceased. Peter was confident of his ability to take the old man in a fist fight – not so much with the tank, who was very strong even without his ability. He shifted uneasily.

"Now go get me an ice pack, love," Parkman said to him.

Peter looked from Fitzgerald to Parkman. Maury added, "Yes, I'm talking to you, boy."

Angela said dryly, "Maury, please do not address my son in that fashion. He is not a servant. I hope we can keep this polite and above-board. Is that possible?"

Parkman rolled his eyes and sighed. He looked up at Michael, who was still watching Peter like he wanted to attack him. "You. Muscle. Go get me a couple ice packs. And a wet towel." Michael finally took his hand off his shoulder and headed to the kitchen to obey. Parkman looked back at Angela. "Yes, it's possible, I suppose." He reached up and fingered his nose. It didn't seem to be broken, so that was a comfort. Peter had tagged him repeatedly, but he hadn't connected very solidly with the older man's face. Maury suspected this had been intentional. "I'm going to need a fucking chiropractor."

"You can bill the Company for your medical expenses," Angela said frostily. She walked over to the phone and dialed Nathan's cell.

"Hello, Nathan. I have good news." … "Peter has brought in Maury for us. Mr. Parkman's abilities are much diminished around your brother. This is very important." She looked over at Parkman as Michael brought him an ice pack and a damp towel.

Parkman told him, "I said **two** ice packs, moron. Go get me another one." He wiped at his face carefully and rested the ice pack on his knee.

Angela said into the phone, "Oh?" There was a pause. "Ah." She sounded disappointed. After a beat she went on, "Well, Parkman is here. I'm going to have a talk with him. How are things _there_?"

Maury said, "I didn't go to his **home**. I have **some** sense of respect, you know? You made him a fucking director." He looked resentful of that.

Angela gave him a sour look and said into the phone, "He said your house was off-limits, too personal, and he didn't go there." After a pause she continued, "You should come by and see how things turn out." She didn't get the answer she wanted, apparently, because she exhaled forcefully and concluded, "Good-bye." She hung up.

"Is he coming?" Peter asked.

"No," she said shortly.

"Good. We can't trust him. Something's different there, like he's not Nathan anymore."

Angela's shoulders slumped slightly. She stepped over to Peter and touched his cheek tenderly. "Sometimes we must adjust to new things, Peter."

He pulled away from her. "I'm not 'adjusting' to this!"

Parkman smiled and said, "Denial. It's not just a river in Egypt. For some, it's a way of life!" Peter glared at him. Fitzgerald came out with a second ice pack. Maury balanced it on his right shoulder.

Angela patted Peter's upper arm. "You should go take a look at your eye. Maury and I need to speak privately."

Peter looked back and forth between Angela and Parkman incredulously. "I'm not leaving you alone with him! He can control your mind."

His mother nodded evenly. "I've been alone with him countless times, Peter, and he's **always** been able to control my mind."

Peter looked at Maury, who raised his brows and nodded in agreement.

"We need privacy," she said softly, knowing a gentle tone carried more weight with her younger son. "Please take Michael with you. Maury and I have known each other for a very long time. I'll be fine."

Peter blew air out his nose, untrusting. He shook his head, but he knew it was inevitable. If they weren't going to lock Parkman up, neutralize him or otherwise render him powerless, then it was only a matter of time before they had to deal with him with his ability restored. Peter jerked his head at Michael, saying, "Come on," and went further into the house. He might as well check on Noah while he was there.

Angela brought out another chair and sat down close to Maury. She looked down and said, "I'm very sorry for your loss."

Maury was silent for a long, stiff moment. Finally he said, "I'm not the only one who's lost a son recently."

She looked up at him levelly until her eyes began to fill with unshed tears. "I know." She looked away, thinking of how pleasing and oddly revolting it had been to see Nathan's face at the dinner table even if it was Gabriel, as Gabriel. He did a good impersonation, but it wasn't her son anymore. There was something not quite right about his bearing and his mannerisms. They were no longer reflexive for Nathan's face, as if he was constantly experiencing a fraction-of-a-second delay as he had to remember how he was supposed to act.

"He's off the leash now. He needs to be put down, Angela."

She sighed. "No, Maury, I do not think so. I think it's working. I spoke with him at length when he came back. He's still willing to work with us, even after this business with his wife. He has restraint and self control he never had as Sylar."

"Arthur activated him." Maury leaned forward. "That's all. Activation does not equal accomplishment. Matt wanted something from him – I don't know what and Matt wouldn't tell me. He told Gabriel it wasn't his fault, but that's because he's a guilty, insecure fuck and it's easy to play to his weaknesses."

Angela tilted her head at him. "Matt, or Gabriel?"

Maury laughed harshly. "Well, both, but I meant Gabriel right then. Matt can be a manipulative bastard when he wants to be. He proved **that** last summer."

Angela sighed again and nodded. "I noticed Gabriel did not think he bore any responsibility for his actions. I think it best we leave him with that impression and preserve that break from reality for him."

"Angela," Maury raised his left hand to her, trying to convince her, "My point is he killed my son **on purpose**. It wasn't an accident. Turning on an ability like his doesn't make him use it. It's like turning on telepathy. It just makes me hear people - it doesn't make me command them, though I'll admit the temptation's always there and I'm sure it was for him too. You're saying he has restraint and self control. I'm pointing out to you he doesn't. It was pretty core to the plan that he wouldn't be driven by the Hunger."

"Maury, please. Think about what you are saying in a logical fashion. If he did it on purpose, then he was not driven by the Hunger. You know, and you aren't admitting to yourself, that he killed your son because he wanted to, because Matt has given him reason to. You of all people should understand revenge."

Parkman looked away for a long time. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his bruised hand, then carefully refolded the towel to find a clean part and used that instead. He shook his head very slowly as he stared sightlessly at the floor and felt around the edges of his grief.

Angela told him, "You said yourself that his inability to deal with mind control was a serious issue, inhibiting you from doing more than projecting to him. If Matt attacked him, if he pressed him, then Gabriel may have made the decision to kill him from a purely rational standpoint." After a pause she added, "As rational as people get, that is."

Maury had a good idea of what Matt had done and he'd used the full extent of his powers. That it hadn't saved his life was frightening and gave him an even more healthy respect for Gabriel's mental defenses. Dully, the older man said, "You don't think it was the Hunger."

She said, "No. It's been too long since his last victim and he has controlled himself too well. Peter is alive. We've discussed what that means for the future. Gabriel is very, very close to the edge right now, Maury. He broke down this morning. He dealt with your problems all day. Yet he answered the phone as Nathan and had a reasonable conversation. He is certainly not brittle. I wish very much he had come here so I could talk to him and you could see him, but I don't think it wise to press him at the moment. Everyone has limits."

"You think what happened is that Matt found his and stepped over them."

"Exactly." She said very softly, again, "I am very sorry for your loss, Maury."

"Yeah. Kind of had plans, even though you told me he'd get one of us within a year. I guess I'd rather it was someone other than me if I had to choose, but…" He shook his head. "All I have to do is look at what's happened with Nathan to see how fighting the future goes. I couldn't deal with seeing my son replaced by the man who murdered him. Even if… he's already booked for that engagement." He laughed hollowly.

She stood up and walked the few steps to him, laying a hand on his left shoulder, wordlessly offering her sympathy. He looked up at her and said, "You looking for someone to take Daniel's place?"

She removed her hand and gave him a disappointed look. The man never could resist trying to exploit a sign of weakness. "No, of course not, Maury. Not while Arthur is still alive."

"Oh, he doesn't have to know," Parkman insisted, teasing.

She smiled thinly at him. They both knew there was no way he wouldn't find out, assuming Angela was even interested.

"He doesn't even care!" he objected, actually putting some heat into it as if he had personal emotions about the issue, which he did. If Angela noticed, she didn't indicate it.

"He has been here, Maury. He cares. He hasn't forgotten me."

"He's been with you?" The older man sat up straighter, his eyes betraying his feelings.

Angela wasn't looking at him though. She looked distant. "I've dreamed of him." She smiled softly. "They're not always bad dreams. It's not a future I want to fight." After an introspective pause, she told him, "I'll have Michael drive you back to your apartment. Please do not leave him conflicted in regards to Peter. I need both of them."

Maury shrugged and looked away, which was the best she could hope to get out of him at the moment.

"I will also need you, tomorrow, to straighten out the mess you made with the agents."

Parkman gave her an unenthusiastic look. "I thought you said wonder-boy handled that?"

"There were complications. You know it takes time to understand how to use your ability. I'll have Michael come by in the morning."

"One condition."

"What's that?"

He leered at her openly, looking more repugnant than usual with a swollen nose and split lip. "You come with me, let me take you out to lunch somewhere special, and let me treat you nice."

She sighed at him and exhaled out her nose. "You insist on getting yourself into trouble, don't you?" She looked sad for him, not amused.

"Like you said, me of all people should understand revenge. There's more than just wonder-boy I need to get to over this." He cocked his head. "Help me out, Angel. I'll make it worth your while. If he really cared about you, he'd be here now." Just like with Gabriel, he knew which buttons he needed to push with her, without using his ability.

She sighed again, long-suffering. Despite that, his barb about Arthur's affections had found their mark. She could play it off as no more than a harmless meal between old friends, a condition she had to fulfill to get his cooperation on other matters. She quirked a brow at her own faulty logic. There was no reason to lie to herself… and no reason to lie about how nice it would be to spend some time being appreciated by a man. Maury wasn't the only one who wanted revenge. "If you will conduct yourself as a gentleman," she said loftily, "then I agree to your condition."

He looked her up and down, the leer gone. "It will be my pleasure. A lady like you, babe, shouldn't be treated any other way."


	65. Lost Causes

**A/N: If it seems like Noah is somewhat stoned in this chapter, that would also be because he is. It's not that he gets less stoned as the story goes on, just that he's making more of an attempt to be alert and pay attention.**

The next morning at ten, Nathan showed up to the Petrelli house. He found that Angela had just left "on business" according to Mr. Grem. She was who he wanted to talk to, about how things had worked out with Maury. Michael had gone with her. Nathan suspected they'd gone to clean up the mess he'd made yesterday. He'd genuinely tried to keep the complications to a minimum, but his first priority had been getting through people, not being discreet.

He wondered if she'd taken Maury with her and if she did, how she intended to control him. He wondered how she'd controlled him thus far. What had kept a man like Maury Parkman from taking advantage of her already? There was more to the relationships of the original Company members than he knew. Their banter had the ease of people who had known each other for decades. It was something to think about.

He went and rummaged around in the hall closet, but didn't find what he wanted. He went to his father's old study. He paused at the door and looked through it. His mother had left this room as it was for a little while, until Nathan had taken it over shortly after the funeral. It was still full of campaign materials, although they were neatly put away.

It held the stamp of his father in many places around the room. He'd been through this room in great detail looking for memories, but learned very little from it. He knew his father had used it day after day, but it was as if he'd left very little impression. The only memories in it were when Arthur was joined by someone else and even then Arthur was shadowy and indistinct. When trying to summon out the impressions, he'd had the repeated feeling he was being watched. It was disturbing.

He shook off the impression and finally found what he was looking for. He pulled a polished, but battered cedar box out of the bookshelf and headed back downstairs. Noah was being kept in a tiny first floor room intended for a live-in maid. Angela had dismissed the live-in servant shortly after Arthur's poisoning. She had hired help in during the day. About a year ago she'd picked up a full-time butler and five months ago she'd picked up Michael Fitzgerald. The household was scaling up again.

His research on Grem had turned him up as a highly trained professional servant. It was odd to realize it, from Gabriel's point of view, but there was actually a profession built up around providing personal services to the very wealthy. It had been a factor of daily life for Nathan, an expectation for households of a certain caliber. Grem was an excellent driver and well trained in self defense, very discreet and polished in social skills. He was divorced with three children by two wives. His references were excellent.

Fitzgerald was muscle. Nathan had run into him as Sylar some years before, during his abortive attempt to be a Company agent. He'd telekinetically choked him out then, but he hadn't tried a full body block or anything the man could bring his strength to bear against like he had yesterday. _Learn something new every day._ The Company had cleaned up the scene, taking Michael back to Level Five. Apparently Maury had mentally coerced him into some form of obedience to Angela. Nathan supposed it was possible he was just a good employee, but it seemed unlikely. Sylar's gift was certain he was controlled.

Fitzgerald hadn't recognized Nathan, but he'd clearly remembered Gabriel's face, since it was the same as Sylar's. If his mental command had stuck with Michael, then he'd see him as Nathan Petrelli first and foremost from now on. He wondered what the man made of Angela's son posing as the serial killer. He'd have to ask him sometime. Michael had admired Sylar when he'd met him before. Perhaps he could use that to his advantage. Of course, having a breakdown in front of him probably hadn't helped.

He carried the cedar case to Noah's room and looked in, shifting to Gabriel's face. Hopefully he'd be able to get back into Nathan's later. It was still an uncertain transition, although he'd at least figured out the right triggering thoughts for it. Bennet had his eyes closed, but he opened them as Gabriel knocked once, lightly, on the doorframe. After a pause, he said, "Come in."

Noah gave him a wide, lazy smile that must have hurt, but he showed no indication of it. His face was swollen, purple and black on the side where he'd been hit, greenish and puffy around the edges. His expression was relaxed and content though. His eyes were wide and dilated. Gabriel didn't say anything, just walking over to set the case down. He studied Noah.

Bennet said, still smiling broadly, "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd check on you, see how you were doing. I was going to ask you if you wanted to play some chess."

"Mm." Noah looked at the case. "That's too bad. I was hoping you'd ask me to do something I didn't want to and I could tell you to stick it up your ass."

Gabriel laughed and glanced back at the door. It shut by itself. He turned to Noah and said with an angry tone, "Get out of that bed, right now!"

Noah didn't miss a beat, responding, "No!" with great emphasis. They both laughed. Noah looked at the case again. "Actually, I would like to play a game or two though. It's win-win for me. Can't lose."

Gabriel opened the case, still looking at Noah's somewhat wasted expression. "How's that?" He started setting up the pieces.

Noah said, "If I win, I beat you. If you win, I can blame the drugs. All Peter's fault."

Gabriel looked at the nearly full IV bag with a second bag hanging next to it. There was a note on the second bag that said 3-4 PM. "He's taking good care of you?"

"Yeah, he was just by. I'm surprised you didn't see him?" Noah rolled his head and peered at Gabriel. Gabriel shook his head. It annoyed him to think Peter might be avoiding him, even if it was probably for the best. Bennet went on, "He's going to come by tonight. So's Claire, so I should get all fixed up. I can't wait. There's a lot of spots I'd like to scratch I can't get to, but Peter upped the dosage on the drugs so I don't care much anyway. He took a drubbing. He has a black eye." He smiled lazily.

"Peter does?" Gabriel felt a hot surge of anger run through him. _Maury hurt my… lover? Brother? One, both, neither?_ He decided to settle for lover, despite how much it clashed with the more heterosexual elements of Gabriel's past. It was at least not incestuous. Nathan and Peter were a very twisted couple from Gabriel's point of view.

"Yeah. Once he cancelled Maury's powers, it went to fists. I've been helping Peter with self-defense. I guess it's working."

Gabriel nodded. "I've noticed Peter can take care of himself." He recalled how quickly Peter had thrown him off the one and only time he'd put his hands on him unwanted without using telekinesis to hold him. Without his powers, the only thing Gabriel really had going for him was size and reach. They were important, but not as much as knowing how to use them. It was another smarting reminder that Maury had been right. Gabriel moved the nightstand out so Noah could see the board better.

Noah looked at him and raised his brows. When Gabriel did not elaborate, Bennet said, "Maury's an old man, older than I am and he's not in shape. Peter's been working on himself and he's… what? Thirty?"

"Thirty-one now. He had his birthday a few weeks ago, right before Christmas. I sent him a card and some free weights." It had been right after the embarrassing incident of breaking into his apartment and Peter reacting poorly to Gabriel's face. It had been easier to not see him for a few days. Had he not had his problem with Heidi on Christmas Day, Gabriel might have avoided Peter for a very long time. His resentment over the reception of Gabriel's face had fueled his aggression on New Year's.

Noah looked at the ceiling. "Maury took the worst end of it. I only wish Peter had hit him a few more times."

"Hm," Gabriel said. "That's not how Peter is." Noah nodded. Gabriel went on, "Which side do you want to play?"

"Like last time. Whoever brings the board plays white. Seems to suit you these days anyway."

Gabriel shook his head. "You're… pretty high." He made his first move anyway, thinking there was a good chance Noah wouldn't be able to make it through the game, much less win.

"I feel great. The other stuff wore off at five or six in the morning. I couldn't sleep. Made me restless. This is a **lot** better. I love this stuff." He blinked at the board and gave his opening move. Gabriel moved the piece for him.

They made the next several moves in silence other than Noah giving directions. When Gabriel was satisfied Bennet's mind was not as addled as it had seemed on first impression - he'd been seriously worried his actions might have had a lot to do with that - he went on to one of the other reasons why he'd stopped by Noah's room.

"Did they tell you what happened with Maury, how things turned out?"

Noah frowned, his reactions too loose. "He says he'll play nice and all is forgiven, etc."

"Do you think he will?"

"Sort of. Was he playing nice **before**?" Noah looked at him with an attempt at intensity.

Gabriel couldn't hold his eyes for long. "Not really, no."

"There you are then. I saw how he looked at you, smirked at you, tried to goad you. I've seen him do that to other people he thought were a threat. Is that why you… did it?"

"No. I did it for you, not to thwart Maury." Gabriel studied the board, not looking at the other man. He moved his piece.

As soberly as he could manage, Noah said, "I appreciate it."

"Your move," Gabriel pointed out, saying no more about it. After several more moves, he said, "Where's Molly?"

Noah frowned slightly. "I don't know. You know Maury and Matt had a hell of a time prying her out of Chennai. Police got involved, but of course it didn't stick. Maybe she went back there."

It occurred to Gabriel that Noah didn't know the contents of the letter. He said, "No. Maury has her now. He told me if I acted against him he'd… hurt her."

Noah looked at him and snorted. He frowned heavily and looked at the chess board. His arm twitched and he looked uncomfortable. He moved his feet restlessly.

Gabriel said, "Do you need something?"

"A gun to shoot Maury in the kneecaps with." After a long pause, Noah asked, "Does that have anything to do with Peter?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I didn't tell Peter."

Bennet nodded. "Yeah, he noticed. Your lack of warning that Maury might be after him did **not** sit well."

Gabriel blinked. It had never even occurred to him to tell Peter. He should have, but they weren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment. If he'd thought about it, he would have assumed someone would have told Peter when he came to help Noah. Everything happened so fast after getting attacked yesterday morning.

When he'd had a free moment, his thoughts had been worries about Heidi and the baby or obsessively mulling over what little he'd seen of Angela's thoughts about him. He guessed he'd been sure Peter could take care of himself. Even if true, he should have warned him, made sure that someone did. He went back to the previous subject, "I need to be sure Molly is safe. I have to find a good home for her."

Noah made a motion that might have been a shrug under other circumstances. "As long as Maury has her, she's still available to the Company."

"That's not my point."

"It's not?"

"I… I promised Matt I'd make sure she was okay."

Noah looked at him levelly for a while and then looked at the board. He gave directions for his next move and didn't speak otherwise until Gabriel said, "I don't think Molly is safe with Maury. I also need to find Mohinder."

Noah spoke very slowly, "Why do you need to find Mohinder?" He'd read the police report and Matt's report both.

"Matt, again. He had some messages he wanted relayed, though why he can't do it himself is a mystery."

Noah shook his head. "Most people don't think about those things until it's too late."

"No, I mean why he doesn't do it **now**. Maybe he can only talk to other telepaths."

Bennet gave him a confused look, "He's… dead, right? You said you… that he was dead."

"Yeah, but that didn't stop him. He had a lot to say after he died. Said he was going to go talk to someone else, You-sue someone, and Maury mentioned that he'd talked to Matt after his death too."

Noah studied him seriously for a long moment. "I think I've had too many drugs. This isn't making sense."

Gabriel chuckled. "Yeah, me neither." The finished up the game quickly, with Gabriel winning to no one's surprise.

As Gabriel put away the pieces, Noah volunteered, "Mohinder's working for Halo."

Gabriel's shoulders slumped. "Why am I not surprised at that? Where is he?" He was beginning to think the future had 'ruts' it ran in, preferred routes it stuck to unless a great effort was made to dislodge it. For example, Nathan dying was something that had happened over and over regardless of attempts to prevent it. It had finally stuck, sort of. Mohinder seemed to always end up working for the wrong side. Of course he figured Mohinder had a very different opinion of which side was 'wrong'. Having talked to Arthur, Gabriel wasn't sure either anymore.

"After the Parkmans were in Chennai, he moved to Al-Riyadth."

"Saudi?"

"Yes."

Gabriel huffed. "We don't have much of a presence there."

"No, we don't. Don't go there, Gabriel. Anything Matt had to say has waited this long. It wasn't something Matt told him while he was alive. It can wait a little longer. If you go to Halo alone, you'll probably never get the chance to talk to Mohinder anyway. Certainly not where you can relate something private."

Gabriel nodded. For the moment then, he was thwarted. It bothered him, but part of him was relieved he could go home and help sort things out there rather than running across the globe.


	66. Examinations

Noah started, feeling cool fingers wrap around his wrist. He looked up to see Peter standing beside the bed, smiling at him. Bennet saw that Peter's black eye had faded substantially, far more than it should have in the few hours since he last saw the younger Petrelli. The scuff on his jaw was hardly noticeable now. Noah wondered what that meant. He was sure it was significant.

Peter said, "Sorry to wake you, but everyone's here." At Noah's look towards the open door, Peter added, "I told them to give us a few minutes. How do you feel?" He moved on from taking his pulse to getting out a stethoscope. He waited for an answer.

"Like the Hulk broke both my arms and smashed part of my face," Noah said sardonically.

Peter hooked the stethoscope arms behind his neck and looked at the IV drip. "Are you feeling much pain?"

"No. That's why I was asleep."

Peter nodded. "I'm going to listen to your breathing." He put the stethoscope arms to his ears and did so. He asked as he put away the stethoscope, "Have you had any problem coughing?"

"No, but I feel like I want to cough. I just haven't. Seems like it might be painful."

"Probably right. You've got some fluid accumulation. I expected that. They haven't moved you?" Peter had insisted they leave Noah in place since Noah's arms were easily damaged by any movement. Michael was ham-handed and it was only for a day or two, until they could get Claire.

"No, they haven't." Bennet's tone left no illusions as to his opinion of not being able to move at all.

Peter took his temperature and then examined his arms, looking at the extent of the subcutaneous bruising. The bone had not punctured his skin, so Peter had done little for it beyond repositioning and splinting. He slipped his fingers back under Noah's wrist to take his pulse again. "No fever, looks like no infection except for some inflammation here on your jaw. Looks good. What did Nathan do to you?" The last was added with the same calm, conversational tone as the rest. He felt Noah's pulse rate spike immediately. Peter kept his expression mild and unchanged. He watched Noah's face.

Noah blinked at him and tensed, saying nothing. He looked at the partly open door pointedly. Peter turned to look at it, then back to Noah, who shook his head. Peter understood and went on, "I'm going to check your bag here, okay?" Noah nodded and had no comment about the most irritating part of not being able to get out of bed - the indignity of elimination. He'd had plenty to say about it each time Peter had been there before. Vociferous was a good word for it - but now, not a peep.

Peter rearranged the sheets after he was done looking. "Okay, I'm going to have them come in, we'll get you taken care of, then I'll make sure everyone leaves while you get presentable and I take care of that. You understand?" Noah nodded wordlessly. Peter exhaled. He wondered if Noah realized he wasn't even talking anymore. Whatever had happened, it was important to him. He didn't look upset though, just apprehensive.

Angela had feared something was wrong. She was certain Nathan had gone off-script, as she put it. She said Noah had fought whatever Nathan did to him. It had upset her deeply, but Nathan had left before she could confront him about it and declined to come back last night when Peter brought in Maury. To cap it off, Nathan had showed up right after she left in the morning and spent more time unsupervised with Noah. He'd refused to come to dinner tonight and be present for Noah's healing, saying he needed to stay with Heidi. She was beside herself. She had insisted Peter take Maury's ability and find out what Nathan did. It looked very bad.

Peter put a smile on his face anyway and went out to the hall, calling Claire in. Angela came too and stood in the doorway, watching. Peter moved the chair out of the way, leaving just enough room for he and Claire to stand near the bed. Claire took her father's hand and stroked it. He smiled up at her. "We're going to get you back on your feet," she told him. He nodded. She assumed his muteness was due to the injury to his face and didn't press him for a response.

Peter tied off Claire's arm, found a vein and withdrew several cc's of blood.

"How much do you need?" the young woman asked.

"I don't know. This is how much Adam used for Nathan - for his burns. This isn't as extensive, but it involves breaks, which might be harder. We'll just see how it goes. I'll take more if I need it. He doesn't have to get it all at once."

Noah cleared his throat and finally said something. "That should be enough."

Peter looked between the syringe and Bennet, who added, "We had Adam incarcerated for a long time. Most experiments were off-limits because of who he was," his eyes went briefly to Angela, making sure she didn't disapprove of what he was saying. "But there were some, like blood transfusions, that were too valuable not to do. He was usually cooperative."

Peter nodded and leaned over to take the shunt on the IV tube. He injected it and increased the drip rate to near maximum. The effects were visible within seconds. Over the next several minutes, they would become complete. Almost immediately Noah said, "Get the splints off. I need them off." Peter hurried to comply. "They itch!" Noah added.

A few minutes later, the swelling in his face disappeared as the bone obviously knit properly. The bruising disappeared. He stretched his arms and sighed in relief. He smiled broadly. "That's good." He looked past Peter to give Claire a special smile. Peter retreated, switching places with her while she hugged her father.

"Glad I could help, Dad," she told him. She turned and looked at Peter's eye. "You know, I could help you too."

Peter smiled. "Thanks, but it's not that bad. Looks a lot worse than it is." _Besides, I can heal it anytime I want now. _Peter patted her shoulder. "Everyone out. I'm going to help him get a few last medical things taken care of. Go down to the dining room and give us some privacy, okay?"

She smiled at him. "Sure."

Peter waited a moment after they left and went to the door, looking down the hall. He shut it and scooted the chair over. "Let's take care of you first so you're more comfortable. All right?"

Noah sat up. "I can do it. I've done it before." Peter let him, accepting tubing and bags as Noah removed them. Peter had a plastic sack for them, to which he added his gloves and tied it off after he was done. Noah leaned over the end of the bed and retrieved the clothes Angela had placed there earlier for him. Peter took his time facing the corner of the room, putting things away in his kit bag while the other man got dressed in fresh clothing.

When he was done, Noah sat on the edge of the bed. He said preemptively, "Gabriel didn't do anything. All he did was take out Maury's commands, just like he said."

Peter looked back at him and of all things, smirked. Noah sighed, thinking Peter's reactions were still being heavily colored by being drained. Peter put the bag down on the chest at the end of the bed. He looked at Noah and exhaled. If Nathan had turned him, then Noah would of course be required to pretend nothing had happened. Peter would have expected though, with someone like Noah, there would be some sign of struggle.

Noah added, with a very deep, level and determined voice, "**That's all.** He did **nothing** wrong."

Peter looked at him for a very long time, considering the depth of Noah's reaction and his mother's certainty that Nathan had done something. He recalled Noah berating Gabriel at the warehouse and virtually frog-marching him into the kitchen in Gabriel's own house. While he knew his own perceptions had been muddled of late, he knew what he'd seen. Finally he said, "I can't accept that. I have to see for myself. That's why I'm here, talking to you, not confronting Nathan about it. Before I say anything to him, before I even approach him, I need to know where things stand."

Noah took a deep breath. "If it were anyone other than you, Peter, I'd be very insulted and this would be headed somewhere very different than it's about to."

Peter understood what he was saying. Anyone else would be in the middle of a fight by now.

"You have Maury's telepathy?" Bennet asked.

Peter nodded soberly.

Bennet's lips made a thin line. "Go ahead."

Peter tilted his head slightly. He found Bennet's consciousness waiting for him. Noah showed him where Maury's orders had been. Peter could sense what amounted to pain still there, not overpowering, but still strong. For a physical analogy, it was like severe muscle strains. Noah thought to him, _That wasn't intentional. It will go away in a week or so. Gabriel… he's very heavy handed, but it worked._

Peter thought of his massages. They weren't gentle, but they were effective. Similar style. _What else did he do?_

There was a long pause and a build up of tension. Peter began to think he was going to have to force it out of Noah, when his attention was directed to a tracery of lines and indentations across Bennet's mind that were slowly filling in, like a webbing had been stripped out and away. It was raw in places, and in others, what was comparatively bleeding and scabbing over.

_What was this?_ Peter asked.

_That was the oath of loyalty I took to the Company twenty years ago. And revised, from time to time._

_What did he do to it?_

_He took it out._ Noah couldn't keep the joy and relief out of his mind at that.

Peter tried to dig deeper, but Noah resisted him. He didn't want to push too much. He didn't want to abuse Noah's trust. _I don't understand. You were supposed to obey him, do whatever he told you to do. Why would he take that out?_

Noah was silent for a moment. Peter waited. Finally Noah thought to him, _Peter, in the half year or so he's been a board member, he's only given me two real commands. One was testing it at the beginning and he threw up afterwards. He literally couldn't stomach it. The other was telling me to say please the other day, after I beat the crap out of him and lectured him on acting right. I guess I really pissed him off. He's been __**very**__ careful otherwise._

_I… thought that was why you were shooting him._ Once he'd found out about the oath after New Year's, Peter had imagined Noah's actions were frustration finding an outlet.

_Peter, I can't shoot him if he tells me not to. He never did. He had opportunities._

Peter's mind stuttered on that. _He… then why were you shooting him?_

_Because of what he did to Claire, like I told you. And I thought… that eventually he'd lose that moral superiority he seemed to be working on. If I hurt him enough, he'd prove me right. He'd be the egotistical bastard he's always been. He'd be Sylar._

Peter did not think this reflected well on Bennet's character. _He never proved you right._

_No._

_What are you going to do now?_

_I'm going to hope you keep this secret from your mother and that you have the ability to keep it secret from Maury. That's why I didn't want to tell you. I don't want them to know. I'm a Company man and I want to stay a Company man, but I'd much rather do it without a harness. If they find out, they'll do it to me again and they'll never trust him._

_I'll keep it a secret. Thank you, Noah. I'll tell Mom… he was looking for memories about the earlier days of the Company. _It seemed innocuous enough and sounded like something Nathan would want to know. Peter withdrew, wiping his hand across his face. _He's not Sylar. He's not Sylar __**at all**_, he thought to himself.


	67. Confessions

The evening drew on interminably for Peter. The difficult part was he was really happy to be there with Claire and Noah, but even so wanted to be somewhere else getting to the bottom of what was going on with Nathan. His theories about Heidi's abduction and Sylar's reversion had been thrown into disarray by Nathan's charitable treatment of Noah. It was a piece of the puzzle that didn't fit and didn't fit so glaringly it made him reassess all his assumptions.

After the Bennets left, Peter talked to his mother as briefly as possible, reassuring her. He called Nathan from his car while it was idling, warming up.

"Hello?" Nathan's voice answered with a guarded tone.

"Nathan. I need to talk to you."

"This isn't a good time, Peter."

"Sure, maybe not **now**. When can we meet?"

"Uh… next week maybe?"

Peter hesitated. _Is that as firm a brush-off as I think it is?_ "That's a long time from now."

"Yeah. Tell me a day off next week. We'll meet then. I'd prefer daytime."

"Daytime?"

"Yes."

"Listen… I'll call you back later."

"Okay, sure."

"Good-bye." Peter hung up and stared at his phone_. Maybe I was right about everything to start with and there's an angle to the thing with Noah I'm not catching._ His shoulders slumped. He'd been so hopeful he was wrong. He drove home. He was most of the way there when the phone rang again. It was Nathan. He sighed and answered, pulling over to the curb, "Hello?"

"Hey, Pete. I wanted to say Heidi's been having a lot of trouble sleeping at night and I just can't leave her right now. I'm sorry. I thought maybe the call earlier didn't come out right."

"Okay. What about daytime tomorrow?"

There was a long pause, followed by, "Peter, Noah told me to stay away from you for a week or two if I could, because of the draining. It's only been four days. What do you want me to do?" He sounded tired.

"Noah will confirm that?"

Nathan's voice snapped with irritation and hurt. "Yes, Noah will confirm that! And this is exactly why I don't want to talk to you. You're so damned suspicious it tears me apart. I don't want to talk to you tomorrow. Next week. Call me back when you don't think I'm going to… do whatever it is you're afraid I'm going to do. God, Peter!" He hung up.

Peter leaned his head back against the head rest. _If it's an act, it's a good one. But I know he's an awfully good actor, so that doesn't mean anything._ Bennet had given Peter a talking to on the plane back from France when he'd tried to air some of his theories about Gabriel and Arthur. It had shut Peter down and as a result he'd shut Bennet out. He'd heard him, but he hadn't listened to him. He vaguely remembered him saying something about one to two weeks before he would be recovered. It sounded ridiculous, but Peter had seen how the draining twisted up Nathan's mind.

_Okay, next week. Is anything important going to happen between now and next week?_ There were a dozen possibilities that came to mind immediately, but he had no way of telling. He didn't have any hard facts - it was all speculation and suspicion. It was this thought that decided him. _I have no rational reason to be acting like this. If something happens between now and next Thursday, I'll react to it. In the meantime… I need to focus on what's real, not what I imagine._

He called back, but Nathan wouldn't take his call. It made Peter smile. Somehow this petty snub convinced him that Nathan's hurt at him was genuine. He left a message inviting Nathan to drop by his apartment around ten in the morning next Thursday. Within a few minutes, he had a reply voice message that said only, "I'll be there." He smiled again. Nathan had obviously seen his call and listened to the message immediately, then replied in a manner that avoided talking to him. It was so immature it made him laugh - the first time he'd laughed in at least four days.

XXX

Eight more days didn't remove the doubts from Peter's mind, though he was much more open to other possibilities. Nathan knocked promptly at ten. Peter went to the door and hesitated. He could _feel_ him on the other side. He looked through the peephole anyway, then opened the door. He still blinked several times and inhaled deeply, struggling to assimilate. Peter had expected this. It was a small part of why he'd stayed as far as he reasonably could from Nathan at his house. He now felt the almost-forgotten lurch and feeling of getting too much at once. He leaned heavily on the doorframe.

Nathan cocked his head slightly at that, but said nothing. After a beat, he smiled cheerfully. Peter said, "Come on in. What's in the sack?" He let Nathan go by. While the other man was facing away, Peter shook himself and blew out of his mouth for a moment.

Nathan hefted a white paper bag, glancing back as he walked into the kitchen. "Couple of subs, some frozen yogurt. You like frozen yogurt?"

"Sure."

"You're looking good, by the way." Nathan turned to give him an admiring glance. Peter snorted. Flattery seemed out of place at the moment. He was in no mood to be receptive to it. Nathan went on, "I've got chocolate and vanilla - you can have whichever you want. Did you have breakfast, or do you want me to put them in the fridge for lunch?"

"Fridge, I guess," Peter said. Nathan was up to something, but it seemed harmless. He was being strangely solicitous. Peter no longer thought he was going to do something as silly as try to poison him. Besides, he had Claire's regeneration. It would be tough to do. Nathan put away the yogurt for later. Peter added, "I had breakfast after work."

"They still have you on the midnight shift?"

"Yeah, Jackson's kind of determined to leave me there." He didn't mention the problems he'd had to deal with at work due to France.

Nathan walked past him to the living room. He pulled out one of the chairs at the table and sat down. "Thanks for calling me, putting up with me putting this off for so long. What am I here for?"

Peter scratched his brow and walked out to lean against the wall. He could detect lies now. It was something he'd been counting on as he was sure Nathan would detect mind reading if he tried it. He was also counting on Nathan not knowing he had his full power back to keep him talkative. "Back at New Years, I asked you if Dad was really the enemy and you said that was very perceptive of me. What did you mean by that?"

Nathan repeated, "What did I mean by that?" Peter nodded. Nathan looked at the ceiling, remembering the conversation. "What I meant was we shouldn't rule out options other than fighting him. Because if it comes down to a fight, we're not going to take him."

"Why not?"

"He's too powerful." Nathan said flatly.

"You're powerful. You've been taken. Time after time."

Nathan's brows furrowed. "That's kind of insulting." After a pause, he smiled. "Or kind of sexy. Which way did you mean it?" He tilted his head in mock curiosity.

Peter blushed furiously. Smiling despite himself, he said, "I meant it to be insulting."

Nathan shook his head and grinned easily. "Nah, I don't think I want to take it that way." He refused to get his back up at Peter's attitude.

"Fine. But powerful doesn't mean we can't take him." Peter articulated carefully. Nathan shrugged dismissively. Seeing the gesture, Peter asked, "What does that mean?"

Nathan looked nonplussed. "It doesn't mean much of anything. I don't want to get killed. For real, like ended. I'm sure he can. If it really looks like we're going to win against him, I can't imagine he won't take us out. He can always just start over."

Peter nodded. "Does he have the catalyst now?" Peter knew the answer, or at least he thought he did, but he wanted to hear Nathan's answer.

"Yes."

He was cheered that Nathan hadn't lied to him. _Now for the harder ones._ "You're not going to like this question." Peter waited a moment, but he couldn't think of a better way to deal with this than forging ahead. He pushed away from the wall and took more of a fighting stance. He thought it possible he'd need it. "Did you know killing Heidi would lead to the catalyst being created?"

Nathan's face fell and he paled to an abnormal degree as he realized the depravity Peter was indirectly accusing him of. A moment later his color returned full force and he stood, enraged. Peter was poised with Heidi's power to block him, but he didn't quite need to use it. Nathan asked in a calm, rational voice that didn't match his posture, "Why would you ask that, Peter?"

"Because I want to hear the answer." Peter matched him for tone and didn't lose much for posture. An outsider looking in would have thought they were on the brink of blows, but someone listening would have thought it was a normal conversation.

Nathan took a step towards him. Peter raised a hand and said, "Stay back. We don't need to do this."

Nathan moved his head from side to side slowly, turning his body. Then he paced back and forth each way, staring at Peter like he'd never seen him before. What was on his mind was that Peter hadn't touched him since Peter had the ability of healing, yet he was clearly digging for explicit answers. Sylar's gift worked at the puzzle.

Peter said, "It's a simple answer. Yes or no."

_That confirms it._ "You have your full power back," Nathan said.

Peter swallowed. _I wonder how he knows? If he knows, all he has to do is quit talking to me and I'll be back where I started._

Nathan walked over and sat down, breathing heavily. _I should be happy about your ability. I __**should**__ be._ He closed his eyes. "No, Peter. I didn't know." He shook slightly. "I would… never… God! Noah said you'd run roughshod over me. I thought it would be something like with Heidi, not **this**." He blinked up at Peter, then looked away. _I didn't know I'd want to __**kill**__ you for talking to me._ He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, studying the floor. He didn't want to look at Peter at the moment.

"Why did Dad give you Matt Parkman? You were in France before and after. I know when he disappeared. I checked. He must have brought Parkman to you."

Nathan shook his head. "I don't know."

Peter blinked twice at the unnatural quaver he perceived in the voice. "You're lying." There was no point in hiding it. At least Nathan wasn't running on him. He was still talking, he was trying to explain and the explanations made sense. Peter had hope.

Nathan looked up at him with angry eyes, then back down at the floor. "He said he wanted to punish a traitor and get rid of a nuisance. He said I needed to…" He narrowed his eyes and clasped his hands together. "He said I needed to be replenished and I needed that power - telepathy."

"Why did you do it?"

"That one's easy." He shrugged, releasing his hands. "Arthur rolled me. Induced me, whatever. I refused, but then I woke up and it was done. Can't say I refused very hard, but I didn't do it of my own free will."

Peter sighed and relaxed, leaning back against the wall. It wasn't a lie. Nathan hadn't done it intentionally. He'd refused like he'd refused with Maury Parkman, but this time someone forced him. Morally, Peter still had some problems with it, but he'd seen powers take every shred of a person's control away from him. It had happened to him, after all, and more than once. He moved on. "What did it replenish?"

"I don't know." Peter frowned at him expressively and made a circular gesture with his hand as Nathan lied ineffectively again. Nathan looked up at the motion, sighed and rolled his eyes. At least Peter was no longer poised to fight him. "I felt better afterwards. More stable. So I guess it was life energy or whatever. Since 'I don't know' is setting off your lie detector, maybe I should try 'I'm not sure.'" He finished peckishly, sitting up.

Peter shook his head and stood up straighter in an subconscious copy of Nathan's body language. "Please don't. I… Nathan, I **want** to trust you. After I found out what you did for Noah, I thought there was a chance I could. Before that I **didn't**. I didn't think there was even a point. There was no reason I could think of for you leaving us in Paris except guilt, guilt for being involved. I need your answers, your full answers, to understand what happened."

"Fine," Nathan said, resigned but still angry. "I want you to think about what you're asking me here, what you're implying. Did you seriously think I killed Heidi and my son to make the catalyst for Dad? **On purpose**?" When Peter didn't say anything, Nathan continued, "No wonder you thought I might poison you with the orange juice!" He leaned back in the chair and shut his eyes. He twitched. His hands shook. Very softly, with a strained, higher pitched voice, he said, "What you must think of me… I've tried. It hasn't been any good."

"That's not true," Peter found his voice. Nathan twitched again. Peter walked over to him, stopping a few feet away. He looked at him with narrowed eyes. "What's wrong with you?"

Nathan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Angela's meditation technique. I am **trying** not to have another breakdown."

"A breakdown?"

"Yeah. It's undignified. It won't help."

Peter blinked at him. "Am I pushing you that hard?"

Drawing out the word, Nathan replied, "Yes. I don't think you have any idea the hell Heidi has been going through since she got back. I would **never** do anything to hurt her like this." With his head still leaned back and eyes shut, he said, "Ask your next question. I don't lie to you, Pete. We need to get this past us, or find out we can't get past it."

Peter hesitated. He wondered why 'I don't lie to you' didn't register as a lie. He put it aside and finally went ahead. "Did you know you would survive or be revived when you had me drain you to save Heidi?"

"No." Nathan breathed evenly. He sounded calm, but his hands still shook slightly. He wouldn't have minded wrapping them around Peter's throat at the moment. The idea, the accusation, that he bore some responsibility for what had happened to her was almost too much for him to take. He'd expected to be blamed for Matt, for something he'd actually done, not for **her**.

Peter said quietly, "I only have one more. Why did you let Noah out of the oath?"

"He didn't need that. He didn't want it. I thought he'd rather be without it." He couldn't stop himself from flinging a barb back at Peter. "I would hope if someone tried to mold me to be what they wanted, that someone else might come along and let me go, so I could figure out my own shape, my own path."

Peter swallowed. "You think I did that? Tried to make you what I wanted?"

"You and Matt Parkman, Angela. Yeah, of course you did. You tried to make me Nathan."

Peter inhaled. "I… I didn't. Nathan, I didn't even know until Thanksgiving."

Nathan turned and his brows rose. "You think that makes your hands clean? What the hell was that crap in Omaha then? You neutralized me for months because I wasn't enough like your brother to suit you!" At Peter's stricken expression, Nathan sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "I'm not blaming anyone. I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. I don't want to live in the past. I'm not going back to what I was, no matter what idiocy Arthur tells me. I'm not the man… your brother was, no matter how often I look like him. I'd hoped you could live with that. I thought you could. I want to live in the now, where you are, where Heidi is, where my sons are. That's the shape I am now." He shook his head. "What went before… doesn't matter."

"Where I am," Peter said softly. He studied Nathan as Nathan finally looked back up at him, meeting his eyes. Just as softly, Peter asked, "Have I ruined things between us?"

"Were you trying to?" Nathan asked plainly.

Peter smiled slightly. "No. I just needed to know."

Nathan muttered, "Sure seemed like you were trying to." He tilted his head, looking up at Peter with a pained expression. "I don't know what I can do to get you to trust me. That's what hurts the most about this, Pete."

Peter stepped next to Nathan and put his hand on his shoulder. The younger man said, "When I looked out the window in Paris and saw you alive after I thought I'd killed you with my own hands… then you left. You saw me, saw us, and you _left_. You didn't call, you didn't come back." He squatted down next to Nathan, putting his hand on his thigh. "Why?"

Nathan looked at him and blinked. "I… I'd killed Matt. I didn't think you or Heidi would forgive me. Or trust me, ever again. Like you are now. She doesn't know, and here's how **you've** reacted." He looked away, miserable and angry. "I know it's weird to say this while I'm sitting here looking like your brother, but losing Heidi broke me. It broke the last of the programming to be Nathan, pieces I'd thought I wanted - I'd kept because it made it easier to be him. I'm not him. He never was Heidi's husband the way I want to be. Even without Nathan, I'd like to be with you too. I like you. I love you. You make me want to be better." Nathan put a hand over Peter's and squeezed it, shutting his eyes.

Peter gave him a lop-sided smile even if Nathan wasn't looking at him. "You left because you thought I'd never trust you again and I didn't trust you because you left."

Nathan raised his brows slightly and looked sideways at Peter. "Yes, I think that about sums it up." After a long pause he said, "Do you trust me now?"

Peter was still smiling. "I love you."

"That's not the same thing," Nathan said, guarded.

"I know. Give me some time. If it helps, I love **you**… Gabriel."

Nathan's face instantly shifted to Gabriel's. He looked chagrinned and grabbed at his face. "Crap! I really wish I'd quit doing that." He grimaced and put his hands down.

"You can't control it?"

"No, I **can**, it's just tough when it catches me off-guard. When I get surprised." He turned in the chair to face Peter and put both hands on the other man's shoulders. "What did you just say?"

Very soberly, Peter responded, "I said I loved you." Looking into Gabriel's searching eyes, he repeated, "I said I loved you, Gabriel."

Gabriel's hands moved to the sides of Peter's face and he leaned in, drawing Peter to him. He kissed him gently, softly, eyes shut. When Peter opened his mouth for him a moment later, he inhaled sharply and stood, bringing Peter with him. He tilted his head down to continue the deepening kiss with a small moan of pleasure.

His hands caressed the sides of Peter's face and neck. Peter's own hands were still, resting on Gabriel's hips. He was enjoying the different taste and feel of Gabriel's mouth. He hadn't had much of an opportunity before, being too distracted by his fears at the time. His feelings were still complex, but the overwhelming ache in his heart after Gabriel's apparent death had convinced him of how he truly felt about the other man. The festering wound when he thought Gabriel had fled from them was another confirmation. It wouldn't have hurt so much if he hadn't cared so deeply.

Gabriel pressed his body briefly against Peter's, then backed up a step and tripped over the chair. Peter grabbed his arm a half-second before Gabriel caught himself, floating in air with Nathan's flight. He righted himself, pulling against Peter and stepping back to him. "Sorry," he said breathily. "I got distracted there."

Peter looked up and down him. He wasn't a bad-looking man - quite the contrary, in fact. He had longer, darker eyebrows and less of a lantern jaw than Nathan's features. He had a larger nose but also fuller lips. The basic coloring was different, with Nathan having a faint Mediterranean tone to his skin that Gabriel lacked. Personally Peter preferred the way Nathan looked but maybe that was just because he was more familiar with him. There was still a frisson of Sylar in Peter's mind when he looked at Gabriel.

Gabriel crowded close to him, looming over him. "Say it again," he murmured.

Peter chuckled. "I love you, Gabriel."

"Mmm." He virtually purred at him, leaning to kiss Peter on the cheek and down towards his neck. "And again?"

Peter smiled shyly, a little embarrassed. It was silly and sappy, but he did it anyway. "Okay. I love you, Gabriel. Gabriel, I love you." Gabriel hugged him to himself fiercely, pressing his face to Peter's shoulder and rubbing his cheek against him like a cat. His face was freshly shaved so it was smooth. Usually Peter was dealing with him at the end of the day, when Nathan had a significant degree of stubble.

Gabriel released the hug and returned to kissing him. "You don't trust me, but you love me." He kissed him lightly on the neck. "That's enough, I guess." His voice was tight. He moved a little higher. "It's okay." He ran his lips up to Peter's jaw. "I love you too. It's all right."

Peter's brows drew together somewhat as Gabriel was trying too hard to reassure his own insecurities. Peter shrugged Gabriel off him for a moment and stepped back. "Hey. I **do** trust you on a lot of things. Important things." He caught Gabriel's eyes and put his hand on Gabriel's chest to still his restlessness.

Peter looked at him as intently as he could. "I trust you with my **body**. I trust you with my **heart**. I trust you with my **family**. Those are the most important things I have. Everything else is just details. We can work on details later." He dropped his hand. Gabriel rocked slightly on his feet, but didn't step closer to him. Peter did it for him, sliding his arms around him and holding him.

"Thank you, Peter. Thank you." He kissed the crown of Peter's head. He relaxed into the embrace, adopting Peter's less-frantic body language. After a little while he breathed in Peter's scent and said, "Really?"

"Yes, really!" Peter laughed softly. "I love you. I've said that before, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Gabriel nuzzled his head. "But it's always been 'I love you, _Nathan_'. That's different. I know you loved him. I'm as much him as I can be for you."

Peter shook his head. "Just be you. I don't want to make you something you aren't. Not anymore." Peter turned his head and kissed him lightly on the neck. "Do you want to do anything?"

"Looking like this?" Gabriel said. Peter nodded, kissing his neck and pulling his skin gently between his teeth. "Oh!" Gabriel shifted against him suddenly, breathing deeper. "Oh, yes! We… can we? Will you?" His hands became restless again, moving across Peter's back, pressing lightly. Peter nodded again, releasing him and finding another spot to nibble on. He was pleased by Gabriel's eagerness.

Gabriel put his hands on Peter's ass and began to grind into him. Peter laid off from his neck and said, "Was I doing one of those things that makes you go too fast?"

Gabriel shook his head, moving against Peter more slowly. "This whole thing is making me go fast. Well… everything except the stuff about Heidi and Dad." He put his teeth together and leaned back a little so Peter could see him, tilting his head slightly. "For that, I want to hurt you." He breathed harder, straightening. "I won't. I won't. I love you. I won't." He gripped Peter more tightly and moved his body against him, trying to forget what had happened before.

"Huh," was all Peter said of it. _There's why I don't trust you without reservation. You want to hurt me sometimes. You want to do things I can't live with. You don't, but you want to and I just don't know how to deal with that._

Gabriel took his mind off of it by putting his hands into the waist of Peter's jeans and pushing them down firmly, underwear and all, nearly to his ankles. Peter started to steady himself with borrowed telekinesis, then simply clung to the other man. If they fell, then they fell. It wasn't a big deal. He figured Gabriel wanted him off balance anyway.

His suspicion was confirmed when Gabriel stood from pushing down his pants and bumped him seemingly inadvertently. It would have knocked him down if he hadn't been ready for it. Peter held onto Gabriel's shoulders. The taller man didn't wobble, having braced himself. He looked down at Peter's face, hoping to see some trace of insecurity or vulnerability. There was none. Peter was just watching him with a small smile on his face. Gabriel smirked and kissed him.

After they broke apart, Peter said, "Now play nice with me. I know I hurt you earlier, but I didn't mean to. Don't hurt me on purpose. I know what you're up to." He stroked Gabriel's face with one hand, moving the other behind his neck to keep a good grip on him.

Gabriel nodded against him and stepped back carefully. He knelt to take Peter's jeans from around his ankles. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just be nice." Peter ran his hands through Gabriel's hair while he was down there.

The other man looked up at about eye level and grinned, saying, "Zucchini."

"What?" Peter asked.

"Nothing. Just an old memory of Nathan's. Something about eating zucchini now and then but not as a general rule."

Peter huffed. It sounded like something Nathan would say, but he didn't recall it. Of course, Nathan had a lot of his life away from Peter and the memories of it were now Gabriel's. Once Peter's feet were free, he pressed himself into Gabriel's shoulder and gently pushed the man's head towards his groin. Gabriel shook his head free of Peter's hand and rose, letting one of his own hands find Peter's member on the way up. "I'm not so much into that… as a general rule," Gabriel said. "Do I have to?"

Peter narrowed his eyes slightly but shook his head. He kissed Gabriel, shifting his hips so the other man could stroke him while they embraced. When he came up for air, Peter asked, "Are we going to do this here in the living room?"

"If you don't mind," Gabriel turned him to face away and wrapped one long arm around him, holding him tightly to himself. With the other he reached around and stroked gently on Peter's organ. His own erection strained at his pants against Peter's backside. There were definite benefits to height and long limbs.

Peter leaned back into him, feeling wanted and possessed. He wondered if Gabriel was intentionally positioning him where he didn't have to look at him and was free to imagine he was with someone else. It was thoughtful, if unnecessary. He put his head back and enjoyed the other man pleasuring him determinedly.

"No, I don't mind," Peter got out. "This is good. Really good. Just thought it was a little one- ah!" He began to pant as Gabriel shifted his hips against him, rocking in time with the motion of his hand. "…little one-sided." Peter groaned, trying to arch his back. Gabriel held him to him too tightly, molding his body to Peter's. He stroked faster. Peter brought his hands up to hang onto Gabriel's arm, gripping him firmly as he hunched against him in tandem. Within a minute, he came in a shudder and leaned back, shaking a little in Gabriel's grip. "Oh… oh… good. That was good," he said as he caught his breath.

"**Now** we go to the bedroom. Can I have you?"

Peter was still breathing hard. "What do you mean?"

"I want to lean you over and take you from behind. Is that okay? Me in you?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah, yeah, it's okay. Nothing rough." He appreciated, more than he could say, that Gabriel was still being careful with him, that he wasn't being as aggressive as he had been the last time he wore this face. Peter wouldn't have let things get to this point though if he were. He noticed again Gabriel was going to face him away.

Gabriel shook his head. "No, nothing rough."

Gabriel stripped hastily, tossing his clothes aside haphazardly. Peter added his own shirt and undershirt to the pile, along with his socks. He looked at Gabriel's body as the other man turned back from the nightstand with lube. "Don't you say anything," Gabriel growled at him with an unexpected flash of anger.

Peter blinked. "About… um… about what?" He had no idea what he was talking about.

Gabriel shook his head. "Nothing. Turn around."

Peter did so, then looked back, a little upset. "Are you saying you want me to be quiet while you do this? I'm not into that."

Gabriel paused in dispensing lubricant. "No… no. I… it's nothing. I'm sorry I said anything. I'm… just insecure."

Peter inhaled, realizing. He rolled over despite Gabriel grabbing to stop him. He looked at the other man. Gabriel began to deflate. "That's nothing to be insecure about," Peter said. "You're the same size I am, near as I can tell."

"Nathan's bigger," Gabriel said defensively.

"So?"

Gabriel looked at himself and shrugged. Maury Parkman's letter was on his mind. Even without using his ability, the man knew how to poison his thoughts.

Peter reached out slowly, looking between his hand and Gabriel's face to make sure it was okay. He touched him with his fingertips, seeing the taller man still reacted absurdly strongly to Peter's touch. Gabriel's eyes glazed as he stiffened. Peter pulled his hand back, saying, "Gabriel, if you were Nathan, you'd have to do a lot more to get me ready than you're about to. Nathan hurt me when he went too fast. Until I'm fully relaxed, this is better, and even then, you won't have to be quite as careful with me once you get me there. Do you understand?"

Gabriel nodded, blinking at him. Peter reached out and ran his fingers across the silky skin of Gabriel's cock, wishing he could touch him longer without finishing him. "Take me," he said and rolled back over.

After a pause, Gabriel leaned over him, saying, "Time after time, if I can manage it." He put one hand between Peter's cheeks and worked his fingers gently, caressing. Peter spread his legs cooperatively and moaned softly under his touch. Peter was right that he didn't need to work as long at opening him. He supposed he should just to be polite, but he wanted inside him sooner instead of later. Gabriel wondered what was in Peter's mind as he pushed against him, pressing his way into him. Was it Nathan or Gabriel or just some formless other? He didn't look. He'd learned that lesson the hard way.

He made longer pushes forward with shorter ones back, driving in steadily. Peter spread himself more, panting under him. Gabriel leaned forward, only partly inside, to run his hands from Peter's shoulders to his rump, thrusting in lightly as he did it. Peter moaned again. Gabriel repeated the motion, this time using more pressure and letting his hands go to Peter's hips. At the end of it, he pulled down firmly, burying himself fully. Peter grunted and clenched his teeth, getting almost half of Gabriel's cock thrust into him at once. His sphincter clenched around Gabriel's member. "Oh, yeah…" Gabriel said, obviously enjoying the tension. He pushed and pulled against the sudden tightness.

Peter didn't say anything, but Gabriel could hear his heart hammering faster than it had before. He lifted the pressure on his fingers and began to thrust more gently. He stroked Peter's hips and the small of his back with his hands. "I love you, Peter. I'm sorry if that was too abrupt. I love you."

Peter shook his head, but didn't speak.

Gabriel blinked as he felt himself moving to climax more quickly than he'd expected. The feeling of holding Peter's body to his own earlier, controlling him and pleasuring him directly and now seeing him bent over in front of him, having thrust his way into him, Peter tight around his shaft, his heart beating too fast in his chest… it was doing it for him. Instead of making the longer thrusts he expected to, he made short, shuddering ones and came within a minute, spending himself. He panted, still holding Peter's body to his as he stood and blinked.

"Uh… did I… are you okay?" Gabriel asked.

"I'm fine."

"Fine. Huh." He pulled out and nudged Peter to roll over, which he did. His face was uninspired. Gabriel said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. That was okay. We're just getting used to each other." Peter didn't sound offended or bothered too much. In a way it was kind of sweet he was so excited he'd come so soon. Peter liked the idea that he'd turned the other man on that much.

Gabriel's eyes wandered over Peter's chest and groin and legs. He wanted to take him again. He knew he'd be ready within a few minutes. He looked at Peter's face and put his desire away. He leaned over him and kissed him, thinking about how he'd made love to him as Gabriel for the first time. He kissed him lightly on the corner of the mouth. Peter smiled at him but didn't move.

"I love you. Thank you, Peter," he whispered into his ear. He nuzzled him there, licking his earlobe. Peter chuckled and moved his head aside. Gabriel did it again and Peter moved further with an annoyed sound. "Oh, thank you," Gabriel murmured. "Now here's all this neck for me to work on." Peter laughed and stretched his neck even further to the side, letting Gabriel nip lightly up and then down it. Peter shifted appreciatively under him.

Gabriel drifted down to his chest and kissed the skin there over hard muscle. He felt the play of it under his mouth as Peter brought his hands behind Gabriel's neck, running them across his skin and through his hair. His tongue found one of Peter's nipples and flicked across it, making the other man jump beneath him and grin.

Peter gave his neck a slight pressure, trying to communicate wordlessly that he wanted more of that. Gabriel understood and complied. Peter arched under him within a few seconds. After a suitable period of exquisite torture, he switched to the other side and repeated. Peter brought his legs up around Gabriel's hips and pressed into him as he clutched his hair. Finally he pulled him upwards as his body had begun to move almost involuntarily against Gabriel's.

Gabriel went, kissing Peter deeply and passionately. "You're hard?" Peter asked breathlessly.

Gabriel looked a little confused. "Yeah."

"Take me again then. You said you wanted to."

Gabriel looked down at Peter, who was fully aroused. "You…? Okay." He wasn't about to argue. He stood and put one hand on Peter's hip, unsure if he should roll the man to his stomach again. Peter wrapped his legs around Gabriel's, trying to indicate without speaking this was the position he wanted. After a long beat, Gabriel shifted Peter's hips and positioned himself. That pause confirmed for Peter that Gabriel's earlier choices of position had been intentional.

Peter said, "Noah told me not to set low expectations for you. That first time was okay, but you can do better. Do better for me, Gabriel." He panted as Gabriel began to push inside. He was still slick from before. Since Gabriel hadn't readied him with his fingers, he was relying on Peter's control to relax himself and the slow, deliberate motions he was making now. He watched Peter's face carefully, _listening_ for his body's responses and moving himself to elicit stronger ones. He built slowly, reaching out to stroke Peter's skin, but so far staying away from his straining member. He wanted this one to last.

He angled his thrusts, finding that there was a certain angle where Peter's response was much stronger than anywhere else. He reached down and took the other man's legs, tilting his hips up further so he could hit that spot with every thrust. Peter's face contorted and he bit his lip. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" he started repeating over and over. "Is this better?" Gabriel asked.

"Oh God yes! Oh yes! Oh!" Peter's body rocked in response to the other man's motions. He put a hand to himself, but he only barely stroked himself, touching the head and rolling his fingers over himself. He was so close, so close it was painful not to do anything to put himself over, but so close he wanted it to go on forever. Gabriel kept relentlessly hitting the same spot, pushing him higher and higher no matter what he wanted. Peter came across himself, spasming and twitching.

Gabriel slipped his hands down to Peter's hips and bucked into him harder, making Peter's entire body clench as the orgasm only intensified. Peter groaned so loudly he almost yelled. "More!" Gabriel gave it to him, thrusting hard and fast and steadily until he came strongly, looking at Peter's almost pained face.

Peter huffed out something of a laugh, remembering Noah's advice to hold Gabriel to high standards. This was **not** what Noah meant, but it had certainly worked to an amazing degree. He laughed harder, reaching out to grab Gabriel's arms and pull him down on top of himself. He hugged the other man joyfully, feeling their bodies disengage. "Wow, that was good. Really good. Thank you," he breathed, kissing Gabriel's shoulder. It was some of the best sex he'd ever been on the receiving end of, perhaps **the** best as single acts went.

Something occurred to Peter, he said, still enjoying the feel of Gabriel's naked form against his, "You don't know much about sex, do you?"

"What?" Gabriel tried to struggle free of him. Feeling his oats, Peter gripped him harder and didn't let him. He didn't tighten, just locked his arms and infused them with Michael's borrowed super strength, though his own muscle power might have been enough. Gabriel was surprised and startled at the lack of give in Peter's arms. After a moment, he stopped fighting. "I…" He twisted against Peter again, testing his limits.

"You were saying?" Peter invited, without releasing him.

Gabriel relaxed against him, giving it up without much of a fight. "I know plenty about sex."

"With men?"

"Uh… no. I told you, I don't have those memories."

Peter kissed him. "You just did fantastic. Thank you. That was great. Maybe the best sex I've ever been given and definitely the best I've had in years."

Gabriel reached up and pushed Peter's right arm to the side with his left, twining his fingers with him. Peter let him, no longer holding him by force. Gabriel pressed their joined hands to the bed. He pressed again. Peter pushed back, suspecting Gabriel was testing his strength. He steadily lifted his arm as Gabriel clearly gave it everything he had to hold him down. The other man made no headway at all. When Gabriel stopped pushing, Peter did too. Peter studied Gabriel's face. He'd wondered, feared even, what Gabriel's reaction would be to fully realizing he wasn't the stronger of the pair anymore, in more ways than one. Gabriel liked being dominant. He liked it a lot.

He looked uneasily at Peter and pressed again, trying to force Peter's hand back to the bed. It didn't move. He bared his teeth and pressed harder. Peter remained unwavering. Gabriel glanced at him a couple times uncertainly, then suddenly Peter felt his powers disappear. Gabriel pushed his arm down easily, though most of that was due to Peter's surprise. Gabriel turned and grinned, covering Peter's mouth with his own.

Peter controlled his emotions as best he could. His first thought was that Gabriel had drained his powers, having learned how to do it from Arthur, but it hadn't hurt. Peter just felt numb as far as abilities went. It was like the Haitian's power. He felt another surge of fear that Gabriel had killed someone else, someone other than Matt Parkman and he hadn't realized it. Then he remembered Heidi and started thinking more rationally. He turned his head away from the kiss. Gabriel let him, but was still pinning his hand down and pressing his body possessively into Peter's.

Peter said, "You got Heidi's ability… the same way you got Ma's?"

Gabriel nodded. "We've been going through a lot. It just happened." He smiled. "Looks like you've been adding abilities too, brother."

Peter bucked him off with a laugh. Gabriel let him, rolling off and letting him go. Peter felt his abilities start again. He looked at Gabriel and reached out to pat him on the shoulder. "You can take the first shower. You like the water cold anyway."


	68. Shared Sweetness

It was the day after Peter had drug Maury to Angela's place with a split lip and a bloody nose. Maury's arm and knee still hurt, despite a handful of painkillers and several ice packs. He supposed he should have given up when he realized his powers were nullified instead of trying to fight it out with a man forty years his junior, but he hadn't been thinking straight. He'd felt his son's life flicker and fade into nothingness through the link they shared, the night before. Now Parkman's task was to track down the various agents and employees he'd subverted in an attempt to gain a small measure of revenge against Matt's killer, Gabriel Gray.

Whatever had happened to his son, it wasn't quick. Death usually took less than five minutes and sometimes as little as seconds if the brain was damaged directly. Matt's took over half an hour and his father had been aware of it the whole time, in spikes of emotion and phantoms of pain through the link. Knowing nothing else seemed harder to manage than details, but Matt was too far away for the elder to pick up anything better.

Maury resented Gabriel enormously for how long it had taken – not so much the death itself, as he'd known that was coming for quite a while - but that it wasn't quick or clean. He'd tried to talk to Angela about it. She clearly didn't want to hear it. She'd had to face an unpleasant future many times, standing by silently and letting it unfold at great cost. He also resented Arthur, who'd orchestrated the whole thing. Mrs. Petrelli was more inclined to listen to criticism of her absent husband.

The agents Maury had turned weren't hard to find. Maury knew who he'd been at, so unlike Gabriel, he didn't have to go through everyone to find the right people. Gabriel had had to seek out the people hunting him and been shot for his trouble a few times. Maury found that a little satisfying. Parkman could call people and require they come to him, making it even simpler. He was also doing clean-up, fixing the mistakes Gabe had made as a result of his inexperience with the ability.

They started early. The worst cases for him to fix had been in Philadelphia and New York. Even so, he and Angela were on their way to Baltimore by 10 am. The people from the Washington office would meet them there at 3. They included two Gabriel had missed. Maury had considered leaving them loose to surprise the man later, but it was a poor way to treat the agents, given Gabriel's tendency to overreact. He'd killed one of the people who acted against him and nearly done the same to another. Angela was right - Maury shouldn't make the Company assets part of his feud.

Maury had made reservations for two at an upscale seafood restaurant. They dumped off Michael with the car, leaving him to find his own lunch. They'd call him when they were done. The drive down had been strictly business, with both of them having laptops with roving uplinks. The silence had helped him focus and think about something other than Matt.

He had a second goal, a second revenge, but this time against Arthur. He wanted to threaten Angela – not in any real fashion, not to threaten to harm her – but to threaten Arthur's hold over her, his possession of her, his ownership of her. Arthur Petrelli was territorial and possessive, traits he shared with Maury. His control of his wife had never been perfect and he'd been stung badly by her infidelity. It was a wound that had never healed. Maury intended to poke it until it bled.

The lunch rush was over when they were shown to their table at 12:45. Maury limped along with a cane and insisted Angela let him seat her. He looked a sight, but the waiter was kind enough not to comment, even if he thought it was somewhat humorous for a man of his age to have been in a fist fight. Maury squinted at the menu and frowned, then wiped at his eyes.

"Can you read it?" Angela asked finally.

"Yeah. It's just one thing after another keeps going out on this old meat bag I'm trapped in. I need to visit that faith healer again." Fortunately it wasn't too hard to convince her he was doing God's work. Telepathy had its perks. A long time ago he'd dismissed the possibility of immortality through long-term possession. He wasn't above other means to prolong his life, but that one seemed particularly immoral even to him.

She fell silent and read the menu, setting it aside finally and sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She watched Maury steadily. She wondered about his motives in requiring her to come to lunch with him. She knew about the vengeance, but a small part of her hoped there was something more there. He looked up and set his menu down, smiling genially at her. "What are you getting?"

"A cup of lobster bisque and a half order of the tuna sashimi."

"Mm. That sounds good. I can't decide though. I can't go too far wrong with fish and chips… but on the other hand, they have this linguini alfredo with scallops and stuff. Which do you think I should have?"

She considered it gravely as if this were a weighty decision that warranted a lot of cogitation. She said, "I would think, given your tastes, that the fish and chips would suit you better. It's more pedestrian."

He ignored the insult, if it even was one. Between the two of them, it was more likely to be a simple observation. He made a show of thinking it over in return, then nodded. "I agree. The other might be too heavy – it would make me sleepy later on. I'll follow your advice."

She smiled a little at his mock-seriousness and looked around the restaurant. "It's been years since I was last here. I have no idea what's good these days."

He leaned forward, projecting great interest in her words. "When were you here last?"

She pulled back fractionally. He realized he was coming on too strong. He noticed his napkin, wrapped around his cutlery and leaned back as he unwrapped it. In turn, she leaned forward a bit. It was unconscious body language for her, but calculated on his part. She said, "It must have been twenty years ago. Victoria, Charlotte and I ate here one day for lunch on our way down to DC."

Angela continued looking around. "I suppose they've changed owners. It looks different." She sighed, thinking of the old days.

"What ever happened to Charlotte?"

Her eyes came back to him. His expression looked genuinely curious, but he had a lot of practice wearing the face that evoked the reactions he wanted. "Oh, she moved down to Florida where she lives with her grandchildren, last I heard. Or rather, her grandchildren live with her." She smiled wistfully.

"It's hard to keep a family together in our business. She's lucky."

Angela eyed him. "Yes, she is."

"Too bad about Victoria," he murmured and looked away. Once upon a time, Victoria had been Angela's closest friend. The future, the Company and Adam's solution to all of it had torn a rift between them, but the emotion was still there.

She nodded and started to say something when the waiter came by and took their orders. After he left, Maury said, "Too bad about Adam, too." He watched for her reaction. They'd never spoken of what had happened only a few years before, with the murder of Victoria and Adam's later death at Arthur's hands. Parkman had been a supporter of Monroe's. The Petrellis had not.

"He served his purpose," she said stiffly.

"Which purpose was that?"

"With the Company," she said vaguely.

He decided to push it, asking, "Do you mean reviving Arthur?"

She hesitated. Obviously, that was part of what she meant. She didn't lie to him. "Yes, but what I meant was that he brought us together and set us on the right course, even if he changed his mind later."

"Ah." For the moment, he'd forgotten trying to win her over as old angers stirred in his gut.

She saw him looking sullen, drawing away. It was a very old, very sore point between them, one that had seen more than one founder leave the Company. She couldn't afford to lose Parkman too (and again), especially now. Adam was gone and it didn't matter who had stood where. She leaned forward a little and offered, "Maury, the Company is the right thing to do. Even Adam thought so. We can do so much more together than we can apart."

He looked off to the side, still angry. "Yeah," he said, his tone sarcastic. "Imagine if Arthur were on our side instead of off fucking around by himself, huh?"

She didn't know what had passed between Maury and Arthur just a few years ago when Arthur had killed Adam and recovered from the poison she'd given him. Maury had a lot of reasons to hate her husband. He'd obviously been the man's unwilling thrall, but she was unsure if his obedience to Arthur had ended. So she answered slowly, not sure of what Parkman was really feeling, despite the emotions writ on his face and heavy in his voice. "Yes, that's true. Arthur is not on our side. I did not approve of what he did to Adam. I think it should be clear I would have preferred Arthur did not have that opportunity."

He looked up at her, then at the tablecloth. He rubbed it slowly. "You said you were having dreams that you and he got back together." He didn't like that idea. That was obvious.

She sighed. "They're dreams, Maury, dreams of a happier time. I want a happier time."

"You're lonely," he observed, glancing up long enough to hold her eyes for a second, then away. Patty's observations about himself and his life rang loudly in his mind.

She eyed him silently, wondering what he meant by that. It wasn't said as an invitation or a come-on. He'd stopped trying to hit on her some time back in the conversation. She preferred this Maury, the one who was more honest and open, less manipulative and aggressive, but it was rare she was able to see this side of him. He usually guarded himself too well, provoking people and being flippant.

She thought about his question the previous night asking if she was looking for someone to replace Daniel. That had been a torrid and painfully short affair, cut short by Linderman's death. She hadn't known Maury was aware of it, but given how close he and Daniel were, it wasn't surprising. She'd thought, at the time, that Arthur was dead. She and Linderman had metaphorically danced on his grave, for very different reasons. Now, again, a man wanted her in order to thwart her husband... and yet he seemed to want something more, or was she only seeing what she wanted to see? Finally she admitted, "Yes."

"So am I." He looked around the restaurant at the people there. He didn't look at Angela or imply she was the one he wanted to be with. He hadn't been thinking that before now - he'd never intended to actually get close to her. He'd just wanted to make a scene, make it look like he was after her so he'd have something to throw in Arthur's face the next time he saw him. That was as far as he thought he'd get – he didn't imagine Angela would let him go further despite his powers of persuasion. He thought about Patricia again. Spontaneously, he said into the silence at the table, "You're the closest thing I have to a friend, Angela."

He picked at the tablecloth. "I'd kind of worked things out with Matt. We weren't close, but it was okay. It was working out."

"It's very hard to lose one's family," she said with sympathy.

"Yeah," he kept looking away. He knew he should jump in with something blaming Arthur or drawing her in. He was tired of the game though and said nothing. The waiter brought their meals. They ate in silence. It was empty and stretched between them like they ought to be speaking but weren't. She fiddled with her chopsticks a lot. He fussed with his malt vinegar and lemon wedges. Both tried to look busy with their food.

After she was done and there was no longer a way to maintain the pretense, Angela set her plate aside and said, "Maury, will you be staying with the Company… or will you be leaving? I know… I didn't give you much of a choice last summer. That was unfair."

He looked at her steadily for a while, then took a bite of the fry in his hand. She'd given him more of a choice than Arthur had. At least she'd offered him the escape of death. "What do you mean by that – unfair?"

"I mean I shouldn't have treated you like a common criminal. I should have gone to you. You deserved better than to be hauled in like that." She sounded a little like she was struggling with the admission.

He wondered why she made it at all. He hadn't intimated in the slightest that he was going to leave, though now that he thought about it, twisting their agents and attacking another director was about as 'off the reservation' as one could go. He finished the fry and dipped another in ketchup, thinking that over. There were a lot of things he could do outside of the Company. He had his projects. He glanced up at her. His son was dead. He didn't have any _people_. He'd tried living without people. It made him crazy and hateful. "I'll stay. What else do I have? Like you said last summer, it's a pretty empty life without it."

She furrowed her brow slightly. "I don't recall saying that."

He chewed on the fry. "No, maybe you didn't and I just thought it." He picked up another fry and waved it a bit. "You bring my life meaning." He didn't sound sarcastic so much as literal. "Well, you and the Company. Gives me something to do. Keeps me out of trouble."

She looked around the fancy restaurant and indicated it. "And what is all this about if not getting yourself into trouble?" She gave him a small, knowing smile.

He smiled back. "That's not what it's about anymore." He put his food down and looked at her face with a scrutiny that made her feel naked. If she hadn't known how to block out his mind she would have thought he was reading her. It looked like he was trying to memorize the contours of her face.

"Maury," she said, hoping to get a more appropriate distance and make him stop looking at her like that. It stirred feelings within herself she hadn't had for some time and although she'd agreed to his condition of this lunch with the intention of enjoying his attention, now that she had it she felt unaccountably shy.

"Angel," he answered simply, still looking at her, smiling like he saw something beautiful and lovely.

"You shouldn't…" she faltered and fussed with her napkin, not sure what she was going to say.

"I'd like to get to know you." He tilted his head. "I'd like you to get to know me. Really."

"That's inappropriate," she said sharply. "It won't work out well. Arthur will make you _suffer_." She looked back and forth between his eyes, but he was undeterred.

He cocked his head the other direction. "You've _seen_ that?"

She nodded, looking unhappy about what she'd seen. It had been confusing, like most of her dreams about her personal life. There were too many choices she might yet make to change it.

He smiled warmly, relaxing. "You're worth it, Angela." He meant it. Her vision would tend to indicate he'd succeed. He'd be close to Angela and Arthur would be pissed about it. He didn't care what Arthur might do to him. _Not anymore. Not after losing my son. Not after having Patty of all people point out to me how nice it is to have someone in your life._

He straightened as the waiter came to take their plates away. She ordered a slice of raspberry cheesecake for dessert. When he showed an interest in the dessert, she pushed the saucer over to him and let him have a bite. He savored it and pushed the rest back to her. She ate half the rest and offered it back to him. He thanked her and took it, wondering if she understood the significance of sharing food with someone who had expressed romantic intentions towards you. She did.


	69. Directions of the Directors

**A/N: Kelly, the controller in Lynboro, is another canon character. Suzanne is original.**

Gabriel stopped by Peter's place at five in the afternoon. It was last minute, he knew, but Peter was off work and Noah was making a report tonight, so they weren't out on assignment. Hopefully Peter would be in and awake, which was never a sure thing with his crazy work schedule. Gabriel hurried up the stairs and knocked quickly. _I wish they'd get the elevator working in this building! It's been broken for months._

The door opened a moment later and he was treated to a sight that would stay with him for a long time. Peter leaned languidly against the doorframe, slick with sweat. He was clad only in ragged grey sweat shorts and a sultry smile. His chest rose and fell with deep, heavy breaths. Peter said, "I wasn't expecting you tonight. Come on in. I was just working out." He stepped aside. It took a moment for Gabriel to recover and walk inside.

Gabriel stood rubbing his fingers together in a nervous gesture. Static electricity popped from them. Peter glanced at that and stepped closer to him. "You like what you see?"

"Oh God, yes!" He couldn't tear his eyes away.

Peter glanced in the direction of the bedroom. "I've got all evening," he said invitingly. "There are a lot of ways to work up a sweat."

"Oh God, no…"

Peter's brow furrowed. "What's that?" He stepped closer so there was only an inch between them.

Gabriel could literally feel the heat coming from Peter's body, see individual beads of sweat dripping down him, smell the very physical reality of him. He ached to taste it. He turned away with a great effort. "Peter… no. Ah… no. Stop it, okay?"

Peter cocked his head and walked over to the table, snagging a towel from the back of one of the chairs. He wiped his face and ran it through his hair. He sat down and waited.

Gabriel walked over and looked out the window, looking for something less interesting to look at. Almost everything qualified. He scratched at his brow, trying forcibly to put his thoughts on business instead of pleasure. He said, "The board meeting's tonight. I called Angela and told her I'd like you to be there in case you needed to add something to my report about France. She said that was fine. Do you want to go?"

Peter sighed. The rest of his workout routine would have to wait. "What time?"

"It starts in an hour, but I wanted to be there a little early, if we could."

Peter got up. "I'll shower, be ready in fifteen. Twenty if you bother me."

Gabriel grumbled, "If I bother you, it'll be for longer than five minutes."

Peter laughed and went to get in the shower, expecting that he **would** be bothered, given the intensity of Gabriel's expression. Gabriel kept himself away though. He had a well-developed sense of time and Angela wouldn't wait on them.

When Peter came out, Gabriel had calmed himself. He walked over to him with a critical eye to his clothing. "Watch me," he said and shifted into a dark chocolate brown suit with a cream shirt and striped tie. "Now, feel this and change into the same thing. Make sure you get the fabric or it won't hang right."

Peter looked at Gabriel's face, trying to read him. "You're going to dress me?" He wasn't quite affronted - more surprised. _Is this control freak or constructive criticism?_

Gabriel looked from his clothes to his eyes. "What? No, you've already dressed yourself. I'm telling you how to appear." He hesitated, confused by Peter's reluctance. "You don't have to. Let's just go." He shook his head and shifted back to his previous appearance.

Peter looked down at his own outfit, which consisted of a dress shirt and slacks. "No, wait a second. How formal are these things?"

"They aren't. Never mind. Forget I said anything. Just channeling Nathan. Sorry." He opened the door and walked out.

Peter ran after him, catching his elbow. "Hey, don't be sorry for **that**. It's one of the things I really like about you."

Gabriel leaned over and gave him a quick peck. "Come on." _I should have just drug you along all sweaty and half-naked. It would have at least been entertaining. Angela's reaction by itself would be priceless._

In the car, Peter said, "Change back and I'll copy it."

"No, it's nothing. You don't have a jacket or a tie so it's not going to be right anyway." Gabriel put the car in gear and headed out.

Peter huffed and duplicated the clothing from memory. At a stop light, Gabriel looked over and reached out to feel the cloth of the suit. "Too light, but that's probably because you don't have a real jacket for it. You must be duping the dress shirt for the jacket. Just go back to how you were, Peter."

"Why **this** look?"

"I saw it today and thought it would look great on you. That's all. I like clothes. Sort of. Sometimes." He watched the traffic and pulled away as the light turned green.

Peter pursed his lips and didn't say anything else about it. He stuck with the changed look, though.

They arrived a few minutes early to find everyone already there. The board meetings were always fairly small, sometimes just three people, sometimes six or seven depending on who was called in to make a report. Orders were usually relayed individually, outside of the meeting. Meeting time was spent compiling information and discussing what directions should be taken.

There were four chairs at the table. Gabriel went to the other room and unceremoniously drug out a fifth for Peter, putting it beside Noah's. It put Noah and Peter on one side of the table and Maury and a blonde woman named Suzanne on the other side. Angela sat at the head. Peter looked around. "Where are you going to sit?"

"I don't sit," Gabriel said, and took up his customary place at Angela's right hand. Peter barely stopped himself from gaping at that. The symbolism was not lost on him. His mother gave him a small smile. Peter looked away, across the table at Maury and the woman he didn't know. Of all the people at the table, the blonde was the only one who had looked twice at Gabriel's choice of appearance. She had looked more than twice, but so far said nothing.

"Let's get started," Angela said. "Suzanne, this is Gabriel Grey, one of the directors of the board."

Suzanne blinked at that and stuttered, "S-Sylar?"

Angela said coolly, "That is not an identity he is currently using, so no." After a pause, the older woman went on, "Now, our agenda will begin with addressing our own integrity, going over the status of our agents and local internal structure. We have a proposal to discuss for replacement of the Fringe Division liaison. To follow we will have a report on the abduction of Heidi Petrelli and then finally world matters, with the economy, Consortium and Yamagato. Are there any other issues to add at this time?"

She was greeted by silence and turned to Bennet. "Noah?"

Noah began slowly, keeping his eyes on the papers he'd brought. "As most of you know, there was an incident earlier this month which involved the mental invasion and reprogramming of nearly a dozen of our top local agents." Peter's eyes went to Gabriel, who was as impassive as Peter's mother, giving away nothing. All Peter had been told of was the attack on Noah. _Nearly a dozen?_ he thought.

Noah went on, "This has been corrected in full. We need to take measures to assure this does not happen again. The primary options I would like the board to consider are 1) recruiting the discreet services of a persuader or a commander who can add an additional layer of protection to prevent mental compulsion against the Company's interests, 2) utilizing the services of the same on director level telepaths," at this, Maury laughed out loud. Bennet went on without reaction, "or 3) adding commands to our existing agents to make it impossible for them to act against the directors, even with best-intention justifications."

Maury smiled. "Option 2 is right out. Can we agree to that?" He looked at Angela and Gabriel. Gabriel nodded. Angela made no reply. "Fine," Maury said. He looked at Noah. "Do we have a commander available?"

"Yes," Noah replied. "There's one in Lynboro, Connecticut. We've had contact with her. I think recruitment is possible."

Gabriel asked, "What's the difference between option 1 and 3?"

Noah explained, "Option 1 leaves it to the agent to decide how best the Company's interests are served. If they feel an attack against a director serves the Company, they may do so. It's an extension of current protocols, repeating it from an additional source to prevent or overwrite bad programming. Using a somewhat impartial commander will hinder contradictory mental commands from the existing telepaths. In the face of contradiction, free will usually reigns. Option 3 would prevent actions against directors in all cases, even when the agent feels it is appropriate."

Maury said, "Option 1 gives more free will, Option 3 less."

Angela looked pointedly between Maury and Gabriel. "It would be better for everyone if our current telepaths were not interested in using the Company's assets to harm one another. I dislike the idea of bringing in an outsider to settle our differences."

Gabriel looked from Angela to Maury silently, revealing nothing. Maury glared at him, not bothering to look at Angela. After a moment, Gabriel said softly, "Maury?" and cocked his head.

Parkman snorted and looked at Angela. "You know we have to bring more people in. Let's examine this persuader and see if she has any potential. Unless more of my things go missing," he glared at Gabriel again, "You don't need to worry about misuse of Company assets. We can talk about it again next month."

"Very well," Angela said. "I will send the Haitian with both of you to see her. Noah, arrange an interview."

Bennet took a note.

"Noah," Angela said. "I believe you also had a suggestion for a replacement of the Fringe Division liaison?"

"Yes," he answered, looking up from his writing. "I would like to suggest Claire Bennet. She's had some training and the Fringe Division is a better place to start than more general assignments, where the projects can be random. At Fringe she would be buffered from direct involvement and still have an opportunity to learn process. We need a team there as soon as possible as we've already disrupted a very important oversight project."

"Claire doesn't need to be buffered," Gabriel said. "You protect her too much."

There was a moment of silence around the table. Noah kept his eyes down as he usually did when Gabriel talked to him. Peter felt an urge to speak up in Noah's defense, but he wasn't sure about the situation or the undercurrents.

Maury said, "If we recruit her to full agent, we will have much more access to her." He looked at Gabriel. "You need… _access_ to her, don't you now?"

Gabriel got so far as shifting his weight before Angela said quickly, "That's enough. Access to Claire's resources is a great benefit to the Company and I think Noah's suggestion has a lot of merit. She can be trained in relative safety and this would avoid conflicts with other specials, an issue that has complicated matters with her in the past. Are there any **objections**?" She said the last word strongly, obviously trying to avoid commentary.

"No objections," Gabriel said quietly.

Maury shook his head and added, to Noah, "It's a good idea. I'll talk to her, fill her in on Matt's work."

Noah nodded. "Of course."

Angela said, "Now we'll discuss the abduction of Heidi Petrelli. Gabriel?"

Peter thought that Gabriel's voice was remarkably calm and unmoved as he spoke. He said, "Thank you, Angela. Heidi was taken by Arthur Petrelli, brutally murdered and revived by myself and Peter. She was subsequently attacked again by Arthur, who was in an ethereal or astral form. He took something from her of great value." He shut his eyes for a long moment. Peter wondered if this was in memoriam, until he saw the distant look on Angela's face. Maury had cocked his head and looked off to the side much like Matt Parkman would do when he was using telepathy.

Gabriel opened his eyes and exhaled. "This means Arthur will be moving ahead with his plans. He discussed them at some length with me. I think we're all aware of what he intends."

Peter blurted out, "I'm not."

"We'll talk later," Gabriel said smoothly.

Peter shook his head. "You asked me here to elaborate on the attack, but you're hardly even talking about it. How do you get anything done if you won't communicate?"

Maury grinned broadly and suppressed a laugh. Peter glanced at him uneasily, suspecting he was the cause of Parkman's mirth. When Maury kept chuckling, Peter looked at him pointedly. Parkman said, "By all means, elaborate on the attack. That's what you're here for, isn't it?" He leaned forward, his lip curling while he still smiled, "Tell us, was it awful? Did she die before or after my son? I've heard it was in the very same room." His smile drained away. Peter was too offended to speak. "**We** know what's going on. **You** don't and we want to keep it that way."

The younger man glared at him. "He has the catalyst. He lost it when he died before. He'll lose it if we kill him again. It can be **done**," Peter said with great determination. "He doesn't have to stay dead, he just has to die."

To his surprise, Maury seemed to take him seriously. He looked at Angela and raised his brows at her. "Will it be?"

"It's possible. That's why he's here," she said steadily.

Maury looked at Peter like Peter had offered him a great gift. "Then we'd have the advantage, **if** it could be done. Someone like you might be able to get close enough."

"It's an advantage we could lose in a heartbeat," Gabriel interjected. "It's not worth it. Let him keep what he has."

"Keep it?" Peter said, standing. "He murdered your wife and son!"

Gabriel's face finally registered emotion. "Peter, he can do that again."

Peter shook his head, saying, "If he keeps the catalyst, he'll have the formula and we'll end up where we were before with Pinehearst. A future with too many people with artificial abilities is too dangerous."

"Exactly," Angela said. Peter looked at her levelly, wondering if they really agreed or she was only posturing.

Maury rubbed his forehead. "We all agree on that, but it doesn't have anything to do with his plans."

Peter looked at him intently. "What are his plans?" He sank back into his chair.

Gabriel opened his mouth, but Angela's hand came up, barely lifting from the table. She didn't look back at him, but it was clearly an order. He didn't speak. Peter looked between them. Maury spoke instead, "He plans on making more people like yourself, Peter. Like Gabriel there. Like himself. You know what people like that need? They need other people who have powers, so they can devour them. Or drain them.

"You won't be able to keep the empathy for long. After you lose it, there's the other way, your father's way. You've obviously learned a lot about draining recently." He raised his brows and drew an imaginary line between Peter and Gabriel. Peter wondered how Gabriel had kept himself from killing this guy. His respect for Gabriel's self control went up another notch.

Maury went on, "People like you also need a concentration of people who have abilities but can't resist you so you can milk them for their power like Samuel did. Arthur plans to take **everything** to the next level. Some of us happen to like the current level though. I, for example, have no interest in my ability putting me on someone's menu, what with telepaths being a particular delicacy for some among us!" He gave Gabriel a pointed look, which was thoroughly ignored.

Peter took a deep breath and released it. He almost didn't notice Maury give Gabriel a long look with a very different expression, getting a slow nod in reply. Angela said, "Let's adjourn for dinner. We'll continue with our last issues after the meal."

Gabriel walked down the table, tapping Noah on the shoulder. "Come with me." Suzanne rose and followed him also at a gesture from him. He walked out with the two agents in tow.

Peter looked after them and stood. Angela called to him, "Peter, come here. Gabriel needs privacy."

"What's he going to do?" Peter asked.

"Nothing you need be involved in," she replied.

"Unless you **want** to be involved," Maury said cheerfully. Peter gave him a dirty look and stalked out after Gabriel. Maury shrugged elaborately at Angela, who gave him a small smile before heading to the kitchen to inform the staff it was time.

Peter stood in the entry, listening. He couldn't hear anything, but they couldn't have gone far. He found them down the hall in his father's office. Noah met him at the door with a concerned look on his face and his finger to his lips. Peter calmed slightly and was quiet. Behind him, Gabriel had his hand on Suzanne's forehead. He removed it after a moment and she blinked. Gabriel said to her, "Go back to the dining room. We'll be eating dinner in a moment." She went, giving Peter an odd look as she passed.

Peter looked at Noah, who gave him nothing back. Gabriel turned and spoke to him. "Peter?"

Peter said, "What did you erase? That conversation we just had at the table? I didn't know Heidi could affect memory."

"Heidi can't. I'm using telepathy, trying to adapt it. I can't erase it, but I can block it so she can't think about it easily. And yes, Peter, it's the discussion at the table. She can't know that."

"Why not?" the younger man asked testily.

"She's not part of it. That's not part of her job, her duties. We can't have people knowing. It's too easy to walk up to them and empty them out. The more likely it is we've been sloppy and left valuable intelligence floating around, the more rewarding it is for our enemies to tap our agents. There's no return in leaving our people alive afterwards, if they truly knew something. They stand a better chance of surviving an assault if they're ignorant."

Peter huffed and looked at Noah. "What about you?"

"I'm waiting my turn," Noah said calmly.

"You don't have a turn," Gabriel said quickly.

"Thank you," Bennet said simply. He reached out and patted Peter on the shoulder, then turned and left.

Peter collapsed into a chair, holding his head briefly and then looking up at Gabriel. "You guys are dysfunctional."

Gabriel smiled and sat down more sedately. "Yeah. I know. Angela thinks that's a good thing. The more I've thought about it, the more I agree. We don't talk to outsiders much. But we **do** talk a lot more when it's just the three of us. I'm not really sure what to do about Noah. You think I should mind wipe him too?"

Peter looked at him blankly. "Are… are you really asking me that?"

"Uh… yeah."

Peter sighed. "I don't think anyone wants to have their memories erased - ever. This sort of thing explains why I ask him questions and he can't tell me, or he guesses but isn't sure. You do this routinely?"

"I just got the power a few weeks ago, so no. But Maury does. It's why we needed him back… or rather, why we needed a telepath. If I let Maury poke around in Bennet's head, he might notice things are missing."

Peter frowned. "If Noah wants you to do that to him, I'm sure he'll say so. He knows the dangers better than most and he trusts you. What did you **really** want me here for?" Peter asked.

"A lot of reasons. I want your help - with Maury, with Dad, with… the future. You've started asking questions and it's easier if I just bring you in and let you see for yourself."

They heard footsteps in the hall, faintly through the closed, glass-paneled door. Angela came to the other side. She smiled at them. It was plastic at first, then warmed significantly. She opened the door. "Dinner's ready, boys." As they rose and walked out, she said, "Thank you for coming, Peter. I know it means a lot to Gabriel."

XXX

After dinner, Angela reported, "The Consortium has confirmed Kaito's preliminary findings from a few years ago, which is that the world economic collapse was too improbable to have occurred by chance. It was engineered. What the Consortium has done which Kaito had not was to track culpability back to several agencies with ties to Halo. The Chinese have thrown their not inconsiderable might into thwarting this and stabilizing the world economy. I have been unable to achieve a closer relationship with them, but I am hopeful that continued détente may lead to an alliance such as that between the Company and the Yamagato Fellowship."

After a pause, she turned to Suzanne. "Speaking of which, Suzanne, I believe you have something to report."

Suzanne spoke, "Yes. As you might know, I've been stationed in Japan for the last three years and we have confirmation of contact between Halo and the Nakamura family. It appears personal at this point, because the personnel and files in Yamagato Industries have not been updated or altered. Hiro, Ando and Kimiko have had dinner three times with agents of Halo. I have the details here." She passed out a single sheet of paper to each director. Peter felt annoyed to be left out. Noah looked tranquil about it - uninterested, even.

They each read through the information silently for a moment. Angela looked over to Maury. "Do you have any objection to me sending Noah to Japan to check on things? He knows these people."

"No, of course not," Parkman said. "Make sure he gets Claire started first though, so I can move forward with that."

Angela looked at Noah. "How long will that take?"

"Just a few days. I should be ready to leave by the 7th."

"Good. Then make arrangements." She looked back down at the sheet. "Any thoughts, Gabriel?"

"I'm going to call Abbas directly. Social call. We got on well at the party. He said several times he wanted to hear from me. I'll see if anything shakes loose."

She nodded. "Are there any other issues? No? Then we are adjourned." She smiled pleasantly. "Have a good evening."


	70. Debriefing

Following the board meeting, Peter and Gabriel walked out of the Petrelli house in silence. In silence, they got in Gabriel's car. Gabriel sat behind the wheel and rubbed at his lip.

Peter said, "I want to talk about this."

Gabriel looked at him for a moment, then started the car and headed to his house. Peter let him keep his silence, looking out the window at the passing buildings. He thought about what he'd seen tonight. There was no trust, lots of secrets and some hate. Maury had said Peter's facility with empathy wouldn't last, implying he'd become jaded and unable to use his power, turning to draining powers just as he'd turned to draining life in order to heal people. It was an unpleasant thought, but it would be helpful from time to time to take powers away. Not everyone wanted them. Even now Peter had powers he'd gained from Gabriel that he'd declined to access.

Gabriel pulled into the garage and they got out. Peter coughed and made a gesture at Gabriel's face.

"What?" the other man said.

Peter replied, "Is there anyone here who might notice?"

"No. They all think I'm the same guy." Gabriel headed inside the house, announcing himself and Peter.

"They what?" Peter asked as he followed him.

"They think I'm the same guy - Mandy, Jennifer - they think I'm Nathan even if I look like Gabriel."

"Jennifer?"

"The nanny," Gabriel supplied.

Heidi came out of the kitchen and waved. "I'm in here. Come on in. I was just taking care of some dessert dishes we used after I sent Mandy home."

Gabriel hung up his coat and went in the kitchen, giving her a light kiss as he did. He walked over and looked down at his infant son, who slept in a swing seat that was not, at the moment, moving. It had several standard baby-entertainment and monitoring devices clipped to it. He smiled.

Heidi walked over next to him and said, "He just went out a half hour ago, so he should stay out for a while longer." She turned to Peter. "We can talk. He sleeps through anything. He's a great baby. So happy! He's happy all the time." She shook her head and went to the sink, rinsing dishes.

Gabriel sat on a kitchen stool and pointed one out to Peter, who sat. The older man said, "We can talk here. Boys are in bed, right Heid?" She nodded. Gabriel looked back to Peter. "You want anything? Drink? Water?" After Peter shook his head, Gabriel said, "Go ahead then."

Peter looked at Heidi's back, then tilted his head at Gabriel and projected. He winced as he had a moment of intense mental feedback. Gabriel raised his brows. "We can **talk**."

Heidi looked back and between the two of them. "You can go to the study if you want."

"No." Gabriel's voice was firm. "I'm in here with you."

Peter sighed. "You used mental powers on your maid and your nanny?" He noticed Heidi did not appear surprised. _Well… openness and trust are good things. Gabriel has certainly taken the relationship places Nathan never would have._

"Yeah," Gabriel said, a touch defensively.

"That… isn't like shaking sleet off your coat, you know. Those are _people_." Peter chided him.

Gabriel exhaled softly. "People who don't need to think two different men are sleeping with my wife."

Heidi did glance back then. She laughed quietly as she went on with the dishes.

Peter drummed his fingers on the counter. _Really, is this something I want to have a fight about?_ "Is that all you did to them?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Peter looked away. _I wonder if this is how getting jaded starts?_ _One little thing at a time, doing what's easy._ He shook the thought away. It was too morally murky even for him. "Can you work things out with Maury?"

"They're worked out." Gabriel looked away, thinking briefly of Molly. He still hadn't mentioned her situation to Peter because he didn't want Peter feeling he needed to do something about it.

"That's it? He sends a dozen agents against you and…" There was a long pause. Peter realized Heidi had stopped rinsing and was listening quietly. _He's the one who insisted we talk in here_. "What happened?"

"After the first two, I changed my face to look like Noah. He was out of the action anyway. The rest didn't know it was me until I had them, so it wasn't a problem. Kind of had a crash course in using telepathy, but by the end of the day I thought I could deal with Bennet without hurting him too much. He's been worked over more than anyone else I ran into."

"By the end of the day? What about the ones you ran into earlier?"

"Maury cleaned up after me. Only one died - the first. That's… why I didn't do anything to Bennet when I first ran into him." He looked at Peter with narrowed eyes. "You knew I didn't hurt him, right? That was Michael, not me."

Peter nodded. "Yeah, I know. They told me." _One died._ "What'd Maury mean about you needing Claire?"

"I… I'm not sure." Gabriel barely caught himself from saying he didn't know, which had previously registered as a lie for Peter.

Peter nodded. Heidi, however, was not fooled. She knew that tone of voice even if she didn't know what they were talking about. She turned around. "You need who?"

"He was talking about Claire, my… Claire Bennet."

"What do you need from her?" she pressed.

He evaded again. "I'm not sure what he meant."

"Yes you are, Nathan. You know exactly what he meant." She turned back and drained the sink with a snort.

Peter quipped, "I guess now we know that precognitive lie detection trumps normal lie detection."

Gabriel faked a smile. "Funny, yeah. I'm not talking about it." Heidi came around and looked at him, searching his face. "No." He shook his head at her with an odd, trapped expression.

She took a breath and put a hand on his arm. "Okay. It's okay." She dried her hands off on a towel and dried the place on Nathan's arm where she'd touched him. She shot Peter a warning look. Peter looked away, thinking she intended for him to drop it. He filed it away in his mind as one of the few things Gabriel wouldn't share with him. Heidi walked over to look at little Noah.

Gabriel said, "Do you want me to carry him up for you?"

She shook her head. "No. What I'd really like is if you could watch him while I go take a bath and then bring him up later, when you come up." She looked at her husband.

"Sounds good to me."

She nodded and left.

Gabriel slumped dramatically and sighed, looking at the baby.

"Is everything all right?" Peter asked, alarmed.

"Sure. No. I don't know. She won't go more than ten feet from him unless I'm here and even then she's concerned if I'm not looking directly at him. Especially at night." He pulled his stool around so the baby was in his direct line of sight. He looked at Peter. "When she says 'watch him', she means watch him."

"She had a very traumatic experience," Peter said quietly.

"I know. I know." Gabriel watched the baby dutifully. "Are you free for Valentines?"

"Um… Emma and I have plans." Peter was surprised Gabriel was asking such a thing - first that he wanted to spend a romantic holiday with _Peter_, and second that he was talking about it _here_.

"What about the Friday before, the 13th?"

"No, no plans then. I'm working though."

"Midnight shift?"

Peter shook his head ruefully. "Every shift I get is midnight. Only way I get a day shift anymore is if I pull a double." Jackson had **really** been upset about the France thing. Of course Peter hadn't helped things by being an ass, but so it was.

"Could you watch him in the evening?"

"What?" Peter sat up straighter. What he thought Gabriel had been asking was radically different from what he really was asking.

Gabriel clarified, in case Peter hadn't followed him properly. "Could you watch Noah the evening of the 13th, so Heidi and I can get out, spend some time alone?"

"I- I don't know the first thing about babies, Gabriel. I mean, other than medical care."

"He's very easy to take care of, really. I don't know much about them either and I can tell you, it's not that hard. We won't be gone long. She wouldn't be able to take it if we were. Just a few hours. I think I can convince her that you'll keep him safe." At Peter's continued negative expression, he added, "Please? Do I need to beg? I will, if I have to. There's no one else she would remotely trust him with."

Peter sighed. He looked at the baby. It hadn't been too hard to watch him so far. _How tough can it be? Nathan used to baby-sit me when I was a baby. _"Okay." He had a feeling he was going to regret this though.

"Thank you, Peter. I really appreciate it. I'll let you know what time."

"You and I have a **really** complicated relationship." Peter shook his head, trying to sort out his feelings about things.

Gabriel gave him a pained look and changed the subject immediately. "You were saying about the board meeting?"

"I take it we're also not talking about Claire?" Peter asked.

"Probably not. I think the assignment is a good idea for her and the Company, but I don't think that's what you want to talk about."

"No." Peter looked at him intently.

"Then… no, we're not talking about that." Gabriel had never confessed to receiving anyone's memories from using Samson's power and he had no intention of doing so if he could help it. Now that they were gone, it hardly mattered. To his annoyance, he'd found that only Paul and Claire were gone. He still had the rats. _No doubt someone, somewhere, thinks that's really funny, _he thought sourly.

"Fine," Peter said. "What's the deal with Dad?"

"Maury and Angela think we have an advantage over him. Far as I can tell, they're talking about us. Me and you. Not that we could stop him, but that Arthur wants to recruit us. We can use that to get close to him, maybe divert him from his course, work something out."

"We? I don't think Dad wants much to do with me. I think I'm still grounded as far as he's concerned, like I'm still a kid or something."

"He knows I'm with you, at least in some way. He asked something about me needing to pick between him and you." Peter gave him a guarded look. "Strangely, he seemed to be saying I'd better damn well pick you. I don't know what he meant by that. Why would I **ever** pick him?" Peter's face had relaxed, but he couldn't answer Gabriel's question. He was thinking about Gabriel saying he wasn't sure he could be trusted in any dealings with Arthur. Maybe Arthur killing Heidi had changed that.

"Did he say anything else?" Peter asked quietly.

"Yeah, lots. Crazy religious we-need-to-be-gods stuff, you're-in-charge-of-your-destiny crap. Then after making a big deal about how I'm in control of myself and that's real important, he whammies me to kill Matt." He shook his head. "I don't get it. He can't be **that** blind or hypocritical, can he? It's like there must be something there I'm not remembering."

Peter shrugged, at a loss for words about his father. He changed the subject. "What do you think about Ando and Halo?"

"I agree with you it's probably Ando they're courting. Dad doesn't need Hiro's power. I think I'm going to call Abbas at Halo and see if he can connect me to Mohinder."

"Mohinder?" Peter's brows rose.

"Yeah. He's working for them too - for Halo. Matt…" He sighed. "Before Matt checked out completely, he had a chance to ask me to do some things for him. One of them was talk to Mohinder. He feels… he felt horrible about how he handled that last, taking Molly away from him and his mother, making him crazy and unfit - not just thinking he was, but making him **be** that way. He wanted me to apologize on his behalf, fix it if I could."

"He… did that?" Peter looked very sad.

"Yeah." Gabriel looked away. "Turned his mind. Hurt him. Tore him up. A version of what he did to me, but left him intact enough to know himself." Gabriel looked back to Peter. "Which is probably worse, all things considered. I'm pretty sure it's beyond my abilities, but I'll take a look."

Peter said, "I guess you're thinking Mohinder might be the in you've been looking for to get more information about them?"

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah. That and I'll lean on Abbas personally. I… he…" He looked around the house, running his fingers nervously across the countertop. Abbas had made something of a pass at him at New Years, though he'd been very drunk when he did it. Gabriel didn't feel comfortable discussing it with Peter and he sure as hell wasn't discussing it in Heidi's house. "Maybe I can get something out of him that he's willing to give me."

Peter nodded. "By the way, thanks for taking me to the board meeting. I appreciate it - you bringing me in, letting me in. I want to know what's going on and you're right, this is the best way. Thanks."

"Anytime. I'm glad you were there. Makes it easier to talk about things." He smiled at Peter.

Peter said, "I'll get a cab."

Gabriel nodded and went over to gently lift baby Noah out of the chair. He squirmed briefly, but settled back to sleep as soon as he was nestled on his father's chest. Gabriel smiled with a deep contentment, touching the velvety hair on his tiny head. He turned that smile to Peter, who found it contagious. "Can you see yourself out?" Gabriel asked softly. Peter nodded.


	71. In Hot Water

**A/N: For the real Abbas Hasan, on the off chance you're reading this, I always thought you were quite cool.**

Gabriel carried his son up the stairs. Heidi wasn't in the bedroom, so he looked in the bath. She was still in the Jacuzzi, running it on low. She was burning a couple of lavender scented candles and looked very relaxed. It looked like a nice place to be, especially after the tension-inducing board meeting. Those things made his blood boil sometimes and tonight had been no exception. He asked, speaking softly, "Can I join you?"

She nodded. "I was just thinking about things. You, mostly." Her voice was low and introspective.

He pulled the crib over to where she could see it from her position in the bathroom and laid Noah down carefully. He remained soundly asleep. Gabriel stood, as he often did, over the crib and looked down at his son, who was in a miracle in so many ways. It made his heart swell to bursting just to see him. He wished for once that he had that Texas waitress' perfect memory. He'd found something he was sure he never wanted to forget. "I'd do anything for you," he murmured.

"Come on in here," his wife invited.

Gabriel stripped his clothes off and said, "Might need to let out some of the water."

Heidi complied. He stood next to the tub and considered. It would be a tight fit, although being close to her was the main reason why he was getting in. "This will be easier if I'm a little shorter. Do you mind?"

She looked at him blankly for a moment, then realized what he was asking. "No, of course not. You don't have to ask."

He shrugged and shifted to Nathan, then climbed in. His feet ended up on either side of her hips. Hers rested on his stomach and chest. He relaxed into the warm water. After it stopped sloshing, he lifted one of her feet to his lips and kissed it, rubbing gently at it. "You were thinking of me, hm? Good things, I hope."

"I really don't know," she said slowly, looking at him intently. "What's your relationship with Peter?"

His hands stopped rubbing. He bent and kissed another of her toes, but said nothing. His heart stuck in his throat. _So much for relaxing_, he thought apprehensively.

She sighed. "This isn't one of those things you can't talk about, is it?"

He didn't answer, kissing another toe and not looking at her. He liked the feel of her. He wanted to keep feeling her. He feared it was about to be taken away from him. He wanted to enjoy her while he could. Where she went, Noah would go. At that thought, he felt a wave of vertigo as though the ground threatened to drop away beneath him.

She went on, "I think I have a right to know…" she hesitated, then finished, "who my husband is having sex with."

He inhaled sharply, his fingers nerveless. He couldn't feel anything. Her foot slipped down to his chest as he looked up at her. He knew, with certainty, he needed to deny it immediately and vociferously. It was the only way to convince her. It was the only way she'd buy it. He knew how to lie to her in ways she would believe him, he just didn't. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His fingers twitched, with nothing between them now.

After a long beat, what seemed to be one of the longest pauses he'd ever had to endure, she ran her foot up and down his chest. It felt surreal, like it was happening to someone else. She asked, "Do you love me?"

"Yes!" he answered immediately, relieved there was something he could say that might make things all right.

"Do you love him?" she went on.

And yet it wasn't all right. His brows pulled together in pain and he looked around apprehensively, looking at the candles, the wall, the cabinets, the paraphernalia of married life which had accumulated on their bathroom counter. The whole world had turned against him. Again, the urge to lie was there. How could he deny something like that though? It would be like denying he loved **her**. "Yes," he finally forced out.

She resumed stroking her foot along his chest. It almost hurt because he didn't think she should want to touch him. He felt it **should** hurt. It should cut him to the bone, fry his flesh from him like Elle had after he'd killed her father. She should hurt him for his infidelity. She should want to, at least. Were their positions reversed, he had no doubt he would not be hesitant to express his wrath, though he couldn't fathom actually hurting her even then. He'd barely contained himself for things she'd done while she had every reason to think he was dead.

Finally she raised her foot closer to his face and waved it a little. "Rub my feet. I don't want to think about it," she said in an entitled, self-assured tone of voice as if she had made her decision and this was her royal decree. He'd rarely heard one he wanted to embrace more whole-heartedly. He knew the meaning behind what she had said. She was saying she would ignore it. She would look away and turn her head as long as he was discreet and didn't embarrass her. It was more than he'd ever thought to hope for.

He exhaled a breath he hadn't known he was holding, looking at her and blinking back tears he also hadn't realized were threatening. He took her foot in his hands and pressed it to his mouth, kissing it firmly. He leaned forward and brought it to his forehead in an attitude of prayer. It genuinely was, as he gave thanks to whatever higher powers were letting him keep her, keep his family.

Honestly, he hadn't thought out his affairs. They'd just happened. He took her initially because she'd belonged to Nathan and he wanted to live Nathan's life. Then he began to love her. He'd sought out Peter because as long as he was Nathan, there was a hole in his heart without him. Noah Bennet's words in Omaha about Peter being inhumanly forgiving and a possible ally had stuck, though for the longest time he hadn't been able to see how to act on it. Despite how much he wanted to, he couldn't figure out how to get close to Peter. It seemed his son had made that possible too, he reflected.

After a moment, his wife wiggled her toes against his face and he leaned back, rubbing attentively. Heidi said, "You've been a good husband, even with…" she trailed off.

"There was no one else," he breathed heavily, shaking his head.

"I know," she said simply.

"I died for you," he offered. "I didn't know I'd come back."

She smiled and then laughed a little. "There is that. Not many wives can say **that** of their husbands. Peter was there too. I wouldn't be here without both of you. Neither would Noah." After a pause, she went on, "It's not like I didn't know. When Peter came to tell me you were dead, a year ago, I told him I wouldn't tell anyone." She shook back her hair at the memory. "I told him I wouldn't even accuse him of it, but we both knew what was there. I've never asked, since you two got back together… because I didn't want to know for sure. But you were sitting there, comfortable with each other, nagging one another… like us." She rubbed at his chest with her free foot.

"I don't-" His throat constricted unnaturally and he coughed to clear it. "I don't want to live a life of lies and half-truths with you, Heidi." It pained him to think there were still things he couldn't bring himself to discuss with her.

She regarded him with narrowed eyes as if she knew his thoughts. He'd always felt so exposed when dealing with her. After a long examination, she gave him a thin smile and looked away.

"Do you…" Nathan rephrased what he was about to say, thinking it might be better to change the subject somewhat. "I asked Peter tonight if he'd watch Noah while we went out for Valentines - the day before, that is. I think he'd be as good at protecting him as I am. Would you let him do that?"

"Would I?" she raised her brows. "You mean, do I trust him, with Noah?" He nodded, switching to her other foot. "Do you?" she asked.

"With my life, my heart and my family. Yes." He spoke with absolute conviction, paraphrasing something Peter had said to him.

She thought about that, looking past him at Noah. "I guess… I could try. I can't carry him with me for the rest of my life. Let's do something simple, like a movie. No dinner, just a movie. Okay?"

He smiled. "That sounds wonderful."

She smiled and looked off to the side. "Tell me what it means to 'whammy' someone. I think I need to understand that."

He looked at her levelly, finally realizing this wasn't some sort of accumulated super-women's-intuition of hers. "How…?"

She looked at him, then pointedly back where she'd been looking before. He followed her eyes to the baby monitor on the counter. The light shone green on it, indicating it was still on. He blinked, remembering the monitor clipped to the baby's swing in the kitchen. Of all things, he smiled and put his head back. _I am so busted! I'm even the one who attached that damn thing, hoping she'd be okay with going into the other room if she could hear him. What the hell did Peter and I even talk about?_

"Whammy… um…" He'd told Peter something about Arthur using a whammy to make him kill Matt. _God, I confessed to murder, as far as she knows._

"What was that you said about not wanting to live a life of lies?" she asked preemptively, as he was obviously searching for the right mistruth to tell her.

"Yeah." He sobered. He put her foot down and rubbed his forehead with one hand. His whole body twitched once. There was something there about Matt he didn't want to think about. He was certain of it. He blinked it away. This wasn't the time for soul-searching. She needed an answer now, not after he'd figured everything out.

He said, "A whammy is a slang way of saying mind control. There's different kinds of mind control, but if you're forced to do something because of someone else's mental powers, then they've pulled a whammy on you. Like I did with Mandy and Jennifer and to a lesser extent with the boys." He'd left that last part off from Peter, knowing from Nathan's memories that a father using his abilities to control his sons might set Peter off. It certainly tempered and limited what Gabriel was willing to do to them.

"Who was Matt?"

He looked at her through nearly closed eyes. He started to rub his forehead again, then reached over and took up the soap instead. He worked up a lather in his hands. She knew he wasn't ignoring her and since he wasn't trying to lead her on, wasn't watching her face and her body for her reaction, he wasn't working himself up to lying to her either. He was composing his thoughts, she supposed. She waited while he washed his face. She handed him a washcloth to scrub and rinse with.

"You told me… a few days after Christmas, when we were in bed that morning?" He looked at her. She nodded, remembering. He'd woke up shaken and sweating, almost crying from some recurring nightmare he'd been having. She'd comforted him. Eventually they'd talked in general terms about what Peter had had done to Nathan more than a year before to try to make him well again.

Nathan went on, fidgeting with the washcloth. "You told me Peter had said he'd had me fixed. That's…" He looked up at her warily, "oddly appropriate, as a term, I think." He paused again, unable to think of how to continue.

"What are you saying?" she asked. Obviously he was neither impotent nor sterile, as little Noah proved.

He spoke quickly, as if her question made it easier to tell. "I didn't agree to what happened to me. Peter found a man and he caught me, almost killed me with drugs and brought this man to me who had mind control powers. He… he tore my mind apart - my identity, my memories, everything. It ended the man I was before. He didn't even put me back together… just left me to work it out on my own. Peter…"

He shook his head. "I was so pissed at him. I wanted to kill him. Anyway, I didn't. I never saw that man again, until… in France. Dad brought him there, just like he brought you. He set us against each other. I killed him. Killed Matt Parkman."

"Matt Parkman was the man who… made you better?"

He grimaced and sighed. He used his telekinesis to push the water around restlessly, making even more ripples on the already slightly foamy surface of the Jacuzzi. "It… Listen, I could debate whether it made me 'better'. Certainly I suppose it made me a more virtuous person. It made me able to be with you and do all the wonderful things I've done in the last year, with you, with the boys. At the time, I didn't want it. It wasn't my choice."

He looked at the confused expression on her face and tried to think of how to put it that she'd understand. "You. Heidi. I have mind control powers right now. I could reach inside you and make you not be afraid for the baby anymore." She blinked at him as he waved in little Noah's direction. "I could make you confident and happy and convince you to go on that cruise your mother wants you to go on with her in the spring. You'd think it was fine, great, because I **told** you to think it was." Her lip curled slightly in repugnance. He nodded at her expression. "No matter how well it all turned out, Heid, it would be wrong. Wrong of me to do that to you."

He said, "I… things turned out okay for me. I wouldn't change them if I could and I… I know how. I can. I'm not about to, though. I want to be here in this life. What they did to me was still wrong. Dad… Matt… I killed Matt for it." He shivered. What he'd said seemed entirely true, even though it didn't quite fit his memory of the event. He thought he hadn't been in control of himself. Now he wasn't sure. The more he talked about it, the less sure he was.

"Revenge, then?" she said softly, pulling back from him minutely.

He felt her withdrawal. It terrified him. "No," he said quickly and strongly. That **was** a lie. He could hear it in his own voice. He'd never heard himself lie, despite hundreds of opportunities. "No. He attacked me. Dad mind controlled me. I didn't do it on purpose." He stopped at that, trying to work out why he was lying to her. And how it was a lie at all, since he was saying things he'd thought were true only a few minutes before. He couldn't think about it. He pushed the apprehension away. He'd deal with it later.

Heidi relaxed back into him, believing.

Nathan put his head back and slipped deeper into the water as his wife began washing her face and arms. He shut his eyes and tried to understand why he had a disconnect with his memories of killing Matt Parkman. He twitched again, a jerk that went through his whole body. He left it alone. It was too hard to think about.

Instead he thought about Valentine's Day. He was thinking he'd make reservations for lunch somewhere for the whole family. It wasn't romantic to have three kids in tow, but at least they'd go out and observe the holiday. _The whole family… I wonder if I ought to invite Angela? What does she do on holidays like this? Peter at least has plans. I wonder if she's lonely with Arthur gone? It's not like she has anyone now… that I know of._ He thought about Fitzgerald and Grem. _Nah._

His wife's right foot gently fell from where it had been resting on his stomach, to lower. He shifted back again to give her more room. Her foot followed him, finding his body and rubbing back and forth between his legs. He inhaled sharply and brought his head up, looking at her.

She was smiling at him. "Even my feet?"

He nodded, starting to breathe harder. "Anything intentional, I think." He thought about telling her she didn't have to. He felt himself rising quickly. He put his head back and just enjoyed it. He wouldn't last long anyway. She stroked her foot up one side and down the other, alternating. The contact was fleeting and light each time so it took longer than he normally lasted with her touching him. He brought his hands up and held onto the sides of the oversized tub, panting until he came in the water.

He stared at the ceiling. The release was much appreciated. "Thank you. You're a good wife. I don't deserve you."

"Yes, you do," she said in an irritated tone. "You're a good man, Nathan. Don't undersell yourself."

He raised his head and looked at her. "But…" _I've been unfaithful… and I'm going to continue to be._ If she didn't want to think about it though, then perhaps he shouldn't mention it.

She made an exasperated sound. "Do you think other couples don't have problems? All that really matters is if we're still willing to work with each other and work things out." More softly she said, "You're good to me. You care about me. More than a lot of wives my age can say." She smiled. "I have a lot of friends whose husbands are having their mid-life crises right now. You're not mean… And you're not nearly so full of yourself as you used to be." She got up out of the bath. He followed her a few seconds later, turning the Jacuzzi off and setting it to drain.

He took the towel from her and dried her off, something he'd done before, but not for a while. They'd been very intimate since the birth, but it was comfort and solace, not pleasure. They'd been distant, sexually. She still wasn't cleared for intercourse and he didn't understand that. She hadn't even passed the child vaginally, so why was sex off limits? If he couldn't detect lies, he would have been suspicious. "How's the incision?" he asked, brushing the towel across her stomach.

"It's good." She looked down at it, stretching her skin slightly. It was reddish pink, but healthy and fading.

He dropped his hand lower and brushed across her mound. Every other time he'd approached her since having the baby, she'd pushed him away. It didn't stop him from trying. To his surprise, he finally got a receptive response. She leaned back into him and sighed. He dipped his fingers lower, into her slit, stroking across her clitoris. He kissed her shoulder and when she moaned in pleasure and pressed herself against his body, he sat down on the widest part of the rim of the Jacuzzi. "Sit on my lap," he directed.

She did. He wrapped his arm under hers, around her waist and into her crotch. She spread her legs so they came down on the outside of his own and put her head back on his shoulder. He kissed her neck and the side of her face, nuzzling her. His other hand came up to caress her breast, rolling her nipple between his finger and thumb. "Oh, Nathan!" she breathed. He rubbed and circled her clit as it engorged. He was becoming erect as well, there being no way he could have her heaving on top of him like this without reacting. She could feel the shaft of his cock between her legs, brushing against her vulva.

She bit her lip and panted, making soft sounds. He moved his hips in a rocking motion, rubbing himself against her. "Can I?" he whispered to her.

"I'm… It's not… next week…" she said weakly between breaths.

_A few damn days_, he thought in exasperation. He'd been more understanding during the pregnancy. Heidi's family had a history of miscarriages. So did his, via Angela, but he wasn't sure if it mattered from the father's side. He caught himself, thinking he really ought to have a DNA test done to find out who the father was - Nathan or Gabriel. He didn't know what shape shifting did for paternity. Angela had told him miscarriages and stillbirths were common afflictions for those who carried children with the genetic marker for abilities – such children rarely survived to term.

He told Heidi, whispering against her ear, "I'll only be an inch or two in from this position. I'll scoot you out a little." He blew in her ear and ran his tongue under the lobe, using every tactic at his disposal that he didn't regard as unethical. She groaned and arched. He took that as a yes and moved her forward so she settled onto his tip. She put her hands back to grip his thighs and moved herself up and down on him, taking more of him in than he would have dared, especially as Nathan. He smiled at her cooperation. When she didn't want to do something, she didn't do it and it was that simple. He kissed the middle of her back. He could feel he was going to come quickly from this.

He reached around her and found her clitoris again, fondling the still-very-engorged bud. She whimpered and stopped moving, leaning back against him. He could feel the muscles in her legs tightening. He wasn't the only one nearly there. Her toes curled and she arched back against him again. He could feel her spasming. As soon as she seemed able, he asked her, "Reach down and stroke me. Just a little."

She took in a shuddering breath and did as he asked, running her fingertips across the exposed portion of his shaft. He came almost immediately, groaning loudly. He almost couldn't see. The baby stirred at his sound and began to fuss. Heidi started to get up, but he grabbed her and held her to him. He wasn't quite done yet. She ran her hand across his thigh, stroking him. He held her to him, then kissed her back again. With each noise little Noah made, he felt tension run through her. For more time than he strictly needed, he kept her with him. Noah was fine. He was her husband. He let her go.

He reached over for the washcloth and cleaned himself off, what little as needed it. He rinsed the cloth, wrung it out and carried it over to Heidi, who was changing Noah. He handed it to her. "Here. Let me take over." She switched with him as she finished wiping. He put on the fresh diaper and refastened the baby's clothing. He picked him up and patted the infant's back as Noah made gurgling noises and noshed enthusiastically on Nathan's chest hair. The man watched his wife finish cleaning herself, then pick up her nightgown. She looked at him and laughed.

"What?" he asked.

She shook her head. "There you are, naked as a jay bird, with our little baby. I don't know. It just seems funny to me."

He smiled. "Well, you need to come feed him before he gets his fill grazing over here. I'd like to have some hair left on my chest and I can't imagine it's all that nutritious, no matter how excited he seems about it." He stroked the baby's back.

She laughed again and came over to take Noah from him. She reclined on the bed while Nathan shifted into Gabriel and got dressed for bed.

XXX

The next morning, promptly at eight, Gabriel dialed Abbas' number. He'd worked out the time zones. It should be four in the afternoon in Riyadh and ten at night in Tokyo, so wherever Abbas was, he'd probably be awake. At the last minute, he remembered to shift into Nathan so his voice would match.

Mr. Hasan answered on the third ring, eyeing the computer screen in his office. It displayed the name Nathan's phone was registered under and the current address he was calling from. Within a few more seconds, it would list records of property ownership of the address, stored street views and satellite views of the location, and nearby sites of interest. He looked away to the picture of the surf on his wall. It was too easy to get bogged down in the data and forget the people. "Hello?"

"Hello, this is Nathan Petrelli. We met last month at a party in New York." He paused, giving the other man a moment to respond.

"Oh, yes! I remember you. You were a senator a few years back, right? Did a lot of work with Homeland Security?" He looked idly at the computer screen, which was pulling up the same information he remembered, in addition to several pictures of Nathan - one from his senate campaign website, one from his security badge for the US government and another from the New York Police Department for some recent infraction. He leaned over and looked at that. _Charged with public intoxication and resisting a police officer. Resisting charge dropped. Hm._

Nathan went on, "Yeah, that's me. I was thinking I needed to visit Riyadh pretty soon. There's a friend of mine I've been meaning to look up, but I lost his contact information when he moved out of India. Last I heard he was working for Halo. If you were interested, you and I could get together, see the sites. If you were free."

Abbas smiled, "Of course, I'd be happy to show you around. You've never been to Riyadh?"

"No, never have. Could you recommend a hotel?"

"Yes, I could, but if we could meet and discuss business while you were here, just once, you know, I wouldn't want to impose on your visit with your friend… but if we could discuss business then my company could put you up for the whole stay and make sure you had everything you needed."

Nathan grinned at the phone. He knew what that meant. _Ever the salesman, Abbas is. Time to bait the hook._ "Sure, that would be fine. I have some information a friend of mine liberated from the Treasury Department you might find really useful. Maybe I could drop that off with you right away and give you some time to think about it, then we could meet up again later and talk."

Abbas toggled the screens to a secondary one that was logging a transcript of the conversation. He looked it over for flags, but saw none. Of course, Nathan had been very vague thus far, so he was not surprised. "Yeah, that would be great. When are you coming in? I can have you met at the airport."

"Well, I need to talk to my friend about that and see when he's available. Would you be able to get me his contact information?"

"Sure. What's his name?"

"Mohinder Suresh."

Abbas repeated the name very slowly, "Mo…hinder… Sur… esh… Can you spell that?" He watched the transcript screen. A small red flag popped up at the bottom. He pointed at it with his finger mouse, clutching his hand to click it. The flag expanded immediately with a picture of Mohinder and a quick list of his salient information. He read it while Nathan unnecessarily spelled Mohinder's name. Abbas said, "What was that? 'D-i-r' or 'd-e-r'?" He read some more, not paying attention to Nathan until he fell silent.

"Right, got it," the Arab said. "Hang on a moment while I see if I can just pull that up right away." He pulled over the keyboard and cross-referenced Nathan Petrelli and Mohinder Suresh. Eight files popped up and every one had a red flag on it. One had three flags. He rolled his eyes. _Great. Can't be just one thing, can it?_ He looked at the picture of the rolling surf. "Hey, Nathan? I'm not getting it right away, so let me call you back, okay? I'll talk to my assistant. He's better at this sort of thing than I am. Shouldn't take more than half an hour."

"Sure, no problem," Nathan said. _That's a nibble, maybe a bite._ "You have my number?"

"Yes, I think so." Abbas repeated it anyway to make sure, then rung off. He watched as the transcript screen registered the end of the call and showed an icon indicating the log was being routed for analysis. Management had been waiting for a contact from someone high up in the Company for over a year. If Nathan wasn't on the board, then he was at least in touch with them. Abbas expected he'd get a call within minutes. In the meantime, he opened the most sensitive file connecting Nathan and Mohinder and began reading about a company called Pinehearst. He'd heard of it before.

XXX

A half hour later, Nathan's phone rang. "Hello?"

Abbas' friendly voice filled his ear. "Hey there, Mr. Petrelli. I found your friend. He's working at one of our labs as a subcontractor. That's why he didn't come up on the general employee database. He must be a real sharp guy!"

"Yeah, Mohinder's a smart fellow," he said warmly.

"I see his picture here. Not bad looking either."

"Yeah, I suppose." Nathan intentionally sounded disinterested. It sent the message he wanted, not that he'd ever thought twice about Mohinder's appearance anyway. Wasn't his type. Too sciency. Nathan liked people persons, like Peter. Or Abbas. Anyone who knew what DNA stood for and wanted to tell him about it was instantly on his "not interesting" list.

"Sure," Abbas got the message. "I'll tell you what, I can't give out employee contact information over the phone, but I'll make sure to take you by his lab while you're here."

"Oh, really?" Nathan tried not to sound as apprehensive about that as he felt. _Didn't Mohinder try to experiment on Peter at Pinehearst? And then there was that cocoon thing in his lab…_

"Yeah. I can drop you off for a while and swing back and pick you up later, whatever you need. You can call me and tell me what's good for you."

"Sure, yeah," Nathan sounded hesitant, "but I was going to talk to him in advance and find out what a good time was for me to see him. I don't want to drop in unannounced. I haven't seen him in a year or two."

"Oh, I was going to tell him you were coming. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Nathan wondered if Matt had ever told Mohinder what he'd done to Sylar. If so, then a meeting with 'Nathan Petrelli' might go really badly. He was already straying pretty far from what Matt had asked him to do. "Tell you what, I have some things to take care of here in the states until the 15th. I'll fly in then and see you the 16th, okay? I'll send my flight schedule to your email when I know my plans."

"Right. Let me know. I'm looking forward to it," Abbas said. They rang off.


	72. Commitments

"You're going over there alone?" Peter shook his head, annoyed.

"Yes, I am," Nathan answered firmly. "If it comes to it, Peter, I've been with Dad before. He didn't do anything to me."

"He made you kill Matt Parkman!" Peter stood up and paced, agitated not only by what Nathan was proposing, but that he didn't regard being made to murder someone as important.

"Well… there's that." Nathan remained sitting on the couch. He looked at the floor for the moment.

Peter looked back at the other man. He was relieved to see his brother's face looking troubled, as if he understood Arthur had no right to do what he had. It wasn't what Nathan was troubled about, though.

He looked up and said, "Peter, there's no one else who can go with me. I won't risk you. You've said yourself you're not sure how Dad will react to you. Noah's still in Japan and he wouldn't be much of a help anyway. Anyone else would be a liability. I'll get a lot more accomplished alone."

Peter huffed, exasperated. He sat down on the couch. "But still…" He rubbed his forehead. "Just make sure you come back, okay?"

Nathan leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Sure thing."

After a pause, Nathan reached over and put his hand on Peter's thigh. "Something else I thought I should tell you." He waited until Peter was looking at him. "Heidi knows. About us."

Peter's brows rose. When Nathan didn't go on immediately, he said, "And?"

Nathan shrugged. "She said it was fine. She didn't care. Or at least that was how I read it."

Peter frowned at Nathan. _Lie, lie, and truth. This can be a really annoying ability._ Peter sighed. "What did she say, exactly?"

"Exactly? She said she didn't want to think about it. That you'd saved her life and Noah's. That we deserved this much at least."

_Truth, truth and lie. Great. I almost wish I could turn this one off. _He was beginning to understand why Nathan didn't react to small lies he had to be detecting on a daily basis and why he telegraphed his lie detection strongly when he was intending to use it. Obviously, right now Nathan was trying to convey something he was reading mostly through interpretation and guesswork, or perhaps mind reading. In any case the truth was Heidi knew and she was at least ambivalent about it. Peter nodded. "Okay. What's that mean for us?"

Nathan leaned over, kissing Peter on the cheek and down to his neck, taking hold of his shoulder and turning his own head to lean in further. Peter lifted his chin and stretched his neck out so Nathan could lip along it. "It means we can be together without worrying so much. Or me worrying so much. I don't know that you…" he kissed a spot wetly, "ever…" he nipped it lightly, "worried." He finished by pulling on the flesh gently. Peter shifted against him, breathing harder.

"Um… can't say I worried," the younger man got out. "Didn't think about it much. Had… other things to worry about." _Like __**you**__._

Nathan worked his way back up to Peter's ear and nuzzled it. Peter shifted away and Nathan pursued him, swiping his earlobe with his tongue. Peter pulled away more strongly and Nathan let him, pushing him down on the couch so he lay on his back. Looking up, Peter saw Gabriel's face. Peter chuckled and reached up to wipe the wetness off his ear. The other man lifted his legs and set them across his lap. Peter settled in and smiled at him.

Gabriel put his arm under Peter's legs and lifted them slightly, running his other hand along Peter's thigh, along the top first, then back along the bottom and over his rump. The hand traveled under his shirt a little and rubbed a small circle against his skin. Peter smiled and closed his eyes. Gabriel moved his legs around for a bit until Peter opened his eyes and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking at angles, here. Thinking it out. You said I didn't know enough about sex with men. I'm not going to be caught dead reading a book about it, and it's not like I'm going to experiment with anyone else, so…"

Peter laughed. "Okay." He watched Gabriel adjust him and spooned his own body against Peter's, obviously doing exactly what he'd said he was doing. Finally Peter lifted one leg over Gabriel's head so the other man was between his legs. "Unless you're really long, which you aren't and neither is Nathan, or you're fine with just getting a little in, you're not going to find a good position unless our bodies are at right angles.

"You need me like this, or on my stomach, or on my knees. Never neglect the entry, but for position, you probably want to be at an angle where you're thrusting into my prostate at some point. It's towards the front." He pointed. "If I'm laying like this, you'll need to tilt my hips like this." Peter demonstrated. "If I'm on my stomach, you need to point downward and you probably won't get as much penetration. Knees vary with the angle of the body. We can talk about that some other time, when we're going to do it, or afterwards."

Gabriel bit his lip a little. "That's all?"

Peter laughed again. "No, that's not all. Is that all with Heidi - angle and nothing else?"

"No, of course not," he answered quickly. "I know all kinds of things about women. Just… I suppose… I don't get the same signals from you."

"Might have something to do with me not being a woman."

"Maybe," Gabriel grinned at him. "I've been considering that possibility. There are a few anatomical differences I've noticed too."

Peter swung his leg up and back over Gabriel's head, getting off the couch. "Come on," he said, laughing, and walked into the bedroom, stripping off his shirt as he went. He turned to Gabriel and started taking off the other man's dress shirt. "What's the first thing a gay man notices about another man?"

Gabriel shrugged, watching Peter's chest muscles at play under his skin. Peter reached a hand up to move his chin, forcing him to raise his eyes to Peter's face. Gabriel said, "I don't know. What?"

"Absence of a shirt."

Gabriel laughed, looking back down at Peter's chest. "Um… yeah, I can see that."

Peter pushed off the dress shirt and Gabriel took it off, followed by his undershirt. Peter took off his jeans and underwear. Gabriel followed suit. Both naked, Peter reached out and took Gabriel's left hand, putting it on Peter's own right wrist. "Got me?" Gabriel nodded. Peter raised his left in a fist and made a telegraphed motion towards Gabriel's face. The other man stepped back and grabbed it with his right, looking confused.

Peter gave him a slow, crooked smile and leaned back, letting Gabriel support his weight for a moment. He brought his hands up. Gabriel looked between them, where he had a hold of each of Peter's wrists. His eyes darkened for a moment. Peter nodded, leaned back and pulled on him, falling back on the bed with Gabriel following him down more slowly. He put his arms out to either side, where it looked like Gabriel was holding him down. Gabriel's eyes shifted between the hands and Peter's face, which was inviting. He pushed his body against Peter's and pushed his hands upwards, stretching him.

Peter shut his eyes and leaned his head back. Gabriel leaned in and kissed his neck, then his jaw and finally his mouth, pulling Peter's arms back down and controlling him. After nuzzling at his jaw for a moment, Gabriel said, "You're okay with this?" He gripped Peter's wrists a little more firmly to make it clear what he was asking.

"I can get away if I want to. You know that. As long as you're not rough and neither one of us is getting hurt, there's a lot of things I'm okay with." Peter moved his body against Gabriel's and made an attempt to get out of his grip that was far too half-hearted to succeed. "Does this turn you on?"

Gabriel inhaled sharply. "Hah," he breathed. "Yeah, but half of it is that you'll even let me do it." He pulled Peter's arms up and put his wrists into a single, long-fingered grip, bringing his other hand down to caress Peter's side where the muscles were pulled taut. He ran his hand up and down the other man's body, wishing his mouth could reach him. He settled for kissing Peter's cheek and jaw instead, lipping over his skin and nuzzling him. Peter breathed harder under his attentions.

He rolled off to the side and brought Peter's arms back down so they were behind his back, using both hands and then putting them in one grip after he'd turned the other man on his side. He ran the other hand possessively up and down Peter's front, from belly button to collarbone, as he lay behind Peter. Gabriel buried his face in Peter's hair and breathed him in. Peter's scent worked so strongly on him that he moaned and hunched against him once before moving away to nibble at his neck and work his way down to the man's shoulder.

He tugged Peter's arms back until the younger man grunted. He stopped there. Gabriel had figured out that grunt meant Peter didn't like something, but wasn't going to complain about it. He loosened his grip and relaxed the hold on his arms by an inch or two, kissing Peter's shoulder several times in light pecks, trying to apologize. He ran his hand up and down the other man using the tips of his fingers instead of his entire hand. He slid his knee between Peter's legs and began to work his fingers into a spiral that centered on Peter's nearer nipple.

Peter leaned his head back and looked at Gabriel out of the corner of his eye, twisting his chest slightly to make himself more accessible. He moaned when Gabriel's fingertips began working at him, picking and plucking. Peter shifted his hips and flexed his fingers. At that motion, Gabriel tightened his grip. Peter looked back at him suddenly and then held his fingers still. He pulled his arms as if to free himself. Gabriel pulled him back. Now Peter smiled and tugged against him. Gabriel tugged back and pinched him harder than he'd intended to. "Ow!" Peter said, wincing.

"Oh… sorry. Let me kiss it and make it better."

"You'd better," Peter grumbled.

He leaned over the other man and used a very light touch, hardly brushing him with his lips and tongue. His motion put his cock nearly in Peter's hands. Gabriel gave Peter's wrists another squeeze and began to rub himself into his hands. Peter kept his hands relaxed, enjoying the feel of the other man against him. He hadn't been able to touch him or feel him for this long before. It was a very odd position, but Gabriel seemed intensely aroused by it. He backed off before he became too involved and lost it.

Peter turned his head back around to him and said, "Kiss me?"

Gabriel blinked to free himself from his own self-absorption and moved up to comply. He let go of Peter's wrists and after a second, Peter shifted onto his back, getting his arms out of the awkward position before they got stiff or sore. Gabriel pushed Peter further onto the bed and put a knee between his legs as he climbed over him. He reached down to stroke Peter's shaft with gentle fingers that explored him inch by inch before settled in for a better grip. Peter moaned into his mouth.

He pulled up and down steadily while exploring Peter's mouth, running his tongue inside him, moving his lips against Peter's. Eventually he drifted down his jaw and to his neck, biting very lightly at the skin there, feeling his life close beneath his skin. Peter brought up the knee that was trapped between Gabriel's legs, bringing it up as far as it would go, jostling his balls and moving his partner's body. Gabriel reached down and pushed Peter's knee out of the way, shifting over to be entirely between Peter's legs.

Gabriel continued stroking, leaning back on his knees and pushing Peter's legs wider with his free hand. He called the tube of lubricant to himself and unscrewed it with a bit of focus. Peter reached down and took hold of himself. "Give me some lube. You do me dry too much. Chafes."

"Hm." Gabriel gave him some and put more on his own fingers. He worked them under Peter's balls as Peter leaned back and pleasured himself.

"You're going to need to pull me back to the edge of the bed, you know," the younger man said.

"I could lift you up here."

"Yeah, but it'll get tiring."

"Huh." Gabriel lifted Peter's hips and saw the main problem was he wouldn't be supporting just Peter's hips, but nearly all of him. He could do it easily with telekinesis. Peter could probably pull it off if he were in his position using enhanced strength. Neither were real options. He pulled Peter back to the edge of the bed. Peter smirked an 'I told you so' smirk.

Once he had Peter fully ready, he entered him with short strokes and pushes, lifting Peter's legs to get the right angle. Peter began panting and was clearly reaching his climax rapidly, faster than Gabriel could keep up. Within a minute of taking Gabriel's thrusts, Peter came. "Too much foreplay, I guess," Gabriel said.

"Never enough," Peter said a minute later as he got his senses back. "No such thing."

Gabriel grumbled a little and then focused merely on his own pleasure, since Peter was done for the moment. He ground into him forcefully, pulling the other man onto himself. He enjoyed the residual clenching of Peter's orgasm until it passed. He could thrust freely and deeply without resistance after that. Peter stayed relaxed and loose, letting him thrust with more abandon than he'd been able to before. After several minutes, he spent himself as well.

He leaned in to deliver a kiss as he always did afterwards, thanking Peter. The younger man ran his hands through his hair lazily and pulled him into an embrace for several minutes. Gabriel kissed him a few times, but mostly they just hugged, feeling each other and letting the passion wind down, bodies cooling. Neither spoke. They didn't need to.

They showered, Gabriel first, then Peter. Afterwards, Peter looked for his hairbrush. He found it in Gabriel's hand, who was finishing using it. Gabriel looked at Peter's line of sight and said, "Come here. Have a seat. I love combing Heidi's hair."

Peter raised a brow and sat, facing away. Gabriel brushed through his hair one section at a time. Peter smiled as he faced away. "You give me all these little signs you're for real. I ought to pay more attention."

"What do you mean?" Gabriel asked.

"People who love each other feed each other, groom each other, dress each other. Was that what that stuff was about the suit the other day?"

"I just thought you'd look good in it. It was nothing. I didn't mean to upset you with it." Gabriel finished with his hair and rubbed Peter's back, trying to remember how Paul had done massages. Without the memories, he was guessing. He settled for stroking Peter's skin.

"I thought you were being all control freak on me," Peter said leaning forward and enjoying the touch. "It was just another little signal. I like your signals. You're such a good actor, sometimes I can't tell how you really feel." He looked back at Gabriel, who met his eyes. "I love you."

Gabriel leaned forward and kissed the side of his face. "I love you too." He set to rubbing Peter's shoulders, working his way slowly down his back.

"That's a different style," Peter said, stretching under his hands.

"Yeah, the other one's gone. I've lost it."

Peter cocked his head a little. "Lost it?"

"Yeah."

"What do you mean?"

Gabriel shook his head, reaching the small of Peter's back and working his way back up. "Not a big deal. Nothing I miss, really. Not something I want to talk about."

"Are your… you're okay, right?"

"I'm fine," Gabriel sounded distant, but he was telling the truth. He leaned forward and kissed Peter on the shoulder. "I can't talk about this one. Not yet. Please."

Peter looked back at him with brows raised and decided to take Heidi's route and let Gabriel keep his secrets. It upset Gabriel too deeply to be pressed about them and he had yet to hide anything Peter felt he had a right to know. He nodded and turned back, enjoying the intimacy, even if the massage wasn't as expert and practiced as it used to be.

XXX

On Friday of that week, Peter showed up a little past 6:30 in the evening to Nathan and Heidi's house. He knocked. Gabriel opened the door for him and let him in, telling him, "We're just finishing up getting ready. Heidi's fed him, so you don't have to worry about that, though he'll probably need a new diaper within an hour and after that you might be able to get him to sleep. Or not, I don't know. Maybe a new person will…" He shrugged. Heidi called for him from upstairs. "I'll be right back."

Peter hung up his coat and stopped at the bottom of the stairs while Gabriel went up. The pair came down after a few minutes, Heidi carrying baby Noah and Gabriel carrying a diaper bag. Heidi said, "This is the house bag. It's what I use when I have him downstairs so I don't have to go up all the time for things. It should have everything in it."

She went through the bag pointing things out. She showed him diapers and wipes and discussed changing one. She showed him burp clothes and fresh clothes and swaddling blankets. "Here's a pacifier. He hasn't been using one, but you can try it if he won't calm down. I've burped him, but he might not be done. He just woke up and I'm sorry about that. I fed him so he should be okay while we're gone. I was hoping he'd be sleeping while you were here, but he doesn't sleep when we want him to yet."

"Where's Simon and Monty?" Peter asked.

Gabriel answered. "They're down the street three doors with the Pattinsons and a couple new movies to watch. It should keep them busy, but if they come back here and it's not an emergency, send them back and…" He gazed at Peter levelly, then shook his head. "No, on second thought, just send them back. Monty's getting to be quite the man and has all these hare-brained plans. He's a real ringleader. Don't let him buffalo you. He'll try, trust me. For a nine year old, he's really pushy. I wouldn't be surprised if they show up back here as soon as we pull out. The Pattinson's number is next to the phone."

Heidi said, "You know our number if there's an emergency, right?"

"Of course," Peter nodded. He looked at how she was still holding Noah protectively, like Peter might try to wrest the babe from her. Peter, on the other hand, waited patiently. If she was as upset as Gabriel had indicated, then he wasn't about to try to hurry her in handing off her child. She'd have to do it herself. She patted her infant and an awkward silence descended.

Gabriel broke it, saying, "You should give him the baby now, Heid."

She moved restlessly, but didn't do it. "You'll keep him safe?"

Peter nodded.

She looked at Gabriel and asked apprehensively, "What if something happens?"

He walked over to her and kissed her forehead. "Nothing's going to happen," he said gently. "You've been worrying about this all afternoon. We're ready. It's time." He moved his hand across her back soothingly, looking at her with a tender, concerned expression.

She sighed and walked over to Peter, handing Noah to him very reluctantly. She stood next to Peter as he adjusted his grip to cradle the baby in his arms where they could see each other. He felt a profound sense of calm and contentment fill him. He'd felt it before in Paris, but he'd been so addled by the draining that he hadn't focused on it. Now he tilted his head slightly at the baby, who was staring up at him with wide eyes, looking shocked to see him. It was almost like an ability, but it wasn't one. Peter wasn't sure what it was, but he sure felt it. He looked up at Gabriel, whose attention was entirely on his wife at the moment. Peter filed it away for later.

Heidi was still standing there, touching Noah's tiny arm with two fingers. She looked torn, like she might take him back at any moment. Peter smiled and tried to be non-threatening, not moving away. Gabriel stepped up behind her and kissed the side of her head. Almost too softly to be heard, he said, "It's okay. He'll be okay." He touched her shoulder and drew her away with the lightest of touches. As she turned away, Gabriel mouthed _Thank you_ to Peter, who nodded slightly.

After they left, Peter looked down at Noah and said, "You have a Mommy and Daddy who love you very much. Did you know that? Yes, you do!" He made baby-talk at the child, who stared at him with an expression of continued shock and awe. "I'm your uncle Peter. Do you remember me?" Finally Noah stopped being surprised at being held by a stranger and began to squirm. He seemed uncomfortable.

Peter carried him over to the couch and sat down. "What's wrong, little fellah?" He held the baby out with his hands under the infant's arms, his fingers wrapped behind him to help hold up his wobbling head and feet resting on Peter's knees. After a few moments of uncomfortable squirming, the baby spit up on himself and Peter's lap. Peter yelped in surprise, then rolled his eyes. "I should have seen that coming," he muttered and set to cleaning up.

XXX

A little after nine, Peter heard the door between the garage and house open. The sound woke him with a jerk, as he'd fallen asleep on the couch after trying to struggle through Chandra Suresh's book again. Each time he reread it, he understood more of it. The jerk caused Noah to wake with a startle reflex, flinging his arms out to the side. The baby had been asleep nestled in the crook of Peter's arm. The startle made Peter clutch the baby reflexively, which cause Noah to cry out in fear. So it came to pass that as Heidi was coming in, Peter looked flustered and her baby was crying loudly. She rushed to him. Peter turned him over immediately and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as Gabriel came over.

Gabriel took in the couch, the book and the lines on the side of Peter's face and said, "I like sleeping with him too. It's very calming. Not very restful, but it calms the mind."

"Yeah… about that… I want to talk to you about that later." He leaned over and picked up Suresh's book, taking it back to its place on the shelf in the study. He'd found a few passages he believed related to his father's attempt to create the catalyst, but he couldn't be sure. Everything was subtext and allusion in the book, written so the uninformed layperson could pick it up and see it as nothing more than a pro-evolution, pseudo-New-World-Order propaganda text. But for those with abilities, the words had special meaning. The more Peter had learned about powers, the more he had come to realize what Suresh was saying between the lines.

When he came back, Gabriel tilted his head at him, looking at his hair. "You took a shower?"

Peter snorted. "Yeah. You didn't tell me little boys come equipped with squirt guns."

Heidi and Gabriel both laughed, knowing too well what he meant.

Peter looked to Heidi and said, "I took him in the shower with me. I hope that's okay. I know you didn't want me leaving him… you know."

She nodded. "Thank you, yes. It's okay. We only use baby shampoo on him." She was sitting in the chair, unwrapping his blanket and checking him almost compulsively. Peter didn't take offense.

Peter nodded. "I saw it in the shower. That's what I used."

"That's great," she said. "You put his diaper on backwards though."

"I did?" He looked. "I thought that's how they were supposed to go on. Poochy side to the front, because he's a boy?"

"No," she said. "Poochy side to the back, to catch poo."

"Oh."

"It's no big deal. Thank you for taking care of him," she told Peter. "He looks wonderful." She wrapped him back up, her required maternal inspection complete. Noah had calmed under her influence and was now gurgling happily, apparently pleased to be back with someone he recognized.

"You're welcome," he said. He turned to Gabriel. "So how was the movie?"

He smirked. "We never got to it. Stopped to grab some fast food on the way in, sat in the car in the theatre parking lot and ate it. We talked. A lot." His voice softened and deepened with emotion.

Peter's brows rose and he smiled. "That's good. Really good, then." He headed over to get his coat. Heidi stood up and said something low to Gabriel. All Peter caught was "Ask him." He loitered and took his time putting on his coat, fussing with the lapels until Gabriel came over to him. Peter looked at the man's odd body language. He was looking down with his hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders hunched and biting his lip.

Gabriel stopped next to Peter and coughed. "Um… we talked… and, uh…" He reached up to scratch at one brow. His eyes darted around nervously, never settling on Peter's face for more than a moment. He seemed almost embarrassed. Peter glanced past him at Heidi, who was smiling warmly.

Gabriel went on, "Um… we're going to… in April, I think, we haven't set a date, I need to check on things, but…" He cleared his throat again. "Um… renewing our vows… and I wanted to ask you…" He cleared his throat a third time. Peter began to laugh. "To ask you… What? What are you laughing about?"

Peter smiled and it lit up his whole face. "You're going to marry her and you're asking me to be your best man, is that it?" He didn't add 'again', because he knew for Gabriel this wasn't just a renewal. It was a cover for an actual marriage, a subtext like in Chandra's book. Calling it a renewal of vows was for the benefit of the public and Heidi's family.

Gabriel nodded mutely.

"I'd be honored," Peter said, patting Gabriel on the arm. He walked over to Heidi and said, heartfelt, "Congratulations." She smiled back at him and after a moment, she took a step to close the distance between them and gave him a hug. She was still holding Noah, so it was one-armed, but it was friendly.

Peter walked back to Gabriel and patted him on the back. "This is great," he said softly to him. "I'm really happy to hear you're doing this… for her, for you. It's a great way to do it too. Everyone knows Nathan and Heidi were separated for a long time, have a new baby, it's normal to rethink things, recommit." He patted him again. "Great idea. I'll be there for you."

"We're not going to have but a few people there, Pete. Family, really."

Peter nodded. "They're the ones who matter. If I don't see you before you fly out Sunday, be safe in Riyadh. Take care." He headed out.


	73. Valentine's Day

**A/N: This is set on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14) of 2011.**

He rang the bell and waited, grinning at the ridiculousness of his appearance carrying a huge, frilly red heart and a dozen long stem roses. A bit stereotypical - yes, but he didn't want his intentions to be misunderstood. The door opened and Angela Petrelli looked surprised. He hoped that was a good thing. He offered her the bouquet of red roses. "For you, my lovely," he said, smiling at her discomfiture. She took them. She could hardly turn them down, but if anyone could have found a way, it would be her. They'd been playing at a game with neither of them entirely sure of the rules, an uncertain dance for over a month now. Every time it seemed like he was getting close, she skittered away defensively.

She turned to take the flowers into the dining room, where she asked Cassie to get her a vase, water and scissors. He let himself in and put the ostentatious box of chocolates on the side table in the entry. Angela walked back to him. He indicated the box. "Also for you, my sweet."

She smiled tightly at him, but the corners of her eyes wrinkled with true amusement. "You're very thoughtful today, Maury." She opened it and selected a piece. He reached past and grabbed one for himself.

"Yeah, well, today's the day for lovers and hopeful hearts." He bounced up and down on his toes for a moment, feeling younger than his years this Valentine's Day. "So what are you doing today? Will you let me take you out?" He tossed the candy in his mouth. He'd taken her out to eat a number of times, but she'd tried to pretend they were on business or he was just being friendly.

She let her smile drift, but inwardly she was pleased by the attention. "No, I don't want to go out, Maury. The restaurants will be thronged with people. You've never liked crowds anyway. I was just enjoying a quiet afternoon." She walked back into the dining room and put the flowers in, arranging them to her taste. It wasn't that he didn't hear the hint - he simply ignored it, just as he ignored her turning her back on him and walking away.

He wandered into the living room and leaned over her chair, looking at the folded newspaper at the crossword puzzle. "Hm. Do you mind if I stay?" he called over his shoulder, reaching down and snagging the paper. He turned it to look at the cryptogram on the opposite side of the fold.

"Would you go if I told you to?" She walked out with the flowers and set them on the coffee table where they would be seen and admired. He'd already come in without invitation, taken one of her chocolates without asking and now he was reading her paper. He was a product of his upbringing, coarse and often uncouth, even so many decades from his youth.

"Of course," he said, insulted. He didn't know where she got ideas like that. He kept looking at the paper, pondering the possible combinations of letters. It was short. The short ones were the most difficult.

She pulled the newspaper gently from his hands and used the scissors to clip out the section he was looking at. She offered it back to him and got an extra pen out of the end table. He smiled suddenly and hurried around the chair to draw up another seat across the table from her. She sat back down and he joined her, pen poised over the code.

After working at it for a bit, he said, "I got it." He read out, "'The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.' Mother Teresa."

Angela listened and repeated the line silently to herself. Finally she said, "I would have expected something more optimistic for Valentine's Day."

"Maybe so," he said. "I don't want to be alone today, Angela." He leaned over the arm of his chair. "Let me help with what you have left there." He gestured at the crossword puzzle and she obligingly read off the next entry. They worked together, talking and relaxing together. She reflected that he wasn't so bad if you could look past the rough edges. He was smart and full of sharp comments and it had been ages since someone had simply spent time with her.

Cassie came out before they were done and asked, "Ma'am? I was going to have Taylor drive me home for the evening. Do you need anything before I go?"

"No, dear. Thank you. I believe Maury and I can take care of ourselves. Have a nice night with Larry."

"Of course." She smiled, cheered that Angela had remembered her fiancé's name. Mr. Grem came through shortly on the way to the garage. He looked between Maury and his employer for a moment, then moved on without comment.

Angela let her eyes slide to Parkman's face after the butler had closed the door after himself. "You heard something." He'd tilted his head in the characteristic manner telepaths seemed inclined to do when listening in on people's thoughts.

He gave her a conspiratorial smile. "Your butler approves of us."

"Does he now?" She smirked.

"Oh yeah. He hopes you get lucky tonight."

She snorted.

"For what it's worth, _**I**_ hope you get lucky tonight too."

She tried to look sternly at him, but it failed as a mischievous smile took over against her will. She fought her features back to calm and spoke icily, "I'll have you know I'm going to watch a movie tonight and then go to bed. Nothing more."

Emotion colored his voice. "That sounds wonderful. Can I join you?"

Her eyes softened and she gave up the pretense of harshness. "Yes." She looked away, not trusting herself.

"Will you let me hold your hand while we watch?" He leaned forward over the arm of his chair even more, looking at her intently, eagerly. He sounded almost childishly hopeful.

She sighed, but kept looking away. He could hear the smile in her voice though when she said, "Yes."

He leaned back as if this was a great concession. "Ah! You know, at my age, that's about as lucky as I can handle."

"That's not true," she said, looking back at him.

He nodded. "Yeah? Well maybe one of these days we'll find out."

She blushed and picked up the crossword puzzle to look at the last few entries that had stumped them.

XXX

They had sandwiches for dinner and ate them while watching Gran Torino. She'd opened a bottle of wine. They talked through most of the show. He talked about the old cars he'd driven and how he'd always wanted to have a huge garage full of classic cars so he could drive a different one every day. She mentioned how annoying Clint Eastwood's Adam's apple was, bobbing up and down in a distracting, almost vulgar, fashion. The conversation strayed to immigration and neighborhoods and poverty. It reminded them both of the cryptoquote again, but neither of them mentioned it.

After the show was over, she said she didn't feel like going to bed so she put in another movie. Michael had brought several over for her recently from his collection. The next one was called The Departed. They finished off the wine. Maury sat next to her on the couch and finally got to hold her hand. It was warm and small and soft in his. He held it delicately like it was a baby chick, feeling privileged by the contact.

He could feel her presence strongly through his hand. He felt content to have that awareness of her there. He didn't pay much attention to the movie at first and it quickly became confusing and convoluted, but she was fascinated by the plot. He thought he'd just shut his eyes for a little bit and maybe they'd go back to talking later.

He was vaguely aware of her taking off his shoes. He knew it was her because he reached out with his mind as he roused from slumber and grappled with her mentally. She resisted him and he identified her and then went right back to sleep without ever opening his eyes. He awoke again much later to find he was lying on the couch, covered with a blanket, with a pillow under his head. He was warm and mostly comfortable, but a little stiff. Someone was approaching.

He sat up, recognizing Angela's mind before he could see her. He rubbed at the back of his neck as she came into the living room. It was dim, lit indirectly from the kitchen.

"Oh. I didn't mean to wake you. I forgot how…" She didn't finish. Telepaths were exceptionally sensitive to changes in the environment.

"It's all right. My neck hurts. I was probably sleeping on it wrong anyway."

She walked over behind the couch and brushed his hand away. His eyes flew wide and he held very still. She stroked the back of his neck and then began to massage it, starting at the base of his skull and working downward with firm, even pressure from her knuckles. He relaxed. A score of things ran through his mind to say, most of them snarky. He didn't give vent to any of them, not wanting to spoil it. He didn't even say the nice things that came to mind, afraid he'd break the moment. _Does she know what she's doing? She's practically caressing me._

He sighed under her hands and enjoyed it. She worked out from the knot at the base of his neck to across his shoulders and then back towards his neck. Her hands slid down over his shoulders and stopped suddenly. She lifted them away. _So… no, she didn't,_ he thought. The Petrellis had touched each other all the time, but he wasn't a Petrelli. It was like she'd forgotten that for a moment.

"Did that help?" she asked, her voice perfectly normal - a little too normal.

"That was great. Thank you." He looked back at her and smiled. One of her hands was on the back of the couch. He turned and reached up to cover it with his own. "Thank you."

She smiled. "There's a bedroom down the hall if you'd rather sleep there."

He glanced upstairs in the direction of her room. It seemed awfully forward to suggest anything, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. "When are you going to bed?"

"I might not."

"Hm." He nodded, accepting the refusal. He knew there was some side effect of her ability that meant she rarely slept and not well when she did... so maybe it wasn't a refusal per se. He looked at his watch. It was nearing four. "I think I'll… just make it an early morning. Do you want to go to breakfast with me?" He stood up and stretched, tossing the blanket aside.

"No, thank you Maury. It was a wonderful evening."

He nodded and walked closer to her, looking intently at her body in the dim light. She held her ground even though she felt a little apprehension. His posture was sexually aggressive, possessive. He stopped a little too close to her. He reached out and touched her shoulder, letting his fingers trail down to her elbow. She told him, "I'm not going to kiss you tonight." Her voice held an edge, telling him to back off without saying it out loud.

He heard her tone and understood the unspoken message. He took a half step back and dipped his head a little, becoming more hesitant. He didn't give up entirely though. "Then I'll kiss you." He leaned in, looking at her face one last time in case she wouldn't let him, but her features didn't change. He pressed his lips briefly to her cheek and then slid his hand down her forearm to hers and raised it, kissing the back of her hand. "I hope I'm welcome back some time." He let her hand go and leaned away, still watching her intently, but now looking only at her face.

She felt a thrill at his attention. It brought a warmth she hadn't felt in a long time, quickened her pulse and deepened her breathing. She raised her chin and exhaled, feeling the chill of trace moisture where his lips had touched her. "Yes. You are."

He smiled a little and walked over to the box of chocolates, snagging a couple more. "Maybe next time I won't fall asleep on you. Sorry about that."

"No, Maury, don't be sorry. You're relaxed with me. I know that doesn't come easily for you. It was nice not to spend the evening alone, to hear someone else in the house, even if it was your snoring." She smiled and he chuckled. She'd become convinced he was sincerely interested in _her_, not who he would annoy by chasing her, but instead that he really did just want to be with someone, with her.

She walked him to the door and waved good-bye to him. The house was silent after he was gone. It seemed far quieter than it usually was. She turned on some old love songs to fill the house and every now and then she felt her heart sing along with them.


	74. Unexpected Enemies

**A/N: Mohinder's mother is listed in the Heroes wiki as merely "Mohinder's mother". In keeping with this, I don't give her name either. This is the only flashback in the story. Without it, Mohinder's change seemed a bit jarring.**

_Seven months ago…_

Mohinder Suresh walked out on his patio, watching as two men walked up the wide, gravel-paved lane to his house. His features clouded with anger. Maury Parkman looked slightly different from the last time he'd seen him, but he still recognized him. He'd thought the man was dead, but the person who had told him of Maury's death was Matt himself, the other person walking up the drive. Obviously, he'd lied. Mohinder's joy at seeing Matt was doused like a bucket of water on a campfire. All that was left was an acrid smoke.

When they were close enough to address, Mohinder called out angrily, "Stop there!"

The two men hesitated and glanced at one another, then came to some wordless decision and continued. Mohinder shook his head and stepped out in the middle of the path to his door. "Matt! Why did you bring **him** _**here**_? You didn't tell me he was coming! He can't be here!"

Matt looked guilty, which only made Mohinder more angry. They were also still walking and were now nearly to him. Matt paused and said, "Mohinder, I'm sorry. We've come for Molly."

"Matt! You were the one who sent her here. To be safe, away from people like _**him**_!" Mohinder waved in a large gesture at Maury, who looked unimpressed.

"Mohinder, I know. I'm **so** sorry. But I have to. We need her. I'll take care of her."

The Indian man's dark eyes flew wide. "**NO**," he said with every bit of emphasis he could muster.

Maury rolled his eyes and walked forward, waving his hand dismissively at Mohinder. Suresh's perceptions were clouded and he felt a moment of confusion. By the time he fought it off, Maury had walked past him into his house. Mohinder blinked, looked behind himself at the closing door and then spun to look at Matt. Matt was shaking his head sadly. This was going about as badly as he'd expected it to go.

Like Matt, Maury Parkman could simply walk through people who didn't have mental defenses. Their insistence on their own autonomy was no more than the begging of a small child for a candy bar - it was annoying, unnecessary and ultimately troublesome to allow them to get their way. Matt had shared this attitude for much of the previous year.

It had changed dramatically when his father found him and began to subject him to the same absolute control Matt had become familiar with using on those around him. It opened his eyes to what a shallow and friendless life he'd made for himself. No one cared, at least not in a positive way. Several were relieved to be rid of the man they couldn't say no to. Maury had taken a great degree of sadistic glee in pointing this out to Matt, forcing him to eavesdrop on the minds of his latest "friends" and see how he ranked with them once his ability and influence was removed from the picture.

Mohinder rushed inside to find Maury standing in the living room, looking at the Indian man's mother. Matt followed, closing the door behind them. Mohinder said, "Mother, get out of here. These men are dangerous. Get away from them!" He put himself between Maury and her, as she retreated to another room.

Maury cocked his head at Mohinder. "Now, now. All we want is the girl and we're not leaving until we have her. If you don't turn her over, I'll make you do it and you won't like what you are after I'm done with you. Do you understand me?"

"Dad, you said you wouldn't," Matt said quickly. He felt a surge of desperate fear as he realized the deal he'd begged for was about to be ignored as inconvenient. It wasn't the first time.

"No," Matt's father said, "**you** said you'd get him to cooperate. That was the agreement. If he doesn't cooperate, then I'll do whatever I need to get what we came for."

Matt looked at Mohinder, who was looking back and forth between the two men, trying to understand why Matt was doing whatever his father told him to do. "Mohinder…"

The Indian man shook his head. "No, Matt. There's nothing you can say that will make me cooperate with sending Molly away with this man. Or you, as long as you're working with him."

The voice of Mohinder's mother cut across the room as she entered, carrying a large gun Mohinder hadn't known they owned. She pointed it at Maury, just past her son and said, "No, we do not need to cooperate with you. You will leave our house and never come back!"

Maury sighed and stepped to the side. He raised a hand and the woman's aim shifted. She fired, her bullets unerringly striking her son in the chest and side. A gun of that caliber should have knocked him to the ground with a single shot, but Mohinder stood against the impacts. He would have been better off to have fallen immediately.

"**NO!**" Matt leaped forward towards Mohinder and threw himself between the mother and son. The shots stopped. As Matt had expected, Maury wouldn't shoot him too. He was too useful to his father. Mohinder shrugged Matt off easily, his strength undiminished even if he was bleeding to death. He surged towards Maury and knocked him back against the wall, grabbing his neck, intending to end him if it was the last thing he did.

"Hen, no!" Something about the terrified tone of Matt's voice and his use of his pet name for him made the man look back before he did it. His mother stood with the gun barrel under her chin, prepared to fire.

Maury whispered in his ear, "I'm the only thing keeping her from firing. If you kill me, she'll pull the trigger. Let **me** go, and I'll let **her** go."

Mohinder shook, feeling his life blood draining from him, shock threatening his consciousness. His opportunity was slipping away… or perhaps it was already gone. Maury left the choice to him, because he **did** have an agreement with his son. The Indian staggered from the older man, collapsing to the floor. Maury carefully stepped around him, out of his reach. To Matt, he said, "He's all yours" in a tone that left no illusions he might mean it in a kind way. He stepped in front of Mohinder's mother, who handed him the gun. She turned, expressionless as an automaton, and led him to Molly.

Matt crouched next to Mohinder and put pressure over the worst of his gunshot wounds. The injured man's arm shot upwards and grabbed Matt by the throat. Matt choked, unable to speak. Into the mind of the person he'd once been closer to than a mere friend, he thought, _Let me go. Let me go, you moron! I'm trying to save your life!_

Mohinder answered him, snarling, _I don't want to live! Not if this is what it has become! I am not safe even in my parent's house, not even in my own mind. I won't let you be a part of Molly's life. I won't let you become like your father._

_Mohinder… no!_ Matt felt his awareness fading, his vision dimming. He could see, very clearly in the other man's mind that he was going to kill Matt. There would be no release on his grip when he fell unconscious. If he didn't stop him, Matt would die by his hands. Mentally, he compelled him, _Let me go_, and broke one of the cardinal rules of their previous relationship.

Mohinder's fingers fell away lifelessly, but his eyes burned with hate. "I will find you, and I will kill you. I'm too late - you're already like your father." He coughed up blood.

Matt slumped limply, his heart seared to the core. He couldn't let Mohinder follow them. If he survived the gunshot wounds and pursued them, he'd only die somewhere else and who knew who he'd kill before he was taken down. The Company had too many resources and Molly was too important for them to let Mohinder take her.

He knew what he had to do – he just wished it wasn't so easy. He turned his head and began to take the other man's mind apart, tearing loose pieces of his life with Matt and Molly. Matt convinced him Mohinder couldn't be trusted with children. He didn't care about them. Matt twisted him so he would never try to save Molly or anyone like her.

He was dimly aware of Maury standing behind him with his hand on Molly's shoulder. She watched Mohinder's bleeding body twitch as the hate in his eyes faded into dullness. She knew what Matt was doing to him, at least in a general way. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she said nothing. There was nothing she could do to save either of them.

Matt stood and told Maury, "It's done. He won't come after us."

Maury looked at him and shrugged. "Hardly a point. He's going to bleed to death anyway." He started to the front door.

"No, he won't. Where did you leave his mother?" Matt looked around the room. It did not strike him as odd that he spoke to his father about other people like they were objects to be put somewhere and expected to stay there unless moved by an outside force. Molly stared over her shoulder at him with wide eyes. How could this be the same man whom she'd seen as her hero? How had he become so corrupted, so twisted? Maury's hand tightened fractionally on her shoulder. She was reminded he could see her thoughts… and so could Matt, who gave her a look so cold and distant she retreated within herself and silenced even her mind.

Maury waved dismissively towards the back of the house and walked out with Molly. "Back there," he called back, "Don't take too long. I won't wait."

Matt hurried to find Mohinder's mother, who was sitting on Molly's bed, looking stunned and holding the gun in her hand. He put the gun aside and grabbed her hand to lead her to her son's side. He looked into her mind and undid the veil his father had put over her senses, countermanding and removing the suggestion she kill herself after having killed her son. He imparted to her what he knew of first aid, what needed to be done. He took from her how to contact emergency services. He left her putting pressure on Mohinder's chest and he dialed for help, reporting the injury. Hopefully it would be enough.

He walked to the door and hesitated. His friend's mother sobbed over his body, begging him not to die. Matt shut his eyes for a moment, torn. He could hear her thoughts as plainly as her voice and they rent his heart. It was almost as bad as seeing what Molly thought of him. This was what he was now and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't a hero anymore, he was a villain. He stood up straighter and took a deep breath, coming to terms with himself. Outside, the engine of their rental car roared to life. He felt a now-familiar tug at his consciousness from his father. It was time to go.


	75. Unexpected Allies

Gabriel lay in bed, reading through a travel guide for Saudi Arabia. He had three similar books on the nightstand. Heidi was putting Noah to bed, having fed him, burped him, changed him and rocked him. Finished with the baby, she climbed in bed and rolled over facing away from him.

He looked over his book at her back. She was finally cleared by the doctor to have intercourse, although they'd already had something of a jump start on that last week. It was Valentine's Day, but they'd had a long day with the family, most of it spent out of the house. Tomorrow he'd be off to Arabia for most of a week.

His thumb moved restlessly over the pages of the book as he looked at her posture and listened to her song. Usually it complimented and dipped in and out of harmony with his own. Now it was somewhat dissonant. He went back to reading with a frown. He could wait. There was always the morning.

Twenty minutes later, he reached over to switch books. She turned and rolled onto her back as he returned with a book about Riyadh. She looked at him and smiled. At some point she'd unbuttoned the front of her nightgown, opening it from hem to neck. She sounded very different, having calmed and rested. He sent the book back to the stack with telekinesis, not taking his eyes off her. He rolled on his side to face her, looking between her eyes and lips, tilting his head towards hers.

They lay like that for a little while, both waiting for the other to make the next move. He finally did, reaching out to slip his fingers under her gown and push it out of the way. He touched her on the hip with his fingertips and ran them along the dip of her waist, up her ribs and across the swell of her breast to finally end at her chin. He opened his mouth slightly and leaned in to hers, holding her chin until he was there, then letting his hand roam up her cheek and bury itself in her hair, holding her face to his. He scooted closer to her eagerly.

She wrapped her left arm around him and touched his stomach with her right. She tugged at him, pulling him on top of her. She shifted closer to the middle of the bed when he rose over her. He hesitated, looking at her face, her eyes and the flush, or absence of same, on her skin. She wasn't as ready as she was pretending to be. He lowered himself over her gently, settling most of his weight on his elbows. He kissed her face and nuzzled her as she stroked her hands along his back, clutching at his buttocks as if to urge him to get more serious. He declined for the moment.

Instead he crept lower to the top of her chest and then began kissing towards her breast. She tensed and said, "No, please. No, Nathan. Not… not there." He looked up at her, realizing she was calling him Nathan and he looked like Gabriel. He wondered if he should shift. They'd never made love with him looking like this, never even been this sensual. He hadn't really thought about it, though the only way he'd been making love to Peter lately had been as Gabriel. Most of that was a stubborn refusal to be anything else, an insistence and joy that Peter accepted him as Gabriel, rather than as Nathan. He didn't feel the same way about Heidi though.

"Mmm." He crawled backwards, skipping over her breasts and kissing down her stomach. His lips lingered on the scar where their baby had come into the world, though by whose hand he wasn't sure. Heidi had not survived to that moment. He felt his erection fading, so he went down further. She lifted her knees in anticipation. He pushed the sheet off of both of them and pushed the nightgown to either side.

He looked up at her, but she had her head back, looking up. Unless she was propped up there wasn't much to see other than the underside of her chin. He opened her lips with his fingers, putting his weight on one elbow and using the other hand to slide one finger up and down her sex. She quivered and began to breathe harder. He turned his hand and repeated the motion, thumb on her clitoris and then sliding down to her vagina, where he dipped it inside briefly. She jerked when he pushed it inside her, twitching the digit enough to get another motion from her. He slid it back up to her clitoris and rubbed over it.

She breathed a little faster and her legs relaxed out to the sides, spreading herself. He'd sort of been waiting for that. He lowered his face to her body, licking at her clit, almost lapping at it. When she started twitching with his motions, he put himself to her fully and began to suck and pull and roll her flesh with his lips. She started to moan, then abruptly stopped, probably thinking of the baby. _This __**would**__ be an inconvenient time for him to wake up_, Gabriel thought. She stayed quiet though and so did Noah.

He worked her until she was nearly fucking his face. She was still fairly dry. He took care of that as well as he could as long as he was down there, then rose up over her. He brought his hips between hers and looked down at her. She was looking at his face with an expression which told him she either hadn't thought about what he looked like, until now, or she had and was still preparing herself for it. He hung on the precipice. He could feel his member touching her. He moved forward incrementally, then reached back and aimed himself a bit better.

He could see on her face that she felt him entering her. He hesitated again, rock hard and ready to take her, but waiting for her to want him as he was or direct him to change to Nathan. Unlike with Peter, he didn't really care which she chose.

Much of his communication with Heidi was nonverbal, never spoken. They were having a whole conversation here as he watched her face and made the tiniest motions of his hips, letting her feel him moving ever so slightly at her entrance, letting her know he was waiting on her, for her. He didn't have to say why - they both knew that part. Finally she put her head back and closed her eyes, moving her hips to welcome him, pushing herself onto him. He took that as the final acceptance that it was and began to press into her.

He thrust in steadily, getting a rhythm almost immediately. It had been months since he'd been fully inside her, nearly half a year. He made a whining sound of pleasure at the sensation, at the realization he was finally inside of her completely, then silenced himself much as she had earlier. He huffed and panted for a moment with his eyes shut, then looked down at her. She was smiling up at him, rocking her hips with his motions. She was losing the peak she'd had from the cunnilingus. He worked harder to bring it back.

When his thrusts weren't enough, he leaned down to her and kissed her neck. She turned her face from him for obvious reasons, given what he'd been doing earlier. He lipped up her neck to her ear, sucking the lobe and flicking it with his tongue. She responded more strongly to him. He ground into her more fully, pressing himself into her. He repeated the action until she opened her mouth, breathing hard out of it. She was open and fully aroused, her legs clutching behind and around his as he worked her towards orgasm.

"Oh! Oh! Oh Nathan!" she breathed so quietly he could barely hear her. The name didn't bother him. She was his no matter what she called him. She was his wife and he was with her, inside her, claiming her. He nipped the shell of her ear and blew into it. She arched under him and began to come. He leaned up, raising himself on his hands and thrust into her with everything he had. She met him for several strokes, then began to quiver and spasm as he continued to ride her and rode her until he came himself.

Panting, he hung over her, experiencing a few final jerks and twitches as his body settled. When he finally focused on her face, she was looking at him with heavy-lidded, bedroom eyes. She had a relaxed, satisfied expression. He slid out of her and flopped on the bed beside her, on his left side. He started to reach to kiss her face, then changed course when he saw her pull back. He kissed her shoulder instead. "That was great," he whispered. "Thank you." He smiled at her like the cat who got the cream.

"And we didn't even wake the baby," she whispered back to him.

He rolled on his back. "No, didn't. That's going to take some getting used to, though." He turned his head to look at her. "Are you okay with me like this? That was good?"

She nodded. He didn't make her feel as full as Nathan's body did, but it had been a wonderful frisson to have sex with a stranger, and have it not really be a stranger. She grinned at her husband, wondering how much he'd let her play with that particular ability. She put her legs together and stretched on the bed. If he was cooperative, she could imagine a lot of fun with that one.

XXX

The next morning Gabriel woke when she ran her fingers across his stomach, tickling through the hair on his belly and threatening to go lower. He blinked sleep away and saw his wife pulling back the covers, smiling at him. He smiled back, wondering what she was up to. She touched his organ and he moved his head restlessly, looking around. "Heidi?"

She shushed him and bit her lower lip, running one finger up and down his member as he stiffened involuntarily. He breathed harder, not all that happy about being awakened and forced to ejaculate, which seemed to be where she was going. His brows drew together and he made an exasperated sound. He tried to think of something pleasant instead of his consternation at being used to no point. She stopped before finishing him though and crawled over him, straddling him.

He looked at her, his eyes widening as he fathomed her intent. She reached down and positioned him as he began to smile. It wasn't that he didn't like getting off, but the wake up call had been a bit sudden. If he was being woke up for actual sex, that was much more acceptable. He could hardly think of a better way to wake up.

"You're wet," he whispered. He slid into her with surprising ease.

She nodded. "That jelly the doctor recommended." She hesitated a moment and added, "And… I tried to get ready."

He grinned, appreciating her and everything she did for him. She moved herself up and down on him. He began rocking his hips to match her. He reached down to touch her mound, but she intercepted his hand and moved it away. He nodded. She'd never been much of a morning person, as far as arousal went. She was doing this for him. He let her.

He took hold of her hips and moved her up and down on his shaft, pushing into her. She ran her hands across his chest and rubbed her fingertips across his nipples. He put his head back and thought about her wetness, how slick she was, how open and ready and willing. He loved that she was willing to do this for him. It made him wild about her.

He smiled as he panted, feeling himself at the beginning of a rapid climax. She felt his shift as he began thrusting faster and gripping her tighter. She pinched one of his nipples. He made a noise of gratification and bit his lip to quiet himself. She pinched him again, twisting him, and he shoved himself into her as hard as he could, grinding her against him as he came. His eyelids fluttered and he stretched, feeling kinks in his muscles he probably should have worked out before having sex. It felt wonderful though. He let her go and splayed his arms off to either side, panting.

She leaned over him, lying atop him as he slid out. It made it harder to breathe, but not too much. She kissed his jaw and his cheek. He nuzzled her in reply and brought his arms around her. "Thank you," he whispered to her.

"Good morning?" she said, making it a question.

"Definitely," he grinned at her and kissed her mouth lightly. He rubbed his nose against hers. They pressed foreheads together and embraced.

XXX

A few hours after having a wonderful wake up call, Nathan was showered, had eaten lunch, spent a little time with the boys and finished packing. The cab had been called. He waited for it in the entry, impatient and reluctant at the same time. He didn't like waiting. Heidi came out to see him off, carrying Noah. She looked out the other of the narrow windows that lined either side of the door. He was already looking out one of them.

"Heidi," he began, turning to her. She looked to him. "If… if anything happens," he looked back out the window. "If anything happens to me, go to Peter. He'll… he can protect you."

Her brows drew together and she became very still. "What's going to happen, Nathan?"

"Nothing. Nothing that I know of." He sighed and walked over to her, but she took a step back, watching him warily. "Heidi… it's a long way to Riyadh and… the nature of my business is dangerous. I just… I don't think anything will happen, but if it does, I want you safe. Peter's one of the most powerful people on the planet. So am I. There's a lot of people who might want either of us out of the way."

He took another step to her and this time she let him. He stroked her face, although her expression was still distant. He leaned in and kissed her. Her lips quirked briefly in a frown, then she answered his kiss for a moment. With his face still close to hers, poised over his son's head, he told her, "I'll do everything I can to stay safe and come back to you. Please believe that. I love you." He kissed her again and this time she kissed him back immediately.

He heard the taxi pull up outside. He looked out the window at it, then back to her. "If you can't go to Peter, go to Angela. I know she's..." he rolled his eyes. "But she can help you. She'll know what to do. She always does, however insane it might sound at the time." He stroked her arm and could see tears forming in his wife's eyes. He leaned in and kissed Noah on the top of his fuzzy head. He was beginning to fuss, sensing his mother's emotions. Nathan said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you like this."

He shook his head and walked over to get his suitcase, feeling like he wasn't doing things right. He opened the door and looked at her, wondering what it was he needed to be saying.

"Are you really coming back?" she asked, as a single tear fell down her face.

He blinked. "Yes. Yes, of course." He put down his suitcase and moved to hug her and their son both, rubbing his face against hers. He murmured into her ear, "I'm coming back if I have to fly around the world myself. I'd never leave you. Not for real, not forever… not again."

She turned her head to him and they kissed. He took a step back, painfully aware of exactly how much time he had left. Sometimes he wished he could lose that ability again and be time-blind again, like everyone else. He picked up his suitcase and walked out.

XXX

Nathan was glad to get off the airplane in Riyadh at the King Khalid International Airport. He was sure he didn't suffer the physical stresses as much as other passengers, but the hours of confinement bothered him nonetheless. He'd spent most of the time working on meditation and blocking out the thoughts of others. People who were strong-minded and confident didn't let much slip, but the average person, swamped with worries and insecurities, projected their thoughts to an annoying degree. In an airplane stuffed with such people, many of whom were anxious about flying or going into an Arabic country, he had plenty of opportunity to practice.

He picked up his single piece of luggage, had it searched thoroughly by security and then walked towards the hotel booking desk he'd been asked to wait near. His flight was early, so he had the opportunity to watch people mixing. Most were dressed in thoubs, flowing tunics traditional for the men of the area, with women in black obeyahs. The rest were generally wearing western garb with a smattering of North African styles and outfits. He watched several extended families gather to enthusiastically greet returning relatives. He smiled, thinking about families.

Abbas was a married man with three children and a single wife. He'd been born in Arabia, but grew up in America, where his parents still lived. He had finished college as an electrical engineer and went on to launch a career for a major US manufacturing company. He had run afoul of Homeland Security shortly after 9/11, for reasons the Company could not determine other than his Arabic ancestry. He seemed blameless, but he was put under observation and suspicion anyway.

Harassed in the US, Abbas quit his job and moved back to his homeland, where he went to King Saud University for an MBA in sales and marketing and business management. After graduating, he went to work immediately at Halo Group. After a year, his job title changed to director of foreign relations and he married a daughter of one of the company executives. This was the role he had been in for the last five years. There was no external reason for his sudden promotion, though such things were fairly common when a man married into a powerful family in Arabia.

Nathan saw the man in question walking towards him energetically, clad in a dark grey winter thoub. They shook hands and then Mr. Hasan gave him a polite embrace. Nathan tried out his memorized greeting in Arabic, "Aasalaamu aleikum."

Abbas smiled and gave the customary reply, "Wa-aleikum aassalaam." He added in English, "You have only one bag?"

"Yep. I travel light," Nathan said. _Certainly helps to be able to shift my clothing._

They walked out to the car, discussing the flight and security. The other man showed Nathan into a powder blue Mercedes and got into the driver's seat. The car was very new and had all the electronic bells and whistles. "We're alone?" Nathan asked.

Abbas glanced around. They weren't exactly isolated in the parking garage, but no one was nearby. "I think so." He gave Nathan an odd, wary look. "Why?" He put both hands on the steering wheel.

Nathan sighed. _Might as well get this over with._ "Then I'm sorry." He attacked the other man mentally, driving into him and trying to cut off his perceptions of the world around him, trapping him in his own mind. It was surprisingly difficult. Nathan was hardly an expert, but the only mundane person he'd tried his abilities on who could have resisted him this well was Noah Bennet. He sensed Abbas knew what he was trying to do to him and appropriately feared it. A second later the car stereo came on full blast, the noise setting Nathan's mind on fire while Abbas bailed suddenly out of the car.

Nathan staggered out the other side, expecting to have to give chase. Instead, Abbas had not fled at all. He was only a few feet from the driver's side of the car, eyeing his passenger. He held a hand out, palm towards him as Nathan came around the car. "Stop. Stop there. I am here to work **with** you. Please do not continue."

Nathan stopped, looking at him, rubbing the aching side of his head and processing that the man hadn't run away even though he clearly knew what he'd tried. The car stereo had stopped as soon as he'd left the car. He noted Abbas had neither turned it on nor off. After a long moment, he sat on the hood of the car and wiped his hand over his face. _Like they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. So much for that one._

Mr. Hasan stepped warily over to him and sat on the hood of the car next to him. Nathan glanced over at him. The man was too close by American standards, but it was a normal distance here, from what he'd read. Still, to come sit next to someone who'd been trying to invade your mind by force only a few minutes before seemed very strange. Nathan waited for him to speak.

Eventually, Abbas said stiffly, "I would like to take you to the hotel and we can pretend that you have done nothing to offend your host."

Nathan looked at him and cocked his head. He **really** wanted to read his mind now and figure out what was going on in there. His head hurt too much to do it at the moment, or at least too much to do it with any finesse.

Abbas glanced at him and then looked away. "In the morning, I will come pick you up as we planned and it will be as if nothing untoward happened. Do you agree?"

After a pause to think about it, Nathan said, "Okay. But why?"

"Why what?"

Nathan smiled tensely, more a baring of his teeth. "You know what I just tried to do. I saw that much. Why is my host going to pretend I didn't do that?" He looked at him intently, trying to sense if he had an ability. He wasn't getting anything, but his head was still sore from the barrage of sound earlier. He looked away for a moment, trying to clear it.

"You… It is very important that my company establish ties with yours."

Nathan huffed and turned back to the other man, leaning towards him, closing much of the small distance between them. "Open your mind to me and we'll have some ties, trust me. I need to know what I'm getting myself into." Abbas tried to slide off the hood and found himself seized with telekinesis. He frowned at Nathan's rude behavior and pressed his lips together firmly.

Nathan held him for a moment, not sure what he wanted to do, but he sure as hell wasn't letting the man get away. Abbas did nothing and said nothing - he just waited for Nathan to get tired of holding him there. Nathan sighed and looked at the ceiling of the garage. He looked around. People were within shouting distance. He hadn't stopped Abbas from being able to speak, but the man was not calling for help. He wasn't even all that frightened, he could tell from his heartbeat and breathing - angry maybe - fear had a different tone to it. Nathan swallowed and released his hold. Mr. Hasan finished sliding off the hood and rolled his shoulders, continuing to frown disapprovingly at him. He did not move away - not a single step.

"Okay, listen," Nathan said. "Talk to me. I need to know what I'm walking into or I'll fly my ass back to America and you won't have any ties at all. Understand?"

"I understand," he said. The man's tone was somewhere between deferential and pissed. "What do you want me to say?" Nathan was regarded through narrowed eyes.

"Tell me what I'm getting into. What does your company have planned for me in the next few days?"

Abbas looked around uncertainly. "You… you saw the agenda?" Nathan nodded. "That's it."

"No hidden surprises? No catches? No… nothing you think I'd object to?"

Abbas considered that. "There will be no alcohol. I was unable to procure any of what I thought would be suitable quality."

Nathan scratched his brow. _Alcohol. He's worried I won't get enough to drink?_ "You know, I think you've been programmed and programmed hard so you can't even **think** things I might see through." He was confused as to why nothing was detecting as a lie.

Abbas now looked at the ceiling himself. "**Please** do not attack me again. Please. I can not work with you if you keep doing that." Nathan looked at him, considering that he felt his mind was recovered enough he could try again. Hasan said, "It is my job to interface with people like you. Not all of you are friendly. In fact, most aren't, when they find I know about them." He searched Nathan's face, trying to will him to be amicable. It had nothing to do with powers. He was trying to make a human connection. It was working.

The Arab sat back down on the car hood and waved a hand at the rest of the parking garage. "The people who run away get chased and sometimes killed and at the minimum they fail in their mission. The ones who stay and talk survive. So here I am, not running away and I am talking. My mission is to have you fulfill your agenda, see what paperwork you've brought from the Treasury Department and find out how we can work with your interests to make money. Or control money, since making it is for those idiots who don't have any yet." He looked sideways at Nathan, who was listening attentively. He still wasn't hearing lies.

"I have no hidden surprises for you, Mr. Petrelli. No catches. Those of my company who have powers like yours do not wish to meet you until they understand how we intend to work together. It is my job to find out how we can work together. I am here so you are not threatened by someone with a special ability. I have no ability. I have not been 'programmed hard', though I would say I have been trained extensively." He looked directly at Nathan for a long moment. "Will you let me do my job?"

Nathan blinked and looked away, feeling ashamed of himself for his poor behavior and uncharitable, incorrect assumptions. "Sure. I'm sorry."

"You said as much. Thank you for that. I am not a camel to be ridden. I am a man, as you are. Let us go to the hotel. I will be happier tomorrow, if you are still there to meet me in the morning."


	76. Riyadh

**A/N: My apologies to the "real" Halo Groups I include herein. This is a work of fiction and I do not wish to slander your fine companies or imply that in reality, you are pursuing world domination in an evil manner.**

**Small nod to the TV show "Chuck" contained herein.**

Nathan was there in the morning to meet Abbas, who greeted him cheerfully and traditionally as before with a handshake and polite hug. Nathan had seen several other people greeted the same way. He repeated the customary phrases in Arabic, was answered appropriately and walked out to Hasan's Mercedes. He climbed in and took a moment to admire all the gadgetry packed into the vehicle. He said nothing of the previous night's faux pas and neither did Abbas.

Nathan did comment on the car. "Is all this stuff standard over here? I've never seen some of these."

"No? It's a company car. I suppose it's standard somewhere. I don't handle that stuff - they just give me the car and say 'Here, use this one!'" He laughed. "See, satellite radio here, internet uplink here, your GPS and map stuff over there with that pull-out screen. I'm not sure how to make that thing work right. It's always telling me to turn left, so I leave it off all the time."

Nathan's brows rose. That was an entire string of lies, delivered with a perfect, practiced cadence. Abbas was a better liar than he was, which was really saying something. He was pretty sure there wasn't a single truth in there. "Huh." He looked at what really did appear to be the satellite radio system. _What is that if it's not what it looks like?_ He put his curiosity aside for the moment. "So where are we going?" he asked as Abbas pulled out into traffic.

"You had breakfast at the hotel?" the Arab asked.

"Yeah."

"Good, good. I was thinking I'd give you a tour of our offices and then before lunch we'd see some of the city. After lunch you can meet your friend. I have an excellent place picked out for lunch - I think you will like it. You said you wanted to try some local food. Still interested?"

Nathan nodded. Now Abbas was back to being entirely truthful, as he had been the night before. "Yes, I am."

"Good. We will go to Al-Nadjiyah. They have wonderful food. They are very well known and they get plenty of westerners there so you should be safe."

"Is there anywhere we're likely to go where I won't be safe?"

Abbas looked at him briefly and then back at traffic. It was an odd pause to the conversation. Finally he said, "I don't intend to take you anywhere unsafe, Mr. Petrelli. I don't control the whole country, though, and I would be lying to say there haven't been incidents in the last few years against westerners. I'll do everything I can to keep you safe."

Again he was being truthful. It did a lot to relax Nathan.

Abbas asked, "Did you bring the papers you said you had for us? If you did, let me know so I can drop them off to the right analysts as we go around the buildings."

"Sure," Nathan said. "I have them." He patted his jacket pocket and pulled out the zip disk. "Here, not papers. I think you should be able to open the programs." Abbas took the disk and flipped the cap off it one-handed, then plugged it into the car stereo without comment. Nathan looked at that and said nothing. What was there he could say?

XXX

The tour of Halo Group's offices might have been intriguing to someone else. The place was mildly interesting to Nathan, but what he enjoyed most was meeting the people. He shook lots of hands, as everyone he was introduced to was required by custom to shake his hand unless they were female. There were precious few of those in the offices. It gave him a wide variety of possible employees to shape-shift into later, should the need arise.

Halo Group was primarily an investment firm, though they also had a public relations and international branding branch and a real estate holding company. The PR firm was headquartered in New York, which wasn't news to Nathan. He was pretty sure it was where the agents who had stalked himself and Angela had come from. That the real estate company had their main offices in Texas, not far from Odessa, was disturbing. It made him worry about Claire, even though she was years gone from there.

The investment functions were operated out of the Saudi offices, which were the most lavish of their holdings. They'd spent heavily on the facilities, which were universally equipped with state of the art electronics and security measures. For example, most doors did not require the presentation of a badge, as a computerized surveillance system recognized facial features and granted Abbas and his guest access to wherever they went. Nathan thought it was a bit creepy. Mr. Hasan was very proud of it.

Lunch was passable, as whatever Nathan ended up ordering was not especially to his taste, but he smiled and ate it anyway. It was well prepared, he could tell, just strangely textured and he wasn't familiar with the spices. Abbas remained scrupulously polite throughout. In the afternoon, Nathan was to meet Mohinder Suresh, who would meet them at a conference room in one of the satellite offices instead of at his lab. It wasn't private by any stretch, but all Nathan hoped for was to find out how to contact him later. Failing that, he assumed he could try to speak to him mentally.

Abbas made introductions, having lied cleanly to Nathan about his ignorance of what Mohinder did for Halo. To Nathan's surprise, Mohinder Suresh was no longer the vital, athletic young man he had once been. He was crippled and unwell in body, obviously unstable in mind. The Indian man's eyes shifted back and forth across the room as if with discomfort at being in a strange environment. He didn't seem to register that he knew Nathan at all, though he had some passing familiarity with Mr. Hasan. Abbas stood apart from him for a long moment and seemed uncomfortable being in Mohinder's presence. Nathan turned to the Arab and said, "If you could give us some privacy?" Hasan nodded and left.

Nathan sat down across the conference table from Mohinder and tilted his head at him, trying to puzzle out what had happened to the other man. He limped now and his right arm was thin, the muscle deteriorated from lack of use. He breathed poorly and when he stood, he favored his right side. After some minutes, Mohinder's darting eyes finally settled on him and stayed there. "What do you want, Nathan?"

The erstwhile politician raised his brows. Mohinder did recognize him, or at least his face. He didn't know about Sylar, then, or he was still canny enough to play along. "Matt sent me."

It was the wrong opening line to use and he knew it the instant the words left his mouth. Mohinder agreed, letting him know by throwing the table at him. His limp and his difficulty in using his right arm did not keep him from possessing the enormous strength granted by his ability in his left. The table was overturned on top of him and the other man tried to stomp him into a paste beneath it. Remembering his problems in dealing with Michael's super strength, Nathan used his telekinesis to shove Mohinder off-balance while he scrambled backwards and out from under the obstruction. He didn't try to stop him, only shoving and pulling to keep him unfocused.

The door popped open and Abbas looked in with a startled expression. "Stay out!" Nathan yelled and used his power to slam the door in his face from across the room. Mohinder grabbed him and shoved him partly into the wall while he was distracted.

"Matt sent you, did he?" he snarled. "What does Matt have to say to me?"

Very calmly, Nathan said, "I can't say I don't understand the reaction. I've wanted to kill him for a long time myself. Finally did, as a matter of fact."

Mohinder blinked at him and lost his grip. "You're… you're lying." Nathan slid to his feet.

"No, afraid not. He's dead. I killed him."

Mohinder stared at him, backing up a step. "Why?"

"Because he did something unforgivable to me, just like he did to you. Did you know telepaths don't die entirely once they're dead?"

After a long pause, Suresh said, "You really did kill him, then, if you know that." Mohinder stood up straighter, looking suddenly much more sane, more human, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. So much of his purpose in creating people with abilities had been to strike down this one man… only to find he was already dead. Hope glittered in his eyes.

Nathan spoke, saying, "He had some things to say to me after he was dead. He wanted you to forgive him. I figured there was fat chance of that, but he and I had an agreement - he'd tell me some things I wanted to know and in exchange I'd run some errands for him. This is one of them. If you want to talk, know the rest of what he wanted me to tell you, you know where you can find me. I'm a public figure. I have a law office in New York." Nathan turned and walked away. He was hoping fervently Mohinder would swallow the bait - hook, line and sinker. He wouldn't know until later though, as there was only silence behind him when he opened the door to the conference room and stepped out, closing the door behind him.

Abbas put down his phone. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine. I just had some bad news of a personal nature to relate. He didn't take it well. A mutual friend of ours died a little while ago."

The Arab swallowed. Nathan had the impression he knew exactly what he'd said to Mohinder. "Ah. Will you be going then?"

Nathan looked back at the conference room door. It was still shut and silent. "From here? Yes. You were going to show me around Riyadh a little?"

"Of… of course." Abbas led him back out to the car. The man was still unsettled when they got in.

Nathan turned to him, "What kind of work does Mohinder do for you? What sort of work does an investment firm need from a bioengineer or biochemist or whatever he's calling himself these days?"

Mr. Hasan gripped the steering wheel uneasily. "I told you I don't know."

"And I'm telling you I don't believe you." Nathan leaned in, tilting his head slightly even though he had no intention of repeating the previous night's mistake.

Abbas pulled his head back anyway, keeping his hands on the steering wheel. He didn't know Nathan well enough to know his limits. He said quietly, "We have many subsidiary divisions. I don't keep up with the details of their work."

"Do you know what kind of work Mohinder is doing for you? Yes or no."

Sullenly, Abbas said, "You do not need to know the answer to do business with us."

"Oh, I think I do. Because a few years ago, Mohinder was doing work to **make** people like me. Is that what he's doing now, for you?"

Hasan's façade began to crack around the edges as his eyes darted back and forth. It was enough of an answer. He saw that Mohinder had left the building and was making his slow way to his own vehicle. Nathan followed Abbas' eyes for a moment, but Suresh was unaware of their presence in the parking lot. Petrelli was fairly sure Abbas wouldn't compromise himself by alerting him. He was right.

Nathan spoke very quietly. "How do you control money by making people like me, people like him?" _I need to know how someone like you links up with Arthur's ubermensch crap._

Abbas' eyes went to his several times, flicking away in uncertainty each time, like he wasn't seeing something he needed to see there. Finally he said, "We have… many interests."

"Go on." Nathan's eyes bored into him. He was leaning into Abbas' space, only inches from him. There was a small pop or click behind him of something electronic engaging. Hasan lifted his fingers from the steering wheel, but kept his palms against it. He'd done nothing, or at least nothing a normal person could detect, nothing Nathan had detected. Nathan leaned back and watched the pull out screen for the GPS light up. Two words appeared on it: 'Tell him.'

Abbas relaxed abruptly, breathing hard. He pushed Nathan out of his way as if he were no threat at all and looked at the screen. Nathan frowned at him, but since he liked the message, he didn't interfere. Abbas spoke to the car, as far as Nathan could tell. "I need more authorization than that."

The screen said, 'Granted' and there were three quick flashes, images Nathan couldn't quite catch they were so fast.

Abbas put both hands on his face and rubbed his entire face forcefully. "Bluh," he said while doing it. He sighed and looked at Nathan. "Yes, that's what he's doing for us. Making people like you. I think. I really don't go to his lab. It's not part of my work. I work with outsiders, like yourself. I don't oversee the internal things."

Nathan gestured at the screen. "What's with this car?"

"It's an interface."

"What's that mean?"

Abbas shrugged. "It's my… home office. It gives me access to most of what I need, as far as information and communication goes. It's not dangerous to you."

Nathan snorted. He didn't need his ability to hear the lie in that, but it confirmed it anyway. "Information's the most dangerous thing of all. They're monitoring us right now?"

Hasan nodded.

"Who are they?"

"Depends on how far this case has been elevated. Usually it's just the tracking software, checking for alerts like if I'm outside of proscribed range limits, saying certain words or sound frightened or upset. If there's an alert then someone will review it. If it's confirmed, it will be escalated to a recovery team. If they aren't clear on what they should do, and it's urgent, then it will be escalated to the executive on duty. In that case, which is what I assume is going on now, we're being listened to by one or more of the people who run the company."

Nathan rubbed his chin with the back of his fingers. "Those are the people you said didn't want to talk to me until they knew how we would do business together?"

"Yes."

"How do you want to do business, Abbas?"

The other man blinked and looked away. "I haven't had a chance to review the documents you brought, but we want more influence with the World Trade Organization. Our next step in achieving that is through the US. We have targets there, in your government."

"What do I get from helping you? What does my company get?" He noted Abbas' flicker of expression at the use of the word 'company.'

"Participation. Some insulation from the effects. The opportunity to advance yourself by knowing our plans."

"What plans are those?"

Abbas glanced down at the screen again, then back to Nathan. "We intend to achieve greater control of the world's monetary resources. The current organizations controlling it don't have our… the best interests of our organization or our part of the world in mind. They're short-sighted, exploitative and US-centric. That can be changed and we will change it.

"Things like 9/11 and global economic collapses will continue to occur until we achieve our goals. Right now your country is bleeding itself financially in the wars, so we have done enough. If your country does not cooperate long term, then we will continue our operations against it. If it does cooperate, then the whole world will be better off."

Nathan blinked. This was… not… what he thought he was dealing with. _I was expecting a cover operation. This isn't a cover. Arthur didn't __**make**__ an organization. He found one and took it over. Or maybe he's not even running it, just working with them._ "You're… you're backing terrorist networks?"

Mr. Hasan raised his brows. "Weren't you prosecuting terrorists networks just a few years ago in your own country? We have co-opted ours so that instead of fomenting useless dissent at home, they strike our targets abroad. Is that so different from the interests of your own company? You employ people with powers, send them abroad to attack people and discover their secrets so you can use them to advance yourselves. It is the same thing, is it not?"

Nathan opened his mouth for a moment and then shut it. He sidestepped the morally grey area of what he'd tried to do to the other man. He'd intended to take it even further than Abbas suspected, stripping the man of free will entirely. If he was going to subvert an agent, then he was going to do it all the way. He still hadn't given up on the strategy, he'd merely switched tactics. "You're making people with abilities so you can carry out this… agenda?"

Abbas nodded at Nathan and glanced around the parking lot. It was an extension of nervously looking here and there. He was surprised they hadn't sent a team in yet to eliminate this guy. He hoped they did it cleanly. Last time he'd gotten a dislocated shoulder from it. It still gave him twinges, no matter what the lady of restitution said. After a long silence from Nathan, Hasan decided no team was forthcoming. _Back to plan A, then._ He turned to his passenger, "Would you like to see the sites in Riyadh?"

Nathan snorted, then nodded. "Sure, why not." As they pulled out of the lot, Abbas fell back on his standard patter. He played tour guide and salesman for the rest of the day. Nathan listened to him with one ear, trying to think things through.

_People with abilities who want to tear down the world order and replace it with their own. Actually, it fits perfectly with what Dad was saying, with what Maury was saying he wanted, with what Angela said he was going to do. Get enough power, enough abilities and you might be able to pull it off. What amounts to world domination - what every good villain desires._

He considered what Angela had told him of not thinking on a big enough scale. He'd been thinking more along the lines of the cults of personality they'd seen in operation before, like Baron Samedi in Haiti or big companies like Halo or Yamagato. This was destruction of the whole world order, entire governments replaced by people with abilities. He was bothered by the many parallels with what Nathan Petrelli had done with Homeland Security and what the Company was trying to do even now. They were certainly using people with abilities to infiltrate the government and advance an agenda - not always a benign one, either.

Halo had shown they could cripple the world economy and strike at the most powerful governments with impunity. It seemed highly incongruous that this man who was driving him would hold the moral high ground, while discussing his company's plans to blackmail and dominate the entire world. It salved Nathan's conscience about the Company, at least for the time being.

He looked out the window and admired the foreign city. It was full of people just like New York, going about their day-to-day lives with no awareness of the greater currents moving all around them. _One life at a time just isn't going to cut it. Not unless… not unless it's the __**right**__ life._


	77. The Calling

Abbas stayed professional and polite for the rest of the evening, taking him shopping, driving him around and going to dinner with him. He was never as relaxed as he had been in the states. Nathan wondered how much of that had been an act for his benefit. He felt bad for Peter, who had commented on much the same thing from Nathan only a few weeks ago - that he often couldn't tell the act from the man and it bothered him. Now the shoe was on the other foot and Nathan found himself unsure of what Hasan really was. He remembered Bennet suckering him once with a similar performance.

Speaking of Bennet, he had a call from him at one point he'd sent over to voicemail. When he got back to his hotel room, he called him back. The room was suitably lavish if Halo was trying to impress a wealthy, well-connected senator rather than a failed politician turned lawyer. He liked it. He stood on the balcony and looked at the clear winter sky as the wind snapped at his shirt.

It was the middle of the night in Tokyo, he realized about the third ring. Noah answered before the fourth. "Hello?" He sniffed and coughed on the other end.

"Noah, sorry to call you so late, but your message just said to call. Should I talk to you in the morning?"

"No. Now. Hang on." He heard rustling and movement, then water running. A moment later Noah's voice came on, sounding much more awake. "Ando's ability was taken tonight. He's lost it. They refused Halo's offer to cooperate today. They notified them at the end of business."

"Cooperate? What were they asking for?"

"They told Ando directly they needed his ability to supercharge other abilities. It was a personal approach, not a company matter, had nothing to do with Yamagato. They needed him to affect someone or something that would give abilities to a lot of people at once, activate them somehow."

"Like… the formula we worked on at Pinehearst? They didn't need Ando for that." _Maybe supercharging it makes it give multiple-power abilities?_

"I don't know," Noah said. "They didn't give him details, but he thought it would be a lot of people from how they talked. A **lot**. They were offering to pay him by giving him several vials of the catalyzed formula so he could use them on whoever he wanted - wife, kids, friends - in case they weren't affected by whatever they were going to do. I advised him to turn them down. He thought about it for a long time, but eventually he did. He's not too happy with me at the moment."

"And he's powerless."

"Yep."

"Dad?"

"He doesn't know. One minute Ando turned to go back in his office to get something, at the end of the day, the next he was on the floor and it was gone."

"Yeah, that's Dad."

There was a long pause, then Noah said, "Do you really think he's your father?"

"No. No," Nathan shook his head. Maury's stupid programming was making him obsess with father figures. It made it really tough for him to think of Arthur any other way. "I know who he is. Just… never mind. It's easier to call him that. You know who I'm talking about. Nathan's father."

"Okay." Noah sounded like he didn't understand.

"All right. What's Ando going to do?"

"What can he do? It's gone. Hiro's powers have been offline since last year and might be forever."

"True. Which one of the Halo people was leading the discussions? Was it Abbas?"

"Yes. You've met with him today, right?"

"Yeah." He wasn't enthused.

Noah hesitated at Nathan's tone. "Are things going well?"

"Not really. I got more information than I expected, but it's not what I wanted to hear. This thing is as big as Angela has implied."

"Oh," Noah didn't have anything else to say to that. He'd understood the scale and knew also that few other people did. He changed the subject. "Did you get to see Mohinder?"

"Yes. He's… he has problems. I gave him a teaser. Hopefully he'll call me and I'll be able to talk with more…" His phone beeped with another incoming call. It was an unlisted local number. "Got another call coming in. Was there anything else?"

"No. I'll talk to you later." Noah hung up.

Nathan transferred the call. "Hello?"

"Hello, Nathan?"

"Mohinder?" he was surprised. _Was it just coincidence he called when I was talking about him?_

"Nathan, I've thought about what you had to say today. I want to meet with you… before you leave town. Where can we meet? I can come where you are, or I can give you directions to where I am."

Nathan had no interest in going anywhere Mohinder suggested. He also had nothing invested in this particular hotel room. It wasn't even rented under his name. It was possible, even probable it was bugged, but he couldn't do much about that. He'd considered that possibility before coming here, but all of the devices he would need to address the problem weren't allowed on the planes. He told Mohinder what hotel to find him at and packed up his bag.

He went downstairs and told the hotel manager of his dissatisfaction with his room. A hundred dollar bill and several lies later, he had a new suite. He doubted Halo had every room in the place bugged. They might be listening to his phone calls though. He considered what he'd said, what Noah had said. Very little of it would be news to Halo, though it would let them know how much the Company knew, or didn't know. _Information is power. I should have changed rooms earlier, brought a second cell phone, one of those prepaid phones like I used after Omaha. I fail at this spy stuff._

The front desk called a half hour later to inform him he had a guest. He walked down and escorted Mohinder back to his room. The other man was dressed in Arabic clothes like most men of the region. He had a large leather satchel with him. Out of it he pulled a bottle of scotch once they were in the room. He smiled at Nathan, who smiled back. Mohinder said, "I thought you might like to have a drink, since it's a pretty dry country."

Nathan took a seat. "I wouldn't mind having one, sure." He gestured at the glasses on the dresser and watched Mohinder carefully. There was no trace of the confused, frightened mien he'd had earlier that day. The other man poured generously, handing Nathan's to him as soon as it was full and then filling a second one for himself. Nathan thought about something he'd read of customs. The host was supposed to wait until the guest ate and drank first. He waited.

Mohinder took his glass and sat down in the other seat, across the small table. "Is it any good? I didn't have a lot of choice in brand."

"Oh, I'm sure it's fine. I've never heard of that one, actually. You're the guest, you drink first. I've had to study all these rules."

Mohinder smiled easily. "It's my liquor, so that makes **me** the host. Those are the rules."

"Oh, huh." Nathan sipped politely. It tasted okay, passable, maybe a little off. He didn't expect good liquor in a Muslim country though. "It's fine," he lied.

Mohinder sipped too and then put his glass down. "So Matt's really dead. How did that happen? Why… you?"

"He never told you what he did to me?"

Mohinder eyed him. "No." He looked away briefly. "He and I didn't talk much after… about two years ago, a little less." Mohinder drew his brows together slightly, remembering unpleasant times. Nathan sipped at his drink and let the other man talk at his own pace. After a long pause Suresh added, "Matt was… after Daphne died, he changed. She meant a lot to him." Mohinder sounded bitter, angry. He reached over and picked up his drink, sloshing some of it. "Ah! Excuse me." He rose and got one of the hand towels from the bathroom and wiped up the spill.

"I don't understand what happened," Mohinder went on, balling up the hand towel nervously. "Matt hated the Company, the government and what they'd done to people with abilities. Why did he join them? Why is… Why was he working for them?"

Nathan took a larger drink, wishing he could get drunk for real and dull his feeling of the other man's pain. He **was** feeling a little duller for some reason. "I… You were there. We restarted the Company. You said you needed time, needed to work out your redemption." Mohinder nodded, paying close attention to him. "In the course of getting the Company set up we needed a telepath. Matt wasn't interested, as you know, so… Angela knew where Maury was. She knew he wasn't dead. We went and picked him up. Not long after that he showed up with Matt. I…" He rubbed at his head. He was feeling odd, kind of numb.

"Take another drink," Mohinder suggested and picked up his own. "To old friends," he toasted.

Nathan smiled and drank. "Yeh… to… awk." The glass tumbled from his suddenly nerveless fingers.

Mohinder caught him with easy strength and flopped him on the bed, face down. He muttered, "Took long enough. You must have drank enough to paralyze a horse."

He heard rustling in the satchel the liquor had come in and his hands were being cuffed a moment later. He was blindfolded after that and an IV was installed. He managed to groan a protest at this last, but that was all he could get out through the curare. He was having trouble breathing. _This is the second time! How… Why did I fall for this a second time? Dammit. He wasn't even lying to me! Wait… maybe he still thinks I'm Nathan._

He was dumped back in his chair. Minutes passed. His breathing eased, but he couldn't move his fingers or legs. It reminded him a lot of the paralytic darts the Company had developed. _Probably the same root drug._ Mohinder occupied himself going through Nathan's pockets and examining the contents, as far as Nathan could tell without being able to see.

"Who are you?" Mohinder finally asked. Nathan was silent. _That tells me he isn't sure I'm Sylar._ Mohinder jabbed him in the solar plexis. It was a light, almost trivial blow for him, but at his strength it drove the air out of Nathan's lungs. Nathan sucked in his breath, trying to remember how Sylar had gotten away from him last time. He thought he'd manipulated the IV drip with telekinesis. Being blindfolded was going to make that much more complicated.

"**Who** are you?" Mohinder asked with more emphasis. He put a hand on Nathan's shoulder and tightened his grip slightly.

Nathan knew where this was about to go and he didn't see any point in getting there. "I'm Nathan Petrelli, Mohinder, you bastard." He knew it wasn't politic to add that last part, but given the man was obviously about to torture him, it seemed to fit.

"I don't believe you," Mohinder said and made good on his threat, bearing down until Nathan's clavicle and scapula began to creak. One of them snapped.

"Stop it, please!" The pain was bad, yes, but somehow it bothered him more that Mohinder was resorting to hurting him so quickly, when he didn't even know who he was. The average person with powers could not heal broken bones any faster than a normal human. As far as Mohinder knew, he was maiming him.

"Who are you?" his captor repeated the question, keeping his grip tight on what was left of the unbroken bones in his shoulder. They grated together slightly.

He grimaced. "I told you. Why don't you believe me? You've got my ID, my phone, everything. Call someone. Ask them. I was just talking to Noah earlier."

"Nathan Petrelli doesn't have telekinesis."

_Oh. Yeah. Guess he doesn't,_ Nathan thought. _Kind of forgot about that. Time for new lies._ "The Company hired me to impersonate him. Nathan died last year. It fucked things up for them."

Mohinder released his shoulder. He heard him drag the other chair around and take a seat. He realized he could just barely move his fingers, not that this helped anything. "Who are you then?" Mohinder asked yet again, resting a hand lightly on his knee.

Nathan wasn't sure if he needed to be apprehensive about the joint. He told him, "I don't know. Matt Parkman did it for them. He… rewrote me."

There was a long silence, during which Nathan struggled to move his fingers more, trying unsuccessfully to fight off the paralysis. He could still breath, could still talk and could still move his head somewhat, so it wasn't total by any means. It would be easier to lie through his teeth if he could see Mohinder's face and read his reactions.

"Who were you before?"

Nathan bared his teeth. "They tell me I was someone named Gabriel Grey."

"Sylar," Mohinder breathed, realizing the odd parallels of the situation. He lifted his hand from Nathan's leg, unconsciously not wanting to touch him.

"I've heard that name too. But I'm telling you, I'm Nathan Petrelli." He hoped the mental outpatient act would work, would hit a chord with Mohinder, who'd been abused by Matt as well. He didn't care to find out if he could recover from whatever Mohinder might do to him if he decided he wasn't useful. Being torn apart was the most prevalent in his mind, though he figured Mohinder would find some sick laboratory use for him instead. It was more than a bit frightening.

He heard Mohinder get up and pace restlessly, unevenly with his limp. "You're… you think you're Nathan Petrelli?" He sounded disbelieving.

"I know I am. Now. It doesn't matter who I used to be."

"You killed Matt?"

_Hm. I killed his lover. Do I admit to that again, or say I was lying earlier? _"Yes. I couldn't stand what he'd done to me. He told me to find you and talk to you. I guess he was setting me up for you to kill me, so he could get revenge." He hung his head. He couldn't quite shake it like he wanted, but it bobbed back and forth a little. "He seemed so sincere, so sorry for what he'd done. I got suckered, tricked… again."

After nearly a minute of silence, the blindfold was yanked off abruptly and Mohinder roughly removed the IV. "I'm sorry," he said. "I made a mistake." He unlocked the handcuffs and dumped his gear back into the satchel.

Nathan sat there for a while, unable to move even though he'd been freed. Mohinder sank back into the other chair and buried his face in his hands for a long moment. He shook his head. "What did he say? What did he want you to tell me?"

Nathan raised his head, looking at the other man. "He said he was sorry. For what he'd done to you, to Molly. He said he could have stopped and looking back he wished he had. There were other ways. He went too far. He said that he always thought he was doing the right thing, or it would turn out okay, but he could see now that was just wrong, he was just telling himself that because it was too hard to take the other road. He didn't want to work so much for it… not when… he'd been given an ability that made it all so easy."

Mohinder stared into his eyes steadily, then looked down. "What else?"

Nathan tried and failed to shrug. On the positive side, his shoulder had mended itself. "There wasn't much else. Some stuff about Molly, but I haven't figured out how to get that done." Mohinder searched his expression and believed him. _He was always gullible,_ Nathan thought. _Believing what he wants to believe and destroying anything that doesn't fit those beliefs. Of course, probably helps that I'm telling him exactly what Matt told me._

After a long pause, Mohinder said, "I'm glad you killed him. I hope he suffered."


	78. Pretenses of Mine

**A/N: Warning! Mad Scientist Alert! At one point, this chapter was titled something along the lines of "Let me catch you monologuing."**

A half hour later, most of the effects of the drug had faded. It had affected him less and wore off more slowly than whatever variant the Company used. Personally, Nathan preferred the Company version. Mohinder had not asked him for details of Matt's death other than stating his hope Parkman had died badly. Nathan didn't elaborate. He had no idea how fast or slow it had been, if he'd removed the skin while he was still alive or if he'd opened the brain case first and killed him quickly. He just knew the entire process had taken a little less than six hours. He didn't like to think about why it had taken that long.

He asked the Indian, "What have you been doing for Halo Group?"

Mohinder shook his head. "The same thing I was doing for Pinehearst, except I have more resources here. Less interference."

"How's it coming?"

Mohinder smiled thinly at him. "Excellent. I've reconstituted the formula and we've overcome all our previous issues with it. No one destroyed my lab this time on the eve of success." He grimaced at Nathan, thinking of Peter.

"Yeah," Nathan said, looking away and feeling conflicted about how that had turned out.

Mohinder volunteered, "I've been able to test it and so far, with correct genetic targeting, I have a nearly 64% success rate."

"Success?" Nathan looked at him.

"Yes. Survival. We won't know activation rates for years."

_Survival?_ "That sounds really intriguing. Tell me more." He leaned forward to show his interest and cover his apprehension.

Mohinder had very few people he could talk to about this. Arthur pored over his reports, but he wasn't the sort of receptive audience who would listen and admire his work. Suresh's underlings didn't understand or didn't respect him, depending on the individual. He'd found he got more out of people by acting unstable than he did sane. It mystified him, but it worked. If he couldn't get respect, he'd settle for fear.

It wasn't the sort of work he could talk to outsiders about. Nathan had supported it at Pinehearst and so had Sylar. Nathan had proposed mass injection of an entire group of military personnel without consent. And Sylar…. Neither of them should have any moral qualms about he was doing now. Mohinder didn't understand why people reacted so badly to the child angle. Not after what Matt did to him.

He told Nathan, "I've had 36 subjects so far. They're children so we can condition them before they present. The adult onset project is being coordinated by Arthur. It's entirely different. You see, the important thing is finding the right candidates, no matter what age. Their DNA has to be appropriate for the alteration or else it spirals out of control with tumors, uncontrolled manifestation or sometimes just sudden death. With children it's safer. They almost never manifest. I haven't had any have that problem. Death is usually very quick, if they can't accept it."

Nathan blinked at him, finding it hard to conceal his reaction. _You started with 36 children and only 64% survived. That's… what, twelve, thirteen dead kids on your hands? And you sound excited about it._

Mohinder asked, "Is something wrong?" He drew back, surprised that a man who cut out people's brains for a hobby would care.

Nathan shook his head. "No, no. I don't know if you knew it, but I was… Nathan was one of the early experiments in this."

"He was?" Mohinder cocked his head.

Nathan put on a false smile. "Yeah, he was. Angela and Arthur injected him with the formula. They thought he could take it. Obviously he could." _I wonder what survival rate they were expecting when they did that? Does it matter if they saw the future and could tell if he made it?_

Mohinder relaxed again, thinking Nathan's reaction was merely related to his personal experience, or that of his current likeness. "Oh, yes…. It's a fascinating subject to go back and look at the old records. I've studied everything my father left behind, but what I'd really like to get my hands on was the work of Victoria Pratt. Arthur tells me she was their genius. It's too bad. She destroyed all of her records, almost obsessively, especially at the end. All the Company had left were a few samples in the vaults."

"Arthur, huh? Do you talk to him much?"

"Yes. Every few days. He has a lot to contribute, but science isn't his strong suit. If it doesn't involve powers or administration, he isn't…" Mohinder shrugged, clearly disappointed by the elder Petrelli's inadequacies.

"Yeah," Nathan said slowly, trying to wrap his mind around the idea of someone thinking Arthur Petrelli didn't measure up.

Mohinder went on, talking as if to an interested colleague, "He's running the adult-onset project, but that's hardly science at all. He has no interest in the fundamentals. It's very discouraging to work with someone who has so little interest in basic scientific inquiry. With him, it's all about the ends, not the process." Mohinder gestured strongly, getting up and pacing unevenly in his agitation. "The ends are immaterial. What's valuable is understanding the means to get there. If you know the means, you can go anywhere, achieve any ends!" He paused and looked down at Nathan. "He is a most frustrating man to work with."

Nathan nodded vehemently. This was something he could agree to without pretense. "Oh, yes, I understand that. So what does this adult-onset project involve?"

Mohinder waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, it's just more of that eclipse nonsense. Superstitious idiocy, if you ask me. I suppose there's some truth to the radiation angle, but if he's not going to bother to prove it then it's just an article of faith. Obviously the eclipses don't always work that way. Some of them actually do the reverse and **de**activate people!" Mohinder shook his head. "He's very protective of his subjects. I'm not allowed to do any tests. He's almost as bad as Matt, except…" he hesitated for a long moment, staring into space, "Arthur only threatened me. He didn't actually **do** it." Mohinder shuddered.

Nathan remembered what Abbas had told him nearly a year ago: _One day, we'll blot out the sun._ He shuddered too, but for a very different reason. Suresh thought they were having a moment of shared feeling. "The eclipse… activates people?" Nathan asked.

Mohinder nodded absently. "Not everyone, obviously. Just those who are ready. Arthur tells me recoms can't be achieved through the formula, but I think we just need to get our hands on one. I'm sure it's just a matter of application. Peter Petrelli would be the perfect test subject." He looked over at the man he thought was Sylar wearing Nathan's face. "I would **so** like to get my hands on **him**." Clearly this was not an experience Peter would enjoy.

Nathan set his teeth together and used every ounce of self control not to react.

Mohinder peered at him intently. "Although… **you** would make an excellent substitute. Your ability isn't as refined, but it would be a good starting place… until I had…"

"Until you had what?" Nathan's whole body was coiled like a spring.

Mohinder walked closer to him, trying and failing to be surreptitious about it.

"If you lay a hand on me, I'll cut it off," Nathan said coldly. "You've only got one that's worth a damn, so keep that in mind."

Mohinder paused and found the other side of the room more interesting to be on. After a beat he turned to Nathan, "It would be for the good of science, for the benefit of future generations! Don't you see?"

He shook his head, lips flattened together. "Sorry, can't. Not if it involves me or mine." _And to a large extent, even perfect strangers when you're talking about something this depraved. _Nathan didn't add that part. Mohinder might still have useful information to impart. So far his 'attentive listener' act was reaping high returns. At the moment though, the Indian man was gazing at him in frustration. _I need to distract him from this line of thought._ He said, "You mentioned a recom. What's that?"

"A recombinant. Yours requires a physical trigger, probably direct contact, DNA, psychological obtrusions, perhaps even a vapor component. Do you know what it is?"

"Uh… what what is?" _What the hell is a psychological ob… ob… whatever?_

Mohinder smiled condescendingly at him. "You don't even know! I can help you, Sylar!"

"_Nathan!_" he snapped out without thinking, feeling an irrational surge of anger. He came to his feet. "Don't you _**ever**_ call me that!" Fortunately, it played well with what he'd told the Indian earlier. He sat back down, trying to calm himself.

"Right. Nathan," Mohinder said to placate him. "But you don't know what it is that gives you your powers. We could discover that! Especially after the eclipse, if it works like Arthur thinks. We'll be working hard to find people with powers. I'm sure he'll be able to spare some for experiments on your behalf. You're exactly… well, you're very close to what he's working towards, you know."

Nathan smiled and managed to get some genuine warmth into it. "Yeah, it's nice to be loved and wanted by your father."

Mohinder gave him an uncertain look, not sure where that was coming from. Nathan shrugged and said, "So the eclipse is to activate people like me and Peter?"

Mohinder shrugged, giving Nathan a perceptive look. He'd finally noticed the persistent digging for information. A perturbed expression crossed his face and he studied Nathan. Instead of answering, he asked, "You're still working for the Company, aren't you?"

Nathan shrugged as if that was inconsequential. "I'm just enjoying learning about my abilities. You know more than anyone I know." _Flattery is good. I don't like that expression on his face._ "I'm here to discuss business with Mr. Hasan. We're sharing information, developing ties. The Company has been reaching out to a lot of different groups. I'm sure Arthur will have a lot of use for our contacts, our networks."

"Ah," Mohinder nodded, seeing another reason to continue talking with Nathan. His expression became more trusting. "Yes, that's true." His mind stumbled over the Walker System, unable to come to terms with it at the moment. Somewhere inside himself, he knew his lack of feeling for his subjects was wrong. He knew it had something to do with Molly. It was too painful to deal with, so he skipped over it.

Nathan rose and came over to shake Mohinder's hand, smiling. "Hey, I know you've had it tough, man." Mohinder eyed his hand for a moment and then shook it hesitantly. Nathan shook it and then leaned in to a friendly hug. "You're still here, he's not. Keep that in mind. You have my phone number. We can talk later." He patted Mohinder's back a few times and turned him towards the door.

Mohinder hesitated and looked around the room. "You're staying here alone?"

Nathan smiled thinly. "Yeah, I am." _That's what I get for acting too interested. I shouldn't have touched him, but I need to get a rapport going so he doesn't sell me out later. Hell, I would never have come here if Abbas hadn't made that damned pass at me back at New Year's. He played me. Time to return the favor._

"It's a big city," Mohinder offered.

"I know. Abbas might come by later." Mohinder's expression immediately darkened. _Yep, that's what I thought._ Nathan patted the other man's shoulder again and gave him a squeeze. He thought about how thoroughly Noah had clouded his mind once with a come-on.

Suresh smiled falsely, though it became more genuine as Nathan continued touching him in a familiar fashion, leading him slowly to the door. "Then I'll be going," Mohinder said. "Have a good night."

"Sure. Hang on a second," Nathan said softly and took a moment to adjust Mohinder's collar for him, touching him around the neck as he did so. "Sorry, I think I got this out of place for you. How's that?" He touched Mohinder's jaw with a quick pass of his fingers. The other man jumped, but didn't pull away.

"Oh… um, fine, thank you." He looked embarrassed and surprised. He tried to make a more meaningful moment of eye contact, but Nathan sidestepped him.

Nathan smiled and ushered him out, hoping he'd impaired the man's judgment sufficiently. He waited ten minutes, changed his appearance and clothing to that of a local, then left the hotel. He roamed down the streets randomly, making sure he wasn't followed and changing his appearance again. He intentionally didn't call in, not wanting to give anything away. Eventually he checked into a fleabag hotel and slept there. He rose early enough to make it back to his original hotel in time to meet Abbas for the next day's activities.


	79. Pretenses of Yours

Abbas met him as he had the previous morning. Nathan gave the standard greeting, but after the hug, he wrapped his arm over the other man's shoulders, leaving it there as he turned and they walked to the car. He gave the other man a squeeze and patted him, bumping his hip slightly as they walked close together. Abbas looked at him sideways and raised a brow. "You know… Mr. Petrelli, I am a married man." Nathan gave him another squeeze as they stood next to the driver's side of the car. He let his arm fall away and he leaned against the driver's side back door of the sedan, facing away from it.

"Yeah? So am I. That didn't keep you from making some really interesting suggestions on New Years." Nathan smiled at him, almost a smirk.

The Arab gave Nathan a look in return that was unnervingly like one of Peter's expressions - a small, knowing smile that said 'I know what you're up to.' Nathan thought he didn't know him nearly well enough to have that look on his face. Abbas said, "I was very compromised on New Year's Eve. So were you. I'm sure neither of us wishes to dishonor our families. Mine is very close here."

Nathan looked away. "Of course." As Abbas extended his hand for the handle of the door, Nathan reached out and took the fabric of the right sleeve of Hasan's thoub between his fingers. It was a heavier cloth designed for winter, an expensive weave that felt nice under his touch.

He looked up at Abbas's face and dared him to pull away from him. Instead the man merely tensed and leaned forward on the car with his left side, facing across the vehicle with Nathan to his right. He left his right arm where it was at, not pulling away. He frowned heavily, watching a spot on Petrelli's left shoulder. Nathan turned towards him and said suggestively, "How much are you willing to do for your company, Abbas?"

The other man's eyes lifted to his and his nostrils flared. "I have limits. You are quickly approaching them."

"Am I?" He ran his fingers over the cloth and back to Abbas' elbow, feeling the other man's arm through the fabric. The Arab eyed his motions and looked around. His lips were set together firmly. They were very public, standing right in front of the hotel, parked in the pick up lane. Nathan had not quite crossed the line from acceptable touching to unacceptable, not for male friends of unimpeached character. If this continued though, they would be impeached soon. Nathan said quietly, barely moving his lips to say it, "You made a pass at me."

"It was an **act**," Abbas said just as quietly, through clenched teeth. "Nothing more."

Nathan dropped his hand and went around to the other side of the car. Hasan exhaled suddenly in relief. Facing him across the vehicle, Nathan said in a professional voice, "I'm glad we have that cleared up. I actually like working with you. I think we can get a lot done. I want to get the pretenses out of the way though. Honesty is important to me." He got in.

After several seconds, Abbas got in as well and started the car. He faced forward and spoke mechanically, as if he'd memorized what he was saying, "We've had a chance to analyze the information you gave us. It's very good. I think it will be very helpful to us. We'd like to work together more often." He looked over at Nathan, still irritated but calming down, sounding more natural, "It's clear from what you chose to give us that you have a good idea of what we're looking for."

Nathan nodded levelly. "We've been studying Halo Group for a while." He looked at the dashboard of the car as Abbas pulled out onto the road. "Are they monitoring us right now?"

"All conversations are monitored. Even what we said outside of the car." Abbas sounded less than thrilled about that.

Nathan smiled thinly at him. "Trust me, I know what it feels like to be controlled and manipulated constantly." The other man looked over at him appraisingly, but said nothing. Nathan went back to discussing finances for a while, then the road system in Riyadh and other lighter topics.

At ten they stopped for coffee at a very small, neighborhood shop. Abbas had said it was close to where he lived. He was obviously well known there and he introduced Nathan to the elderly proprietor as an honored guest. Nathan made greetings in Arabic and managed a few other phrases, but as the owner of the shop did not know English and Nathan was not even marginally proficient in Arabic, they both ended by smiling and nodding politely.

After their drinks were served to them, Nathan sipped slowly at the very hot, very strong coffee, thinking briefly of Mohinder suckering him into drinking the laced scotch. _ I should have known. Talk about the future being in ruts._ He looked at Abbas and said, "If anything ever happens here, anything happens with your business that you don't feel safe working here, call me. You're a good man, you have a lot of skills we could use. You'll be protected."

Hasan's eyes widened slightly. "I'd be protected? Do you have the authority to vouch for that?" He kept his voice low, well under the noise of the coffee shop.

"I'm a director." At Abbas' look, he said, "It's what you call an executive. I'm one of a few who run the Company. I can vouch for it. Your family too."

Abbas said slowly, "That is… an unusual offer, Mr. Petrelli."

"I talked to Mohinder again last night. He told me some of the work he'd been doing." He studied the Arab's face, but it gave him nothing. "I was hoping, given the way you'd acted towards him yesterday, that you didn't approve. My Company has a pretty checkered past and I don't know what you've been told, but you're not the only ones trying to make the world a better place. Until recently we only involved ourselves with people who were getting out of control or attracting too much attention. What Arthur Petrelli is going to do under Halo's name is going to attract more attention than you can imagine."

He searched Abbas' face, doing to him what the man had done to Nathan a few nights ago - trying to make a connection with him, a sincere connection. He had a sense that Abbas was a good man and someone he could work with. If he was wrong, then he'd lost nothing as long as he didn't get lured into revealing anything. If he was right, then he might have an unexpected ally.

Abbas leaned forward and put his finger to his lips briefly, then tapped his temple and looked intently at Nathan. Nathan's brows drew together. He glanced around the shop uneasily. It was a very strange time to make an offer of mental communication. The place was very noisy, with people walking about, sunlight streaming through the windows and being bounced around the room by the frequent motion. Abbas repeated tapping his temple and tilted his head slightly at Nathan.

Nathan sighed and leaned forward, moving his coffee out of the way. He narrowed his eyes and tried very hard to screen out all the interfering input. He tried to focus solely on the mind before him. As it turned out, Abbas did not project nearly as well as he could block, as if mental conversational skills had not been part of his training. It told Nathan several things, one of which was Halo almost certainly did not have a telepath who was highly placed. They were comfortable teaching defenses against telepathy, likely because there was no one higher up who had it. _How do they control their people then?_

He grimaced and eventually reached the other man, finding his thoughts layered and not nearly as distinct as Noah's had been. Abbas thought, _I am monitored [electronically] wherever we go. Your offer was not unexpected [prepared for] and I am to court it to draw you out [false]. I wish you to know my interest [interest] is also sincere [family]. I would be an idiot [money] in this [people] business not to explore my options [disaster]._

Nathan grimaced, trying to make out what Abbas meant as his thoughts became increasingly difficult to parse. With an effort, he projected a clean thought back to him, _There's too much noise here. I can't understand you. We must go somewhere else to talk this way._ He leaned back and rubbed at his temples, eyes shut.

Mr. Hasan said, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Nathan lifted his cup and took a sip. "I'm sure it's just a caffeine headache."

"There's a park near here that's much quieter. Perhaps your headache would be soothed there."

Nathan nodded and finished his drink. As they walked out, Abbas said, "I do not know this Arthur Petrelli you speak of. Is he related to you?" To Nathan's surprise, it wasn't a lie.

"Yeah, he's my father."

"Ah. The executives work with many people. I am not always part of their discussions, especially for internal matters." He looked at Nathan's face and wrinkled his nose in an odd expression. "I will contact you later about your offer, after I've had time to think it over. It's very interesting to me."

Nathan smiled blandly and agreed.

In the park, they resumed a conversation less easily overheard, leaning on a railing and watching a fountain splash merrily across imported river stones. Abbas thought, _Halo [us] changed directions radically last year. I am not comfortable with the direction things are going now. The executives [father-in-law] are not the same. They no longer seem to be in charge. They act as if their decisions must be approved by someone else [Arthur?]. Would this be within the abilities of your father?_

_Yes. The timing would fit too._ Nathan was still having to sort through layered meanings to get at what the other man intended to say.

_Will you remove him [please]?_

_Easier said than done, but that's part of why I'm here._

_[Hoping/business/false]_

_What?_

_I… nothing. [hoping/business/false]_

Nathan tapped the railing for a moment in frustration, then went back to listening at the other's thoughts. The urge to grab the other man's mind by the metaphorical ears and sift through it for everything he wanted was moderate. He didn't want to mug him though, he wanted his cooperation - long term, if he could get it. _You said last year you'd blot out the sun._

_Yes. [eclipse] That is the intention. It's only temporary [hours?]. We have a man who can do it [ability]._

_You do? Right now?_

_Yes. We have for a year [last year]._

_Does he look like this?_ He summoned up an image of Arthur Petrelli in his mind. He tried to figure out how to project an image rather than a verbal thought. He couldn't work it out, even though he knew it could be done. He'd seen plenty of such images from Maury. Before he could figure it out, Abbas thought again.

_Our man is Asian [Cambodia/mine/project]._

_Not the same then. Do you know when the eclipse is scheduled?_

_No [yes/soon]. The final key was a different man I failed to recruit [disciplinary]. We'll have to keep looking [false/confused]. He could enhance abilities. Our darkness man can't black the whole planet by himself. He needs improvement [big/Japanese/death]._

_You're lying to me. You know when the eclipse is scheduled to occur._

_I know [yes/love]._

Nathan waited, but there was no guilt in Abbas' mind and no explanation was forthcoming._ Tell me the truth._

_I don't want to [love]._

_I don't understand._

_I don't think I can explain [telepathy/love]. …[family]_

Nathan watched the water play over the rocks. He suspected, he sensed, this was some manner of emotional compulsion. It wasn't the same as Maury's power and it affected Abbas in a more subtle fashion. It wasn't a command or an order Nathan could pull from his mind like a hair from a plate of noodles. It was more like trying to get the sauce off the noodles. This wasn't the time for experimentation, and it wasn't preventing basic communication, so he left it alone.

Abbas went on,_ When we were advancing the goals of the Muslim world [terrorism/dislike], I understood what we were doing and how it would make things better [equal]. Our goals for the last year have been different. I am losing faith [love] that we will make things better. I thank you for your offer [family]. I will be in touch [no/false]._

Nathan would have raised a brow if that was possible mentally. He was pretty sure Abbas was lying to him about contacting him. _How are they monitoring you, so I know how to avoid it?_

_I have an implant for tracking and a cell phone for audio. The two are not to be separated [disciplinary] by more than a few feet. Interrupted signals cause alerts [error/false]. We have people with abilities [freaks] who are in our computers [freaks]. They manage our information system and security._

_Could I send you a letter?_

_Paper?_

_Yes._

_Um… yes. [security oversight/amused]_

_Okay. Thank you for sharing this with me._

_Do not betray me. [love/revenge/dread] …[family]_

_Of course not._


	80. Pretexts

Nathan pulled out his phone while waiting in London on layover. If it weren't important to have a paper trail, he'd have flown back himself. His head still hurt from being packed into an airplane full of people. The lady directly in front of him had been trying to manage a toddler and an infant. If one was not crying, the other was and most of the time it was both of them. They gave out a near constant mental barrage of irritation and agitation. It made him greatly appreciate his own son, whom Heidi had repeatedly remarked was especially well behaved for a baby. He couldn't wait to get back to him.

He called Peter, then Heidi and told them both basically the same information: he was safe, he was on his way home, and things had gone well.

XXX

After Maury arrived at the Petrelli house the next day, the four now present filed into the dining room. Angela took her usual seat at the end of the table. Gabriel lingered at the other end, hands on the back of the chair. Maury stopped and looked pointedly at Peter, who took a seat on one side of the table. Gabriel shook his head at Maury, who looked put out and went to sit on the opposite side. He gave Peter an unimpressed look. He waved at the young man, "Do we have to have him here?"

"I want him here," Gabriel said calmly.

"You don't always get what you want," Parkman pointed out.

"I've noticed. Are you kicking him out?"

Peter looked back and forth between them, trying to figure out what rights he had.

Maury looked at Angela, then back at Peter. He needed Angela's agreement to get rid of Peter and she wasn't giving it. He pursed his lips and gave a tight smile. "No."

"Good, then let's get on with it." Gabriel sounded bored. "The eclipse will be in the next month or two months. Halo has someone with an ability to create darkness. He can't create enough darkness to make an eclipse, or what we thought was an eclipse, without ability supercharging. Now they have that too, from Ando.

"Dad believes the eclipse will cause another round of adult ability manifestation. I think he's putting together resources right now to round up and contain, maybe harvest, people who are activated. Most specifically he's trying to create what Mohinder called 'recombinants', people who have multiple abilities and the ability to gain more of them. Apparently he can't create these with the formula.

"Mohinder has the completed formula with catalyst. He's injected it into at least thirty-six children. Twenty-three or maybe twenty-four have survived."

"He's experimenting on children?" Peter broke in.

"Wouldn't be a first time," Gabriel said dryly, looking down the table. Peter glanced uneasily at his mother, who gave them both a brittle smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Gabriel went on, "I believe Halo's leadership has been co-opted against their will. If we can break Dad away from them, they'll go back to their previous business and won't be this sort of problem anymore. Though… we're going to have to address the sort of problem they are, sooner or later. I just don't think we should complicate things for ourselves by doing anything about it right now."

Maury rubbed his forehead. "Explain that before you go on, please."

He did. "They want to bring down the US and equalize the world wealth distribution. Meaning bankrupt the advanced nations and, theoretically, pay off the less advanced ones, though what they'd do with the money, without the infrastructure to use it, is anyone's guess. I doubt it will get that far. I expect they'll bankrupt the world and try to put themselves on top, pocketing everything they can."

Gabriel shrugged, leaning on the back of the chair in front of him. "I don't have a lot of faith in human kindness. They're backing a lot of terrorist cells. I suspect there's groups in the US government onto them. It would explain a lot of the effort to neutralize Middle Eastern investments and holdings here. Like I said before though, this is a separate issue from Dad's plans."

Maury nodded. "Yeah, okay. The world's full of people with plans. I agree. Go on."

Gabriel nodded too. "I can get to Mohinder, but he…" He looked at Maury. "You said you could fix me."

Maury looked up at him blankly for a moment, then furrowed his brow. Gabriel had Peter and Angela's complete attention as well. "Y… Yes," Parkman said. "You want to be put back… like you were?"

"No. I'm happy this way. But Matt did something similar to Mohinder, or at least he said it was similar. If you could fix me, then you could fix **him**."

Maury shrugged. "It looked like it was possible on the surface. To be sure I'd need to take a good long look." He looked off at the ceiling.

Gabriel sighed. "At me, or at Mohinder?"

"If Mohinder's the one you want me to work on, then it would be better if it were him. If you don't have him laying around here somewhere, then I could get a pretty good idea of it by looking at you."

Gabriel drummed his fingers on the chair, looking steadily at Maury. Parkman kept looking off at remote parts of the room, face blank. Finally Gabriel said, "I want your word you won't change anything."

"I'm not going to mess you up," Parkman said.

"No, I want you to say, 'I'm not going to change anything.'"

"Here is me saying, 'I'm not going to… play your stupid games.'"

Gabriel frowned and looked down the table at Angela. She gave him a slight 'go ahead' signal. He pulled out his chair and sat down. He looked at Peter. His expression softened and became uncertain. "Peter…"

Maury saw the change in expression and tilted his head. Peter didn't seem to follow why Gabriel was looking at him that way. Parkman looked between the two of them and asked, "Why do you even need to ask him?"

Gabriel said quietly, "It's none of your business."

"Oh, I think it is. You have telepathy, he has telepathy and…" He laughed suddenly. "You two haven't…?" He grinned nastily. Peter glared at him solely for the expression and the laughter, not because he understood why Maury had either.

Gabriel scratched his brow and looked at the table. "That isn't any of your business, Parkman."

Angela huffed. "Maury, there are some things we don't discuss in this house. You're treading very close to one of them." To Gabriel and Peter, she said, "If you need some privacy to work out what you're going to do, you can use the study."

Peter shook his head. He'd finally put it together. "I think I understand." He looked at Gabriel. "You want me to go in with you and make sure he doesn't do anything he's not supposed to?"

Gabriel nodded, giving Peter a vulnerable look.

Peter asked, "Okay. I can do that. What's wrong though?" He directed the question solely to Gabriel, speaking in a low tone even though he could obviously be overheard.

"You'll _see_ me." Gabriel shook his head, looking over to Maury who was still giving them something of a leer. Gabriel's face hardened. "It's not a problem." Without looking at the younger man, he said, "Peter, you first." Gabriel focused on Maury's face and let down his defenses, negating the automatic feedback telepaths initially sensed with one another. After a long pause, Gabriel thought, _Are you there?_

Peter answered, _I'm here._

_You're quiet. Please make sure he doesn't give me any more sexual hang-ups. I'm really tired of his juvenile sense of humor._

_So am I. I've got your back._

"Maury? Your turn."

When Maury entered his mind, he had a sense of presence and control being imposed on him. He hadn't felt Peter at all, but he felt Parkman. There was a prickling through his mind and a moment later his perception of the dining room ended. He was back in the entry, standing next to a familiar-looking platform with neutralizing equipment hanging on a stand next to it. Heidi sat in a chair next to it, cradling a dead child and ignoring him. Peter was on the stairs, looking angry and revolted by him. There was blood on Peter's hands. Somehow in the dream reality of the nightmare, Gabriel knew it was Matt's blood.

Maury looked at Gabriel and said, "Note that Peter isn't here right now." He looked past Gabriel and saw the version of Peter on the stairs. "At least, not for real. I'm in control." He waited for the other man's response. Gabriel's eyes narrowed, but he didn't do anything else. After a beat, Peter popped into existence nearby, dressed as he had been at the table. Peter looked around uneasily. Maury said, "He's here because I'm letting him be here. Do you understand?"

Gabriel nodded.

Peter said, "What's going on?" He walked closer to Gabriel as Maury walked away.

The other man shrugged and answered sullenly, "He's just making sure I know who's in charge." He pulled himself up to sit on the platform table and frowned at the equipment.

Peter turned and jumped to see a duplicate of himself sitting on the stairs, holding his hands out in front of himself with his lip curled in disgust. Gabriel looked back and said, "That's nothing to worry about. Just subconscious images. My greatest fear of you, I guess. I don't know. I live in the past a lot. Probably unhealthy."

Maury was standing next to a screen, touching it and pulling up images of Matt Parkman immediately before Gabriel killed him. He said over his shoulder, "It's better than living in the future, trust me." He muttered something about Matt's failings.

Peter peered at the version of himself, confused. Gabriel wondered if he too had the automatic perception of whose blood was on his hands. He wasn't sure what Peter would make of it, though. To his relief, Peter didn't seem to obsess about it. He shook his head and looked around the room at Heidi and at the screens. All of them were blank, no longer appearing as mirrors. Peter knew that with the slightest thought, he could summon up parts of Gabriel's being on those screens and see whatever he wanted. The only one showing anything at the moment was the one Maury was tinkering with.

Peter touched the machine that could dispense a constant flow of neutralizing aerosol. "Your nightmare?" he asked.

Gabriel nodded. "Being made powerless by the people I…" He gestured at the home.

Peter put a hand on his shoulder and patted him reassuringly. He turned and walked over to watch what Maury was doing more closely. The other screens remained blank. Parkman looked over his shoulder briefly and the images he was looking at shifted. It became Sylar's point of view of Peter's bleeding, shocked face as he cut into his skull, trying to steal his ability as he had years ago. "Stop it," Peter said, knowing Parkman was trying to provoke him.

"You're in here with me just like he is, you know," Parkman said. It was clearly a threat. Maury was very aware that he was behind the first defenses of both men.

They heard Gabriel hop down from the platform. The entire house shook slightly. Maury called out, "And it's your head. Yes, I see that. I'm not going to touch your _boy_ here. Sit back down, Gabriel, or you'll make me slip." His voice was pleasant and cordial. After Maury dismissed the image, Gabriel pulled himself back up to sit on the table, tapping his index finger against his lip and glaring at the other man's back.

Peter turned back to watching, though he wasn't sure what he was looking for. He couldn't tell what Parkman was doing. Maury reeled the images back to the night at the carnival where Gabriel sat on a bucket and watched three strangers discussing his situation several feet back from Noah. It was a grainy image. He took it back a little further and could only barely recognize what was going on. In the image, Peter squatted in front of Gabriel and asked if he knew who he was. Maury sighed. The image came apart, disintegrating into pieces. "What are you doing?" Peter said, alarmed.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch," Maury muttered. He took his hand away. The image slowly reconstituted, becoming clearer in the process. "Hm. Regenerators." He accelerated forward to Nathan pacing on a warehouse rooftop in the rain. "No, wrong break." He jumped the images back in time.

Gabriel called out, "You could be a little more gentle, you know? I'm not a DVD player." He was rubbing his temple.

"You'll heal." Maury sounded preoccupied, like something else was absorbing most of his attention. "Here we are." They were in Samson Grey's house and Gabriel was closing on Paul Washington's bleeding, still warm body. "Yes, that's the one." He reached into the image and manipulated something about it. Peter's brows drew together. He could see Maury was doing something, but frustratingly he didn't know what it was.

"No! NO!" Gabriel said, jumping down and coming across towards them, clearly panicking.

The screen blanked. Maury muttered, "Think I got it before he freaked out."

The entire reality wobbled and suddenly they were in the scene from the screen. "No!" Gabriel seemed confused and disoriented, trying to fight with the memory version of himself, trying to stop himself. He had lost track of reality, tenuous as it was inside someone's mind.

Maury looked around, assessing things. "Yeah, got it." He was not alarmed by the change in scenery.

Peter put a hand on Maury's shoulder. "Stop this, or I will." To his surprise, Parkman nodded agreeably enough at him. His perception shifted again and they were sitting at the dining room table. Gabriel was panting and staring at the table, hands shaking and experiencing small jerks. Maury looked calm. After Parkman glanced at Gabriel, he looked to Angela and gave her a small nod. Peter started to stand, glancing between Maury and Gabriel. He sank back down. Nothing seemed to be happening. Gabriel was slowly calming himself, re-establishing control.

Maury told Peter, "He's fine. I saw what I needed to see. Looks possible, just time consuming. I can't vouch for how Mohinder will react to whatever he's done since then, if he really has been experimenting on kiddies. A reaction like what you just saw, Peter, is the least of your worries."

Peter looked between Gabriel and Maury. "What did I just see?"

"Something his conscious mind can't deal with. It's a break. When a person does things that fundamentally abridge their sense of self, they either have to redefine themselves to be someone who would do those things, or they make a new separate self like a multiple personality, or they have a break in their mind they can't deal with and it makes them crazy. Gabriel's settled for crazy, but he copes with it pretty well." The man in question glared up at him. Maury ignored him. "I have no idea how Mohinder will deal with it. He struck me as somewhat brittle when I met him, but you never know."

"I'm not crazy," Gabriel said sullenly.

"Trust me. I know crazy." Maury commented. "You're not even sure who your parents are, you know. Who this guy is." He waved at Peter. "Basic identification issues. I suppose we should be pleased you've at least worked out who **you** are," he finished sarcastically.

Peter huffed. "He seemed fine to me."

"You weren't looking. Hardly looked at anything, other than what I had my fingers in."

"Some things should remain private," Peter said.

Angela cut in, "Maury, is there anything we're likely to gain from this discussion of Gabriel's mental state?"

Maury looked at Gabriel steadily for a moment and then at Angela. He smiled slowly. She smiled back at him almost sweetly. "I thought not," she said. "Please stop trying to convince Gabriel he's unstable. It's cruel. He's perfectly sane, as you and I have discussed."

Maury snorted and turned back to Gabriel. "Before this little detour into the amusement park, you were saying something about wanting me to fix Mohinder. Personally, I was hoping he'd bleed out and die, back when I had him shot to pieces for taking up a minute of my time. Why should I care about his life now?"

Gabriel was gazing at the table, replaying the last few minutes. Instead of answering Maury's question, he had one of his own. "What were you doing in my head? You hardly looked at what Matt did. You were looking at things **after** what he did." He looked up at him piercingly.

Maury frowned at him. "I was making sure one of our directors isn't going off the deep end."

Gabriel exhaled. "You're lying." Peter looked at him sharply. It had registered as the truth for him.

"Are you sure?" Parkman said.

Gabriel shook his head. "That can't be the truth."

Parkman shrugged dismissively. "Well, there are plenty of ways to get around that ability of yours. Keep thinking about it, minor leagues."

Gabriel stood suddenly and stalked towards Maury. Peter felt his abilities damp down and become inaccessible. Maury said quietly, as if to himself, "Oh no."

"Gabriel! No! Do not do this," Angela said as she stood and hurried to the two men.

Gabriel tilted his head and snarled at Maury, who winced and jerked away from him as if he'd been struck solidly. Angela slapped Gabriel across the face as soon as she got to him. He reeled back out of proportion with the blow, grimacing at the sudden sensation and its interference with his telepathy. Maury calmly pulled out a handkerchief and wiped blood from his nose, then one of his eyes.

Gabriel brought a hand up towards Angela as if for telekinesis. Peter shot to his feet. Gabriel hesitated, looking at the woman, having difficulty in bringing himself to touch her, even just to get her out of his way. He glanced over at Peter with an uncertain expression, then back to Angela.

She took the moment to speak to him. "I told him to do it, Gabriel. **I** told him to do it. He's supposed to find what's wrong with you and **fix** it - all of the leftover issues from his son are his responsibility to take care of and get rid of."

After a long pause, Gabriel said sulkily, "Why now?"

Maury answered, "Because you're terrified of mental control. I can only do it when let your defenses down yourself. Otherwise you'll resist me so much you'll do more damage than I'll repair. Wouldn't help to fix your breaks over killing people only to give you new ones about having mind control used on you. You've nearly got one now as it is."

Angela glared at Maury now. "And by telling him that, do you really think you'll be able to finish the task?"

"He attacked me. All agreements are off."

"You deliberately provoked him!" Angela virtually hissed at Maury.

Maury sighed at her and then looked away. "Yes, I did, but that doesn't matter. He drew first blood, literally." He waved the hankie. "Thank you for pulling him off me before he got very far, Angel."

She took a deep breath and turned a very false smile on Gabriel. "Please Gabriel, take a seat."

"No. I want a few answers." He looked past Angela at Maury. He wasn't done yet. She reached out and put a hand on Gabriel's chest. He looked down at that with a troubled expression.

"Mom?" Peter said uncertainly. He started walking around the table. His powers were still off. The only one in the room with abilities at the moment was Gabriel. Peter had the sense he might be able to cancel Gabriel's powers in turn, but he was afraid of doing anything that might ignite an already volatile situation. Plenty of harm could be done to a person without abilities and his mother was right next to Gabriel, touching him.

Angela said, "What do you want to know?"

Gabriel shifted his eyes from Maury to her. He asked fairly calmly, "What's going on between you and him in regard to me?"

"Go sit down like a normal person and I will tell you," she answered cagily.

He looked down at her hand, still resting on his chest, and walked over to his seat. Angela took her own after shooting Peter a look and jerking her head at his chair. Peter moved back and sat down as well. Maury sniffed and wiped at his nose again before folding the handkerchief carefully and putting it away.

She began, "Maury said you were unstable when he saw you in June. It seemed to me at that point in time you were getting better, so we left it alone. When you and I discussed your precognition in October it was clear to me that you were losing… cohesion, stability, something. The dreams were too much for you. Maury looked at you a week later to block your nightmares." She gave Maury a long look. "He said he had addressed the main issues. You seemed to be improving again, so we let it be for the time with the idea that if later opportunities presented themselves, he would do what he could."

"He didn't do anything to block the dreams." Gabriel looked at Maury. "What **did** you do in November?"

Angela's eyes turned to Parkman as well. She seemed surprised.

"The dreams didn't have anything to do with it. They're just a symptom, a result of where he was going at that point." Maury said, as if to himself. He ignored both of them and looked across the table at Peter. His voice was hard now, clipped. "I didn't show you the worst thing I could have, you know. That was another break. A worse one. That's what I took care of in November." After a few seconds, Peter's eyes widened and he lifted his chin.

Peter looked down at the table at Gabriel before the other man could question him. "I know what he's talking about. I'll tell you later, or if you need to know right now drop the nullification and I'll show you." To Parkman, he said, "Thank you." He looked at his mother with steady eyes. She raised a brow. He looked away first, shaking his head slightly. She let it be.

Peter felt the subtle power of regeneration back in action within himself. He glanced at Gabriel who said, "Later." The younger man nodded to him.


	81. Mind Games

**A/N: This one's for dragonwitch250, who said Gabriel's vulnerability made him seem more human. It led me to elaborate on a scene I might have otherwise kept short. **

After a long, tense silence around the table, Gabriel raised his head and said to Maury, "You want to know why we should fix Mohinder? At the minimum, it will disrupt Arthur's plans. At maximum it will give us the opening we need." It would also stop him from experimenting on children, but Gabriel didn't think that would have much weight with Parkman.

Maury asked, "An opening for what?"

Peter interrupted, "To take him down."

"You seem very confident of that," the older man said.

Peter nodded. "Anyone can be taken down. That's how things are."

Maury said, "You're always so confident of everything. You know, that's not really a good thing, Petey." He pointed at Peter, who responded by looking at Parkman with narrowed eyes.

Gabriel smiled thinly. "We're still working out the details."

Maury laughed. "Well, let me know when you figure those out. Until then, I think I'll mark down on my calendar when the eclipse is going to happen. Do you happen to know when that is?" He made a mocking motion to take a note.

Gabriel shook his head. "I assume it will be in connection with the moon phase for a natural eclipse, since the previous ones have followed that pattern. If he could do it at any time, then I think he would have done it yesterday or this morning. I don't know if the moon phase is necessary, so we can't be sure. What makes natural eclipses happen?"

Peter stopped staring angrily at Parkman and turned to Gabriel. He spoke up. "New moons. Next one's in a couple weeks, on the third or fourth of March." At Gabriel's look, Peter shrugged. "Seemed like something that needed to be researched."

"Then we have a date," Gabriel said. The meeting broke up after that.

On the way outside, Gabriel lingered inside the door. Peter looked at him and said, "You coming?"

"Yeah, but I have to talk to Parkman first."

Peter nodded and stood by. Gabriel shook his head at him. "No, Pete. Go on. This is private." Peter's brows rose. "Please," Gabriel added.

Peter said, "Okay. Are you coming by my place or should I go to yours?"

"Yours, please."

"See you there, then." With a last concerned look at him, Peter walked out.

Several minutes later, Maury Parkman said his good-byes to Angela in the other room and walked into the entry. He saw Gabriel waiting and immediately walked more slowly, cocking his head slightly at the man. Gabriel felt a brush of the other man's mind, not quite enough to provoke feedback but enough to discern his defenses. Under other circumstances it might be an invitation to speak mentally. Gabriel continued to block him out.

Maury said slowly, "I know you're not the most observant and you've only been with us for a year, but there are a few rules about this house. One of them is we don't fight here."

Gabriel nodded slightly. "That's why I'm waiting to talk to you here, instead of outside. I want to **talk**."

"Okay. Talk."

"You said all agreements were off." Gabriel looked uneasily around the entry. "You said… before… that if I attacked you, you'd hurt Molly."

Maury said nothing, but a hint of a smile touched his lips.

Gabriel looked at Maury's shoes. "Please don't. That wasn't why I… she didn't have anything to do with it."

"Yeah. You still made me defenseless, helpless, and then hit me with everything you had. That can kill people and you knew it. Far as you knew when you did it, it might have killed me." Parkman wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand as if still having a phantom sensation of blood there.

Gabriel eyed him, considering his options. Killing Maury right then, by other means, was one of them, house rules or no. Noah Bennet's words about civilized behavior nagged at him. Angela would never forgive him for killing someone in her house – not unless he could construe it as self-defense, and even then... He had to figure out some other way to protect Molly.

Maury said, "Beg."

"What?"

"Beg me. I'm strong enough to force her to use her power whenever I want to. I don't need her sanity. It's a liability. If she's sane, then anyone can use her. Not to mention the trouble she is at times. If she's crazy, then only I can make her useful and that makes me valuable. Beg me on your knees to leave her untouched."

"Maury…" Gabriel had difficulty believing anyone would seriously demand that. He wished Angela hadn't clearly gone off to other portions of the house, believing everyone had left. She wouldn't require him to give up his dignity. It was ludicrous that Maury would.

Parkman shrugged and started for the door. He said, "It's not like I'm stupid enough to threaten you with something I won't carry through on."

As he neared Gabriel, the man gave it up and dropped to his knees. Sighing, he looked up at Maury and begged on the girl's behalf. They were just words, just a posture, but it sure as hell stung his pride. "Please, Maury, I'm begging you then. Leave Molly alone. Don't hurt her because of this. Don't hurt her at all, please."

Maury looked down at him and smiled. "I need a little more ego stroking than that. You need to distract me from this migraine you gave me."

"You're very powerful-"

Maury interrupted him, "Can the flattery. That's not my thing. Let's get back to how sorry you feel for what you did to me." He smiled warmly at the other man, clearly enjoying their relative positions as he looked down at him.

Gabriel found his teeth set together almost involuntarily. He didn't feel sorry in the least. He wished he **had** killed the man. It was still a possibility, part of his mind whispered. "I'd… feel horrible if you hurt her. I don't know if I'd ever be able to forgive myself if… my lapse in self-control led you to do something to her, something like what was done to me or Mohinder. She's young. She's innocent. She wasn't any part of this. I promised your son I'd do everything I could to keep her safe. I'm begging you to help me fulfill your son's dying request."

Maury's expression darkened and his brows pulled together at the end of Gabriel's comments. "What did he say to you?" He tilted his head and with every bit of his ability, every power at his disposal, Parkman tore Gabriel's mind open and ripped out the information he wanted. Filching was easier and faster than implanting commands or doing anything that required the victim to understand and process.

Gabriel tried to resist him mentally, but he'd been too busy seething and wallowing in his emotional response to the situation to keep his guard up as much as he should. It was part of why Maury provoked people constantly - it gave him openings. Gabriel couldn't even see afterwards for a moment. He was stunned. Now they both had migraines. When he regained his senses, Gabriel surged up off the floor. Maury had struck first this time. Parkman said quickly, "We're even!" He made a decisive, angry gesture of finality between them.

Gabriel rocked forward and then back on his feet, barely finding the self control to consider that before squashing Maury like a bug. They didn't need an extra telepath. With Peter having his full ability, they had two now anyway. Certainly though, Maury could do things with his power Gabriel was only guessing at. He couldn't do whatever it was Maury had just done to him, for example. Few abilities improved as much with practice and training as telepathy. No matter Gabriel's many abilities or even layered telepathy, Maury had nearly forty year's experience on him, using this power alone that entire time.

While he thought about that, Maury said quietly, "I'll do what Matt wanted." Gabriel relaxed. Shaking his head slightly, he turned and left before he could change his mind.

XXX

He was only slightly calmed down when he showed up at Peter's apartment. "Hi," he said simply as he was let in. He walked through to the couch and sat down, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Peter smiled slightly, noting that Gabriel was acting like Nathan, sitting forward and straight instead of slouching, using his gestures - he was even walking like him. Gabriel put his elbows on his knees and looked up at Peter, who smiled more broadly as the similarity in body language deepened.

"What?"

Peter shook his head, not sure whether to be sad or joyful at Gabriel's unconscious mimicry of his brother. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure, love some. Still jet-lagged. You'd think if I only needed four or five hours of sleep a night I'd be fine."

Peter came out a minute later with a couple freshly poured cups. "I thought you said you only slept two or three hours a night."

"Uh… not… not recently," he said as he took a cup. "Thanks. It's back to how it used to be. Must be all the stress."

The last part was a lie. Peter ignored it and sat on the other end of the couch.

Gabriel sipped at the too-hot drink. "They have some really good coffee over there. I bought some for you when Abbas took me to a marketplace. It's at the house. Got some for us too, of course - Heidi and I." He rubbed at his head like it hurt him. After a long pause, he looked over at Peter and said, "What happened in November?"

Peter said, "I'm pretty sure I know, but before we go into that, I want to talk about what he did today. Can you talk about that?"

"About what? Exactly?"

"The scene in the nightmare. The last one. Where was that?"

"Samson Grey's house." Gabriel put his hands together around his cup and looked into the dark liquid, finding himself unaccountably able to discuss it. "I… after I got out of Omaha, I went there to get his power. There was a… a hospice nurse there. His name was Paul Washington. That's who you saw."

Peter nodded and listened.

"I tied him up at first. I… I'd like to think I wasn't going to do anything else to him but I really hadn't thought about it. I didn't want him interfering. I killed Samson… Sylar's usual method. Then Dad's Hunger took me and I killed Paul too." _He reminded me of you. _"I got his memories. It was like a part of him, I guess. Like that healing power, where you take someone's energy? Well, Samson's power takes something else. Comes with memories, but not a personality. Not really, anyway. Sylar's power I just got their abilities and sometimes an understanding of what they were about. Not always though."

Gabriel looked at his coffee, swirling it gently. He took a small drink. He didn't feel upset. He was a little confused as to why he'd never been able to share this. It's not like it hadn't come up from time to time.

"Can you tell me about Claire?"

"No." Gabriel's voice was firm. His head came up and his posture became tense, guarded. He set his cup down on the arm of the couch.

"Didn't you do the same thing to her?"

"No! Not… no." Gabriel rose and paced, looking frightened. "I can't talk about that, Peter."

"Fine. Sit down." Peter sounded disinterested. It snapped Gabriel's head around and his eyes to him. "Sit," Peter repeated. "I'm not going to ask anything else about it."

Gabriel moved back to the couch and stood next to it. His lips twitched slightly. It couldn't be a coincidence that Parkman had changed him and now he was able to think, talk about and accept what he did to Paul. He said, "Maury. What did he do to me?"

Peter leaned back and shrugged. "Honestly, Gabriel, I wasn't much help. I don't know what he was doing. He said something about how he'd 'got it' or taken care of it. I think what Mom said was right. He's trying to fix some of your issues."

"He's sick." Gabriel tried to work out how this was an advantage to Maury, what sort of kick he'd get out of it. He sat down.

Peter nodded. "Yeah, probably. Aren't we all though?"

Gabriel gave Peter a concerned, confused look. Peter amended, "To different degrees, maybe."

"Moral ambiguity isn't your strong suit, Peter." Gabriel said.

"It's not ambiguous. No one is completely sane or completely healthy. It's the human condition."

Gabriel eyed him for a while, then asked, "November?"

Peter sighed. "November. What comes before November?"

"October."

"Right. And a couple weeks into October, what were we doing?" Gabriel blinked at him and didn't answer. Peter went on, "We had sex for the second time. You forced me. You almost killed me. You ran out afterwards and wouldn't talk to me. End of October, Mom says you're losing your mind. Start of November rolls around, you see Maury, I get an invitation to Thanksgiving with you. After that, we start getting back together.

"You're safer, more controlled, more careful. You listen to me and what I want. No issues with the Hunger. It never comes up again, though I've caught you looking a few times." He searched Gabriel's face. "I know a lot of that's probably **you** and **us** working around it, not something Maury did, but after seeing what he did tonight, I'm sure he had a hand in it."

Gabriel pulled away from him, shaking his head. The idea of receiving aid from a man who'd asked him just tonight to beg for a little girl's life was incomprehensible.

Peter spoke, saying, "When the Hunger took Gabriel Grey, he constructed a whole new personality called Sylar. When the Hunger took **you**, you had a break from reality and couldn't cope with it. You have panic attacks when it's mentioned, when you think someone's going to make you admit you did it. You almost left Heidi over it! The only time you haven't is when you killed Matt. I guess that's because you were induced."

Gabriel said quietly, softly, "No. Matt forgave me. And there's no telling what he did to me either. Something was changed. My memories aren't right. I haven't been able to work it out yet."

Peter considered that and said, "Claire forgives you. I've talked to her. She doesn't hold it against you."

Gabriel shook his head. "I hold it against myself. What I did… Maury's right. I'm not… I can't see myself as a person who did that. I just can't. What's weird is I don't feel the same way about Paul any… any…" He started shaking and hung his head, bringing his hands up on either side, fingers to his temples.

Peter leaned forward and looked at him intently, trying to see his face. To his surprise, Gabriel was crying. Peter scooted down the couch and put an arm around him. "Hey, hey…" he said to him gently.

Gabriel shook his head and his body tensed. He took several deep breaths, obviously trying to calm himself, trying to cut himself off from his feelings.

Peter shook him, distracting him and pulled his nearer arm down. He took Gabriel's chin and turned his face to his own. "Gabriel! Let it out. Don't be this way. You have to let it out. Cry, be mad, be sad, have emotions."

"Noah… I can't… control…"

"Noah's not here. He could learn some lessons about emotions too. You don't need to control yourself all the time, but you **do** need to be human." He pulled Gabriel to himself. After a few seconds, Gabriel began to cry in earnest, wrapping his hands into the cloth of Peter's shirt, head down against his chest.

Gabriel couldn't think clearly. His thoughts were a jumble, a projected jumble. He'd killed Paul partly because he reminded him of Peter and he was so angry at Peter for locking him up, turning away from him, rejecting what small, but for him very real, attempts he had been making at the time to be nice and not be Sylar. He'd wanted to hate Peter, but he had memories and feelings of loving him and these seemed so much a very real part of him, as real as the hate.

He was ashamed of himself, of his desires, his drives, his ambitions and his kinks. He didn't want to be bisexual, he didn't want to hurt people and get off drunkenly on his power over them - but he was and he did. He didn't want to be unloved. He flashed to Angela telling him she'd defend him like a son and the love he thought she must have for him, only to be crushed the very next day with seeing how she still thought of him as a monster. Then she'd wiped his face so tenderly he wasn't sure what to think, how to feel or what it all meant.

He was so frightened of how Peter might see him. He didn't want to lose him, but it gave him such a rush to have someone as strong as Peter quail before him, when he did manage to frighten the other man. He remembered Peter breaking out in a panicked sweat from Gabriel touching him during the massage and how low, how base and horrid he'd felt because of it - partly because it turned him on, wrong as he knew that was. The reality of hurting him, of seriously hurting him, had pierced him to the core. He'd wrapped himself in Paul's affectations afterwards and hid, because neither Gabriel nor Nathan could handle it.

Now he was being told Maury's hand played a role in that, maybe showing him ways to compartmentalize, to hide, to deal or to cope? He was frightened, terrified, of not knowing who he was, of having his identity stripped and molded and reformed. Every time the mental control touched him, he wanted to scream. To have someone with the moral scruples of Maury Parkman doing it to him was too much to take. And yet he had to take it, to allow it, repeatedly. It was a fact of his existence now - a mental rape he had to put up with.

It was worse than the Hunger. The Hunger made him do one distinct thing and once he learned that thing, he understood it, he could predict it. Mind control could make him do anything, ranging from the perverse to the profound. He couldn't identify it afterwards. He just had to go on with his life and hope he could work it out, like anyone else, like the agents they'd programmed, like anyone he turned his own mental powers on. He had no special defenses against mental abuse like he had the regeneration for physical. He could fix elements of damage, but anything changed stayed changed.

He shivered and gasped, having cried so hard he could barely breathe. Peter stroked his back gently and stared at the far wall, eyes unfocused, his own tears leaking out silently. Clearly Gabriel didn't realize that when he finally let go his defenses, he'd let down everything, including his mental restraints. Peter kept his mind silent and still. Gabriel hadn't been sure he was there earlier until he spoke. Perhaps he wouldn't notice now.

Peter kept touching him, comforting him and being there for him. He wasn't seeing anything that diminished his feelings for the other man - nothing he didn't already know. What he saw explained a lot. He kissed the top of the Gabriel's head. Gabriel felt so awful about himself - no wonder he wanted so desperately to please others, no wonder he had reacted so violently as Sylar when he couldn't. The deep-seated insecurity made him passive and aggressive at turns, too easy to manipulate when he wasn't sure he had anyone to go to, when there was no rock in his life he could cling to, as he clung to Peter now.

Gabriel began to hyperventilate, not seeming able to get enough air. Peter brought his face up and told him, "Breathe slowly. Slow down. Now you need to use some of that focus Mom taught you. Breathe. Watch me. Breathe." He breathed slowly with him until they were breathing together at the same rate. Gabriel shut his eyes and lost himself in hearing their respective songs harmonize, their breathing and heartbeats matching. He relaxed himself to synchronize with Peter's other sounds - muscle tension and all of the physical manifestations of his mood.

Peter blinked at the unappreciated beauty of that music. It became a single melody as Gabriel intentionally matched himself to Peter. The younger man felt a great regret as the mental projection faded and he couldn't hear it anymore. Gabriel's emotions were calming and his defenses were coming back up. Peter leaned in and kissed Gabriel softly on the lips. They were wet and salty. He pulled back and ran his hand through Gabriel's hair. "Do you feel better?" Peter asked.

Gabriel nodded and hugged Peter. "I'm a mess," he said, voice catching spasmodically.

Peter hugged him back. "No you're not. You **used** to be a mess. Now you're fine. I love you. I want you to know that. I love you - no matter what."

"Thank you." He sounded very grateful for it. Peter knew with great certainty that he was.

When his emotions seemed to have finally wound down and Gabriel leaned away from Peter on his own, Peter stood up and tugged on the other man's shoulder. "Come on. Shower. You need to clean up."

"I can just shift." He looked down at his messy clothes and did so.

Peter shook his head and pulled harder on him. Gabriel stood. Peter said, "No. You need to get in the shower and have some water run over you. Feel something. Clean yourself. Do something good for yourself. Be a human being."

"Not a monster," Gabriel said softly.

"You're not a monster," Peter said firmly and walked him into the bathroom. He turned the water over to hot so it would warm up while Gabriel undressed. Peter took his own shirt off, as it was damp over most of the front. Before Gabriel slipped past him to get in the shower, he checked him and kissed the other man on the lips, gentle and chaste. "I love you. I'm here for you." He smiled crookedly at Gabriel as he stepped into the tub.

Peter put the toilet lid down and sat on it, thinking about what he'd seen. There were a lot of things going in Gabriel's mind he didn't know what to do about, or if he should do anything at all about them. He rubbed his face and leaned back, watching the other man's silhouette against the shower curtain for a while.

He shut his eyes and thought about what he could do about his father. He had some ideas he'd been mulling over for a week, mostly variations on how he'd taken down Sylar and how they'd taken down Arthur to begin with. Gabriel matching himself to him so perfectly had given him a new idea. It had a certain poetic justice to it. His only concern was with getting Gabriel to go along with it.


	82. Pillow Talk

When Gabriel got out of the shower, his skin was red and steaming from the hot water, which he had apparently never turned back down. Peter chuckled at that. "You really like those temperature extremes, don't you?"

The other man shrugged and snagged a towel. Gabriel hardly felt temperature extremes since he'd tried to tinker with his brain on the island. He'd been hoping to make himself like Claire, oblivious to pain, so he could more easily commit suicide. It hadn't worked, but his ability to sense heat and cold had been damaged. He was too reluctant to risk messing himself up any worse to try to fix it.

Scalding coffee, freezing water - it was all the same to him until his body stopped responding efficiently. That was when he tended to notice there was a problem. If he were paying attention, he could sense the difference earlier, but he rarely bothered unless he was focused on a caress or warming up a bottle of stored breast milk or something else where it might matter.

He ran the towel over himself in a cursory manner, then wrapped it around his waist. He stepped over to Peter and fluttered his fingers on Peter's arm, urging him to stand. He did and they embraced again. Peter could feel the heat radiating from the other man's body. Gabriel kissed him lightly, repeating Peter's chaste kiss from before he entered the shower. As he pulled back though, he sucked at Peter's lower lip. Peter let his hands drift down to Gabriel's waist and encircled him slowly.

Gabriel rested his forehead on Peter's shoulder. "I missed you… while I was in Riyadh. I touched other men and I thought of you." Peter shifted a bit. Gabriel smiled and kept his head down where Peter couldn't see his face. _Is he jealous? I hope so._ "I didn't do anything with them. It was just an act. But I thought of you, thought of how I'd rather be touching you. With you it's not an act. It's never an act." He ran his hands up Peter's bare back.

Peter leaned into him, considering what the other man was trying to do. He started to make a joke about Gabriel being free to cheat on him all he wanted, but he stopped before saying it. The other man had been far more faithful to Heidi than Nathan had ever been. He'd been conflicted and apparently worried about seeing Peter while married to her. Sexual fidelity was not a trait Nathan had ever had, at all, but Gabriel was not Nathan. _He expects me to be upset that he touched someone else._

Peter drew back from him a little to look into his face, cocking his head. "Do you… want to be together forever?"

Gabriel blinked at him, startled. "Ah… do you mean… like… marriage?" He looked around uncertainly. "Or partnership, whatever they're calling it now?"

Peter shook his head, bringing his hands up within the circle of Gabriel's arms to put them on the man's chest, palms down. "No, that's not what I mean." Peter looked at the other man's chest, trying to pull together a largely formless thought. "Nathan and I… it was sort of on again, off again, just whenever other things weren't working out for us." He felt tension sweep through Gabriel's body. Peter looked up at that and saw Gabriel's eyes watering, obviously thinking Peter was about to reject him. His emotions were still close to the surface after earlier. Quickly, the younger man added, "What I mean is, do you want more than that? I'll give you more than that, Gabriel."

For a moment Peter didn't know if what he'd said had registered with the other man. He was frozen in place for several seconds, before his hands twitched behind Peter's back. He leaned down and kissed Peter passionately, pulling him off balance and against himself as he leaned forward over him. Peter resisted the position for a second, then relaxed into it and let Gabriel hold him. He slid one hand up behind the other man's neck to hang on just in case. Gabriel broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against Peter's. "I want everything you'll give me, Peter." His voice sounded almost guttural, it was so deep with emotion.

Peter looked into his eyes with a slightly guarded look and turned his head to kiss him lightly on the cheek, then the side of the mouth, then on the lips. "You've got me," he murmured to him. Gabriel squeezed him so hard it almost hurt. Peter was thankful the other man didn't have enhanced strength. He rocked him back and forth in his arms and half-drug, half-carried Peter to the bed. He pushed him onto it and started working at getting Peter's pants off.

Peter considered giving his usual warning for Gabriel to be careful and not to be rough, but he said nothing. Gabriel didn't need to be reminded. His single-minded determination at the moment was something of a turn-on, anyway. He peeled the pants away with more care than Peter had expected and tossed them aside. He moved up between Peter's legs and pushed them apart. He crawled over Peter's body to his face, staring at his lips, rubbing his body lightly against his while he held his weight on his arms. Peter smiled and said, "I love you."

Gabriel shook his head slightly in amazement. "I know! That's crazy, but you do." He kissed Peter's mouth hard, pushing him into the pillow, moving his mouth as if he wanted to swallow him. He ran his tongue inside Peter and moaned against him, pressing his body into the other man's in rhythmic pushes. Peter spread his legs a little further and curled his feet behind Gabriel's knees. Gabriel made another sound - this time more like a growl.

He backed off, leaning back on his knees and called the lubricant to himself with one hand, pushing one of Peter's legs to the side with the other. He applied it to his member and to Peter's opening, then began to position himself, trying to figure out how the position was going to work.

"Stop." Peter said clearly. Gabriel stopped instantly and looked at him. Peter went on, "I'm not a woman. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't loosen me first. I'm not ready."

"Hrm." Gabriel backed off and began using his fingers.

Peter added, "One. Use one to start with," when he felt Gabriel wasn't using the right technique.

Gabriel slowed down abruptly, touching him more gently. He ran his finger around the edge, ringing him before trying to insert anything. He worked against the edge until Peter began to relax, then slipped in one finger. Peter, who had his eyes shut, shivered a little and moved against him.

He watched his partner and paid more careful attention until Peter was relaxing around him, then inserted a second. He hooked them slightly and made circular motions. Peter's breathing deepened and he moved in response. Gabriel reached up his other hand to lightly stroke over Peter's organ, which was rewarded by more pleasured mewling sounds. He smiled.

When Peter was entirely loose, Gabriel leaned back on his knees and recalled what Peter had told him on the couch during one of his previous visits. This just wasn't going to work unless he was at the edge of the bed or he tipped Peter's legs up a lot. He huffed and slid off. Peter turned with a smile that was almost a smirk. He'd been wondering when Gabriel would figure out the mechanics of the position. To his surprise though, rather than trying to enter Peter right away, Gabriel went back to loosening and pleasuring him. When he was absolutely ready, then he finally stepped closer to Peter's body.

He pressed in the tip only and pulled back as Peter's breathing sped up a little. He stroked Peter's shaft lightly with one hand, caressing it with his fingertips, smearing it with lubricant and sliding his fingers across it. His other guided himself and he pressed in again, only to withdraw. Peter raised his head and looked at him, shifting his body in unfulfilled desire. He hadn't expected to be teased, but he was again and then a fourth time. The fifth, Gabriel thrust in a little further, made two short, very slow motions and withdrew again. Peter tensed and put his head back.

"Just fuck me, would you?" Peter said. "You're going to kill me with anticipation."

"You want me?" Gabriel teased.

"Yes!"

Gabriel grinned and pressed into him very slowly, going in half his length and pulling out equally slowly, all the way. He kept up the lightest pressure on Peter's shaft.

"Oh, God," Peter groaned. He moved his legs up and down against the back of Gabriel's thighs, almost like he was trying to spur on a horse to go faster.

Gabriel pressed into him again, but this time Peter locked his legs behind him and wouldn't easily let him pull out. "Come on," Peter said. "You've got to want to."

"Oh, I want to. I want to make you ask for it, too."

Peter panted. "Please do. Please fuck me. You want me to beg?" He grinned at Gabriel, then stopped when he saw his lover's suddenly fallen face. "What?"

Gabriel shook his head and began to thrust into him steadily and surely, playtime over. "Nothing. I love you. Don't beg." He took Peter's shaft more firmly and stroked him in time with his motions. "Maybe you can beg some other time." He smiled a little falsely. Peter leaned back and enjoyed the feeling, trying not to worry about how he'd obviously said the wrong thing.

It didn't take long for the physical sensations to take over. Peter's body was still on edge, fully aroused from the teasing and slow pleasuring. He felt his fullness approaching and put his head back, groaning. He reached out and took his shaft, slipping his hand over Gabriel's and pumping faster. Gabriel started thrusting faster to keep up and it immediately put the younger man over. He came onto himself, panting.

Gabriel kept up the pace for a little longer, then tilted Peter's hips and thrust into his prostate. Since he'd just come, it almost hurt. Peter's body clenched. He opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. Gabriel shifted position and made several more thrusts, then tilted Peter's hips again and did the same thing. This time his whole body twitched and he set his teeth together. He looked up at Gabriel, who seemed very lost in what he was doing. After another four or five thrusts, he cocked Peter's hips again and this time Peter jerked to the side before he could poke him again.

Gabriel hesitated and looked at Peter. "Don't do that," Peter said. "Not afterwards." The other man nodded and started thrusting harder into his companion, but at a decidedly different angle. Peter relaxed. He was loose enough that Gabriel could move into him easily and he did so, pumping into him faster, using his hands on Peter's hips to pull the other man against him. After a little while of working at him, he sped up, then lost his rhythm and came within his partner.

Panting, he disengaged and leaned over Peter, kissing him on the chest and then the lips. Peter took Gabriel's head in his hands and kept him there for a longer, more passionate embrace that saw the other man lean into him, pressing against him. He wrapped his arms under Peter and rolled with him more fully onto the bed. They continued kissing, then lay apart, cooling off.

Afterwards, they lay together on the bed, resting. Gabriel had turned to lay on his side, head up on one elbow as he studied Peter's face and compulsively fussed with his hair. He ran his index finger over Peter's eyebrows, smoothing them. He explored his face with his touch. Peter smiled slightly at him. It broadened as Gabriel rubbed his fingers across Peter's lips. Peter resisted the urge to nip at the fingers playfully and just let the other man fondle him. He watched Gabriel's eyes studying him, looking at every detail of his face.

"You are **so** into me," Peter said.

"Mm. What do you mean?" Gabriel followed the line of Peter's jaw, caressing his chin between thumb and forefinger, then journeying up the other side to his ear. Peter's eyes tightened a little but he didn't pull away. He didn't like having his ears messed with. Gabriel saw his reaction and moved his hand on past, running his fingers through Peter's hair. Peter relaxed again at that. He'd noticed Gabriel had improved a lot in watching for his cues, learning what he liked and didn't like. He still definitely had his moments though.

"I mean you can't keep your hands off me."

Gabriel hesitated and blinked at him. Peter said quickly, "It's okay, I like it. I _**really**_ like it." Gabriel nodded and went back to finding new strands of Peter's hair he hadn't touched lately. "I really like it," Peter said again, turning his head to aid his lover's endeavor. "I've never been with anyone who's **this** into me."

Gabriel pulled his brows together and looked disbelieving. Nathan's memories were informative. "You've been with all kinds of people."

Peter nodded. "Yeah. But… not quite like this. They wanted to be with me, maybe even it would have worked out if we'd had longer, but you're the first who I think has loved me this much. Really loved me. Not just… how I looked or how I treated them, or how I made them feel or what I'd done for them." It was a little frightening, how deeply he suspected Gabriel felt for him.

"I love how you make me feel," Gabriel interjected, rolling his hand behind Peter's head and cradling it briefly. His eyes moved to Peter's neck. His hand followed, touching the skin lightly, stroking each part. He looked fascinated by every inch of it. Peter put his head back and let himself be examined. It was arousing, but he was still spent enough from earlier that it wasn't an issue yet. Gabriel added, "And I love how you feel."

"I like feeling loved." Peter reached up and touched the back of Gabriel's hand, which paused in its work to have the contact. Peter dropped his hand and Gabriel went back to stroking each and every part of him. He leaned in to kiss Peter's shoulder after running his fingers across it.

"What did you mean earlier, about forever?" Gabriel asked.

Peter shook his head a little. "You're… a lot more… I guess, faithful? Stable? than Nathan was. I never thought that in five or ten years I'd still be seeong Nathan. It was just… convenient. I mean, we'd still be brothers, we'd always have a history, but neither one of us was going to change our life much to stay with the other. With you," Peter turned to look at Gabriel's face, then rolled onto his side to match his body. "I think you've already made your life to stay with me. You've done a lot to stay with me. I'm… just realizing that."

Gabriel let his fingers trail down Peter's chest. He knew Peter was seriously underestimating how Nathan felt about him. His reaction after he thought Peter was dead should have been a big clue. Gabriel's attraction to him after getting Nathan's memories and directives to act like him should have been another.

He tilted his head and studied Peter's face. It occurred to him the younger man might not really understand commitment - at least not the way he did. He certainly didn't understand his own brother like Gabriel did. He wished he could travel back in time and talk to Nathan about Peter, but that was crazy. To Peter's comment, he said, "Is that okay?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. As long as you understand I have other interests and I'm seeing other people."

Gabriel quirked a brow and twitched his head, but gave no other response to it. _Well… that confirms it._

Peter said, "You can't be jealous of me. Let me have a life outside us, okay?"

Gabriel nodded and leaned over silently to kiss Peter. He couldn't speak. He wasn't sure if it would be a lie or not. Peter scooted his body over to be closer to the other man and they twined together slowly. Peter kissed him insistently and Gabriel responded, his eyes closed. He let his hands roam over Peter's back, stroking his skin. When they broke apart and Peter began kissing his cheek over to his jaw, Gabriel said, "I love you. I want you. I want to be with you. I like being with you. You make me feel good about myself, that you're here. I missed you while I was away."

He nuzzled Peter and repeated his endearments. He could feel Peter's arousal heightening. The younger man kissed him more passionately, opening and closing his mouth over Gabriel's, one deep kiss after another. Gabriel hooked his hands under Peter's ass and pressed him against himself. "You seem up for round two," he said when he got a chance to talk again.

Peter nodded wordlessly and put his forehead to Gabriel's shoulder. He kissed down his chest and sucked at his nipple. Gabriel rolled him off after a moment, to the side of the bed. He positioned himself on the edge. Peter stood and touched the other man's thigh, looking over his body. Gabriel was partly erect. Peter moved between his legs and let his fingers trail up the thigh to his hip, then over towards his organ. It stiffened visibly before he got there. He smiled with half his mouth.

He suspected that without some assistance, partly erect was as good as Gabriel was going to get for anal. _He doesn't want to give head, he doesn't get off on receiving anal, he keeps approaching sex with me like I'm a woman… he doesn't want to be bisexual. But he sure as hell wants to be here and be intimate with me. _Peter took a deep breath and tried to sort out how he felt about that. He didn't have much more luck than Gabriel had. The other man began rubbing a thigh against Peter's leg, distracting him. In the here and now was a man who wanted to be wanted and whom Peter found very wantable.

He brought his fingers to Gabriel's penis and ran them lightly across it. The other man groaned softly. There was one sure way to have him get off on receiving anal sex from Peter. The younger man smirked and looked around for the lubricant. He eventually found it under the edge of a pillow. It took him long enough to find it that he had the opportunity to touch the other man's silky, sensitive skin again. He applied lube to himself and to Gabriel's anus. He didn't bother with his penis, since he wouldn't be touching it enough to chafe.

He worked steadily at Gabriel's opening, ringing and pressing. He touched Gabriel's organ with occasional feather-light caresses, enough to keep him hard and at the edge of panting. When he was loose enough, he pushed into him, working with short strokes at the entrance for a while, then moving on to longer thrusts. Gabriel hooked his legs behind Peter and shifted his hips. Peter could see by his face when he began hitting the right spot. It wasn't out-and-out arousal, but he was definitely feeling it. He increased his attention to the other man's member and started pumping into him harder.

Gabriel's eyes were nearly closed and his hands were beginning to clench spasmodically with each thrust. Peter grinned and slipped his hand entirely around the other man's shaft. He pulled up and down ever so lightly as he pounded into him faster. Gabriel came almost immediately, having been skirting the edge of orgasm for some time. Peter put both hands to his hips and concentrated his efforts. He finished quickly, not even making it to the end of Gabriel's spasms.

He panted in place for a moment, the laid forward over the other man's body. Gabriel took him into his arms and swung them both fully onto the bed. It was smooth enough that somehow Peter was still slightly engaged with him after the movement. He lay where he was and let his breathing steady, enjoying the fading sensations.

Gabriel stroked at his hair, bothered he couldn't bring Peter up to him to kiss. He liked to kiss his partner after every time. He was stalled for the time being. He wanted to thank Peter for every intimacy he had from him. He blinked and stared at the ceiling. His eyes were watering again. Having started earlier, it now seemed he couldn't stop. His feelings were too close to the surface.

Peter shifted slightly against him, probably detecting it somehow. He blinked it away and tried to go back to where he had been a moment before, stroking Peter's hair and feeling plowed. He smiled at that thought, running his fingers through Peter's dark hair. He wondered if this was how Heidi felt after sex with him. He noticed the other man had settled against him again, breathing steadily.

Gabriel smiled more broadly as they lay together, post-coital. They were breathing together again. Getting their heartbeats synched was a standard occurrence. It happened all the time with Heidi when their chests or backs were next to one another. Breathing was less common, but it happened. Something else was happening, he realized, as the tempo of Peter's song shifted slightly, matching his more precisely. They resonated apart for a moment, then harmonized. Gabriel tensed at that and Peter naturally tensed at the same moment.

"What are you doing?" Gabriel said, almost alarmed. The songs held for a second more, then spiraled off on different tunes as Peter didn't follow Gabriel's agitation.

Peter shifted up from him, finally separating in more intimate ways. "Earlier…" Peter considered Gabriel had no clue he'd listened in on his thoughts while he was upset. "When you were hyperventilating, we breathed together. We seemed to come together, somehow. In tune?"

"You heard that?" Gabriel was guarded. He was thinking something very different from what Peter was. He was afraid Peter had accessed Samson Grey's ability. He knew the younger man had it. But until he made a conscious effort to use it, to call on it, he wouldn't feel any of the effects.

"I felt it," Peter said, using misdirection to obscure the truth. "It felt great. Really great." He snuggled against Gabriel. The other man brought an arm around Peter, holding him. Peter said, "I think I can duplicate you, how you are, somewhat. Maybe it's part of the empathic mimicry or maybe just that we're that close right now. But I think I could pull off being **you**."

Gabriel frowned and moved his body restlessly. It was an eloquent and nonverbal expression of how he felt about that. He didn't say anything. He knew he didn't need to.

Peter turned, tilting his head so he could see something of Gabriel's expression. The other man saw his face and pulled him up suddenly to kiss him. Peter blinked. Gabriel said, "Thank you. For being with me."

Peter smiled and said, "You're welcome." He rolled off to the side. "I was thinking about Dad earlier." Gabriel's eyes slid off to the side slowly as he wondered exactly when in all the lovemaking Peter had been thinking about his father. Peter grinned, "A **lot** earlier."

Gabriel grinned back. "I was just… thinking about that. Okay. What of him?"

"You can get close to him as Gabriel. He's already let you do that. You're not a threat to him, really. Everything you can do to him takes a little while to work. All he needs is a second to get away and only a thought if you don't have your hand right on him."

"Mm." Gabriel looked at the ceiling and rolled over, laying on his back. "Peter, I don't know if I **can**."

"What do you mean?"

Gabriel went on, "I don't know if I can fight him. Directly. I mean, there I was, he wanted me to kill Matt and here's Dad, who probably just set Heidi and Noah up to be killed… and I'll admit I was kind of out of it and just barely on my feet, but I didn't even **think** of doing anything to him. The most that occurred to me was refusing to do what he wanted. I try to think about it, but I can't get very far. It's blocked."

"That's okay," Peter said. "You don't have to, if we can make Dad think I'm you."

Gabriel turned his head and looked at Peter. "Shape shifting? He's got telepathy, you know. Probably other stuff. Aura reading, whatever. I ran into a guy once, knew me just from touching me."

Peter nodded. "I've thought of that. If I can be you, then maybe I can fool him. It doesn't have to be for long. We can try to catch him at a time when he's got other things to think about. Right on the eve of the eclipse would be a good time." He looked intently at Gabriel, "I need your help. I need to know how to block, mentally. I guess I have been blocking, because all I usually catch from people is stray bits." Gabriel looked over at him sharply. Peter shook his head, thinking, accurately, that Gabriel was wondering if he ever caught his thoughts. "You're good at blocking, acting, controlling yourself. I need a crash course in that."

"What will you do once you get there?"

"Like Maury said, I've already been practicing with draining. I can take his powers. I know I can. I've felt him do it before, then again when he took the catalyst from Heidi. I know what he was doing. It's… it's a part of my ability, a part I've never accessed. I'm pretty sure if I **do** access it, I'll never have the empathic part again." He paused and thought about how he felt about that. "That's fine with me, though."

"You're going to… drain all his powers?"

Peter nodded solemnly. "If you think I can get close to him. All I need is to get a hand on him. Even better if I can tie up his dominant hand. A lot of powers need hand signals. I was thinking I'd try for a handshake."

"Maybe a lot use hand signals, but not most. You'll need to turn him off, nullify him. But you have that too." Gabriel reached up to tug at his lower lip, thinking about it. "There's other powers that run off physical contact. You'll be open to those, but you're starting to really cut down what he can do to you. Yeah, the real trick will be getting to him, getting him to touch you. You've pretty much got to get him to do that willingly, or else he'll just teleport away as soon as you reach for him. He does that so fast there's no way to grab him unless you totally surprise him or you've already got hold of him by the time he figures it out."

After a long pause, Gabriel said, "What if he sees us coming? Like the future?"

Peter rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling. He shrugged elaborately. "So what if he does? If we succeed, then he'll see that and there's nothing he can do to stop it. If we don't, then it doesn't matter what he sees." He turned his head back to Gabriel and asked, "What do your dreams show you?"

Gabriel frowned. "I'm in a waiting room at the hospital, waiting for you to get back from vacation, but for some reason it's the Petrelli house that's been turned into a hospital. Then the doctor walks in and it's Ma or… uh, Gabriel's mother, my mother, sometimes kind of both of them, and tells me Dad just got home and she's so happy it's a boy." He looked at Peter. "Have any idea what that one means?"

Peter considered it and shook his head. "Are you sure that's… prophecy?"

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah. It has all the markers. Most of mine are like that, except usually they're scary. I've had a lot of dreams lately where I'm waiting for something or someone, usually you. Then there's the one Angela keeps having, where I die in darkness. I burn up. I can't heal. All my powers are gone. I'm alone, in the middle of nothingness. She says she knows I wanted to be there, I went there on purpose and it's my idea, my plan and I've accepted my end. I had that one around Christmas a lot and New Years, but not so much lately. Now she's having it instead. Wish I knew what that means. I'd think we'd all have it at the same time."

Peter nodded and looked at the ceiling again. "I've seen that too. I've also had one where I'm laying on the grass somewhere, looking up at the eclipse… waiting for it, waiting for something. I'm just lying there, not doing anything, but I feel so sick it's like I'm about to die. I'm going into shock and I can feel it, but there's nothing wrong with me. I can see the eclipse is almost total." He waved vaguely above himself. He looked at Gabriel and said, "It happens. Or at least, it gets that close to happening. I don't know what happens after that. Does that mean I die?"

Gabriel shook his head. "Probably not. It more likely means there's a decision tree after that, where you have to do something or someone else has to do something critical - might be what you're waiting for. It clouds up what you see afterwards because there's more than one possible future. Ma says she can sometimes, maybe even usually, see the likely paths and outcomes from that point, but she rarely knows exactly what to do to affect it. She calls them pivot points."

"I think we can do it," Peter said. "Come over in a couple of days so we can work on telepathy." He paused, thinking about some of the things Maury had said earlier. "What was Parkman laughing about earlier, about both of us having telepathy?"

Gabriel gave him a very guarded look. "Telepathic sex," he said after a long hesitation.

"What's that? Like we both think about sex and neither of us is actually doing it?" he asked dubiously. "That doesn't sound like much fun."

Gabriel cocked his head at him. "No. At least, I don't think so. You… you really haven't used your telepathy much, have you?"

Peter furrowed his brows at the other man. He hadn't, but he didn't see how that mattered. Peter had always used it for specific ends and not for exploration or just to use it. It was an intrusive ability. It was impolite. He used telepathy as Matt had showed him - to make people do what he told them, see what he wanted them to see and occasionally pull information out of them - nothing more.

Finally Gabriel said, "If you read someone else's mind, a little deeper than surface skimming, you can feel what they feel. I would suppose… I haven't actually done this… but I would suppose that if you coupled that with actually having sex with them…"

Peter said, "Oh. Then you'd feel them feeling you."

"And vice versa, if it's two telepaths. Maury's made some inappropriate comments in the past about the real reason why we needed more than one telepath on the board."

Peter's brows climbed his face, but he said nothing. Gabriel caught his look and said, "No, I don't think he's gay. Just perverted. And sick." Gabriel shook his head and got up. "One thing I do **not** want to think about, is Maury and sex." He went to take a very cold shower.


	83. Dominance

Two days later, Gabriel came by at ten in the morning. He smiled to see Peter and kissed him on the cheek after greetings. He walked over and sat on the couch. "So. Telepathy lessons today?"

Peter nodded. He sat down a little further down. Gabriel's body language was tight, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, drawn in on himself. Peter said, "The first thing I want to do is very simple. Doesn't involve anything more than surface skimming, me just listening to what's on the surface." When Gabriel looked over at him silently, Peter added, "I want to listen to the song, that music you hear and see if I can get better at matching yours. It's like an aura. I think it's a sonic version of an aura, or maybe it's just how you perceive it. They don't have to be visual, you know."

Gabriel regarded him and said, "You matched it the other day without reading my mind."

Peter looked down at the floor. He'd expected it would come to this, but he hadn't planned to keep it a secret forever. "About that… when you… when you were upset and you let down all your defenses," Peter looked over at Gabriel. The other man's expression was carefully neutral. "When you did that, you also let down your mental defenses. I heard you… while you were upset. I love you, Gabriel. It didn't seem like the right time to shake you out of it and tell you what you were doing. I didn't see anything there I can't handle. I want you to be able to share yourself with me, to trust me."

Gabriel looked away when he was done. Peter suppressed the urge to kneel in front of him and ask for forgiveness or at least acceptance for trespassing on his privacy. Seconds ticked by and finally minutes. Gabriel looked to him, face still blank, and said in a slightly clipped tone, "Okay. You want to do that again?"

Peter exhaled. Gabriel was still blocking off his feelings, meaning he still felt upset about it. If Maury was right and he was terrified of mind control, then discovering his lover had eavesdropped on him while he was most vulnerable, the most vulnerable Peter had seen him since the identity fracture, would be quite a betrayal. Peter looked off to the side. "Yes, I want to do that again," he said quietly.

Gabriel nodded slowly and said, "All right. Go ahead." He looked at the floor again.

Peter sighed and tilted his head, getting past Gabriel's mental envelope easily enough. He'd dropped his defenses as promised. Peter listened and found what he was looking for. Everything else was silent, walled up and held back from him. Gabriel's blocking was very good. It was something else Peter needed to learn from him. For now though, he put his attention back on what he'd come for.

He tried to match his rhythm to what he was hearing. He had to breathe faster and shallower. He needed to speed up his heart rate, which was tougher than slowing it down. He tightened his muscles to a degree that would be outright painful if he didn't have enough regeneration to hold the damage at bay. That was when he stopped. Gabriel was literally hurting himself just to sit there with the appearance of calmness.

Peter pulled back from his mind and walked over to retrieve the massage oil from where he'd put it in the kitchen. He came back and sat closer to the other man. He tugged at his shirt, pulling it out of Gabriel's slacks. Gabriel's head came around sharply. "What are you doing?"

"You need to relax. I'm going to give you a massage."

Gabriel sounded suspicious. "Why do I need to relax? Maury did it without me having to relax."

_That's because Maury doesn't care about you,_ ran through Peter's mind. _I do._ What he said though was, "How did Maury do it?"

"I… I don't know. I was trapped in the nightmare. I couldn't… couldn't get out." His memories of the event remained fuzzy despite his best efforts to recall it. He remembered fighting Maury so hard he eventually passed out, waking up from unconsciousness, having fallen forward onto the table.

"Is that what I have to do?" Peter's tone was guarded.

"You'd have to control me, take me over. I don't think you even have it in your personality to do that, Peter."

Peter's brows pulled together. "What do you mean about my personality?"

"You don't control people, don't give orders."

Peter laughed easily. "You don't know me." At Gabriel's confused look, he repeated, "Wow, you **really** do not know me." After a beat he went on, "You're here on my terms, Gabriel, not yours. You stop when I say stop. I make the rules, not you. Just because I let you top me in the bedroom doesn't mean I'm submissive. Sometimes I like that and it certainly seems to get you off. I like _that_ even better."

Gabriel stared at him as intently as if Peter had shape shifted and grown a second head in the process. He'd thought of Peter as so non-threatening and giving that he'd never considered who was really in charge. To find out that person wasn't himself was unsettling. He felt small and insignificant, weak. It was not how he wanted to feel.

When Gabriel still wasn't speaking, Peter said, "Okay. So is that what you want me to do? Control you, dominate you or something? **Make** you relax?" Seemed kind of weird, but Peter could handle it if Gabriel could. He wouldn't be forcing him to do anything if he consented to it.

Gabriel gave him a wary look. "It'd be easier… for me." He looked away, his eyes darting nervously. "Just… let you do it." He could lower his defenses - that was a matter of self control. But relaxing into it and letting someone be in his mind, comfortably, just wasn't something he could bring himself to do - not voluntarily. He didn't understand why Peter even wanted to do this.

Peter cocked his head and put a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "I need you to be clear about this, really clear. Do I have your permission to look inside your mind and tell you what to do?" He felt a slight tremor under his hand.

Gabriel nodded and then added, "Yes." He trembled again, looking back at Peter. His worst nightmare was being rendered helpless by those he loved. Putting himself in Peter's hands would end the nightmare, one way or the other - it would either be real, or his faith in Peter would be proven.

Peter leaned back, breaking his gaze and taking a deep breath as he thought through what he wanted to do, how Gabriel was reacting. _He trusts me. God, does he ever trust me_. Peter's question had been intentionally broad, but Gabriel's answer had been unexpectedly unconditional. Peter had expected to negotiate. There weren't any limits. Limits were good things. Without limits Peter had no idea where Gabriel would want him to stop. It meant, really, that he couldn't do anything. He decided not to share that with the other man at the moment and just move on.

Peter exhaled and sat forward again, finishing pulling Gabriel's shirt out of his pants and starting to take it off. Gabriel gave him an odd look and began to shrug out of the polo shirt. Peter stopped him. "No. This is my shirt. You just happen to be wearing it. If I want **you **to take it off, I'll tell you to. You belong to me right now."

When Gabriel looked back at him, Peter cocked his head and raised his brows, challenging. Gabriel blinked and looked away, not arguing. He really didn't understand where Peter was going with this. He was being very weird. Peter pulled the shirt over his head and off of him, tossing it aside on the couch. "While I'm at it, I don't want you talking unless I tell you to. No questions. If I ask you a question, you can answer it. Do you understand?"

Gabriel gave him an unsettled look, but nodded. Peter smiled. The smile disappeared when Gabriel turned away and began to shake. Peter lowered his voice and put his hand on Gabriel's bare back. "Easy, easy. I love you. If you didn't trust me, you wouldn't have given me permission. You've been with me for a while now. You know how I am. I'm not going to hurt you. Calm yourself. Calm down. I'm not going to change you." He laid the side of his face on Gabriel's back and waited until the other man stopped shaking. He didn't intend to do much of anything except hopefully show Gabriel he was worthy of the trust he'd broken by eavesdropping on him earlier.

When the other man seemed calmed, Peter told him, "Scoot. Turn your back to me." He started rubbing Gabriel's back with short, firm strokes. He rubbed until the other man began to relax, until there was some give to his posture. When he'd gotten that far, he put both hands on Gabriel's shoulders and pulled him away from the arm of the couch that he was facing. He pulled the man back to lean against him and kissed the back of his head. "Now forward again…" he pushed him back to his previous position, then pulled him back, "…and back." He repeated several times, until Gabriel was breathing calmly and moving where Peter told him to.

Peter turned his own left arm in, folding it across his chest and held it against Gabriel's back. "I'm going to pull you back against my arm and I want you to bend around it. Flex." He reached around Gabriel's head and put his hand on the other man's chin. When he pulled back, there was a moment of resistance, then he relaxed and went with it. Peter didn't pull him back much before releasing and repeating the entire operation. The second time, Gabriel relaxed and went with it easily. He repeated a third time anyway.

On the third time, he pulled Gabriel back further, telling him, "Trust me. I know you're overextending here. Let me hold you. I've got you. Relax into it. This is like those corporate team building things where they have you fall back and your team catches you. Let me catch you, Gabriel." He pulled Gabriel so his back was arched over Peter's arm. He could have held him easily regardless, but his enhanced strength would let him do so for a long time without issue. He pulled back on Gabriel's chin, but there was still tension there. He was holding his head up, although he'd flexed his back as directed. Peter waggled Gabriel's head. "Relax this. Just sag into it. You'll be all right," he said softly.

When Gabriel was resting back against him, relaxed, Peter ducked his head and kissed the other man's forehead. "You're doing good. This is what I want from you - submission. Just do what I tell you. It'll make it easier." He kissed him again, resting his right hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "Lower your defenses." He felt Gabriel stiffen and saw his eyes tighten. Calmly he told him, "Relax. I don't want you tense. I want you relaxed. I've told you what you have to do – now do it."

He waited while Gabriel calmed down again. It took a few minutes, but he did it, eventually sagging back compliantly against Peter. The younger man smiled. All he was doing was guiding, not controlling and not forcing. Peter knew it was hard to keep your mind nervous and keyed up if your body was relaxed. One of the things they'd gone over in hospice care was gaining patient's confidence and trust through touch, though nothing they'd learned was this intimate.

Although Gabriel had presumably opened his mind, Peter wasn't looking. He moved his hand, rubbing Gabriel's shoulder lightly. As he'd expected, the man tensed again. He kept rubbing, circling out to his upper arm. "Let me do this. Let me do this to you. You're okay. I'm not hurting you. I'm not even in your mind, but keep yourself open. Don't shut me out. I'll do it when I'm ready."

He ran his hand down Gabriel's front, down the center of his hairy chest and brought it back to caress his extended neck. He could feel little patterns of tension, little nervous jumps as Gabriel tried to stay relaxed, but found it more difficult with the stimulation of being touched. Peter ran his hand across Gabriel's face and through his hair, then back to his shoulder. He repeated the arc several more times. Gabriel's reactions toned down to nothing and stayed that way even as Peter varied where he was touching and in what order.

He tilted his head and listened to Gabriel's mind. It was indeed open. He listened to the song, to Gabriel's sense of his own body's music. It was slow and melodious, calm and sonorous. Peter kissed him on the forehead again. There was no change to it. "I hear you," Peter said. Several high notes added to the music and then faded. He didn't feel the physical response, but he was sure it had happened. Gabriel wasn't even projecting thoughts to him. He just lay back limply where he'd been put, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Peter withdrew his awareness and after a long moment leaned Gabriel back up. "That's all I'm doing for now. I'm done."

Gabriel looked back at him, surprised. Peter smiled and said, "Yeah, you can talk."

"That's… all?" Gabriel asked, turning around to sit normally. He didn't know what to make of it. It hardly counted as being helpless, as Peter hadn't done anything in his mind except listen to surface thoughts. Gabriel had retreated behind every secondary defense he had, until he was almost unaware of the world around him, but there had been no assault.

"Yeah, that's all for now. We're just going to work on desensitizing you." Peter looked away and up. "Maybe I'll listen in later, but this is a lot more important. I need you to teach me how to block, how to do a lot of things. If you can't stand mental contact at all, then that's a problem."

"I… I don't have any problem using it on people."

Peter raised one brow at him. Gabriel frowned and nodded. "Yeah. You're right. That's not useful for what you want."

Peter reached out and put his hand behind Gabriel's neck. He pulled on him as if to pull him over. Gabriel resisted the motion, but turned his head towards him. Peter stopped pulling, keeping his hand on him. He said, "Now… can you open your mind again, right now, for me?"

Gabriel tensed and his breathing sped up. He blinked and looked away. Peter waited silently. Obviously Gabriel could do it on command, but what he was waiting for happened a few minutes later as Gabriel got his physical reaction under control. Peter checked only so much as to verify Gabriel had dropped his defenses and backed out. "Good," he said. "I'm going to keep trying for a little while, every now and then. You'll get better at it – just relax into it."

Gabriel leaned over to pull away entirely from his touch, looking annoyed. "Why do you care? It's not like I can't do it while I'm tense."

Peter huffed. "I'd rather not try to work with you when you're that tightly wound. Besides the fact that I don't want to try to match you when you're pulling muscles from the strain of just sitting still. If I do something wrong, say something wrong, if I mess up and you're that tense, you're going to snap. I'm your obvious target."

Gabriel grunted.

After a moment of silence, Peter said, "Again."

"What?" Gabriel looked at him. Peter looked back and didn't say anything. Gabriel got the message, looked down and breathed deeply, fighting off the impulse to tense up. He blinked at the floor and said, "Okay. I don't think it's going to take much longer."

Peter reached over and patted him on the back. "No, probably not and that's a real compliment to you. You've got a lot of focus. But I'm not done yet." They talked about inconsequential things for an hour with occasional interruptions for practice. By the end, Gabriel was fairly blasé about it. That's when Peter started talking to him, mentally. This caused another round of working on responses, but it went faster this time.

Gabriel commented, "You know, if I really get better at this, I won't be the same as the last time Dad saw me."

Peter shrugged. "It's still you." He'd listened to Gabriel enough, over a long enough time, that he had a fairly good idea of what sort of energy level and pattern he needed to project. He'd need to go over it again and again in the next two weeks, but he was fairly sure he had it down. That was the end of that day's work. The next day they planned to address blocking and projecting.


	84. Blocking

That evening, Gabriel called Noah, who answered, "Hello?"

"Hey Noah. What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Working. Why do you ask, boss?"

Gabriel hesitated, not sure how Noah meant the unusual form of address. He didn't talk to Bennet very often in the course of his work. Angela usually handled interactions with him. "Uh, this isn't a work assignment – at least, not a formal one. I wanted to see if I could borrow you from 10 to noon. I'll throw in lunch at the end of it, your choice of venue."

"Sure. What do you need?"

"Don't agree too fast. Peter and I are practicing some telepathy stuff and we need a guinea pig – preferably one who knows something about what we're trying to do. Do you trust me enough for that?"

"Gabriel, I trust you completely, strange as that may be. Peter too. Where do you want me to be?"

"His apartment. I'll see you there, then."

They ended the call. Gabriel called Peter so he knew of the guest.

Gabriel showed up a few minutes after Noah the next morning. The older man was sitting at the table and sipping at a cup of coffee, discussing the degree to which the media was and should be biased. It was apparently an old bone of contention between Peter and Bennet.

Peter continued arguing while he let Gabriel in, who went to sit on the couch and watched the other two men engage in familiar, spirited banter. Gabriel crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. Peter brought him a cup of coffee without asking and pulled out a chair to sit at the table. Gabriel smiled slightly as he realized Peter had left him for another man, declining to join him on the couch in favor of sitting with Noah.

Bennet finished their conversation with, "Fine. Next time Fox News talks about it, I'll bring it up and that will prove it." Peter shrugged, unconvinced, but willing to drop it. Noah turned to Gabriel and said, "So, what is this telepathy stuff I've volunteered for?"

Gabriel sat up, uncrossing his legs. He nursed his coffee. "Blocking. As long as we're at it, we might as well cover projecting too."

Noah nodded. "At some point you'll need to go over commands."

The man on the couch blew on his coffee unnecessarily. He drank it scalding or not, so cooling it was just his way of avoiding Bennet's comment for a moment. He shook his head. "I couldn't ask you to do that."

"Who are you going to ask? Someone who can't say no?"

Gabriel looked up sharply at that and scowled. He glanced over at Peter and then back at Noah, saying, "I'm not sure we even need to address it."

Noah snorted. "Yes, that's just what we need: another inexperienced telepath running around. I seem to recall your learning experiences didn't turn out so well for everyone involved: one dead, one in a coma, one with spasms and who knows what damage that was less overt to the rest. Angela was certain you were going to kill me too. You're being very cavalier with other people's lives."

"It wasn't intentional!" he snapped. "I did the best I could."

Bennet tilted his head. "Do you think that's really a comfort to the dead? Regardless, declining to train on it now **is** intentional. You're still not good at it, Gabriel. You're rough and you use too much force. If you never work on someone capable and willing to giving you informed feedback, then you'll never get better. You'll hack at people with a cleaver when you should be using a scalpel."

Gabriel exhaled and tapped the floor nervously with his left foot. He looked away. "Okay, but not today."

"Wednesday," Noah said.

Gabriel looked up at him uneasily. "Why then?"

"Because I'm not going to let you 'later' me and never do it. We set a date and we do it."

Gabriel huffed. "Fine."

Noah looked at Peter. "You free Wednesday?"

"Sure. Right after work. Ten should be good."

"All right then," Noah said. "Have you done anything so far?"

Gabriel was silent, still annoyed, so Peter answered, "Yesterday we just went over basics – listening, trust, teamwork."

Noah studied Peter's face, not entirely sure of what Peter was trying to relate. "Do you need to go over that any more?" He looked over at Gabriel, who was frowning at his own shoes.

"I don't know. Gabriel? Let me in."

Gabriel drew his feet up under himself and gave Peter a scathing look. He shook his head and said with a note of resignation, "Go ahead."

Peter exhaled at the look he'd been given - as if the body language wasn't enough by itself. He looked back to Noah. "We've lost some ground, but I think he'll get into it after a while."

Noah cocked his head at Peter. "He doesn't trust you?"

"Oh, he trusts me, totally. It's a phobia. Bad enough Maury can only work with him using subterfuge." Gabriel gave Peter another dirty look, but the other man wasn't facing him to see it.

Noah thought about that for a long moment and said, "We're not using subterfuge."

"I'll be fine," Gabriel said irritably, angered by them discussing him as if he wasn't present. "Let's work on blocking." When both turned to face him, he said, "People project random thoughts all the time. Being able to block them out is important. It's also the same ability you'll use to resist another telepath. It takes discipline and a degree of focus. It's hard to do initially, like trying to have a conversation with someone and never looking them in the eye. Once you get some practice, it gets easier. Noah can project." He gestured to Peter. "You ignore him. If I try to do it, I'll just get feedback and a headache." He glared at them both for a moment, but they seemed agreeable enough. He was slightly mollified.

Gabriel sipped at his coffee, which was an easy drinking temperature now, not that he was paying attention. He calmed himself from the irritation he felt at Peter treating him in a manner he found disrespectful. He felt disregarded and insignificant. His ego didn't like dealing with that. He tried to get over it. He could hear Noah's thoughts fairly clearly. He decided to distract himself and followed them back to the source. He thought to Bennet, _You can hear me, right?_

_Yes._

_Am I distracting you?_

_Not much._ Noah continued trying to poke at Peter, who was predictably abysmal at shutting people out. None of them had expected an empath to be any good at it._ If you don't mind, I'll just project what I'm thinking to you. It doesn't matter what Peter's trying to block out. Might be better if it's interesting. Of course, he'll only be getting my side of it unless he reads my mind to hear you._

_That's fine. There was a guy I talked to in Saudi… mentally, who had this really odd way of thinking. He'd say things, but there would be two of three meanings to it and sometimes they were contradictory. Like he'd think something to me and he'd also think that he was lying, so I can't imagine this was intentional. At the time I thought he couldn't focus his projection, or I wasn't hearing him right, but since then I've wondered if maybe something else was going on. Your thoughts?_

_Have you asked Maury?_

_Hell no._

_Hm. I don't know anyone's thoughts but my own, Gabriel. _After a pause, Noah continued_, Are you sure he wasn't trying to resist a compulsion?_

_As a matter of fact, I was pretty clear that he had one – something emotional. I didn't try to address it. Wasn't my place._

_What are you talking about?_ Peter broke in on Bennet.

Noah answered, _Someone is eavesdropping on us who is supposed to be blocking me out. Now, to Gabriel: Right. Halo guy?_

_Yes._

_Yeah, not your place. Sometimes a person who's trying to fight out of a compulsion will say things on multiple levels, picking words that can be interpreted more than one way, hoping someone will pick up on it. They can often leave clues, but they can't act directly against their orders. I don't know how that would work with emotional manipulation._

_There's a power that…? Well, obviously. Okay._

Peter grumbled mentally at Noah, frustrated at being left out of the conversation that he still couldn't block out entirely. Normal day-to-day thoughts were one thing and even then he received occasional flashes from people. Noah was making an effort to be heard, as much as someone could who didn't have an ability.

Noah told him, _You're not supposed to be listening. Blocking is about doing the opposite._

_I know, I know._ Peter went back to work.

_This explains something_, Gabriel thought.

_What's that?_

_The other day, he didn't block me out. Maybe he didn't know how._

_What were you thinking at Peter that he was supposed to block out?_

Gabriel was silent long enough that Noah thought, _Hello?_

_It's… private. Sorry I mentioned it,_ Gabriel replied. He glanced over at Peter, who was looking at him steadily, having guessed from Bennet's last comment something of the nature of their conversation. "You're supposed to be blocking us out, Peter."

"It's not going well," Peter said blandly.

"I gathered. Maybe you should try another tack. For me what worked was Ma's meditation techniques, emotional distance and just pulling inside myself, mentally. The plane trips were hours of practice. You've done all kinds of yoga stuff. Try that."

Peter snorted. Yoga had nothing to do with it. "It's not yoga. Most of what I've been doing with you is medical training to manage pain and trauma for patients. Same principles, I guess. I'll try it."

They went back to it. Gabriel and Noah discussed Halo and mental powers, with Gabriel checking to see if his theory that Halo didn't have a telepath held water. Bennet agreed and told him about his experiences with emotion-based abilities. This time Peter did much better at ignoring them.

After a half hour, Noah said, "Let's take a break. This is giving me a headache. I can't keep doing it for so long." He took a trip to the bathroom while he was at it. Peter came over and sat next to Gabriel, who gave a pointed glance in the direction Noah had gone. Peter ignored him. "Relax. Let's repeat yesterday."

Gabriel gave him an incensed look. Peter leaned back and said nothing. The other man shook his head and looked away, steaming. "I don't like being pushed around. You keep pushing me around on this. I don't like it, Pete." His tone was clipped.

Peter patted him on the back and Gabriel resisted the urge to shrug him off. Very quietly, Peter said, "Gabriel – you don't have to use this ability ever again. You don't. I just thought… I thought this was something I could help you with and that if I could help you with this, then maybe I could help you with that stuff Maury was working on." Gabriel surged to his feet and paced the room.

He was still pacing, expression angry, when Bennet came to the door to the living room. Noah looked at Peter, who shook his head slightly at him. Bennet sighed and went into the kitchen to putter around with the coffee. He didn't really want another cup, but he didn't think Peter wanted him involved in whatever was going on. He could still hear it perfectly well though.

Gabriel said, after he'd paced enough to speak calmly, "Maury's an asshole."

Peter nodded and said nothing.

Gabriel went on, "I don't trust him. I'd rather it was you." He stopped pacing and walked over to the wall, putting both hands out against it. He leaned forward and put his forehead against the wall, sighing. "Why does it have to be like this, Peter?"

Peter tilted his head at him, but it was a rhetorical question as he'd suspected. Gabriel pushed off and turned to lean against the wall. "Fine. I'll try. Quit pushing me around though. It gets my back up." He started over to the couch.

Peter smirked at him. Gabriel stopped, his tone angry again, "What's that about?"

Peter looked down and wiped the expression off his face. "I'm sorry. Just thinking… I was surprised you put up with it yesterday. I know it's not something you take well, but it worked. You should be able to control it now yourself. Can you?"

Gabriel sat next to him. "Yes, I think so. If it gets me out of this one-sided crap I can."

Peter reached out and rubbed Gabriel's back. "Okay, then let's see." He waited with his hand in place, stroking softly. After giving Gabriel a minute, he focused his mind on him. He found him still rather tense, but not terribly so. He wasn't nearly as guarded or blank as he'd been the day before. Peter could see as Gabriel drew up his thoughts of the day before and quickly settled through the same routine of calming himself and accepting that he could trust Peter entirely, putting aside his reservations. When he got to that point, he sighed and relaxed himself completely.

_I love you,_ Gabriel thought clearly in his mind.

Peter smiled and projected easily, _I love you too._

He looked up to see Noah standing in the door of the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. Gabriel said, "Come on out here. It's not like you don't know we're together." He sat up, leaning back and closing Peter out of his mind. It wasn't before Peter picked up a flash of jealousy from him. He was looking at Gabriel, about to say something, when the other man wrapped his arm around his head and gave him a noogie like Nathan used to.

Peter flailed at him in surprise. "Ah! Hey! Stop it!" Gabriel took his hands off him immediately and leaned away, but he shot Bennet an intense look coupled with a wolfish grin, more like a baring of teeth.

Noah raised his brows and his empty hand, palm out. He didn't need to be a mind-reader to identify the green-eyed emotion Gabriel was projecting. Bennet walked over to his seat and took it, frowning. "What do you want, Gabriel?"

"Him," he said, jerking his thumb at Peter, who now stared at him in surprise and affront.

Noah cleared his throat and spoke in a slightly offended tone, "It looks like you have him. Why did you call me out here, or are we done?"

Peter got up off the couch, exhaling and shaking his head. He walked over to his chair at the table and sat down, pulling out his comb from his back pocket and straightening his hair. Gabriel watched him intently, looking between him and Noah as if calculating their distance. They were too close to suit him at the moment. Gabriel shifted his weight forward, preparing to stand. Bennet stood up faster, saying, "I need some sugar for my coffee. I'll be right back." He returned to the kitchen.

"What is wrong with you?" Peter hissed at Gabriel, trying to whisper from across the room, but refusing to get any closer.

"You spend a lot of time with him," Gabriel said very quietly. "Too much."

"So? What business is that of yours?"

Gabriel looked wounded and hurt, and still very angry. He shook his head and looked away, fingers scratching lightly at the fabric of the couch. Peter sighed, but stayed where he was. He recalled Gabriel putting his hands all over Heidi once when she and Peter had enjoyed an evening of pleasant conversation. Peter had recognized the jealousy then. It had been amusing, almost sweet. It wasn't now.

He got up resolutely and walked over to the couch, glancing at the kitchen. Noah was keeping himself out of the room. Peter reached down to stroke Gabriel's face. The other man jerked his head away from Peter's hand in annoyance and pique. Peter froze. Gabriel knew he'd pushed it too far. He pressed his face against Peter's now unmoving hand. When Peter didn't go back to touching him, he wrapped one hand very lightly around the inside of Peter's knee and rubbed his face on Peter's leg. He ended by pressing his forehead against his thigh. "I'm sorry, Peter."

Peter's voice was distant, but he ran his hand through Gabriel's hair to let him know he wasn't rejecting him entirely. "There's a lot we have to talk about, later."


	85. Submission

Peter patted Gabriel on the shoulder and walked into the kitchen, intending to speak privately with Noah. Gabriel followed him a beat later though, foiling his plan. Before Peter could object, Gabriel stepped past him, looking at Noah and said assertively, "So, where do you want to eat lunch?"

Noah said easily, "I have some errands I probably should run." He turned away and poured out his mostly full cup of coffee.

"Lunch was part of the deal," Gabriel insisted. "Pick some place. We'll go. We need a break anyway."

"Yes, but you two can go on without me." Noah rinsed the cup and set it aside.

Gabriel exhaled and looked down, shuffling his feet uncomfortably. "Noah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. It was juvenile… and… unprofessional. I apologize." He'd hardly done anything at all, but it was clear to all of them what he'd meant by the expressions and body language. None of them were exactly slow at reading people.

Bennet looked over at Peter, who was leaning against the counter, giving Gabriel an angry look that was not particularly soothed by the apology. He followed Peter's eyes to Gabriel, who looked contrite, eyes still downcast. Noah said, "I'm going to put in a request for a new partner." He turned to face them directly.

"What?" Peter came up off the counter.

Bennet held his hands up to both of them. "No arguments. Not from either of you. You," he pointed at Peter, "need to work on your abilities. And you," he pointed at Gabriel, "I'm not getting cross-wise with you again. Not if I can help it."

Gabriel growled in vexation and rolled his eyes. _Peter's going to kill me,_ he thought. _One moment of stupid jealousy and I lost him Noah._ He turned away to regard the doorway, the way out of the kitchen and physically away from this situation. Running away wouldn't help. He tried to calm himself. He wanted to lash out, but the only person he wanted to hurt was himself.

Noah smiled thinly. "But now that I think of it, I'll take you up on that offer for lunch. There's a new sushi restaurant on Jason Street I'd like to check out."

A long moment passed. Peter looked resentfully at Gabriel until the other man glanced back at him, whereupon Peter looked away and let his eyes settle back to Bennet. Peter shook his head slightly and said, "Sure. It's okay. With all this stuff going on with Arthur, there's no way I can focus on work. I've already talked to the hospital about taking my vacation days."

Gabriel exhaled slowly, looking at Peter out of the corner of his eye. Peter's response was too quick and too smooth, not to mention he was lying about 'it's okay'.

Bennet patted Peter on the back, saying, "Everything will be all right. The board might decline my request. It's not like I can give good reasons for it." He looked over at Gabriel again, wondering which way he'd vote.

Gabriel went to get their coats. Noah and Peter came into the living room as he did, with Noah picking up his coat from where he'd draped it on the table. Gabriel handed Peter's to him, trying to catch his eye. Peter took the coat and turned his back on Gabriel in preference to talking about the weather with Noah. Gabriel shook his head and shifted uneasily, but couldn't see what he could do about it. He went down to get the car.

Lunch was good, managing to be appetizing despite the emotional state of those present. Peter and Noah reviewed their current cases and discussed resolving them. Gabriel sat quietly for most of the meal and reflected on how he'd just ruined half of Peter's work life and a mentor who was willing to drop anything to help him. Not to mention how much Noah's regard meant to Gabriel personally. He felt like a cad. The least he could do though was to sit there politely and not cause any more problems. He spent a lot of time pushing his food around.

Noah parted ways from them at the restaurant with a reminder they were all to meet again on Wednesday. He stressed, perhaps unnecessarily, that both of them be there. Gabriel drove back towards Peter's apartment, with Peter in the passenger seat. Peter was smiling softly as he gazed out the window. After stealing glances at the expression several times, Gabriel finally asked, "Can I ask what you're thinking?"

Peter gave a rapid exhale. He turned to face Gabriel. "Come see." He pointed at his head.

Gabriel blinked and inhaled, shaking his head. "No. No, Peter."

Peter's brows furrowed. Unlike Gabriel, he hadn't had a traumatic incident seeing himself reflected poorly in his mother's mind, or at least Angela's. Peter said, "It's nothing bad. I think you'll like it."

"We can… can we just talk? Besides, it's probably not safe to drive while reading someone's mind."

Peter looked at him intently for a moment, then said, "Sure. I was just thinking about that time a little while ago when we were on the bed and you were running your hands through my hair, over my face, all over me. I said you were so into me." Peter looked out the window again. "It's flattering. I like it."

What he didn't say was that he supposed the possessiveness and jealousy were the other side of the coin, at least for Gabriel. That was something he didn't like. He didn't like it a lot. He wasn't sure if it was a deal-breaker though. He'd thought it was, but now that he was confronted with an actual situation, he was uncertain.

The man in question smiled. "Yeah, that's a good memory. I **am** into you. I love you, Peter. I'm sorry I got carried away." His voice got thicker with emotion. "I… I sure as hell didn't expect Noah to react so badly. I meant… well, like he said, that's no comfort." Gabriel fell silent.

Peter looked back at him. "Oh, it's a comfort all right. Your intentions are important, very important to me. If you didn't mean anything by it, just got carried away and you'll do better next time, then that's one thing." Peter's words sunk into Gabriel like barbs. Peter knew it, but he kept going anyway because he was angry. "If you intend to drive away anyone else I might be interested in, or spend too much time with for your tastes, then that's another. I'm not going to deal with that second one, Gabriel. If it's a choice between you and the world, I'm taking the world."

Gabriel glanced over at Peter briefly, then hung his head and looked back at traffic. His chest ached and it was hard to breathe. He couldn't just _not care_ who Peter spent time with. That was like not caring about Peter at all. He could deal with Emma because Gabriel had Heidi. If he didn't have her, then he would have never been able to put aside his jealousy of Peter's girlfriend.

Peter sighed. As if he knew what Gabriel was thinking he said, "I'm not giving up Emma. One of these days I might marry her." He watched Gabriel, who smiled slightly at that. Peter was encouraged. He'd expected the blank, expressionless face the man used for things that upset him but he wouldn't show a reaction to directly. "I appreciate that you stopped when I told you too."

Peter chuckled. "Under other circumstances, that was kind of sweet, even. Nathan hasn't given me a noogie in years. I know that was coming from him, from his memories." Peter looked out the window and felt an unexpected ache for his brother, his real brother. Gabriel had a shadow of him, but only his shadow. The rest of Gabriel was very different. Nathan wouldn't have cared how much time he spent with Noah or anyone else, for that matter.

Peter's brow furrowed as he watched the passing buildings. He felt a lot more appreciated and wanted with Gabriel. That was disturbing: to find any fault with Nathan's conduct. Peter had always been trying to live up to his brother and usually failing, failing to get his attention, failing to hold it if he did. Now he had someone who was devoted, absolutely, to him and he was thinking about how to best to dump him for exactly that reason. Peter grimaced in exasperation at himself.

They pulled up outside Peter's apartment. Gabriel looked up at it forlornly, thinking he should have missed a turn somewhere or driven slower – anything to have made the ride longer. Peter had been very explicit that he wouldn't tolerate this level of possessiveness, but Gabriel wouldn't have had it if he didn't care. Not only had he been wildly jealous and tactless in carrying it off, Noah had been put off enough he was ending his working relationship with Peter in order to avoid any further suspicion of spending too much time with him.

Gabriel reached out to Peter's knee, hesitating a moment in case Peter wanted to pull away from him. When the younger man didn't, he touched him and said, "I want to be with you. Under any circumstances." Peter winced at how pathetic that was, how unconditional. Gabriel went on hurriedly, "No, please, Peter. What I did was wrong. It's not the relationship you want, that you had with… with Nathan. You can be with whoever you want. It's not like I'm not married… going to be married." He felt his heart wrench with each admission of the lengths he'd go to for the other man.

Peter laughed lightly, but Gabriel's words were stabbing him like knives with guilt. He was too much of an empath not to feel waves of emotion coming off of Gabriel. "Yeah," he sighed. "Come on up."

Gabriel looked surprised. "Now?"

"Yeah." Peter sounded less than enthused, reluctant even, but Gabriel didn't question it. He put the car back in gear and headed to the parking garage.

Once inside the apartment, Peter stepped so close to Gabriel they were touching. The other man put his arms gently around him, confused by the intimacy from someone who should still be angry at him. Peter said, "Look like Nathan for me." Gabriel complied immediately, wordlessly, although the transition was difficult and painful. Peter kissed him chastely, ignoring when Gabriel touched his lips with the tip of his tongue. Peter stepped back and looked Nathan up and down. "You'll be whoever I want?"

Gabriel swallowed. There was a flicker of something in his eyes, but he said, "Yes." His voice broke slightly.

Peter turned his face away from him. "Then be yourself."

Gabriel shifted back even faster. His eyes searched what he could see of Peter's face, trying to read his mood. It was unfathomable. He had no idea what Peter was thinking. He was thrown even more when Peter said, "Can you open your mind to me now?"

Gabriel blinked at him, feeling a twist in the pit of his stomach. He did it immediately though and without tensing, submitting to Peter completely. "Yes." He lowered his head. His whole body sagged. Peter stepped to him and put a hand on the back of his neck, scanning for only a second. There was far too much going on in Gabriel's mind that he wasn't blocking out. Peter cut the contact immediately, but he still had a clear sense of the emotional state: wretched would be a good word for it, but there was a lot of anger there too, rage boiling under the surface. For the first time in a many months, Peter was reminded this man had once been Sylar. He could easily be so again if he lost everything he cared about. Gabriel looked up at him, then off to the side. "I don't block well when I'm upset."

Peter nodded and walked over to the couch. He sat down and leaned back, studying Gabriel. "What would you do if Heidi left you?" he asked.

Gabriel shifted his weight and glanced around the room. "Uh… I'd go after her. Physically. I mean, I'd find her and try to talk to her, ask her why, if there was anything I could do to fix it. If that didn't work… I don't know, a counselor? Maybe our priest. Angela even, or Heidi's parents. If everything failed, then… see if she'd at least give me some kind of visitation with the kids. What's that have to do with it?"

Peter didn't answer him directly. "What would you do if _I_ left you?"

Gabriel's shoulders slumped even further and his face pinched inwards in distress. He looked beaten. "Are you going to?" His voice broke entirely. He barely got the words out.

Peter looked away, feeling his pain viscerally, but answered. Gabriel deserved to know, no matter how angry he'd made him earlier. "No."

Gabriel exhaled and walked woozily over to the couch. His knees were weak. "You scare me to death, Peter." He sat down and pressed on his eyes.

"I want an answer, though. It's a serious question." Peter turned to him.

Gabriel nearly yelled at him, "What the hell would I do? I'm here on your fucking sufferance!" Gabriel clamped his mouth shut and looked away. _Peter gave me just a little bit of rope and here I am trying to hang myself with it. Dammit._ He shuddered and turned his body away too.

Peter looked at his back twice, starting to say something each time, then stopping. He leaned forward and put his hands together, looking at them. Gabriel turned to face forward and added, in a much more calm and rational tone of voice, "It's not like we can go to anyone. I'm here because you let me be here. You've told me that time after time. If you change your mind, you run into someone you like better and decide you're done with me, then as far as I know, we're done. I don't get to argue about it, I don't get to appeal. I suppose I could beg – I've done that lately and it worked, so might as well try it with you if it comes to it."

Peter's head came around. He remembered mentioning begging playfully in bed and it shutting Gabriel down. "Who made you beg?"

Gabriel considered trying to hide it, but didn't see a reason. "Maury." Besides, he wanted Peter to know, to some extent, why he disliked Parkman so much.

"Maury… what did he make you beg for?" Peter couldn't imagine what leverage Maury would have that would make someone like Gabriel demean himself to him.

"A little girl's sanity."

Peter stared at Gabriel, who gave him a shallow smile. Gabriel said, "It worked." He looked away. _Next time Parkman will probably ask me to suck him off or something. Asshole._

"Who?" Peter said softly.

"It's private," Gabriel answered. When Peter shifted to face him, obviously intending to pursue it, Gabriel straightened and said in a firm but tired voice, "Peter, leave it. I saved her, she's fine. It's between Parkman and me. If other people get involved, she'll get hurt. He and I have an agreement. You have to stay out of it." He put his hand on Peter's shoulder, trying to impress the importance of this.

Peter leaned back and swallowed, shrugging off the hand. He recalled Parkman saying that all agreements were off, followed by Gabriel waiting to talk with him privately. Gabriel hadn't been in the best of moods when he got back to the apartment either.

He turned his thoughts back to the issue before, which was troubling him greatly. _No wonder Gabriel feels horrible if I so much as threaten our relationship. It isn't much of one. I've backed him into a corner. He's too afraid to set any limits on mental contact, doesn't argue or even try to negotiate sexually. The most he's done in bed is ask if he can have what he wants and it's clear he'll take no for an answer. I knew he wasn't that submissive… I just didn't think about it._

Peter said slowly, "This… mental stuff. It's pushing you pretty hard, isn't it?"

"Scares the shit out of me, Peter. But I'll do it for you, if that's what you want between us."

Peter blinked at him for a moment, then looked away and nodded. _I've stuck you in a situation between your fear of losing me and your fear of having your mind messed with. You're lashing out, just not at me… or maybe it is at me. Not like you didn't know driving Noah away would hurt me._ "And the jealousy?"

Gabriel shrugged. "It's not like I'm not normally jealous, but with you sitting there telling me you're all in charge and stuff, sitting over there talking to Noah and telling me to give up to your mind right in front of him…" Peter winced again and looked away, pained, ashamed of his own behavior as Gabriel's words confirmed his thoughts. "I just wanted to… I don't know. It was stupid. I wasn't thinking."

"Yeah. Neither was I." Peter sighed and reached out to rub Gabriel's back. The other man did not respond to the touch. He was tense, as stiff as possible. Peter lifted his hand away. "I can't push you around like that. It was wrong. You said something a while back, about being comfortable enough with someone to be mad at them. You're not able to be really mad at me, because I'm holding 'us' hostage. That's not right."

Gabriel interrupted, reaching out to Peter, "Hey, I'll take it. Don't leave-"

Peter reached out and laid his hand over Gabriel's mouth. He leaned in, took his hand away and kissed the other man, then leaned back, not waiting for Gabriel to respond to him. He didn't. "I'm not leaving. I'm going to quit being such a power-tripping asshole. I've got to stop threatening you, threatening us."

Peter reached over and stroked Gabriel's face, smiling when the other man didn't pull away from him. "If I say stop, take it under advisement. You don't… you don't _have_ to. If you want it rough, try not to get carried away, okay? Because you know I don't like that. I've been with you. I **trust** you. I don't need to be giving you orders all the time. I'm sorry I have." After a pause, Peter said, "Push back on me when I'm not doing right. I need to know. I won't leave you because of that. I'm not going to leave you."

Gabriel nodded. He didn't know what this meant about the jealousy, but it was a start. Peter was trying to give him more power. On some level, he was finally forgiving him for being who he was. He looked at Peter's lips and put his hand behind Peter's neck, caressing it. He wrapped his long fingers around it firmly, fitting them to roughly the same position as when he'd bruised him. He shook him a little, eyes boring into Peter's, looking for fear or withdrawal.

There was none. Peter waited, relaxed, meeting his eyes. He wasn't sure what Gabriel was doing, but for the moment, he'd take some mistreatment if it made the other man feel better. Instead of hurting him, Gabriel pulled Peter to him, kissing him deeply. He nuzzled Peter's face until Peter began to respond to him, whereupon he smiled a little and moved away, teasing. "I'd love to, but I've got to get home. I told her I'd be back after lunch." He stood up. "I'll see you Wednesday."


	86. Commands

Noah didn't know what he'd be walking into when he arrived at Peter's apartment on Wednesday. Domestic disputes were always a bitch. Then he had to factor in not just abilities, but a host of them in each party involved, one of those parties being mentally unstable as far as Noah was concerned. (Just because Gabriel had done Noah a tremendous favor didn't mean he thought the man wasn't basically crazy - quite a bit crazier than Peter seemed to realize.) There was also the illicit nature of the relationship, which served to rob them of most support networks they might want to use. He'd had them take him to lunch expressly so he could observe them last time. The situation hadn't looked explosive.

Peter let him in with a content expression, saying, "Hi. We're in the kitchen." He returned there and pulled out the coffee pot. Gabriel was leaning against the counter, legs crossed at the ankles, right arm held across his body and left holding a steaming cup of coffee. He looked self-satisfied, perhaps smug. Peter's face was blank as he filled one of two empty cups. If his expression had been on Gabriel's face, Bennet would have been worried. In Peter's case, though, it only meant he had no emotional attachment to the act of dispensing coffee.

Noah looked between the two of them and sighed, pleased. Whatever was between them, they'd worked it out. He was glad. He would still rather get a new partner. Peter was rapidly moving towards becoming a director, even if he didn't realize it himself. Noah didn't want him to turn down the position due to him. The day-to-day work was important, but more so was for the new Company to have principled, levelheaded leadership.

He reached out and snagged the empty cup before Peter could fill it. Peter said, "Don't you want coffee?"

"No, no. Just water today." Bennet turned and filled it from the sink.

Peter warned him, "The tap water in this building is nasty. That's why I always have bottled."

Gabriel interjected, "Peter, you really ought to move out of this place. It can't be healthy."

Peter looked back at him and said, "All my stuff is here."

Gabriel walked to the entrance of the kitchen, looking out in the living room at the distinct absence of "stuff". In the meantime, Noah had pulled a manila coin envelope from his pocket and emptied a number of pills out of it. He popped them in his mouth. Peter said, "Whoa! What are those? Was that Percodan?" He identified the pills from color and shape. Bennet hesitated for a moment, then took a drink of water to wash them down. He handed Peter the envelope, which had notes on it detailing the contents. Peter read it, frowning.

Noah grimaced. "The water really is bad here." He poured the rest of his cup out.

Peter said, "How much do you weigh?" The older man told him as he fished in the refrigerator for a bottle of water. Gabriel came back to lean against the counter again, listening.

The dark-haired man frowned more deeply. "This is almost enough to put you out." He wondered vaguely if he should submit a report on Noah for aberrant behavior of a partner. Noah's actions year before last had just been uncalled for. Peter's mother had nagged him for months about a single, totally justified episode of stimulant use. Of course the disciplinary warning he'd had at work for all those other medications going missing on his shift hadn't helped. Most of those had gone into Sylar though, not him.

Bennet nodded. "That's what they tell me. I hope I can rely on one of you to get me back to my hotel?"

Gabriel said, "Yes."

Noah explained to Peter, "Consider this safety equipment. You're doing commands. I had enough of a headache after last time." He gestured to the coffee. "Caffeine is a stimulant. Ideally, you want your subject to be relaxed and suggestible, not hopped up or excited."

Peter said, "Like when Parkman – Matt – had me dope you up before he tried to get information out of you?"

Noah nodded. Gabriel glanced between them. Bennet said to him, "A few years ago."

Gabriel took a swig of his drink and tilted his head, "Is it for the benefit of the subject, or the telepath?"

"Both, but obviously it's usually the telepath making the decision. The more of a fight someone puts up, the more force a telepath has to bring to bear to accomplish their goals. The more force they bring to bear, the more likely they'll inflict damage. Damage can include brain hemorrhage, behavioral changes, tics, fatigue, weakness, psychological problems, coma and death – the usual suite of symptoms for mental assault, except telepathy rarely causes memory loss."

Bennet nodded at them both. "I'm going to fight you. I expect you to use whatever it takes to overcome me. I'd much rather be drugged for it so I can't resist you very well, so you don't have to try too hard. It is important that I'm still awake. Telepathy can't affect people who are unconscious or asleep unless they're in REM stage and that's dicey. Hallucinogens interfere a lot too, but I don't like the effects. It makes it unpredictable. I'd rather keep this simple."

They walked out to the living room. Noah started to sit at the table, but Peter took his elbow and steered him to the sofa. He said, "Might as well start over here, because with that much in you, you're going to end there." Peter sat at the other end. As an afterthought, he glanced over at Gabriel, but the other man hadn't reacted to the proximity. That was a blessing. He hadn't had a chance to talk to Gabriel since their spat. Gabriel had arrived early, but other than being affectionate to Peter and happy with himself, he hadn't given much away of his real feelings about things.

Noah nodded and went on with his previous topic, "If your subject is excited, agitated," he looked at Gabriel, "terrified of the experience, then it's harder. You let them get a lot of adrenaline going in their system and you'll have to hurt them bad enough they won't recover. At least, that's how it usually works. Some telepaths can work through that and some subjects, even when they're scared to death, can still be turned. Maury Parkman, for example, seems to have a specific frame of mind he tries to get his targets into, angry and off-center. Don't forget that I'm giving general guidelines and everyone's approach is a little different."

Gabriel took a chair from the table, drug it closer to the couch, turned it backwards and leaned over the back. "David Wilcox. Was he selected for being especially vulnerable? I haven't dealt with anyone else who was that… I don't know, for lack of a better word, easy."

Bennet shrugged. "I have no idea. I know Maury and Matt interviewed him before finalizing the placement, but that's not unusual. Veteran agents are expected to put up with whoever they're assigned to, but for first timers it's only reasonable to make an effort for compatible personalities."

"Huh." Gabriel thought about the time when he'd been assigned to Noah as a partner, as Sylar. Noah had been quite the asshole then. Of course, to a large extent, he still was. It wasn't like all the bullets he'd caught from the man over the summer were signs of a kind, caring guy. He smiled.

"It's actually fairly difficult to kill someone right out with telepathy," Noah said.

Gabriel shook his head and the smile vanished. "I didn't kill him with telepathy. He hit his head."

"Oh?" Bennet tilted his head elaborately.

"He was… convulsing. That… well, yeah, I suppose that's the same thing."

"You didn't have a hold of him with telekinesis?"

Gabriel stood up and paced uneasily. "Not right that second, no. It's… kind of hard to keep more than one ability running at the same time, you know?" Peter nodded. He'd noticed that problem. It was possible, just difficult – at least for those abilities that required concentration, like telekinesis or telepathy. Regeneration, lie detection and the like didn't take any special effort to maintain. Gabriel went on, "I made the wrong decision. That was a horrible day. My concentration was still shot from…" He shook his head and waved a hand vaguely. They both knew he was referring to Heidi's abduction.

Noah frowned at him. Normally he'd berate Gabriel for his failings, but he was about to have the man giving him mental orders for the next few hours and poking around in his brain - probably not a good time to hack him off. Instead he said, "If he was convulsing bad enough to crack his own skull, he was probably dead anyway. His body just hadn't caught up with his mind. What ever happened to his body, anyway?"

"I took care of it," he said simply. Gabriel came back to his chair with a sober expression. He didn't sit, just touched the back of it with one hand, still holding his coffee in the other. "I told you he was… different. And of course I was clumsy and in a hurry and didn't know what I was doing."

Noah nodded. "Then on that note, let's work on not being so clumsy. You make me lift my arm, say, and I'll try to lay here and not go to sleep." He leaned back, settling in. He could feel the drugs starting to work. He liked drugs. He smiled to himself. Too bad he had so few opportunities in the course of his work to abuse them. He let his mind wander to those early, wild days before the attack, before the Company and the military and Sandra, kids, divorce and his current problems. It occurred to him he really did trust these two to a ridiculous degree.

An hour later, Peter and Gabriel were standing in the kitchen. Noah was snoring on the couch. They could always wake him, but it seemed like a good time to take a break anyway. They'd been working on unraveling each other's commands right before the older man passed out, since it didn't involve active resistance on his part.

Gabriel said, "Should we just let him sleep it off?"

Peter shook his head. "I want to get better at this. I want to be able to thwart whatever Maury's done to you and to anyone else he gets a hold of."

Gabriel shook his head. "You don't need to worry about that. I can take care of it with people Maury gets to."

"What about you?"

"I'm fine."

"No you're not!" Peter exclaimed, greatly bothered that for some reason Gabriel's statement didn't register as a lie. Apparently he believed it. Neither of them noticed the snoring stopped.

"Peter… it's just… it doesn't affect me very much."

"Doesn't it? When was the last time you saw Claire?" Peter pressed.

"I… There's no reason why I need to see her."

"Oh yeah? You were invited to eat dinner with her a month ago. You refused. You're pretending to be her **father,** you know? Some of the time, at least. Might help if you were seen in the same room with her occasionally. Might help her a lot if you'd declare her."

"What?"

Peter was silent for a long moment. Gabriel watched him closely. Finally Peter said, "Listen, you look… you're Nathan as far as the public knows. She knows different, but… it would still open a lot of doors for her if you'd declare her as Nathan's daughter. Announce it. It's something you can do for her that wouldn't cost you anything, but you'd have to face her." Peter paused for a long time, seeing Gabriel's closed body language. "Is she… are you going to invite her to the wedding?"

Gabriel looked annoyed. "She wouldn't want to come anyway. She doesn't need to know about it."

Peter blinked and him and stepped forward, lowering and tilting his head. "What's that? Are you inviting Noah?"

"Yes."

"Then don't you think she's going to feel left out and hurt if you don't **at least** send her an invitation too? Whether she comes or not, that's not the issue. The issue is whether you include her as part of your family."

Gabriel was breathing harder, acting like he was trying not to twitch.

Peter said, "You can't even think about her, can you?"

Gabriel shook his head and paced as much as he could in the tiny kitchen. "I can't talk about this. I can't."

"That's why we need to go out there and get good at taking out commands, fixing people. You're messed up. If Maury can fix it, I can fix it. It just might take me a while to do it." He watched Gabriel continuing to pace and reached out to stop him. "Hey. Let me help you." He spoke softly, "I want to help you, Gabriel."

The taller man shook him off gently. "I don't need your help, Peter. I appreciate it." He looked away. "I do. I love you." He turned to Peter and started to kiss him. Peter tilted his head to receive him, but Gabriel changed his mind. Overcome by nerves, he walked away and started pacing again.

Peter said quietly, as if to himself, "Now I know why Maury had to wait until you thought he was doing something else."

Gabriel shot him an uneasy look and stopped to lean against the opposite counter. He rubbed his fingers together. They popped with static. He put his hand aside, spreading the fingers on the counter carefully, grounding himself out somewhat.

Peter said, "There's Claire. There's what happened between us in October. What else is there?" Gabriel looked away. It looked like he was actually thinking about it, but he didn't add anything to the list. Peter said, "What about Noah?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I've taken care of that. I took out the oath. That wasn't in my mind as the reason for that at the time, but it seems to have fixed my problems with him regardless."

"Okay. What about Dad?"

"That's different. I can talk about that one, I just can't do anything about it."

"What about what Matt Parkman did to you, a year ago? Or Sylar's past, anything in Nathan's?"

Gabriel thought about that. He remembered the beach, losing Elle, killing Elle. It was a strange moment in his life. Although every step along the path he'd walked with her had made sense, when he stood on that beach and looked back along it, he couldn't understand how he'd arrived where he was from where he'd started. He looked up and saw Peter watching the play of emotions on his face.

"What is it?" Peter asked softly.

"Private." He looked down again, remembering holding her to him, her warmth and her energy. He smiled slightly. She was no shallow blonde. She was as full of lip as Heidi, more so even. She hadn't been good for him, but he'd loved her anyway.

"Are you sure?" Peter interrupted his reminiscence.

He gave the man an irritated look. "Yes, I'm sure." He looked away, rubbing his fingers together nervously yet again. They crackled with static. He wondered what it meant that he reached for _**her**_ power whenever he was nervous and unsure. "It was… Sylar's. Mine. It's personal." He swallowed, blinked and looked away.

Peter nodded. He was comforted that Gabriel had a normal, emotional reaction to whatever he was remembering. The static electricity didn't mean anything significant to Peter, as Gabriel often did that when he was conflicted about something.

Gabriel kept thinking about Elle. It had been a long time, a very long time, since she'd crossed his mind. He'd killed her intentionally, much as he might wish he could think he'd been activated. Too bad he couldn't blame her on Arthur, like he did with Matt. He sucked in breath as memories of killing Matt surfaced in his mind. They were things he'd locked away from himself, as much a break from reality as any other. He didn't want to see them even now. What he was seeing conflicted with what he knew as the truth, what he wanted to be the truth. It was like he had two versions of the same event in his head. It wouldn't be the first time.

Gabriel looked up at Peter with eyes slightly too wide. Peter was watching him, but in the context of his other expressions, the last one didn't stand out. "Let's move on," the taller man said. "I'm not proud of what I did. All I'm sure of are those two things. One, really - Claire. I don't freak out about the rape. I just don't understand why I did it."

Peter shifted uneasily. "I'm not really comfortable calling it that, Gabriel."

"You said you told me no," he said firmly. "I don't remember that, but I know what it means."

"I know. Let's just say you forced me and leave it at that."

Gabriel looked at him pointedly. Peter shifted again and looked down. "Listen, I don't want to think I'm still with someone who did that to me. I'd rather… not think about it."

Gabriel nodded and looked away. He wondered how much he was morally obligated to think about his now-conflicting memories of Matt. He couldn't sort it out, but he knew one version of events threatened his life with the people he loved. After most of a minute, he walked over to Peter and put his arms around him, holding him gently, saying nothing. Peter laid his head on Gabriel's shoulder and allowed the moment to happen. He **did** love him, regardless of what had occurred between them. He didn't know how that had happened, but it had.

Finally Peter said, "Let me help you, Gabriel. It will help me." Gabriel stiffened slightly. Peter rubbed him lightly where he was touching the other man and said, "I never know, dealing with you, when I'm going to run into something that's not _you_. You've talked about how much it bothers you. Think about how the other people in your life feel about it. I can't even blame you for things like that, or Matt, or Claire. It's hard to have to accept what you've done, not hold it against you, and never really be sure how much control you had." He leaned back and looked at Gabriel steadily. "If you won't let me do it for you, let me do it for **me**."

Gabriel leaned in and kissed him softly. "You can't trust me without that, can you?"_ Will lose him if I agree, will lose him if I don't._ _ I hate telepathy._

"I trust you… it's just that I can't be sure that's the right thing to do - trusting you." Peter looked away. "Listen, this is a lot right now. Let's table it, come back to it later. There's no hurry. Neither of us is going anywhere."

Gabriel nodded. Peter was a mystery to him, despite how much he knew about him. The man knew what Gabriel had done and he seemed to have accepted that, but he didn't know how much of that was deliberate and how much was forced. He clearly loved him anyway… did he think he'd stop loving him if he found out unpleasant truths? Every now and then Peter frightened him by acting like he'd do exactly that.

Gabriel had no idea where Peter drew the line on what he'd done or how he'd react when he found out. The uncertainty terrified him. He wondered how long he could put Peter off on this. It certainly gave him incentive to overcome it on his own. He jerked his head at the living room. "Let's go wake the old man up. He's sleeping on the job."

They walked back in. Gabriel sat in his chair in front of Bennet, Peter on the other end of the couch. Gabriel reached out with his foot and nudged Noah's leg. "Wake up there. There's work to be done. Have a nice nap?"

Noah smiled easily and stretched. "Oh, yeah. It was good."

Gabriel blinked slightly, making sense instantly of the lie. Peter was a bit slower on the uptake, but he understood as soon as Gabriel asked, "How long were you listening?"

Noah let the smile slip. _I hate lie detection_, he thought clearly enough that both men picked it up. "Long enough to understand what I was hearing was very private and none of my business." Noah looked directly at each of them, settling on meeting Gabriel's eyes.

Gabriel breathed tensely, exhaling through his teeth and tapping his fingers lightly on the back of the chair. "Yeah, but you still listened to it."

Bennet said, "You both have a lot of things going on in your lives. If either of you need someone to talk to, I understand you don't have many people you can go to. I'm not very well equipped for this, but you can talk to me, if something comes up you can't deal with together. Either of you."

Gabriel looked away and moved his neck awkwardly, like it was suddenly stiff. "Okay. Thanks." He nodded finally, still looking away.

It was Peter who said, "I don't think there's much more we should do today. If you want to rack out on the couch for a while, Noah, the worst of the drugs should be worn off in a few hours. We'll go out and get lunch. Be back later. Okay?"

Bennet nodded. After they left, he debated whether he should be there when they got back. He decided to stay where they expected him to be. Running off often upset people.

XXX

When they returned, Gabriel walked directly over to the chair that was still sitting in front of the couch. He sat down and tilted his head at Noah, who had roused at the opening of the door and sat up from another drug-induced nap. Peter followed him, looking between the two of them uneasily. He closed the distance to Gabriel, but not as a show of support.

Gabriel said, "I want to know what you're going to do about what you heard."

"Nothing." After a pause, Noah added, "I'm going to keep an eye on you two, but I've already been doing that. Angela assigned me to you last year. That hasn't been changed." Peter shifted as he remembered that. He hadn't thought anything of it, but he wasn't sure what he should have thought about it. It lent a new light on the off-hand questions Noah asked him from time to time about Gabriel, especially after they'd started seeing each other again and Bennet had learned of the relationship. He'd had… a lot of questions, now that Peter thought about it.

Gabriel tapped his fingers on the chair, face impassive. Noah looked at his body language and visage with the distinct impression he was about to get the oath back, or something similar. He looked up at Peter with guarded eyes. Peter was watching Gabriel closely, having seen the same warning signs Bennet had.

Gabriel rubbed his hand slowly across his cheek, breathing evenly. "Where do you stand on things?" Noah raised his brows slightly in question. Gabriel gestured at Peter. "On us, what you heard."

"Gabriel… I'm not going to pretend I don't judge people, but… what's going on between you two isn't unique. It's not even new in the Company, if even a few of the rumors I've heard about the directors were true. Something I told Peter last summer when we first started as partners, is that people with abilities are still people. They have hopes, fears, loves, hates… they're prideful, have egos, moments of weakness. You can tempt them, manipulate them. It doesn't take an ability to do it. I was partnered for years to someone who could turn invisible and turn me invisible too if I stood with him. I got to see a lot about people's private lives, what they do with each other when they don't think anyone else is there. I've done a lot of surveillance, seen a lot of footage, and listened to a lot of tapes."

Noah tilted his head, "It doesn't make things right and I'm not saying I understand or approve of what happened between you. But from how it sounded to me, you both know that and you were talking about something from months ago, something that's not happening _anymore_." He looked back and forth between them carefully, but neither of them reacted badly. It seemed to be in the past. "You're trying to work through it and get past it. I hope you do. That's where I stand."

When it was clear Noah was done speaking, Gabriel sat up straighter and said quietly, "Don't come between us, Noah."

Bennet shook his head. "I don't intend to."

Peter said, "Let me drive you back to the hotel."

Noah shook his head. "No, Peter. Call a cab for me. I'll be fine. You need to stay here and talk."

Peter pressed his lips together in a thin line, but he nodded. He put his hand on Gabriel's shoulder and patted him. This time it **was** a show of support.

XXX

After Noah was gone, Peter considered his words carefully. He didn't want what he was about to say to sound like a threat, not after their conversation about Peter backing off on giving orders and making threats. He said, "If you hurt him, give him commands or something, it's going to upset me. He's my friend."

Gabriel looked up at Peter for a moment, then back forward at the couch. "I'll let him make the first move."

Peter exhaled and nodded. It was something - a lot, in fact. "Just be **sure** before you do anything. You don't want to do anything based on a misunderstanding, or because you're seeing something that's not there."

"Huh," Gabriel said. "He's shot me, stabbed me, tortured me, neutralized me, tried to kill me, succeeded in killing me, mocked me, insulted me, betrayed me… No, I'm sure there's nothing there. Of course I'll check if it's a misunderstanding first."

Peter's brows pulled together and he looked at Gabriel intently. Finally he decided he was joking. "You've done a lot for him lately. He feels that. I know he does."

"I know he does too. Doesn't mean he's not still Noah Bennet. Remember what he said about people having weaknesses? He's not immune, you know. The sin of wrath, I'll tell you." He smiled at Peter, very genuinely. "Don't worry, Peter. I might even take him up on that offer to talk sometime." _If anyone might understand about Matt and give me some advice about how to handle that with Peter… someone who murdered people for years and still managed a home life would be a good place to start. Of course, he's divorced now…_

Peter relaxed and laid on the couch, face up and stretched out along it with his feet propped on the arm. He rubbed his head. "What a day."

Gabriel smiled at him and crossed his arms on the back of the chair. He slumped, resting his chin on his arms. He was glad he was there. After several minutes of simply watching Peter lay on the couch, he said, "I need to go. I have an appointment with a client at two. When do you want me back?"

"Mm. Friday?" Peter looked over at Gabriel. He was a little surprised the other man was leaving, but not unhappy. He needed some time alone to think. He was also, frankly, a little concerned and afraid of how Gabriel would handle him since Peter had taken the gloves off in the relationship. The smaller man was still waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one. He wondered idly why Gabriel wasn't trying to press him for every advantage he could get. Nathan would have never waited. He didn't have the patience.

"Okay. Ten again?" Gabriel asked. Peter nodded at him. "I'll see you then."


	87. Staging

Gabriel showed up a little early on Friday and debated waiting until ten up. After a few minutes of watching people on the street, he went on up and knocked. Peter answered promptly. "Hey. Come on in."

He nodded and entered. "Hey. How was your day? Or… night, I guess."

Peter closed the door and shot the locks again. "Fine. Had an electrocution at a convenience store and smoke inhalation at a house fire. No deaths, but some pretty bad burns at the convenience store. Preventable - both of them. One of them a cord rubbed bare got into mop water and the other was a grease fire in the kitchen." Gabriel stepped closer to him, breathing him in. Peter looked up at him and went on after a moment, "There were some other calls, but they were minor, really."

"You still smell like smoke."

Peter grimaced and stepped away from him, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. I should have showered. I thought I would after we…" He smiled crookedly at Gabriel and shrugged.

"Ah," the other man said softly. "That's on the agenda today?" He smiled and dropped a large yellow envelope on the table before turning to face him. He'd been waiting for Peter to invite him back into his bed, wondering if he ever would, given that he'd ceded so much control to him.

"It's on the agenda whenever you put it on there. Doesn't mean it can't be put off if it doesn't work." He ran his hand through his hair again. "Let me go wash."

"No, that's fine. Not the most romantic smell, but it's you. It's what you do." Now that the offer had been made, Gabriel was impatient to have him.

Peter ignored him and headed into the bedroom anyway, beginning to strip. "I'm not a firefighter. And besides, there's lots of smells at work I don't need to be bringing home."

Gabriel watched him go, wishing Peter had a larger shower. It occurred to him the other man would be naked when he got out… and clean… and wet. He went in the bedroom and undressed.

Peter was not looking forward to sex with much in the way of positive anticipation. The last time he'd talked about intimacy with Gabriel, he'd told the other man he could do what he wanted - be rough, not take no for an answer, whatever - and Peter wouldn't leave him because of it. Didn't mean he'd be happy about it, but he wouldn't leave, it wouldn't be the end. Peter had expected Gabriel to test him on it immediately, but he hadn't. He'd just teased him a little and left for business. Peter spent much of his time in the shower psyching himself up to take whatever Gabriel dished out.

As he'd expected, Gabriel was waiting for him on the bed when he got out of the shower. He dried off in front of him, posing for his benefit. Peter tossed the towel around Gabriel's neck and pulled him close. The other man licked a bit of missed moisture from his chest, then let his mouth drift over to Peter's left nipple. Peter held him to himself for a moment, then pulled away. He didn't want to be turned on for whatever Gabriel was going to do. Somehow, that would make it harder.

He tilted his head at Gabriel, "Where do you want me to be for you?"

"On your knees, on the bed."

Peter looked beyond him at the bed, then back to Gabriel. "Doggy style?" The other man nodded. He started to reach for Peter's organ, but Peter smiled seductively and sidestepped him, climbing on the bed. "You have the lube, right?"

Gabriel shrugged. "I will in a moment." He called it to him and turned to take up his position behind the other man. He reached around him, finding him and stroking him. He was still mostly soft, but that wasn't going to last long with Gabriel's practiced touch.

Peter put his head down and to one side. He was glad Gabriel couldn't see his face. It felt good, but he didn't want it to. After a while, he was fully hard and began breathing harder. "Gabriel, just… please, fuck me. Not so much… before… this time. Please."

Gabriel took his hand off him reluctantly and kissed his back. "I thought you said there was no such thing as too much foreplay?"

Peter grunted. Gabriel shrugged and loosened Peter, preparing him for his entry. He put more time and attention to the task than he usually did. Peter just wished he'd get on with it. He got up behind him and positioned himself, beginning with short, hard thrusts. Peter braced himself and relaxed as much as he could. _Really, this isn't bad_, he told himself. _I'm psyched up for something that's not happening. Just relax. Relax, Peter._ It was easier said that done.

Gabriel was a fan of tightness, so it wasn't like he minded. He took Peter's hips in a firmer grip and put more force to it. Peter bit his lip, then opened his mouth to pant through it. Gabriel pumped into him regularly, strongly, harder and harder until he was slapping his body into Peter's, jogging him with each motion. Peter put his arms out in front of him to brace better. His body was starting to react to being reamed out despite himself, but he didn't think Gabriel had much longer in him.

Thinking about that, Peter clenched intentionally, even though it didn't feel good. It wasn't quite painful, but Gabriel felt it and groaned in pleasure. Peter repeated the action several more times until Gabriel's thrusting lost pattern and he came, panting against him, leaning over Peter's body.

Gabriel exhaled and kissed Peter's back several times, stroking his fingertips over Peter's skin. The gentle gesture made Peter's back arch and his penis harden almost painfully. He pulled forward and disengaged himself. He turned and sat, looking back at Gabriel from behind a screen of dark, wet hair as he breathed heavily.

The other man crawled up the bed near the headboard and sat against it, spreading his legs. He reached out and caught Peter's shoulder, pulling him in towards himself. Peter went where Gabriel put him, facing away, leaning against him.

"No, no," Peter tried to fend Gabriel's hands off as the other man reached for his member. "Please. Just you this time. Okay?"

"Just me?" Gabriel lifted his hands to Peter's shoulders, pulling him back against him and settling him. He brought his legs in against Peter's.

"Just you."

"Why?"

Afterwards, Peter turned against him so his right shoulder was against Gabriel's chest instead of his back. "I thought… I'd thought you'd do something… different."

"Doggy style's different."

Peter laughed. "Yeah, I suppose. Uh, that's not what I meant. I mean, I told you last time," he looked up to see Gabriel's face. "I told you that if you wanted to be rough, you could. You wouldn't lose me over it."

Gabriel's face smoothed and he reached out to Peter's hair. He combed it out of the other man's face and seemed taken with it for nearly a minute. Peter relaxed against him and wished they had the sort of relationship where he could read Gabriel's mind. On the other hand, some things were probably better left private. Finally Gabriel said, "You don't like that. I'm not going to make this… make us, something you don't want to do. I love you."

Guarded, Peter said, "I thought you liked it rough."

"I do. But I'm not an idiot, Peter. We can work up to it. Like you said before, as long as no one's getting hurt, you'll put up with a lot of stuff." Gabriel nodded as if to himself. "I want to find out what that 'lot of stuff' is," he purred and nuzzled Peter's neck. "But not all at once and not by hurting you. I can't stand that."

"Hurting me? I thought you wanted to hurt me. Got off on it."

Gabriel's brows pulled together slowly, a disapproving look. "No. I get off on you being scared of me, on controlling you, making you do what I want." He smiled and dipped his head to Peter's, nuzzling him again as if the very thought of it was arousing. Peter held himself still - the very thought of it gave him a very different reaction, but he reminded himself all Gabriel was doing was talking.

Gabriel went on, "That… usually requires hurting a person first, or making them think you'll hurt them. Actually hurting you tears me apart… at least, anything that would upset you." Peter tilted his head, not sure what the distinction was. Gabriel kissed Peter softly on the forehead, then leaned back. "If I hurt you too much, you'll leave me. I have no idea how much is 'too much', Peter. So… I'm being careful. I want to be with you. I'm not a sadist, despite what you might think. That's Maury's specialty, not mine."

"Hm." Peter turned and leaned back into Gabriel's chest, letting his head fall back against the man's shoulder. _ That's… I think he's going to have to live with disappointment on this one. Maybe I can do something with the control issues though._

After several minutes passed, Gabriel said, "Speaking of Maury, we're supposed to meet him tomorrow night at Ma's. At least I am. You can be there if you want. It's at six. He dropped off Molly's first report on Mohinder today. I'm pretty sure we have his lab and home now. The next week will confirm it."

"You don't think we can trust him?" Peter asked, speaking of Parkman.

"No. I think he's in regular contact with Arthur."

"Hasn't he said he isn't? You can detect lies."

Gabriel replied, "There are ways around it, like he said. He rarely gives me a straight answer for anything. As far as that goes, I'm not sure Dad isn't seeing Ma in her dreams. Sometimes she acts a little off about things. I don't think we should discuss this around them as anything more than using the eclipse as an opportunity to get to Suresh."

Peter nodded. "Tell them we'll deal with Arthur later."

"Yeah. There'll be good openings later, when he's trying to round up specials."

Peter glanced back at him questioningly. "You're serious?"

"Well… there will be."

"That's not my plan." Peter frowned.

Gabriel shrugged. "I can't focus on your plan."

Peter continued frowning at him. Gabriel said, "Sorry. I'm not going to interfere with you, but there's only so much I can do. Besides, if it doesn't work, we can still do the other."

Peter nodded and faced away. He pressed himself back into Gabriel and took the other man's hands. He brought them around himself and Gabriel completed the gesture, hugging him.

"Are you comfortable?" Peter asked.

Gabriel nuzzled the side of Peter's head. "Oh, yes."

"Well," Peter said slowly, reluctant to spoil the moment and knowing this would, "You know at some point I'm going to need to know everything you can show me about Riyadh." After a few seconds, Gabriel's body tensed around him. Peter relaxed into him, molding himself to the other man.

Gabriel shifted to hold him closer and stilled. "I see." After a few more moments, Peter felt him relax more profoundly. He knew when it happened. Gabriel said, "Go ahead," anyway.

Peter gained an awareness of Gabriel's mind. It was empty for a long moment, then Gabriel started with what he could recall of standing at the travel desk in the airport, watching the families greet one another enthusiastically. His memories were enmeshed with his thoughts and impressions of the moments, his emotions as he'd experienced them.

He moved through them steadily, stopping when Peter had questions about various things. It was a more personal retelling than he wanted to give. He felt exposed by it. Particularly, he hadn't intended to share with Peter his direct experience with Mohinder in the hotel room, but he could see no way to omit it without stirring needless suspicions. His lies to Mohinder were too easily misread as truth, which was of course why he'd used them. They might even be the truth, but he tried very hard to avoid thinking about them too much.

Peter felt his discomfort, but made no attempt to address it. He wanted Gabriel to get comfortable with him in his mind and he imagined that repeated exposure, without judgment, would help. Besides, he wasn't sure what exactly Gabriel was tense about in that scene. Peter wondered if he had feelings for Mohinder. He felt Gabriel poking around at his own consciousness towards the end, but he ignored it. Gabriel wouldn't hurt him. He was confident of that, especially now.

Something pulled at Peter's mind. He didn't resist it at first, which was probably a mistake. A moment later, he felt suddenly disoriented, surrounded and paralyzed. He heard Gabriel think, _Ah, so that's how it's done._

Peter tried to move, but he was formless. He could sense his body distantly, but he realized he was seeing it through Gabriel's senses. He felt fear start to move through him - it was a very odd emotion when separated from the physical sensations. He tried to nullify Gabriel's powers, but none of his abilities were at his disposal. _Gabriel! What are you doing to me? _He tried to project, hoping that at least was still within his capability.

_I'm right here. I have you. What was that you told me? Lean back, relax, let me hold you? Submission?_ He chuckled darkly.

Panic ran through Peter's mind as he realized the sort of total revenge Gabriel could achieve now - he could rewrite Peter to his fancy and there was nothing Peter could figure out to do about it at the moment. It was all the more frightening with the admission he'd caused this, fed on Gabriel's insecurities and ignored warning sign after warning sign the man wasn't handling it well. _I should have known when he tensed, his tone of voice when he said 'I see'. As if the blow-up with Noah wasn't signal enough, I did it again…_ His mind was creating a nightmare and Peter was falling into it.

_You're arrogant,_ Gabriel thought at him, interrupting his stream of consciousness, giving him an anchor other than his own thoughts. _So sure of yourself, sure you're right and that if your intentions are good, then you can't go far wrong. You're hurting me under the mantel of 'right', Peter._

With another feeling of motion and disorientation, Peter found himself back in his own body. He twitched and then surged up and away from Gabriel, who made no attempt to hold him. He came off the bed and wheeled on the taller man, hands up, loosely as fists. Gabriel sat very still. Peter swallowed, glanced back and forth, and finally sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Scary, isn't it?" Gabriel said blandly.

"Yeah," Peter answered.

"I didn't change anything. I didn't change you. I just wanted to see if I could do it. That and I was a little pissed I could see in your mind you didn't care if I was upset by this." He leaned forward and reached out to touch Peter briefly on the arm. It was as much as he could touch without moving, given where the younger man was sitting. "Let's say I was rough in the bedroom and knocked you around, thinking if I did it enough, you'd learn to like it."

Peter's head snapped around, eyes angry. Gabriel only raised a brow, saying, "That touches a nerve, does it?"

"I wasn't…" Peter said. "I wasn't doing that to you."

"You _weren't?_ You weren't thinking that if you did this to me enough, I'd get over it? Learn to go with it and let you do it without resisting? Just shut my eyes and think of England…? Not everything can be desensitized, Peter. Just because we love each other doesn't mean you get access to every part of me, especially my mind. What happened to 'some things should be private'? Or does it only apply when you want it to?"

Peter faced the floor and shut his eyes. He knew he should apologize, but he couldn't bring himself to it at the moment. He was still struggling with the urge to justify. Instead he scooted down the bed, closer to the other man, trying to let his presence and his body language speak for him. Gabriel sat up and moved behind him. He started to rub his shoulders. Peter relaxed. Apparently Gabriel didn't hold it against him as much as Peter feared.

Peter wished he could open his mouth and say the right things, but he had no idea what those were. Neither spoke for some time, while Gabriel expanded his massage down Peter's back and started on his arms. He kissed him lightly along the top of his shoulders and the back of his neck.

_You must really love me._ "How do we do this, then?" Peter finally asked when Gabriel's ministrations turned him so he could see the other man's face. Gabriel had shifted around sideways so he could take Peter's hand and massage his arm.

"You ask permission. We talk about it, like on Wednesday. I was listening to you. I'd… pretty much agreed. It's like surgery. No one says, 'hey, how about you knock me out, cut into me and start removing stuff?', but if there's a medical need and everyone agrees, then you arrange for someone to do just that." He reached over to stroke a large circle on Peter's back and spoke gently. "Maybe I'll let you, maybe I won't, but in either case I don't want you thinking how I feel about it doesn't matter."

Peter nodded. "It matters. I'm sorry. I was callous."

Gabriel worked his way down Peter's left forearm and raised the back of his hand to his lips. He smiled and teased, "Mm. Peter isn't empathetic enough. I think you're well on your way to duplicating me. Dad will never recognize you now."

Peter laughed at the joke. He turned his hand and cupped Gabriel's jaw with it. "Do you forgive me?"

Gabriel nodded solemnly.

"Good. I need to go take another shower."

XXX

When Gabriel got out from his turn in the shower, he got dressed and went into the living room. Peter was looking through the contents of the envelope Gabriel had dropped on the table earlier. It included several maps with locations marked on them and an extra sheet serving as a key for the codes on the map. Next to him were several books, maps, other papers and traveler's guides to the region, nearly all brought over previously by Gabriel from things he'd looked through before visiting as Nathan.

Gabriel took a seat across from Peter and they went through the material together. It made more sense now that he had seen Gabriel's memories of the place. They went over the plan, discussed alternatives and poked holes in it. After nearly an hour, Gabriel said, "Let me show you the layout of the hotel I was at, in case you have to stay there."

Peter eyed him. "You mean…?" He pointed at his head.

"Yeah. Now."

"Okay," Peter said uncertainly. He tilted his head slightly and saw what Gabriel wanted to show him. He tried not to be wary of a trap, but he was. Nothing untoward happened. They returned to studying afterwards and started through the director's file on Halo. They waded through that until Peter felt like his eyes were going to start bleeding.

Peter pushed away the empty cartons of Chinese food they had ordered and the latest dossier on suspected Halo executives. "Let's stop. I've had enough for today."

Gabriel smiled at him. "If you were on the board, you'd have homework like this more often."

Peter rolled his eyes. "It'd be easier if you could just tell me the relevant stuff."

"We don't know what's relevant yet. So we've got to learn it all. Remember me saying we needed a probability guy? One of those could look at all this and tell us what was most likely to be useful. We'd be able to focus. We're pretty sure Halo has one or two. It'd be nice to pry whoever it is away and add them to our team."

"Hm." Peter rubbed his eyes and stood, carrying the food cartons off to the kitchen trash. It occurred to him Gabriel wasn't suggested anyone take anyone else's powers. He wasn't sure what he thought about that. When he came back he said, "If I see one, I'll talk to them. It's not the priority, though."

"I agree. Before I take off, I'd like to go over that power I used on you earlier in bed - the nightmare. I can show you what I did eventually against Maury in November to fight him off. I'm not sure it's foolproof, but it made him quit. It seemed to worry him a little when I started on it again last week."

Peter nodded. "I'm kind of tired."

"Would you rather not?"

"No, it's okay. I'm just confused as to why this is fine all of a sudden."

"Because **I'm** the one doing it, not **you**. There's a difference."

Peter smirked. "Control freak."

"Yeah, I am. Especially when it comes to my head. I told you I didn't have any problem using my abilities on other people." He concluded in a teasing tone, "Now come over here and do what I tell you to do. It makes me happy when you do that."

Peter laughed and did it.


	88. Consultations

Noah saw him in the park, sitting on the bench he'd mentioned. It was a sunny day, but that wasn't saying much for the end of February. He supposed Gabriel had wanted to meet here for the privacy. There weren't many other people out. Bennet swallowed and squared his shoulders. He'd left his gun, his knife and most everything else he usually carried that was dangerous in his car. When it came to it, he didn't want to make a scene. All he had with him was the suggested sandwich and some coffee. He walked forward like a man going in front of a firing squad.

Gabriel had his sandwich in his hands. It was a sub of some kind. He saw Noah coming, but didn't study him. The other man stopped next to the empty space on the bench and stood stiffly. "Have a seat," Gabriel said, not looking up at him.

Noah sat, his back straight, his lips pressed together. He exhaled slowly. It would help if he were calm, it occurred to him. He doubted he could manage that and in any case, he didn't see any reason to make it easy for either of them. He put his food down next to him and waited, staring off into the distance.

Gabriel looked at him and tilted his head. He saw Noah's straight posture and distant expression. "Hi?" he asked, not sure what else to say.

"Hello," Noah said evenly, still staring off.

Gabriel followed his eyes, but didn't see anything worth looking at. He rubbed his jaw and leaned back. It made him tense just looking at Noah. He could _hear_ him clearly enough too, now that he was paying attention. "So… uh, thanks for coming."

Noah nodded curtly and said nothing.

"You don't have to be here if you don't want to, you know."

Bennet turned slowly to regard him and said, "You called me. You said you wanted to talk."

Gabriel looked at Noah's closed expression. His shoulders slumped a little. "You offered. Go on then. Sorry I called. Must have misunderstood." He took a bite of his sandwich and looked away.

Noah watched him intently for nearly a minute. Gabriel looked back at him once, annoyed at the scrutiny, but said nothing. Bennet finally said, "You wanted… to talk about… Peter?"

Gabriel asked, "What else did you think I wanted to talk about?"

Noah leaned back against the bench slowly and brought out his lunch. He rubbed his mouth and took a cautious drink of his coffee. When the other man was clearly still waiting for an answer, he said, "The last time we talked, you were pretty upset."

"About Peter."

Noah shrugged. "Yes, I think I see that now." His fears that Gabriel was going to give him new commands, somewhere private where Peter couldn't interfere, ones that linked him to only one director instead of the whole Company, were apparently unfounded. His relief made him feel a little weak for a moment. "You didn't misunderstand. I did. I'm… ah, yeah. Please, talk about Peter. What's going on?"

Gabriel swallowed his bite and said, "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I thought you had something else in mind. Is Peter all right?"

"Yeah, he's fine." He sounded unenthused about that.

"Then what's wrong?"

Gabriel took a deep breath and decided to just blurt it out. "I killed Matt Parkman on purpose. Or… I think I did. I'm not sure, but now I seem to have two sets of memories about it. The one that makes a lot more sense… I knew from the dreams Arthur would activate my ability and when he did that it was an excuse. I used it. The other memories are that I was forced, but that… it really seems like something I made up in my own mind, with Matt's power, so I could evade lie detection later." He drew his brows together and took another bite.

Noah ate in silence for a while. His hands were cold. He held his coffee in one to keep it warm and wondered again why Gabriel had wanted to meet outside on a day like this. He didn't know it was possible to brainwash _yourself_ - that was a new high (or would that be low?) in craziness, even for Gabriel. And rather than be upset about using his powers on himself in some violating manner, he was upset about killing Matt. As important as Matt's death was, Bennet would have expected the larger issue to be who was controlling Gabriel's mind at any given moment. Finally he offered, "What does Peter think of this?"

"He doesn't know. That's what I wanted to talk to someone about. Someone… I trusted not to tell him." He looked at Noah for a moment. The other man nodded finally, agreeing to honor the confidentiality and worrying about what he was getting himself into. Gabriel went on, "I don't think he'll be too keen on being with a murderer, on top of everything else. If he keeps pressing me on this idea of his that he'll fix my head, then he's going to stumble across it."

Noah sighed. "Yeah, I don't think he'll be too happy about it. I can tell you, from long experience with trying to mislead people close to me, that lying really doesn't help, however attractive it might seem in the short term. How many others have there been?"

"Other what?"

He exhaled and pursed his lips. "Gabriel, how many other people have you killed?"

Gabriel cocked his head at him. "What? Since… when?" _And as who? Sylar?_

Noah looked off into the distance. "Since… last year, this time." He tried not to think of what this man had done to Claire about this time, the previous year. He also wondered, since Gabriel was manipulating his own memories, if he'd genuinely be able to remember anything he'd done. Bennet shook his head. It was too weird to contemplate. He decided to focus on what was perceived and known and leave the possibilities to themselves for now. He supposed it was a good sign that Gabriel was talking to _someone_. Noah had been surprised to find out from Peter that the two of them really hadn't talked much.

Gabriel sighed. "David. David Wilcox." He was silent for a while, then shook his head. "And Matt. I don't see what you're getting at."

"There's been no one else? No accidents? No…?" He tapped his forehead. When Gabriel didn't seem to understand still yet, Noah drew a line across his own forehead with his finger.

Gabriel blinked and leaned away from him. "No! No! No one. Why would you even…" He grimaced and shook his head.

Noah gave him an appraising look. "It's well known that the Hunger has to be fed from time to time. A year is a very long time to go. A few months is more normal."

Gabriel said hotly, "What the fuck does that mean? I haven't done it. And when I did it to Matt, it was on purpose. That wasn't the Hunger. I'd already established I didn't **have to**."

Noah considered the extraordinary and bizarre efforts Angela had wrought in regards to this man. Perhaps there was a way to fix the Hunger and she had found it. He'd turned down Maury after a nearly six month dry spell, when the man was helpless before him and he was being encouraged to do it. "Okay," he said. He actually believed Gabriel about this, because if he'd been doing it, then he'd have manifested new abilities and Noah couldn't imagine he would hide those from himself.

Gabriel gave him a nasty look for his insinuations. Noah went back to finishing his sandwich. They didn't speak until he was done. Noah wadded up the wrapper and said, "When do you plan to tell him?"

"I wasn't sure if I should. What do you think?"

"Yeah, I think you should tell him. Don't let him find that on his own. He might not forgive you even if you tell him, but the chances are smaller if he comes across it himself."

Gabriel sighed and finished his own lunch. Noah went on, "Next week he's going over to deal with this eclipse business?" The other man nodded, chewing. "Don't tell him until after that. He needs to be able to focus. You don't send people out on assignment if they're emotionally compromised."

Gabriel nodded, taking his last bite. He put the wrapper back in the bag and pulled out some chips. "Potato chips?" He shook the bag at Noah, who took one.

"Any special way I should tell him?" he said around a chip.

Noah shook his head. "I am **not** good at this stuff, Gabriel. You'd think I would be, after so much experience with it, but I'm not." He tried to think of what else he could say to help. He asked, "Do you do anything else with Peter?" At Gabriel's look, he clarified, "Do you do anything with him other than Company business and… your relationship?"

Gabriel blinked. "No, not really."

Noah shrugged. "If that works for the two of you, that's fine, but those aren't the sort of relationships that last. They're not stable. Like with your wife - you have kids, a home, you go out with her socially. I'm sure you share a lot in each other's daily lives. If you want to keep things together with Peter, you need to be spending time together doing something… together. Something not…"

"I think I know what you're saying."

Noah exhaled. "Good." He was really uncomfortable with being explicit about that. "You're… kind of… probably… in what they call the honeymoon stage of a relationship right now. That will fade. You have to have something else you do together, enjoy together, to take its place."

Gabriel tossed part of a potato chip at a nearby sparrow, using his telekinesis to sweep it close to the bird without startling it. After a moment, the animal picked it up and flew off with the fragment. He smiled. He looked back at Noah. "I was thinking I needed to learn to fight. Without abilities. Maybe work out. Do you think you could give me some training? Maybe Peter and I? I don't… I'm… If I just go to him, he's going to whip my ass a lot. I'd kind of rather have the opportunity to learn something other than how easily Peter can beat me up. He does that enough as it is."

Noah blinked and narrowed his eyes at Gabriel. "He does what?"

"What?"

"What does Peter do to you?"

Gabriel shook his head. He hadn't meant to imply Peter was physically abusive. "Not important. Will you do it?"

Bennet thought about when they'd gone out to lunch, how Peter had ignored Gabriel, turned his back on him and treated him like he wasn't even there. Yes, he'd been mad and rightly so, but... Noah sighed. He didn't want to think Peter could be less than considerate and perfect with his partners, although now that he thought about it, it was pretty ridiculous to hold him to that sort of standard. Unlike with Peter, Noah didn't feel all that protective of Gabriel. He was just disappointed in Peter for whatever Gabriel was trying to say. "Okay." He nodded. "Yeah, I'll start you off. Work out a time with him. I'll find a gym we can use after hours."

"Thanks. And thanks for… listening."

Noah nodded, chaffing his hands together. "You know, next time, pick someplace indoors, or less cold, please?"

Gabriel looked around blankly. "It's cold?"

XXX

Gabriel came by at five to pick Peter up. The younger man came to the door still somewhat bleary-eyed from sleep, clad solely in pajamas. He smiled lazily at Gabriel and let him in. "Hey."

"You look like you weren't done."

"No. Not really. Woke up with this really good dream…" Peter snapped the elastic on his waistband. Gabriel noticed he had an erection.

"Oh, that kind of dream. You need help finishing?"

Peter smiled and sidled up to Gabriel. "I wouldn't say no…"

Gabriel slid his hand into Peter's pajama bottoms and found what he was looking for. He slid his hand up and down his shaft, then looked at the bedroom.

Peter knew his intent and said, "No, over there on the counter. Just use the massage oil. I never put it up the other day."

Gabriel called it to himself, dispensed some and put his hand back inside the loose pants. Peter leaned back against him, turning so his back was against Gabriel's chest. He melted into him and sagged. Gabriel had to put an arm around him just to hold him up. He stroked the other man. Peter twitched against him, entirely relaxed. "That **was** a good dream," Gabriel said.

"So's this," Peter said muzzily. He breathed harder, making small moaning sounds as Gabriel worked him. He shifted his hips back and forth, rubbing his buttocks against Gabriel's groin, where he'd risen. "Go ahead and take me. I want you to."

"This is fine, Peter," Gabriel answered evenly, not nearly so full of lust as Peter was at the moment.

"No, take me. Please."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. Peter couldn't see him. Apparently his tone of voice had not conveyed his lack of interest. Either that or Peter was just too lost in it to pay attention. That seemed likely. "Sure."

Peter kicked off his pajama bottoms, completing his nakedness. He turned and pulled open Gabriel's trousers, as if in a hurry. He gave the man one quick stroke. Gabriel jerked against his hand, annoyed at being used. Peter bent over, putting his elbows on the arm of the couch. Gabriel stepped behind him, hard enough for the job, still dressed except for his pants being open. He ran his fingers into Peter to find him already fairly loose. He worked more of the massage oil into him anyway. Peter arched against him. "Go ahead, before I… before I'm not as ready."

Gabriel gave him a half-smile and aimed himself, pushing in. He put both hands on Peter's hips and began to fuck into him. After his initial entry was done, Peter put a hand to himself and began panting, breathing hard and making aroused sounds of fulfillment. Peter pushed back into him and they matched each other for pattern. It didn't last long though, as Peter was already near the edge. He came onto his hand and the floor, sinking down against the arm of the couch, laying over it as Gabriel thrust into his ass more slowly until the aftershocks had faded entirely, then stopped and withdrew.

Peter blinked and stood up, a little wobbly. He turned to Gabriel with a confused expression. "You didn't come." He looked down at Gabriel's cock, which was losing its erection. Peter stepped next to him and reached to touch him, but Gabriel pulled back with a tense, guarded expression. Peter looked at that and then reached out to touch him anyway. Gabriel swallowed and looked away with a pained visage while Peter stroked him back to full hardness. It wouldn't take long. It was easier to let him do it than to fight with him.

Peter's hand fell away, unfinished, just about as Gabriel was feeling the first pleasurable precursors to ejaculation. Without further stimulation, he felt frustrated and swollen, very annoyed that Peter would start him against his desire and then stop without finishing. Gabriel looked back to see that Peter had finally read his partner's feelings accurately. "I'm sorry…" Peter said. He stepped away, distant, the passion he'd been feeling thoroughly doused by realizing it wasn't mutual.

Gabriel reached out and took Peter's hand, slick with oil. Peter pulled it away easily, too slippery to hang on to. "No, I'm sorry. It was my fault."

"Hey!" Gabriel grabbed Peter by the shoulder as he tried to walk off and brought him back to himself roughly. Peter inhaled sharply and blinked, surprised at being manhandled. "You wanted me going. You've got me going. You don't get to walk away now."

Peter's brows drew together as he looked at Gabriel's face. It was intent. Gabriel glanced around the room, then at Peter, who wasn't resisting him, but merely standing there. _Fine, I don't need cooperation anyway._ He pushed Peter backwards, making him stumble but holding him enough so he didn't fall. He pressed him against the wall next to the couch.

Gabriel pushed his body against the other man, pinning him. As he'd expected, Peter's heart began beating faster as fear began to flood through him. The last time Gabriel had put him against a wall for sex he'd gone a lot further than Peter wanted. Now Gabriel bit his lower lip and reached down to take both of Peter's wrists. He held them up against the wall, grinding into the captive man. It didn't matter so much how he pressed his organ into Peter, as his arousal was coming from the emotions he could hear. He stared forcefully, challengingly into Peter's eyes until his partner looked away, unwilling to see the expression on his face.

Peter's breath caught and he swallowed. He looked past Gabriel at the rest of the living room, his eyes unfocused as he failed to stay entirely in the here and now. He gave Gabriel his fear and let him take it. Peter knew it was what Gabriel was wanting, what he was trying to provoke. Only days before, the younger man had dismissed out of hand that Gabriel could frighten him in any realistic manner, without actually hurting him. He knew now he'd been naïve. He didn't try to stop his feelings or calm down - he just let it wash through him.

His lover hunched against him and began to slather his neck and jaw with affection, nuzzling him, panting, kissing and nipping. That he was so aroused by the situation made Peter feel filthy. He shut his eyes. Gabriel rubbed himself against Peter and let go one wrist to reach down and pleasure himself directly. The other arm he forced out to the side, a reminder of the position he'd put Peter in just before he'd come, just before the Hunger had moved him to try to kill him.

Peter shook his head and made a whimper. It was all he could do not to fight. Gabriel could feel it and it was an irresistible, intoxicating draught. He groaned in pleasure, his grip on Peter's wrist faltering as he came against Peter's stomach, lurching into him and unwinding at last.

He pressed his body against Peter only enough so they were touching along the line of their bodies, wetness and all, despite Gabriel still being mostly clothed. He listened and waited while both of them calmed. Peter eventually relaxed and turned his head to the side, laying it on Gabriel's shoulder. _He didn't hurt me_, Peter told himself. _He didn't hurt me_. He repeated it as a mantra, calming himself now that it was over.

Gabriel kissed him on the neck and wrapped his arms around Peter to hug him gently as he pulled him away from the wall a little bit. "Are you okay?" he asked softly. "Was that too much for you?"

"That was… a lot." Peter shut his eyes tensely and turned his head to kiss Gabriel's shoulder. He turned his head back to lay it against the other man and put his arms around him. He didn't know if it was too much yet.

Gabriel murmured to him, "You had a dream to turn you on, get you ready. I came in the door thinking about how much I hated Maury Parkman."

Peter couldn't help himself from chuckling. "Okay… not a turn on. Got it."

His partner smiled too, swaying back and forth with him. "This got me off. Thank you." He pulled back and kissed Peter on the temple, then tilted his head and lowered it in an obvious invitation for his mouth. He waited to see if Peter would meet him, which he did after a moment's hesitation. Gabriel kept it chaste until Peter slipped his tongue into his mouth and deepened it. They stood together for some time, sharing the moment and trying to make up for their missteps with simple closeness.

After a long while, Gabriel said, "Speaking of Maury, if we get you dressed and take off now, we'll be on time. If we shower, we'll be late, but clean. What do you want?"

"I'm not going anywhere smelling like this."

Gabriel inhaled their mixed scents. "You smell great. But yeah, he probably won't appreciate your addictive aroma like I do." Gabriel grinned at him.

XXX

Peter and Gabriel arrived somewhat late to meet with Maury. They'd discussed their plans for the meeting in the car. Angela came out to meet them with a relaxed, pleased expression. "Hello boys. Mr. Parkman is here in the parlor, making a nuisance of himself. Please keep him busy for me."

She led them into the room. Peter was eyeing her intently. Gabriel, who had seen much more of Maury and Angela's often odd interactions, didn't care. Or maybe he was just not reacting visibly. Angela waved them in and concluded, "I have things to see to. You can let yourselves out when you're done." She looked at the older man. "Even you, Maury." She gave him a warm, friendly smile and left. Parkman's eyes rested a bit too long on her posterior.

Peter looked at Maury suspiciously and was given a leer and a smirk. He looked away, exhaling, trying not to let the other man provoke him.

Maury looked between the two of them and then at his watch. He looked back and said, "I didn't know it was raining outside."

Both of them had wet hair from the shower. Peter blushed slightly, angry. Gabriel shrugged. "It isn't," he said calmly. "Unless you really want to know why we were late, let's discuss the trip to Riyadh."

"Hm. Tempting." He looked at Peter, who was so much more fun than Gabriel, so much easier to poke.

"I'll tell you," Gabriel offered. "Hell, I'll even show you if you want to know that bad." He leaned forward, staring at Maury with unusual intensity. Peter gave Gabriel an uncertain look, wondering if he had inadvertently triggered some level of protectiveness from his lover.

After a long pause, Maury leaned forward to match him and said, "Sure. Let's see if you can. Last time you tried, you couldn't project images."

"I've been practicing," Gabriel said evenly, raising his brows. Peter glanced back and forth between them. He didn't get to see what Gabriel showed Parkman, but the older man jerked, twitched and bared his teeth, pulling back and shaking his head like he didn't want to see what he was being shown. Gabriel snapped his own head to the side like he'd been hit. It seemed to end whatever he had been doing. Both he and Maury were breathing harder from the unseen exertion.

Maury looked at Peter with a look of disgust. Peter started to get up. Gabriel put a hand out to stop him. "Not in your mother's house, Peter," he said quietly.

Parkman dropped his eyes and looked at the floor. He shook his head and glanced up briefly at Gabriel. "Yeah," he said too loudly. "You've been practicing. Getting a lot better at that." He gave Peter a more normal look. It was edged with caution.

"Riyadh?" Gabriel invited, tilting his head.

"Yeah, Riyadh," Maury straightened himself, rubbing at his face. "Yeah… well… youth. Uh-huh. So, Riyadh. I've got tickets. Here's yours and the flight schedule." He fished through a folder next to him and handed over two sheets of paper. "You're going as… Nathan, right?"

Gabriel nodded, looking at the itinerary. He handed it over to Peter when he was done.

They went through hotel reservations and the schedule. Gabriel pressed for details on dealing with Mohinder. "So what exactly are you going to do?"

"I'm going to put him back the way he was. That's all. He'll sort the rest out himself." Parkman made a dismissive gesture.

"How do you do that?"

Maury shifted his eyes back and forth. "I'll just do it. You get me to him, and I'll take care of the rest."

"I can't imagine he'll be cooperative."

"If I have to, I'll drug him. I know what to take. I'll have it with me." Parkman shrugged. This was of no concern.

"How will you get it past airport security?"

Maury rolled his eyes at Gabriel and didn't dignify the question with a response. He went on, "We shouldn't be pressed for time, not if Arthur is off working on the eclipse. You're sure Mohinder won't be with him during that?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Pretty sure. If not, we'll have his lab to ourselves and that's worthwhile by itself. We can intercept him there or at his house later that night. I was hoping you'd tell me… show me… how you do that, that 'fixing' of people."

"You got someone you need to fix?"

Gabriel shrugged again, giving no other answer. Maury frowned. "You know how to take out commands - at least, in an amateurish fashion."

"It's not the same thing."

"Yeah. Actually restructuring someone takes a degree of power you don't have and it's unlikely you ever will. You probably won't need it either. I've never run into it happening to anyone other than a few folks Matt got to."

Gabriel huffed. Parkman added, "Don't get me wrong - professionally speaking, you've got enough juice to handle most things, but Matt was the only one more powerful than me the Company ever found. You get the size you're born with. There isn't any enhancement or shape-shifting that can fix your inadequacies."

Peter rolled his eyes. Gabriel smiled at Maury, who looked disappointed he didn't get more of a reaction with that. Gabriel said, "So you don't think I can do the initial fix. What about breaks from reality? Let's assume he's going to have a lot of those. How do you fix them?"

Parkman's eyes slid from Gabriel to Peter, who was paying close attention. "You don't care about Mohinder," he told the younger man.

Peter put aside the pretense they were talking solely about fixing Mohinder. He said, "I care about a lot of people, but I'll start with Mohinder. Can you show me?"

Maury tilted his head. "Maybe." He glanced at Gabriel.

Gabriel said, "Fix my problem with Claire. Show him what you're doing. Be detailed. Please be careful. I'll let you."

Parkman's brows rose as high as they could go. "You **have** been practicing. Do you really think you can calm down enough for me to do that?"

"Do you really think you can resist the urge to provoke me?" Gabriel rejoined.

Maury thought that one over, seriously considering it. He looked at Peter. "Are you going to work with me?" Peter nodded.

Gabriel gave Parkman a peculiar look. Maury said, "He's a lot more stable than you are. If you start getting out of hand, I'll just leave you to him and you two can tear each other up."

Gabriel snorted. "Thanks, but I don't think I'm going to turn on Peter."

The older man smiled. "Precisely."

They went through a similar process as before, except this time Parkman walked through it more slowly. It made it much more stressful for Gabriel, but he managed. The person who had a surprising problem with it was Peter, who had to break contact to go throw up in the bathroom at one point. He couldn't handle the images of what Gabriel had done to Claire. Maury looked levelly at Gabriel as they waited for Peter to return and said, "I would have thought a paramedic would have a stronger stomach."

"I think he's fine on seeing it, but… he doesn't like that people actually do it. Coming on a stabbing victim and treating their injuries isn't the same thing as standing there next to the perpetrator watching them sink the knife in time after time."

Maury huffed. "That's a little hypocritical, naïve maybe. He's kind of a pansy."

Gabriel grinned. "Yeah, isn't he?" He chuckled. He really liked that about Peter, honestly. It was nice to deal with someone who wasn't jaded.

Maury sighed heavily and waited for the younger Petrelli to pull himself back together enough to complete their work. After a beat, Maury said, "You know, before you had telepathy, sometimes I would see when you'd let your mind wander about him, about what you wanted to do to him… alone."

Gabriel's smile disappeared. He tried to ignore the man.

Parkman went on, looking away, "People think about things like that. It's part of being human, being mature. Take Molly for instance." Gabriel's head snapped around. Maury said, "The other day she was watching TV and this actor came on who she liked - really liked. She was _hot_ for him." He gave his audience a lecherous look. "She wanted to spread her legs for him." He sneered, grossly pantomiming. "She was _ready_. Almost a young woman. Already is, if the toiletries are any indication. Her thoughts are definitely going there. I can hear it." He sounded wistful.

"Maury…" Gabriel breathed. The older man looked at him levelly. Gabriel said, "You can control yourself. It can be done. I'm **sure** of it. Don't do this to her." _I'll kill you for it. I… Nathan never gave in to it. There's no reason why you have to._

He shrugged. "Oh, I **can** control myself. Just don't feel like it much. I know me. I had her go take a cold shower. Next week, I'm bringing her here to Angela. You two can decide what to do with her. Matt was right. She's not safe with me."

Gabriel put his hand to his forehead and stroked it with his fingertips, relieved. Maury said, "I do have **some** sense of decency."

Peter walked back in, sighing, his mind on his own issues. He paused and looked between the two men. "Is everything okay?"

Gabriel put his hand down and said neutrally, "Fine." It wasn't a lie at least.

Parkman said, "Take a seat, lily-liver, and let's get started again."

They worked through it. At the end of it, Gabriel could feel his eyes watering. He had a lot of emotions to work through. To the surprise of both Gabriel and Peter, Maury gave him a single, easy to thwart command to maintain control of himself until he was somewhere he could deal with it. Gabriel didn't fight it. He even thanked him.

Maury told them both, "I don't want to see anyone blubbering unless it's because of something _**I**_ did to them. Otherwise it's just embarrassing. We're done. I'll see you next week before the flight. I'll call you if there's any change in Mohinder's pattern."


	89. Coping

Gabriel handed the keys to Peter as they left the Petrelli house. "Can you drive?" His voice sounded distant and strained. Peter nodded silently, studying the other man's face. Gabriel looked away from him, turning his head so Peter couldn't see him. Peter exhaled softly and went to the car, getting in the driver's side.

Once in the vehicle, Gabriel put his right hand over his face, index finger and thumb resting on opposite sides of his heavy brows, his hand concealing his eyes and much of his expression. He faced away, but Peter saw that hand trembling. He drove to his apartment in silence.

Gabriel looked up at the building, thinking he would have rather gone to his own house, but he hadn't said. This was good enough. He didn't want to explain to Heidi anyway and there would have to be an explanation for why he was having a breakdown. He would have to make one for why he was late, later. Maybe she'd just think he and Peter had been having sex and she wouldn't ask. He knew he should have found such a ridiculous thought amusing – that explaining extramarital sex was more palatable than his emotions. He was too bottled up at the moment to do so.

They walked up the stairs, for him a rapid trudge. He led, because he'd left the car first and waited at the door to the stairs the minimum amount of time to be polite, for Peter to join him. He heard Peter getting out his keys as they reached the floor of his apartment. There was no need. Gabriel waved his hand forward and bent his mind to the task. They heard the mechanisms of the locks working. Peter put his keys back in his pocket. With a second gesture, the bolts slid back and the door swung inward.

Gabriel walked to the middle of the living room and looked around. When he thought he was suitably private, he could end Maury's command and let himself go. It had been a strange kindness, one that Maury's gruff insistence that he did it out of selfishness could not quite hide. He was starting to understand there was more to the elder Parkman than he'd thought for so long.

Gabriel still couldn't understand it. It didn't fit with the rest of Maury's character - the sadist, ultimately selfish, a bastard who went out of his way to hurt others, who had a man shot to pieces for taking up a minute of his time, who hadn't even been moved much by Gabriel's murder of his own son. Gabriel was sure Maury knew it was a murder, yet he'd said nothing to use that against him, to destroy his life with it. It was a mystery for another time.

Peter put his hand on Gabriel's shoulder, reminding him he wasn't alone. He shrugged him off, stepping away. Peter let him. He glanced at his lover, but his eyes didn't rise above the other man's knees. "Leave me alone, please," he whispered hoarsely and walked into Peter's bedroom. He cast his eyes about, looking for something, he knew not what. The door to the bathroom beckoned. _That will do._ Peter had not followed him. It was a relief. He needed to be alone, especially after Peter listening to his thoughts last time. He resented that intrusion.

He stripped, putting his clothes in careful order like Nathan did. It had been Nathan who had done it to her. Nathan's thoughts and mannerisms were still heavy in his mind as the memories threatened to replay behind his lids. He blinked it away. It wasn't yet time. He turned on the shower, recalling Bennet's observation about the cold. He set it somewhere in the middle, thinking he just wanted to be normal, if that was possible, even for a little while. He shut the door.

He climbed in and stood under the water, then sank to the floor and began to shake. He guarded his thoughts. He would not project this. Peter had already seen it, but he hadn't seen Gabriel's reaction to it. This was private. He would keep it that way. He cried in anguish and horror at what his hands had done. He'd been wearing the face of her father, pretending to be him. He was surprised the episode hadn't cracked Nathan right then and there, but instead what had ended Nathan had been Gabriel's love for Heidi. Of course he'd known with Claire he wouldn't kill her. She might hate him for it, but she'd be alive to do it.

He hadn't quite betrayed her. He'd asked for her permission, even if he enlisted a heavy dose of duplicity to get it. She hadn't known what she was getting into. He'd forced her friend to watch - not intentionally, it wasn't his idea, but he couldn't get rid of her once she was there. Gretchen's sounds had been the more miserable of the two. Claire was a very strong woman and she had acted even stronger for Gretchen's benefit.

The water washed away his tears, but not the stain he felt on his soul. He got out when the skin on his fingers and toes had started to pucker. He dried off carefully and mechanically. He opened the door to find the bedroom empty. He was thankful for that. He turned and hung up the towel neatly and went to the bed. He glanced at the open door to the living room. It was silent. He wondered if Peter had left. He hoped not. He didn't want him at hand, but he didn't want him too far away either.

He climbed into Peter's bed, the first time he'd ever slipped between the sheets. Their entertainment had always been taken on top of the spread, not under. It felt like he was trespassing on something that wasn't his, but he breathed in Peter's scent lingering faintly on the bedclothes and he couldn't resist. It was more of a comfort for Nathan than the man himself would have been at the moment. Gabriel buried his face in the pillow and inhaled, wrapping the sheets around himself and remembering a family he never had, the love of a brother he'd lost when he died and a daughter he'd cruelly tortured.

He pulled memories from the cloth. Although Peter had washed the sheets recently and the trace chemical reactions had obliterated anything from further back, he had still logged nearly 24 hours of sleep since then. Gabriel covered himself in the impressions of his lover sleeping, resting, and content. He shook in dry sobs for a moment, then it passed and he relaxed. He felt drowsy - so much emotional energy spent. He rubbed his face on Peter's pillow again and fell asleep.

He woke an hour later to the sheet being carefully lifted. Peter slid in next to him with slow, stealthy movements, unaware Gabriel had woken. He touched the other man lightly, then eased his body next to Gabriel's, spooning him from behind. After a minute, he murmured softly, "You're not asleep, are you?"

Gabriel shook his head and turned in Peter's arms to embrace him. He nuzzled the man's neck intimately, but without passion or interest. It was comforting just to have someone to touch. He smelled like pizza. Gabriel smiled a little. Life did go on - people ate, drank and slept no matter how he was feeling. Peter held him as he sighed. His thoughts, now stirred, would not let him rest again.

He scooted back and sat up, putting a little space between them. He pushed down the sheet and took Peter's right hand, as the other man was lying on his left side. He lifted it and touched the thin skin on the inside of the wrist. Gabriel turned his eyes to Peter's and asked, "May I?"

Peter's brow furrowed slightly, not sure what the other man was asking. "Touch me? Sure."

Gabriel nodded. He held Peter's wrist in his hand in a sure grip, pulled out to the side and upwards. He ran his finger from the base of his palm down the inside of his arm, across the crook of his elbow and to his shoulder. His eyes were distant, seeing, remembering something else.

Peter slowly sucked in air as he realized what Gabriel was reliving, coming to terms with. He twitched, recalling how close he'd come to being a victim, then relaxed himself. Gabriel wasn't hurting him and he didn't seem enthralled, or in danger of becoming so, to the Hunger. If anything it reminded Peter of how, so many months ago now, Gabriel had paced restlessly around Peter's empty dining room, seeming to recount for himself how things had played out in that room nearly a year before that at Thanksgiving.

Gabriel traced out on Peter's body what he'd done to Claire, what he'd done to her twice and almost a third time. He'd cut the skin along the seams - such a strange choice of seams, but it was where the Hunger compelled him to cut. He followed the line to Peter's chest and then upward to a little below his chin. He hesitated and looked at Peter's face. It was calm and accepting. He looked back at where his fingers were. Here it parted, going up each side of the neck and behind the ear, where it stopped.

He let his hand slip behind Peter's head, cradling it. Peter tilted his head slightly as if expecting a kiss. It was far from Gabriel's mind at the moment. He lowered Peter's right arm and put his forehead to the other man's. He rocked it back and forth for a moment, eyes shut. Peter reached out and touched his side in an uncertain caress, trying to be there for him and not being quite sure what he should do.

Gabriel turned to face away. The rest of the process was a peeling down of the skin. It came away from the body with surprising ease, needing to be cut away only at the umbilical stump and the groin. The hands and feet required special attention. Then there was the flaying, or maybe it was more properly called flensing. He didn't know. There was probably a word for it, where one cleaned the skin and removed the moist tissue from the interior of it, leaving only the thin, supple and resilient outer layer. He didn't want to know the word. It was sickening enough that he knew the process.

He put his hands over his face, remembering taking her in, absorbing her power through that layer of dermis. He'd explored every inch of it, even parts he should never touch on Claire, though he felt relief that he hadn't obsessed over those portions in front of her – no more than any other part, at least. In the beginning she'd screamed when he'd cut her. Then as he'd begun to remove the skin from her torso she'd pleaded. When he took off her face, she'd begged. By the time he was peeling it from the rest of her body, she only whimpered.

When he came back a second time, she tried to bargain with him, to negotiate. Maybe she'd seen some flicker of reason in his face. More likely, he thought, she was just desperate. When he did not respond, she'd fallen silent. The cries of her friend filled the void. While he was treating that product, Claire screamed at him in impotent rage until she was exhausted, until she could force no sound from her throat.

The third time he approached her, Claire had asked him hoarsely and simply, to stop, to please stop. She'd urged him to control himself, to leave her and her friend alone, because Nathan wouldn't do this to her, Nathan wouldn't keep hurting her. She was crying. It had wracked him. He'd fallen to his knees. And indeed, Nathan had found a way to stop.

He breathed out, bowed over on his knees, entirely in that moment a year ago. He had staggered to his feet afterwards… He jerked suddenly at a touch on his back, spinning in shock and bringing up his hand. Peter was knocked back into the headboard with telekinesis, his head hitting the wall above, the headboard giving a loud crack.

It was Gabriel though who cried out, "Oh my God! Peter!" He fairly leapt at him. Peter brought both hands up in surprise to ward him off and Gabriel stopped immediately, a stricken, terrified expression on his face. He sank down, his eyes not leaving Peter's. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Peter… I didn't mean to do that to you. I didn't mean to. I shouldn't have. I was scared. I'm so… so…"

He trailed off to silence as Peter reached out for him slowly and stroked the side of his face. He hooked his fingers under Gabriel's jaw and tugged with a light pressure, motioning with his other hand too that it was okay for Gabriel to finish coming to him, which he did. Gabriel began repeating, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry" until Peter hushed him.

"Sshhh. Calm down. Calm down. Easy. I startled you. You didn't do it on purpose. It's okay. I love you. I'm fine. It's fine. Easy." He stroked Gabriel's back as the other man calmed and swallowed nervously, clinging to him. After several minutes, Gabriel rocked back, sitting up straight. He stared at the wall behind the bed, getting himself under control.

Peter looked up at his face and saw it clear of emotion, becoming blank and neutral. He frowned sadly, running the fingers of his right hand over Gabriel's left shoulder. The other man didn't react. Peter leaned forward and over, bringing his face to kiss Gabriel on the chest a couple inches above his left nipple. This time he responded, bringing his right hand over and running it through Peter's hair. He smoothed it back and tucked the errant strands behind Peter's ear.

Gabriel asked, "Is there any pizza left?"

Peter chuckled. "Yeah. About half. It's in the fridge. Might still be warm even."

Gabriel rolled off the bed and walked over to the dresser, where his clothes were arranged in a neat stack. He began dressing. Peter leaned back and watched him, realizing Gabriel was handling his clothes like Nathan – all folded and orderly. He was even shaking them out carefully to avoid wrinkles. He smiled_. Little whispers of my brother there_. He felt an ache in his heart.

It occurred to him that Gabriel had not been with him as Nathan since Heidi was abducted – not in public and not in private. Even at Heidi's, where he apparently used both faces so interchangeably as to require pulling a whammy on the staff, he'd been Gabriel every time except when he'd been going out with Heidi the day before Valentine's. It had happened too much now to be a coincidence. Peter said to him, "Hey, come here, will you?"

Gabriel walked over, buttoning his shirt. Peter said, "Is there a reason why you're never Nathan with me anymore?"

Gabriel's eyes searched Peter's face, but his own was carefully blank. "Will you accept me as I am?"

Peter inhaled slightly, blinking. "Yes."

Gabriel finished buttoning his shirt. He nodded and leaned down to kiss him on the mouth, softly. "That's why. I'm not Nathan." He looked back and forth between Peter's eyes for a moment, very sober. He kissed him again, his lips soft and warm and gentle. He walked out of the bedroom.

_It wasn't a coincidence_, Peter thought. He was doing it precisely because Peter kept trying to see him as someone he wasn't. He let his head fall back against the wall. There was an impression in the sheetrock where he'd been thrown against it. He'd have to get that fixed. He remembered something Maury had said to him only a few days after returning from France. '_Denial. For some it's just a river in Egypt, for others it's a way of life_.' He'd been looking right at Peter when he said it. _He sure has my number._

Other moments of remembered dialogue came to him: _'I'm as much Nathan as I can be for you. You tried to make me Nathan… you neutralized me for months because I wasn't enough like your brother to suit you. Losing Heidi broke me. It broke the last of the programming to be Nathan, pieces I'd thought I wanted - I'd kept because it made it easier to be him. I grew up acting like this. I'm not going to forget it after a year of pretending to be Nathan Petrelli… It's what you wanted, isn't it?'_

That last line reverberated in Peter's mind. _It's what I wanted._ But it wasn't, not really. He wanted Nathan alive. It's what he'd done this whole thing for and no matter how many times Gabriel told him it hadn't worked, a part of him still clung to the idea that it might have… at least a little. And it had, a little. Peter felt a tear slide down his face. It just hadn't worked as much as he wanted.

Gabriel wasn't as crude or vulgar as Sylar had been. He had better manners. Sometimes he folded his clothes neatly or obsessed about how Peter looked. He knew things about Nathan's past, spoke French, liked to fly. He loved him, loved Peter… a genuine and complete love. Yet it wasn't even entirely Nathan's love. Gabriel wanted to take it further. He was not a man for middle ground, for compromise – not unless forced to it. He didn't have Nathan's kinks or all of his preferences. He had different ones – his own. Peter had accepted him in his life at first because he was so good at being Nathan and seemed to genuinely want to be him. Now Gabriel was trying to get him to accept him as who he really was. Peter had thought he'd known. He thought he'd accepted it. He'd been wrong. It wasn't that he didn't love Gabriel, but just…

Peter got up from the bed morosely and went in the bathroom. He cleaned his face. This wasn't the time for it. He had to leave for work in an hour. That gave him enough time to get dressed and have leisurely good-byes with Gabriel, but not enough to work out all his issues. _Denial._ It lingered in his mind. He tried to shake it out. He just needed to get through his shift at work. That was all. He dropped the towel on the side of the sink and got dressed.


	90. Resolve

**A/N: This is the last narrative chapter in the basic Shattered Identity story.**

It was a cloudy, breezy day at the beginning of March as they pulled up outside the Petrelli house and waited for Maury to join them. Or rather, to join Gabriel. Peter was just there to see them off. They got out of the car and stood next to it, the wind ruffling their hair. Peter stood by uneasily, as if uncomfortable in his own skin. "Do you think this is going to work?" Peter asked. He fussed with his hair, disturbed by how much it was blowing around. He kept trying to fumble it out of his eyes.

"Yeah," Gabriel smiled. He stood taller than usual, relaxed and calm. "You said you _saw_ it."

"I know," Peter huffed. "But this wasn't what I had in mind at the time."

"Funny how that works," Gabriel smirked with half his face. "I think that's him." Gabriel gestured at a car pulling up. Parkman was inside.

Peter stepped closer to his lover, craning his head to look up. "Just make sure you come back, okay?"

"Sure thing," Gabriel leaned in. Their lips approached one another, but began to twitch in awkward, nervous smiles. They finally parted without touching, laughing.

Chuckling, Peter said, "I can't do it. I just can't. Too weird."

"I know," Gabriel said in agreement. "Probably for the best. If Mom looks out and sees us this close in public, she'll have our hides. It's only for a day. And then never again."

"Agreed," said Peter.

Maury walked up, carrying his bag. He looked at their cheerfulness and rolled his eyes. "Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself this time. I don't want to hear them. Bad enough I have to be trapped in an airplane with you for twenty hours. I am not going to listen to a porn track the whole way." He put his bag in the car and handed his keys to Peter. Gabriel winked at the younger man and went around to the driver's side. Peter waved as they left, then went inside the Petrelli house.

XXX

Gabriel and Maury arrived in Riyadh nearly a full day later. Despite the jet lag, they both had a target and they went straight to it. Molly had been monitoring Mohinder's location for the last two weeks. They knew his pattern. A last minute call on a locally purchased prepaid phone confirmed where he was.

The lab was in a nondescript office park, which Gabriel thought was kind of scary, really. A secret lab experimenting on kids needed to be somewhere remote, behind a high fence and heavily patrolled by security. It shouldn't be nestled between a repair garage and a temp agency. He was pleased to see their reconnaissance was sound and it was a stand-alone building. He shifted to look like Arthur before they got in range of the cameras. He turned to Maury. "Is this good?"

Maury eyed him and nodded. He looked too young, but the only DNA available was collected years ago. It was good enough for their purposes. 'Arthur' smiled slightly and walked forward. If the cameras picked him up, his appearance shouldn't cause an immediate alarm. He used his electrokinesis to short out the entire building as soon as he could. Maury hustled to catch up as 'Arthur' flew to a second floor window and disintegrated it. He lifted Maury in and together they confronted an astonished Mohinder Suresh.

At this point they had less than an hour until noon. They thought the eclipse operation would start shortly before then. Gabriel checked his watch. Maury started to work on Mohinder. The Indian man wasn't going to be a problem. They could leave him trapped in a coma for as long as necessary, if their attempts at fixing his core issues took too long.

What they wanted right away, and attained within a few minutes, was the location of Arthur Petrelli - the real one - and his shadow man. The ostensible reason for this was making sure they wouldn't be interrupted. Gabriel waited patiently for Maury to pull the information out of Suresh.

Arthur was across town on the rooftop of Halo's tallest office building. Mohinder knew there was a function for the leaders of Halo Group being held there. No doubt Arthur was delivering some rousing speech to his minions. It was at this point that Maury's well-developed sense of self-preservation began to detect the ruse. Leaving Mohinder trapped, he stood and cocked his head at Gabriel, who held one hand out and said, "Don't do this, Maury. All I want is Arthur. You don't have to be a part of this."

Maury exhaled, realizing who he was dealing with. He looked down at Mohinder and said carefully, "No… I think I'll just stick to the plan. You go off and do… whatever it is you're going to do. You know where to find me." Gabriel nodded. He was relieved.

He flew alone, not caring if he was seen, shifting his appearance back to Gabriel's. He'd seen pictures of the building so it wasn't hard to find. The roof was a greenspace with a manicured lawn. There were twelve people gathered there. If Arthur was surprised to see him, he didn't show it although the other eleven people did. One of them Gabriel recognized as Abbas Hasan, but the man didn't know him by this face. Gabriel landed on the opposite side of a seated Asian man from his father. "I changed my mind," he said simply.

Arthur nodded, looking at him carefully. Here was where the most critical part of the subterfuge came in. He not only had to convince Arthur of who he was, but that he was genuinely considering being on his side. Slavish loyalty wasn't necessary, but he at least had to manage an authentic interest in being part of his plans.

Gabriel pulled up to the front of his mind his thoughts and feelings towards his father. He didn't bother to disguise the dislike or disgust. It was all the better for being real. He admired him on a level. He knew Nathan had hero-worshipped him. He couldn't bring himself to feel that, so he went with his more distant feelings of loyalty and obedience.

He knew his father had a plan for something greater. He wanted to be part of it - he'd always wanted to influence it, just not in the manner his Dad wanted. He knew his father had avoided harming his family, at least by his twisted lights. According to his mother, he even had a measure of love for them. Gabriel wanted badly for that to be true. He thought of other father figures for him, primarily his regard for Noah Bennet. Gabriel wanted to bring the family back together, to stop this terrible in-fighting that had seen Nathan murdered.

He echoed the thoughts Gabriel had experienced only a few days before as he talked to Peter about Arthur and showed him, in his mind, everything he thought he might need to know. He couldn't be trusted to deal with Arthur directly. That much they had both agreed on. Now the question was whether Arthur would believe it.

Gabriel couldn't tell if Arthur bought it or not. Arthur introduced his son to the gathering, to the five pillars of Islam who made up the executives of Halo and to their five assistants who had been chosen to succeed them. He made no introduction of the Cambodian seated between them. That was the shadow man. Gabriel looked down at him with an expression of pity and curiosity, wondering what the man's story was, how he'd gotten here. He didn't look happy.

Arthur concluded his speech to Halo, reinforcing to them the new order of things and how their leadership would be fundamentally shifting soon after the eclipse. It was to be a demonstration of his ability and the worldwide scope of abilities, to impress upon them the shortsightedness of any plans that involved the advancement of only one part of the world. Gabriel looked over at him with narrowed eyes at that, reading a different meaning in Arthur's words than he suspected Halo did. Gabriel watched as the executives and their assistants went to their seats and picked up special glasses with which they would view the event.

Gabriel turned to face his father over the head of the Cambodian. He said, "Dad, I've changed my mind. I want to join you. I have to understand what it is you're doing. Thank you, for what you've done for me." He stepped in front of the other man and extended his hand to shake his father's.

Arthur looked at the hand and held up a finger to him. "Hold that thought, son." He vanished and so did the shadow man, taking the chair with him.

Gabriel had just enough time to feel the bottom of his stomach fall out, to feel a wash of fear go through him that the plan was falling apart, before Arthur returned. "It's done," his father said.

"Congratulations," he responded and after a moment of hesitation, he offered his hand again, not sure if the other man would take it. To his surprise, he did.

As soon as their hands clasped, Peter gripped him powerfully and reached inside the other man's soul, pulling at him, tearing like he'd done to Gabriel at the end when draining his life. He'd been fairly sure he could do it, but as Maury had implied, embracing his ability to drain powers would cut him off from absorbing them more benignly. Peter didn't care. He'd stopped defining himself by his abilities a long time ago.

He thought of the negative feelings he had for his father and used them to fuel his absorption, his theft, of Arthur's abilities. The elder Petrelli tried to resist almost immediately, but he found himself cut off from most of his powers, disoriented as he scrambled through what he had left to find something that would work. "That one's from Heidi," Peter ground out through clenched teeth.

Peter drained him and robbed him as they stood together, feeling a justified exultance at being able to serve his father the same as he'd had done to him. It wasn't exactly a dish served cold, but he understood with the dark feelings coursing through him why he'd never again be able to gain abilities through empathy. The pair looked less like combatants to those assembled than two men struggling over which had the stronger grip.

He could tell when Arthur ran out of tricks as he began to sag against Peter and his face drew in pain rather than desperation and determination. The younger man didn't stop though, not trusting to his own perceptions, not about to stop merely because it looked like he was hurting the man. Hurting him didn't matter anymore.

He raked at what was left of Arthur's abilities like clawing at a blackboard. The mental feedback was equally disruptive to both of them but he kept at it. There was something else he was getting, tapping into one of the powers he had just gained. Arthur's body flashed with a golden energy for a moment and suddenly Peter had sucked that energy into himself.

He let go in surprise. The catalyst was a familiar feeling within himself. It reminded him intensely of Gabriel, Claire and someone else he'd never met. The people flavored his mind like a perfume. Arthur staggered and fell to his knees, cradling his hand where Peter had crushed it.

Peter looked around uneasily, feeling the warm glow of that golden energy within him and the teeming mass of abilities he'd stolen. He felt sick. He began to sweat. As his body had gone into shock from losing abilities, it was now going through the same from gaining too many at once. There was one last thing he had to do though, one last man he had to save. Already the sun was dimming. As they had struggled, time had passed. Obviously the process had begun almost the second Arthur had left earlier.

He turned to his father and dug into his stunned mind. Although at first he thought the man was too feeble to resist him, he soon found otherwise. All manner of possible locations presented themselves for where he'd hidden the shadow man. Most of them were remote. He was ultimately unable to pry the information from his father, although he had been able to get the man's name. Peter's mind was reeling, his body nauseous. He couldn't focus.

He stumbled away from the failed mental assault, seeing his father collapse entirely after he released him. Blood had come from the older man's eyes, ears and nose during it and now he was trembling from the stress of resisting. He looked like he was dying. Peter didn't care much. He had something more important to do.

He pulled out his phone, dialing… himself. His fingers shook. It was disconcerting to hear his own voice on the line. He was sure Gabriel felt the same way. "I need to know where I can find Soth Atith, as soon as possible." Theoretically, they could drop the charade now, but Peter was too disoriented to shift and there was no pressing reason to do it.

He looked up at the sun, which was over half dark. He staggered and fell from dizziness induced by looking upwards. He lay on the grass and looked at the impending eclipse. It looked like another of Gabriel's prophecies was about to come to pass, even as his own vision was fulfilled at the moment. He knew he would die in darkness. The fatalism didn't bother him anymore. It was comforting, really. He felt distant from it, detached. _Mom would be proud._

Precious seconds ticked by. He didn't bother to rise, simply holding the phone to his ear and trying to work out how to use his new power of teleportation. It was a little different from the last one. He had a lot of powers to sort through. It gave him understanding of what had slowed his father in fighting him off.

At a burst of upset voices, he turned his head to look over at the executives of Halo. One, a very thin, elderly woman barely able to walk on her own had made her way over to Arthur and touched his shoulder. He twitched and seemed to rouse somewhat, sitting up. His shaking had stopped. Several other of the assembled people were speaking strongly to her in Arabic, obviously objecting. Arthur looked at her and said something haltingly in the foreign language, gesturing at Gabriel's form. She tottered over to him.

Peter labored to sit up as chattering began on the phone. He was paying more attention to the smiling woman reaching out to him. He looked into her face, trying to judge her intent. He peered past her at Arthur, who looked merely tired and was flexing his no-longer broken hand.

She touched his shoulder. His body stopped fighting so hard against the many abilities he'd absorbed. "Oi! Oi!" she said as she pulled her hand away from him and shook it like it hurt. Then she touched him again. He had another wave of feeling better, more adjusted. He realized with a start that someone was calling his name from the phone. He spoke to the device and said, "Repeat that?"

He realized it was Gabriel's voice on the line, not Peter's own. It told him, "It's out in the middle of the Saudi desert, best we can figure. Here's the longitude and latitude." He read them off again. The old woman shook her head and turned to those assembled. They had come much closer, one of the men squatting next to Arthur and talking with him in English, looking over at Peter. The old woman addressed them loudly in Arabic. Peter had to ask for a third repetition of the coordinates. It was seconds away from full dark. The sun was almost entirely covered. He teleported while he still could.

Wherever he ended up, it was pitch black and lightless, like a cave. His eyes were useless, but more important than that he felt every power he had turn off abruptly. He felt worse than he had before, if that was possible, lurching and vomiting almost immediately.

It was stiflingly hot. He felt heat, enormous heat, buffeting him from behind and to the left. He turned that way, but pain drove him back, pain and injuries that weren't healing. He couldn't approach. He felt his skin blister and begin to slough off agonizingly. If he couldn't go forward, then he had to go back. He tried to flee, but the ground was treacherous, like walking in quicksand. Within two steps he fell and couldn't rise. His lungs burned. Gabriel's body died in the darkness.

XXX

Peter woke up to find he'd reverted back to his own form. He was in the desert under the blazing sun, on a patch of sand fused into glass. It held an imprint of where he'd fallen. He healed quickly, very quickly. It was a speed and level of health Gabriel had enjoyed for nearly a year. Peter had to admit it was nice.

He saw he wasn't alone. Soth Atith was sprawled on the ground next to the twisted, puddled remains of the chair, his skin glowing and his body burning hot to the touch. Peter touched him anyway, thankful he healed so fast but annoyed it meant his nerve cells kept regenerating and reporting new damage. The man seemed dead. His body cooled noticeably while Peter was checking for vitals. It cooled more as he sat next to him and just looked at the man, witnessing his death. It was the only thing he could think to do for him.

XXX

Noah Bennet looked through the cell's viewing window at Arthur Petrelli, who was sedately reading a collection of Kierkegaard's works. Bennet looked at Peter, the real Peter in his own face, and said, "I had to see it with my own eyes. He's completely powerless?"

Peter nodded. "I took everything. I don't have most of it, far as I can tell. Whatever my body hadn't absorbed before I died, I lost. The catalyst too." Losing that last had been a blow, but probably for the best. He didn't care about the powers, but literally holding a part of the souls of Gabriel and Claire and the person he assumed was Paul had been wonderful.

He wondered what effect it had had on Arthur. It was difficult to believe someone could hold the catalyst and be unmoved by it. He suspected his father was a very complicated man, moreso than Peter had ever realized. Maybe he'd have a chance to get to know him as a real person now.

Peter leaned on the console. "We need you to stay here and keep him under wraps while we take care of him still being on the board of directors as an inactive member. We can't have the other agents in here yet."

"Do you think he even saw it coming?" Noah asked.

Peter exhaled softly. "When I went back to get him, he told me, 'Eram quod es; eris quod sum.' It's Latin. It means, 'I was who you are — you will be what I am.' And he congratulated me for changing my attitude, said I wasn't grounded anymore."

The young man drummed his fingers lightly on the back of the chair next to him. "I think he knew. That's why he finished setting up the eclipse before he shook my hand. Really… he seems almost content with himself. I thought things would be horrible, that he'd be wrecked... He's asked to see Mom."

Peter looked to the side and blinked away tears. He couldn't let himself feel this way anymore. The idea that he'd somehow done what his father wanted, or at least expected, and this was really going to bring their family back together stirred a host of difficult feelings. He looked back to Noah. "Don't trust him. Even without abilities, he's a powerful man."

Noah nodded. "I think I can keep him contained. You go get some rest. See that other guy who was running around looking like you earlier. Gave me quite a shock - shifted right in front of me. He does a good you. If I had to say, you're not a very convincing Peter Petrelli anymore." Bennet cocked his head at Peter, who was decidedly different. He couldn't really put his finger on it though. He'd have to ask Rene. Peter smirked at him, which didn't help. Noah said, "He doesn't know you're in town, does he?"

Peter shook his head. "No, I teleported. I wanted to get Dad settled in before doing anything else. I called him from Riyadh though. He knows it worked - sort of. I didn't stop the eclipse." He rubbed his head. "I still have to deal with Mohinder and Maury and…"

Noah put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Peter, you're not Superman. Maury can take care of himself. He has a return ticket, for crying out loud. It's his job to take care of Mohinder, not yours. Go see the people who care about you. I'll make some calls. I've got nothing else to do while I watch this guy."

Bennet looked through the view port at his old boss. "Maybe I'll play some chess with him later." He patted Peter on the back as the other man nodded and headed out, eschewing teleportation for the simple experience of walking and driving to get to his destination.


	91. Prologue to Salvation of Acceptance

**A/N: And so it begins … This is the Salvation of Acceptance arc of the story, following Peter Petrelli's battle against Lilith and the continuing development of his relationship with Gabriel.**

**As a reminder, **_**italics**_** are thoughts or mental communication. ****Underlined**** text indicates a supernatural command, such as a command backed up with telepathy. Bold is emphasis. Italics in the context of a verbal statement is there to indicate a tonal shift emphasis.**

**My grateful and eternal thanks to my betas and advisors:  
- dragonwitch250, who made the single most profound change to my story with a simple question: "Why would Angela do that?" It changed the entire story. You'll see references here and there to the "almost-future" that would have happened if I'd stuck with Angela's original decision.  
- Mya Blackfang, who has stuck with me through many chapters, argued respectfully with me and has always been right.  
- GoldSeven, who generously lent me use of her original characters for the chapters involving Peter as a paramedic and beta'd same. She also gave advice and corrections for British English in some of the later chapters.**

**- LaraVan for single-handedly saving the Pemma, and giving me great advice on how to handle that relationship.  
- Yirin, Queenoftheoutlands, JasonDragon and anyone else who was kind enough to give me advice and pointers.**

Taylor Grem, Angela Petrelli's butler, picked up Maury Parkman at the airport. Taylor had called Maury's cell phone shortly after the plane landed. Maury was ever so grateful for the ride, but of course he said nothing of that because he rarely had a kind word for anyone. He hadn't slept in over fifty hours, taking the very next return flight after dealing with Mohinder. He didn't think it worth the risk to stay overnight in Riyadh, even with the stresses of back-to-back flights. For a telepath, being trapped in an airplane full of people, suffering through the constant disruption of motion, sound and close quarters, was especially wearing. It required constant exertion.

As soon as the car took off and he had the blessed relief of only one fairly quiet, settled mind near his, he passed out. The drive was only a little over a half hour. He wished it was longer. He woke blearily and very nearly crawled out of the car with Taylor's assistance. They were in Angela Petrelli's garage. Maury supposed he was lucky the woman herself hadn't come out to see him this off balance.

He slapped himself a few times to keep his eyes open. He combed his hair, straightened his clothes and looked at himself critically in the side mirror of the car before heading inside. He wanted to look good for his lady. Peter had stripped Arthur of his powers in Riyadh. The man was now cooling his heels in a Company cell, where he'd stay for a very long time, if Maury had anything to say about it. There was nothing to stand between Maury and his intentions with Angela… nothing but his conscience and her rather formidable personality.

"Angel! You are a sight for sore eyes." He smiled warmly at her and started to reach for her.

She sidestepped him and huffed a little at his customary flirtations. Maury had been hitting on her for three months now. While she adored the attention, she had become a little short-tempered with the man and has no qualms about delineating clear boundaries between them. If they did get together, it would be on her terms, not his and for what seemed like the tenth time, she let him know this. "Come in to the dining room and talk to me. I have some coffee."

"No, thanks." His face scrunched with annoyance that he hadn't even gotten a victory kiss. Their mission had been a success, after all. He glanced over at Michael Fitzgerald, who was pumping free weights in the corner of the living room. Obviously Angela was still treating the situation as if they were on high alert, with her bodyguard Michael just a few feet away at all times. That was probably wise, since Arthur had hardly been acting alone. The Halo Group was still out there, at the least. He nodded at the blond bodyguard and went in the dining room. "Just water. I'm going to go to sleep after this and want to be able to _really_ go to sleep." _Not just lie there and feel hopped up on caffeine. This next week is going to be even rougher._

She nodded. "Of course." She sat on the opposite side of the table, looking severe and attentive. A cup of coffee steamed in front of her. His drink of choice was already on the table on his side, as if she'd foreseen what he would ask for. _But then why ask me? _He thought about that for a moment._ Come to think of it, I don't think she did. Huh._

He frowned and sat down. Tired as he was, he would have preferred a little more banter. Obviously, she wanted to get straight to business. Usually, so did he. _Might as well. I'll get to sleep faster that way and I'm sure not getting anything else today_.

He explained, "As I think you know, Peter and Gabriel pulled a switch on us on which of them was going to Riyadh, using shape-shifting to make me think it was Gabriel going when it turned out to really be Peter. I figured that out after a while, longer than it should have taken me, really. That's how Peter was able to get so close to Arthur. He's finally evolved to ability draining, which, as we've discussed, has good and bad points. His empathic mimicry is gone, but there are a lot of uses for being able to permanently steal abilities. Arthur is powerless.

"We got to Mohinder easy enough. From him, I found out where Arthur was and relayed that on to Ga- Peter. He took off almost immediately, trying to stop Arthur. I believe that was their plan from the beginning." She nodded in agreement with his assessment. "The eclipse happened anyway, but you'd said we wouldn't be able to stop it. Peter's always so confident he can change the world and all the people in it." Maury snorted at the younger man's naiveté.

Angela disagreed softly, "No. He is always confident the world can change and so can the people in it. I like to hope he's right."

Maury mulled that over with a sour expression, then changed the subject back to his report. "I didn't do much with telepathically with Mohinder's mind, really. He got all worked up against me and I didn't feel like putting out the effort." He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Really, I shouldn't have let Matt save him." _Things would have been so much better if I'd just followed my instincts and killed that bastard. The whole Suresh line is tainted._

He sighed and took a drink of water. "Well, anyway, I kind of got distracted just looking at what's been going on in his head lately. I was supposed to fix all the damage Matt did to him last summer, but there was no need. He was already fixed and probably a better job than I'd have done. It… I've seen a lot of Arthur's work and this wasn't it. They've got another telepath working for them."

"You're sure?"

"Positive." He chewed at the inside of his cheek. "I… I don't know. It…" _It just seemed so familiar - just like with Chandra._ "What have you _seen_ lately?"

She knew he was asking for her precognition. She looked away for a long time and finally said, "Only one thing of any consequence. Peter turns against us."

"Peter?" He was surprised, but not incredibly. The man was a Petrelli and if taking down his father had shown Maury anything, it was that the apple hadn't fallen as far from the tree as he had previously thought. Gone was the passive-aggressive youth who craved his mother's approval and attention as earnestly as Nathan had sought after his father's.

"Yes." Her voice was precise.

"What can we do about it?"

"I…" She gave a small sigh. "We shouldn't do anything about it, Maury, and that's very important. We should let him be. It's his life, his choices. We have to give him his freedom." After a short pause she added, "I only mention it so you understand that when it happens, you shouldn't try to stop him. We need this, however painful it might be."

Maury grunted. "If he's willing to turn on his father, he could turn on you." He wasn't keen on standing by and letting Peter hurt Angela. Not in any way. Which was kind of ridiculous, given that Angela didn't seem to feel the same way about Maury, but he didn't care. His life had been utterly destroyed and she was the only one who had shown him any genuine respect.

She pressed her lips together firmly in disapproval. "No, that is not what I was thinking. He's going to turn against the Company, not me specifically."

He shrugged, having already made up his mind about his limits and what he would and would not allow from her son. "Okay, fine. I don't know what anyone thinks today. I'm too tired. But you haven't seen anything else important have you?" He leaned forward and turned his head slightly. "Anyone from the past? Adam… maybe? Anyone else?"

She cocked her head at him and furrowed her brow. "Adam? But you saw him disintegrated. You said Arthur scattered the ashes and took all the precautions."

He stood up uneasily and looked around the room as if concerned about eavesdroppers. He walked over to the opening between the dining and living rooms. "Michael!" The man jumped, his tattoos flashing brightly as he activated his enhanced strength. The barbell in his hand became a weapon and he hefted it like it suddenly weighed nothing. Maury told him, "Go outside. Shut the door. Keep watch."

The blond bodybuilder went to the back door to the garden and glanced back to make sure this was what the telepath intended. Maury nodded and waited until the door was shut behind the man. He turned back to Angela and walked back to his seat, standing next to it.

She pointed at her head, an invitation for him to take the conversation mental. In his current condition, there was no way he could manage that proficiently and it wasn't necessary anyway. His reaction was just the result of decades of conditioning, fear and uncertainty. He shook his head and said in a lowered voice, "No, no. It's just there were a lot of patterns, like the last time with those damned Sureshes."

"You think it's Adam…" and now Angela's voice dropped a little as well, for she'd lived through the same things as Maury, "…or _Lilith?_"

He quelled his impulse to look around again conspiratorially. Lilith was the biggest bugaboo they'd ever had. Adam at least was flesh and blood and once they got their hands on him, they had him. Lilith had been impossible to contain and almost as hard to locate. They'd struggled against her for a decade, mortgaging their souls to win a future where their children would be free of her manipulations. They'd thought it was over after what they'd done to Mohinder's father, Chandra Suresh. But the fear never left - the obsessive paranoia and secrecy that had been bred from fighting her. She'd survived certain death too many times for anyone to sleep well.

"I don't know. I really don't." He pushed in his chair and leaned against it. "But I got over there and poked around in Chandra's kid's head and there's a lot of stuff that looked really_, really_ familiar. Not just the child experiments - I expected that. But the formula, the records, the files… He even has a God damned list again!"

"A list?"

"Yeah. A _list_. They **know** who's going to be activated, just like last time, but this one's longer. I didn't stick around to get it. I got spooked. Makes me wonder if she… if…" He couldn't bring himself to even speculate that she was still alive. "You know, that time in 2006 wasn't just a random thing. All that crap Chandra was trying to pull, rounding up the specials, connecting them? It's a good thing Gabriel Grey took care of him for us, even if it kept us from figuring out what the old goat was _really_ up to. I still think it was smart to set Sylar loose on them."

He turned his face to the side, shaking it slightly, eyes sightless as he thought back. "I saw the film of Daniel asking Adam Monroe about that first eclipse and Adam just smiling when he was told about it. Just smiling. That bastard knew… oh, the things he knew. And Arthur lost us all of it by killing him."

He stopped there. It all hung together now, or it would if he'd only take the final step and believe that Lilith was still alive and running things. It couldn't be anyone else - whoever it was had to have the weight to hold Arthur's respect, because the elder Petrelli was no one's errand boy. That pretty much limited it to Adam or Lilith and he'd seen them both ended with his very eyes.

Gently, Angela said, "Is it possible that Mohinder was merely copying his father's patterns? He's been doing that for several years now."

Maury could see that she didn't want to believe it, just like he didn't. After all, Lilith was where it had all begun, or at least as much of it as they knew. Much of that information had been drug from Chandra's mind by force. Neither of them wanted to think on that night, or what a husk Chandra had been afterwards. The man had spent the next twenty years struggling to reclaim a shadow of what he'd had before.

Maury thought he'd deserved the treatment and after he'd torn open the scientist's mind, he was sure of it. Maury stood up straight, rolling his shoulders. They were still stiff from the plane and from falling asleep in the car. "Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's it. Like father, like son." He smiled thinly and let her cling to the illusion everything was all right. "Let me know if you see anything else, though."

Angela was kind enough to have Taylor drive him to his apartment, but this time he didn't fall asleep. His mind was too busy replaying the past and fearing the future.


	92. Dreams of What Will Not Be

**A/N: The events of this particular chapter happen one day after the events of Resolve. This is approximately the same time as the Prologue of The Salvation of Acceptance. The dream related here by Gabriel is from the Five Years Gone future (and from my original plotline), which is to be averted and will not come to pass. So this would have been the prologue for the original plotline.**

_Memories of things that never happened; these are always the hardest to forget._

_All the old friends and the loved ones; these are the people you haven't even met._

_- Trevor Horn (The Mirror Song)_

Peter met with Gabriel the evening after returning from Riyadh. They met for dinner at a romantic little place with deep booths and low lights. Peter looked around, a little put off by the choice of venue, though he filed it away as a place to bring Emma some other time. He asked, "Are you trying to tell me something?"

Gabriel looked around as well, as if he didn't understand what Peter was talking about. Then, clearly, it hit him. He turned to Peter and said firmly, "Yes. Yes, I am." He took a half step closer and added, "In case you haven't noticed, I _like_ you." He reached out and took Peter's hand, dropping his voice lower and softer. "I _love_ you."

Peter felt a thrill go through him, but at that moment the hostess walked up. Seeing them holding hands, she smiled warmly. It was New York, in 2011. "A table for two?"

"Yes," Gabriel affirmed boldly.

Peter blushed, but he didn't take his hand back. As they walked to their booth, Peter said, "I thought you were trying to be discreet?"

"Fuck 'em," Gabriel retorted. "I'll be discreet when I look like Nathan and have to put on an act to protect the precious Petrelli honor." He looked at Peter intently. "What about you? Do you think I act too much?"

There was only one way to answer such a question, but Gabriel's scrutiny told Peter he was checking for something else - a lie, a withdrawal, defensiveness - anything that might indicate Peter's real feelings were out of synch with his words. Peter squeezed Gabriel's hand and said, "Yeah, I think you act too much."

They sat down, scooting back in the booth and thanking their hostess. When they were alone, Gabriel said, "Being with you, Peter, makes me feel there's a point to being a good person. It makes me think there's more to life than just misery and hurting people before they hurt me. If I lost you… I don't know what I'd do." He pulled back a little, releasing Peter's hand, and indicated the restaurant. "I'm happy you made it back safe. And besides, we're unlikely to be overheard in here."

Peter smiled and they made their drink orders from the waiter who came by. Peter turned back to Gabriel and said, "Like I said on the phone, it worked. I got him. He knew I was coming, though. That's why the eclipse happened anyway. I thought I'd have some warning when he was going to start it, so I didn't rush him. Then he teleported out with that man who caused it and I had no idea where they went. A minute later, he came back, but the eclipse was starting then. He reached right out to me and I drained him."

"What abilities did he have?" There was undisguised lust in Gabriel's eyes at that.

Peter frowned. "He had a lot. I didn't keep them. Not all of them. I think something about dying right after that broke it out of me and kept me from absorbing them properly."

"Dying?"

"Yeah. Once you told me where to find the guy who was causing the eclipse, I went there, but I guess using his power to do something that incredible burned him out. He died in the process. His body was giving off so much heat it fused the sand into glass and…" Peter shrugged.

"That's the dream I saw," Gabriel murmured. "Where I died in darkness? But it was you, looking like me. Funny how that works."

Peter nodded.

Just as quietly, Gabriel added, "I don't want my dreams to come true."

Peter shrugged again. "We stopped him. I'm fine. I think it turned out okay."

"I had another dream, last night. It was another vision of the future." Peter leaned forward to listen. Gabriel said, "I was in a containment facility, level five cells, standing outside a room with a couple agents. They were really proud of themselves. They'd captured _you_. I congratulated them and sent them away, told them I needed some privacy for questioning you. I put down the blast screen and went inside, sat on the edge of the platform and removed your neutralizer feed. I held your hand. We were both… different. I looked older, so I guess I do age after all. You looked… harder, even while you were unconscious, but the same age as you are now. You had a scar across your face." He drew a line diagonally, crossing at the bridge of his nose.

Peter inhaled sharply. He'd seen this future version of himself… or at least someone similar. He'd often wondered what circumstances would have to come to pass to change him into that person. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure. You woke up, struggled for a moment, but you were still restrained. I'd nullified your powers with my ability. You nullified mine, but of course you were still restrained. I asked you if it was okay for me to touch you. Even though you'd been trying to get out of the restraints, you hadn't pulled your hand loose from mine. You said it was okay for me to hold your hand… and that things had changed between us. I agreed, and told you I still mourned that. You didn't answer. I just sat there, with you, for a long time." He swallowed and looked away. "It was very sad for some reason."

Peter tilted his head for moment. "Because that **is** very sad, Gabriel." Suddenly Gabriel taking him to a romantic dinner made more sense.

"Finally I told you this was the dream I'd told you about so long ago and you agreed." He smiled bitterly. "That was it - the whole dream. This precognition stuff is frustrating."

Peter considered it, mulling it over. Gabriel stared at the table and said, "We're not going to make it."

Peter lifted a brow at him. "How's that? You saw both of us. You don't know what happened before or after." He shrugged. "So we drifted apart. Maybe what you saw is when we get back together. You had a dream where you were reaching out to me." He smiled a little. "It's still me, no matter what the future. I'm not going to be unmoved by that." Peter's eyes searched over Gabriel's face. The other man nodded slowly and smiled.

They ordered food and talked about what to do next. Obviously, since the eclipse had happened, there would be a new wave of ability manifestations. Gabriel said he'd already talked to Angela about pulling together a team to find the newly gifted and approach them. Peter volunteered. First contacts were what he liked best. It was front line work, like being a paramedic.

"Okay," Gabriel said. "We'll be getting together tomorrow morning to get started. I might have a few errands to run, but early on all they'll be doing is compiling reports anyway. Maury should be getting back tonight. He took the plane back from Riyadh, but I figure he'll be wiped out until tomorrow."

"How do you think Mohinder turned out?" Peter asked.

"No idea. I haven't talked to Maury. Does it matter?"

Peter gave Gabriel an odd look. "Of course it matters! A lot's happened to him. He needs help."

Gabriel gave a philosophic shrug and reached out to touch Peter's hand. "So do we all."


	93. Leadership

**A/N: This would be March 6, 2011, two days after Resolve and the morning after Dreams of What Will Not Be.**

Gabriel walked down the austere, empty hallway carrying a briefcase in his right hand and a thick newspaper tucked under his right arm. It kept his left hand free. It was unlikely he'd need to defend himself here in the deepest part of the Philadelphia branch of Pharmatech, where the Company maintained the northeast containment facility, but the need for such constant caution had been drilled into him.

His left hand was dominant only in this form. He'd spent enough time in the last year as Nathan Petrelli to count as basically ambidextrous. Gaining that man's memories had been one of the best things to happen in Gabriel Grey's life, though he hadn't realized it at the time. It came in second only to the emergence of his initial ability. Being Nathan had come with so many fringe, and not-so-fringe benefits – one of which was manifest in his presence and role today.

He flashed his ID to a reader and went down plain, unadorned stairs. After three flights, he exited on level 4. It was the lowest level here. There was a shorter hallway, with three stations on the right and two on the left. A break room that doubled as a staging area took up the last bit of floor space on the left, where there would have otherwise been a sixth compartment. Each station allowed supervision of a holding cell. Level 4 had only one occupant at the current time, who did not really merit confinement in such a place, but he was here anyway. It was Arthur Petrelli.

Gabriel headed down this hall as well. His approach was regarded by Noah Bennet, who was on duty with their captive. Again, it was largely unnecessary. He was present mainly in case outsiders tried to interfere, not because they expected trouble from Arthur himself. In more normal circumstances, the Company didn't have active supervision of inmates unless they were experimenting on them or negotiating with them. On the other hand, they rarely incarcerated their own founders.

He stopped at the station, setting his briefcase on the ledge. The newspaper fell into place next to it with a push of telekinesis. He looked through the viewport to see Arthur Petrelli was asleep on the shelf-like bed to the left side of the room. The bed was removable, affixed to the wall with brackets. There was a platform in the middle of the room, a concrete pedestal that could be fitted with restraints. The rear of the room featured an exposed metal toilet and small sink. Arthur had a book on the floor next to where he lay, next to a pair of shoes. Otherwise the room was empty and bare, the floor slanting down slightly to a drain in the middle.

Noah handed him the log book wordlessly. He scanned over it. There was nothing of note, though out of boredom, Noah had been very detailed in recording his charge's activities. Arthur had been brought in only a day and half before by Peter, after his successful mission to Riyadh where he stripped Arthur of all his abilities. He was as powerless as any normal man. Not too long ago, Gabriel thought, this would have made him utterly uninteresting to him. Not anymore, though.

He handed back the log book. "Peter said he brought some things with him?"

Bennet nodded and pulled out a paper box from under the counter. "Yes. Right here." He put the box up on the ledge without touching the contents. It held a briefcase and a neatly folded suit jacket.

Gabriel stroked his fingers over the jacket, trying to pull memories from the cloth with his ability of clairsentience. The suit was Arthur's, he was sure, but everything was vague and foggy. He'd run into that before with Arthur's things. He frowned. He'd hoped whatever power Arthur had that obscured his aura would lose effectiveness after he was drained, but apparently the ability wasn't linked to his current condition. Gabriel huffed.

He pulled out the briefcase, not answering Noah's questioning look. "Have you opened this?"

Noah nodded. "I have an inventory here, under the log."

Gabriel nodded absently and examined firsthand what Arthur had chosen to bring with him. He'd obviously expected Peter's attack, having the forethought to prepare for his incarceration. He had brought things they would not find objectionable – two changes of clothes with an extra set of undergarments, toiletries, a couple books and a small lead box.

Gabriel opened the box, thumbing over the brass latch. Inside it was lined with velvet. It contained a wedding band and a set of silver and jet cufflinks that said "AP" on them. These held memories, impressions from times decades ago, but nothing recent except Noah's handling of them. He put them back and snapped it shut, feeling very much like he was intruding, seeing things that were supposed to be very private. He blinked away visions of Arthur's wedding and various other moments in his early life.

He picked up the book. It was a highly ornamented copy of the Koran, the abstract design on the cover picked out in gold leaf that had worn off in a few places. Gabriel opened it, but it was of no use. He couldn't read Arabic, which he assumed was the language used. He closed it slowly and replaced it, wondering why Arthur would choose to bring an Islamic holy book with him. "What's the book in there with him?"

"Collected works of Soren Kierkegaard." At Gabriel's look, Noah shrugged. "He was a Danish philosopher. If I remember correctly, he was a strong promoter of Christian ethics and personal responsibility. There was a quote of his I always liked: 'Only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.'"

Gabriel sighed and shut the briefcase. "He's really into religion these days." He had many memories of Nathan's of growing up with the man, but in the flesh, his experience had been much more limited. He hadn't had much of an opportunity to talk to him when they were together at Pinehearst. Neither had trusted the other. He didn't trust him now.

What he did have working at him was a mental compulsion given to him by one Maury Parkman, for inscrutable reasons of his own. Maury had afflicted Gabriel with issues, one of which was an obsession with father figures. Nathan's hero-worship of his father was in full force, even though Gabriel had reached the point where he knew the adoration was foreign. It didn't mean he didn't feel it. He wanted nothing more than to release the man and take up his place next to him as his favored son.

It was why he was here today, unable to wait any longer despite Angela, Maury and Peter even trying to keep his attention on the reports coming in of people newly discovering their abilities in the wake of the eclipse. He'd brushed them off. They were competent to handle it and it was all just information at this stage. His strength lay in action, not analysis.

Or so he told himself. There was something naggingly incomplete about the information they had. His intuitive aptitude worked at it in the back of his mind. It was like a watch with a gear missing. Until he found the part, there was no way to make the whole work.

Once upon a time, he'd thought he could work out any puzzle, any complex system with his ability. The truth was the more organic and messy things were, the less well he dealt with them. Mechanical, even chemical, systems were open to him, but matters of the heart and the future were perplexing.

He took up his father's briefcase and told Noah, "Buzz me in."

Bennet did so and he entered, setting the case down on the platform. He nudged the older man with telekinesis and leaned next to the briefcase. Arthur rolled over, blinking at him. His days and nights were still turned around from living in Saudi Arabia for months, perhaps a year or two. The story of what he'd been up to in that time was something Gabriel very much wanted to hear.

Arthur sat up smoothly for a man of his age and slipped his sock-clad feet into his shoes. He rubbed his face and looked over at the toilet. Gabriel straightened, taking the hint. "I need to go get a chair from the break room. I'll be back in ten minutes. Your things are here," he said, patting the briefcase. He moved to the door, where Noah buzzed him out a few seconds later.

Getting a chair took all of one minute, but Gabriel was in no hurry. He picked up the newspaper as he walked by and spent most of his time reading it. He was creating the opportunity for Arthur to take care of his morning needs in some semblance of privacy. Noah was watching him and no doubt making new entries in the log book. He didn't need more than one observer.

After the allotted time was up, he was buzzed in almost to the second ten minutes from when he'd left. That amused Gabriel. He still retained Sylar's perfect sense of time. He'd lost it for a while, but regained the aspect of his ability after killing Matt Parkman, a murder which was facilitated by Arthur himself. Matt was the only person he'd killed intentionally since Nathan Petrelli.

The deliberate nature of the act was something Gabriel had been concealing from the most important people in his life: Heidi Petrelli, his wife, and Peter, his lover. He'd told Noah in a confession he'd later regretted, but had done nothing about it. So far Bennet had said nothing to Peter. Through convoluted use of mind control on himself and careful word choice, Gabriel had managed to maintain this secret even when dealing with two highly insightful people gifted with lie detection. He wasn't sure what they'd do if they knew he had murdered someone, but he didn't want to find out either.

He carried in the chair with the newspaper sitting on the seat. He tossed the paper on the platform and sat down. "Wall Street Journal, in case you want to read it later."

His father was sitting on his bed, freshly shaved. He'd changed from the light blue, medical grade outfit the Company issued to prisoners into the clothing he'd had in the briefcase. "Thank you. I'm glad you came."

"Yeah." Gabriel nodded, uneasy now that he was here and talking to him. It wasn't like anyone had the authority to tell him not to be here, but he knew the other directors would disapprove. "What can I do for you?"

"Eventually, you can let me out. For now though, I think the newspaper is fine." Arthur scrutinized Gabriel's face, seeing the discomfort and guilt there. "You're not supposed to be here." He didn't bother to make it a question.

"No." Gabriel answered him anyway.

"Then I think the more accurate question is what I can do for _you_."

"Well… I was… the others I'm sure would like to know what you had in place to deal with the fallout from the eclipse."

Arthur nodded. "Of course they do. And what do you want to know? I don't care about them. They didn't come see me. You did." His tone was measured, his eyes calculating, appraising.

Gabriel lowered his head, glancing over at the view port. He considered telling Noah to leave, but decided that would look even more suspicious than what he was already doing. He cast his eyes back to his fa-, back to Arthur, as he caught himself from thinking of him that way. "Why the Koran and Kierkegaard? You were quoting Nietzsche at me last time we met."

"The Vedas wouldn't fit in the briefcase." He smiled gently, though it wasn't entirely a joke. He went on, "The fate of a man's soul is the most important thing there is, Gabriel. I think you know that, from what I've heard of your life recently."

"How is it you've heard of my life recently? Who are you talking with?" He was pretty sure it was Maury Parkman, but not positive. It might have been Angela herself, someone from Halo, or even something more mundane like common investigative techniques. Regardless, it was very important he locate Arthur's information source and neutralize it.

Arthur went on like he hadn't spoken, "This is a dangerous time for many. With change comes doubt and doubt can only be conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world. You must have faith, Gabriel - faith in yourself and your mission."

He let Arthur take the conversation elsewhere, as he didn't feel sure enough of himself to push it - not with _this_ man. His brows drew together and Gabriel tilted his head to one side. "My mission? I don't have a mission."

The older man shook his head firmly. "Oh, but you're wrong. We each have a mission. Have you been using Parkman's gift?"

"The telepathy?"

Arthur spoke carefully, as if Gabriel were a bit slow, "No, the precognition. Your mission is clear."

Gabriel inhaled and looked away. "My… No, I haven't."

"Why not?" Arthur sounded stern and disapproving.

"I've been busy, Dad!" He jumped a little, glancing uneasily at the older man, who made no reaction that he had been called anything inappropriate.

"You should consider how you spend your time. You of all people know it's not unlimited."

Gabriel eyed him, saying nothing, trying to figure out how the conversation had turned so odd, so quickly. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Arthur's voice suddenly turned stern and authoritarian, a tone Nathan remembered well for his youth. "I'm telling you to get your life together and be the leader the world needs, someone to give people something to believe in. You've fallen behind an entire election cycle; let your _mother_ lead you astray. Stop listening to her and get your head in the game!"

Gabriel looked at the floor and tried to figure out what Arthur meant. He didn't know why he always felt so stupid when dealing with the Petrellis. Even with Peter, he felt there were things going on behind Peter's eyes that he just didn't understand, didn't have the right frame of reference for, even with Nathan's memories to guide him. He sorely wished he could figure out a way to apply his core ability to the problem, but it didn't work that way. He looked up and said, "The presidency?"

Arthur nodded impatiently. He said, "Of course! You were always the candidate. Now get out there and do what you were born for."

The younger man stood, accepting the dismissal. He walked out, pausing for Bennet to buzz him out. He hesitated next to Noah's chair and the other man looked up at him, but Gabriel only said, "Make sure he gets the paper each day." He collected his briefcase and left. He had the odd feeling that he wasn't going to do what Arthur wanted - not in the least.

…

…

"_What can you ever really know of other people's souls - of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? _

_One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands."_

_- C. S. Lewis_


	94. Manifests

**A/N: This would be March 6, 2011, just two days after the main part of Resolve and one day after the Prologue.**

Peter Petrelli had a problem: stopping his father had not stopped his father's plans. He'd drained his dad of his abilities, managing to keep a few of them for himself in the process, but his father had apparently foreseen this turn of events and prepared for it. Now the world was going crazy after the third eclipse in less than five years. This one, directly engineered by Arthur Petrelli, had activated abilities in people - hundreds of people, perhaps thousands - and it was all according to a plan Peter knew far too little about. Peter had to find out what was really going on and stop it before things reached their ultimate goal.

For now, he was sitting in the dining room of his mother's house, sorting through reports of those who had manifested their abilities since the eclipse. Becky Trautman was the worst case he'd seen so far and Peter sincerely hoped it was the worst he'd ever see. She'd manifested her abilities moments after the eclipse was over, bursting into flame while inside her California home with her parents and two younger siblings. He wondered if something set her off or she just went. There was no way to know now, as all four of her family members perished in the blaze. She ran across the street then, probably in panic, and still on fire. She caught her neighbor's house on fire. Two of the three residents died, one trying to put out the flames on her body.

When the fire trucks arrived, Becky was sitting in the middle of the street, smoldering in a pool of melted asphalt. Perhaps if they'd approached her differently, it would have stopped there, but the fire fighters brought out their hoses and directed a low pressure stream at her, intending to put out the small fires still dancing around her and cool the asphalt before they pulled her out.

Peter had to assume the water had hurt, because the report said she began to scream and then she unleashed a wave of flame on the two firefighters manning the hose. One was severely burned even through his protective equipment, the other moderately. She immolated herself again. The police were summoned. The firefighters tried again to douse her and again she attacked them. So the police shot her.

When the area was cooled, they were amazed to find her still alive, but bleeding badly. She was taken to the local hospital and patched up. When she woke up the next day, she caught fire yet again, burning down an entire wing of the facility. Eighteen people died, including Becky. She didn't perish in the blaze, though. She threw herself out a fourth story window and died on impact with the sidewalk below. Peter imagined she knew what she'd done and was trying to end the destruction the only way she knew how.

It was a tragic, terrible loss and he laid it squarely at his father's feet, not imagining there might be any other agency behind it. A cold fury burned in Peter's heart for what had been done to so many, against their will. Lives had been ruined and changed, deaths caused, all because of the insane desire to mold the world and the people in it. It had to be stopped.

There were other cases, of course. Peter flipped past one where a woman had been found smashed into a paste against a concrete wall. They were investigating, but it seemed most likely a self-inflicted injury through use of uncontrolled super-speed. There were two burning deaths that looked like unexpected electrokinesis, and a man who'd been crushed under a truck he had lifted over his head to prove to his friends his newly enhanced strength. He had the strength, but not the toughness, having been killed when he shifted his grip and accidentally dropped the vehicle on his head. Being drunk had not helped.

Peter paused and sighed at the last death in his stack. This one was particularly upsetting because it reminded him strongly of his own experience. A young man had flown, but apparently lost control while some eighty to ninety feet off the ground. He fell. He didn't survive. It reminded Peter painfully of his own attempts at flight and his rash decision to leap off a building to prove it. Young Brett Carter could have been him - _would have been him_ if not for Nathan.

His brother had been there for him then. Peter had tried to be there for his brother after his bizarre resurrection within Gabriel Grey's body, but he was becoming more and more sure that Nathan was truly gone. He didn't know how much, if at all, he should hold Gabriel accountable for what Sylar had done, but somehow in all the tangled mess that had been Peter's life in the last year, he'd fallen in love with the man that Gabriel had become after integrating Nathan's memories.

He knew he could trust Gabriel with his life, but he also knew he was dealing with someone so fundamentally different from himself in morals and standards that there was often a gulf between them. In that respect, he mused, it wasn't that different from his relationship with Nathan. They'd rarely seen eye to eye either. As he had with Nathan, Peter tried to look past the differences and focus on the similarities.

He brought his attention back to the matter at hand. Although the deaths were easier to find and more gut wrenching, there was nothing to be done about them. The living were more difficult, more dangerous and more worthy of their time. As important as damage control was, the possibility of ongoing problems from those new to their abilities was more critical. It was simple triage - every paramedic understood that sometimes you had to make decisions about who to treat first.

For the living he had a different stack - rapes, muggings, theft, burglary, wanton destruction, arson, murder and a variety of other crimes. He knew he was seeing the people who were causing problems, not just people with abilities in general. There might be twenty or thirty good people for each criminal, but they wouldn't make it to his attention precisely because they weren't being problems. It didn't mean they didn't necessarily need help, but if they weren't making the news then he wouldn't know about them.

He hoped the ratio was 20:1 or 30:1. Maury Parkman had enthusiastically estimated it more like 1:1, with equal numbers of dangerous and benign super-powered people. If the old man was right, it would also mean there were quite a few fewer people with abilities than Peter was guessing - perhaps only a few hundred instead of several thousand. He'd gotten the impression that Maury knew how many there were, but as always, he wasn't sharing his information - at least not with Peter.

Maury and Angela sat on the opposite side of the dining room table from him, sorting through Assignment Tracker files just like he was doing and ranking them in priority for attention. Gabriel had showed up earlier and then bugged out as soon as the real work started. It struck Peter as very much Nathan's pattern. He said he had an errand to run that would take him most of the morning. Peter hoped it was worth it, because they could really have used an extra pair of eyes and hands looking at the information.

Now that Peter had sorted his files into three stacks, he started on the dangerous ones, putting aside the dead and benign for later. Clarice came in the room carrying a new stack of print outs. She was one of the senior analysts of the Company. She had an ability - Peter could sense it, but he had no idea what it was. Apparently his father's power to drain abilities also granted the ability to detect them. It made sense in a way. Gabriel's power was similar and he could also detect abilities, if he had a few moments to examine someone closely.

Peter knew Clarice from the classes she taught new agents about the breadth and range of abilities. Her knowledge was encyclopedic and impressive. At the present time, she was putting that information to use by combing through media, news and agent reports to compile files on likely manifestations. She put the latest stack on his corner. He blinked at them, having just opened a file on a man posing as the grim reaper. "Clarice, I've already sorted mine. I don't want any more right now."

"Well, these are the new ones from today." She looked across the table at Angela and Maury. "Who gets them?"

Angela pursed her lips and said, "Send an electronic copy to Gabriel. He can look at them later."

Maury said, without looking up, "Call him. Tell him to get his ass back here."

"I'm sure he wouldn't be gone unless it was important, Maury," Angela rejoined.

"Yeah? It's not like you have any compunctions about jerking **my** leash when I'm not where you want me to be. You coddle that man too much."

Peter gave him a dark look across the table. If anything, Peter felt that Angela and Maury's treatment of Gabriel was abusive in the extreme. Maury had alternately helped Gabriel's mental state and sabotaged it, while Angela had been the one to propose the unholy merger of Nathan with Sylar in the first place. Peter still hadn't worked out why she would do such a thing, but it wasn't the first time she'd been willing to sacrifice one of her sons. Maury felt his gaze and looked up at him, pointing at him and saying, "And I'm still not clear on what **that** one is doing here, other than picking up his boyfriend's slack."

Angela didn't look up from her file, but she said, "Maury, we don't speak of that. Get back to work." Peter and Gabriel's relationship was acknowledged, but not discussed in Angela's presence. Peter had never asked her what she thought of it because he was pretty sure he didn't want to hear the answer. He wasn't sure if she'd ever known about his times with Nathan. In retrospect, he supposed she had, but it was another thing not asked, not spoken.

The telepath grunted and did as directed. Peter looked back and forth between them, thinking about how Maury was jealous of Angela favoring Gabriel. He was jealous... Peter exhaled. He wondered if his mother had noticed the man had feelings for her, and strong ones at that. Peter had already told her Arthur had asked for her to visit him (he was currently locked in a cell at the Company's Philadelphia containment facility), to which she'd drawn herself up with the barest hint of a smile and said only, "Did he now?"

Peter went back to his file. The reaper was the one with the most deaths already stacked up, with at least six murders. He'd also been shot by police after killing one of the cops who tried to take him in. According to the report he was believed to have been hit in the leg. He'd fled afterwards in his deceased girlfriend's car. She'd been his first victim. The authorities were still looking for the vehicle. Peter glanced through the other files and caught Maury looking at him speculatively. The attention didn't strike Peter as a good thing, so he picked up the reaper's paperwork and walked out into the living room.

Clarice was sitting at an antique desk to the side of the room, with a card table set up next to her and an assortment of computer equipment piled around it. She was absorbed, scanning through news reports and following up on tips. He walked over to the other occupant of the room, who was an early teen girl named Molly Walker. She had the ability to find anyone, anywhere, which made her an incredible asset. Currently she was working a puzzle on the coffee table.

Peter took one of the chairs across from her and watched as she sorted through pieces of a street scene in France. He smiled a little. He'd been on that street once. He remembered working the puzzle too, many times on boring, rainy days when Nathan was away from home and he'd been trapped inside alone.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

The girl shrugged absently and didn't really answer him. "I don't know why this is all blurry. It's okay, I guess. It was either this one or a water mill or a bunch of trees. I think I'll do the trees next." She spoke of her choices of puzzles.

"It's blurry on purpose," Peter said. "That's a style of painting called impressionism."

"Well, it's hard to see. They shouldn't do it that way."

He smiled again, then got to why he'd approached her. "I need you to find someone for me."

"Of course." She didn't look up, but he could see her tense a little, like a tiny flinch.

He glanced back at the open archway to the dining room. He dipped his head to see her face better. "Is everything okay… Molly?"

She smiled up at him almost vacuously. "Everything's fine, Peter. I'll go get the map."

He exhaled slowly and watched her walk over to a collection of atlases and maps on the end table. He didn't know what to make of Molly's story. He still didn't have all the details. The last few months she'd been living with Maury Parkman, since Matt died. It would seem that Maury's care of her had been as variable as his treatment of Gabriel - helpful or abusive by turns. And with a telepath of Maury's caliber, abuse could take on nightmarish qualities, especially for a frightened young woman like Molly who had no one else to turn to. A few days ago Maury had unceremoniously dumped her off on Angela, forfeiting his guardianship of her without explanation.

Molly called over from the extensive collection of maps stored in the corner and asked, "Do you know what continent?"

"North America. Probably Canada, but I'm not sure."

She brought over a large roll-out map and spread it. She ran her hands over it and concentrated for a moment, then looked up at Peter with a distant expression. "Who?"

He gave her the name of the reaper. "Brian Taylor."

She shivered and shut her eyes. "Too many. It's too common a name. Tell me more. Tell me who he is."

"Here, I have a picture." He turned the file so she could see it and she looked, then shut her eyes again. Her hands roamed across the northern part of the map and he leaned forward, watching her, wishing he could absorb her power as easily as he once could. For a few short months, he'd had his old ability back, full-strength, and could gain abilities just by being near other specials. He'd had to give that up in order to be able to drain his father's powers. He regretted that he hadn't made more of an attempt to expand his repertoire while he had the opportunity, but what was past was past. Maury had kept Molly away from him until the very day he couldn't get her ability without stealing it from her. Peter was sure that wasn't a coincidence.

Her finger settled on a remote area in Ontario about midway between highways 11 and 17. She looked at it carefully and then got out a more detailed atlas of the region and repeated the process. It was somewhere near the town of Homepayne. Peter wrote down the coordinates as exactly as possible. The most detailed topographic map she had of the area showed a single residence there.

"Thank you, Molly."

"You're welcome," she said, still a little more distant and detached than she should be. She looked past Peter and a shadow of fear passed over her features. She stood quickly and began to put away the atlas and map, muttering, "I'm not supposed to be… without…" She turned away and took the maps to their corner. Peter looked back.

Maury walked up and looked over Peter's shoulder at the file with coordinates written on the outside of it. He said, "I thought we agreed we'd prioritize everything before moving on individual cases."

Peter stood up, fixing the location in his mind. "You and Mom agreed. I didn't say anything." He glanced over at Molly, then back to Maury, frowning. There was a lot Peter wanted to say, but it seemed better to wait. Maury had given her up. Hopefully that meant he recognized he'd been mistreating her. He wasn't doing anything to her right now and there was a killer Peter needed to apprehend. Peter vanished, teleporting himself to a spot near Homepayne, Ontario.


	95. Patience

Peter wrapped his arms around himself against a chill breeze. There was at least a foot of snow on the ground, as it was early March and he was well above the snowline. _I wish I'd brought a coat._ Even though his regeneration would keep any real damage at bay, he still felt the temperature. _I suppose I could go back to my apartment and get one. _He looked around and spotted a cabin through a screen of cedars. _Nah, it's not worth it. I won't be out here long. _He lifted himself with levitation and drifted forward with flight. It would keep his feet dry and that would help. He dropped to the ground when he reached the driveway and walked along the tire tracks towards the cabin.

He walked up on the porch, making no secret of his presence but not calling out either. There were lights on and he could hear a TV faintly, then silence. He smiled a little. The silence meant he'd been detected. He knocked quickly before anyone could get the impression he was prowling. He heard the wooden floor creak on the other side of the door and a voice, young and male, called out, "What do you want?"

"I came to talk to Brian Taylor."

The silence was too long for normal conditions but long enough to think it over if he was the man Peter was looking for. The man inside answered, "He's not here. Go 'way." After a pause, he added threateningly, "I have a shotgun."

"You have something a lot more effective than that and that's what I'm here to talk about. My name is Peter Petrelli. I know about your ability, Brian. You told people you were the grim reaper. You killed some people."

The door was yanked open abruptly and Peter felt his heart clench and spasm. He put his hands up in surrender and staggered back a step, forcing out, "I can help you. This doesn't have to be the end."

"It is for **you!**" The young man snarled and Peter's vision went black as his world ended.

He woke up to being awkwardly drug by his heels into the house. Whatever damage Brian's ability inflicted was no match for regeneration. Frankly, Peter really hadn't counted on that, he'd just taken the plunge without thinking it through. It was a bad habit. He'd worked with Noah Bennet for most of a year on first contact assignments and Noah had never been able to break him of it.

_Well, I'm still alive. Might as well get on with it._ He kicked his feet lightly to get them out of Brian's hands. The man yelped in surprise and backed up, favoring one leg. He brought his hand up immediately and Peter felt his heart seize again. "Stop it! Brian… please don't! I want t… to…" He died again. Whatever Brian's ability was, it worked fast.

But so did Peter's regeneration. It was a good thing he woke so soon, because Brian was already back and this time with a chain saw. Peter felt his gut knot up at the sight of the machine. Brian was fiddling with the choke and other settings, getting ready to start it. He jumped when he saw Peter's eyes open and assaulted him yet again with his ability. Not interested in seeing if his regeneration could stand up to dismemberment, Peter vanished.

Having teleported outside, he grabbed his chest and waited while the pain subsided and his heart went back to beating normally. Peter picked himself up out of the snow and brushed himself off. This was not going well, but he wasn't about to give up. He wondered, _If people gain their abilities based on their personalities, then what does that say about this man? If he'd just give me a chance to talk..._ Peter flew to the roof and hovered there, waiting. He checked his watch and decided to give Brian ten minutes to calm down. Within one, he heard the chainsaw start. _That's not a good sign,_ he thought.

Brian limped outside on the front porch with the machine held in front of him like a weapon. A few more minutes ticked by as Brian prowled his porch and finally stepped off to follow Peter's tracks up to the house. Peter watched how he walked. The gunshot he'd taken from the policeman wasn't serious, which was a miracle given the number of veins and arteries in the human thigh, but it was hurting him nonetheless. It needed to be treated for infection and assessed formally.

Brian stopped where Peter had landed on the driveway, unable to determine where he'd come from before that. He turned back towards the house. That was when he saw Peter hanging in the air effortlessly over his house. Peter prepared himself to teleport again, but nothing happened. Either Brian was too far away, or he had decided not to do it. Peter hoped it was the latter.

After nearly a minute of gaping at him, the man started back, stopping in front of his house. Peter drifted down to land twenty feet away, not pressing him. The chain saw was still running. When he touched down, Brian gunned the motor, making the blade spin and whir threateningly. Peter didn't react. Brian shifted the saw to one hand and lifted the other in the same gripping motion he'd made before. Peter shook his head but didn't do anything else, waiting for the first pain to be his signal to act. It confirmed to him that Brian needed to gesture to use his ability, meaning Peter could disarm him by pinning his hands.

After several seconds, Brian turned off the saw, but he still held it one handed, keeping his other hand free. He looked up and down the driveway. "Where's your car?" he said into the sudden silence.

"I didn't use a car to get here."

"You _flew_?" 

"Partway. Can we talk?"

"We're talking." Brian walked back up on his porch and knocked snow off his boots with a wince. Peter started to follow, but stopped at Brian's expression and nervous darting of eyes. Peter stayed perfectly still. A lot of the murderers he had run into were nervous and high strung, which was why they were killers. They acted fast, too fast, and frequently misread situations. Very few killed with killing as their intention, as a premeditated purpose, like Sylar or Noah. Those two tended to be careful and deliberate, considering the implications of a death before inflicting it. They made choices Peter strongly disagreed with, but they were rational choices and not the result of rash actions. Peter could afford to be patient. He waited for Brian to calm down.

"Get out of here. I don't want to talk to you," Brian said petulantly, raising his right hand at Peter again.

Peter shook his head once more, as that seemed to have discouraged the last near-attack. "Brian... don't do that." He felt a pressure in his chest, but it wasn't the crushing, killing pain he'd had before. This was more subtle, more careful, like the fingers of pressure were probing for a weakness or making sure they had a good grip. Peter clutched at his chest, grimacing. "Don't!" It was frustrating that the man would attack him time after time when Peter had done nothing but ask to talk.

"I'm the grim reaper. I pick who lives and who dies. Now why won't you _**die?**_" The pressure ratcheted up suddenly and Peter teleported behind the man, in the doorway. He telekinetically clapped Brian's hands to his sides and pulled him inside, shutting the door by hand and confiscating the chain saw. He put the man in a battered easy chair near a wood stove and was careful to clamp his fingers down firmly. He waited a beat to make sure his efforts would contain the killer. Brian struggled, but seemed helpless to escape.

Peter dropped the chain saw on the floor and walked over to sit in a rocking chair on the opposite side of the warm stove. He pushed his hair out of his face and was irritated to realize Brian had a haircut nearly identical to his own. The other man's hair hung over his eyes and made it difficult to read his expression. _Does my hair make it hard for people to see me like his does? No wonder Emma and Gabriel are always pushing it out of the way._

"Listen, Brian, all I want to do is have a conversation with you. That's all. If that's not possible then I'm going to take you somewhere that you'll be safe for a while until we can work something out for you. It's a prison, designed for people like you and me, people with special abilities. I'd rather not take you there. It's not a nice place. Will you talk to me?"

The man had been staring at him intently, still struggling silently with his bonds. "Fuck you!" He seethed with hate.

Peter sighed and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He settled back in the chair and waited. _Maybe if I just give him enough time, he'll calm down, and we can talk. _Minutes ticked by. Finally Brian lost patience and began abusing him verbally.

Peter frowned, but at least the other man was engaging with him. Peter spoke back to him, calmly, as if they were having an actual conversation even if the meaning of the words didn't follow the vituperation Brian was giving him. "I hear you." "You sound angry." "I've threatened you." "Yes, I've taken away your ability to kill me." "I can see how you'd feel that way." "You sound frustrated. "I'm not going to let you keep killing me."

More excoriation came his way. Peter stopped talking, folded his hands and waited until Brian finally wound down and sat fuming, still trying to get his fingers free. He was flushed and panting, his body reacting badly to the exertion. Peter suspected he was fevered, probably from an infection from the bullet wound.

"Are you done?" Peter asked him.

Brian said nothing, emotionally exhausted from over half an hour of railing at a man who wouldn't give him any satisfaction.

Peter leaned forward. "Can we have a reasonable conversation now about your ability and your life?" He thought he sounded vaguely like Noah Bennet had sounded to him years ago when they'd first met. It was an odd realization. He recalled he'd thought Noah sounded very condescending at the time. When they'd worked together, they'd never had to deal with anyone this violent and determined to be homicidal. Noah had made no bones about his feelings towards those with abilities who threatened to kill him or his partner and that feeling was to do unto others before they did unto him. Peter couldn't agree, but maybe they'd been fortunate in never being confronted with the situation.

Brian looked away and said nothing, eyes tearing with stifled frustration and impotent rage. Peter hoped the tears were from some softer emotion. His optimism misled him.

"I'm going to let you go and I want to talk to you. All I want to do is talk. Just because you have this ability doesn't mean it's the end. You're not even going to be held accountable for what you've already done. There's help for people like you, Brian." He released the telekinesis slowly.

The young man yanked his hands back from the arms of the easy chair immediately, rubbing them like they were sore. It was possible, Peter allowed. He'd held him tightly. After a few seconds the man snarled and gestured. Peter felt the same spasm in his chest again. He snapped Brian's hands back down with a motion of his own and the pain faded.

Peter stood up, angry and barely reining in his impulse to retaliate. He was frustrated and pissed off. He took a deep breath, getting control of himself. This was the wrong state of mind to have while dealing with him. There probably wasn't a week went by in his work as a paramedic that one of his patients didn't take a swing at him in some way, but it didn't mean he was ever happy about it. He spoke in a clipped tone. "Okay. You aren't going to do this the easy way, that's for sure. I've got other people to see today."

He walked over next to Brian, who told him, "If you touch me, I'll bite your fucking hand off!" Peter didn't bother to conceal his reaction this time, rolling his eyes. He locked the man's body with telekinesis, drawing him up out of the chair into a standing position. He put his hand on his shoulder (out of range to be bitten, just in case the telekinesis slipped when he concentrated on teleporting) and transported them both to the Omaha containment facility.

Brian was handcuffed, tranquilized and checked in after getting approval from higher ups. As the tranquilizer kicked in, the man looked at Peter and said, "You won't be here to stop me when I wake up. You can't stop me…" Peter frowned at him, but said nothing. He made sure Brian would get medical attention for his leg and gave his assessment to the medic on duty.

The woman in charge of the facility hand-carried a note to Peter that she'd been given while calling to check his authorization. It read, "Return home to pick up your partner and next assignment." He shrugged. It was what he'd been planning on doing anyway, minus the bit about a partner. He assumed this meant Angela and Maury had finished prioritizing the remaining cases and were starting to hand out missions. He thanked her and teleported out.

He showed up in the entry to see his mother standing before him, looking for all the world as if she'd been waiting for him to appear in that exact spot. He figured that was precisely the case. She was weird that way. She gave him a thin, bitter smile. "It's begun, Peter."

He blinked. "What?"

She shook her head. "It's nothing. You won't stop it anyway. You've made your decisions. Cassie has lunch for you in the kitchen. Go eat."

He set his mouth in a hard line at his mother's peculiar behavior. She'd been getting worse these last few years, or perhaps with Dad gone and everything that had happened she was just getting freer with expressing himself. She'd stopped bothering to hide her precognition from him - not that it made much difference. She was still unpredictable to him and it made it impossible to trust her.

He wasn't sure what was going on, but he didn't have much patience with her at the moment. If she was entering another cryptic phase, then there was nothing to be done about it. She wasn't going to explain herself - only make frustrating comments and vague innuendo about disaster and betrayal. He'd been through this before.

Just as he reached the kitchen door, his mother called to him over the dining room table, saying, "Peter!" Her voice was an odd mix of commanding and pleading. He jerked around, trying to understand why she sounded like that.

"What?" He looked at her. She was fine, just upset.

She walked to the far side of the dining room table from him, putting her hands on the back of a chair, rubbing it nervously. "Peter… **I love you**. Remember that." She looked at him intently, like she was trying to project some great emotion to him. And indeed, through his borrowed telepathy he could feel the intensity of her thoughts, the purity of her love and the importance of her request. It burned through the defenses he kept up to spare him inadvertently reading the thoughts of others.

He swallowed and shifted his weight, tilting his head, trying to think ahead enough to see why she had chosen to say this to him at this particular moment. Obviously she'd seen something in the future where he would doubt her, apparently more than he did now. Perhaps there would soon come a time when it was important that he think she loved him, so as to make him easier for her manipulate into doing something he knew was wrong. Rather than calm him, her comment made him suspicious. He gave the obligatory reply. "Sure… sure Mom. I love you too." He shook his head and went in the kitchen to find his lunch. He tried not to think of all the dire things his mother's words might mean were in store for him.


	96. Partners

**A/N: Patricia Pennington is the Patty from The Adventures of Matt Parkman (and The Romances of Maury Parkman). Rachel Mills is a canon character, though for those of you who have followed her in the graphic novels, you'll note some events would have had to transpire between those novels and now to put her working for the Company (again). Events have indeed transpired, but this is not her story.**

_The unwritten rule of the street is you protect your partner at all costs. When it's the two of you out there, you have to watch each other's back and know it. … Every now and then you may be called on to reaffirm that trust, and you have to respond. When it comes to violence against your partner, it can range from pulling them away from it, to taking payback, to looking the other way when someone else does._

_~ Peter Canning, __Paramedic: On the Front Lines of Medicine_

XXX

Peter ate while standing in the kitchen, watching as Cassie, the maid, made hot tea for his mother. Her thoughts were soothingly nonspecific, just focusing on her task and being in the moment. He smiled, for once feeling he wasn't intruding with a failure to block people out telepathically. It was also nice to be with someone who didn't have an ulterior motive or hidden agenda. Cassie had worked for his mother for the last three years and although she wasn't as close as most… well, _all_ of their previous domestic servants had been after a few years, she was professional, courteous and never asked questions that didn't relate directly to her work.

He finished his sandwich and carried the plate to the sink, washing off the crumbs and putting it away in the dishwasher after making sure they hadn't been washed yet. Cassie also didn't try to clean up after him, which Peter found to be a relief. Most of the staff became more insistent about helping him when they noticed his tendency to take care of his own messes. He suspected they felt uneasy and threatened by him doing their job for them, but he had never been able to just sit back and let someone else take care of him.

He walked into the dining room and looked at the table. He'd noticed when he walked through earlier that it had been covered with files grouped into several clusters. He'd been gone nearly three hours, with most of that spent making sure Brian was safely checked in, would receive adequate medical care, and filling out paperwork for his admittance in Omaha. Maury and Clarice were in the room discussing one of the files. The telepath gave him an inscrutable look and jerked his head towards the living room. "Your mother wants to see you."

Peter nodded and went into the larger room. It was crowded with people, but they were all quiet. He recognized Rachel Mills immediately. She was standing off to one side with Angela, getting her orders for the day. Two pairs of us/them agent teams were reviewing files. Three others he didn't know were doing the same but alone. A black man pulled out a phone and walked off to the sitting room to make a call. A female agent sitting on the couch regarded him intently. She projected to him clearly, _Wow, Rach was right. He really is cute_. He put up his mental defenses securely and upbraided himself for having relaxed too much around Cassie. Peter grimaced and glanced over at Rachel.

His mother had finished speaking to the other woman and walked over to him. "Peter. I'd like you to meet your new partner, Patricia Pennington. Patty, Peter Petrelli." Peter stifled his sigh. Of course it was the woman whose thoughts he had overheard. These were issues he'd never had working with Noah - though that was probably as much due to Peter not having telepathy as to Noah's sexual orientation. The alliteration was off-putting as well.

"Patricia." He nodded to her politely and pretended he hadn't heard what she was thinking. He looked to his mother. "So did the board decide on Noah's request?" Noah had asked to be assigned a new partner, which presumably meant Peter would be getting one as well. They'd been partners for most of a year, but a few weeks ago Gabriel had expressed an unhealthy degree of jealousy about the working relationship. Noah and Gabriel had only recently worked out some of the differences between them. Since Gabriel was effectively Noah's boss, the jealousy created a sticky situation. Noah had attempted to solve the problem by seeking a different partner. Peter had been incensed to lose his partner, mostly at Gabriel. The man's possessiveness was not a trait Peter appreciated.

"No, we haven't had time. This is only temporary." Angela turned to the other woman. "You've read the basics of my son's file?"

"Yes. What wasn't blacked out, of course." There was a trace of sarcasm and challenge in Patty's voice.

"Of course," his mother answered frostily. "Then come with me." She led the way back into the dining room. She knew who was in charge and her tone communicated that she wouldn't tolerate defiance. Peter was privately amused that his new, albeit temporary, partner did not stand in awe of his mother, like so many did. He tried to keep the smile off his face.

Maury handed Angela a file right away, saying, "This is the best one. Lethal, singleton, no network, government attention, needs immediate action. She's in a suburb of Vegas. Probably related to me." His last comment attracted a dark look from Angela and he shrugged, adding, "That's how it always was before. You know that."

Angela huffed and flipped through the file folder. Dismissed, Maury walked around her to Patricia. He ran the back of one finger down the side of Patty's face in a manner far too familiar for public consumption. She gave him a small smile in welcome. Maury asked, "So this is your new partner?" Peter looked at him with narrowed eyes, unsure of who he was addressing and bothered at his too-intimate greeting of someone Peter was going to be working with. Neither answered.

"Really?" Maury said as if one of them had spoken. "I agree." After a pause he looked over at Peter and dropped his hand from her face. "Don't try that on Peter, babe. It won't work on him." He laughed a little, still looking at Peter. "I know. He is." He walked out. Peter frowned after him, irritated, but of course that had been Maury's point. He loved provoking people and it seemed to Peter that he'd somehow become the man's favorite target lately.

Angela put the file between Patricia and Peter, saying, "Which of you wants to handle the paperwork?"

They both reached for it automatically and Peter let go after Patricia gave the file a tug. Angela nodded to them and said, "This one needs to be wrapped up tonight, before the FBI can get involved."

Both of them nodded and Angela left them to it. Patricia pulled out a chair and opened the file. Peter pulled out his own and put it next to hers where he could read over her shoulder. He said, "So that projected thought earlier… that was intentional, wasn't it?"

She smiled a little. "Yes… but true."

"You've had a lot of work with telepaths?"

She nodded. Peter scratched at his forehead, not sure how he felt about that. The Company only employed two other telepaths at the moment: Maury and Gabriel. Who she'd been with was pretty obvious. He supposed he should be calmed that she seemed to genuinely like Maury, rather than being frightened of him and his ability like Molly was. "What kind of field work have you had?"

"Dismantling a crime ring in Los Angeles, surveillance work in Portland and some processing work in Odessa." She glanced up at him. "I've completed all my training. Your file said you had telepathy. You can link up with me if you want." She gestured at her head.

"No," he said firmly, taken aback that she would so casually offer something so intimate. Peter struggled to stay **out** of people's minds. He couldn't fathom how someone would be willing to make themselves that naked to a virtual stranger, partner or no. It made him wonder about the extent of the liberties Maury took with people. Patty at least was an adult and she seemed entirely unbothered. Peter addressed their work. "So what's the file say?"

"Susan Greer - woman in her 50s with a variant of telekinesis. She's able to crush things - people, cars, beer cans." Patricia raised her hand in a pincer motion, looking between her index finger and thumb at his mother in the next room. She brought her finger and thumb together, saying childishly, "I squish you!" She smiled at Peter, despite his less-than-thrilled expression. She said, "Like that."

"Uh-huh. Don't do that anymore." He glanced past her at his mother, who was talking with Clarice. Back to his partner, he said, "Has she killed anyone yet?" He waved at the file.

Patty read it a bit more. "Three. She's holed up in her house… probably still there. The cops have it surrounded. They've called in the FBI, who should be there at… hm." She worked out the time zones. "In an hour or so."

"All right. Let's do it. Do you need anything?"

"I have a bag."

"Go get it." Peter took the file from her and scanned over the relevant details: name, description, looked at three possible photos of the woman and the identities of the people she'd killed. She'd also injured seven others, including her son and daughter-in-law when she crushed their car with them in it. Peter couldn't tell from the report if the attacks on her loved ones had been intentional or accidental. He dismissed the policeman who had been killed trying to apprehend her and the two other cops who had broken pelvises. People usually lashed out when cornered.

Patty came back in carrying a duffel bag and wearing a jacket. "You… can teleport, right?"

He nodded and stepped over to put his hand on her shoulder. The file had contained an exact address, provided by the police report and confirmed by Molly, who had left a heart-shaped pink post-it note with the coordinates. In a blink, they were in Nevada. It was mid-afternoon but the desert still held a chill. Once again Peter wished he'd brought a coat. _I need to think about things like that __**before**__ I go._

They were in someone's yard standing under a deformed-looking, bowed-over pine tree. Patty crouched, setting her bag on the needle-strewn ground. A few hundred feet in front of them was a police car blocking the street. "Are we…?" She looked back at the house they were in front of.

"No. I staggered our destination a little. It's about a dozen houses that way." He pointed straight ahead. "You and I need to talk about our plan. I can't take you in there if she's as dangerous as it looks. She'll kill you and I can't bring you back."

Patty looked at him levelly and said, "If this is your way of saying you want to go do it all on your own, then go ahead. Not like I can stop you."

Peter opened his mouth and then shut it. It was the truth, blunt and unvarnished. He didn't need her, but here she was. He was concerned about bringing someone he didn't know very well into a first contact situation. Noah had taught him a lot about being a good partner. She needed a role and sitting it out wasn't much of one. If she was going to be his partner, he needed to treat her as one. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"

"You distract her and I shoot her." At Peter's doubting expression she said, "Tranquilizer darts." She pulled her gun from the duffel bag.

He reached out and took it, checking the ammunition type just in case, but it was as she'd said. "Why don't I shoot her?"

"Because you'll be busy getting squished. I only brought one dart gun and I didn't see you getting any gear."

"Hm. Okay." He didn't like the plan, but he couldn't think of anything more useful for her to do. "I'm going to skip over and look at the house, then I'll come back and get you." He returned the gun to her and looked down the street, picking a porch where he could look out without being easily seen. He flashed to that location, picked another similar spot and so teleported down the street until he was across from a knot of police cars outside the target house.

Peter reached out with his telepathy, picking up stray thoughts of those gathered in the street. It was easy to detect which window they were focused on, where they thought the woman was watching them from. She was on the second story in a bedroom with a large bay window overlooking the front yard. He surmised she must have visibility on the back yard as well, or perhaps the police were simply not pushing it given her extraordinary ability and the impending arrival of the feds.

He could sense the police weren't in any hurry at this point, although they were still tense. They weren't ready to move or even getting ready. They were waiting. An ambulance was parked down the street on stand-by. Peter smiled a little, thinking that could easily be him in there, watching a police scene and waiting for action.

He blinked back directly to Patricia's side. She jumped away from him and fell over intentionally, rolling and bringing the gun up. He reached out and telekinetically tugged it down so it wasn't aimed at him. She got over her surprise, stopped moving and holstered the gun without apology.

Peter looked at her evenly for a moment, thinking again that he really might be better off doing this alone. "I know where to go." He looked at her intently and said, "You've shot someone before with that thing, right?"

"Sure." She was lying.

"Have you ever shot anyone with any gun?"

"Yes." She was lying again, even though she spoke with perfect, easy confidence.

He sighed and rubbed the outer corner of his eye, trying to decide whether to call her on the dissembling. One thing he'd learned with this ability was that people lied _all the time_ and calling them on it, even when they knew and understood about abilities, caused rifts. Even Gabriel lied to him from time to time and he not only had the exact same ability, but he knew Peter did too.

She went on, "And I've cut people up, hit them with baseball bats and drove a tire iron into their guts. It's not a big deal." Disturbingly, **that** was all true. Peter nodded and she added, unsolicited, "I'll be there for you. I might not be Noah Bennet, but I'll do my best." He wondered if his doubt was writ so clearly on his face. He reflected that he'd probably been spoiled by having the best agent in the Company as his partner.

He came to a decision, to move on and work with her, even though he kept in mind she was a rookie and hadn't seen any action before now. "Okay, she's on the second floor. I'm going to bring us in on the first and see if I can talk her down. If that fails, then I'll try to lure her downstairs and you can take your shot - one dart, no more. Don't overdose her. Stay away from the windows. I don't want the cops seeing us." He reached out for her, but she stepped away.

"Wait. What if she won't come willingly and won't come downstairs?"

He shrugged. "Then I go up and you stay down." He put his hand on her shoulder and took her into the house in the middle of a comment. Her mouth shut with a snap.

There was music playing in the house, a New Age Celtic mix with a female vocalist. It was very soothing and at odds with the situation. The house was messy and smelled close. Three cats fled the room at their appearance. One grey tabby shot up the stairs, alerting Susan to their arrival. Things started happening fast after that.

Patricia was closer to the stairs by virtue of accident. Peter hadn't known the layout of the house when he teleported in. The ability shunted him to a safe landing – it wouldn't put him inside an object, or at least it never had before – but he didn't have any advance warning of the setting.

Susan came to the top of the stairs immediately. She didn't ask questions and didn't try to talk. She showed the same hair-trigger impulsiveness that had put her on the top of the list, hitting Patty with her ability even as the other woman noticed her and tried to get out of the way. Patricia made a strangled yelp and bones broke along one hip and leg. She was smashed to the ground by the attack.

Peter jumped forward and sent a telekinetic wave blindly up the stairs, knocking the older woman back. Patty made another odd cry, fumbling with her gun and looking at her leg. A section of it had been utterly crushed, almost flattened. Peter hesitated and crouched next to her, looking at her condition. With medical care, she probably wouldn't die, but she'd be crippled for life.

Looking past him, Patty raised the gun and fired a single dart. Something unseen brushed Peter across the face. His ears rang from a shift in pressure and his head hurt with a surge so bad he went to all fours. Susan had been hit by Patty's dart and toppled, falling down the stairs. Peter was too disoriented to catch her. She flopped awkwardly to a stop on the landing, rolling onto Patty's foot. The younger woman's leg twisted a little showing how badly and completely the bones were shattered in the crushed section. Patricia made a small sound and passed out.

Peter shook his head to clear it, feeling the regeneration kicking in and driving out the fogginess. He suspected Susan had tried to smash his head like she'd done his partner's leg, but the tranquilizer dart had interrupted her. Had Patty not been there, he would have tried to talk and Susan would have crushed him without a second thought.

He checked Susan for vitals. She was alive, but her neck was broken and probably a wrist from the way she was lying. He bent to put his hands on each of the two women and tried to think of where their best medical facilities were. He'd never been to the Alaska facility. As far as he knew, it was all the Company had in operation that was able to handle injuries of this caliber, in a conventional manner. He glanced down at Patty's leg and Susan's turned neck. He took them to Philadelphia.

Patty's dart gun was left behind where it had fallen from her nerveless fingers.

XXX

"You're supposed to keep your partners _safe_, Peter," Noah chided. They had Patricia laid out in the bed of one of the level 2 rooms. Peter didn't need the reminder. He was angry at himself for letting her get hurt like this.

Peter frowned and sorted quickly through the medical kit for a tourniquet. "You've got to go call Claire. That's why I brought them here. Is someone taking care of that other woman?" He glanced back, seeing that Susan had been loaded onto a stretcher and was being moved. Peter scowled to see they hadn't so much as braced her neck. If he'd noticed that earlier, he would have stopped them, but Patty was starting to bleed badly. He had to get that stemmed immediately or she'd never live to get Claire's cure.

"Hey!" Peter called out to them before they lifted Susan. "Get a cervical collar on her! Immobilize her spine." He'd been asked once by Noah to lead a class on field medical treatment for the new agents of the Company. He hadn't felt qualified and had declined. Now he regretted it. There was a medic on staff here, but he had been off shift and was now en route.

"I'll go supervise that." Noah paused and gave Peter's back a very cold, distant look. His face warmed suddenly, intentionally, in case the younger man turned to look at him while he spoke. "Peter. That woman – she was your target?"

"Yeah." Peter stayed focused on applying the tourniquet. Patricia was waking. He went back to the kit for an IV and started getting a line. "Patty? You're going to feel a needle stick here. Keep your arm still."

Noah said, "So she attacked you and did this to your partner?"

"Yeah." He was distracted, trying to decide if he should teleport Patty straight to a trauma center, to Claire's apartment, or keep working to stabilize her and then go get Claire. Company policy was stabilization. He went with that. Peter had found what he wanted next in the kit and was filling a syringe. Of Susan, he rattled off, "She has a cervical fracture and a broken wrist. I didn't have time to check for other injuries. You shouldn't move her. I knocked her backwards and then later she fell down a flight of wooden stairs. She's been tranquilized so don't give her any more sedatives. You'll overdose her."

"Okay…. Was this a provoked attack on her part? Was she defending herself in some way?" Peter didn't notice Noah's tone of voice.

"Not really," he said, pushing a dose of morphine to keep Patty calm and trying to remember if the kit had Ringer's, saline or both in it. _It should have both, _he thought. To Noah he said, "I mean, we were in her home, but that's all. She was just on us too fast to talk." 

"You didn't do anything to precipitate it? She just attacked without warning?"

Noah was getting at something very important, but Peter didn't understand what it was. He was too busy treating Patricia, who had regained full consciousness. She whimpered in pain and it drove all thoughts of anything but taking care of his patient out of his mind. "Right, right, no warning. She almost got me too. Would've if it hadn't been for Patty."

Noah thought about that long enough that Peter glanced back at him, wondering why he was still standing there. Noah said, "I'll take care of her. You take care of your partner." Noah walked out.


	97. Loss of Innocence

**A/N #1: This happens immediately after Partners.**

"_That's what it takes to be a hero, _

_a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, _

_that decency will somehow triumph in the end."_

_~ Lise Hand_

Rachel teleported Claire to the Pharmatech branch office in Philadelphia. It was a front for the northeast containment facility, though they also did some legitimate warehousing and distribution on the ground floors and had a handful of offices. Rachel's ability bypassed all that, taking them directly to level 2 where Claire's patient was.

Maury had called her in the middle of her continuing research on the Greer case and the Fringe team's response to it. He told her the Company had an agent and Susan Greer herself, both in Philadelphia and both critically injured. Maury had told her to get used to calls like this, because she was the Company's miracle cure now.

They showed up in the hall. They had been expected. Her father was there and Noah smiled, but otherwise kept it professional. He showed her into the room, where a busty, brown-haired young woman laid on the bed, IV line in place and a portable monitor doing whatever it was portable monitors did. Right now it was beeping steadily. Claire had had precious little experience dealing with medical apparatus.

There was a dark-skinned man in the room whom she recognized from some of her training classes. He turned from his patient and approached her immediately. "Ah. You are… Ms. Bennet?"

She smiled. "Yes. You can call me Claire, please." She shook his hand.

"Yes. Thank you. My name is Dennis. Um." He glanced back at the woman on the bed. "Well." He seemed uncertain of what to do next.

Noah stepped in, saying neutrally, "It's a simple process."

"Oh! Yes," Claire offered, thinking she knew why the man was hesitating. "You just take some of my blood and inject it into her."

Dennis asked, "There's no chance of rejection?"

Noah shook his head, but he was looking at Claire. "No." He gave her a sad smile. She narrowed her eyes at that.

"Ah. Well. Then I'll get started." The man assembled his equipment.

Claire took her father aside for a moment. "What was that look about?" She was referring to the smile.

His eyes flicked to the medic, who fussed with his gear more than was necessary to give them time to speak. He took her out in the hallway. Rachel was at the other end, on the phone to someone. Noah turned to his daughter and said, "I've seen what happened to the last person they had with your ability."

She furrowed her brow. "What did they do to him?"

Noah shifted his weight and swallowed. "Claire-bear, there was a_** reason**_ why I never wanted them to know about you, about what you could do. This is how it starts." His voice sounded strained. "I wanted to shield you from this for as long as I could."

"Dad? All he's going to do is take some blood. That's it. I've done it before. It's no big deal. What are you talking about?"

"Claire, your ability is a _commodity_." He took her shoulders, trying to will her to see down the road, down the logical progression of events, but she was young. She didn't see. "They don't need your cooperation to use it. There will come a day, I'm sure, when you'll realize… that they have taken _everything_ from you."

She looked back and forth between his eyes. "Dad," she said levelly. "You're over-reacting. I'm giving blood. That's… no one's taking _everything_ from me. Okay?" She grinned, because he was being ridiculous and sweet. "I'll be fine."

He sagged. She just didn't understand. She hadn't seen Adam Monroe or how he'd been treated. She hadn't seen how he'd fought against being used like this, like a dispenser and not like a human being. What she had was so valuable it was scarcely possible to treat her any other way. She was the essence of all those silly moral arguments of whether you'd kill an innocent baby in order to save a multitude.

But she wasn't a baby. And she wouldn't be innocent much longer. They'd see to that. Noah suspected the only reason she had the illusion of freedom even now was because she was Angela's granddaughter. He was thankful that Angela was more humane than some of the other founders had been, but she wouldn't be able to hold back reality. Not forever.

Claire shrugged off his hands and rolled her eyes. "It's okay. Really, Dad." She walked back into the room. Dennis directed her to sit in the chair he'd occupied before, which was at the young woman's side.

She saw that the woman's leg was deformed, exposed for whatever medical reason, with the sheet drawn back so it covered her healthy leg and only barely preserved her modesty. He hip and the right side of her pelvis had been affected too. It was grotesquely swollen and discolored above the tourniquet. Below it, her thigh had been crushed, utterly. It was like a jelly, boneless and obscenely flat. Her foot and the lower part of her leg was still shaped normally, which made it even more repulsive than it would have been otherwise. Her face was pale and she was sweating, but she was awake even if her eyes were a bit dilated.

To take her mind off how the leg looked, Claire looked at her face. They were about the same age. "What's your name?" Claire asked, as Dennis tied a tourniquet around her arm.

"Patricia." She smiled. "I heard you say your name was Claire?"

Claire nodded.

"What are you going to do?" Patricia inquired, her breathing a little unsteady.

Dennis murmured, "Ah, there's a vein. Lovely things. Hold on." He stuck her with the needle and Claire jumped a little at the prick.

She swallowed and watched while he advanced a vial into the syringe and began to draw blood. "My blood will heal you."

"Entirely?" Patty asked.

Claire nodded. Dennis pocketed the vial and inserted another one. Claire's brow furrowed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm… I'm getting a second vial. Just hold still."

Claire blinked at him. She looked over his shoulder at her father, who stood silently in the doorway. He looked defeated. He turned and walked away, shaking his head. He couldn't watch.

Dennis pocketed the second vial and produced a third. He moved it towards her arm, but she reached over to grab his hand. "You can't possibly need more than two vials to cure her."

Dennis gave her an indecipherable look. "I'm going to get four."

"I didn't say you could have four!" Her voice rose with heat.

Patty interjected, "I just want to be able to walk again? You know, if I get a vote here? For God's sake, let him take as much as he needs!"

Claire turned to tell her she didn't get a vote, but her tongue stilled as she looked at the woman's face, drawn and ill, desperate for relief from pain and from a future as a cripple. Claire glanced down again at her leg and hip. Dennis shook off Claire's hand and inserted the third vial. Quietly he said, "I'm sorry. I was told to get four vials. You're right. It should only take one to restore her. But we might need the others later. I was told your blood would be potent for the next several hours, perhaps more."

"I didn't tell you you could do this," Claire hissed, but she didn't stop him from pocketing the third vial and inserting the fourth. "You were lying when you pretended you didn't know what to do."

Dennis continued to speak in a low voice, one that comforted most of his patients. It was calming Claire down even now, but she didn't realize it. "I wasn't lying. I've never done this before." He pocketed the fourth vial and pulled out the syringe, covering the site with gauze and then applying pressure out of long habit. He released the tourniquet.

She lifted his hand off of her arm. "You don't need to do that." She removed the gauze to show her arm perfectly unblemished.

"Wow," he breathed. He looked up and down her body, but it wasn't covetous in the normal manner. "The things medical science could learn from you."

Claire stood up so suddenly he was knocked back. His hand flew immediately to his pocket where the precious vials were stored. Although he fell to the floor, they were protected as surely as though he held four lives in his hand. Claire looked to the doorway, but Noah was still gone. She stuck out her hand to Dennis and knocked his away when he mistakenly believed she was offering to help him up. "Give me one of those vials and then get the hell out of here."

He handed her one and then scrambled to his feet. He retreated to the door and stopped. Claire glared at him, but he didn't leave. She exhaled and sorted through the medical box to find a syringe big enough for the job. She did and transferred the blood into it. She looked back to see that Dennis was _still_ at the door, unwilling to abandon his patient or perhaps just voyeuristically wanting to watch the process.

Claire fiddled with the IV line, trying to remember exactly what Peter had done when he'd used her blood to heal her father a few months ago. _I'm pretty sure he stuck it in here…_ She found a likely spot, stuck the needle in and depressed the plunger. It took a while. There seemed to be some pressure in the line.

From the door Dennis offered, "There's a valve, down lower on the tubing that will increase the flow if you'll turn it."

Claire gave him a glower but followed directions. He walked a few steps back into the room. The blonde woman looked daggers at him, but ultimately she had no more ability to hurt him than any other young woman. She wasn't going to attack him, so she sighed heavily and sat down. Dennis edged closer still.

The blood slowly filtered down the tubing and into Patty's arm. Claire reached out and took her hand, wanting the human contact. If she was going to save someone, she at least wanted to touch them. Patty gave her a hopeful squeeze. Claire glared fiercely, but impotently, at the medic. _Whose lives are those other three vials going to save? Will they be good people? Or bad? Would they be choices I would have made? I don't even really know this woman here or whether she deserves to be saved._

"Oh!" Patricia chirped, beginning to feel the effects. Her skin pinked up. She wasn't sweating anymore. She gave Claire's hand another squeeze.

"We should probably…" Dennis spoke in his soft, calm, I'm-dealing-with-a-combative-patient voice. "Ah, may I?" He moved to the foot of the bed. "I'm going to need to take the tourniquet off her leg. Can you help me?"

Claire huffed, but nodded and stood. She was here to help someone, after all. She let go of Patty's hand. "What do you want me to do?"

"You hold her leg and I'll cut it off." He produced a pair of trauma shears from the medical box. From where he was standing, it was clear he meant to remove the tourniquet. Patty couldn't see his gestures. She only heard his words.

Patty said abruptly, "Wait! What are you cutting off?" She tried to sit up, showing a lot of energy compared to previously. Of course, previously, no one had been threatening to cut off her leg.

"It's okay," Claire said, trying to push her back down.

"This will only take a moment," Dennis said.

"NO!" Patricia began to fight. Claire realized something was really wrong and backed off. She grabbed Dennis and pulled him back too. Patricia stared at them both, panting. She looked at her leg and grimaced. "Ow. OW. God damn it! That hurts!" She clawed at the tourniquet. "Get over here with those scissors and cut this thing off! NOW!"

Dennis hastened to obey. After he did, her leg bled some, but it also began to fill out and return to a natural shape. It didn't heal nearly as rapidly as Claire did, but it was steady and sure, staying ahead of the blood loss as her tissues reconstituted themselves. Patty went from being aghast at what was happening to her, to being alarmed, then hopeful, and finally thrilled. Dennis watched the process with undisguised glee and fascination.

Claire stood back and felt ill.

"I can go back out!" Patricia said with wonder after it was done. She sat up on the bed and flexed her leg, making no attempt to hold the sheet over herself. She was naked from the waist down, but she didn't seem to care. "I can still work! I can _walk_. This is amazing! How much blood can you take from her?" Avarice showed in her features.

Claire felt weak in the knees.

Dennis didn't say anything. He looked back at Claire, a guarded expression on his face. He put his hand protectively over the three vials he still possessed. In his pocket was three lives - the cure for someone's cancer, restoration from a vegetative state, resurrection from death itself. Each vial was a life as surely as if it were an infant - and it was instantaneous, or nearly so and no one had to die to produce it. They only had to take it from Claire to have it. All they had to do was take it.

Claire walked out. She felt like she'd lost something she didn't even realize she had when she'd shown up here. There was no way she'd ever get it back.


	98. Disobedience

_Action expresses priorities.  
~ __Mohandas Gandhi_

XXX

Gabriel brooded in the study at his house; the place Nathan Petrelli had once called home with his wife Heidi and their two sons. Now it was Gabriel's home, _his_ wife Heidi and _his_ three sons. Technically Monty and Simon were Nathan's, but he didn't see much difference except the DNA. For him, that was an irrelevant detail.

He had most of Nathan's memories regarding the boys and had successfully used Matt Parkman's stolen telepathy to make them perceive him as their father whether he looked like Gabriel or Nathan. He'd never used that power on them for anything else, sorely tempted as he sometimes was. Parenthood was tougher than he'd expected, even if he let Heidi bear the brunt of the labor.

His laptop had timed out, screen now unlit. A full glass of scotch sat next to it, untouched. He was supposed to be combing through suspected manifestation reports for inclusion in the Assignment Tracker 3.0. His thoughts kept wandering to his meeting with Arthur and the subject of the presidency. He'd tried to resuscitate his political career the previous fall. He wouldn't say he hadn't gotten anywhere, but his well-publicized funeral from the year before, along with the splashy media coverage of the plane crash, had not done him any favors.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. _It's not __**my**__ funeral or __**my**__ death. It was Nathan's. __**Nathan's**__. Not me. _He sighed. He knew who he was, consciously, but he slipped from time to time. Caught by surprise, he would always say he was Nathan. He spent about half his time as the man, working at his law firm and most of his time here at the house.

He used Gabriel's face for Company matters, for a number of reasons. Foremost was deniability for his family, in case things went bad. Next was a stubborn desire to make Angela and Peter deal with him as Gabriel, as someone distinct and separate from Nathan. Without that distance, they both had an annoying tendency to lose themselves in the illusion that he was someone he wasn't. They called him Nathan, they reacted to him as Nathan and neither of them seemed to notice when it annoyed him.

It was odd really, since he'd stepped into Nathan's life partly to rob that from Angela, to achieve revenge against her by forcing her to live with her son's murderer becoming her son. He had wanted her to spend the rest of her life seeing her son's face on his killer, kissing her daughter-in-law and raising her grandchildren, attending family events and carrying on the Petrelli name. They were to be the ultimate hostages. It had not worked out as he'd expected.

Rather than taking from the Petrelli family, he'd ended up giving them back even more than they'd lost with Nathan. He'd become Angela's protégé and enforcer extraordinaire. He'd fallen in love with Heidi and they conceived a third child (or his first, depending on how you looked at it), little Noah Petrelli, now only a few months old.

He'd found himself continuing a relationship with Peter, as Nathan, that had somehow managed to survive his transition to Gabriel only a few months previous. The brothers had been occasional lovers, which part of him found twisted and sick and the other part, from Nathan, found meaning and definition in loving the younger Petrelli. Gabriel wanted to make the relationship much more committed, though Peter was still mulishly resisting him on it. If Gabriel was going to be with him, then he at least wanted to get what **he** wanted out of it.

Now Arthur wanted him to return to Nathan's path and become president. Even had he wished to do it, which he didn't, he didn't see how it could be done. On the other hand, Nathan hadn't seen how he'd get elected senator and it had been taken care of… by Arthur's best friend Daniel Linderman. _There must be someone out there we haven't seen, someone who can swing things of this magnitude. _Gabriel mulled it over, running his mind over all the possible candidates. None matched.

Heidi came down the hall and peered in, barely able to see him in the darkness. She turned on a light. "There you are! I thought you must have gone out to get some air. What are you doing in here in the dark?" She came around the desk and glanced at the darkened computer screen.

He reached forward and closed it after she'd seen it was blank. He wasn't getting any work done anyway. "I went to see… my father today, Arthur." Heidi's knowledge of who he really was, was imperfect. She'd asked once and he hadn't been ready to tell her. He still wasn't.

Faced with the choice of losing him and the truth, or staying with him and not knowing, she'd chosen to keep the family together. She knew he was a shape shifter, that he had both Nathan's memories and Gabriel's, and that he'd had a series of tumultuous events in the years they'd been separated. Those events had included killing people in a grey war between the super-powered and the government.

She also knew that he loved her far more than Nathan had; he had proven he was willing to die for her if need be. They were set to renew their vows in a month. He'd never asked her what she made of him, content that she loved him in turn and was willing to put up with him. She gave him herself without conditions or reservations and for that, he would do anything for her.

He went on, "He… There was a prophecy that Nathan would become president; I'd be the vice president on the winning ticket and then become president after that. Arthur and Angela were doing things to make that happen. They'd expected it to be in 2008 - I guess with Obama. Now Dad's talking to me about trying again." He reached out and pushed the glass of scotch around, but didn't drink it. He didn't like alcohol much anymore. It didn't make him drunk unless he made a serious effort at it. It was rarely worth it. He'd poured the glass out of a long-forgotten habit, thinking about Arthur.

Heidi picked up the drink and put it out of his reach. She didn't like him drinking at all, regardless of his increased capacity. He didn't argue. She said, "Is that… is that something that's even possible? With your… condition?" She gestured at him, at his face.

He reached up and rubbed the stubble-covered chin of Gabriel's face. He sighed. "Yeah, but… I'm not going to do it. What I'm confused by is why he'd think I even _could_, after the terrorism business, my resignation and the funeral." He sighed. "Just like the rest of that family, I don't think he really knows who he's dealing with when he looks at me."

She smiled and bent to kiss his forehead. "You're not the son he knew - the one he could tell what to do and get instant obedience. For which I'm glad. I like the new you. Now come to bed. I need to go check on Noah."

He smiled faintly and rose to follow her. For obvious reasons, Heidi didn't think much of Arthur Petrelli. She had been abducted and murdered by the man immediately prior to Noah's birth. Peter and Gabriel had gone to great lengths to resurrect her.

Since that trauma she'd been reluctant to let her baby get more than a few feet away from her unless Gabriel was with him. With great persuasion, she'd been talked into letting Peter babysit for them once. It was remarkable she was down here at all. It meant Noah must be asleep… and she was getting more comfortable with the idea of leaving him alone. Perhaps the news that Arthur was powerless and locked away had something to do with it.

He swatted her on the rear as they left the room and playfully chased her down the hallway. She giggled and turned to face him at the end, surprising him. He was so close on her heels that he ran into her unexpectedly and they nearly went down. He caught the both of them using Nathan's flight and righted them with a shove of telekinesis. Once they were standing again, he pulled her into his arms, kissing her. "Boys in bed?" he murmured. She nodded. He tried to kiss her more deeply, but she pulled away.

"Noah, remember?"

He nodded and swatted her again as she broke from the embrace and headed upstairs. She gave him an annoyed look, so instead of following right away, he doubled back to turn off the lights in the study. He summoned his cup of scotch and carried it to the kitchen, where he poured it out. It seemed like a shame, but he wasn't getting any if he showed upstairs with it on his breath. A man had to have his priorities. He headed up.


	99. Sickness

With his partner out of commission, Peter was put to work ferrying people, equipment and print outs from place to place until late in the evening. It helped him keep his mind off how badly his last two missions had gone. While yes, he'd brought in his targets, he'd been unable to talk either of them down and didn't get a chance to do any follow-up. He was painfully aware that neither of them would have regarded his actions as helpful. Rather than thinking he'd saved them, they probably both thought of him as the Enemy. He made a promise to himself that he would check up on them as soon as things settled down. Right now, the Company was in crisis mode.

His last trip of the night was to take Jerry Engels, one of their field agents, to the hospital with a broken arm. The Company was limiting using Claire to cases that were either life-threatening or impossible for the mundane medical community to treat without asking far too many questions. He took the man to the hospital he knew best, Mercy Heights, where he was sure of where to teleport to so they wouldn't be seen arriving.

As it turned out, the hospital had its own crisis. After seeing that Jerry was in good hands, Peter went back to admitting to ask after Emma. He'd lost track of where she was and he thought he'd look her up on the off chance she was still working those crazy shifts she'd been complaining about last time he'd seen her. He'd missed their morning ritual of breakfast for the last week, because of everything going on with his father. She wasn't in. She'd called in sick.

Peter drummed his fingers on the counter, thinking about that, wondering if she was sick enough he should drop by, wondering how long she'd already been sick and he hadn't known, distracted by the eclipse and the continuing fallout from that event. _She would have at least sent me a text if it was serious, wouldn't she?_ A nagging thought occurred to him that if it was **really** serious, she wouldn't be able to text him at all. But if that were the case, then surely the clerk at admitting would tell him. Their relationship was no secret. A familiar voice snapped him out of his contemplation. The EMS supervisor, Jackson, had caught sight of him. "Petrelli! You're just the man I wanted to see. Right on time! Come with me."

"I'm… ah, I'm still on vacation… I just dropped by-" he said to his boss' back and realized his objection was unheard. He sighed and followed him. Technically, he was on vacation for the next three days. His boss wasn't the kind of person who forgot things like that. He hurried to catch up, intending to reassert his objections. He walked into the man's office as his supervisor picked up a marker and put Peter's last name on the roster next to Karen O'Neill's.

Peter's eyes scanned over the whiteboard and noticed there were fewer names on it than usual. "Where's Hesam?" Peter asked immediately, noting 'Malik' was nowhere on the list.

"Sick. So are Flannigan and Greentree."

"Sick?" _Just like Emma?_ "What are they sick with?" For an EMT to call in sick, they had to be virtually unable to function.

Jackson gave him a guarded look and hesitated for a moment. In that moment, Peter heard clearly what he was thinking. _Hell if I know, but everyone has it. CDC's all over this thing. Up my ass, wanting me to keep a lid on it…_ "Doesn't matter," he said gruffly. "I need all the units staffed. A lot of the other services are running short handed and I need all the meat in the seat I can get. Been having a lot of weird calls lately." He paused again and turned back to the roster, thinking, _Sorry about the vacation. He'd better not pitch a fit about that or I'll fire him._ He glanced back at Peter. "Get a move on! O'Neill's already waiting with the rig in case I managed to find someone other than me."

Peter nodded and headed to the locker room to get changed. He didn't care about being fired. In fact, it might be a relief to have less going on in his life, but he wouldn't turn away if he was needed. On the way to the locker room, he pulled out his phone and put together a text to Emma. Before he was finished getting dressed, her reply came in that she was okay and he shouldn't worry. He did anyway. He sent to her that he'd try to bring her breakfast when he got off work in the morning.

He stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He didn't know enough to say much of anything to the Company, but he doubted the sudden epidemic and "a lot of weird calls" was unrelated to the eclipse. After all, Clarice was getting her information about the new specials somewhere. He hadn't had a chance to see the news, but he was sure it was full of strange events.

He climbed into the passenger seat of the ambulance and smiled a little at Karen. "Just like old times, hey?" Karen had been the first paramedic Peter worked with, before Hesam. She was a good teacher.

She gave him an answering smirk. "Yeah, it's good to see you too. I thought you were on vacation?"

Peter shrugged. "I was. I brought in a friend for a fractured humerus and Jackson saw me standing in the hall."

Now she laughed. "Ha. Serves you right for even coming close to this place while you're off work. But as for Jackson, I think he just didn't want to be called a queen." She was referring to their new vehicle designation, 02Q, which was read over dispatch as Two Queen. All of the rigs were now assigned an alphanumeric code as part of the new districting initiative that rolled out a year or so before.

Peter grimaced. "There's worse things to be called."

"Yeah, Nick hates it. I kind of like it. But that's probably because Nick hates it."

They shared an easy laugh. When you work with the same person for sixty or seventy hours a week under all sorts of conditions, even if you liked them and got on well, you were still going to take a human sort of pleasure in getting their goat. Karen tossed down the newspaper she'd been reading. Peter glanced at the headline, _IRS Stops Payment on Refund Checks_. "What's that about?" Peter asked, gesturing at the paper.

She shrugged. "Oh, the world's ending."

"Huh?"

"The IRS mistakenly mailed out these massive refund checks to everyone whose last name begins with R. You know the world's coming to an end when the IRS starts giving out money like it grows on trees." She turned serious suddenly. "Hey, did you hear about that hospital in California that burned down?"

Peter drew back and swallowed nervously. "Yeah." She had to be talking about the Trautman case. He suspected the IRS snafu was related to special abilities too and he didn't want to talk about either. "So, what's everyone out sick with?"

"They say it's the flu-"

Just then dispatch came on. "Two Queen, we have a single-car MVA on State Street, two injuries reported. Can you respond?"

Karen picked up the mike. "Two Queen, responding."

The conversation would have to wait. They headed out and were the first to arrive on scene. A second unit had been dispatched, but they were running slow. Petrelli and O'Neill found the driver and passenger of a minivan bruised and scuffed, both reporting neck and back pain. Given that they'd hit the median and ricocheted across three lanes of busy evening traffic, they were lucky those were all the injuries they had. The paramedics began immobilizing and prepping the wife for transport as her husband sat on the ground, talking on his cell phone and waiting for the second ambulance.

One of the policemen working the scene came over to find out the ETA of the second rig. After they told him, he turned away and leaned against the side of their van, doubled over coughing. Peter stared at him for a long moment, then glanced over to see Karen looking at the same thing. She looked over at Peter and gave one shake of her head before going back to the patient. They were almost finished.

Peter walked over to the policeman. "Hey buddy, are you all right?"

The man nodded, straightening. "Sure. Just allergies, I think."

"When did it start?"

"Few hours ago." The cop looked over Peter's uniform and past him at the rig. He smiled, thinking Peter must be a rookie to be eagerly investigating every stray cough. "I'm fine, thanks."

Peter nodded in agreement, but this was just one more data point. The second ambulance pulled up and Peter turned back to help Karen load their patient. It was a quiet ride. Peter sat in the back and teched, though there wasn't much to do. He talked to the woman, who was worried they'd get a ticket even though they hadn't hit anyone, because they didn't have insurance. He tried to reassure her. It was something he was really good at. By the time they arrived at the hospital on an easy three (no lights or sirens and obeying all traffic laws), she was smiling and relaxed.

After he turned in the run form, he went back to Karen and said, "The flu?"

She knew what he meant, resuming the conversation from over an hour earlier. But she shrugged helplessly. "That's what they say." At Peter's expression, she added, "I don't see much. Most of them are coming in through regular admitting or they just stay home. As far as I can tell, it's like normal influenza, but it's spreading like wildfire. It hits fast and hard. I heard the CDC was around today interviewing people."

"What are the main symptoms?"

"Exhaustion and diarrhea. Chest congestion and fever are secondary. So right now they're pushing people to get rest and stay hydrated. The CDC told Jackson not to let any of his people work if they had anything like it, but I think it's a case of too little, too late. It's all over the place already."

"When did it start?"

"Just a few days ago, or at least that's the first cases I heard about."

"The eclipse," Peter said without thinking, looking away. _How would the eclipse cause a disease? Abilities are a genetic mutation and viruses… are short gene sequences… Surely the eclipse only affects people, right?_

Karen gave him a searching look and said slowly, "Yeah… if we assume there's virtually no incubation time, then yeah, it could have started then. Hannah's been going on about bio-weapons, but I try not to listen to what she says. What would the eclipse have to do with it?" Her mind flashed to all the strange stories the news had been full of since that event, only three days before, and to the nutcase Blumenthal had brought in who'd pierced her own eardrums, claiming all the animals were talking to her.

Peter looked back at her, listening to her thoughts and making a note that he needed to work with Gabriel again on blocking. Exertion, distraction and worry had worn down his defenses. He could hear she was worried about him too and wondering why he was staring at her vacantly - which would be because he'd become distracted reading her mind. Again.

"Peter?"

He snapped out of it, making a determined effort to block her out. "Yeah, yeah, a lot of weird stuff started happening then. I don't know. I was just thinking of Emma. She's sick too." Karen gave him a sympathetic look. He ran a hand through his hair and said, "Are we all stocked up?"

She nodded. "Got everything."

Their next run was to retrieve an elderly lady suffering from breathing difficulties brought on by the very sickness they had been discussing. They got her into the ambulance and Peter teched while Karen drove. The steady flow of oxygen through the nasal cannula made their patient more alert and comfortable. She'd been blue and struggling in her apartment. She smiled wearily at Peter. He asked her about the start of her symptoms, as much for the medical report as for his own sinking feeling that abilities were involved.

"Oh," she sighed. "It wasn't at work. It must have been when I was walking home from the subway. My throat was sore. I just didn't feel well, if…" She paused to breathe, the faint gurgling of rales audible from deep in her chest. Peter leaned forward to check the monitor, but her oxygen saturation score was fine.

He nodded. "It's okay. I understand." He intentionally opened his mind to listen to her thoughts. It was something he'd done off and on in his work over the last few months, since picking up telepathy. It helped enormously to be able to literally feel what the patient felt. Right now, he could see her thinking about the subway and the people on it. It had been very crowded. She remembered another man coughing a few seats away, but Peter was hoping she could remember someone touching her or something dramatic happening. Most abilities weren't subtle. He didn't see anything in her memories that told him who was doing it.

After delivering Mrs. Cole to the isolation entrance, he walked up to where Karen was filling out their run sheet in the hall. She cleared her throat as he approached. He looked at the clock on the wall. "Getting close to halfway done."

She nodded and cleared her throat again with a small cough. "You are, I guess. I'm in for a double." She sounded tired, even more than he'd expect. "Are you just standing the tour three?" He nodded. She said, "That's a change."

"I have prior obligations." He thought about that cough and cocked his head at her. "Are you sick _already?_"

"I'm…" She started to insist she was fine, but she didn't feel fine. She glanced up and down the hall, then spoke quietly, "If it spreads that easy, Peter, then we've all got it." She went back to the form. "It's just a tickle. Probably psychosomatic. And if it's not," she looked up at him briefly, real worry and concern etched on her face, "Then they need every EMT they can get, sick or not."

He nodded, though he didn't entirely agree. He weighed his options. Karen wasn't the type to take help from anyone and anything he did to indicate concern for her, she might see as patronizing. If Jackson was under orders from the feds to send home anyone who was sick, then he'd have to send Karen home… unless he no one ever told him she was sick.

Seeing she was done with the form, he said, "Here, let me turn that in. It'll give you another minute to go grab some masks." Also, it was a longer walk to where he needed to drop the file than to the stock room. She looked at him like she wanted to argue, but she only nodded and handed him the sheet of paper. He said nothing about her illness when he turned in the form, although he noted it didn't really matter - Jackson was out in the field responding to a call - they were that short-handed.

When he climbed in later, Karen had a mask on and he could smell the faint odor of menthol. He handed her a hot coffee he'd picked up in the break room on his way back. It was lousy coffee, but it was hot and it was there and he hoped it would make her feel better. He wasn't sure it was a good idea for her to be working at all, but they were getting their dispatch already and there was no chance to talk about it. She put the drink in the cup holder, untouched.

They handled a man with diabetic shock and low blood sugar who had been mistakenly reported as drunk. After administering D50 (dextrose), they drove him to the hospital to have a head injury and broken nose treated that he'd sustained from an earlier fall. As they settled back in to wait for the next call, Karen finally got to drink her now-cold coffee. She rubbed her forehead and sighed.

Peter asked, "You want me to drive?"

"Nah. I'm fine." She was lying about the latter statement, but not the former. He nodded and snagged the newspaper she'd been looking at earlier, dividing it into sections and giving her first pick. It was her paper, after all. She took the national, which put the local section in Peter's hands.

"Here's to hoping the rest of the shift goes as well as it has so far." He settled in to read up on the happenings. He got about two paragraphs into the first story when the next call came in: "Two Queen, respond to Willow and 11th, assault, possible hostage situation."

Karen picked up the radio and called in, "This is Two Queen. On our way."

Peter's brow furrowed. "That's a long way out. They must really be short units across the city."

She shrugged and pulled into traffic. "Like they say, the distance of the call from the hospital increases as the time to shift change decreases."

He gave her a long look. To his experience, Karen almost never repeated the unwritten "rules" of paramedics and EMTs. She looked a little flushed, but she was driving fine. He shook his head to himself. _This stuff progresses __**fast**__._

They arrived to find their way blocked by four police cruisers. A SWAT van arrived seconds after they did. Peter craned his neck to see what was going on as Karen found a place out of the way of the other emergency vehicles to park. "I think I see a body up there, but there's… no one's near it." Peter grabbed his bag and hopped out, saying, "I'll find out what's going on."

He walked up to a pair of policemen who were arguing over who was in charge of the scene. They were both sure it wasn't the woman who was currently saying she was in charge, a woman with the Center for Disease Control who insisted this was within the special jurisdiction granted to her agency for dealing with bioterrorism. Neither of them paid more than cursory attention to Peter. His paramedic's uniform marked him as a non-civilian, so he didn't attract attention with his mere presence. He walked past them without challenge. He heard nothing about a hostage situation or an assault.

He headed towards the body, but was caught before he got there by another policeman who waved him off, saying, "She's dead, possibly infectious. Stay back."

Peter nodded and looked around, spotting the woman he'd heard mentioned earlier, who was giving orders for the establishment of a perimeter. Peter saw the leader of the SWAT team looking around with the same intention as himself - figuring out who was in charge and finding out what they wanted him to do. The man made to talk to her, so Peter went back to look at the body. He got as good a look as he could at a distance. It was a middle-aged woman in a standard business suit, sprawled head downward on the steps in front of a tenement. Her face was beginning to purple from the angle. She hadn't been dead long.

One of the curtains twitched and caught his eye. The policeman in charge of watching the body reacted as well, but there was no visible threat. Peter asked him, "So is there a hostage in there?"

"Nope. Just the perp."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. Brenda Lucia over there was inside, along with… uh… Agent O'Banion here." He gestured at the dead woman. "They were the hostages, but they got out about the same time we got here. She…" He gestured at the body and shrugged.

"What killed her?"

"I don't know."

Peter tilted his head slightly and listened to the man's thoughts. He was thinking about what he'd seen: _She just fell down and started foaming at the mouth and Lucia told us all to stay back and leave her alone._ Peter nodded to himself. He turned to head back and saw the woman, Lucia, had finished with the leader of the SWAT team and was now looking at him. He took his opportunity and asked, "I'm with the ambulance over there. Do you want us to come get her?"

"No. We have patient zero in that apartment. We have to wait for a biohazard team to take him in." Her voice faltered. "And her."

"Patient zero?"

She shook her head. _Said too much already._ "Go back to the ambulance and wait."


	100. Patient Zero

Peter headed back to the ambulance slowly. He opened the passenger door but didn't get in. He related the news to Karen and said, "They say wait. I'm going to see if there's anything else for us to do. I won't be far." He put his bag back on the passenger seat. He didn't think he'd need it. After the chewing out he'd gotten for leaving behind Patty's gear in Vegas, he was sensitive about where he left his equipment even if this was a different job.

Under other circumstances Karen would have told him to get his ass in the truck and stay put until they had permission. This morning she just nodded and settled in, not up to a confrontation. He walked behind the truck and looked up at the curved mirrors that let the driver see directly behind the unit. Karen was looking for her place in the newspaper. He took his mask off and teleported into the tenement.

"**OH MY GOD!**" a man shrieked and jumped straight up over a foot off the floor.

Peter jerked back in surprise. He'd appeared just an inch or two from the man, directly in front of him. The two of them found opposite sides of the room to be on, with Peter backing up slowly and the man fleeing, pausing at an entrance to the room when he realized Peter wasn't chasing him.

"WHAT THE **HELL?**" the man yelled across at him. Peter held up his hands, empty and non-threatening. The man looked over Peter's uniform. "You're a… you're a paramedic." Peter guessed him to be a little younger than himself, maybe in his mid-20s. He was white, with a dark beard that had once been well-trimmed, but looked as if it had been neglected for the last few days. "What the hell are you doing in here? How'd you get there? I swear to God you weren't there a second ago!"

Peter nodded, waiting a long beat. "It's okay. I just want to talk. I'll just stay here, okay?"

The other man was calming down rapidly. "Well… you… yeah. You stay there." The younger man eyed Peter for a moment, then went to the front window and peeked out the curtains. The police had probably heard the shouting. After a moment of watching them, the other man turned back and said, "I could have _killed you_, you know? How the hell did you get in here?"

"I just want to talk to you. Did you kill that woman outside?"

"No!" He was lying. At Peter's put-upon expression, he amended, "I didn't mean to." That was also a lie. "But I could kill you too, so don't you try anything!" That was true, or at least he believed it was. Peter doubted it, what with having his father's enhanced regeneration. The other man eyed Peter and projected so clearly it almost seemed intentional, _I need a hostage… I suppose he'll work._

Peter frowned at him for the thought. "What's going on here? Why did you kill her?"

"She was trying to get away," he said sullenly. "You! Sit down." He pointed authoritatively at one of the chairs, but his voice shook a little and ruined his credibility. He was scared. Things had gotten badly out of hand for him.

Peter tilted his head at him in a '_seriously?_' look, then glanced at the ceiling and went where directed. He didn't see any reason to set the guy off more than he already was. He went with the first lesson in hostage situations - find out as much as possible about the hostage-taker. "I'm Peter. What's your name?"

"Phillip," the other man answered automatically. "Phil," he added and looked down in a moment of regret about how everything had turned out. He turned away and looked out the window again. The police were settling back down. He seemed fearless that the cops might shoot him, or maybe he just hadn't thought about it.

Peter said, "There're a lot of police out there, SWAT team, the works. They're calling in even more. Can you tell me how this all started?"

"What are you, like, the Negotiator? I thought those were cops, not doctors." Peter didn't say anything. He just kept looking at Phil inquisitively, waiting for an answer. Actually, his training came from the Company on this one, but he didn't see any reason to share that. The other man said, "I already told that other one: Brenda, I think her name was."

"The CDC agent?"

"Yeah, but, like, the one that's not dead. I told the dead one too, but…" He shrugged.

Peter had intended to find out how the woman out front had been killed, but Phil's answer told him there was a lot more to the situation. _So the woman who was killed was also a CDC agent._ He said, "I didn't get a chance to talk about it with Brenda, so tell _me_. Fill me in."

Phil paced back and forth across the room, passing within Peter's reach each time. He had no tactical sense. He was worried and agitated. Peter stayed still and hoped the man would calm down. Phil paused and looked at his hand. It was wet with sweat. Peter narrowed his eyes. _He's not diaphoretic. That's not sweat._ It was some kind of mucus. Phil poked at it and clenched his fist with a wet sound.

Phil said, "It started a couple days ago. It got dark outside and I went to the window to see what was causing it. That eclipse was going on. I was here. I'd been throwing up. I was thinking about calling you guys. I thought I was dying. I looked out… and I was better. It all made sense. Everything opened up… like a window in the sky." He smiled a little and looked upward reverently. Peter had seen that expression before on the faces of those new to their ability, as they realized they were special and powerful.

The moment passed and Phil's face hardened. He pointed in the direction of the assembly of police. He snarled, "_They_ didn't believe me. _They_ called the cops on me! Said this disease was making me delusional. I should have killed both of them!" He stalked to the front door and paused beside it. More softly he said, "I still could."

He looked back at Peter and said, "I could open this door and kill everyone." He laughed, a little maniacal. "You don't believe me though, do you? Who would? It's ridiculous. I sound like a bad villain. Some kind of evil overlord with a bunch of stupid plans, except I don't have any plans." _I need a plan_, Phil thought. Peter was intentionally letting any clear thoughts Phil had bleed over into his mind. It was helpful.

"I believe you," Peter said evenly. He wasn't very happy about what he was hearing, but he needed Phillip to stay calm. He had to defuse the situation or else when the SWAT or biohazard team came in, Phil would do as he was threatening and something far worse might be released. This wasn't like Brian Taylor, who was only a threat to individuals. Peter realized Phillip was a threat on a worldwide scale.

Phil looked back at him. _Why?_ "What do you believe? What do you even know?"

"There's been a lot of weird things happened since that eclipse. A lot of people found they had extraordinary abilities. Tell me more about yours. What happened?" He leaned forward. When Phillip didn't answer, he prodded him with, "How did you kill that woman?" Peter hadn't seen a gun or knife, though there were signs there had been a struggle in the apartment, with a lamp knocked over and the furniture askew.

Phil held up his hand, opening his fist. Mucus stretched between his fingers. "I made a neurotoxin and I killed her with it." He looked at his hand and poked at the viscous material. "I… made this… in my body and puked it out and touched her with it. Then she died." He paused. "Well, she died like a few minutes later, but she still died." He walked a little closer to Peter. "And I'll do the same thing to you if you don't do exactly what I tell you to do."

Peter looked up at him entirely unafraid, but he asked, "What is it you want me to do?"

That seemed to anger the other man, who whirled and stalked over to a shabby recliner. He threw himself into it. "I don't know! I'm not… I'm not a freaking criminal, man! I didn't mean for this to happen. It just did. I just felt _better_. I was _**all**_ better. I wasn't sick anymore and I understood _exactly_ how the virus I had worked. Totally, man. Just… like... epidemiology! Wait… what was your name again?"

"Peter."

"Yeah, Peter. So like I told those other two, I just fiddled around with the virus that afternoon and I felt so much better that I went to see Meg across town and while I was on the subway I just let it go."

"You… let it go?"

"Yeah, the virus. That one, I just blew it out." He puffed his cheeks and blew out air. "And there it was. Everywhere. I changed it a little. I made it go faster. Like, as fast as it could go. But I neutered it, you know. I didn't want to hurt anyone. What I had… I had like a brain infection. I suppose I was going to die. In fact, if that eclipse hadn't happened I'm pretty sure I would have.

Peter blinked at him. "Then… if you didn't want to hurt anyone, why did you let it go?"

Phillip shrugged. "I was just curious."

_Just… __**curious?**_ "Did you know it was going to infect everyone else?"

"Well… yeah. That was the point. It's like an experiment, you know. Viral marketing – see how far it spread, how fast, that sort of thing."

_How far it spread? An experiment?_ "And… did you know it would have symptoms? You thought you'd neutered it, made it harmless, right?"

"Yeah, of course it has symptoms. I wanted to know how far it got. It's just a cold. Maybe lay you up for a few days, nothing big. I'd been sick for over a week already."

_Just a cold. Nothing big,_ he thought in disbelief and outrage. Peter took a deep breath. "Earlier tonight, our unit was called out to a woman's apartment. She lived with her granddaughter. The grandmother was having trouble breathing. She was gurgling in her chest because of the fluid that had accumulated in her lungs."

Peter put his hand over his sternum to illustrate. "Her skin was blue – not just her lips, but her skin. Her blood oxygen level was really low." Phillip was watching him intently, fascinated and repulsed at the same time. Peter went on, "She had this virus you spread. If her granddaughter hadn't noticed and called us, she might have died."

"It's… it's… not that bad," Phillip stammered.

"Maybe for you. You look pretty healthy. You're young, but adult. What about the elderly? What about infants? What about people who are already sick or are immuno-compromised?" He paused and took another deep breath, disgusted at how thoughtless Phillip had been. "I'm supposed to be on vacation, but my boss called me in because there's a shortage of paramedics right now. Your disease spread so fast there's not enough emergency workers available to respond to other emergencies. How long will it last? You want the whole city sick for _days?_ Just because you were_**curious?**_"

Phil looked pale and uncertain. "I… didn't think…"

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I'm getting that impression." He wiped his face. "Is there a cure to it? Can you cure it, reverse it?"

"Uh… no. I mean, not like, right now. I just meant I understood how it worked."

Peter exhaled tightly and stood up. "So you can't fix this?" Not that he could 'fix' the dead woman on the steps, but Peter wanted to make absolutely sure there wasn't a cure he was overlooking.

"No, no I can't." The younger man stood up. "And you need to sit back down. I told you, I'm dangerous!" He waved his hand threateningly.

Peter was unimpressed. To the contrary, he was pretty angry. _I can't give him to the CDC. He might release something worse. They'll use him as a weapon, to make weapons for them. I can't give him to the Company. They've already developed and stockpiled diseases that will wipe out nearly everyone. They must have had someone with this kind of ability before. Maybe that's what Victoria could do. They'd use him the same way. I can't leave him with this ability. I can't trust him. I'll take it from him and never activate it, just like I have Intuitive Aptitude._

Having made his decision, Peter stepped forward. Phillip lunged towards him, realizing he'd lost whatever tenuous control he had over the situation. He tried to take Peter out just like he had the women with the CDC, swinging at him with the contaminated hand. The paramedic caught at his outstretched hand and side-stepped, yanking Phil forward and off-balance with a practiced judo throw. Peter inhaled sharply and drew the younger man's ability into himself, draining it out with a cold, painful feeling in his soul. He let him go and stepped back, expecting the man to continue the attack, but instead Phil broke off and staggered away.

"What the hell? What did you do to me? I'm… Oh God. Oh no!" He stared at his hand, still covered in toxic goo.  
Snot began to flow from his nose. "That feels… weird?" He looked confused.

Peter blinked and looked at his own hand, the one he'd drained Phillip with. _I must have taken his immunity with it! What if he's still infectious? Obviously he is, or else he'd be fine._

Phillip collapsed to the floor, choking, seizing, and foaming at the mouth. Peter scrambled to his side and grabbed a book, using it to scrap the neurotoxin from the other man's hand. He ran to the kitchen and wet a towel, but even in the short time that took, Phillip had convulsed and now lay still. Peter knelt next to him. The man's pupils were fixed and dilated. He had no pulse. After checking for vital signs, Peter hesitated.

_I could teleport him to the hospital, to the isolation ward. I have no idea what he's carrying or how contagious it is. Maybe it was just the neurotoxin. But… then why are his sinus membranes draining? He said he could open the door and kill everyone out there. Has he already produced something?_

Peter rubbed his hands uneasily on his thighs, his mind flashing to Becky Trautman's case, incinerating part of a hospital with her ability. _I can't take him there. I can't endanger that many people. There's already a biohazard team on their way. He's already passed. … I've got to get out of here._ He went back to the kitchen, cleaned himself as much as possible, then teleported behind the ambulance again.

Karen was paying more attention and noticed Peter as soon as he came around from the back of the ambulance. "Hey," she said, "where have you been?"

He walked up to the driver's side and stayed an arm's length away. "Did anything happen?"

"There was a bunch of activity just a few minutes ago, but it's settling back down. Where were you?"

He knew she wasn't going to be as easy to deflect as Phil had been, so he just lied. "I went around the back to see what was going on over there. The site command structure is shot. They were arguing over here about who was in charge."

"Oh." She looked back at the police line, then back at Peter. "That was dumb. What if I'd needed you here? You said you wouldn't go far."

"Sorry. Hand me the sanitizer, will you? I need to clean up. I got close to someone who was infected." He didn't say anything else and hoped that would be the end of it.

She looked him up and down, but handed the bottle out the window. She snorted. "Well, you're back. Climb in. We've got to hurry up and wait, even if your shift's over."

He looked at his watch and walked around the front of the rig. He rubbed his hands across his face and neck to spread the last of the gel across every bit of exposed skin. Sure enough, it was past eight. The biohazard team showed up a few minutes later and took the body on the steps. A few minutes after that, they entered the house, found Phillip dead and removed his corpse. The ambulance was sent back empty. Peter craned his head to watch a policeman struggling with a hacking cough as Karen got them turned around and headed back home.


	101. Gabriel Calls Claire

Gabriel sat in the study of Nathan Petrelli's house and considered what was most important to get done today. His inbox was overflowing with files and updates from field agents on possible, newly manifested specials, but instead he picked up the phone and dialed Claire's number. This call was something he'd put off long enough. It was the first and so far only thing on the day's to-do list - the specials could wait and get on with their lives as best they could with their new powers. His own life needed more attention at the moment. If she turned him down, he'd go on to his inbox and the updates.

She answered, "Hello?" Her tone was guarded. He'd called from his home phone so she could see who was calling, or at least the name 'Nathan Petrelli' on her caller ID.

"Hello, Claire." It was Sylar's voice to her ear. He'd never spoken to her as Gabriel - not once except for a few words on that night, after she'd asked him to change from Nathan's face to this one. She didn't know him as the man he'd become. He wasn't sure how he should relate to her: apologetic and meek? Fatherly and authoritarian? He kept his voice low and even, uninflected. He kept emotion out of it for now, hoping she would let him know what role she wanted him to play.

After a long pause, she said, "What do you want?" Her voice was cold, but not hateful – just exceedingly wary. She'd had a year to come to terms with what he'd become. She'd talked about it with her father and Peter. It was still surprising to hear from him directly after all this time.

"I'd like to come see you and talk about things. If you'll let me."

He was met by another long silence. It was tough to read what that silence meant.

"What do we have to talk about?" Not quite as wary now, maybe a bit curious.

He said, "Nathan. What you did for me. Work. I have an invitation I'd like to give you to my wedding next month, to Heidi. What I could still do for you, if you wanted it."

This time there was no pause. She answered quickly, "There's nothing I want from you."

"Okay." He capitulated immediately. It wasn't what she expected. Apologetic and meek was looking more and more likely. His pride wouldn't bother him on this one. He'd debased himself for lesser women.

Silence.

He said, "Will you let me come see you? I'd like to talk. In person. We don't have to be alone, if you don't trust me. I could bring Peter, or Noah. Whatever you want." He offered; he cajoled. _Let me talk to you. Be willing to hear me. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life trying to kill me, hating me - not when I love you, not when you're my daughter._

"Let me talk to Peter."

"All right." Peter would take his side. Peter would defend him. Peter would make everything better.

"Is he there?"

He cocked his head. _Why would she think he was?_ "No, he's not. He was called in for an emergency shift at the hospital and you know him - can't turn down anyone asking for help. I have his number if you need it, though he might still be at work. He gets off anywhere between eight and nine, sometimes later." He was very familiar with Peter's schedule and probably far more familiar with the personal backgrounds of the people he worked with than Peter himself was. Gabriel had had anyone who regularly associated with Peter investigated. It was routine. Angela had taught him that.

"No, I have it. I'll… I'll call you back." She hung up.

Gabriel put the phone down gently. She hadn't agreed to meet him. She hadn't agreed to anything. He huffed. _Well, I didn't think it would be easy._ He turned his attention to his crowded inbox.


	102. Considering the Options

Peter and Karen returned to the hospital garage. Peter fully expected to be mandated for another tour, which was to say he'd be told he had to keep working or his job was forfeit. He wasn't happy about the idea. As much as he enjoyed the personal contact as a paramedic and the rush of the "big call" when he could really make a difference, at the moment he thought the new specials were a more pressing concern. On the drive back, he marshaled his arguments for why he couldn't take the next shift, even though he suspected it was futile.

Although they returned an hour late from their tour, there was still activity in the garage. Every working ambulance was gone. Nicolas, Simon and Shannon were standing next to the Old Grey Mare - the pet name for the rig that had the worst engine in Manhattan. One of these days the administration would give it up and she would be scavenged for parts. Until then, she was known as the rig you left running no matter what (assuming you could get her running in the first place). The hood was open. It looked like they were trying to get the old lady started. Peter asked Karen, "Was there a total recall while I was out earlier?"

"No, don't think so." She got them parked and Peter hopped out. A recall was where they called in all EMT personnel for work, regardless of shift or personal situation. It was only done in cases of disaster, like 9/11.

"Hey, Simon!" Peter said, addressing the first person he came to. Simon was looking past him with a predatory expression, at the ambulance Peter had exited. "What's going on?"

"The CDC called off their ban on sick EMTs working and Jackson got itchy. Probably didn't help that he's coming off his third tour and he's sick himself now. He called in everyone who'd been sidelined and didn't tell any of the relief, so now there's more of us than there are rigs." He called past Peter, "Hey, Karen, can you move that bus over next to the Mare and give us a jump? I think we got the belt tightened up enough."

Karen put her ambulance in position. Nicolas went to the back in a proprietary manner and started going through the checklist. Engines weren't his area of expertise, so Peter went back to talk to Nick. Nicolas was Karen's regular partner. Peter asked, "Are you going out for tour two with Karen?"

"Yep. I heard you guys had a hostage call. How'd that go?"

Peter shook his head. "No real action. Just a lot of waiting." He'd killed a man, but he couldn't speak of that even if he wanted to. It weighed on him, even if it had been unintentional. It was like lead in his stomach, dragging him down with each step. There was so much that happened to him he couldn't talk about with people.

In a lot of ways, he lived as much a double life as Gabriel, putting on a face of normalcy to his co-workers and lying about what he could do and what he had done. As his long-time partner, Hesam had worked out that something bizarre was going on with Peter, but Peter had always been able to dodge him on explanations. Sometimes, times he regretted, he had to outright lie. To everyone else, he suspected he came off as slightly unstable. Recalling the incident with William Hooper, he thought, _Well, maybe a lot unstable._

He watched as Nick went through the standard checklist, making sure they had everything he and Karen would need. Peter inquired, "Are they mandating people yet?"

"No, not yet. I figure they will soon. Maybe next tour." He looked at Peter for a moment. "You should probably get some sleep while you can. Hesam was in here earlier, but Vasquez sent him home when he saw they didn't have enough rigs." He laughed. "Sent Jackson home too. That man was barely on his feet. You shoulda seen it."

"Yeah," Peter said distantly. "I'll go inside and check."

As he walked inside, there was a ragged cheer as the Old Grey Mare banged to life, which faded to jeers after she abruptly died again. Simon continued his attempts at vehicular CPR, but his patient was coding and should probably be presumed. The Mercy Heights EMTs were not ones to give up when even a single sparkplug might still fire.

Peter looked at the assignment board as he turned in his portable radio and clocked out. Nick was right - Peter was signed up for tour three with Hesam. Supervisor Vasquez was in and they talked briefly. Peter's vacation was a thing of the past. He promised to be back that afternoon to work a double.

He was alone in the locker room. He thought about his recent adventures as he stripped off his uniform. He was tired, but he had the feeling he was missing something. It scurried around in the back of his mind as he tried to shine a light on it. The only thing that tied the new specials together was that they had manifested their abilities during, or immediately following, the eclipse. He sat down, frowning.

There were only a hundred or maybe two hundred cases they had information on, but just in random chance he'd run into two that Mercy Heights EMTs had been involved with - the woman who'd heard animals talking to her and this disease vector Peter had dealt with. Plus there was the vague 'an awful lot of weird calls' that Jackson had mentioned. A lot of these specials were right here in New York.

There was an extraordinary number of them here, given that it had been a worldwide event that should have affected people everywhere equally. But it was that way in 2006 as well. He thought about what Maury had said about 'how it was last time' or something similar. He'd said Susan Greer was probably related to him. _So maybe they're all related?_

He tried to remember the locations for all the cases he'd looked through and heard mentioned as his mother and Maury discussed them. There had been a lot here in New York and a lot in southern California, at least one other in Las Vegas and a few scattered through the rest of the country. Then there'd been several in Brazil, another cluster in Germany and a second cluster in England. He scratched at his ear, digging out some dried sanitizer gel.

Considering the size and population of places like China and India, it was weird that there weren't any cases there that he could recall. Maybe in China that had to do with censorship of the media, but that didn't apply to India. Or the Middle East or Africa, which were more gulfs of no cases. There were a handful around the rest of the world, but that was it.

_South Africa, but not the rest of Africa. Brazil, but not the rest of South America. Parts of the US, but not the rest of it. Related - like families that spread out and settled in certain places. Wasn't there a movie about a bunch of Germans going to Brazil because of World War II? Didn't Matt say something to me once about how his father hadn't been an observant Jew, much less himself? The Diaspora… or something? The Jews… a lot of them came to the US around the same time and settled here in New York and around Los Angeles. I really should have paid attention in high school history._

He rubbed his forehead, trying to think. _Greer. Is that a German name? Or Irish? Didn't I know another Greer? Wait… Jeremy Greer - Susan Greer._ He sat up suddenly, seeing the connection. And another one: _Brian Taylor - Zane Taylor. _He blinked. It was a name he'd read from Sylar's file - one of his victims. _What the hell? They __**are**__ related! Taylor's an English name. Greer maybe is German? No, I don't think it is. I think it's Irish._

He bit his lip as the moment of epiphany unraveled. _But… Petrelli is Italian. And what about Charles Deveaux? French name… and he was black… then there's DL Sanders, he was black too, but there's no connection between him and anyone else. That's just too far-fetched, just because both of them are black - that's silly. They're not German or Danish or Jewish or whatever the connection is for everyone else… But there __**is**__ a connection… I'm just not seeing it._

Peter was putting his uniform away in the locker when his cell phone went off. He glanced at the Caller ID. It was Claire. He answered, "Hey!"

He could hear the smile in his niece's voice as she said, "Hello there. How are you?"

"Doing fine. Better now that you've called." He sat down on the bench and fiddled with the collar of his shirt. He felt like he was grabbing in the dark for something that wasn't there. Brains had never been Peter's strong suit. Honestly, he was glad of the distraction.

"I just had a call from… um… Gabriel?" She didn't sound like she was smiling anymore. Claire hadn't seen Gabriel for more than a year – not since he'd lured her to a warehouse, as Nathan, and asked for her help in overcoming the Hunger he'd inadvertently gained from Samson Grey. She'd agreed. Peter suspected that what had followed had been gruesome, but she'd survived and Gabriel had mastered himself. Gabriel had only recently worked through his issues with what he'd done to her.

"Yeah." The smile slipped from his face as well. "That's what he's calling himself these days. Not Nathan anymore." He was a little sad about that. He supposed it was for the best, but he'd hoped Gabriel would **be** Nathan in more ways than he was.

She sighed. "He wants to talk to me." It didn't surprise Peter that he was seeking some manner of reconciliation, but the timing was lousy. Claire had been terribly important to both Nathan and Sylar, in very different ways.

He sighed. "I know. I knew that was coming. It's a good thing, Claire." It occurred to him that although Gabriel had come to terms with his actions, Claire may well not have. Even more importantly, she might still see him as Sylar. He added, "Do you want me there?"

"He offered that too. I do. Is he… okay? You said he was, but… it just seems so weird. You said he was Nathan too, but that was back at Christmas."

"He was then. He was… he was pretending to be Nathan." There, he'd said it. It was tougher than he'd expected. He coughed to clear his throat and glanced around the locker room. He was alone, but there were still a lot of things he wouldn't say in here. Shortly after Nathan's death and Gabriel's capture, Peter had told Claire Nathan was still alive. He'd believed it at the time, as he was trying to find a way to kill Sylar and keep his brother. His mother had told her he was dead. Noah had given her an explanation, but it wasn't much of one. There were a lot of things they should talk about, but Peter was pretty sure he wasn't the one with the answers. Gabriel was. It was why Peter had urged Gabriel to at least open a dialogue with her.

"When are you free?" she asked.

"Wow. Um, what a question." He'd wanted Gabriel and Claire to work things out, but he hadn't expected them to do it _**now**_. He remembered the last time he'd declined to be there for his family. That was a mistake he had no intention of _ever_ repeating. His eyes darted around the room. He could hardly expect other people to arrange their lives according to what was convenient for him.

He had thought that he'd have time to tackle at least one, maybe two assignments for the Company, before he had to come back to the hospital for tour three. On the other hand, what he really wanted to do was check on Emma, maybe Hesam, and get some sleep. If he took assignments, there was no way he would have time to check on the people he cared about. If he helped Claire, then he'd probably have enough free time. "You're only thinking an hour or two, right?"

"Yeah." Her tone was odd, hurt at his reticence. Peter realized that other than seeing her in January when Noah had been injured, he hadn't seen her since early last summer - nearly a year. They hadn't even talked on the phone much.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "They've just got me really busy right now. You want me to come up and get you?"

"No, I'm already in the area. They had Rachel get me last night and I stayed at your mother's house. She's supposed to take me back for my assignment in Boston, but how about I see if I can find a good reason to stay a little late and you can take me back? She said you could teleport now." It was almost a question.

Peter shrugged, though she couldn't see it. "Yeah, I can. Hey, I've got a good reason for you, too. Just say you're going to consult a director on his orders. It's that simple. It's like a hall pass to everything."

"Yeah, that'll work. You want to have an early lunch before we meet him?"

Peter was quiet for a moment, trying to guess what she meant. _Is she saying she wants to talk to me privately? Is she that afraid of him? How long will it take me to see Emma and Hesam before lunch? _"How about we eat lunch together?"

"You really think he's okay?"

"I'm **certain** he's okay." _I wouldn't be with him if he wasn't._ "He's the one you need to see, anyway."

"I'd like to see you too, Peter. It's been a while. Pick a place and call me back. Eleven is good."

"Okay. Oh, and hey… How did it work out with Patty and everything?"

Claire was silent for longer than necessary. It was long enough for Peter to think the worst. He hadn't liked Patty much, but she had been his partner and it was possible she'd saved his life. He was fairly sure he'd regenerate even from having his skull crushed, but less certain that he'd still be the same person. Would his memories come back, or would he be a blank slate? He was glad he hadn't found out. Patty had been a good partner even for their short span of working together.

"Were you too late?" he asked quietly.

"No, no!" she answered quickly. "Patty's fine. All healed up. It's just that… other than a couple months ago with my dad, I hadn't really seen what my ability can do for other people. I'm glad it can - really I am - but she was hurt _so bad_, Peter. Is that what I get to do? See people who are broken and bleeding?"

"Claire, you get to **help** them!" Peter didn't generally obsess about abilities, but one that he genuinely missed was the power to heal people. He'd had it for several months in the fall of the previous year and he sincerely missed it. Even without healing, he'd sought out a career that put him on the front lines of trauma, maximizing his chances to help people who were in need.

He didn't understand where Claire was coming from. His mother, Nathan and Claire were all fundamentally unhappy with their ability. It was enough to make him wonder if the aversion was genetic and had somehow skipped him. _My father wasn't unhappy with his ability._ Peter shook the thought away. He didn't want to be anything like his father.

"I know, but they have to be hurt first! Peter, don't tell me people in the Company aren't taking more risks just because they think I can put them back together."

_Okay, that makes sense. _He had nothing to say to it though, partly because it was true, but mostly because he couldn't think of what to say that would satisfy her. Claire just wanted to lead a normal life, just like Nathan had wanted. The universe had other plans for them, though.

To his silence, Claire said, "I'm a glorified safety net. Somehow I thought my ability would… I don't know, just be a little more active, do something other than encourage other people to take risks and get hurt."

"Claire," he said softly, "It's a wonderful ability. Maybe it doesn't seem that way right now, but don't discount it. Thank you for what you're doing."

"Yeah," she said, sounding resigned. "Well, I'll see you in a little while."

"Looking forward to it. Good-bye." Peter looked at his phone for a moment, then put his shirt on and finished changing. _How can she have immortality, invincibility, and the ability to resurrect _**the dead**_ and yet still feel like fate short-changed her? Maybe I ought to ask her if I can steal her ability._ He shook his head. _No, that would be wrong. And mean._ He still felt tempted though.


	103. Checking Up On Loved Ones

Once outside the hospital, Peter called Gabriel, who answered immediately. "Hello?"

"Hey. Claire's in town. She's going to eat lunch with us. She told me you called her. Where do you want to eat?"

"Molly's good?"

"That Irish place on Third Street?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, that's fine," Peter said, drawing it out. He hadn't eaten in an Irish pub in a couple of years, not liking the people and situations it reminded him of. He'd never been able to figure out what to do to help Caitlin. That timeline had collapsed and even borrowing Hiro's ability hadn't let him find her. He refused to think about it further. He'd beat himself up about it long before and it hadn't done any good. He sighed and focused on the here and now. "I'll let her know. If you can pick me up at my apartment? We're supposed to meet her at eleven."

"Sure."

"Um." He scratched his forehead, trying to nail down what was bothering him. "Hey, is Greer an Irish name or German?"

"Irish," Gabriel said immediately.

"Damn."

"Why?"

"Well, I…" Peter ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. He looked around, feeling unaccountably paranoid. "You know all these things that have been happening lately, all these people with new abilities?"

"Uh-huh."

"What if they're all related?"

"Yeah?"

Obviously Gabriel wasn't getting it. Peter said, "No, I mean like the people are related _to each other_."

"Yeah?"

"You knew that?"

"Um… Peter… your mother, your father, you…? It's either synthetic or genetic - one or the other."

"No, I don't mean just a few families, I mean nearly all of them. Everyone with abilities."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

Gabriel was silent for a moment, then asked, "How closely related?"

"I don't know."

"I don't think I'm related to the Nakamuras."

Peter shook his head. "No. No. I can't figure that one out either. Or… I don't know. Forget I mentioned it. It's not making sense."

"No, Pete, you have a point. It has to be spontaneous at some point."

"What? What do you mean by spontaneous?"

"Someone, somewhere, had an ability without being related to anyone else who had one. It had to start at some point. Adam was four or five hundred years old. I think he spent some time in Japan, now that I think of it. I wonder if that's where the Nakamuras came from?"

Peter's brows twitched in uncertainty. "Um… Yeah, I guess so. If he was the first, it kind of gives a literal spin to his name."

"It's more likely it's the other way around and he picked the name because of his role. Sort of like I wasn't born-" Gabriel stopped. Peter finished the statement in his mind: _I wasn't born as Sylar._ Gabriel went on, "There _are_ things going on here. There's someone still out there, someone like Dad or one of the Company Founders."

"Really? Who?" At this point, Peter wouldn't be surprised to find out that someone else he'd thought was dead was still alive and kicking.

"I don't know. I just know they're out there. I talked to Dad and he said some things."

"What things?" _What were you doing talking to Dad?_

"Just… things. I'm sorry Peter, but I'm just guessing here. There's someone out there who's still pulling the strings on everything. He might just mean Maury or someone in Halo, but it doesn't fit yet."

"I know the feeling." They shared a moment of silence, neither knowing anything useful to tell the other, both alone with their uncertainty. "Listen, I'll see you at 10:30. We can talk some other time - when we know more."

"Sure. Good-bye Pete."

Peter rang off and then set things up with Claire. He ran his hand through his hair and walked to the niche he usually used for teleporting, screened by shrubbery. In a moment, he was in the hallway outside Emma's apartment. One of the other tenants was walking away and he held his breath, hoping the older man didn't look back and wonder how he got there. _One of these days, I'm going to get caught at this, like with Phil, but by someone who talks about it. Of course, who would believe them?_ The man didn't notice, leaving him alone to ring Emma's doorbell.

It took her a long time to answer the flashing lights and when she did, he was sorry he'd made her get up, but glad he'd come to check on her. She looked tired and wrung out. She frowned weakly at him but waved him inside anyway, walking back to the couch where she'd set up camp. She climbed back under a heavy blanket, drawing it up over her chest but leaving her arms free to sign to him.

They weren't exactly on good terms, relationship-wise, at the moment. They'd been seeing each other for nearly a year and a half now. Like any couple, they had their ups and downs. Peter told himself that was normal. It helped him keep perspective during the down periods. They were in one now.

Gabriel had an easier time of it in his affairs than Peter. Heidi Petrelli must have known she was married to a philanderer back when it was Nathan, but as far as Peter knew, she didn't do anything about it. She didn't do anything about his relationship with Peter, either and if she hadn't known about that, then she'd at least suspected. When Gabriel came back to her, shape shifted as Nathan and trying really hard to **be** Nathan, with all of Nathan's memories and quirks, she believed it was him.

Peter understood that. He didn't entirely understand why, after Gabriel had revealed himself to be not the same man she married, she'd decided to stay with him, but it sort of made sense. Gabriel had died for her and been revived, saving her life and that of her newborn son. It might have seemed to her that it was Gabriel's abilities that kept her, and their new son Noah Petrelli, safe. And maybe she'd fallen in love with him just as Peter had.

After all, Gabriel **was** very devoted to her. Once or twice a month he blew off steam with Peter. She had come to accept this too, as long as Gabriel was discreet about it. It was a more stable open relationship than most Peter had seen, but it was only between the three of them. Being a part of Nathan's family was more vital to _Gabriel _than it ever had been to _Nathan._ Peter didn't think Gabriel took it for granted like his brother had. It was one of Gabriel's more attractive traits and a little bit of Peter's refusal to commit to Gabriel was not wanting to jeopardize Nathan's family. 

Peter... had a different situation. He'd had an on-again, off-again relationship with Nathan for most of the last decade. Neither had any expectations this would be an on-going thing or regular affair. It was more along the lines of mutual satisfaction than amorous love. Peter had been with a number of people. The most meaningful and recent relationship he'd had was with Emma.

Last summer, when they started talking about having an exclusive, serious relationship, he told her all about the various Petrelli family secrets. He told her about his parent's abilities, the Company, what the Company had done, his mother's attempt to kill his father, his father stealing his abilities, him sleeping with Nathan… and that was as far as he got before things went bad.

In retrospect, he really should have kept the last part to himself. As it turned out, Emma had a terrible sore spot about incest. When Peter told her about Nathan, she freaked out and broke up with him. He found it ironic that all the family infighting and murderous hate had been tolerable, but what she couldn't handle was the love. He supposed it was like television censorship - they could show murders, sometimes even graphic ones, but not sex.

It was during their separation that Gabriel came back into Peter's life. Peter wouldn't lie to himself and pretend Emma's absence from his life and her disapproval of the choices he'd made didn't have something to do with how receptive he was to the advance. Okay, it probably had a lot to do with it. That and a lingering desire to stick it to Sylar. It had developed into much more than that, but initially Peter's motives had been far from pure.

He'd been with Gabriel only twice when Emma showed up a few months later and apologized for over-reacting about his past, especially as it would never happen again. At that point, it looked like Peter and Gabriel would never be together again anyway, so Peter kept his mouth shut about developments while he and Emma had been apart.

As it turned out, things were _not_ over with Gabriel. Peter found himself sucked back into the man's life when Heidi was kidnapped by Arthur and the two men had to save her. When Gabriel sacrificed himself for the ones he loved, Peter realized that he really did love him, as who he was, not just the memory of his brother.

They got back together. Peter felt that regardless of his previous experience in over-sharing, it would be unfair not to let Emma know. Again, Emma did not take this well. She changed her work schedule and quit seeing him… but she didn't quite tell him it was over this time around. Peter gave her some space but didn't stop trying to be with her. She turned him down for dates or outings at least twice a week. Being turned down was a bit of a new thing for him, but he kept at it. The only time he saw her, other than the rare times their work schedules coincided despite her best efforts, was for the occasional breakfast at the diner down the street from the hospital.

His situation with Emma was something he'd never discussed with Gabriel. Of course Gabriel knew they were together, but the ups and downs weren't discussed. As far as that went, Peter didn't talk with Gabriel very much. They'd been together about a dozen times and were still cautiously working things out between them. Peter had had more sex with partners in college in less than a month than he'd had with Gabriel over the past seven. Peter was more comfortable with Emma, having shared himself to a much greater extent and spent ten times as much time with her in actual hours together.

"Are you okay?" he signed to her. He kept his distance - not because she was ill, but because he didn't know how welcome or unwelcome he was at the moment.

"I'm fine, just sick," she replied in a like manner. "You didn't need to come here."

He nodded slowly, getting her message that she would have rather he hadn't come at all. "I know. I wanted to make sure you were okay. Can I get you anything? I brought you some scones." He pulled the bag he'd brought from the bakery out of his satchel. "They're fresh," he tempted, signing with one hand. He hoped she caught the meaning.

"No. I'm sorry. My hands are tired. My throat hurts." She angled her shoulders away from him, indicating she was done with the conversation.

He ignored the hint. He wasn't going to be brushed off that easily. She was perfectly capable of telling him to get lost and until she did, he wasn't giving up. He loved her too much for that. She represented a part of his life that didn't have to do with powers and fantastical abilities. He wasn't going to walk away from the relationship. "I'll make you some tea."

She couldn't hear him and wasn't looking at him, so his signs went unnoticed. He went in the kitchen and put a couple scones on a saucer. While he was waiting for the water to boil, Hesam called him, saying, "Hey, man. You saw that we're on for this afternoon, right? Tour three.''

"Yeah," Peter replied. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Not really, but it's nothing that Imodium and hamud soup won't fix."

"Hamud soup?"

"Yeah, chicken soup with lemon. My aunt makes the best. It's almost worth getting sick for it. So what do you think about this disease? Do you think it's some kind of outbreak?" Hesam asked.

"Yeah," Peter answered. "It might keep spreading for a while, but I don't think it's going to get much worse. I mean, everyone I've seen so far has been treatable. We're going to have major trouble with everyone immuno-compromised though. I don't want to think about what will happen when this starts hitting nursing homes. It's really fast and really contagious."

"Yeah, kind of freaky. Just like all that other freaky stuff going on. You know the most freaky of all?"

"What's that?" Peter poured the hot water over the tea bags.

"I watched the news this morning and there's not a word about anything weird, not even this sickness. You know, a couple days ago the news was just full of this stuff, then yesterday I didn't watch but I saw the paper and they were still talking about it. Now this morning it's like none of that stuff ever happened. They're back to talking about the war, the economy and road construction. Boring stuff." He stopped to cough. "Anyway, I thought that was the strangest of all."

"Yeah," Peter said noncommittally. If he hadn't been working for the Company, he'd of suspected them of manipulating the news. As it was, he suspected other agencies in the government. Nathan's agency had been endorsed by the highest levels. They would never have committed so much money and manpower without knowing.

_I wonder how the CDC knew Phillip was the source of that disease? And the FBI were responding really fast to that incident with Susan Greer. _Peter shook away thoughts of his other life and went on, "Hey, I'm glad you're doing okay… you know, as such things go. Let me know if it gets worse, all right? There might be things I can do."

Hesam probably thought he meant at the hospital. "Yeah, thanks man, but I don't need anything special. Most of my family is coming down with the same thing now, so I'll stick around and help them out. And anyway, I thought you were on vacation still?"

"I was."

"Peter, you're a _maniac_." Hesam laughed.

Peter joined in. "Take care of yourself. I'll see you at four. Good-bye."

Hesam rang off and Peter carried two cups of tea in to Emma, serving hers with honey and the saucer of scones. She sighed, rolled her eyes and signed her thanks before taking it from him. She indicated nothing else, looking away from him. After a long beat, he sat down on the floor next to her. When she didn't object, he leaned his head back against her thigh.

She fussed with the blanket a bit. At first he thought it was another passive aggressive way of trying to discourage him, but then she draped the loose part of the blanket over his shoulders. It made him feel warm in more ways than merely physical. He looked back at her, but she was picking up her tea and acting like she hadn't done anything more important than fluff the covers. He shut his eyes, finding comfort in the moment and thinking he'd just rest for a while.

He woke up to the ringing of his phone. He pulled out his cell and saw it was Gabriel - the last person he wanted to talk to in front of Emma. She shifted on the couch at his motion, but she'd fallen asleep as well. Apparently he'd been out for a while. She stayed asleep, or at least pretended to. Peter turned his face away from her just in case and answered, "Hey, what's up?"

"Well, it's a little past 10:30 and you don't seem to be here at your apartment."

Peter looked down at his watch in alarm. It was 10:34. "Oh, crap! I fell asleep. Listen, I'll be there in five, okay?"

"No problem," Gabriel said. "You'll be here in the apartment?"

"Yeah." Peter did a double take and asked, "Wait, you're **in** my apartment?"

Gabriel sighed. "Yes. You didn't answer the door."

"That doesn't matter." Peter's tone changed slightly, becoming more reserved. Gabriel had always called before to ask permission before going in. It wasn't like Peter didn't know he could telekinetically pick a lock to put the best rogue to shame, but it was an invasion of his space. _Too late to do anything about it now. Maybe he was just worried about me. _ "Okay. I'll be right there. Bye." He hung up without waiting and turned to Emma. He shook her slightly to wake her. She opened her eyes.

"I need to go," he signed. "Will you be okay?"

She sighed again and gave him a long-suffering look. "I'm fine, Peter." She hesitated for a moment and looked over his earnest, concerned face. He gave that look to a lot of his patients and it nearly always worked. It did now, too. She gave him a small, tender smile that made his heart flip in his chest. "Thank you for coming by."

He smiled back and tucked her in, touching her cheek and forehead briefly as he brushed her hair back from her face. It was just an excuse to touch her, but he took it. "Go _on_, Peter," she said verbally, with a trace of exasperation. He did, smiling to himself and thinking he might have finally broken the ice.


	104. Bullet Points

**A/N: Audrey, if you'll remember, was Matt Parkman's partner during Season 1. Haroldson is an employee of the Company mentioned in Shattered Identity (OC).**

In a dimly lit conference room in Quantico, a middle-aged, petite blonde named Audrey Hanson paced before a hastily assembled audience of thirty members of different government agencies. They'd been handpicked nearly two years before, a result of the accumulating reports of the supernatural and extra-human. Some people jokingly called them the X-Philes or the X-Men. The actual name of their group was much more prosaic.

She was speaking. "Before I get into the details of your new orders, I want to go over a few very basic things. These people I'm going to be talking about are, in general, US citizens. There are a few extra-nationals, just like if you took any random sampling of people in this country. But in general, these are _our_ people." A bullet point reading 'US citizens' appeared on the screen behind her.

"They're also human beings." Another bullet point called out this fact. "No matter how strange some of them look, no matter what they can do - they're human." A second screen lit up with images of people on fire, emitting light, covered with spines or looking more beast than man. "It's something we can't forget, something we shouldn't forget, when you're dealing with these guys."

The screen with the images changed to a picture of Osama bin Ladin. She turned and looked up at him in mock surprise. "Whaddaya know? He's human too." The image changed to Hitler, then Pol Pot, then Stalin, then Jeffrey Dahmer, then an even faster deluge of killers and criminals and despots and abusers throughout history.

"Those are human. No one's ever questioned it. Some are even citizens of our fine country." The images ended and for the moment, the second screen was blank. "There's an undercurrent I've been hearing here and there that somehow, going after people with these abilities, these powers, is morally wrong. That we're singling them out because they're different, that we're treating them like criminals and threats to national security when they aren't. That's not true and before I go into the main body of my presentation, I have to address that myth."

Another bullet point was added, this time 'Unacceptable levels of risk.' The other screen lit up with an image of a hospital on fire. She pointed. "That was caused by a woman who could create fire. Killed more than a score of innocent people. Millions of dollars of damage." Another image flashed on the screen of a train wreck. "That was in Germany. Fourteen dead, eighty-seven injured." Another image of a dozen children dead on the ground, their skins blistered and discolored. "That's a school in southern Brazil." An image of National Guardsmen working in rubble came up. "I'm sure you heard of the town the earth swallowed. That one happened well before this weekend's wave of events. Just think of the scale of that - miles, _**miles**_ in diameter. Over a hundred dead, thousands injured, an entire town wiped off the map."

She paced back and forth without speaking as images slowly flashed by of the faces of victims - some injured, bleeding or maimed; some frightened, angry or shell-shocked; some dead, dismembered or distorted beyond what seemed possible. After a long silence, she continued, "We **are** singling these people out because they're different. We're singling them out because they might be dangerous and the cost of being wrong is _**too high**_. They **all** need to be studied and checked out. If it's weird, if it's out of the ordinary, then we have to bring them in and document it. Some abilities mutate. Some have benign manifestations that might seem harmless under most conditions, but under stress can be catastrophic. You can't _tell,_ especially in the field and in uncontrolled circumstances."

She pointed back at the screen that was _still_ parading pictures of victims. "Not everyone with one of these abilities is responsible for this sort of thing." The images didn't stop, but they faded until they weren't visible and a blank screen was behind the speaker again. "Some of them can do things that are pretty tame, like see microscopic things, or hear radio waves or turn things different colors by touching them. Those people aren't going to stay in confinement. We'll process them and they'll go back to their lives. All of them, though, will feel singled out. They'll feel hunted. They'll feel ostracized and different. They're an out-group and all of us here understand what being part of an out-group does to a person's sense of morality and standards.

"It makes them dangerous even if their ability isn't. The people you'll be trying to bring in will resist. **If** you can talk to them, **if** they'll cooperate, that's fine, but waiting to chat with them puts the power in their hands and they already have too much. You lose the element of surprise and sometimes that's all you'll have against them. Most of them will fight you." A fourth bullet point joined the other three: 'Resistance to authority.' She pointed at it. "You are authorized to detain these people by order of the President of the United States, by agreement from the United Nations Security Council and with the permission of the Commission on Human Rights. We couldn't get more authorized than that unless God Himself came down and said it was okay.

"Yet these people aren't going to accept it. They aren't going to come willingly. They see what we're doing as a disruption to their lives, as a threat. I'm not going to say it isn't, but they don't get to make that decision alone. We live in a society where groups elect leaders and those leaders make decisions for the good of the group, not the benefit of a privileged few. Make no mistake, these people **are**_ privileged_ with their abilities. Some of them think they're gods and some of them can do a really convincing impersonation. Don't be fooled." She took a laser pointer and underscored the bullet point about human beings with it.

"They're people, just like you and I. They will use every tactic at their disposal to resist. They have more tactics than most of us do. It's still our job to bring them in. It's our job to keep _everyone_ safe - even them, safe from themselves if no one else." A last victim, a young man whose body was broken, stayed on the screen. She gestured at it. "He could fly - and he did, for a little while. Then he couldn't anymore. No one knows why, but he fell and he died. He's not the only one. We have a score of accidental deaths caused by these extraordinary abilities. They're dangerous not only to others, but to themselves."

She let a long silence fall across the room. "This is an urgent matter. You've already received instructions and goals. We don't have time to work up a standard operations manual for these people. You've been selected because of your judgment and your ability to deliver results in obfuscated situations. You have wide latitude in accomplishing your goals. And while detaining these people is of the utmost importance, it is also critical that the public remain unaware of our actions. We don't want to alert those we haven't gotten to and we don't want to allow a public debate. It would paralyze our effectiveness and right now we can't afford that." She underscored the bullet point about unacceptable risk.

"There will be a debate, eventually. It will take place when we aren't under duress, when we know the truth instead of guessing, when we know the limits of the people we're talking about. You don't engage an enemy you know nothing about and you don't negotiate without understanding the situation first. We're going to bring these people in, learn what they can do, and figure out how to deal with them. That's your job.

"All right then. Now I'll move on to the main body of my presentation - reviewing the incarceration plans, detainment procedures and deployment protocols. Each one of you found a packet in your seat…"

VVV

After the last person in the conference hall had asked their questions and filtered out, Audrey checked her watch. She had an hour to burn before she needed to leave for Detroit, to consult on the opening of their main incarceration facility in the salt mines under the city. Hopefully it would be secure enough, but she had her doubts. There were some abilities so exotic and unstable she couldn't see how to detain those with them. Her superiors were still arguing behind closed doors about the ethics of summary execution for those who couldn't be contained or controlled.

She wished she'd been able to find Matt Parkman, but he'd dropped off the face of the Earth. The last sighting of him was the previous summer in Los Angeles. He'd left his wife and for some reason become involved with a drug cartel. Then just like that, he was gone.

There were other names she had from her work with Matt: Peter Petrelli, Noah Bennet, Mohinder Suresh, Gabriel Grey... but every name she'd ever turned in on her reports had ended up listed as "Persons of Interest" and she was forbidden to contact them directly unless they were an operational target. They soon would be, but the kind of contact she was authorized to initiate would not be conducive to getting information out of them. Her own words echoed back to her about not engaging an enemy you knew nothing about. She needed to _know_, or else this would be a bloodbath.

While she was mulling this over, a small, thin, balding man put his head into the room and then walked purposefully towards her. "Audrey?" She looked up at him. "Special Agent Audrey Hanson?"

"Yes, that's me." She looked him over. His suit was too expensive to be part of the government. He looked like a lobbyist. She'd seen a lot of those around lately, talking to people and trying to find out what was going on. They'd seen the news - the reports that got out before they were squashed. Of course they'd seen the eclipse, but precious few knew what it meant. What they did know was that this sort of gathering meant something big. Money was being spent and they weren't part of it… yet.

"Ah, pleased to meet you. You're a hard woman to find." He stuck his hand out. She put aside her laptop to rise and shake his hand. He went on, "I'm Paul Haroldson with Pharmatech. We make medical equipment of a very specialized sort that will have applications I'm sure you're going to need. Very soon, too. If your organization had gone through the normal channels we could have… well, I know circumstances are _extraordinary_ and time is of the essence, so let's get right to business."

She groaned inwardly - not a lobbyist, but a salesman. _Great,_ she thought. She started collecting her lecture materials and made to leave. "Mr. Harolds, I have a plane to catch and I need to-"

"Haroldson."

"What?"

He shook his head in annoyance. "It doesn't really matter. The people with abilities, the ones you're going to capture? We have equipment you can use to facilitate that, to make it easier."

She stopped and stared at him. With so many people involved, it was only a matter of time before it leaked, but she hadn't expected it so soon. The eclipse had only happened on Friday. It was now Monday. Honestly the weekend had thrown a wrench in the prepared response plan, but they were still moving at light speed for the government. If the medico-pharmaceutical industry knew, then how far behind was the general public?

As if he could read her mind, he said, "Your group isn't the first to try to tackle this problem. We developed these products as part of a previous project and we're thrilled to have the opportunity to get some use out of them. Here, I have a brochure for you." He handed her a full-color, glossy eight-page folder. "You'll see we have a full range of tranquilizers and neutralization techniques, chemicals that selectively affect brain and glandular function and shut down enhanced abilities, making people more _normal_, if you know what I mean?" He smiled at her a little and it wasn't a friendly look. It reminded her more of a shark clearing its teeth before striking. "If that doesn't hold them then we have equipment for the long-term maintenance of medically-induced comas."

He stopped talking and she blinked at him for a long moment, half expecting him to do something horrific at any moment. That smile had been _scary_. Finally she looked down at the brochure and paged through it blankly. It was exactly what they needed. She looked up at him in bewilderment. "How… how did you come to develop this?"

"Like I said, this isn't the first time this issue has come to the attention of the government. We've worked with them… ah, you, I guess, before, but after 9/11, with all the new bureaucracy and people getting shuffled around, our contacts aren't as good as they used to be. We've had some turnover in our own leadership as well. I hope I've found the right people… This," he indicated the brochure, "this is of use to you, is it not?" He raised his brows and watched carefully for her reaction.

"Yes. Yes, it is." She still eyed him with suspicion. It was so pat, so perfect. "You've already researched these abilities, these people?"

"Yes."

That cancelled half the reason for the task force. She felt like the rug had been yanked out from under her. It was her job to know these things and yet here was some medical device salesman with all the answers! "How much research are we talking about here?"

"Very thorough. We've known this day was coming for some time." He nodded and smiled, rocking back and forth on his heels like a used car salesman, proud of the vehicle he was selling her.

"How did you know that?" She was starting to suspect… maybe all those conspiracy theories weren't as ridiculous as she'd thought.

He gestured at the brochure again and said, "These people… they aren't the only ones with abilities, you see? They're just the ones… the ones who aren't part of the existing structure. They need to be brought in. There's so many of them. What could happen if they got together and formed their own organization, you see? It would be quite a threat to the government, if it wasn't part of it already."

"You're saying there are people with abilities in the government _right now?_"

"Yes." His smile decayed a little, drifting into something far more calculating and inhuman. She again had the impression of bared teeth.

She shivered just looking at him and turned her eyes instead to the brochure. She pursed her lips, remembering those wild stories about the late Senator Petrelli hovering in front of some of the president's aides or that missing DARPA member who had a perfect, photographic memory. Given that Matt had said Senator Petrelli's brother was special, she'd always suspected the story about the senator was true, despite the disbelief most people leveled towards those who had been there and seen it themselves. Nathan Petrelli was apparently still alive, as well. It occurred to her that he wasn't a "person of interest" that she was forbidden to approach, as that status had been cleared with his untimely death.

"It's nothing to be alarmed about," he said gently, tilting his head at her. "They're duly elected just like everyone else. Pharmatech was established to create the tools for the government to handle these people safely. I'm telling you this so you understand what we're dealing with. You're in the know, now. There's a group of them forming and you're going to be pivotal in bringing them down - your organization, your task force. I'm here to give you the tools to do it safely, humanely, and with as little bloodshed as possible."

She glanced up at him again and he turned his head slightly, that almost inhuman expression still on his face. He said, "We mean you no harm. You know that, don't you?"

She swallowed suddenly as she realized what he was telling her. Her eyes went up and down the little old man's body, wondering what strange, unholy ability he was possessed of. He raised his brows very slightly, watching her without a blink, almost without breathing as he waited for her to process what he'd said and act on it.

When she'd worked with Matt, she'd never felt this way – this feeling that she should be terrified, this feeling that there was something lurking in the dark that she couldn't quite see. Matt had been human, full of failings and quirks and struggling with his ability, frustrated by it so much it was impossible for her not to sympathize with him. This man was not that way. Just being near him was disturbing.

She nodded slowly and said, "How do I get touch with you?" Her voice was even and calm, although she'd rather never talk to him again.

"My business card is in there. Show this to your superiors and see if that's what they're looking for. I doubt any of them have heard of the old program, but there are people in the government who have - some of them quite highly placed. When you're ready, call us."

He gave her another unkind, almost predatory smile and walked out, leaving her with the brochure and the knowledge of things she hadn't wanted to know.


	105. Showdown With Claire

Peter had bolted his now-cold tea at Emma's and was feeling fully awake by the time he and Gabriel arrived at the restaurant. Gabriel didn't ask where he'd been and Peter didn't ask the same of him. Though in Peter's case, this was simply because it slipped his mind. He was still dwelling on everything that had happened recently. Gabriel gave him a rundown of recent Company events in the car and Peter filled him in on the disease.

Gabriel said, "That's a new one. Every now and then I run into an ability I wouldn't want. The ability to spread disease… that makes the list." He shook his head and took a seat in a booth.

"Yeah," Peter agreed. "What do you think about this news crackdown?"

"I don't know much, but I think it's safe to assume that's what it is. Maybe Claire can tell us more. That group she's monitoring is one of the government's key agencies for targeting specials. They taken out four or five in the last year and located about as many more. Some of those we got to, some of them just disappeared."

Peter nodded, remembering the pegboard in Matt Parkman's apartment. Gabriel ordered soda; Peter got water. They both got a plate of wings to share. After the waitress left, he asked, "Where do they disappear to?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Beats me. The government has… uh…" He looked off to the side guiltily, "They've kind of gotten out of hand the last few years, in regards to people like us. That whole Danko thing didn't happen in a vacuum, you know?"

Peter looked at him intently and his eyes narrowed slightly. It occurred to him that he wasn't just talking to Gabriel here. Or… well, he **was**, but both Nathan and Sylar had had their fingers in Danko's operation. _And now in the Company. That's almost… that __**can't**__ be a coincidence. It's like he's following, or even drawn to, things that have to do with concentrations of specials._

"What?" Gabriel said defensively.

"I don't know." Peter put it aside. The year before, when Gabriel had been even less under control than he was now, Peter had kept a wall of clippings, pictures and reports on the new specials he'd been working with. He'd never expected to have Gabriel in his apartment, but once he was, Peter didn't stop the man from looking at the information. As a director, he had access to even more sensitive information, but even so Peter had conscientiously followed up with everyone shown. None of them had any mishaps. Gabriel wasn't using the Company to indulge his Hunger or increase his abilities.

Peter shrugged. "Danko worked for you. You ran that group for a while. If anyone knows what they're up to, you _should_."

Gabriel looked annoyed. "That was **Nathan**. I'm not Nathan."

"Yeah, you keep saying that," Peter said with a trace of bitterness. "But you ought to know what happened to them. You have his memories."

"They were contained in building 26. They were making preparations to send them to a secure facility for long term storage. I wasn't part of that end." He grimaced and rolled his eyes. "**Nathan** wasn't part of that end, I mean. Now you've got me doing it!"

Peter smiled. _If you hadn't spent most of a year pretending to be Nathan, maybe you wouldn't have that problem. But then I wouldn't be here talking to you about it._

"Besides," Gabriel went on, "After Homeland Security had their try and failed with Danko, they dismantled that group and left location and identification of specials to the Fringe Division. For a while at least there, they were taking a hands-off approach except for the very worst cases. With all this that's happening recently, I can't imagine they'll keep doing that."

Peter spotted Claire standing in the entrance, scanning the room. He looked past her and then back to Gabriel, changing the subject. "Whatever happened to that gambling and extortion ring Noah was looking into last fall? Did you ever find any proof our people were behind that? That was in Las Vegas, wasn't it?"

Gabriel nodded. Claire had seen them and was slowly walking over, studying them. Gabriel had his back to the door and so didn't see her approach. Peter kept his eyes on the other man, who said, "Yeah, they were in Vegas. Angela was handling that one, but the last report I read looked too good to be anything other than one of us. They know the odds too well."

Gabriel sighed. Claire stopped at his shoulder, back just far enough that he couldn't see her. He went on, "I think it's coming out of the old Linderman Group. Daniel Linderman had all kinds of people working for him. He was the one who rigged my election, or at least, who arranged it." Gabriel scratched at a tiny flaw on the table. "There's someone out there still arranging things, Peter."

"You're sure it's not just Dad's people? Maybe Halo?" Peter asked, sipping his soda and doing a very good job of not looking at Claire. He was letting her pick her own entrance, at her own pace.

Gabriel huffed and said, "Yeah, well, maybe. I really don't think it's Halo because they don't have their fingers deep enough here in the US. I've researched them. It's got to be someone who's been at this a really long ti-" He stopped talking immediately.

Claire had walked on into Gabriel's field of vision. His eyes jumped around her nervously for a moment, then he scooted out and stood. She got out of his way more than she needed to. He gestured to the space next to Peter in the booth. "Please, have a seat."

She looked him up and down, exhaling. Her expression made it painfully obvious to Peter that she was seeing Sylar. Over the months, Peter had quit seeing him that way. Now he was uncomfortably reminded of the history associated with the face the man wore today. He glanced at Gabriel. He wasn't happy with how she saw him either.

After a longer-than-necessary pause, Claire slid into the booth and looked at Peter, who smiled at her warmly, then looked back at Gabriel. He was judging the other man's reaction. Gabriel was tense, but not as ridiculously uptight as he had been just a few weeks ago. Then he'd been unable to talk or think about her, because of what he'd done to her a year before. The very subject of Claire had made him pace and fret and desperately try to change the subject. Peter and Gabriel had gone to Maury Parkman and through a kind of mental conditioning, Gabriel had come to a level of acceptance on what had happened.

Gabriel sat back down. He looked between the two of them and chased several different expressions across his face. He was smiling nervously when their waitress appeared suddenly and said to Claire, "What would tha lady like ta drink this aftanoon?" in a strong accent which was an odd mix of Bronx and Southern US.

"Just… iced tea, please," Claire smiled up at her.

"Sha thing. And you gents, your wings should be out soon. You let me know if you want anudder appetizer, ya here?" She glanced around the table and then left.

"Thank you for coming, Claire," Gabriel said.

A man at a nearby table coughed. Peter peered at him, looking at his coloration, his expression, the set of his eyes and the slightly slower-than-normal way he was moving his hands. He was sick. Peter glanced around the restaurant. Everyone in here had been exposed and there was nothing he could really do about it. He sighed and turned back, realizing he'd missed an exchange between Claire and Gabriel. Gabriel was staring at him with a frightening intensity. Claire was looking at Peter too, with a guarded expression.

Peter blinked several times. Apparently he'd missed something important. He said, "No? What?"

Gabriel said, "She's been… who's been at her? Peter… you knew?" He was staring at him unblinking, very still.

Peter replayed exactly what Claire had said. It was something about him telling her that when a director told her to do something, she had to do it. Peter had been shocked to discover that the Company had routinely used telepathically enforced commands to require obedience and enforce loyalty among their non-special agents. From time to time, they went so far as to do the same to those with abilities.

Peter knew Gabriel was not comfortable with the policy either, having gone so far as to negate the commands that Noah Bennet had operated under. The other directors, Maury and Angela, would have objected had they known about it, but only Peter, Gabriel and Noah knew. Noah's gratitude for his freedom had finally ended the animosity he had for Gabriel.

Peter swallowed and reached his hand out a few inches towards Gabriel, saying, "No. No, what I told her was that she could take the time off and come see you, because a director wanted to talk to her." He looked at his niece. "That's… different."

Gabriel leaned back a little and relaxed slightly. He looked between Peter and Claire, then off at the man who had caught Peter's attention earlier.

Claire looked at him, then Peter. "How's that different?"

Peter looked at Gabriel, realizing he'd been sucked into the Company protocols of needing, or at least looking for, director approval before telling things he wasn't supposed to know. He shook his head and looked away from Gabriel, who was acting disinterested anyway. Peter leaned over and told her quietly, "The Company has a habit of applying mental commands on some of the agents. There's a… loyalty oath they make all the mundane agents take when they're instated that makes it difficult or impossible to disobey the director's orders, or act against the interests of the Company. So… if you… I think what Gabriel was concerned about is if you'd been given those commands, then you'd be required to do what you were told by a director."

"I didn't authorize that. I should have at least been consulted," Gabriel said stiffly. "Especially for my d-… you."

She gave Gabriel a measured look. Peter glanced between the two of them and took a drink of his water. The chicken wings arrived. They were all silent while the waitress delivered them. Gabriel waved her off from ordering main dishes for the time being.

After the woman was gone, Claire gave an exaggerated shrug and said to Peter, "Why would he care? That would… be a good thing, right? From his point of view." She smiled falsely at Gabriel.

Gabriel tilted his head at her. His eyes flicked to Peter. "She's been gotten to. Let's just move on."

Peter looked at Claire. He was inclined to agree. She said, "What's he talking about?"

"We'll talk later. It's not a big deal." Peter exhaled tightly and took a celery stick and a plastic container of dressing.

"So," she said, "it's not a big deal? What do you think?" She looked at Gabriel.

"I think it's a big deal. I'll take care of it. If I tell you to stab yourself in the hand with that fork, will you do it?"

She laughed at him. "No!"

"Stab yourself in the hand with that fork." He sounded dead serious. Peter's eyes jumped to Gabriel, then Claire.

"No." She gave him an incredulous look. She looked at Peter, who smiled reassuringly.

Peter said, "It's okay. He's just checking something." He glanced over at Gabriel again, hoping the other man would take his own advice and move on. Mental commands weren't thwarted through simple conversation. All that accomplished was to agitate and upset the person with the commands. Claire looked upset all right. For her first in-the-flesh meeting with Gabriel in over a year, Peter wanted to keep things as low-key as possible. There was enough emotional baggage around the table to supply a month's vacation.

She glared between the two of them. Gabriel chewed on a chicken wing. "Maury Parkman pulled this last summer too, grabbing some agents and co-opting them so they were loyal to him alone, instead of to the Company. I'm sure you can imagine Angela's and my own reaction to that sort of thing. We'll deal with it. Try a wing. They're good," he offered.

After a long pause, as if to prove she didn't have to do what he suggested, she took one. She pulled over a container of ranch dressing and waited a beat, looking between the two men again. She tried it. "Mm. Yeah, pretty good," she said, licking sauce off her lips.

Gabriel stared at her mouth with an inappropriate fascination, like a teenage boy staring at breasts. _What the hell?_ Peter thought. He reached out and kicked Gabriel's foot. The other man twitched and looked away, to Peter's relief. Claire didn't seem to have noticed. Peter recalled "Nathan" telling him that Matt Parkman couldn't purge every sick thought from that head. He wondered what was going on in his mind right now. Peter trusted Gabriel a lot, but every now and then he got a flash from the other man that was pure Sylar. It was troubling.

Gabriel got another wing and went on casually, "Your father told me once that people who have been given commands they don't like often talk on two different levels, saying things that can be interpreted more than one way. He said they were leaving clues, dropping hints, hoping someone would notice and help them. I've noticed. I'll do what I can for you."

"I don't need your help," Claire insisted.

Gabriel shrugged. "Maybe not. When the time comes, I'll let you refuse it. I'm going to investigate though. It's my job."

Peter glanced up at the waitress, who drifted by their table, looking pointedly at the unopened menus. "We should probably order." He pushed the menus towards Gabriel and Claire, then picked his up and started reading. The pair didn't need to be fighting over helping each other. Peter could perfectly understand why Claire wouldn't, or couldn't, ask for Gabriel's help, just as he could see how the opportunity to help her was irresistible to Gabriel. Hopefully the change of subject would stick.

He was still bothered by how Gabriel had been looking at her for those few seconds. _Right in front of me!_ Of course he wasn't jealous, he told himself. Of course he was just concerned for Claire. Right. Of course. He'd never been jealous of any partner before, but other than Emma, he'd never been as attached to any of them as he was with Gabriel.

After they ordered, Claire said, "Speaking of my father…" She looked at Gabriel, tilting her head and raising her brows.

Gabriel asked, "What do you want to know?"

"You're not him."

Gabriel smiled. "Glad you noticed. Yeah." He opened his jacket and pulled out an envelope with gold lettering. It said 'Claire Bennet' in cursive script. He handed it to her. "My wed-, Heidi and Nathan Petrelli are renewing their vows on April 17th. I'm only inviting close family – ten, fifteen people, plus us."

"You're marrying Heidi Petrelli? _**Nathan**_is marrying Heidi Petrelli?" She put a different emphasis on the name and scrutinized Gabriel like she was trying to figure out what he meant. Peter stayed quiet.

Gabriel said, "I love her. I can hardly show up to the wedding looking like this. Not with her family there." He waved at his face. "Nathan's renewing his vows. I'm getting married. I'll look like him."

Peter interjected, "I'm the best man."

Gabriel said, "Heidi's sister is the maid of honor. That's the entire wedding party. Like I said, it's small."

Claire turned the card over in her hands nervously, looking at it without opening it. "Does she know?"

Gabriel nodded. "Yes. We have a son together. She knows everything."

Claire nodded in turn. She put the invitation in her purse. She looked over at Gabriel's hands. He wasn't wearing a band. "Aren't you married to her now? As Nathan?"

He shrugged. "Sort of. This seemed like the simplest way to remove all questions."

"You're not wearing a ring."

"Not in this form, not usually."

"But you do when you look like Nathan?"

"Of course. He's married." He fished in his pocket and brought out Nathan's wedding band.

She rolled her eyes and smiled. Somehow, that made a perverse sort of sense. Gabriel put it away carefully. Peter had noticed Gabriel wore the ring when he looked like Nathan, but Peter hadn't thought about the mechanics of it. Since Gabriel didn't replace it with anything when he shape shifted, he had to remove it and keep it separate when he wasn't wearing it. That also meant he didn't accidentally alter it. Peter was pleased to see that it mattered to Gabriel. He respected and honored Nathan's life as if it were his own, which, Peter hoped it was.

Claire asked angrily, "Are you going to pretend you're Nathan now?" Her tone caught Peter's attention. The conversation was going south again.

"What do you mean?" Gabriel replied.

"To me? Are you going to tell me you're really him inside?" Claire sounded accusing, but Peter just watched for now. Gabriel was staying calm and not rising to the bait.

"No."

"Why not? Don't you want to win me over? Aren't I 'special' and 'different' and you 'need' me?"

"No." Gabriel's answer rang in Peter's mind as a lie. Peter blinked, but made no other indication. Obviously Gabriel wanted to win her over, she was special, etc., but his answer was what Claire needed to hear.

"Then why did you call me here?"

He huffed and looked around the place. "I…" He looked down at his hands and folded them together carefully. "I wanted to face you, after last year. I needed to be able to look you in the face and say I was sorry."

"You said that last year." Her tone was glacial.

He looked down at the table and swallowed. "No, not really. I thanked you, but I didn't apologize. You gave me… something… that I shouldn't have taken."

She took a drink of her tea and lifted her chin defiantly. "If it worked, it was worth it."

"It worked. After that, I had the Hunger under control enough that I… it didn't affect me much."

"Did anyone else die?"

"No one died because of the Hunger. Not after you helped me."

Peter gave Gabriel an odd glance since _that_ wasn't a lie, but he wrote it off as interpretational. Perhaps what Gabriel meant was that Matt Parkman had died because of Arthur, not specifically the Hunger itself. It was a fine distinction, but lie detection often relied on such points.

Claire said, "That's good to hear then. I always wondered. Wondered just how much you'd lied to me that night." There was a vicious edge to her voice, but again Gabriel didn't seem to let it get to him. Peter didn't think for a moment it wasn't hurting him though. Gabriel had a lot of practice hiding his emotions and controlling his reactions.

"Not much," Gabriel said neutrally. Peter pressed his lips together. The more blank and neutral Gabriel got, the more pissed off or upset he was - Peter had figured that much out.

She gave him a long stare. Gabriel met it without a flicker of emotion. After a while, she reached for another wing and dipped it, saying, "You said then you didn't know who you were. I take it you've worked that out?" She took a bite.

He shrugged. "I've settled on who I want to be, who I've been lately. For the most part I've parsed out Nathan's memories from… Sylar's." He said the name with distaste, as if it were repugnant to him.

"So which are you?" Her tone was still challenging, but she'd backed down some.

"Neither. I've just sorted the memories. It's like this," he put his hand forward on the table, fingertips on it. "When you went to school or go to college, you're in a different place, with different people, doing different things. You probably show a very different side to your personality than you do at home. But you wouldn't say you were a different **person** at home than you were at school." He turned his hands, lifting one and then the other, trading off. "Even though you have memories of school and home, you're still Claire Bennet right now, regardless of where you are or what you're doing."

Claire furrowed her brow, but the analogy was making sense to her.

Gabriel went on, "As far as names, I'm going by Gabriel, by preference, though that's…" He looked away, at the ceiling. Peter was glad to see Gabriel had calmed down enough to be relaxed in his gestures. "That's mainly because if I go by Nathan as my real name, it causes a certain level of confusion with the people I care about." When he looked back down, he kept his eyes on Claire. She didn't notice anything unusual about it. Peter felt the full impact of what he was saying. He wondered if Gabriel was transferring his anger from Claire to Peter, or if he really felt that way.

In either case, Gabriel was fully aware that Peter tended to see him as Nathan first and Gabriel second. They'd had something of an argument about that, or perhaps it would be better called a struggle since they hadn't really argued. Gabriel was trying to get Peter to see him as he was, rather than how Peter wanted to see him. Peter knew that, but his heart hadn't quite given up. He took a carrot stick and crunched on it noisily to demonstrate how he felt about things. Gabriel heard him and didn't react. There wasn't much Peter could say with Claire present. They were not open about their relationship.

Claire went on, "But Heidi knows, you said."

"Yeah," Gabriel said. "She knows who I am better than I do. I think she always has. It doesn't matter what she calls me."

_But apparently,_ Peter thought,_ it matters a lot what_** I**_ call him. _He sighed and looked away, watching the other patrons in the restaurant. _I can't really blame him for wanting to be seen for who he is. No matter what he is, who he is, he isn't Nathan. Not wholly, just partly, at best. Maybe Heidi knows that. Maury said I was in denial about it. Gabriel obviously thinks so._ He glanced back to watch Gabriel wipe his fingers fastidiously like Nathan always used to. It made Peter's eyes water.


	106. Face Off With Gabriel

Gabriel wiped his fingers on his napkin and took a drink. "Angela started the name convention back in March, last March, 2010. She wanted to be sure who she was dealing with."

"I can imagine," Claire said dryly. Peter smiled thinly. He'd been busy hating Gabriel at that point in time. Gabriel had been doing a fabulously convincing job of impersonating Nathan. He'd been on passable terms with Peter's mother, who had brought Gabriel into the Company and mentored him, on, among other things, how to manage his fractured identity.

"I have a lot of respect for her," Gabriel said quietly. Claire cocked her head at that. Their meals arrived. Peter had a spinach salad with red onions, artichoke hearts and grilled portabella. Gabriel stared at it and gave him a look of exaggerated disgust. "How can you eat that?" Peter stared at him, not sure where he was going with that, so Gabriel told him: "Men don't eat that sort of food."

Peter chuckled. "Okay," he rejoined agreeably, picking up his fork.

Gabriel snorted and shook his head as the waitress put Gabriel's shepherd's pie before him. "It has no meat, no grease. You can't survive on that, Peter," he joked.

Claire had had enough of that though and said, "Is it the lack of something dead and bleeding that's bothering you?" The waitress set down Claire's burger with fries before her and wisely got out of there before she became embroiled in the budding argument.

Gabriel looked at Claire mutely. Clearly there was much he wanted to say. Just as clearly, he'd learned to keep his mouth shut when what he wanted to say was unlikely to get him what he wanted. Peter had been warmed by the moment of open humor, even if his food choice happened to be the butt of the joke. Gabriel, joking, made Claire uncomfortable. "It's okay," Peter murmured.

At his words, Gabriel took up his fork and picked at his shepherd's pie uncertainly. Peter told him, "Just dig in. It's in layers, like a casserole." He tried not to think about the variety of Irish food he'd sampled a few years ago. Thoughts of Caitlin and Ricky surfaced anyway.

For a few minutes, they ate in silence.

After a while, Claire said, "So what do you do with yourself, these days? What's a director do?"

"I herd cats, listen to whale song, chase squirrels." She blinked at him and Gabriel laughed hollowly. "To put that in plainer language, I try to keep Company projects on schedule and moving ahead. I go through reports and analysis and try to figure out what's going on that's really important. When there is something important we can't assign a team to for some reason, or it's not appropriate to assign a team, then I have to go out and track it down myself. That's the squirrel-chasing, like the thing you mentioned earlier, with Maury. I never know what I'm going to end up with, because they're almost never properly scoped. And then there's Nathan's law firm, but I haven't been logging many hours there lately."

She nodded and asked shrewdly, "What's been going on lately?"

"What do you mean?" Gabriel hedged. They'd kept almost everything a secret about what had happened - Arthur's capture, Halo's involvement and the real purpose of the eclipse. Peter frowned across the table at Gabriel. They could trust Claire and doing so might go a long way towards defusing her anger.

"I mean all of these new people with abilities. It's almost like every agent other than my team is working on first contact cases. Ever since the eclipse, they're all over the place. What happened?"

Gabriel sighed, "The eclipse... It triggered a wave of manifestations. We're doing what we can to control the more dangerous ones. That's why your work is so important. Your team is hooked up to the Fringe division and we want to stay aware of all the new cases they know about. There's a lot of crossovers from our area to theirs."

She leaned forward, intent. "But what _caused_ it? It's not evolution if it happens all at once all over the place."

_But it's __**not**__ happening all over the place at once, which seems to be important,_ Peter thought.

"We're still looking into that," Gabriel evaded.

Peter touched her arm. When she turned to face him, he said, "I can explain. A few months ago, my f-"

"Peter!" Gabriel interrupted sharply. Peter looked at him and blinked. Gabriel said, "We're not talking about that."

"Why not?" Peter asked.

"Because we're **not**," Gabriel said.

"And you get to decide that?" A tone of affront crept into Peter's voice.

"Yes, I do," Gabriel said with emphasis. "I'm a director of the Company and _**I **_get to decide that, Peter." Claire looked back and forth between them, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Fine. Fire me." Peter turned back to Claire. He hesitated at her smile, annoyed to think she was glad to have driven a wedge between them for the moment.

"Peter…" Gabriel's voice faltered. Peter glanced back at him, but he didn't think Gabriel would do anything. He'd never really stood up to Peter, not since Nathan's death. Even the two times Peter had subdued Sylar after Nathan's murder, he'd had the feeling the other man _let_ him. Whenever push came to shove, Gabriel always backed down from Peter. In one of their more difficult moments, Gabriel had said he'd do anything to stay with Peter; he'd be anyone Peter wanted him to be. It made it hard to take him seriously.

To Claire, Peter said, "So. A few-"

"_**No**_." It was only one word, but it shut Peter up instantly. There was steel in Gabriel's voice that had never been there before. It was the voice of someone accustomed to leadership, trained in the military and who fully expected his orders to be carried out. It reminded Peter a hell of a lot of his father's voice. He looked at Gabriel almost apprehensively and despite being peeved at being cut off again, his respect for the man went up a notch. _Funny though, _Peter thought, _he'll stand up for the Company, but not for himself._

Claire looked at Peter with her eyes a bit too wide. She'd heard the tone too. She exhaled slowly, resigned to not hearing whatever Peter had to tell her. The younger Petrelli wasn't done yet, though. He thought about something Maury had stated and said, "There's an exemption for family." He watched Gabriel carefully for his reaction.

He needn't have focused on it so much. Gabriel made no attempt to hide his response. He bared his teeth, shook his head and touched his forehead nervously with his fingertips. He put his hand back down on the table with an exasperated huff. Peter had only been guessing, but he knew he'd won. Just in case, Peter added, "It's her _grandfather_."

"Yes, and I'm her…" Gabriel grunted like he'd had a sudden pain. "She doesn't need to know!"

"You can't protect her by not telling her."

"The hell I can't!" he said roughly. They were beginning to attract looks from around the restaurant. Gabriel followed Peter's glance around and he exhaled through clenched teeth. Gabriel stood abruptly and stalked off to the bar.

Claire muttered, "That's like Nathan on steroids." She gazed after him for a moment, blinking and looking confused, like he wasn't being the person she thought he was. She gave herself a little shake. To Peter she said, "Okay, dish, before he changes his mind!"

Peter shook his head and murmured, "He's not going to change his mind." In a more normal tone, he said, "Your grandfather, Arthur Petrelli, had a plan to create people with abilities. It involved two things - getting a catalyst for the synthetic formula that you can inject people with to give them abilities, and causing an eclipse, or what looked like one, that also caused abilities to manifest. He kidnapped Heidi when she was pregnant and killed her." Claire's eyes bugged.

Peter went on. "Gabriel and I were too late to stop the murder, but I had an ability that could transfer life force. Gabriel let…" He took a deep breath and forged on, "He let me kill him to bring her back. Then we left and somehow my dad brought Gabriel back, but the process gave him the catalyst he needed."

"Wha…?" Claire said. When Peter paused, she said, "No, no! Go on. What happened next?"

"Then dad found a guy with the ability to create darkness, or stop radiation. He stole Ando's power to super-charge abilities. He combined these and blotted out the sun all over the world and even the stars on the nightside. It killed the man who did it. I got hold of my father and drained all his abilities. I kept some of them, but I lost most." He fell silent.

She said, "And… what happened to Arthur? Did he die?"

"No," Peter said. "I… The Company has him in a cell right now. But his plan to give people abilities is still in motion. People are still discovering their powers. There might be a few hundred of them, or maybe a few thousand, all over the world. We're trying to find out where they are and help them. That's what all the activity has been about. That's how Patty got hurt and why we've been bringing in so many new specials… why we don't really have time to talk things through before we've got to move on to the next case." He glanced over at Gabriel, who was at the bar. "And… Gabriel and I think that my father wasn't the one running the show. There's someone still out there who needs to be stopped."

"Oh my God. How many people know about this?"

"Mm. Me, Gabriel, my mom, Maury Parkman, your dad - Noah, I mean. That's about it. Maybe Heidi. I'm not sure how much Gabriel has told her. Everything, I think. He's telling the truth that he doesn't hide much from her."

Claire shot Gabriel a look, then turned back to her uncle. "He died for… He let you _kill_ him?" Peter nodded. "Did he know he was going to come back?"

"No."

"No wonder you trust him," she said quietly.

"Huh." He was silent for a long moment as Claire digested the news. All sorts of things had happened that she'd been kept out of the loop about. He smiled a little and said, "You know what started me trying get him to talk to you? I wanted to have Nathan acknowledge you publicly, while he still could. I'm not sure how long he's going to keep up this double life and… I wanted him to take care of that before…" He shook his head.

"Acknowledge me?"

Peter nodded. He looked down for a moment, then up at her, meeting her eyes. "Declare you as his daughter. Make it legitimate."

"I don't think I want to be known as _Sylar's_ daughter," she said bitterly.

He let her tone roll off him without getting angry himself. "You wouldn't be. You'd be Nathan's daughter, Angela's granddaughter, my niece. All it would be doing is formalizing something Nathan should have done while he was alive."

"This was your idea?"

Peter nodded. "Can you give him a second chance?"

She looked at him with a furrowed brow. "I never gave him a first."

"Well…" he shrugged. "Last year."

"That… I thought that was Nathan, _my father_. I thought something had happened to him and if I did what he wanted, he'd be fixed. Like, fixed as in Nathan. I didn't know he'd be fixed as _Sylar_. Or this other guy." She waved her hand at Gabriel's seat. "I wouldn't have done _**that**_ for _**him**_. Now that I have though…" She shrugged, looking bewildered.

Peter nodded and said slowly, "Yeah… I empathize." He looked at where Gabriel had been sitting and felt very sad for a moment. _He's not fixed as in Nathan. That's exactly what I was trying to achieve too. I don't think anyone got what they wanted._ He straightened up. "It didn't work out like I intended either, but this is what we have. He's a good man now. He acts like Nathan a lot, if you know what to look for. It's the little things more than the big ones. It's weird seeing it come out while he's wearing that face." His voice softened. "Every now and then he nails it just right and he doesn't even know it. That's when it hits me the hardest."

Claire put her arm around Peter. "I hadn't really thought about how this must be for you… and then with your father, everything…."

Peter thought about protesting and insisting he was over it, but that would have been a lie. Instead he shut his eyes for a moment and leaned his head against her. Very quietly so only she could hear, he said, "Listen, I don't know what I was thinking. It was just stupid, as stupid a plan as what my mother tried."

Claire guessed, correctly, that he meant what had been done to merge Nathan and Sylar. Matching his tone, Claire said, "Peter, you couldn't **not** try. Not with what was at stake." When Peter didn't say anything, she added, "So what are you going to do? Be his partner?" There was a trace of sarcasm in her tone.

He sat up and she dropped her arm to her side. He glanced at her, not sure what context she was using the word 'partner' in. Maybe she just meant that in the Company manner? He said, "Yeah, I guess so. I keep an eye on him." _He loves me. And that's wonderful and really weird and I couldn't possibly explain it to her._

Gabriel drifted over from the bar, drink in hand. He had regained his composure. Peter gave him a shallow smile and went back to his salad. Claire's smile was warmer than it had been before. Gabriel slid into the booth. "I told you what I do. So what does Maury have you doing these days, Claire?" Maury was her boss in the Company. Each field agent had a director they were ultimately responsible to.

She snorted softly. "Nothing as exciting as what you guys have been up to."

Gabriel gave Peter a disapproving frown for telling her too much, then told her, "I'd like to hear it anyway."

She glanced between Peter and Gabriel. Peter nodded and chimed in to encourage her. "Actually, yeah. You're watching those government guys, right?"

"The Fringe Group," she clarified.

"They're FBI?" She nodded. Peter said, "I was dealing with a woman yesterday named Susan Greer." He could tell instantly that she recognized the name. That made sense. He thought Claire had healed her. "The FBI was on their way to deal with her and best I can figure from the file, her abilities had only been known a few hours. They were responding really fast. How do they know when specials manifest?"

"When I was first assigned, a couple months ago, they just got normal leads through the usual channels. But then in the last… well, since the eclipse, Olivia has been getting visions of what's going to happen next and where they need to go. She's always had a knack for it. Matt said…" She gave Gabriel a withering stare so intense he blinked and looked down in submission, bowing his head and hunching his shoulders. She stared at that reaction for a few moments more. Apparently mollified, she went on to Peter, "Matt's notes said she was a clairvoyant. I assume he read her mind, so I'd say that must be what she is."

"Really?" Peter looked off pensively, one thumb rubbing the other restlessly across the knuckle.

Claire took a drink, watching him sideways. "What's up?"

"There's some common thread linking what's going on."

"The eclipse. Your father," Claire supplied.

"No, there's something else. If it was my father, then it should have stopped when we caught him. He doesn't have any abilities now. All of these operations are still going on and I have trouble thinking that would happen if he were the one in charge. It's like if you took out Gabriel, Maury and my mother, what would happen to the Company?" He shrugged and gestured. "It wouldn't just keep operating business-as-usual. Would it?"

Claire shook her head, agreeing with him. "Couldn't it just be the government though?"

Peter shrugged in response and ate the last of his lunch.

Gabriel leaned forward and said, "If it were just the government, then how did she know in advance? She started having these visions since the eclipse?"

"Yes."

"But she already had an ability, so it wasn't like she was activated then?"

"Right." Claire sounded annoyed.

Gabriel pressed on. "Are you sure she's having her own visions, or is it possible they're being projected into her mind?"

"How would I know?" she snapped.

Peter put a hand on her arm. She calmed down a little. He looked to Gabriel and asked, "What are you thinking?"

"There are some variants of telepathy that allow projection at a distance. Whatever Arthur was doing, whoever was running this, isn't constrained by proximity. They can find people and influence them without having to go to them." He rubbed his chin. "It's tough to tell. When they had Arthur available, they could go physically wherever they wanted - he could teleport them there - but that was before the eclipse and there weren't so many new specials. Now that it's afterwards and they would really want that ability, they don't have it. So they're acting through proxies, like the Fringe Group. Or the Company."

"What?" Peter blinked.

Gabriel shrugged. "There are a lot of possibilities, Peter. Angela's dreams could be tampered with, I've always thought Maury was a double agent, and it's not like I'm in charge of my own mind." Unknowingly, he echoed the phobias that had haunted the last generation and still plagued Angela and Maury.

Peter crossed his arms and leaned back. After a long, silent moment he said, "This is ridiculous. This is just paranoia. We don't _know_ anything. There's no reason to start doubting _everyone_."

"I'm not doubting anyone I don't normally doubt."

Peter huffed. "Well, maybe that works for you, but not for me. I prefer to trust people until they show they're untrustworthy."

"And even after that," Claire murmured.

"What?" Peter said. He was pretty sure he'd heard her right. Gabriel snorted and laughed, which lightened the mood enormously. She actually glanced at him and chuckled too, smiling that at least Gabriel understood the extraordinary nature of his position. Peter rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Fine. Yeah, okay. I live in denial. The universe keeps telling me that. We need to-"

Claire's phone went off, with a ring tone of "Every Breath You Take" by the Police. "That's Maury," she said, before answering and without looking at the caller ID. She had the ring tone programmed. Gabriel's brows climbed halfway up his forehead but he didn't say anything.

Peter looked across the table at the other man and quietly mouthed the main refrain of the song, "_I'll be watching you_."

Gabriel nodded, serious again. He said quietly back to Peter, "Clues again, to anyone who's listening." Peter sighed. He agreed. Maury had given her mental commands. Where he had a problem was in figuring out what to do about it. If he took them out, Maury would just put them back in, _and_ there would be a confrontation.

Claire finished her short conversation and pocketed the phone. "I have to go. I need to get back to Boston."

Peter nodded. "I'll take you." They all rose to leave. Peter addressed Gabriel, "I'm going to stick you with the bill for this. Then I'll see you later." His eyes met Gabriel's for a second, holding his gaze long enough to communicate what he meant by 'see you later.'

The other man nodded fractionally. He smiled and pulled out his wallet. "I think I can afford it."

Claire saw the interchange and frowned. She went back to being mean, though Peter didn't connect the mood shift to the moment of familiarity between himself and Gabriel. "You've got all Nathan's money now, don't you?" she said sarcastically.

Gabriel smirked at her and blew off her comment. "I don't need Nathan's money."

Peter thought, _Of course not. Not when you can turn things into gold._

Peter put a hand on the small of his niece's back, not wanting her to ruin the end of what had turned out to be a good meeting, overall. She nodded to acknowledge Peter's touch and surprised them both by saying to Gabriel, "Well… I'll see you at the wedding then. Thanks for the invitation." Her voice was even, still judging him. She turned and left with Peter. Outside, they found a secluded spot in the parking lot and he teleported them both to her apartment in Boston.

He looked around the small apartment, at the colorful furnishings and organized clutter. It looked very different from when Matt had lived here, only a few months before. "Is this the right place?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. Hey, don't go." He was about to leave immediately, but she reached out to him. He stopped and looked to her. She bit her lip. "Peter… what's going on between you and Gabriel?"

He blinked once, wondering how she knew… and how much. The 'partner' comment took on a new light. He didn't have any other change of expression because he didn't feel anything else about it. He wasn't guilty, that was for sure. "What do you mean?"

She sighed. "He _killed Nathan_. I understand… last year, you know, that you'd tried to fix things or change Sylar after…" She looked away, conflicted.

"He's not that guy anymore." He wasn't. He couldn't be.

She exhaled heavily again. "I… How can you deal with him, and not see Sylar when you look at that face?"

"Because he's _**not**__ Sylar_. Like I said at lunch, what's left of Nathan is still in there. It's a part of him. It's not a part he's going to get rid of or is even trying to get rid of. It's just him."

"Peter… you don't… you don't honestly think that's Nathan, do you?" She was looking at him disbelievingly, begging him to see the world as she did. It hurt him to know she saw the same thing Maury and Gabriel had seen about the lens through which he viewed Gabriel.

"N-no, I don't," he said falteringly. He tried to firm up his voice as he continued, "But that doesn't change the fact that he's not the same person who killed him, either. He's not a murderer anymore." _As much as he's not Nathan, he's also not Sylar._ Peter clung to that thought as he had for the last month.

She looked away, then shook her head. "Peter… I want to help you."

His brow furrowed. "Help _**me?**_ Claire, I'm fine. Everything's fine." He walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "There's just a lot going on right now."

She looked between his eyes, then down at his throat and collar after a moment. "We used to talk when you had a problem. Other than talking to you after Christmas, I haven't heard from you since last summer." She swallowed. "A lot… a lot has happened. I know you lost part of your family." She looked back and forth across his chest. "This… this must have been a hard time for you and I guess you just reached out to whoever you could. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

_So that's what this is about._ He preferred to think that he'd managed Nathan's passing fairly well, but the moment he had failed to see Gabriel as an imposter and started to see him as Nathan, he'd lost all the detachment, resentment and distance that had stood between them. They'd ended up in bed the very next time they were together. _ Maybe she's right._ He sighed and pulled her close. "Claire, I'm fine." After hugging her warmly, he pulled back a little and said, "Are _**you**_ okay?"

She nodded and backed away from him. "Be safe, Peter. He's probably waiting for you."

He looked down briefly. There was so much between them that wasn't being said. He wanted to confront it, but he didn't know how. He used to read the feelings of others so easily, but his own were a mess and they had been for days. _Maybe if I can just get past this, get some rest, it will all start to make sense._ He nodded back to her. "I love you, Claire. Be safe." He vanished.


	107. I Can See Clairely Now

After Peter left, Claire sank down on a hard-backed wooden chair next to the table. Her mind went back to the file she'd stumbled across in her father's apartment only a month before. They'd been bonding, talking about work and going through the case of Rosslyn Gordon, the subject of a recent investigation by the Fringe Group and coincidentally (or so it seemed) her cousin. Noah excused himself to the bathroom and Claire had decided it was time to go. She'd started to put away Rosslyn's folder, but saw that of "Grey, Gabriel" in the box. It was very thick - obviously it was the unexpurgated version. She'd pulled it out on a whim and flipped to the last entries, wondering what he was up to.

The page was two-thirds full of her dad's entries on recent events in Gabriel's life. Most of them were utterly boring - he'd gone to a movie with his wife; there were records of his office hours at Nathan's law firm and a couple times he'd gone to some Bar Association meeting; there was something about the PTA and meeting one of Simon's teachers. She scanned it idly, feeling a little resentful that somehow Sylar had ended up with the normal life she'd always wanted.

She didn't think she was doing anything wrong, really, not when they'd spent the last three hours talking shop about spying on people. There were a handful of entries about him meeting with Peter. She thought nothing of it until her eyes caught on one entry from the start of the year. Her breath caught in her chest.

It said, "P. Petrel confirms sexual relationship with X," 'X' being Company shorthand for the subject of the file. Peter wasn't keeping an eye on Gabriel. He wasn't a friend. All those later meetings weren't just them hanging out together. He was _**involved**_ with the man who had killed his brother, her father. They were lovers and he had concealed it from her.

VVV

**A/N: Claire's thought process.**

I hate Sylar. I've got a lot of reasons for that, but mainly it's because he's evil and he's killed a lot of people. He killed a girl I knew in high school named Jackie and even if she was a bitch and at the time I sort of wished she was dead, I didn't really mean it and he killed her right in front of me. And he wasn't killing her _for_ me, he was just killing her because he wanted to, because he thought she was me, so, you know, that's worse.

He threw this really nice guy off the top of the stadium and that guy turned out to be my uncle. He's totally hot, but uncles are off limits but I didn't know it at the time so I totally had the hots for him. He was _way_ sexy and _so_ sweet. He tried to save me and he did and Sylar threw him off the stadium and killed him. Of course, Peter has powers like me, so he survived, but it's the thought that counts, right? He was totally my hero. He still is. I think. Maybe. I'll get to that part later.

Then Sylar went out and killed loads of other people and a lot later than that he came by my house and killed me. He even made a pass at me during it, which was super, super-creepy! You can't imagine. I was angry. I was terrified. But… you know, other than sticking his fingers in my brain, he never touched me. I mean, yeah, he touched me some and he talked about how he wanted me (ick! … oh my god … he's kind of handsome, but seriously? Killing me first? Not a turn on), but anyway, he could have done _anything_ to me and I've already had that experience with a douchebag named Brody, whom I tried to kill later, but he survived and I felt bad - not that he hadn't died… well, sort of… but mostly that I'd hurt him so bad.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Sylar didn't actually do anything sexual with me even though he talked about how much he wanted to and I swear he had an erection in those khakis he was wearing. I told him I'd hate him forever and… he took that sort of well, considering. Then he left. And I felt sort of… I don't know, like maybe… unwanted? Like I'd told him the wrong things and now he didn't want me anymore? Then my dad was there and all concerned about me, because yeah, this guy had been in my brain and dad was super-protective and I just felt embarrassed, because seriously, I was fine. Even sort of mentally. I guess my super-power helps me cope with post-traumatic stress and stuff that way, because I was fine. Upset, sure, but fine.

I told dad Sylar had taken my ability and held me down and that's when I got really uncomfortable because the being held down with Sylar like… right close to me… um… I hadn't really thought of it at the time, because I was angry and scared and stuff, but telling it again… um… and so I shut up and dad thought the guy had raped me and I thought okay, I know he didn't, but maybe this weird attraction is sort of like a kind of rape. How do I know he doesn't have a power that makes his victims want him? And so I just quit talking about it to mom or dad and wouldn't tell them what happened. I know what that left them thinking, but look at it from my point of view - I had the hots for this guy who invaded my house, cut the top of my head off and poked at my brain! That's sick! Super sick! There was something wrong with me and I couldn't talk about it.

Plus, my brain didn't heal back right. I couldn't feel pain and I was totally freaked out. Sylar had done this to me and I hated it. I also hated the thought that I could probably track him down and have him fix it back, but… I didn't. So I was this inhuman monster because of him.

That's Sylar. Now let's talk about bio-dad, Nathan. He was totally hot too, but a lot older. He was sweet too, just like my uncle Peter. He wanted to be my dad, but he's like a pathological liar and trust me, growing up with my real dad, I know liars. But he was trying and it was sort of rough at first because he was in this political campaign and he's kind of a jerk at times, but he's basically human and a nice guy. He really tried for me.

A whole lot of stuff happened that involved bio-dad and dad and Sylar and stuff, but I'm going to skip that for now. I think if I was normal I'd need three lifetimes of counseling to deal with all the issues I should have, but I'm not, so whatever. But it's worth mentioning in there at one point that my dad and Sylar were working _together_ of all things and that Sylar tried to apologize to me and he saved my life. Strange. Very strange. Like I said, I should need boatloads of therapy over this.

At first I really wasn't sure what to do about bio-dad in my life and later he was doing all kinds of evil stuff and trying to make an exception for me, which told me that he was a good guy underneath and knew what he was doing was wrong, and he loved me, but that he was a numbskull and going to do wrong stuff anyway. It was just stupid, but not everyone is smart. It's not like my dad, Noah, wasn't right there with him, but my dad has always been kind of, I guess, comfortable, with morally grey. I guess bio-dad was too. I suppose. It's just that, even though he was doing it, he didn't seem very _comfortable_ with it, if you know what I mean.

Then things went bad like they always do and he (bio-dad) rescued me. It was really romantic. He held me in his arms and flew me down to Mexico and wow have I ever… um… well. He's my bio-dad, so nothing totally happened, but he was so super sweet and trying so hard to be good and win me over. He knew he'd goofed up big time and I completely melted. I mean, I know I should have been really mad at him for what he did to everyone, with that whole government thing, and I was for a while but I just couldn't stay that way with him being all nice and everything. So we made up.

Different stuff happened and Sylar was trying to impersonate the president and we had to stop it. Like, right away. Me, Peter, bio-dad and some other folks. Sylar was impersonating Nathan when I got there and I didn't realize it right off, but then I did and I slipped and I'm pretty sure that he knew I knew, but we were both pretending the other didn't know and it was sort of like a game, a sick, sick game, and then all of a sudden I was alone in a hotel room with him.

Alone. Just me and him. At first I was all… wow, hot. Then he started coming on to me and it was totally over the top and I thought 'What the hell? Are you a total social reject? Do you _not_ know how to make a pass at a girl? You do _**NOT**_ come over and do the creepy stalker vibe. That totally doesn't work. Smelling my hair? Forcing me to drink wine? All this stupid 'we were meant for each other' crap?' So I was totally creeped out and told him to go fuck himself and he was threatening and stuff. Then he threw me through the doors and Peter and bio-dad were there to rescue me so I told them to go kick Sylar's ass and they did.

Afterwards there was a big fire and they burned Sylar to death (I mean, like, they burned his body) and I kept trying to tell people that you know, he survived the first fire when that building burned down on top of him so I think he'll survive this too, but no one would listen to me. Except Peter, but then no one would listen to him either so he shut up. Dad and Angela and bio-dad and all just said this was good enough and that was that. Later I found out why and I was **so** pissed.

I went back to college and a month or two passed, awkward Thanksgiving and then a couple weeks after that I hear there's a funeral for Nathan! And I am totally, totally freaked out! OMG! What the hell happened? _**Nathan's DEAD?**_ And I drop everything and rush up there and all the while I'm also cursing Angela Petrelli for not telling me, or even Peter telling me, because I only found out the day before the funeral and he had to have been dead for days before that and no one told me! The only way I heard was because I was eavesdropping on Dad's phone calls and figured it out.

I get there and Angela's all sad and angry and stuff and Peter acts like someone pulled his plug, all numb and stuff, but when I shake some life into him he tells me that Nathan's not really dead and they're working on it. And I'm like 'Wha?' And he repeats himself. And that's it, really. He says the body isn't really Nathan and they're just having the funeral because Angela said they had to. And otherwise, he's acting really, really weird. No one will tell me what's going on and so I leave before the funeral is even over.

A couple months later - my life is so surreal, really - I get a call out of the blue from NATHAN! And he's alive and in trouble and needs my help. I go meet him, thinking wow, he really is alive and I'll finally find out what's up with him and he's there, but then I think it's Sylar posing as him again. I talk him into letting me go and he does, which Sylar totally wouldn't have done, and he really seems to be having some kind of problem. I know… obviously, I was told he was dead, but Peter said he wasn't and so I think maybe… I don't know. I don't know what I think. But he begs me to help him and he doesn't even threaten to hurt Gretchen and he says he'll just go away if I won't help him and he seems so sad and so I say yes.

Then it turns out to be way, way more than I expected. He's like total torture freak. But when Sylar did the brain thing and he had me in that hotel room, he gloated. Sylar was all fascinated and power-tripping and this guy is just freaked out. He's crying and struggling and it seems to hurt him too and what finally gets him to stop is me telling him that Nathan would _never_ do this and that's when he stops. He doesn't say like 'yeah, you're right' and quit, but it seemed to really hit him hard that he wasn't doing what Nathan would do and he quit. Then Gretch knocked him out. She's like my super-girlfriend and she doesn't even have an ability, but she's cool.

Then dad showed up and said that they'd put all of Nathan's memories into Sylar and made him think he was Nathan. And I thought - Peter thinks this is Nathan too. Or at least, he told me Nathan was still alive. So is this really Nathan? Can you take someone's identity and put them in someone else and have them be that person? It would be like possession, like a ghost, and if anyone needs to be possessed and taken over, it's Sylar. And if that's what happened, then this is Nathan, really Nathan. Dad didn't seem to think that, but I couldn't figure out who to believe, because Peter's always told me the truth and dad's always lied and this guy had acted a lot more like Nathan with a problem than Sylar pretending to be Nathan. Because, you know, I've seen both and I know what I'm talking about here. (If only someone would _**listen**_ to me! God!)

A few days later, Peter wants me to come help him. Nathan, Sylar, whoever this guy is, is now in New York still trying to pretend to be Nathan. And I think to myself, you know, that's kind of sad and pathetic. Because if he's Sylar, then why would he bother? And if he's Nathan, then why's everyone so upset about him? Peter turns his phone on speakers so we can hear him like a super-spy-bug or something like that, then he goes in and talks to his mother and she says that this guy is real confused, but he won't hurt anyone. Then Peter turns his phone off so we can't hear the rest. Which is really suspicious. Then we go do the same thing at Heidi Petrelli's house as Peter talks to her. She says everything's cool, but she really doesn't like Peter.

And that's it. This guy goes on living as Nathan and I go back to college and decide that whatever is going on, I'm not part of it. It's too weird and I have other things going on in my life.

Over a year later, I've started working for the Company (long story, maybe some other time) and Nathan, Sylar, whatever, but he's calling himself Gabriel now, calls me up out of the blue again and says he wants to talk to me. He says he'll bring Peter or my dad, but since my dad is working with him again, I say to bring Peter. Besides, I've found out that Peter is sleeping with Gabriel and that's totally bizarre and makes no sense at all and I want to see what the hell is going on. Peter hardly ever talks with me anymore and he's even kind of reluctant to come to lunch. So I'm not sure if this is Peter having been mind-screwed or if he's just not all that interested in being friends with me anymore.

Because… he's sleeping with Gabriel. Or Sylar, or whatever. And I can't figure that one out. It's like if I slept with Lyle. That's my _**brother**_. You don't do that with your family. What the hell is Peter thinking? Even if it really is Sylar, he's pretending to be Nathan and that's just super-icky. It seriously makes me wonder: does he have some power that makes you think he's awesome-cool and super-sexy? I don't think even telepathy can make you love someone. Or at least, my boss said it couldn't and if anyone would know, he would. I asked him, after all, though I wasn't asking about _Peter_.

So I go out to lunch with them. And I try to get under Gabriel's skin because I'm really kind of pissed at him. He's either my bio-dad and he's ignoring me or else he's Sylar who thought I was all special and stuff and **he's** ignoring me. Either way, I'm being ignored. He acts all cagey and stuff and Peter keeps trying to calm me down, like he's protecting me from upsetting the big, bad Gabriel. Like what would he do? Kill me? Done that. Cut off my head? Done that. (at least, the top) Torture me unspeakably? Done that. Threaten everyone I love? Done that. You know, I could go on. So what's he going to do now? Nothing. And he didn't do anything either. He kind of tried to be nice, but he's screwing Peter and he's getting married to Heidi Petrelli and it's like it's not my business and no big deal.

It's like… I don't know. I don't know what to think. Do I hate this guy who is probably really Sylar and whom my uncle Peter, who used to be the sweetest, nicest guy in the world, is now banging? I… I should. I really should hate him. But I'm not sure anymore. I think maybe actually I do need some therapy, but who would believe me?

As it happens… my uber-creepy boss at the Company (I think it's a requirement that all Company-issued bosses are super-creepy) **is** a psychologist. Maybe I'll talk to him about this.


	108. Winding Down

Peter teleported back to the same secluded spot in the parking lot. Gabriel was waiting for him next to the car, leaning against it and staring off into the distance. All things considered, Peter thought Gabriel had acted great through lunch. He had shown he could rein in his emotions and act civil even when, Peter knew, Claire had been metaphorically twisting a knife in his heart. Peter walked over. "She's on to us."

"Us? You and me? You told her that too?" Gabriel sounded angry. Peter paused and looked at the other man for a beat. No, he wasn't angry - just surprised.

"No, I didn't. She just knows."

"Oh." Gabriel opened the driver's side door but didn't get in yet. He unlocked Peter's side with telekinesis even though it would have been just as easy to press the button manually. "What did we do? Was it the food thing? I suppose that was kind of gay." Despite being open about their relationship while surrounded by strangers, they both had their reasons for keeping it discreet around the people they knew. Mostly this was not being sure how it would be received, though for both of them, the women in their lives were less than thrilled about it.

_I don't think it's the gay part that's bothering her_, Peter thought, shaking his head. "I don't know. Nothing I can think of, but she knows and she's not happy. Maybe Maury told her." He paused on the passenger side, not getting in yet either.

Gabriel wasn't agreeing. Usually he was quick to assume anything harmful from Maury. Instead, he speculated, "Maybe Noah did."

"Noah?" Peter said dubiously. "He knows how to keep a secret, and what would he gain out of it? Maury's done a lot to get to you. That whole mind-control thing is probably more about _you_ than _her_."

Gabriel sighed. "There's worse things Maury could say about me than telling Claire you and I are together."

Peter cocked his head, confused. "Like what?"

Gabriel swallowed and said softly, "Let's go, Peter. You don't know everything about me." He got in the car.

Peter followed, thinking, _And Maury does?_ He didn't ask though. If Gabriel wanted him to know, he'd tell him. Or so he told himself. Peter was glad when Gabriel started talking about how relieved he was to have seen Claire and cleared the air. It got his mind off the desire to insist Gabriel tell him what Maury could say.

They talked about how it had gone. Gabriel considered the matter settled. Peter knew it wasn't as simple as that, but he didn't say anything. Gabriel didn't mention the argument over Peter telling her what had happened recently. Peter said he planned to talk to Claire later and get her impressions more directly. He told Gabriel he'd brought up the public declaration of her as his daughter and agreed to find out if she would accept Nathan's acknowledgement.

Peter grew silent and introspective as they approached his apartment. He'd been holding things in for a while, putting them off. All his issues seemed to be stacking up at once: problems with Emma, capturing his father, his experiences with the specials he'd bagged lately, the chaos that was breaking out from those they hadn't caught yet, Maury was flirting with his mother, Gabriel wasn't Nathan and now Claire was worried on his behalf.

He felt overwhelmed and burned out. The tense, gut-clenching lunch experience hadn't helped. The world, which had once seemed bright to him, seemed dimmer somehow, ever since the eclipse. He knew he ought to throw himself back into the fray, call Clarice and ask for his next assignment, but all he wanted to do at the moment was hide. He wasn't even really supposed to be going back to his apartment, but he hadn't mentioned to Gabriel he'd intended to go back to work. As he stared up at the building, he realized he'd just been on autopilot.

Gabriel reached over and touched his leg when they pulled up outside. "Can I come up?"

Peter looked at him for a moment, assessing not only how he felt physically, but how he felt about Gabriel after his answers to Claire at lunch, especially the ones about his memories and identity. He didn't want to go back to either of his jobs and put on a false face and pretend he was normal. He wasn't normal - not even among those with abilities. He didn't want to pretend to be, and with Gabriel, he didn't have to. He didn't want to be alone and if he was at work, he would be, even if he was surrounded by people. He nodded.

Gabriel pulled around to the parking garage. They went up. Peter unlocked the door and walked in, taking off his coat. He hung it up slowly while Gabriel tossed his on the table. He thought about upbraiding Gabriel for coming into his apartment uninvited that morning, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Gabriel was becoming a fixture in Peter's life, as comfortable with him as Nathan had been. The man walked over to Peter before he could turn from the closet. Gabriel began to rub Peter's shoulders.

"Mm," Peter said, closing the closet door and putting his hands on either side of the doorframe. "That feels nice." He'd known intimacy was what Gabriel was asking for when he asked to come upstairs. If he'd wanted to talk, he wouldn't have allowed the silence in the car. But Peter wanted it. He craved it even. He needed to banish the darkness he felt all around him. He couldn't_** feel**_ other people like he used to and he didn't know why. But he felt Gabriel's hands on him and it moved him. It felt **right**, like hugging Claire had felt right.

Gabriel rubbed up and down Peter's back until he was swaying slightly under his hands, then the taller man leaned in and kissed him on the back of the neck, moving his body next to Peter's. The younger man leaned back against him, sighing. He laid his head to one side so Gabriel could continue his affections in the manner he normally did, kissing and nibbling his neck and the line of his jaw, eventually pulling him around so they faced one another.

It was comfortable, relaxing, and intimate. It let Peter know for sure that Gabriel wasn't still upset at him telling Claire Company secrets. Usually he could tell that sort of thing automatically, but for some reason, not so much anymore. He didn't know the reason was as simple as giving up empathic mimicry in favor of ability draining. It was something Gabriel would have known immediately, intuitively, had Peter even known to speak of it and ask him about it. He was still very good at reading people, but the extraordinary and automatic nature of the ability was gone. It left Peter living in the same fog that everyone else did as they went about their lives, without the crystal clarity of knowing exactly how people felt, how human and fragile they really were.

For now, Peter was happy to play passive to Gabriel. It suited his mood at the moment. His subconscious was still turning over everything that had happened lately and he didn't want to deal with it. Denial had always been one of his strong points - the ability to look rational reality in the face and believe in something different, something better, because the flip side of denial is _faith_. What Gabriel was doing was an excellent distraction.

Gabriel began to unbutton Peter's shirt and told him, "You can tell me to stop if you're not interested. I'll take no for an answer, you know."

Peter smiled. Obviously Gabriel was misreading his lack of active participation. "No, no, please continue. I like this." After a beat he added, "I love you."

"I don't know," Gabriel said, finishing with the buttons and moving his hands back to Peter's shoulders. "You seem a little… off."

"Maybe I am. Don't stop though. I need to hold someone. I need to know you want me." _I need that more than I can say._

"Oh," Gabriel chuckled – a low, throaty sound that gave Peter a shiver. "Have no doubts about that."

Gabriel lipped and nibbled across the side of Peter's neck, kissing him fondly and reaching around to caress his chest lovingly, possessively. Peter reached down to adjust himself. He was swelling. Otherwise he just stood there and let it happen, let himself be lovingly mauled and affectionately aroused. It was wonderful to feel that careful touch and sensual caress across his skin; wonderful to have a lover attentive to his needs and utterly focused on his pleasure.

Gabriel pushed the shirt down Peter's arms to his elbows, where he tangled it and twisted it into one hand, pulling Peter's wrists together. "Huh?" the other man said, seeming to wake up a little at that.

"Shhh," Gabriel whispered in his ear. "Just relax. You can hardly stand, much less resist me." He kissed Peter on the temple, then down to the cheekbone. He could hear his action had woke Peter up, but he was still relaxed. Gabriel kissed his face over and over again, different places, different ways, nuzzling and rubbing him. His partner eventually began to breathe more deeply again, slipping back into lassitude.

Peter said, "If I fall, you'll catch me." He was confident.

"Of course I will," he murmured back to him. Gabriel began to move his body against Peter's, dry humping him. He reached down and raised Peter's t-shirt, releasing his dress shirt and pulling the neck of the t-shirt over Peter's head. He pushed it down his arms and added it as a binding. Peter raised a brow at him, then closed his eyes as if to show how unconcerned he was.

Gabriel walked him into the bedroom and put him on the bed. Peter adjusted his position. It wasn't a lot of fun lying on his back with his arms trapped underneath himself - but it might be, depending on what his lover had planned. Gabriel undressed, watching Peter's muscular chest rise and fall slowly. He took Peter's pants off, leaving them around his ankles. Then he climbed above him, careful not to put any weight on Peter's upper body.

He bent, as if doing a push-up, to lave Peter's chest with his tongue. Peter arched underneath him even though he was nowhere near his nipples yet. He found them soon, evoking another series of groans and appreciative sounds. Gabriel continued until he began to tire. It was at about the same time that Peter started whimpering in pleasure. Peter's cock was almost throbbing, though Gabriel touched it only inadvertently. He rolled Peter on his side and scooted up behind him, bringing the lube to himself. He stroked his hand over Peter's chest for a moment, rubbing the man's nipples and pinching them lightly, being rewarded with a moan and a jerk each time.

He dispensed the lubricant and worked Peter's ass with it, using meticulous care. He leaned him forward, gradually working from pressure to insertion. Peter let him, relaxing as much as he could. He started breathing unevenly as Gabriel ran his fingers in and out, working up from one digit to two, then hooking them downward and finding the prostate.

He listened carefully for the slight change in pitch. He could hear when he had the right spot. He stroked it evenly once he had it, rubbing the delicate, sensitive flesh. For a moment, Gabriel was alarmed as Peter's aura fluctuated and changed, but then Peter hunched forward involuntarily, saying, "Ah, ah… aahh…." His sphincter began to clench and clutch at his fingers as he came. Gabriel smiled and kissed his shoulder, then bit it lightly, making Peter whine. He removed his fingers slowly.

He positioned himself and took hold of Peter's hips, pushing into him by tiny stages. Peter groaned through clenched teeth and moved his legs uneasily. They were still bound by his pants. Gabriel pulled out and applied more lube. This time he slid in more easily and with less indication from Peter that it was uncomfortable. He couldn't be sure, since Peter wasn't talking to him, but it had been tight as well – now, not so much.

He slid in and out, more and more freely. Peter said, "Oh, God," and curled himself forward, taking the thrusts at a different angle. Gabriel moved his free hand from Peter's hip up to his bound hands. He twisted the cloth, pulling his wrists closer together. Peter made a high-pitched sound of supplication.

Gabriel slid out and got up, pulling Peter where his rear end hung off the bed. He positioned himself behind him and rubbed a finger into the man to make sure he was still open enough to enter. He was, so he began shoving into him, using both hands to pull Peter's body back against him. He was all the way inside in three hard thrusts. Peter made strangled noises at the pressure, but he didn't thrash or resist. There was no note of pain or stress in his aura.

Gabriel paused for a moment, then began pushing in and out regularly, working out his rhythm. Peter lay still except for occasional twitches and moans. Gabriel reached out for the bindings around his wrists and pulled them together as he thrust harder into the man. He began panting with arousal more than exertion. The greater energy of his efforts made Peter shift and almost struggle under him. He pulled on his wrists, actually pulling him up off the bed a little, arching him as he pounded into him. He came a few moments later, his cock buried in the other man.

As Gabriel panted, still sunk inside him, Peter begged, "Finish me, please."

"Huh? Oh. Didn't know you'd be ready again." Gabriel released Peter and leaned over him, kissing his back, remaining lodged inside him. He put his weight on one elbow and partly on Peter, pressing him to the bed. With the other, he reached under the man and found his organ. He pulled them back a few inches off the bed, so they rested on it from stomach up, instead of hip-line and up. He stroked Peter's erection while humping into him. Gabriel was softening, but still inside the other man.

The motion and stimulation seemed to be just what was wanted. Peter whined and hunched, finally bucking slightly. He called out when he had his second orgasm, jerking at his bindings. The cloth made the beginnings of a tearing sound and he froze, saying, "Stop, please. No. Stop." His voice shook at the end.

Gabriel released him immediately and slowly disengaged himself. "I'm sorry," he said tentatively.

Peter wrestled a hand out of his shirts without tearing them and rolled over, sitting up. "No, no, it's fine. Just… too much stimulation, that's all. You were great. You did great. That was wonderful. I panicked a little there when I couldn't get loose. Not your fault." Peter was talking too fast. Gabriel gave him a guarded look. Everything he'd said was true, but his emotions were off. They'd been off before they'd started too. Gabriel tilted his head at him, but said nothing. There was obviously something going on with Peter, but he wasn't good enough at reading people to tell.

He sat next to Peter and began to reach out to touch his side, then let his hand fall to the bed. Peter covered it with his own. "It's fine. That was great." He leaned in to kiss Gabriel passionately. He broke it off when Gabriel started to reach around with his other hand. "Don't touch m... my body. Please. Just my face." He went back to the kiss. Gabriel tried to look back and forth between Peter's eyes, but he'd shut them. He put his hand around the back of Peter's head, running his fingers into his hair and cradling it.

When they moved apart a little, Peter said, "Thank you."

Gabriel smiled. "I thought that was my line."

Peter gave him a satisfied smirk and said, "Yeah, it is. But thank you anyway. I needed that."

Gabriel chuckled. "Glad to oblige. Are you feeling all right?" He looked at Peter intently, trying to figure him out.

"Yeah. No. I don't know. I've just been thinking about some things - trying to figure them out."

"What things?"

Peter sighed. He had to stop putting off dealing with one of his issues - possibly the most important of them. He had to understand what had happened to Nathan and who the person was he was with. They were sitting next to one another on the bed. Peter turned, angling his shoulders to face Gabriel, and said, "Sylar."

Peter had not called him that since the change - at least, not to his face. He wasn't really calling him that now. Peter just said the word and watched Gabriel's reaction. The other man froze and tensed, his eyes tightening slightly.

When Gabriel said nothing, Peter said, "He's a part of who you are."

Gabriel nodded fractionally, but again, said nothing.

"What interest did Sylar have in me?" Unless Peter had missed something, he was pretty sure the answer was none.

Gabriel lifted his brows and tilted his head, looking off to the side. "Well… I…" He glanced back at Peter at his choice of pronoun. Peter didn't give any reaction to it. If he wanted answers, he knew he had to listen, as non-judgmentally as he could. Reassured, Gabriel nodded to himself and went on, "I had a lot of interest in you." Peter's face betrayed his surprise and Gabriel said quickly, "No, no. No _sexual_ interest in you. None at all. But in what you could do."

Peter nodded: _Aha_. "My ability."

"Oh yes." Gabriel straightened a bit, relaxing. "Of course at that point in time I believed if I killed you I'd get all your abilities, not just the mimicry. And even if I didn't, the ability to gain other powers without killing…" He shook his head. "I never **wanted** to kill people." It was a lie, but Peter didn't bat an eye. Even so, Gabriel amended, "Well, not most of them." That at least was the truth.

"Go on," Peter said softly.

Gabriel leaned towards him, studying Peter intently. "But even now, even with all the limitations, it's still a fascinating power that you have." He reached out and put a hand on Peter's knee, then slid it up a few inches to his thigh. "You know," Gabriel swallowed, "Peter… I've thought about it… a lot. You'd… you'd survive it." He stared at Peter's forehead for a long moment, mesmerized.

Peter realized what he meant. He'd regenerate, just like Claire had. Gabriel could cut his head open and take his ability and he'd resurrect from the death. That Gabriel had thought this through, had considered how to do it, chilled him. Sylar was still in there, still calculating, still listening to the tick of time and the beat of Peter's pulse and the rhythm of his breathing. Even now he was watching Peter with every shred of his attention, judging his reactions like they were data for a mathematical model. It was inhuman. Peter couldn't take it anymore. He tensed and pulled back.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said quickly, looking down, then to the side - anywhere but at Peter. He rubbed Peter's thigh, stroking it apprehensively. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't… I would never… not if you didn't… I'm… There's something _wrong_ with me!" He moved to get up and Peter reached out to grab him by the arm. Gabriel let Peter pull him back down.

"Stay here," Peter said calmly. Gabriel went back to rubbing Peter's leg, back and forth. Peter glanced down in irritation at the chafing touch, but then thought of how Gabriel wasn't inhuman at all. _He's nervous. He's upset. He's insecure. He revealed something private to me, I didn't take it well and he's scared. Just like anyone else would be if they revealed some dark desire their partner didn't share. He didn't say he'd do it. If I want to know what's going on in his head, I've got to ask and the only way he'll tell me is if I listen, even when it's something I don't want to hear._

Peter caught the restless hand and raised it to his mouth, kissing it. He tried to calm the other man by giving affection at a moment when Gabriel clearly expected reprobation. It worked. Gabriel swallowed and looked down. His breathing slowed. Peter let go of his hand and reached out to stroke the side of Gabriel's face. The other man sighed, shut his eyes and took Peter's hand in his, holding it to his cheek as he rubbed his face against Peter's hand, as if in reverence, or deep gratitude. Peter felt his stomach lurch at the gesture. Butterflies took flight.

"Why do you need me so much?" Peter asked gently.

Gabriel didn't stop moving Peter's hand across his face for a while, scratching him with his bristles. When he was done, he let go and rested his hands on his own knees. He adjusted himself a tiny bit, just enough so he and Peter weren't touching anymore. Peter noticed the slight withdrawal - the raising of defenses. Gabriel looked at him searchingly. "Because of Nathan."

"Because of Nathan?" _And you've been trying so hard for me __**not**__ to see you as Nathan,_ Peter thought._ What does that mean?_

"Yes. I… I need you. Nathan needed you. I don't… I thought at first you knew me - knew who I was, _what_ I was, even when I didn't." He laughed a little. "I thought you had all the answers. But then I realized you didn't. You weren't lying, because you believed it, but you didn't know."

"That's why I'm asking." Peter's voice got thick. He swallowed. "I don't really know you."

Gabriel looked him in the eyes and Peter again had the impression of calculations, measurements and clockwork gears turning. It was something he hadn't noticed - for so long he'd been looking for signs of Nathan that he'd overlooked and ignored the signs of Sylar. "No, you don't." Gabriel reached out and put two fingertips on Peter's knee, slowly rubbing a very small circle. He watched Peter warily.

Peter asked, "Do you _really_ want to be with me, or is that just some leftover programming from what Matt Parkman did to you?"

Gabriel smiled slowly. "Yes." He gave Peter a mischievous look at the double answer.

Peter stared at him and felt his eyes watering. He looked away. Gabriel scooted closer, almost taking Peter in his arms. Serious again, Gabriel told him, "I want to be with you, Peter. I want you to be with **me,** as myself. I want **you** to be with me. I want this life. I want this love." He stroked a hand up Peter's arm. It gave the dark haired man goose-bumps. "I want you to love me, knowing who I am. I'm scared that you don't and when you do, you'll leave - that one of these days I'm going to do something that will wake you up from this dream and it will all be over."

Gabriel didn't have a part of Nathan's soul. He wasn't Nathan sometimes. There wasn't a discrete personality in there other than the man talking to him right now - a man who had pretended to be Nathan so thoroughly that it included Nathan's relationships. Peter didn't know why he hadn't considered it earlier, because the first thing Gabriel had done as Nathan was move in with Heidi. If his wife was first on the list, could his lover and brother be far behind?

The sad part was it didn't mean Gabriel didn't love him. It didn't mean it was all some Machiavellian scheme to get close to him. Peter could hear lies. When Gabriel said 'I love you', it wasn't a lie. When he said he wanted Peter, it was the truth. He'd gone to great effort and risk to make Peter a part of his life. Peter couldn't help but love someone who so sincerely loved him in return.

Peter's eyes filled with tears and he turned his face away from Gabriel, who let him. He put his face in his hands and felt tears begin to well out. Maybe Sylar had been lost too, but Peter didn't give a damn about him, not compared to his brother. _Do I really want the man that's left?_ It was wrenching, but he did. Gabriel loved him even though he was fully aware it was foreign, something that had been done to him. He didn't care. His love was as blind as Peter's.

Peter cried for having lost Nathan, for the mistakes he'd made and for how fucked up things had become. He cried because Gabriel was a good man, somewhere inside, and they'd never succeeded in reaching him while Nathan was alive. They hadn't even tried and Peter had known better - he'd both seen Gabriel in the future and while he was struggling along, being manipulated by Arthur and Angela. For a little while there, when he'd thought he had a family, a real family, Sylar had tried to act right. He'd saved Peter's life twice. Peter had other priorities then and like now, Gabriel had been a stranger to him. If he'd genuinely reached out to Gabriel then, so many things would be different. _And that was my failing._

"Um," Gabriel said. "Um… uh." He put his hand on Peter's back and patted him awkwardly. Peter leaned into him, putting his hands down. He quieted, resting his head on Gabriel's shoulder. His breathing slowed as he thought, _There's no way I can ask him to be anything else, or if he wants to be anything else. He's been asked that. He's always said no, that he's happy like he is. _Peter got up as soon as he was marginally calm and headed to the bathroom. Gabriel trailed along afterwards, concerned but clueless.

Peter turned on the shower to heat up and when he turned around, Gabriel was right there, offering him a wet hand towel from the sink. "What… what did…" Gabriel stammered, "Did I say something wrong?" He kept trying to meet Peter's eyes, dipping his head and looking up at him.

Peter sighed and took the towel. He looked the other man in the eye so he'd quit bobbing his head around like an agitated pigeon. "You didn't say anything wrong." His voice caught a little. He wiped his face. "You're fine."

Gabriel shook his head. "Peter, you don't _have_ to be with me. I'm not going to be… vengeful. I'm not going to track you down and cut open your head if we break up. If I'm not someone you want to-"

Peter laid his fingers on Gabriel's lips for a moment. Gabriel was insecure and his fears were running away with him. Peter tried to reassure him, "You're perfect. This… has been a long time coming. I've..." He looked away, but his eyes caught the mirror. He looked at himself for a long moment – really looked.

He looked harsher than he used to, like the recent events had put years on him instead of months. He'd developed a few lines at the corners of his eyes and the creases around his mouth had deepened. There was a short line between his brows that hadn't been there before. He couldn't carry it all himself and he knew it. He looked back at Gabriel. "I don't have all the answers. I never did. I told myself I did. I was wrong. I didn't do everything right and he's dead because of me." Peter's voice broke at the end.

He turned to the other man and hugged him. He let the tears out. When Gabriel felt Peter's chest constricting in sobs again, he tensed and shifted. "Hold me, just hold me," Peter told him and went on with it. He felt safe with Gabriel, regardless of who he used to be. Gabriel held him, kissing him lightly on the side of the head every now and then, sometimes giving him short caresses or an awkward pat.

After a few moments, the shower turned off by itself and Gabriel wrapped his arms securely around Peter, holding him to himself. A few seconds after that, Peter realized they were next to his bed and the covers were pulling themselves back. He looked around, alarmed. He blinked away tears and said, "You used… telekinesis... on me." It had been one of the rules of their relationship that Gabriel wouldn't use that particular ability on him without asking permission. On the other hand, only a few weeks ago Peter had revoked all the 'rules', trusting Gabriel's judgment.

Gabriel said, "No." Peter looked at him sharply. It wasn't a lie. The other man went on, "We flew. Very slowly." Gently he added, "Now get in bed. You worked all day yesterday, all night last night, and I don't know what you did this morning, but you're wrung out and on the edge of hysteria. Lay down. Get some rest."

"I got some rest this morning," Peter said stubbornly. He sat on the bed anyway.

"It couldn't have been more than an hour."

"How would you know?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Because I know **you!** Pete, I practically raised you. How many secrets do you think you have from me, anyway? Quit being silly." He sounded dead-on like Nathan. In fact, Peter was pretty sure Nathan had said that exact line to him at some point. After a beat Gabriel seemed to realize his identity had slipped and he amended, "Okay, I have the _memories_ of someone who raised you." Peter glowered at him regardless, even if he was warmed by Gabriel's slip.

Gabriel explained, "You get off work at 8 and that can be up to two hours late. After that you change and grab breakfast. I talked to you at 9:07. I called you again at 10:34. Assuming you got off on time, didn't eat, teleported to get anywhere, and went straight to bed, then yeah, I suppose you could have gotten _maybe_ an hour of sleep. But I'd like to point out you weren't in your apartment when I showed up, indicating pretty strongly you were out somewhere else, doing something other than sleeping, at least part of the time. You sounded like you'd just woke up when I called, I'll grant you that."

"You know my schedule that well? What - are you spying on me?" _**That**_ was something Nathan would have never done. Frankly, he wouldn't have cared or noticed. He just wasn't that obsessed with Peter's life.

"Yes, Peter. I have you spied on, just like I do for everyone else I care about. It's standard." Peter blinked at him, unsure of whether he should be offended or just take it as par for the course. Gabriel went on, "Remember mom had cameras and alarms in my apartment? Same thing."

"You have cameras… here?" Peter looked around haltingly.

"No, of course not! I wouldn't do that without asking you. And besides, I don't want what we do on film. But your work schedule is pretty public. Or do you disagree?"

Peter huffed. Gabriel was right. And if he were really spying on him closely, then he'd have known he was at Emma's. It wouldn't be that hard, Peter knew, to track his cell phone. The Company did that whenever they had problems finding an agent. Gabriel knew about Emma. Peter just didn't rub his nose in it.

"I could…" He had promised to go back to the hospital at four, which meant he didn't really have time for a mission for the Company, but he still had a few hours. He tried to think of what he could do with that time that would be useful. He'd planned on getting so much done, but the time had just gotten away from him.

"You could scoot over and lay down with me." Gabriel pushed him down and Peter let him, thinking _Yeah, it probably is the best use of my time_. He scooted over and Gabriel climbed in next to him.

After getting the sheets and blankets settled, Peter said, "You know, other than that time on the couch, we've never slept together."

"Yeah," Gabriel said, trying to work out how to get his arm behind Peter's neck without it being uncomfortable for either of them. After getting a pillow involved, he figured it out and pulled Peter close. "You said you didn't trust me." Peter felt a pang of regret for having said that, but it was true. "I don't think you want to have your defenses down around me." Gabriel's expression darkened for a moment as he considered what that meant. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," Peter said immediately. Not that he really could let Gabriel leave on a note like that. "Wake me up at three." He could rely on Gabriel's perfect time sense. It was better than an alarm clock.

Gabriel made a disapproving sound, but stopped when Peter snuggled against him. He tightened his arm reflexively and Peter fell asleep almost instantly. It was the last natural sleep he would get for the next six days.


	109. Abbas On The Phone

**A/N: March 8, 2011. Tuesday, the morning after the chapter Winding Down.**

Just seconds after 8 am, the phone rang. Gabriel started to pick it up automatically, but hesitated. The caller ID showed 'unknown international call.' He paid enough for that thing that it ought to show him the maiden name and social security number of anyone who called. He pursed his lips and shifted into Nathan. If it was Company business, they would have called his cell. His home line was only used for Nathan's interests… but he couldn't think of any of those who would be calling him internationally. It could be Halo, he thought.

"Hello? Nathan Petrelli speaking."

"Hi there, Nathan! This is Abbas! Remember me?"

So – Halo it was. "Of course. How are things?"

"Busy, busy, busy! I was wondering; there was a friend of yours over here last week, your brother." Gabriel sat down slowly, paying careful attention as Abbas continued, "I need to talk to him. He left with your father, Arthur."

"Oh?"

"Yes, he did." There was a slight pause. "Did you know that?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Abbas let a long silence stretch into the conversation while Gabriel thought about things. Specifically he was going over what 'Nathan' knew from his trip to Riyadh a month ago and what 'Gabriel' was supposed to know from when Peter used that face to abduct his father right in front of Halo. But the real question was which person Abbas thought was Nathan's brother: Peter, or Gabriel. If Peter had followed the plan, then they would have only seen Gabriel's face.

Finally Gabriel said, "My brother's been staying here with us while he sorts out some business. I could go get him now."

"Sure. I don't mean Peter though. I mean that other fellow. Maybe a half brother, because I didn't really see the resemblance. He's taller, heavy eyebrows, short hair, clean-shaven."

_That answers that. So he's been researching my family and knows I don't have a brother who matches Gabriel's appearance. Hm._ "I know who you're talking about. He's the one. Hang on and I'll get him." He set the phone down and pushed the mute button. He shifted into Gabriel and after what he thought was a suitable pause, picked the phone back up and turned off the mute. "Hello?"

"Hi there! This is Abbas Hasan. I was in Riyadh last week when you were there, during the eclipse. I was on the roof…"

"Yeah? I remember there were people there," he answered vaguely. He hoped he wouldn't have to give details, because he didn't have them.

"Good. I need to know what you've done with Arthur. Where's your father?" There was a slight edge to the Arab's voice, the hint of a threat that hadn't been there when he'd thought he was talking to Nathan.

"He's doing fine, thanks for asking."

There was a long pause as Abbas digested the non-answer. What Gabriel had meant to convey was 'Yes, we have him; no, we haven't killed him; and he's still being held against his will.' Abbas was very perceptive. He got the message. "Okay. That's good to hear, thank you." His voice was softer, more polite and infinitely more careful. Gone was the carefree, 'we're really good friends' pattern of talking to Nathan, as was the harder tone he'd used to ask where Arthur was. "Is there any way I can arrange communication with him?"

"Not at this time, no. At least, not directly. Are you willing to leave a message with me that I might relay on to him?" Not that he would – just that he might.

"No, I'm not. You say he's alive?"

"Yes. And in good health. I'm told we have one of your people to thank for that."

"That's true. Is… Nathan apprised of this situation?"

"Yes." Gabriel smiled inside at the thought that Abbas might try to play Nathan off Gabriel. Now _that_ was comedy.

"Okay. Can I talk to him? I know him a bit better."

Gabriel hit mute and shifted again, getting the grin out of his system. He massaged his face. He needed to play this straight. For the moment, it was a necessary charade. He picked up the phone as Petrelli. "Nathan here."

"Hey, Nathan," Abbas appealed to him, "your friend there has abducted a very important member of our group and we really need to get in touch with him. Is there any way you can set something up for me?" Abbas' voice had shifted again, becoming warmer and less distant.

"Set something up for _you_, or for _Halo_?"

"Let's start with me."

"Sure, I can have you brought over here to see him. You won't be a free agent afterwards though, if you know what I mean." If they didn't subvert him, they would at least detain him while they took care of all the urgent issues.

"I… think I do. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm not trying to collect on that offer you made me. We just need to talk to Arthur about business arrangements. Would it be possible to set up a meeting between our leadership and yours?"

"You know, that's an interesting idea, something we've been kicking around already for pretty obvious reasons. I'll talk to our people here today and get back in touch with you on what we can do. Would that be okay?"

Abbas sighed. "Yes. I think so. Can you tell me what's going on over there? I know it's family… but this is seriously impacting our business and that impacts _**my**_ family."

"My father parted ways with the rest of the family some time ago." He wasn't sure why he was telling the man this, but it seemed like something Nathan would disclose. "I told you he was endangering everyone with this eclipse business. We couldn't let him carry on with his plans."

"I can't imagine how you're preventing him."

"Let's just say that power like his runs in the family."

"Yes. We had a demonstration of that from your brother and Mohinder said as much about yourself. I think you know how easily something like this can spiral out of hand. People could get hurt. I don't want that. We need to get this settled soon."

"I understand. It would help me if I knew what sort of work my father was doing for you."

"Couldn't you ask him yourself?"

"I could and I will. If you've met him though, then I think you understand why I'm asking _you_."

Abbas gave a humorless laugh. "Yes, I do. He was a consultant for our Research and Development, working in concert with Mohinder Suresh, the man you came here to meet."

"Right. You implied, at the time, that you weren't much of a fan of Mohinder's work. You also said, at that point, that you hadn't met Arthur."

Abbas' voice sounded a little stiff. "He has become substantially more active in the last month. As well, I have become more involved."

Gabriel mulled that over, thinking about what he wanted to convey. He wanted to send a message to a man he hardly knew, a message that no one else would understand. "We had other discussions, in front of the fountain." He let a long pause creep in. "Do you still feel that way?" The discussion they'd had was Abbas expressing his desire for someone to free Halo from the influence Arthur was exerting over them. But now that Gabriel thought about it, Abbas had never confirmed that it was truly Arthur that needed to be removed. Abbas hadn't even known Arthur. He'd just said that there was an outsider who had taken over Halo and was calling the shots, to the detriment of Halo's original mission.

Abbas spoke carefully, "It appears to me that what has happened has only made the situation worse. His agency is operating independently at the moment – a condition that can not be allowed to continue. We need Arthur to address this."

Gabriel was silent for a while and Abbas tolerated it, letting him think. What he'd said confirmed what Gabriel and Peter suspected – Arthur had not been the only one out there. "Who's running his agency?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Nathan, this is an internal matter. Arthur had arrangements we are only now beginning to understand the extent of. We need him to manage these arrangements. There is nothing else I can discuss with you except that."

_Meaning, he might like to discuss it, but he can't. Maybe it's not allowed. Maybe he just can't do it. _ "Of course. You'll hear from me by tomorrow at the latest."

"Thank you. Time is very important. Please keep that in mind."

"Got it. Good-bye." Gabriel hung up.


	110. Gabriel vs Maury

**A/N: March 8, 2011, Tuesday. Approximately 10 am.**

After the phone call, Gabriel took down a few notes about it, then put his feet up on his desk and leaned back, thinking about his priorities. The subtext of the whole conversation was for the Company to release Arthur or else Halo would take reprisals. There'd been nothing said of financial maneuvers or corporate consequences. Abbas had mentioned people getting hurt; he'd said that whatever pressures Halo was under could not be allowed to continue. He'd closed off the option of further negotiation and mentioned time pressures.

Something was happening over there. Gabriel had assumed, given his previous conversation with Abbas, that when Arthur was removed, Halo's leadership would begin operating normally and business would continue as usual. Instead, Abbas said things had become worse, as if Arthur had been a voice of reason or a buffer against… what? He sighed and rubbed his forehead. _What would I be like after… what would Sylar have been like without Peter, after forty years of gathering abilities? That's Arthur. Now what situation would make _him_ a voice of reason?_

_There's still his wife. I could ask her. Do I think she'd know? _ He rubbed his forehead again. _She… had a role in engineering the first eclipse. She arranged for Peter to destroy most of New York. She said she was Sylar's mother. She let him kill Nathan. She brought Matt…_ He shifted uncomfortably, putting his feet on the floor. Even thinking about what Matt Parkman had done to him made him tense and defensive. _I don't really think I can talk to her._

_Then there's Maury_. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. _ I really work with a bunch of vipers. Thank God for Peter and Heidi. Maury. And what he did to Claire. I've got to do something about that. Halo is secondary._ He set about working out a plan.

It was a small matter to lure Maury Parkman to the Philadelphia containment facility. Gabriel was going there anyway for body disposal, so his presence was not out of place. His request to Maury stroked the man's ego, asking for him to do something Gabriel hadn't figured out how to do – turning an individual's mind in a total fashion, altering their loyalties and making them trust you. It was several steps beyond simple commands, even past linking commands to the target's motivations and personality traits. For most telepaths, it was impossible. The Company records showed that Maury had managed it more than once. Lessons were in order - they just hadn't gotten around to them yet.

So it was that Maury showed up on time as directed. Gabriel was waiting in one of the level 1 rooms with the door propped open, working on his laptop. Level 1 rooms were wired for electricity and in most cases had desks, chairs, carpet and comfort. They were something like hotel rooms. You could even lock the doors from the inside, should you wish. They never put "prisoners" in such rooms. Instead they were used by traveling agents or specials that were highly cooperative and not under any movement restrictions.

After Maury passed, Gabriel shut his computer screen and hurried after him, calling out, "Maury! Wait up."

"Ah. There you are. Level 4, is it?"

"Yes."

"Down there with Arthur then?"

"Yes, but he's at the end of the hall. It's Susan Greer. She can crush things, but it's a hand motion so we've countered that." Gabriel was fairly sure Maury wasn't aware that Susan had been terminated. If he was, then Gabriel would initiate the confrontation here and dispense with the subterfuge. The taller man also had no idea how she used her ability, but it was Peter who could detect lies, not Maury.

The older man nodded and started for the stair access, showing no suspicion. He'd been the one to hand off Susan's file to Peter a couple days before, but that was the end of his involvement with it. He assumed she'd been brought in successfully.

Maury began talking to him about the purported reason for his visit. "Now you've got to know this isn't a quick process. It's not sure and it doesn't make them work right." He badged them both into the stairwell and they started down. "If they're a loose cannon, they'll still be a loose cannon after, just one that tends to do what you tell them. Doesn't mean they'll do what you **want**, they're not any smarter, don't make wise decisions and all that. Telepathy doesn't give you good emotional control, so if you mistreat them, they might be obedient but they'll still hate you and that can really fuck you up if you aren't careful."

"Uh-huh."

Maury glanced back at Gabriel. "Yeah? I saw this woman's file. She didn't look like good material to me."

"I didn't see her file. Tell me about her." Gabriel kept Maury talking as they continued down, past level 2 and approaching 3.

"Middle-aged, single divorcee, middle-income. Looked awful hair trigger - no one in her life. I never trust them when they don't have anyone in their life. It's like if they can't get anyone to put up with them, then why should I?" Maury was being chatty and agreeable, almost oddly so. Gabriel let him talk. "She smashed a couple people just to do it, far as I can tell. Flat as pancakes on the pavement."

They passed level 3 and headed to 4. Maury kept talking. "Right in front of witnesses, so no forethought. Did her son and daughter-in-law, or maybe it was son-in-law and daughter, I don't remember. Crushed their car, but didn't kill them. Not sure why she held back, because she killed a cop later in his car so it's not like the car was in the way. Killed a different cop for trying to arrest her."

The older man opened the door for level 4 and waited for Gabriel to go ahead of him. "You know, telekinesis is one of the most common abilities and she doesn't seem to have any fine manipulation or flexibility like you have. Are you sure we need this woman? What use do we have for someone who crushes things indiscriminately?"

Gabriel said, "Not much, but I need someone to practice on." He waved down the hall at Noah, who looked out to see who was visiting. Noah knew Arthur's cell was the only one occupied. He assumed they were here to see his charge and was confused when Gabriel waved at the first cell to the right. "She's in there. It's ready for us." The blast shield was shut so Maury couldn't see inside, but that wasn't unusual. Gabriel triggered the button for the door with telekinesis and opened it, holding it for Maury to go in first.

Maury nodded and walked in. He glanced around the room, puzzled it was empty, but before he could react he was picked up and thrown bodily against the right wall. He managed a startled yell before slamming against it and blacking out briefly. Gabriel reached out with his ability and triggered the speaker for high-frequency distortion noise. He winced at the sound, even though he'd been prepared for it. He let the door shut behind him.

As the other man blinked back to consciousness, he tried to raise his right hand several times, blearily unaware of why it wasn't working. The third time he tried, his arm finally moved at his command as Gabriel released that part of his body. He reached up and his hand hesitated at his ear, then went to the back of his head. He brought his hand forward to see the blood there. He looked at Gabriel as his head cleared, calculating. "What do you want?"

The blast shield rolled up. Noah stood in the observation area, looking between the two of them. He'd heard the yell; he'd heard the sound. Both men turned to look at him, then back to each other. It wasn't Noah's place to interfere and he almost certainly wouldn't. They both knew it.

Gabriel said, "You're going to reverse whatever you did to Claire."

"Oh?"

The taller man flexed his hand and shoved the breath out of Maury. He might have even cracked ribs. "**Yes**. You have _no right_ to take agents as your own." _Especially not Claire._

When Maury got his breath back, he shook his head. "Neither do you, asshole."

"What are you talking about?"

Maury looked over at Noah. "I've got my Bennet; you've got yours. You let him go and I'll let her go." He noticed Noah didn't look happy about the proposal. Apparently he actually liked his current master, which was surprising given how Noah had felt about being controlled in the past. The older man turned back to Gabriel. "Deal?"

Gabriel stared at Noah, who stared back at him. He looked slowly back at Maury. "Why do you think I have him?"

"Oh come on. I'm not an idiot." The question made Maury think though. It was possible he _didn't_ have him… that no one had Noah. That fit. It fit with Gabriel's phobia of mind control and his demand that Claire be let go entirely.

Gabriel let him slip down where Maury's feet were on the floor. "Fine, I'll let him go. You reverse what you did to Claire."

"You first. Here. Now. I double check and I'll check again whenever I want." Maury thought that would eliminate the uncertainty.

Gabriel didn't release him further. Maury shrugged against the unseen force and looked from it up to Gabriel. "So. That's how it is, huh?" He knew what was going on now. Having a director unraveling commands on the agents was worse than having one controlling them exclusively, though he doubted Gabriel saw it that way.

Gabriel nodded slowly, but he didn't realize what Maury had put together. "You're going to release her, no strings attached, no conditions, or I'm going to kill you."

"Oh?" Maury smirked. He glanced over to make sure Noah was paying attention, which he was. Obviously he had toggled the audio switch almost immediately and was listening. Maury swung back to Gabriel. "Aren't you going to fuck me first before you skin me, like you've done with your last victims?"

Gabriel stared at him blankly for a moment, trying to think of why the man would say that. When he figured it out, he gritted his teeth and jerked Maury away from the wall enough to slam him back into it with force. His head bounced and Gabriel let him fall to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He crumpled over and lay limply. "God damn you," the taller man whispered. Killing him would allow him to free Claire without interference, but Maury's words had given him a different problem. He'd cost him Noah.

Noah opened the door and looked at Gabriel with an expression that confirmed Maury had accomplished his goal. Over a year before, Gabriel had used Samson Grey's version of Intuitive Aptitude on Claire. It meant he'd skinned her, but he hadn't done a thing sexual to her. However, there was no way to prove it and all Maury had to do to stir Noah's protective, vengeful instincts was to plant the seed of doubt.

"God damn him!" Gabriel swore more loudly and turned away. He snapped off the irritating noise that blocked telepathy.

Noah propped the door and edged across the room to Maury. He knelt and checked for a pulse. "He's still alive," he said in a flat tone.

Gabriel didn't bother to look. He could hear it in Maury's song as the music went slightly off-key. He could see it in his mind as Maury had a flaw in him now that was getting bigger as the seconds passed – a flywheel slowly warping out of true. "He won't be for long. He's bleeding inside the brain. The swelling will kill him in a little bit." He shook his head, growling out again, "God damn him."

Noah asked, "What did you do to Claire?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I didn't **fuck** her. You know what I did."

"Who the hell was he talking about then?" Noah stood up and took a threatening step towards Gabriel. He didn't believe him.

"Peter!" Gabriel glared at him menacingly, daring him to say something about it. It was only half true. He and Peter had had sex and he'd nearly succumbed to the Hunger and killed him, but he'd managed to control himself by the skin of his teeth. Gabriel was more upset that at some point Peter had told him no and tried to get him to stop, perhaps seeing where things were going, and he _hadn't_. That Noah knew about that incident only made him more likely to believe Maury's insinuation.

Noah was not intimidated. His emotions were running nearly as high as Gabriel's – attacks on Claire tended to do that to him and Maury had known exactly what buttons to push. "Was that before or after you _raped_ him?"

"_**Shut up!**_" he commanded. He used telekinesis to shove Noah back into the corner. The man moved his mouth numbly in shock. Gabriel realized belatedly he'd put too much emphasis into the mental command. Noah looked stunned. "God damn him," he added more quietly, looking over at Maury.

There was one obvious way out of this – all the other ways he could think of were complicated, requiring apologies, the rebuilding of trust and the very real possibility that he simply wouldn't be trusted again by those he loved if he killed Maury under these circumstances. He couldn't live with that, with the risk that he might lose everything. This wasn't like with Matt, where he had the excuse of an unforgivable assault against himself, coupled with immediate provocation and threat from Matt, no witnesses who would speak against him and instructions on how to get his crime past lie detection. No, this one wasn't as simple.

Gabriel paced the room, trying to find an alternative to letting Maury live. Noah stayed where he'd been put, watching the pacing man with a grim countenance. If he was intimidated by Gabriel's obviously murderous anger, he didn't show it.

Gabriel came to a decision and turned to Maury, using telekinesis to lift his upper body against the wall, making it look like he was sitting up against it. He walked over to him and squatted, using his right to direct the gross force holding him and raising his left to do something more detailed. Noah walked to him suddenly and reached across him to grab his left hand. He looked at Gabriel silently and shook his head. Even as angry as he was, Noah still raised his brows a little in pleading. It looked like Gabriel was about to cut Maury's head open and take his ability. He knew, as well as Gabriel did, the cost of going down this road.

Gabriel shut his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Then he took another and a third. Noah's hand still held his wrist. He opened his eyes and tugged his hand away from him. Noah let him. He knew he couldn't stop him. Gabriel was calmed that Noah still thought enough of him to try, to ask him to think twice about what he thought he was about to do.

"I'm not… _going to_," he told the agent. "Now stay back and don't interfere." He turned his left hand towards Noah and flicked his fingers slowly, pushing him back into the corner. He looked at Noah evenly for a moment. After meeting his eyes for a long moment, Noah looked down. Gabriel nodded and turned back to Maury.

He felt inside the man's head, concentrating. He'd done something like this a long time ago, fixing an aneurism for a waitress in Texas. He found one of the ruptured blood vessels and applied a tiny bit of pressure, enough to seal it shut. He kept looking for the next source of leaking blood and clamped it as well. He found seven in all and fixed each closed.

Maury was still out of tune. He carefully rotated Maury's head using a motion of his right index finger, keeping his left in sync with the movement. He brought his right hand around towards the rear of the old man's head and picked a spot. There was a short, grinding sound and then silence except for Noah shifting uneasily. Blood and cerebrospinal fluid flowed down Maury's back more copiously. Gabriel tilted his head and waited until the compression seemed right, then he sealed the hole.

The old man moved slightly, waking up shortly after the pressure on his brain was relieved. Gabriel frowned. Maury moved his head a little. Gabriel tightened his grip with his right hand. "Don't move."

Maury said calmly, very calmly under the circumstances, "What are you doing to me?"

"I'm trying to fix you. Moving would be bad for that."

"It hurts." Maury held very still.

Gabriel thought the man was cooperative at the oddest times. If Gabriel himself had woke up after a murder attempt to find his would-be killer fiddling with his head, he'd have struggled as hard as he could, no matter what the man said. If it was hurting worse, though, then he'd missed something. "Show me. Open your mind."

"The hell I will!"

And… he was uncooperative at weird moments too. Gabriel sighed heavily. "If I wanted you dead, you would be by now."

"Yeah, I know. It doesn't hurt _that_ much. I'm just letting you know it hurts _some_. Do you know what you're doing?" None of the healing powers Maury was familiar with _hurt_, and he was familiar with a lot.

"Not really. I'm waiting for everything to clot."

They waited in silence for a while. Gabriel was surprised Maury didn't have anything else to say, but maybe he just didn't want to jinx it. Finally the taller man said, "I think that's enough. Let me know if it starts hurting again. Or worse." He released one pressure point after another, waiting patiently between them to see if anything changed. The last thing he let go was Maury's head itself. The man sagged and then gathered himself, shooting Gabriel an undecipherable look. He stood up, then went to his knees next to the drain in the floor and vomited.

Gabriel stood and moved away from him. Maury wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and got back on his feet unsteadily. The two stood looking at each other tensely for a moment. Maury looked down first, staggering around to the opposite side of the platform and putting it between them. He rubbed the back of his neck. His hand came away sticky with blood. He gave his hand a distressed look.

Gabriel turned to Noah focused his will on undoing his previous command. He couldn't do anything to soften the blow he'd given him, but Noah seemed to have recovered from it. He turned to Maury and said, "I need you to tell him that you weren't talking about Claire earlier."

Maury looked between the two men and pulled out a handkerchief to clean the back of his hand with. "You and I need to have a talk first."

Gabriel squared off towards him. Maury bowed his head and wouldn't look at him, giving him no signs of resistance or fight. He spoke in a low tone without any of his usual sarcasm. "You've said what _you_ need. _I_ need to know I'm going to survive giving it to you."

"You will."

"Unlike you, I can't hear if you're lying." Maury shook his head slightly. "We need to talk about it." He kept his eyes down.

Noah exhaled. He couldn't believe either of them. He understood now that Maury might have said it just to provoke him, just as Gabriel might have denied it just to protect himself. Neither of them was above lying and Noah and Claire were being used as pawns in a game between them. Noah said, "Gabriel, it doesn't matter what he says."

Gabriel looked back at him out of the corner of his eye. "You believe me?" He sounded surprised.

"No, but neither do I believe him. I'm certainly not going to believe you after you two talk and get your story straight." He looked away and then walked out of the room, going down the hall to his usual workstation.

Maury smiled slightly. "Smart man."

"I should kill you, or at least cut something off." Gabriel's voice was thick with anger.

Maury held up his empty hands placatingly.

"Would you cut that out?"

"What?"

"The submissive routine. You're not, so just stop it."

Maury spoke slowly. "Yeah… but it works on you, Gabriel. You won't attack me if I don't threaten you. I happen to like all my parts attached."

"You're a threat just as you are."

Maury sighed. "I'm going to go out to the break room and clean up, okay?" He didn't sound confrontational. He sounded beaten.

Gabriel rolled his eyes and walked out. What was frustrating was his realization that Maury was right. As long as the old man kept his head down, his eyes lowered and his manner respectful, he would have a hell of a time working himself up to hurting him. It didn't mean Maury would give him what he wanted, but at least he was being careful not to piss him off anymore. He guessed he'd scared the crap out of him, which was a nice thought.

Gabriel threw his long frame into one of the flimsy plastic chairs at the break room table. It threatened to break, but only threatened. Maury smirked at him, disappointed it hadn't dumped the other man on his ass. He pulled out the medical kit and put it on the table. He left it there though and walked to the sink, wetting some paper towels and wiping at the back of his neck.

"I still don't see why I don't just kill you," Gabriel said sullenly. He knew why. He was just sulking that he still had to put up with Maury.

"Because it's not worth it," Maury answered, trading for another paper towel. He avoided his head for now, just working on his neck. The paper towels weren't sanitary enough for him to want to touch them to whatever injury he had back there. His head was still ringing, but he needed to focus on the conversation. Gabriel might still change his mind. "If it was worth it, I'd be dead."

"Things are ruined with Noah anyway. I'm not losing anything by offing you."

"You think so? You'd lose Peter and Angela in your life. You'd lose your wife and access to your kids. You'd lose any chance you have of making nice with Claire. I thought you wanted all that stuff." He took his shirt off.

Gabriel shrugged like it didn't matter, although he was irritated that Maury had reached the same conclusions Gabriel had about the consequences of his actions. "How am I losing any of that by killing you?"

"Gabriel, I've known you were going to kill me or Matt since last July. You think I haven't put things in place to get revenge if I go?" He traded for another paper towel and twisted his arm around to wipe the blood trail that ran down the small of his back.

"Ha. If you had things in place, you'd have used them when I killed Matt."

"First, that was Matt, not me. And second, that guy down the hall would have killed me in less than two seconds if I'd seriously inconvenienced you." He meant Arthur. "Guess what? That's not the case anymore, buddy boy." He presented his back to Gabriel. "Hey, could you get that part in the middle? I can't reach it."

"Go fuck yourself."

"That's not very nice," Maury told him, stepping away and cleaning himself up as much as he could.

"You mind-fucked my daughter!"

Maury spun around and glared at him. "I did _**not**__!_" He looked outraged and for a moment, forgot that he was trying not to provoke the younger man.

"The fuck you didn't!" Gabriel rose to his full height, teeth bared.

Maury lowered his eyes quickly and tried to act inoffensive. It was tough to do while he was pissed, but even being shoved around in his current condition might be fatal. One good shake could break a clot loose. "Okay… I… I know what you mean and yeah, yeah, I did that. It wasn't what I thought you meant."

"What did you think I meant?" Gabriel tilted his head at him. His face was hard, but he'd unclenched his teeth.

The old man shuffled over to the sink, glancing back cautiously at the taller man. "You're really a prude with your ability, you know that?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes again and sat down with more restraint than before. He didn't say anything. He had no idea what Maury thought he was saying he'd done to Claire.

Maury said, "I didn't do that to her. I wouldn't do that to Angela's granddaughter. That'd be stupid. I mean, I turned her, yeah, gave her a few commands, but nothing serious. Nothing I can't get out easy without hurting her."

Gabriel said, "I don't believe you about having some revenge-after-death plan. I just don't believe you." He looked away while Maury stuck his hand down the back of his pants to wipe off what blood had made it down that far. It was bad enough seeing the man shirtless and having to look at his wrinkled, sagging, hairy old body. He supposed he should be glad he hadn't dropped his trousers. He'd noticed there wasn't a scar or mark on Maury. Repeated healing and regeneration had fixed everything but the ravages of age.

"Fine, don't believe me," Maury told him. "But think about this: Angela and I both know you didn't kill Matt accidentally. That was on purpose. It was **murder**. Matt told me; she dreamed it. All this bullshit about it not being your fault, Arthur controlled you, he made you do it - _**bullshit!**_" Gabriel winced. "She knows it; I know it. Now just you think about what she's going to think if you kill me too. Do you really think you'll still be her favorite? I've no doubt she'll be all chummy to your face because she'll never know if you might off her if she isn't. Is that the kind of relationship you want? Do you think you'll get a free pass if I disappear? Do you think Peter might finally notice your hands aren't as clean as he's convinced himself they are?"

Gabriel turned away in pain at the very thought. **This** was why he didn't think Maury had told Claire that he and Peter were together. If Maury wanted to screw up Gabriel's life, the secret he'd be telling people was that Gabriel had murdered Matt Parkman deliberately and intentionally. Maury was obviously well aware of it. And… he had said nothing. He hadn't even tried to blackmail Gabriel and he wasn't trying to do that now. It was just a mystery.

Maury went on relentlessly. "I know what's important to you, Gabriel. You can hear if I'm lying. I'm not lying when I say I have messages poised to be sent to your people if I'm killed - messages that will ruin everything that matters to you. I wasn't real specific about _how_ I died, either, so you can't make it look like an accident and get by with it."

Maury was standing in front of Gabriel, hands on his hips, staring down at him. He'd slowly grown bolder as he'd ranted, watching as Gabriel drew more and more into himself. "Now… do we understand each other, Mr. Grey?"

Gabriel sighed and tried to meet Maury's eyes. He couldn't do it for more than a few seconds. He didn't understand why Maury hadn't _already _ruined his life. It didn't make sense. He'd killed the man's son and Maury wasn't the forgiving type.

Maury dropped his hands off his hips and sat down in the other chair, leaning forward and punctuating his sentences by pointing at him. "_That's_ why it's not worth it. It's too hard to hide. You'll confirm everything I implied to Noah and worse." Gabriel glanced over at him cautiously. The old man smirked. "I know you don't have him. You must have let him out of the oath, is that it?" Gabriel looked away, trying to feign disinterest. "Yeah, that's what I figured, just took me a little bit to work it out."

Gabriel looked heavenward, wondering how in hell Maury could read his mind without using an ability. It was truly annoying. "Fine. All right. I won't kill you."

Maury stood up and walked back to the sink. "Oh, I figured that out a long time back, buddy boy, pretty much the second I woke up. Everything else is just a pair of silverback gorillas running back and forth through the jungle, flinging sticks and branches and dirt clods in the air, trying to impress each other." He started running cold water over his shirt and scrubbing at the back of it. "You think you could maybe use TK to get that spot on my back? You know, if you're homophobic and don't want to actually touch another man."

"You think **I'm** homophobic?" _I let Peter Petrelli screw me, for crying out loud!_

Maury laughed. "I know you are. But…" He looked back at Gabriel and cocked his head slightly, an odd, almost vulnerable expression on his face as his voice became weaker. "I'm an old man. I'm too stiff to reach that and I don't want to take a shower here. Would you _please_ clean off that spot? It'll only take a moment. It's no different than all that medical stuff Peter does. I won't tell anyone you helped me." He turned away and put a damp paper towel next to himself on the counter. He wrung out his shirt and hung it over the sink so it would drip dry.

Gabriel looked at the paper towel and he looked at the bloody smudge on Maury's back. A few drops had run down from his earlier wiping near his neck and trailed some of the blood further down. He tried to look away. He tried not to think about how he'd been the one to slam the other man against the wall, an old man who was physically inferior to him. There'd been no reason to use that much force. He tried not to think about how he'd nearly killed him. He didn't succeed. "You manipulative bastard." He used his ability to pick up the towel and clean him off.

He didn't see the grin that split Maury's face, but he suspected it was there. Maury had pressed one button after another: I'm old, weak, helpless; pleading and begging; it would be easy to help; you look up to Peter and Peter helps people – don't you want to be like Peter?; but I won't embarrass you by telling anyone. Gabriel knew it, but it was impossible not to respond. Maury confirmed the manipulation after he was done by reaching back and touching his shoulder, saying, "Oh, could you give me a scratch over here on the shoulder blade. I have this really itchy spot!"

Gabriel clenched his teeth and snarled, shoving him hard on that shoulder and knocking him forward into the sink. Maury yelped. Gabriel spun him around and stood. Maury said quickly, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm an idiot. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it!" He sounded actually contrite, but the taller man had heard similar, wholly intentional sea changes out of him.

Gabriel glared at him. "You _**meant**_ it. You wanted to get a rise out of me. You **did**." He slashed him across the left side of his chest.

Maury cried out and said, "Please! Gabriel, please stop! I was ribbing you, joking! Like a friend." Blood ran down his chest.

"I'm **not** your _friend_," he snarled.

"Maybe." The old man's voice was wheedling.

Gabriel paused on the threshold of giving him a matching cut on the right side of his chest. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I… you know... The only people I can really be friends with are people like you, who can resist me. Who I can't turn without even meaning to."

Gabriel lifted his hand again.

Maury said, "Please?"

Gabriel tilted his head at him. "Are you seriously asking… saying… that you want to be _friends?_ While I'm _cutting you?_"

"Yeah, kinda. You know. It's just a misunderstanding… isn't it?"

Gabriel let him go. Maury was the master of the mind-screw, but it was working whether he knew that or not. He was thrown, unable to really concentrate on torturing someone who was talking about being his friend. The conversation had drained all the heat from his temper anyway. He sat back down and held his forehead.

Maury edged forward to the first aid box and opened it. He cleaned the cut, applied gauze and taped it without complaint or comment, though he kept a watchful eye on the other man. He pulled out a packet of pills. "Aspirin's a blood thinner, isn't it? That's what they tell people to take to avoid heart attacks?"

"Your heart's fine at the moment." Gabriel was staring off into space, trying to pull his thoughts together and decide if he'd won or lost this encounter. He'd noticed Maury's heart did have a lot of irregularities to it, but it was beating steadily right now.

"It's my head that hurts."

"Oh. Take some Tylenol." After a beat, Gabriel said, "Why do you think I even care if you die?"

Maury shrugged and pulled out a packet of Tylenol. "I don't know. Thought maybe friends didn't want each other dead. You don't seem to want me dead, so…"

Gabriel sat up and huffed. "You know, you're pathetic. Take the Tylenol. You don't need anything that might work as an anticoagulant."

"I guess you _do_ care." Maury sounded bemused. He got out a second packet and took them both dry.

Gabriel sighed and said, "Drink some water too. Maybe your brain's dehydrated or something. You're obviously nuts." He was calming down. He decided he'd lost. He hadn't done a thing to help Claire, he'd exposed his cards to Maury and he'd had to back down from killing him.

Maury poured himself a cup of water and drank it. "Mm. Yeah, might be. Takes one to know one." He looked back cautiously at Gabriel, judging his reaction to that.

Gabriel just furrowed his brow, trying to figure out how serious Maury was about being on friendly terms. For someone who had 'won', he wasn't really acting like it. "Why don't you leave and get out of here?"

"I'm not done." Maury gestured at the first aid kit. After downing another cup of water, he walked back to the kit and pulled out some alcohol swabs.

"It'd be safer for you to do that somewhere I wasn't," Gabriel observed.

"Yeah, maybe. But then I'd miss this wonderful bonding opportunity." He opened the swabs and began to wipe down the back of his head. Being nearly bald had advantages.

"You can't be serious."

"Never more so, buddy-boy. Do I have a hole in my skull here?"

"Yep."

"Damn." He got out an iodine ampoule and tried to apply it to the back of his head. It didn't go well. Maury cursed as most of it ran uselessly down his back.

Gabriel stood up and got a second ampoule out of the kit and said, "It would probably work better if we swabbed it on. Hold still."

Maury looked at him appraisingly for a moment and then nodded, turning the back of his head towards the other man. He gave directions. A few minutes later, he had a bandage over the back of his head and Gabriel had wiped up the stuff Maury had spilled on himself. Maury said, "Thanks. No gay jokes though, huh?"

"Nope. I'm a homophobe. And for God's sake, put your shirt back on. You're offending my gay sensibilities."


	111. You Talked Me Into It

**A/N: March 8, 2011, Tuesday.**

Peter found the double shift as a paramedic to be much less eventful than the night before. It was too busy for him to get any rest, but that was okay. Most of it was spent dealing with people sick from the flu - dehydration, trouble breathing, an accidental overdose of prescription drugs - fairly mundane stuff.

As important as it was, Peter's thoughts kept straying to Phil, Brian and Susan. They were people with abilities whom the normal authorities had difficulty dealing with. For someone like himself, there was far less risk involved. If he hadn't intervened with Phillip, what might the man have unleashed on New York before the biohazard team took him down?

Peter shuddered to think of what might have happened. So after he clocked out, he went to Vasquez, the night supervisor and told him he wouldn't be back in that evening since they weren't actually mandating him. He was supposed to be on vacation for another couple days. He'd put in for it well in advance and he'd already worked several shifts. He had other obligations. Clarice had already called him twice about Company assignments. Vasquez promised to write him up for what amounted to dereliction of duty. Peter walked out, resisting the urge to use mind control on the man.

He had two assignments that day. One was an old woman who blurted out to anyone who would listen that she'd caused a terrible flood in her hometown in Delaware. She turned out to be an easy catch and a nice lady, if a bit prone to telling people things they didn't want to believe. She swore to Peter and Patricia that the flood had been unintentional, which was mostly true. She'd felt this rising tingling feeling, like she was pulling a rope or hauling something closer to herself and she'd just kept doing it, having no idea what it meant. Then the waters started rolling in from the ocean like some sort of storm surge and even though she stopped, they took a while to recede.

Although he didn't think she was an active threat, Peter took her into custody, taking her to the Omaha facility. It didn't seem wise to leave her in the vicinity of large bodies of water. With a little discreet practice, he suspected she'd be harmless. She cooperated with the incarceration, saying she felt guilty and very sorry for what had happened.

Their other assignment was ended up being a young boy who had the ability to cause objects to instantly disassemble themselves. This wouldn't have been as much of a problem if the child's parents had not stubbornly refused to believe their boy had anything to do with the bizarre accidents on the highway behind their house or the various other coincidental disassemblies that had happened in their home. Peter went round and round with the parents, reluctant to merely kidnap the boy, but eventually resorting to it anyway. An amber alert was issued shortly thereafter, with Peter's likeness plastering television screens in Rockford.

He went back to his mother's house for dinner. Clarice interrupted the meal to announce the unwanted media attention. Just in case he didn't feel miserable enough already, Maury and Gabriel began to second-guess his call.

"You could have just taken the kid's ability and left him," Maury observed, waving his fork rudely in Peter's direction.

Gabriel chimed in, "Or looked like someone else, so it's not **your** face all over the news."

Maury nodded and said, "Or convinced the parents you were a government agent taking him into protective custody."

Peter said nothing, looking to see if his mother was going to add to the criticism. Having to bring in a wailing, struggling, kicking child had torn him up. He vastly preferred cooperative, apologetic old ladies, but he didn't get to pick. As if Angela knew how much he didn't want to hear about it, she changed the subject. "Something we were discussing earlier, Peter, was a trip to Riyadh by Gabriel and Maury. I'd like you to go as well."

"When? Tomorrow?"

"Tonight," Maury said.

"Tonight? That's kind of sudden. What would I do?"

"Keep me from killing Maury," Gabriel said in a perfectly normal tone.

Maury nodded genially. "Yeah, that'd be a big help."

Peter looked back and forth between them, at a loss because they were sitting next to each other eating like nothing was wrong. Both of the men were superb actors and Peter had definitely been a little slow on reading people lately, but he would have thought he'd have noticed if they were trying to murder one another. Just in case he thought they were joking, Maury turned his head and touched the back of it where he had a bandage and a bruise that extended further. Peter gaped at that. Clearly something had happened and he'd just missed it. Entirely.

His mother interrupted his thoughts, saying, "Gabriel had a phone call this morning from Mr. Hasan, a man who works for Halo. They're looking for Arthur. His programs for locating and dealing with specials are being carried out in his absence. It seems he set up considerable resources at the ready for the eclipse. We need those resources."

Peter looked at Gabriel, then back to his mother. "So Gabriel, or me, is supposed to pass ourselves off as Arthur? There's a big difference between impersonating someone for a few minutes and doing it for hours."

Gabriel looked away and Peter recognized a flash of guilt from him. Maury stepped in, saying, "No, we're not bothering with impersonation. We're going to get our hands on their leadership and subvert them."

"Subvert them?"

Gabriel said, "We're going to turn their minds and force them to be loyal to us. That's…" He looked at the other two directors, then apologetically at Peter. "That's what we've been talking about today." He knew Peter wasn't going to be happy about a pre-emptive strike. Peter blinked. Before he could say anything, Gabriel continued, "Arthur's already done it once. We'll replace his commands with ours."

"So just because they've been enslaved once, it's okay to continue it?" He thought he should feel more outraged about it than he was. He'd seen how overwhelmed the Company was. When Clarice had come in to mention the amber alert, she'd also told of the rising number of new specials who were going missing, with agents arriving on scene to find friends and relatives of their target as perplexed as they were. There was something going on, and he was sure it was tied to his father's activities, but did that mean it was okay to enslave the executives of Halo?

Peter looked around the table. Maury snorted and went back to eating, clearly disappointed in Peter's naiveté. Gabriel continued to look a little guilty. He was acting odd. Peter wondered if Maury was controlling Gabriel's mind in some manner, or maybe just influencing him. Would Gabriel be on board with using mind control on people? He didn't know. Peter looked at Gabriel and said, "What did you do to him?" He gestured at the older man. 

"Threw him up against a wall; threatened his life."

"Cut a hole in my head," Maury added.

"Yeah, that too," Gabriel agreed.

Peter gestured at Gabriel and looked to Maury. "What did you do to him?"

"What do you mean?" Maury asked.

Peter let some of his temper seep into his voice, anger at the idea that Maury would mess with Gabriel's mind **again**. "I mean, what did you do to Gabriel? Today? Now? Is he under your control, your commands?"

Maury looked at Gabriel appraisingly, as if considering that. Then he looked back at Peter and smiled like the cat that ate the canary. He took a big bite of pasta and continued to grin maddeningly.

Peter felt hot rage run through him and he tensed. He wasn't going to do anything - he was in better control of his temper than that - but he wanted to.

Gabriel said, low and quiet, "Peter, as far as I know, he didn't do anything to me with his ability."

"Do anything with… what did he do _without_ his ability?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Well, he was an asshole, but that sort of goes without saying." Maury chortled into his dinner.

"Language!" Angela said sharply. "You will not use such language here."

"Sorry," Gabriel said, not taking his eyes off Peter's. Peter nodded and relaxed. Whatever the details were, he'd have to find them out later.

Peter glanced at his mother, who was exchanging an odd look with Maury and probably communicating mentally with him, so he looked back to Gabriel. "Is this about that thing we found out about yesterday?" Hopefully Gabriel would follow that he meant Maury's influence over Claire.

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah. Didn't see any point in waiting."

Peter looked back and forth between the two men. "Is everything worked out?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Sort of. It would be a lot simpler if I just killed him."

Maury shook his head, pulling his attention away from Angela. "No, _it wouldn't._ I **told** you that." He gazed at the ceiling for a long moment, then over at Gabriel with an expression Peter found to indicate a lot of danger from the older man. Gabriel glanced at Maury, nodded slightly and looked away in submission.

Peter blinked at that. "I don't understand why you'd be sitting there like nothing's wrong, if you really want to kill each other."

Gabriel gave Maury a long look as if considering the option. Maury said, "Nooo. _He_ wants to kill _me_. I've said nothing about wanting to kill _him_. This is _his_ problem and if I turn up dead," he gestured at Peter with his fork again, "you'll know whose fault it is."

Peter exhaled forcefully. "And both of you are going over to Riyadh to do this? There's no need. Gabriel and I can do it alone."

Maury laughed. "No you can't. You won't finish the job. Follow-through-"

Gabriel jerked his head at Maury and said, "Shut up." He shot a look across the table to Peter and said, "He has to come with us." Peter opened his mouth and Gabriel shook his head. "No arguments about that, Peter. You can come or not, but I'm going and he's going and that's final."

Peter looked at Maury, who had gone back to eating, apparently willing to be quiet on Gabriel's command. Peter sighed and said, "What will you do if I say no?"

Gabriel answered, "We'll go anyway. Rachel can get us there with enough jumps." Rachel could teleport. She didn't have an unlimited range like Peter and Hiro did, being restricted to a few thousand miles at a time.

Maury smiled and looked at Gabriel. "I still like that idea of yours, free falling over the ocean between hops. That would be wonderful." He grinned enthusiastically.

Gabriel smirked at him. "I don't think I'd be able to resist the temptation to just let you fall."

Peter stood and said, "Gabriel, can I talk to you privately?"

"Sure." He stood.

Maury rolled his eyes and said, "You can talk privately right here. You're not even done eating. What is it with you two and not using your abilities?"

Peter walked off, ignoring him. Gabriel followed him into the study.

Peter turned to face him and said, "I have to know: what's going on?"

Instead of answering him, Gabriel locked the door and stepped closer, slowly raising his hands towards Peter's face. He watched the other man carefully, judging his reaction. Peter's face hardened in disapproval. He didn't pull away though. He wasn't sure what Gabriel was doing, so he waited to find out. His eyes twitched a little as Gabriel's fingers touched his skin. For a moment they rested there, then he stroked lightly with his left, moving only a few inches on Peter's cheek. That hand stilled and the right repeated the motion on the other side. Next he moved both.

Peter continued to look at him sternly, waiting for him to get the point of the contact. Gabriel's face was neutral, studying Peter. He brought his left hand up to sweep Peter's hair back, though it wasn't in his face much. He skirted along his hairline and repeated the gesture with his right. His fingertips trailed down from above his ear to his jaw, then forward to his chin. Peter took a deep, calming breath and his face smoothed fractionally. It felt nice, even if he didn't know why it was happening.

The taller man brought his hands to Peter's forehead and caressed him, crossing his brow, following his eyebrows and then down his temples and forward over his cheekbones. His hands flowed next to his nose and downwards over the corners of Peter's mouth to come together again at his chin.

Peter blinked several times and gave up on looking harsh. He relaxed his face and realized that **was** the point. Gabriel repeated his motions, stroking and caressing, turning his hands from his fingertips so that his knuckles were touching, pulling the back of his hands over Peter's face. Peter looked to the side and let his body follow his face into relaxation. _I hadn't realized how tense I was. Of course, Gabriel can hear it_. The other man let his hands fall away, over Peter's shoulders and down his arms, coming away at the elbows to rest at his own sides.

After merely facing one another silently for a moment, Gabriel looked back and found a chair to sit in. Peter sat too, saying quietly, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"What happened with you and Maury?"

"I had him meet me in Philadelphia. I told him to leave Claire alone. He said he wouldn't. He got me angry and I threw him against a wall really hard – too hard. His brain started swelling or something, looked fatal, so I fixed him." Peter cocked his head. Gabriel went on, "When he woke up, he had some sort of savior complex and seems to think we're friends now. It's kind of creepy, but… I guess I should just go with it."

"How did you… fix him?"

"Um… my ability?"

"Your ability? Which one? You cut a hole in his head? Is that what that bandage is?" He looked disbelieving.

"Yeah." The taller man sounded a little guilty.

"Gabriel, that's… really, really dangerous." Peter was astonished. Penetrating the brain case without proper sterilization or diagnostic equipment was reckless in the extreme.

"I've done it before. He's fine. I can… I know what's wrong with people, sometimes, and I can fix it… sometimes." He looked uncomfortable.

Peter cocked his head at him again. "You think… No, wait. You **can** do _brain surgery_ and it _works?_" Maury was obviously still alive and seemed healthy enough, and although that didn't rule out possible infection or complications, it was a solid strike against it.

"Yeah," Gabriel said defensively.

Peter stared at him blankly. _Where the hell did you get the ability to do brain surgery? I know Sylar poked around in brains a lot, but that's like saying a boxer knows about facial reconstruction because he breaks noses. _"What ability is that?"

"Intuitive aptitude."

"Intuitive- That doesn't make any sense. That lets you understand abilities and absorb them." Gabriel shrugged. Peter asked, "What else can you fix with that?"

"Watches. Clocks. A few other things."

Peter knew that already, having had a future version of Gabriel show him how to access the ability. But he'd never mentioned neurosurgery as a fringe benefit. "Um… watches are way different than the human brain."

"I suppose." Gabriel became defensive again, standing and pacing restlessly. His voice rose slightly with each sentence. "Listen, Peter, I didn't get to pick how my ability works. I didn't get to choose this one and I sure as hell wouldn't have if I'd known what I was getting into. I just _had_ it. It's the one I started with and this is what it does!" Peter put up his hands soothingly. He hadn't known that was a sore spot for the other man. He'd remember it. Gabriel went on, cooling off a little, "Maury's fine and he thinks I saved his life, which is true, but sort of ridiculous since I'm the one that endangered it."

"Okay," Peter said weakly. Just when he thought abilities had some sort of internal logic, he discovered something like this: knowing how to understand and absorb abilities and repair small mechanical devices, also let you do brain surgery. It made no sense, but he was still confused about why flying at supersonic speeds didn't cause any friction, but there was still enough wind to mess up his hair. He turned his mind back to something more immediate, like the cause of the fight in the first place. "What about Claire?" 

"I don't know." Gabriel sighed. "Maury said he didn't do much to her and he wouldn't get carried away with the commands because she's Angela's granddaughter."

Peter nodded slowly. "Yeah, that makes sense. Why haven't you just told Mom and have her tell him to back off?"

"He knows about Noah."

"Oh." Peter thought about that. Every mundane agent had to take a binding oath of loyalty and obedience to the Company, enforced by mental domination. Gabriel had removed the commands from Noah Bennet, making him a free man for the first time in nearly 20 years. He'd asked nothing for it and gained Noah's gratitude. It was something, however, that they needed to keep secret from the other directors, Angela and Maury, lest they insist on the commands being reinstated. Peter assumed Noah's freedom would end if Gabriel pressed him too much about Claire. "How'd he find out?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I have no idea, but he knows. Oh, and Noah thinks I raped Claire when I took her ability last year."

Peter blinked at that. "What!" _Did you? Was that the 'worse thing' Maury could have said about you?_ He didn't ask though, too concerned about what he might do if he got the wrong answer. Fear and anger and betrayal warred within him. Fear, because in their second time together sexually, Gabriel had raped _him_. Anger on Claire's behalf and betrayal because if he'd done something like that and never mentioned it, then he'd intentionally concealed it. Peter **had** asked, but he hadn't had lie detection at the time.

"He thinks that." Gabriel glared a challenge at Peter, daring him to ask now that he _did_ have lie detection and show that he didn't trust him.

Peter opened his mouth to do it and then shut it firmly. _He wouldn't be angry about it if it was the truth. He'd be guilty and broken up, but not angry. I asked him. He said no. He said he hadn't hurt anyone that way, not since before Nathan died. He told me the truth. I have to believe that. _Peter took a deep breath and got his emotions under control. He realized his reaction must be nothing next to Noah's. Noah **would** find a way to murder Gabriel, unless he could be convinced it hadn't happened. Finally Peter said, "Is that… something Maury had Claire tell Noah?"

Gabriel's head snapped up suddenly, alarm etched on his face. "Oh… No. But he could. Christ." He blinked and looked away. "I should have…" He shook his head. "If he does, I'll kill him." He sounded dead serious, as if it weren't just a figure of speech.

Peter's eyes narrowed slightly and he tilted his head at Gabriel. 'I'll kill him' was not a lie. Rhetoric and sarcasm usually keyed as untruths. For such a flat statement of intent to register as the truth meant that not only did Gabriel sound serious, but he was.

Gabriel looked back at him and said, "What?"

Peter blinked once. "I don't know..." He knew Gabriel would hear that as a lie, but he couldn't think of what to say.

Gabriel exhaled and looked away.

Peter nodded once to himself. _**Now**__ he's acting guilty. That… God, that does not bode well. He's still a killer. I suppose I should be happy he at least feels bad about it._ Peter felt a distant turmoil to his thoughts. He wasn't sure what to do about something that was merely a suspicion. If he asked and he was wrong, then he showed Gabriel he didn't trust him. If he asked and he was right, then he had to decide what to do about it. He couldn't just let murder slide, could he?

Gabriel changed the subject entirely. "Abbas called me this morning. Arthur was in charge of R&D for Halo. Now that he's gone, the group's gone rogue. Halo thinks if they get Arthur back, he'll 'manage' whatever's happening there. Halo's leadership wants to meet with ours, probably to convince us to give him back. And there were some veiled threats, that if we don't give him back, they'll escalate, people will get hurt, and so on. It's not an idle threat, Peter. They have a teleporter, probability, emotional control and they can hire location. I have no doubt they're trying to do that even now, because by taking Arthur we've given them motive. It'll be one way or the other, us or them."

Peter considered that, glad of something else to think about even if it came with its own ethical dilemma. "Why don't you just give him back?"

"Let Arthur go?"

"Yeah. His abilities are gone."

"Two reasons: First, you lost your abilities once upon a time and now you have them all back. Just because he doesn't have them now, doesn't mean he'll stay that way if we let him wander around. And second, you said he expected to be captured, which means he expected to be drained. The research and development he's been doing has been _specifically_ on giving people abilities. It's virtually a guarantee that if he gets his liberty, he'll be as much a danger as he was before. And he'll be pissed."

"Oh," Peter said. He hadn't thought it out like that, but it made sense. "So the goal is to hit first."

"Yes. I think it will hold down casualties in the long run, not to mention that it eliminates their opportunity to do the same to us."

"And in the short run you're sure you're going to strip people of their free will?"

Gabriel sighed with resignation. "Yes. Yes, Peter, that's the situation."

"Can't we just talk to them?"

"Sure. How've you been doing talking to people lately?"

Peter frowned deeply at him. His track record for the last few days had been awful, but Peter thought it was an unfair comparison. Normally he was approaching people slowly with a week to establish contact and thorough research up front telling him how best to deal with them. Since the eclipse though, it was rushed. His targets were specifically dangerous and uncooperative – that was why they sent him, because he could regenerate and was most able to bring them in quickly and safely. Of course his record was bad. He had one success out of four (five if you counted Phil). They were not good odds.

Gabriel nodded and went on when Peter didn't say anything. "Yeah, that's a risk you run and if you turn out to be wrong, then it's over. I tried talking to Abbas. I couldn't get anywhere. We'll try talking to them again after we've brought them in, before using mind control. It's not like we're killing them, Peter."

"What if it were you?" 

"What, me being mind controlled?" Peter nodded. Gabriel said, "It has been."

Peter rolled his eyes and leaned forward. "Yeah, I know. That's why I'm asking. Do you think what Mom did to you was right?"

Gabriel smiled at him. "What _Mom_ did? I love that. Not 'what **we** did', but 'what **Mom** did.'"

Peter stood up, exhaling heavily. Obviously trying to get Gabriel to empathize with their targets wasn't going to work. Peter glared down at him, angry that Gabriel still blamed him for what had happened. He'd had a role in part of it, in the botched attempt to salvage Nathan's personality that had merged his brother's memories and affectations with Sylar's, but Peter had had no part in the initial situation. That had been all his mother's idea. Gabriel blamed Peter more than Peter thought he deserved.

Gabriel tilted his head to look up at him. "You're right." He stood as well. "We can do this without you. It would probably be better if you kept working on the first contacts."

"No!" Peter said. "I'm coming. I want to make sure you don't get out of hand."

Peter already knew Maury's limits and they were far beyond what Peter considered acceptable behavior. There were things going on with Gabriel that Peter didn't understand. He needed to. Apparently Gabriel had nearly killed Maury today, saving the telepath's life only because Gabriel's ability happened to have a bizarre quirk. Peter hoped he could keep a rein on them, keep them from getting carried away, or at least mitigate their worst offenses.

He'd tried things that were more impossible. Besides, Arthur's operation had been at Halo. Perhaps if they dismantled their leadership, they'd figure out what was really going on.


	112. Abduction

**A/N: I'm glossing over the various arrangements that had to be made to get the townhouse, equipment, etc. It seems plausible to me that various mundane resources at the Company's disposal could arrange this (not to mention the possibility of Angela having prepared in advance), so I'm skipping it. The reason to have a townhouse in Riyadh when you can teleport around the world will be addressed in a later chapter.**

"If we leave at seven, it will be three in the morning in Riyadh," Gabriel said to Peter as they walked out of the study and headed back to the dining room. Maury and Angela had finished their meal. Maury was now sitting on the sofa across from Molly, leaning forward, his head slightly cocked at her. Peter stiffened in anger and stopped walking. He'd been intending to say something to Maury about his treatment of Molly.

Gabriel noticed and put a hand to the small of Peter's back. He spoke in a low, quiet tone. "Let's go finish dinner, Pete."

Peter looked at Gabriel out of the corner of his eye and glared at Maury again. Gabriel was right - this wasn't a good time for a lot of reasons, but whatever Maury was doing, he was doing it _right now_. Peter shook his head, refusing. "Lost my appetite. What's he doing to her?"

"Keep your voice down. He's probably doing a last minute review of our target's location." He put a little pressure on Peter, trying to move him along. "Come on."

Peter exhaled and let himself be moved. "Why does he have to do that mentally?" he complained.

Gabriel shrugged and sat back down to his meal. "I suppose it gives him something more exact than what she's likely to verbalize, if he sees it himself in her mind. He does it that way most of the time. What's wrong with it?"

"She doesn't like it." Peter leaned on the table and looked at him. He knew that Gabriel had gone to some lengths, including actually begging Maury, to make sure Molly was treated well. That Maury needed to be begged to act decently was ridiculous and offensive by itself. Peter wasn't sure whether he should be angry Gabriel wasn't doing anything to protect Molly now, or calmed because Gabriel thought Peter was clearly over-reacting.

Gabriel frowned and ate quietly for a moment. "It's not hurting her. He's not… _hurting_ her."

Peter wasn't sure exactly what Gabriel meant by that, but it didn't sound good. He stood up stiffly. "Who's her guardian now, anyway? I thought you'd said he surrendered her."

"Angela. Well… legally, I don't know. But as far as we're concerned, it's Angela. It can't be me." Gabriel worked at eating and wouldn't look at him.

"Why not? You have kids. You seem good with them. Molly and Simon are pretty close in age."

Gabriel kept his head down. He said very quietly, "Sylar killed her parents."

_I… had forgotten that._ Peter sighed and kicked himself mentally. He'd read up really thoroughly on Sylar's past. Shortly after Noah had recruited him to work for the Company, Peter had insisted on seeing the unexpurgated file so he could better understand what had happened to his brother and who this new, if false, member of the family was.

On the one hand, Sylar was a horrible person. On the other, he hadn't been that way before the Company began manipulating him in an extreme fashion. The person he was acting like now and had been acting like last summer when Peter had read it, hadn't been Sylar. He might not have been Nathan in all particulars, but he certainly wasn't Sylar anymore. Regardless of who he was, he had a lot of Sylar's baggage to deal with.

As for Molly, getting his mother to do something about her situation was less likely than getting Gabriel to. Gabriel knew more than Peter did about what was going on and he was doing nothing. The question was: did Peter trust Gabriel's judgment? Peter sat down and picked at his food until Gabriel was done, then went with him to rinse off dishes. Cassie passed them as they went in. When they came out, she passed them going back, having cleaned off the table. Maury was on the other side, putting a duffel bag on the table. "Let's go over our plan, shall we?" the older man said.

Gabriel nodded. Peter looked in the living room. Molly was reading a book. She seemed unaffected, so Peter calmed down and turned to listen.

Maury said, "Our goal is to get the leadership of Halo Group and bring them here where we can have them under our control. We'll negotiate from a position of strength. We have enough information on them to know they've got guards and abilities, but no specifics. We're going to tap one of theirs who knows all of that before we go after the executives themselves. The unlucky sap is Abbas Hasan, their contact man for specials. He's the guy who escorted Gabriel around a few weeks ago, though he was looking like Nathan at the time and that's how Abbas knows him.

"I'll link you up mentally with the exact location we're going to or you can go get it direct from Molly. I'm pretty sure we're going to teleport into Abbas' bedroom. He has his wife at hand but they're sleeping at the moment, far as we can tell - no movement. No kids in the room. Now he might have someone else in there, not a family member, but I doubt it. Threesomes are fun and all, but they rarely stick around to share beds. Despite rumors to the contrary, Muslims aren't any more into more than one at a time than Christians and he only has the one wife. So it's probably just the two of them.

"Your job, Peter, is to grab the man and cover his mouth. Keep hold of him, no matter what he kicks or bites. Keep him quiet, so the rest of the household doesn't get involved. If it looks like we're getting away clean, then I'll leave the wife alone. Otherwise, I'll deal with her. Gabriel will take care of any other threat that comes up, or he'll help you with Abbas. He'll be going as Nathan because it might help for Abbas to see a familiar face. We're not going there directly either. We have a townhouse rented on the other side of Riyadh. Molly or I can give you the coordinates for that too. We'll go there, drop off our stuff, then go to Abbas' place. We get him and take him to the townhouse. We cuff him to keep him from getting any ideas and then we see how cooperative he is.

"If he cooperates, we keep it light. He's highly placed in Halo and I don't want to ruin him. If he starts acting up, I'm going to dose him with muscle relaxants and a mild euphoric, then I'll get what we need out of him. Gabriel says the guy's a pretty tough nut to crack mentally. We'll see. I'm a lot better at playing offense telepathically than Gabriel probably ever will be. If we can't get anything out of Abbas, you can bring him to Philly and put him in a level 3 unless he shows a power. He's not supposed to have one, but he was already being groomed for it and with that eclipse and the formula floating around, we can't be sure."

Maury looked between the two of them. "We all clear on the plan?"

Peter asked, "What happens after? What about their leadership?"

Maury answered, "Roughly, the idea is that Abbas tells us names, titles, abilities, defenses and how to get in touch with them. An electronic alarm will go off as soon as we take him, but that's okay. We'll scramble their tracking." He held up a scrambler. "Molly can tell us where they are, then we go get them and stack them up in containment. I'll work on them one at a time after that, assuming we can't come to some sort of agreement otherwise. Personally, I intend to try talking, but there's no point in trying until we have them in a position where they have to talk back."

Peter nodded, but sighed inwardly. It was about what he expected - abduction, drugging and mind-rape. He hadn't been very happy about it when he, Matt and Mohinder had done it to Noah. He suspected this would go similarly. He looked between Maury and Gabriel. Clearly they'd worked out the plan earlier, without him. And clearly Gabriel had told Maury nothing of their shared suspicions that Arthur had an ally out there running things. Peter decided to follow Gabriel's lead and kept his mouth shut.

Maury went through the contents of the duffel bag, making sure Peter was familiar with the equipment. Other than the scramblers, nothing was new. Peter had been on a number of missions with Noah Bennet and gone through most of the usual agent training. As he was putting things back up, Maury handed him a stiff, laminated card and said, "Here. Put this in your wallet."

Peter flipped it over and looked at it. It had the godsend symbol on it and a phone number - nothing else. "What is it?"

"Dead man's card. In case they find your body. Are we ready?"

Peter slipped it into his billfold and asked, "Am I supposed to leave everything else here, like my ID and credit cards?"

Maury shook his head. "No point. To make you untraceable would take a lot longer than we have. Just try not to get caught and if you do, ask them to call that number."

"That's it?"

"Yep. That's it."

Peter chuckled. "No advice on how to resist torture?"

"Peter, no one resists torture. That's why it's _torture_. All that stuff about holding out and being tough - that's Hollywood crap. They use that to show you how much better than everyone else the hero is. It's like you never see anyone piss themselves when they get shot or throw up after they get punched in the gut. It's too messy. People see that stuff and it makes most of them sick just to watch it." He shook his head again. "No, if anyone starts torturing you, tell them whatever you think will make them stop. I'm sure as hell not going to blame you for it. Just don't forget to tell them about that card. We'll do our best to get you out of whatever jam you're in."

Peter considered that. It seemed ridiculously unlikely that he'd get caught, given his abilities, but he didn't argue. "I'll need to see where we're going." He looked down at Maury's shoes, a pair of down-at-the-heels loafers that had seen better days. He brushed the other man's mind, opened his own and listened. Maury projected to him where they needed to go, then where Abbas was. Peter nodded and shut him out. "I've got it." He looked at Gabriel and said, "Your face."

Gabriel looked perplexed for a moment, then shifted to Nathan. He picked up the bag and put a hand on Peter's shoulder. He gave him a light squeeze. Peter glanced back at him and smiled warmly for a second. It was good to see Nathan's face again. Gabriel didn't wear it very often around Peter. Peter brushed his fingers on the back of Maury's hand and in an instant they were in the townhouse. It was furnished, which was convenient, but the lights were out. They had night goggles in the bag, but hadn't thought to wear them to the townhouse.

Maury stumbled into something in the dark, cursing inventively even for him. Peter had a solution for that. Light flared into existence so brilliant they were all blinded for a moment. It dimmed rapidly.

"Sorry," Peter said. The luminance emanated from his outstretched hand.

"What the hell is that?" Maury said, squinting at him. In the glare, he couldn't tell if Peter had something in his hand or was generating the light himself.

"It's an ability." It was one he'd drained from his father and managed to hang onto.

"Oh," the older man answered, turning and locating the light switches. "Sometimes I forget somebody super-sized your happy meal. Are you going to tell us what else is on the menu?"

"No." Peter dropped his duffel on the couch and started sorting through the contents.

"No?" Maury questioned.

Peter answered bitterly, "My own brother sold me out because of my abilities. No one needs to know what I can do." He looked over at Gabriel, who was wearing Nathan's face, to see him regarding him blankly and concealing his feelings. Peter lifted one side of his mouth in a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "Don't worry about it. You're not that guy anymore, remember?"

Gabriel's expression flickered and Peter realized he'd inadvertently hurt him with both comments - reminding him that Nathan had turned on him and also implying he wasn't his brother in any way. Peter reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. It was like patting wood. He left his hand there and rubbed slowly. Gabriel relaxed a fraction. Peter looked down and thought he needed to apologize.

Both of them looked up when Maury interrupted the moment. "Let's go now. Longer we wait, more likely he'll wake up."

They put on goggles and stood together again. Gabriel gave him another light squeeze, which eased Peter's mind. He took them to Abbas' location, which was a bedroom as predicted. There were two people on the bed. The nearer one was sprawled facedown, one hand up on the pillow. The other person was curled away on their side. Maury seemed to immediately divine which was the woman and rounded on her side of the bed. Gabriel shut the bedroom door, which was open. Peter slapped a handcuff over the exposed right wrist of the man. As he stirred, Peter yanked him up and out of the bed, using his enhanced strength and telekinesis to make the pull smoothly. Abbas yelped in surprise before Peter could clap his hand over his mouth.

Maury gave him a dirty look for not being quick enough, then looked back to the woman. She shifted uneasily. For a moment, all was silent as Abbas' eyes darted around the room. Both of his hands clutched Peter's right at the wrist, the hand Peter had over his mouth, but other than a few initial, fruitless attempts to get free, he'd stopped struggling. Peter had his left upper arm in his left hand, facing him away from himself.

Gabriel came over and stood in front of the two of them, putting himself in the dim light coming from the window. The Arab sucked in air as he recognized Nathan's face. Abbas made a noise under Peter's hand. Peter gave him a little pressure to encourage him to be quiet. Gabriel caught the hanging handcuff and slapped it over Abbas' left wrist. He would have rather cuffed him behind his back, but this was convenient and quick.

Seconds ticked by in silence. Peter didn't know what Maury was doing other than waiting to see if the woman would wake up. Gabriel stayed between Abbas and his wife, blocking his view. After nearly a minute, Abbas tried to pull his head away from Peter's hand. Peter held him more tightly and he stopped, exhaling sharply as if angry. Maury came over and stood next to them, giving a thumbs up signal. He reached up and took Peter's goggles off after removing his own, so he wouldn't be blinded when they went back to the now well-lit townhouse. Gabriel and Maury each put a hand on Peter and he took them back.

They all took a moment for their eyes to adjust. Gabriel said to their captive, "Don't yell. Don't scream." Abbas just blinked at him. Gabriel raised his brows expressively and nodded in an exaggerated fashion. Abbas figured it out and nodded in agreement. Peter lifted his hand away slowly.

Abbas licked his lips and swallowed, then dropped his hands slowly to pull on the hem of his shirt. Gabriel looked. He was bare from hips down. Gabriel reached out to pat Abbas on the side of the face in a gesture only Nathan used. He said, "Hang on. I'll get him some pants."

Peter still held Abbas' arm. Maury picked up a clipboard. Gabriel went into the bathroom and came out a minute later, carrying his shoes and a pair of pants. He offered the slacks to Abbas and put his shoes on, being careful not to show his soles.

Peter assumed Gabriel had gotten the pants through shape-shifting. He released the Arab so he could dress himself. Abbas said, almost a whisper, "Thank you. For this." He indicated the clothing. It wasn't so much that he was trying to be quiet, but that he genuinely couldn't find his voice. Peter felt sorry for him.

Gabriel said, "Sorry, but we have to play hardball tonight." Abbas nodded weakly.

Maury told him, "Sit over here." Abbas looked back and forth between them. After the man he thought was Nathan Petrelli nodded at him, he went where Maury directed. Abbas sat in a heavy, metal chair that matched the glass and metal dining room table. The chair was in the living room near the couch. He looked around uneasily, his handcuffed hands resting on his lap.

Gabriel walked by him, saying, "You want something? Water maybe?"

"Yeah," Abbas coughed, nervously clearing his throat. "Thanks."

"Hmp," Maury grunted. "You get him that. I'm going to get down to business. We're on the clock here. Now, pay attention to me."

Abbas looked at him, blinking. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Maury was sitting on the sofa only a few feet from the chair. He scooted forward, putting himself closer. He studied Abbas for a long moment and said, "Okay. You're listening to me?"

"Yes. Yes." Abbas looked back towards the kitchen, where Gabriel was coming out with a glass of water. He was obviously distracted.

"No, you're not." Maury wrote something down. That, oddly, caught Abbas' attention more than his words did. Peter walked up behind the sofa where he could look over Maury's shoulder. He could see he'd written, 'X+EmoNate,' not that it meant anything to Peter. 'X' would be shorthand in the Company for the subject of a particular file - in this case, Abbas.

Gabriel gave Abbas the glass of water, which he sipped. Gabriel glanced at the old man, then to the Arab. "Where's the tracking device?"

"Ah… Um." Abbas stammered. He looked around at the men. Peter tried not to look sympathetic.

"Abbas, tell me where it is." Gabriel said firmly.

"Um… it's… it's in my abdomen. About three or four inches to the right of my belly button." He swallowed, breathing a little harder as Gabriel squatted down next to him and unceremoniously pulled up his shirt to look. All he saw was normal looking, tan skin - not even a scar to mark it. Abbas added, pulling away from him, "Ah… you can't see it. It's not on the surface. You'd… it's not designed to be removed." Abbas swallowed and pulled back even further from Gabriel's scrutiny. Obviously he feared being cut open though he probably had no idea how easily Gabriel could do just that.

Gabriel gave him a speculative look that would have been much more at home on Sylar's face than Nathan's. He dropped the shirt and collected the glass of water from him. He turned to Maury, who nodded at him. Gabriel retired a step or two away, putting the glass down on an end table next to him. Peter waited for Maury to begin.


	113. Tortured Confessions

"Okay," Maury said. "Let's get to work then. Who's your boss, Mr. Hasan?"

"Ah… what?" Abbas asked, peering at him uncertainly.

"Your boss."

"At… work?" His gaze shifted between Peter and 'Nathan' yet again in a futile attempt to find an ally.

"Yes, at work," Maury snapped irritably. "Stop thinking about the question and just answer it. Who tells you what to do?"

"Um… Rabah Ibn Nidh'aal."

Peter and Gabriel both heard the lie, in addition to already knowing the name of Abbas' superior. That was not it. Maury shifted forward on the sofa and reached out to whap the Arab in the middle of the face, across the mouth and nose with the back of his hand. Abbas jerked back, more offended than hurt. Even Peter could see he hadn't hit him very hard, but it undoubtedly stung. "Do you understand fucking English?" Maury said to him abusively.

"Yes." Abbas looked affronted. He spoke it fluently, having been raised in the United States. He looked accusingly at the man he knew as Nathan and sucked at his bruised lip. His expression conveyed that he thought Gabriel should do something to prevent this sort of mistreatment.

"Don't look at **him**!" Maury snarled. "_He's_ not going to help you. Look at **me** - and if you don't answer me I'm going to hit you a hell of a lot harder." Maury glanced over his shoulder at Peter. "And you be ready for it, okay?" Peter nodded because that seemed to be what the man wanted, though he didn't know what he was really looking for. Maury stood up and turned back to Abbas. He said, "Now. I have a question for you. Are you going to answer it?"

"Yes," Abbas answered sullenly, but he was paying attention to him now.

"What's the name of your boss?"

"…I just told you."

Maury had expected something like this and he hit him with his right fist as hard as he could, his metal pen wrapped in his hand and giving it a little more solidity. Abbas had not been expecting it and was nearly knocked sideways out of his chair, saved only by the arm of it. Peter came around and pulled him back up, standing behind the Arab and shooting Maury a nasty look. Maury glowered at him in return. Peter gathered this was what he meant by being ready for it, but he didn't like it.

"Um… Abdul Karim Al-Lahham," Abbas muttered slowly, bringing his hands up to his bleeding nose and split lip.

"Put your hands down!" Maury snapped, still standing over him threateningly. Peter stood behind him with his hands on Abbas' shoulders. He stepped back now that Abbas was sitting up straight again. Maury reached out and whacked Abbas across the top of the head with his left, open-handed. It was a glancing blow Peter wouldn't object to, given more to demonstrate to their prisoner his ability to hit him than with the intention of harming him. Maury gave Peter a quick glance anyway, as if to make sure Peter wasn't going to interfere. Maury told Abbas, "If I want to hit you again, I don't want your God damn hands in the way."

Abbas cringed back from him and put his hands in his lap. His shoulders hunched as he glanced around. He was alone, unarmed and who knows where. From the style of furnishing he could have surmised they were in Arabia, but that wasn't immediately helpful. He was handcuffed and held by three men, all of whom were likely to have special abilities and all of whom, it might have seemed, were comfortable with the idea of hurting him until they got what they wanted.

Maury reached down and grabbed his chin with his left hand, tilting his face up. He squeezed his jaw a little and wrinkled his nose in disgust at their captive. "Looks like I'll need to hit you again to break that pretty nose of yours." Maury smiled at him. "But that's okay. I've got lots of questions. I'm sure you'll give me another chance, right?" His smile showed teeth. Abbas swallowed in fear.

The old man let go of him and stood up, balling his fist around his pen again and massaging his right fist with his left hand. Abbas stared at the motions, wary now of being hit unexpectedly. Behind the man, Peter turned his head to the side, angry. He wasn't sure if he'd let Maury punch him again. All it would take to stop him was a motion for telekinesis. Maury ignored him this time. "This is just going to keep going until I get what I want. Now, I got another question for you. Are you going to answer it?"

"Yes," Abbas answered immediately and thickly.

"And you're paying attention to me now, huh?"

"Yes." Maury did indeed have Abbas' full attention. Getting socked hard in the face tended to do that to a person.

"Good. Who's your boss?"

"Abdul Karim Al-Lahham." The answer was immediate.

Maury clenched and unclenched his fist a few times. "You sure?"

Abbas licked his lips and pulled back from Maury's gesture, but he answered, "Yes."

Maury shifted the pen in his hand and picked up his clipboard. He winced and shook his hand a little like it hurt, then made a note. "Who's _his_ boss?"

"Fuad bin Thunayan Al Saud."

"Uh-huh." Maury flipped to one of the later pages on his clipboard. "Do you know him in any capacity other than your boss' boss?"

"Yes, he is my father-in-law, my wife's father." Abbas licked blood off his lips with a grimace.

"Who's _his_ boss?"

"He… doesn't have one."

"So he runs Halo?"

"No. Yes. No, no!" He put his hands up defensively and cringed away before Maury even moved towards him, but the old man didn't strike him.

Maury reached down and jerked his head up again, looking at him intently. "Keep your hands down. Answer my questions truthfully. If you don't tell me what I want to know," he said very calmly, almost softly, "I'm going to beat you until my hands are bloody. Then I'll find something better to do it with. Now, does he run Halo or not?"

"No… Not… There's… there's four others… and..." He hunched inward as much as possible, even drawing up his knees a little, but he kept his hands down. He shot a fearful glance at Gabriel, his eyes begging to help.

Maury followed the look and Gabriel said, from where he was leaning nonchalantly against the wall, "Tell him everything, Abbas. It's the only way out of this in one piece." Gabriel gave Abbas a look that made the Arab shiver and even Peter felt the impact of it. It was Sylar looking out of Nathan's face - the mien of someone accustomed to cutting people's heads open out of curiosity. Only Maury seemed unaffected. Peter began to realize how over his head he was here. He had a sudden impulse to just grab Abbas and teleport out of here, but he resisted it.

Maury said, "You heard the man. Tell me who they are." His interrogator let him go and stood over him.

"I can't!" He put his head down, trying to avoid being hit in the face. As a result he couldn't see the exchange that followed.

Maury looked at Peter and held up one finger, pointed to himself, then at Abbas' head, then clenched his fist. Peter knew what he was asking, or perhaps telling. He shifted his weight uneasily and looked from side to side. Maury was actually giving Peter a choice, or at least a warning. All those impulses and urges to help - this was his chance to act on them. But if he did, that ruined their mission here. Nowhere in the plan was a good cop-bad cop routine. All they'd really done to their captive was punch him in the nose. Once. Peter had been hit enough in his life to know that hurt like hell, but really, you'd get over it. What was doing double duty on Abbas' psyche was the fear and inability to defend himself.

Peter glanced over at Gabriel, who stood up from where he'd been leaning on the wall, his eyes intent on Peter. He had an odd expression and Peter, for the life of him, didn't know what it meant. Just a few weeks before, he'd have known, but not today. _Maybe I'm misreading this whole situation,_ Peter thought. _We have a mission. I need to stay on mission._ Finally he nodded in agreement. Maury grabbed Abbas' hair, jerked his head up quickly and punched him squarely in the nose with everything he had. Peter flinched like he'd been hit instead.

"Aaah!" Abbas fell back in the chair, trying to ball himself up. Peter caught the tipped chair and kept it from falling over. He felt ill.

Maury gestured to Gabriel and said, "Straighten him out."

With a few small motions, Gabriel forced Abbas into a normal sitting position, leaving him vulnerable and open. He trembled in fear, struggling and failing to curl up again. Maury put his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over him, making sure Abbas was thoroughly focused on him. "Wow, you're a mess." Blood was dripping steadily down the Arab's face from his smashed nose. Maury grinned at him malevolently and chuckled dryly. "I think I might have got it that time. Give me a few more to fuck it up completely and it will _never_ heal back right. Now… who are they?"

"I… I can't…!" He started crying, struggling against his unseen bonds. He seemed almost insensible. Maury reached out and grabbed his chin again and Abbas stilled, breathing hard through his mouth, bubbles of blood frothing at his nostrils. Abbas said, "Arthur Petrelli! Arthur Petrelli! He's doing everything. You know that. You know that!" His eyes darted over to Gabriel, then back to Maury, who had become completely motionless.

"_Who else?_" Maury asked in an emotionless tone of voice that frightened Peter worse than seeing Gabriel look like Sylar. Apparently it had the same effect on Abbas and nearly so on Gabriel, who walked forward to get a better look at the telepath's face.

"Please don't hurt me. I don't know," Abbas whimpered.

Maury reached out with his other hand, utterly focused on Abbas, and put it heel down on his forehead much as Peter had when driving out Sylar's memories. Gabriel obviously had the same recall of the gesture as Peter, because he looked from Maury to Peter rapidly a few times and shifted his weight uneasily, his breathing speeding up. Abbas shook. He tried to say something, but under whatever mental pressure Maury was bringing to bear, it came out garbled and unintelligible.

Maury took his hand away and said, "_You __**don't**__ know._ Just like old times." His face formed a cruel, mocking smile.

Gabriel teetered on the verge of saying something. He looked frustrated. Peter wasn't sure what to think.

Maury blinked and seemed to come back to himself. He said, "That's not why we're here, anyway. Leave Arthur and his involvements out of it. Tell me about the executives, these Five Pillars of your company."

"I can tell you about Arthur," Abbas offered, trying to negotiate. "About the others… I can't."

"I told you to leave Arthur _out of it_," Maury snarled. He grabbed Abbas' broken nose and twisted, causing the man to call out in pain and jerk back. Peter lurched forward, as surprised by the gesture as Abbas was.

Gabriel caught him, hissing, "Wait!" Peter knocked his way free, jabbing Gabriel in the sternum with his elbow.

Abbas was oblivious to the struggle. Maury ignored it and leaned into Abbas' face, just inches away. "Tell me about the others! Tell me about the five!"

Abbas shook his head back and forth violently. "I **can't** help you!"

Peter hesitated on the brink of doing something, something like pulling Maury away. Gabriel recovered himself and put a hand on Peter's shoulder. Peter shook the hand off violently and turned to glare at him, getting distracted again.

Maury told their captive, "You _**won't**_ - not can't." When Peter looked back, Maury had put his hands on either side of Abbas' face. Maury was turning his own head back and forth, clearly digging through the man's mind. Peter wasn't sure how harmful or not it was to interrupt such a process, so he hesitated again. Maury muttered, "How much do you value your life, Abbas? Your masculinity? Your face?"

"I can't… I can't, I can't. I'm so sorry!" Abbas cried. "If I could I would… I'm so sorry, please don't hurt me!"

Peter's jaw worked. He would have thought Abbas completely broken if not for the fact that he wasn't giving them information he obviously had. Hell, it was information Peter, Gabriel and Maury already had, but for whatever reason Maury had decided to start here, confirming their facts before moving on to the things they didn't know, like abilities, locations, and defenses. That thought gave Peter pause. If he was really as desperate as he seemed, then why wouldn't he just tell them what they wanted to know?

Noah had never begged. When Matt, Mohinder and Peter had tied him up and drugged him in a hotel room, trying to get more information about the specials abducted by Nathan's and Danko's operation, Noah had resisted them. Like Abbas, he'd had the information and like Abbas, he'd been unable to give it. At the time, Peter had thought he'd been _unwilling_ to provide it. Since then he'd discovered the loyalty oath and mental programming had been responsible for fortifying Noah's will to the point that not even drugs and telepathy could pull the answers out of him. Abbas was in a similar boat.

Maury obviously knew this. He was more practiced and accomplished at this than Matt had been. He was doing what he was doing not out of malice, per se, but because he needed to break Abbas so that all that was left between him and the information he wanted was the commands. He was fishing for an emotional hook, anything that might be more important than the commands and useful as leverage against them. He said speculatively, softly, "How about your wife and family, eh? You've got kids."

This was psychological operations and Maury was really, really good at it. He did a masterful job of seeming entirely sincere, perfectly willing to carry through with every threat he made. Peter imagined it must be terrifying to be on the receiving end of that. He felt physically ill and he recalled Maury saying that watching such things did that to most people.

He glanced back at the man who looked like Nathan. Gabriel looked unmoved, because contrary to popular myth, hurting someone made them _less_ empathetic to the pain of others, not _more_. At that moment, this fact was driven home to Peter exceptionally hard because his own mind was trying to remind him of that time he'd been beaten up by Howie Kaplan after the track meet. That had been a worse drubbing than they'd given Abbas. His traitorous brain told him if he could endure _that,_ then Abbas could handle _this_. His heart knew it was a false equivalency.

Abbas tried to jerk away from Maury, but the man's grip was like iron. He stared in horror at Maury as whatever struggle was happening inside his head continued to unfold. The old man murmured, "Yeah, that's it. Now I'm getting somewhere." Maury turned his own head downward as if listening intently. "Peter - get the drug and inject him. I need to stay where I am."

Peter complied, hoping this meant they were nearly done. He felt wrung out, like he'd been the one being tortured, not Abbas. Now that he thought about it, he was a little surprised Maury hadn't had them use the drugs immediately. When he gave the injection, Abbas was still staring at the telepath, but his eyes seemed sightless. Peter could see Maury's eyes were shut. "It's done," Peter told him. "Should take effect in a minute or less."

"Yeah, I feel it," Maury said. "Get the clipboard. He can't say it, so I'll do it for him. Write it down for me please, and be legible because I don't want to have to do this more than once. Not sure he'll be able to take it, so none of that doctor bad handwriting crap."

Abbas had begun to sag. As Maury recited information, the Arab's features changed to sadness and then blank as if drained of every spark of life. Peter shot him several worried looks as he scribbled down information. It was less thorough than they'd hoped for, but Maury was clearly struggling to get even this. Peter felt a stab of terror at the end when Maury reached up and shut Abbas' eyes as though he were dead.

Peter shot to his feet. "What did you do to him?" he cried.

Maury staggered towards the sofa. "Gabe… stop him," he muttered. Maury fell on the sofa and clutched at his chest, going pale. That stopped Peter more than Gabriel moving over and putting himself between Peter and Abbas. Peter looked back at Gabriel and then moved to Maury, feeling for a pulse. Maury weakly tried to bat his hand away from his neck, saying, "M'fine." Peter could feel malaise coming off him in waves along with nausea and a throbbing pain in his shoulders. The room was spinning. Peter blinked and jerked his head back, putting his hand to his own head.

"Block him out, Peter. He's projecting. I don't think he means to," Gabriel said from behind him.

"He's having some kind of arrhythmia," Peter said, recognizing the condition from the sensations rather than direct diagnosis. He couldn't be more specific without a monitor. He had a moment that seemed to stretch disturbingly long in Peter's mind where he thought about leaving Maury to suffer and perhaps die. If he was truly having tachycardia, he could just let him pass. Didn't he deserve it for everything he'd done in his life? For the suffering he inflicted so easily and with such practice on their unfortunate captive? But that wasn't who Peter was. He was tempted, but he said to Gabriel, "Help me get him on the floor."

They laid him out straight as Peter went back to trying to take his pulse. Maury was still breathing well, but he was starting to sweat. It was a bad sign.

"What's arrhythmia?" Gabriel asked.

"Precursor to a heart attack, in layman's terms," Peter said. The old man didn't fight with them although he was alert and oriented. The sensations coming off him lessened and then stopped. Peter glanced back at Abbas, but the Arab's color, though paler than he'd like, still seemed fine. He was clearly not dead, so Peter turned back to Maury and put his ear to Maury's chest, considering where he should take him for medical care. His heart was still beating, just irregularly. He didn't seem to be in v-fib. That could change at any moment, though.

Maury shifted a little, which Peter paid no attention to, but then the man put his hand on the back of Peter's head. _Leave me alone_, Maury projected to him, the message intermixed with a variety of peculiar, unpleasant sensations. It was like Maury couldn't limit the communication to only words and his body's sensations bled over into the projection. Peter pulled away, startled. He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck and head. It was hot where he'd touched him and tingled strongly. He wondered why Maury had needed to touch him and to touch his head at that, recalling that he'd put his hands on Abbas' head and face when bringing his ability most to bear against him.

Gabriel said softly, with a world of threat in his voice, "Did he do something to you?"

Peter looked up at him, seeing the dangerous expression on his face and the way he was holding one hand up, like an invisible force might lash out from it at any moment. "No. No, he didn't," he said firmly, and even though Gabriel's eyes narrowed at the lie and he tilted his head, he stayed his hand. Peter added, "He just told me to leave him alone - that's all."

Gabriel gave Maury a long look. The old man was blinking up at the ceiling. Gabriel said, "Then maybe you should. If he dies, we can take him to Claire. He has that a lot - the heart problems - but he's never projected it before. He's stabilizing. I can hear it."

Peter looked back at Gabriel uneasily at the news this was a repeated condition. "Yeah," he said. He glanced back at their captive. "How's Abbas?"

"He's alive. There's something wrong with him, but he's alive."

Peter heaved a sigh of relief. He looked back and tried to take Maury's pulse at his throat. Maury pushed his hand away from his neck more firmly. "I'm fine," the old man said. "Don't touch my face." He started to sit up but Peter held him down by the shoulders.

"**No**. You stay right there." Peter spoke in a tone that brooked no dissent. Maury frowned at him and Peter said, "If you get up before I tell you it's okay, then I'm teleporting you to a hospital in New York and I'll leave you there. Do you understand me?"

Maury took a deep breath and relaxed. Peter looked at him for a moment, then took his pulse from his wrist. Maury didn't knock him away. Peter wouldn't have characterized taking his pulse at his neck as 'touching his face', but whatever. The back of his neck had finally stopped feeling weird. He rubbed it again anyway. Satisfied that Maury's heartbeat seemed back to normal, he said, "Now what's wrong with _him_?" He jerked his head back towards Abbas.

"He's suicidal. I wouldn't let him kill himself. I had to… I…" Maury took several deep breaths and blinked. "I can't really explain it. It's a transference. I took his problems, but he's a lot younger than I am."

Peter looked back at the Arab. He peered up at Gabriel, who glanced at Abbas and shrugged, not looking overly concerned about him. Peter hoped his read of Gabriel was right and that he'd say something if the other man was dying. He looked back to Maury. "Are you saying Abbas started to have a heart attack and you had it instead?"

"Yeah, kind of. I took it. He was trying to shut down. There's really only one way to stop that. I'm getting too old for this."

"There are other ways to treat a heart attack," Peter said. He'd never considered using telepathy to directly interfere with a person's bodily responses. That opened a whole new world to him. It was interesting too, that Maury knew how to do it. "Epinephrine and atropine work too."

Maury shrugged with one shoulder. "I didn't think of those right then."

Peter left his side and checked Abbas, who didn't respond to his touch. His pulse was steady though and although his color was poor, it wasn't terrible. He wasn't sweating. He seemed asleep. "Will he wake up?" Peter asked.

"No. He's going to need someone to go in his head and pull him out of it at some point. I put him in a coma."

Peter frowned. "Was it really necessary to put him in a nightmare on top of everything else?"

"He's not in a nightmare, he's in a coma. You don't have to trap people with fear. You can do it with any emotion strong enough to hold them." Maury hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Can I get up now?"

"No." Peter was looking at Abbas, checking his pupils with a carefully controlled flash of light from his palm.

Maury raised his head. "Peter, don't go in there yet. We need to finish our mission or else we'll just have to put him right back. He's suicidal because of what I made him tell me."

The youngest Petrelli looked back at him, eyes narrowed. Maury put his head down and said, "He'll protect Halo with his life and if he fails, he'll kill himself. Right now he's failed. It's an emotional link. If we get control of Halo, we can find whoever did it to him and have them change it. There's nothing I can do to change him on this, just like I couldn't make Gabriel quit loving you or hating you after the rape. I can't change feelings, just thoughts."

Peter turned a perplexed look at Gabriel. "You _hate_ me?"

Gabriel answered quickly, "I don't know what he's talking about." It was a bald-faced lie. Maury started chuckling, then coughing. He rolled over.

Peter scowled at the old man. "You did that on purpose." He put aside the doubt. Gabriel loved him and that was all that mattered. Anything else was just Maury trying to poison things. The knowledge that Gabriel was lying wouldn't go away though. He tried not to dwell on it. People were complicated and Gabriel was the most complicated person he knew.

"Did what?" the old man said, starting to sit up regardless of Peter's earlier threat.

"You're trying to drive us apart."

"I don't need to do that, lover boy. You're doing that to yourselves already." He leaned his back against the sofa. "Oh, wow." He exhaled voluminously and rubbed the left side of his chest with his right hand, acting as if this were a familiar enough occurrence that it didn't warrant further mention. "Okay, did we get everything we needed to know?"

Gabriel was frozen, watching Peter with an expression of dread. Peter could only imagine that the best thing to do was to act like nothing important had been said. This was so **not** the time to discuss it. He sat on the couch and looked through the notes calmly. Gabriel relaxed. That by itself told Peter a lot - Gabriel cared what he thought about him.

Peter knew Gabriel had hated Peter before, after Peter had him neutralized and locked up in Omaha for a few months. But Peter had thought Gabriel had gotten over it. _What exactly did Maury say? Gabriel hates me _now_, or just that he used to?_ He gave himself a little shake and focused on the notes. Peter said, "Yeah, I think so. Let's get him cleaned up and then move on to this first one, Fatima, the healer. We might need her for the rest." _Especially at this rate._

Maury levered himself to his feet. He seemed steady enough. "No, we've got to go _now_. They've got a teleporter. We've got to stop them before they get together. As soon as we took Abbas, there was an alarm. Go get Molly and bring her here. They're going to be on the move, so we need exact locations. Don't stop to chat with her, just grab her and bring her back. If you're bothered about him, take him with you and let Angela handle him. Be quick about it. Drop him off, grab the girl and come back. They don't need explanations. Oh, and make sure to take that scrambler over there with you."

Peter frowned at him and nodded, following orders for the moment. He and Abbas disappeared.


	114. Tortured Confessions End

Gabriel pulled out his cell phone and cursed that it wasn't receiving. Maury walked over and turned off the other signal scramblers. "Try again."

"Oh. Yeah, forgot." He worked with it for a few moments and put it away. "I have to initialize it and stuff for being in a new country. Takes too long."

"What were you trying to do?"

"Call Angela and tell her not to kill Abbas."

"She won't."

Gabriel nodded, accepting that on the face of it. "Is he broken?"

"Yeah, right now." Maury pulled out his own phone and began the process of setting it up, since he fully expected Peter to disobey him and waste time running his mouth while in New York. Working on the phone distracted him from cursing the younger man.

Maury said, "He might be fixable. I never liked that emotional stuff. It's unreliable. If I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have suggested snatching him at night. If we could have approached him with the angle this was best for Halo and forced him to believe us, we would have had him without any torture or having to crack him open like that. I didn't know. Usually you catch someone off-guard, shake them up a bit, their ability to concentrate and defend their mind falls to pieces and I get what I want a lot easier."

He looked up from the phone. "Anyway, yeah, he can probably be fixed if I get hold of the person who did it to him to start with. Right now it's like I shot his family and raped the bodies right in front of him. Made him a little unhinged. Better to leave him unconscious."

Gabriel exhaled sharply, thinking about how he'd feel if something like that had happened to him and he was powerless to stop it. Suicidal was an understatement.

Maury rubbed his chest again uncomfortably and set his phone aside. He walked over to the duffel bag and pulled out what looked like a thickly padded envelope from a side compartment. Gabriel didn't pay much attention at first, but then Maury was stabbing himself in the leg with what looked like an autoinjector syringe.

"Wha? Um," Gabriel stammered, moving a little closer. "What the hell was that?"

Maury pulled the needle out and put the safety cap back on it. He regarded Gabriel silently for a moment. Gabriel noticed Maury's skin pink up and flush, the bags disappearing from under his eyes. He didn't exactly look younger, but he looked a lot healthier. Aside from that, his song changed and became more vibrant and resonant.

Gabriel walked over to him decisively and took his shoulder, turning him. He reached up and tore off the bandage from the back of the old man's head. There was no wound to mark where Gabriel had cut him earlier that same day - not even a bruise from where he'd been slammed into the wall. Maury started to quietly reload the syringe with a new vial, but Gabriel snatched that from him as well. Gabriel held up the vial and asked, "Whose is this?"

Maury waited a beat, but Gabriel was right next to him, looming over him. He didn't look up. "Claire's," he answered quietly in a neutral, almost subservient tone of voice. Maury put his hand on the vial in a silent request. Gabriel let him have it and walked off.

Gabriel paced and asked, "Claire? How? Why? And how long does that stuff stay good?"

Maury glanced upwards for a moment, then said, "Yes. Willingly. Because Angela has seen me dead two or three different ways tonight and there's no way I'm going to keep up with a couple regenerators without it. This stuff's already a little old, so under field conditions, like this, a couple of hours." He raised the vial briefly. "These are 'use it or lose it' doses."

Gabriel blinked and mentally matched the questions to the answers. He relaxed a little, surprised to have gotten reasonably straight answers. "Okay."

Maury finished reloading the syringe and put the envelope away. "If I die, and you want me back, use this."

Gabriel looked at him piercingly for a moment, then glanced down and nodded. After a few beats, Gabriel asked, "How did Abbas give himself a heart attack? I couldn't manage that when I tried to kill myself."

"He didn't _give_ himself a heart attack. Not in the 'Hey, I've decided to I need to die' sort of way, even if he would if he could. I had to put so much pressure on him that… oh, I don't know all the medical terms, but he kept panicking and trying to get his body to panic with him. I wouldn't let him, because it's a lot harder to use telepathy on someone who's too freaked out to think straight and once they get all those fight or flight hormones dumped in the bloodstream, you just might as well give it up. At some level, you have to have them working with you - that's why it usually doesn't work on someone who's sleeping or unconscious. So I was manipulating his body directly by copying my own physical responses and projecting them into him.

"That's kind of complicated and trying to do it while I was pulling information out of him got to be too much. It's like playing the piano while working out higher math problems in your head. I got confused and between me telling him what to do and his own body telling itself what to do, he got a bad rhythm. I dumped everything else and concentrated on fixing him, but while I was doing that, his hindbrain was telling somebody's body to fuck up and if I wasn't letting it tell himself, then it was going to tell mine instead. That's a problem with getting in so deep."

Gabriel chewed his lip for a moment and said, "You're right. That's not a very good explanation."

"Yeah, well." Maury looked directly at him and added, "Matt was strong enough he didn't need to bother with workarounds like that. He could just power his way through it." Gabriel flinched, his shoulders tightening and his breath quickening. Maury smiled thinly and held out a hand as if offering. He said, "I could show you mentally."

"I could cut you open," Gabriel retorted, his lip curling and one hand clenching.

Maury shrugged like it wasn't important. At that moment, Peter blinked into existence in the room, Molly at his side.


	115. One of Five Times Two

Peter appeared in his mother's living room with Abbas' limp body. He laid him on the couch and pulled out some tissues from a nearby box to wipe off his face. It didn't help much, so he went to the powder room and came back with a wet towel. The man's nose was thoroughly broken, but none of the other facial bones were, as far as Peter could tell from basic palpitation. His pulse was steady and his breathing, although through his mouth, was even. He cleaned him up and hoped they could get their business done quickly.

He felt very sorry for Abbas, yanked out of his bed in the dead of night, beaten and tortured, forced to reveal information he'd rather die than impart and by doing so betray everything he cared about. He hadn't fought them or cursed them or spat at them or done anything that made it easier to think maybe he deserved it. Peter felt a dullness settle over his heart. They had a mission. They'd fix it later. It would all be okay. That's what he wanted to believe.

He stood up to see his mother coming into the room with Clarice behind her. The analyst had hurried out to get her the second Peter arrived. Angela looked down at the man on her couch. Peter said, "He works with Halo. He helped us. Please take care of him. Maury put him in a coma. I'll come back for him." She nodded.

He turned to find Molly, who was sitting in the corner, the book she had been reading now lying forgotten in her lap. She stared at him with wide eyes. He walked over to her. "Molly. You've got to come with me." She nodded and stood up. She set her book down. Peter added, "No, go ahead and bring the book. You might want something to read."

"Are we going to Riyadh?" she asked. He nodded. "Then I'll need maps." She went to gather up the paraphernalia that made it easier for her to use her ability.

Peter took out the scrambler and explained how it worked to Clarice. His mother suggested he move Abbas down the hall to the maid's room until she could make arrangements for him, so Peter did. Molly was ready when he came back.

He looked over at his mother, who gave him a sad, bittersweet smile. He wondered what that expression meant. He shook it off and teleported back.

XXX

When he returned, Gabriel looked incensed and was glaring at Maury, who looked innocent. The old man gave Peter a mischievous smile. He seemed unusually perky and cheerful for someone who had nearly died a handful of minutes earlier. Maury moved off to talk to Molly.

_I'm gone for five minutes, _Peter thought, _and they're back at each other's throats. __**Maury**__ is the one who's suicidal! He should know better after what happened to Matt._ It occurred to Peter that what happened to Matt might have a lot to do with Maury antagonizing him… and being suicidal. He wasn't sure what it meant, but there was something complex going on there. Peter drifted over to Gabriel, who shook his head and then dropped Nathan's face and adopted that of Gabriel Grey. Peter looked at him for a long moment and Gabriel asked sharply, "What?"

Peter shrugged, not taking the other man's tone personally. Obviously Maury had set him off, not Peter. "Why did you change?" He liked having Nathan at his side. It didn't feel odd to have Gabriel there, because he'd gotten over that, but it had been nice to have the illusion of his brother.

Gabriel relaxed a little. "Because if anyone sees me out here, I don't want them to see Nathan Petrelli. I have a wife and kids. Gabriel doesn't. Or at least, no one over here in Halo knows he does. They think I'm Nathan's brother. It's at least a step removed."

Peter nodded. That made sense.

Capturing the healer went very well, which relieved Peter. Fatima was a very old woman, frail in stature and she'd helped Peter in the past for no reason except that he needed it. He would have felt horrible if they'd had to hurt her. Fortunately it didn't come to that. They didn't even have to hurt the man whom she called her grandson, but Abbas had told them was no such thing. He was a hired guard with a general toughness and resilience that was exceptional enough to be a power by itself. He hadn't had it before the eclipse, but he did now. Abbas didn't know the parameters of the ability.

When they teleported in, she was on the phone in a full-length housecoat with her bodyguard standing next to her. For a second nothing happened as all became aware of the other side. Then the man reached into the slit at the hip of his tunic as if for a weapon. Peter and Gabriel's hands came up as one, empty, in a gesture that would have seemed defensive to someone unfamiliar with abilities.

Fatima was not unfamiliar. Immediately, sharply, she said, "NO!" with surprising force. All three men froze without initiating hostilities. She looked between them with an expression of condemnation that anyone would even dare to start violence in her house. Then she looked twice at Gabriel, apparently recognizing his appearance. She said something that Arabic to him that included the word "Petrelli" in it.

Gabriel dropped his hand and told her, "Put down the phone."

Maury said quietly, "She doesn't understand you. No English."

In response Gabriel said, "She got 'no.'"

"It's pretty common. She's not processing what we're saying." Maury made a gesture for her to put down the phone. She did so and stepped away from the desk, closer to them.

In retrospect, Peter wasn't sure why the three of them waited for her to come to them. Maybe Gabriel and Maury were as reluctant to hurt a harmless old lady as he was. But in any case, none of them stopped her when she raised a finger towards them in a 'wait' gesture and started to turn to her man, then turned back to them and repeated the motion to make sure they understood her intentions. Peter didn't, but he waited anyway. His hand was still up threateningly and the man had not moved an inch, his own hand still ready to finish reaching for whatever armament he carried.

She spoke to her man in Arabic. He gave her a single, curt nod. She started to move towards the group, then turned back and said something else to the guard. He looked embarrassed and nodded again. He slowly moved his hand away and came out of his crouch. Peter let his hand fall. It looked like they were going to manage this without anyone getting hurt. Fatima reached them and turned back to say something sharp to the man, who nodded like he'd heard it before and answered her, something pleading. She shook her head and said something in response.

Peter put his hand on her and she pulled away from him automatically, offended that he'd touched her. In a second the bodyguard had his gun out and pointed. Gabriel's hand was up and lightning danced in his palm.

"No! No!" she said. "Kafaa! Kel-lah." The man lowered the gun. Gabriel lowered his hand.

Peter said, even if she didn't understand him, "I'm going to touch you. Maury, Gabriel, as soon as I do, I'm going." They both put hands on his shoulder and the second his hand contacted her arm, he took them all to the Philadelphia containment facility, to a break room on level 2. The break rooms doubled as staging areas for the level they were on.

She jerked her arm from Peter's touch and stepped away from them, muttering something in Arabic. Maury said to Gabriel, "Hold her. I'm going to pat her down."

"Is that really necessary?" Peter asked.

"Of course it is. You think just because someone's old they're not dangerous?"

"Hang on," Peter interjected and came around in front of her. He gestured at her to stop. She did, looking at him intently. Her expression became alarmed when she felt the telekinesis grip her, then angry when Maury dared to lay hands on her person. Peter made soothing gestures to her and tried to explain in a low, calm voice that it was necessary, it was okay, and they were sorry they had to do this. She listened to him, but he knew she didn't understand his exact words. It seemed to calm her though.

Maury stepped back. "She's clean. You sure level 2 is where she needs to be?" Gabriel dropped his telekinesis.

The door burst open and two guards came in with guns drawn. Other than turning to look, no one moved. They were recognized and the guns were lowered. Peter reflected that perhaps they should have warned the place of their intentions. He'd assumed Maury would do that - apparently not. Peter walked over to explain things. He listened with half an ear to the conversation behind him.

Gabriel turned to Maury and continued as if they hadn't been interrupted. "Yes. Especially after how that went. She came with us without a fight. She doesn't have an aggressive power. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt. We might need her help later anyway."

"All the more reason to put her in level 3 so we can bribe her with an upgrade later," Maury said.

Gabriel shook his head. He turned to her and pointed to the door a few feet from her. With a flick of his finger, it swung open by itself. Inside was a fairly comfortable cell with standard furniture, carpet, and a semi-private bathroom area hidden behind a movable screen. The "windows" let onto the hall, but they had blinds that could be operated from either side. She tottered inside obediently, then came to the window and looked out after the door swung shut and locked behind her. Peter was finished talking with the guards, so he walked back over and smiled apologetically at her. "Nicer cell than I got," Peter murmured.

Maury grunted and said, "Yeah. Tell me about it. They put me in level 4 when they brought me in. Outrageous." Peter looked at him, unsure if he was joking. There was no reason to put a telepath in level 4 unless he was wildly uncooperative and he just couldn't see Maury being that way. A snarky, pain-in-the-ass yes, but not the destructive sort that caused a downgrade to level 4. And why was one of the directors being held in a containment cell anyway? He didn't get to ask.

Gabriel turned to one of the guards and said, "Get someone up here who speaks Arabic. Help her meet her basic needs. Let me know if she requests anything else."

Maury pulled a metal, rectangular box out of his pants pocket and added, "Oh, and here. Keep this signal scrambler within twenty feet of her at all times."

XXX

When they got back, Abbas' father-in-law Fuad was the only one Molly could find who wasn't with one of the other executives. Like Fatima, he was with his bodyguard already. They knew his relative isolation wouldn't last long, so they went for him immediately, with only a brief discussion of tactics.

They found themselves in a dim loft with Fuad and a middle-aged woman who gave a little squeal when they appeared. The older Arabic man put himself between her and them immediately, in an almost instinctive motion. She released a frightened stream of Arabic to him. For a bodyguard, she was unimpressive. Supposedly, she had some power of heat vision, but she didn't use it right away.

Gabriel fanned out to Peter's left; Maury to his right. Their body language and positioning communicated their intentions perfectly well. Fuad's file indicated he knew English. Peter said to him, "Fuad, come forward. Come with us. There doesn't have to be trouble." According to Abbas, Fuad's power was to read people's emotions, understand their motivations, and predict how they would mesh with others. Sort of like an ultimate matchmaker, or an enhanced version of Peter's empathy, but without the mimicry.

It was a weird ability and Peter didn't imagine it could be all that powerful. He was confused as to how someone with that power has ended up as one of the top five in Halo. Abbas seemed to think he was the single most important member, even more important than Bandar, who could influence emotions and make people love him. Maury, Gabriel and Peter had all agreed this must be some sort of hero-worship at work. Abbas was very impressed by his father-in-law and loyal to him in a complete fashion that Maury had said was very rare and seemed very genuine. Of course it made sense that with Fuad's ability, he would pick someone fully compatible as his daughter's husband.

Fuad said something to the woman he was with, then he started walking calmly towards Peter. For a moment, Peter thought things were going to go as well as they had with Fatima. But then Maury started shouting and that was when everything went to hell. Peter had time to suspect they had badly underestimated Fuad. That was the last thing Peter suspected, because after that, he didn't care about anything except listening to whatever it was Fuad was going to tell him.

Fuad had Peter enthralled by his ability and Peter didn't even realize it. He could hear the shouting, but it didn't bother him ("No! Get away from him! Gabe, stop him! Ah!"). The laser beams and bolts of lightning were inconsequential. Someone was screaming in pain, Gabriel was yelling at him - he didn't care. He was about to learn something very important. He leaned forward, waiting for Fuad to come to him.

The Arab was almost to Peter when there was a moment of distraction - Fuad was yanked to the side by an unseen power and he stumbled. There was a flash of light, maybe more laser beams and lightning, but Fuad had regained his footing and Peter stopped trying to remember why he felt he needed to step back or get away. He felt… there was no need anymore. The man was going to tell him something he needed to know. He could feel it. He smiled, waiting for enlightenment.

It seemed to be a long time coming. In fact, the feeling was fading rapidly. Peter's brows pulled together as he tried to understand, but Fuad was down, on the floor. He stared at him dumbly, then Maury socked Peter in the side of the face with his fist.

That seemed to help. Peter blinked. "What?" It didn't even hurt all that much, but it snapped him out of it. The air smelled like charred flesh. Maury had blood running down from his nose. He grabbed Peter's shoulder like he was about to fall and sagged against him, panting heavily.

The woman was getting back up. Peter looked around in alarm. A lot of things were on fire. _Good grief, how long was I out of it? What the hell happened?_ Gabriel's hands were full of lightning. Maury hugged one hand to his body - not the one he'd punched Peter with. "Get us out of here, Petey, quick."

Gabriel stepped forward and grabbed Fuad with one hand, giving the woman another jolt of electricity with the other. She fell to the floor and convulsed briefly. Peter reached out to touch Gabriel's back, taking them all back to the level 2 break room. Fuad wasn't out entirely and as Peter looked down at him, he realized the man still had something to tell him… Peter could see it in his eyes. He felt bad because he hadn't been able to listen earlier. He leaned forward to hear him better and Maury tasered the bastard unconscious.

Gabriel grabbed Peter and bodily shoved him back into the wall next to Fatima's window, where she was watching events unfold with great interest. Gabriel slapped Peter across the face and shook him. Peter kept blinking rapidly. He wanted to fight back, but he had finally processed that Fuad had been doing something to him. His mind was still clouded. Gabriel slapped him again. "Hey!" Peter exclaimed, "Stop it!" Being slapped was not helping.

Gabriel looked back and forth between his eyes. "Are you with me, Peter?"

He wanted to say _of course_, and _where else would I be?_, but obviously he'd spaced there for a bit. "Yeah. I am." Something still smelled like cooked meat.

Maury walked over to him, more of a stagger, leaving Fatima's surprised translator watching Fuad. The older man looked intently at Peter's eyes. "Still dilated. Slap him around some more."

Gabriel hesitated. "Are you serious?"

Maury sighed, "I don't have time for this," and tasered Peter. Peter's legs spasmed and he went down, but that was mostly because Gabriel had let go of him. He was dimly aware that Gabriel threw Maury back and away from him, tossing him into the opposite wall like he was a doll. Peter's vision cleared and so did his head - this time completely. He looked up to see Gabriel standing there looking at where he'd thrown Maury, his hand still outstretched towards him. Peter got to his feet. Maury's legs were jerking and twitching in a danse macabre - clear signs of nerve damage, possibly lethal brain damage.

Peter turned to the translator and said, "You. Get her out and have her fix him." He pointed at Fatima and then Maury. When the translator moved to obey, Peter went to kneel next to the old man. He skirted Fuad, who was still on the floor, apparently unconscious. He wasn't sure what Fuad had done to him, but apparently both Gabriel and Maury had panicked about it and it had disabled Peter for the entire fight. He kept away from him.

Maury had a pulse, but he was bleeding profusely from a scalp wound and he was still twitching irregularly. His pupils were dilated unequally, which was yet another terrible sign. There was smoke coming from the old man's legs. In the fight, he'd been burned down to the muscle, vaporizing skin and fat, as Peter discovered where the smell was coming from. Peter was very aware of Gabriel standing behind him, hovering in a strictly metaphorical sense, but he didn't look up. _He threw Maury into the wall for using a taser on me. He could have killed him! If Fatima won't help him, he might still die._

Gabriel moved away and Peter looked back. Gabriel was trying to hurry the old woman towards Maury. That made Peter feel a little better. The translator was speaking rapidly to her. She turned and said something sharp and authoritative to him. The translator shut up and backed away from her, saying to them, "She'll do it."

Fuad began to move on the floor. "Shit," Gabriel said and pulled out his own taser and applied it immediately. Peter opened his mouth to object and then shut it. _Don't be a hypocrite, Peter,_ he thought to himself._ It's better than him slamming Fuad into a wall or hitting him with his own electricity power. The taser's probably more precise than his ability._

The old woman said something unpleasant and angry to Gabriel, but continued over to Maury. Peter stood and offered her his hand as she struggled down to the floor. She took his help and said something to Peter. It sounded cranky. He smiled affectionately at her. He didn't understand her, but she seemed like a nice lady. He looked past her to the translator, who said, "She said he didn't need to do that and that at least you aren't making things worse." Peter nodded.

She muttered and touched Maury on the forehead. After a moment she fell silent and the old man took a deep breath, blinking his eyes open. Maury looked at her for a long moment, then at Peter, then up and behind him - Peter presumed at Gabriel. Peter watched Maury's expression instead of looking back. The old man was good at hiding his emotions, but he was at a disadvantage at the moment. He was still off from waking up, and didn't have his guard up. Peter saw him look almost worshipfully at Fatima, reserved at Peter and then had traces of fear, resignation and defeat as he looked up at Gabriel. Maury looked back to Fatima and thanked her in Arabic. It was a common phrase. Even Peter knew it.

Her hand, which had been thin before, was positively skeletal now. Peter looked away from Maury to her, concerned. Her eyes were a little hollower and she looked, if possible, even more frail than she had before. He stood and pulled her up. He was sure she was lighter. She looked back at the long walk back to her cell and said something dispirited. Instead of tottering, she shuffled slowly.

The translator volunteered, "She says she's tired."

Peter said to him, "Ask her if she'll let me carry her."

He did and she turned and slapped Peter. It was hardly more than a brief contact, her hand like bones in a latex glove. Her eyes were flinty and hard though. He blushed and smiled, ducking away from her. She reminded him of his mother, he realized. She seemed mollified by his reaction and tried to shuffle along with more dignity. He put out his arm for her to hold onto and after a moment she took it. Together they made slow progress.

He looked back to see Gabriel offer his hand to Maury, to help him up. After a long beat, Maury took it. He stood up and stretched, then stepped closer and clapped Gabriel on the back. Gabriel stiffened and stepped away from the contact. Maury told him, "Good reflexes there, but please don't do that again, okay?"

"Don't hurt Peter."

Peter glanced between them from his place next to the slowly moving old lady and decided to stay out of it for the moment. Gabriel's tone sounded as deadly serious as he'd ever heard it. He knew Gabriel was possessive and protective, and he knew Gabriel had had enough of Maury Parkman.

Maury sighed and took a couple steps back, ducking his head and making a calming motion with his hands. Gabriel turned his back on him and bent to check Fuad's pulse. Maury glanced up at Peter with a guarded expression, then went over to the phone set into the wall and dialed an extension. After a few beats he said, "Yeah, Noah? Get your ass up to level two and bring the neutralizer darts." He hung up and looked at Gabriel, "Kill his powers." He pointed at the man on the floor.

Gabriel jerked a little and muttered, "Why didn't we think of that earlier?" He activated ability nullification.

"Can't think of everything," Maury answered.

After a few minutes, Fatima reached her bed and sank onto it. She looked exhausted. Peter sat beside her for a moment. He beckoned to the translator and had him thank her for saving Maury. She nodded and wiped at the side of her face. He started to get up and she mimed clutching at his shirt without actually touching him. He paused and she spoke to the translator.

He told Peter, "She says she wants bean sprouts, fruits and vegetables, living things, to get her strength back."

"Living things?" Peter worried he had misunderstood. "Does she mean fruits and vegetables are living things, or is she saying she wants live animals in addition?"

She added something.

The translator nodded to her and told Peter, "No… just, um, she wants plants, but she said also raw, fertilized eggs if we could get them."

"Okay." Peter nodded as he realized she must be recharging, but rather than taking the route of most people with her power and draining people, she had learned how to draw from other sources. "Get them for her then. As much as she wants." He smiled at her and nodded, very familiar with the drain. It occurred to him that she probably had it within her power to drain him or any of them, but she hadn't. She hadn't given them any problems. He smiled at her and wondered again about the ethics of what they were doing to these people.

He walked out at the same time that Noah came in. Gabriel had a backboard out and was rolling Fuad on it. Maury was staying well away from both of them.

Maury told Noah, pointing at the Arab, "This is Fuad. Neutralize him. Keep him that way. Don't talk to him. If he persists in rattling on to you, gag him, restrain him, tranq him if you have to."

"What's his ability?"

"Seduce your mind, tell you things you didn't want to know - more powerful than you might think. He can mesmerize people. Level 3 material because he was a pain in the ass. He's been hit with the taser a bit and I've tranquilized him too. We've got to go. You know what to do." He walked over to Peter and eyed him. Peter glanced past him after a moment to see Noah staring at Maury's backside. The old man was missing sections of his pants that had been burned off and he had dried blood down the back of his shirt.

Peter sighed and thought about Maury nearly going into cardiac arrest after dealing with Abbas. "Maury…" He tried to think of a polite way to agree with Maury that he was getting too old for this, especially given Peter's own poor showing in the fight.

The telepath said, "You're fine now. He didn't get to tell you anything, did he?"

"No."

"Good. Let's go. We don't have all night." Maury seemed perfectly fine now - perhaps even better off than he'd been before. Healing did tend to do that sort of thing to a person. "If we're lucky they'll split up looking for their folks here. Oh, crap." He looked to Peter and said, "I keep forgetting to tell you to take us back to the townhouse. At this rate, you're not going to last long." Peter didn't know what he meant by that, but he didn't get a chance to ask.

Maury immediately turned to Noah and told him, "If you can't get a signal scrambler for him down there, then take him down to level 4 and let him rot. They don't get reception down there, do they?" Noah shook his head. "Good." He turned back. "Let's go. Gabe, get over here."

Gabriel frowned at him, but he did it.


	116. Third of Five

Peter transported Gabriel and Maury back to the townhouse in Riyadh. He was beginning to feel a little fatigued… okay, more than a little. Sunday he'd taken Brian Taylor and Susan Greer. That night he'd worked a shift in the ambulance. The next day he'd met Claire and then had an emotional breakdown afterwards. Then he'd worked a double shift overnight - sixteen hours. Today he'd brought in two more specials, teleported around the world multiple times, tortured one man, brought in Fatima and fought with Fuad, ultimately bringing him in too.

Even though he'd caught a few hours sleep Monday, which seemed to be enough for him these days, he was starting to feel strung out. He wondered how the hell Maury was keeping up, then he realized actually, the man wasn't. He'd already nearly died twice, been burned horribly and broken his hand. The only reason he was still with them was that he'd been healed. Whatever Fatima had done for Maury had given him a second wind. Peter sank down in the same chair Abbas had sat in earlier and watched as Maury put his head together with Molly, in an almost literal fashion, to check on their next three targets. Peter rubbed his forehead absently.

Gabriel dug around in the pack and then walked into the kitchen. He came back a few moments later and handed Peter a glass of water and four Tylenol. The younger man chuckled. "That obvious, huh?"

"Yeah."

"How are you holding up?" Peter asked.

"I'm fine."

Peter took his pills and washed them down. "Fine, huh? Why isn't that a lie?"

"I get more sleep than you do. At night I go home to… eh, lay in bed and get some rest."

"You go home to your wife." Peter finished the sentence as the other man had intended to.

Gabriel smiled and looked away. "You got me."

"Yeah, I do. At least part of the time. Thanks."

Gabriel rested his fingertips lightly on Peter's shoulder. It was such a tentative touch that Peter looked up at him. The events were straining things between them. Gabriel had sensed it as much as Peter had. "That was kind of close, earlier," Gabriel said.

"Yeah," Peter replied. Gabriel moved his fingers to Peter's collar, smoothing out a wrinkle and straightening it. Continuing in his compulsive grooming, he brushed Peter's hair behind an ear and touched his head fleetingly before returning his hand to Peter's shoulder. Gabriel was being adorable without realizing it. Peter smiled softly and looked up at him. _People only do that to those they love._

He reached up and pressed Gabriel's hand more firmly to his shoulder. It made him feel better than the Tylenol did. "I know what I said about not giving you orders anymore, but you can't be killing people. I can't handle that. Maury didn't… he didn't deserve what you did. It was just a taser. You'd been hitting me yourself just a few seconds before."

Gabriel pulled his hand out from under Peter's. He didn't say anything. Peter huffed a little as the contact ended. He looked over to see that Maury had finished and was regarding the interaction between the two of them. He had a neutral expression, but his eyes were quick and observant.

Seeing he'd been noticed, Maury walked over. "All three are together at the Halo offices. Molly's going to check them every five minutes for a while. If we can get one separated off from the rest, we'll move. Until then, we have a breather." The old man glanced uneasily at Gabriel, letting his eyes dodge to the side. "I'm going to make coffee."

"Marry me, Maury," Peter joked at him as he walked by, trying to lighten the mood.

The old man harrumphed and played along. "I didn't say I'd make _you_ any."

"Oh. Well, the wedding's off, then."

Maury quipped back, easily adopting a heavy Germanic Jewish accent, "Oy! What do you think I am, chopped liver? Fun an alte moid vert a _getraye vayb!" He gestured like he was showing himself off._

Peter smiled at the joke even if he didn't understand it.

Maury snorted and went off to try to find proper coffee-making implements in an unfamiliar, Arabic kitchen.

Gabriel went over to lean against the doorway, watching him. "So what's Fuad's ability, anyway? Is that the emotion control one and we just got mixed up?"

Maury went back to a normal American accent. "Nope. Empathy."

"Empathy? I've seen empathy. It doesn't do that. It does… tattoos and stuff. And… kissing."

Maury barked a laugh at that and started going through cabinets methodically since he wasn't finding what he needed randomly. "Tattoos, huh? I haven't seen that one. I've seen variations of kissing, like lover boy over there getting way too close to people and touching them all the time." Peter turned in his chair, brows furrowed.

Obviously Maury meant _him_. He dropped his eyes to the side, remembering how badly he'd wanted to touch Gabriel the day before, how good it had felt to hug Claire and how only a few seconds ago he'd pressed Gabriel's hand to his shoulder and felt a little bereft when the other man had pulled his hand away. He'd never thought of that in the context of his _ability_.

But now that he did, he realized it was true - at least the correlation, if not the cause. His idea of an appropriate social distance between himself and others had contracted remarkably after he'd gotten his ability. At the time, he'd imagined it was the result of… stress. Nothing like dying a few times and seeing people you loved killed to make you want to connect with the people who mattered to you. Social mores be damned, he'd touch people and be close to them because he wanted to, as long as they allowed it. _My ability_, he thought. He tried to contemplate how profoundly it had shaped the person he was, or whether the person he was had shaped _it_.

Maury was still talking. "But you could say telepathy's only about reading minds; healing is only about closing open wounds. Abilities evolve sometimes. Telepathy becomes control, maybe memory alteration or insertion; healing becomes curing systemic stuff or internal injuries; empathy can become the ability to manipulate emotional links between people. It can become other things too, but that seems to be what happened here with Fuad."

"If you knew he could do that, then why didn't you warn us?" Gabriel's tone was accusing. Peter brought his head back up and looked at Gabriel's back, his expression tight. Peter hoped he wasn't spoiling for a fight. It sounded like he was. _And right after I just told him to lay off of him!_

Maury answered, "I didn't know until we got there. What Abbas knew is what Abbas knew. I guess his father-in-law was holding out on him about the true extent of what he could do. We don't know any fathers who lied to their sons about _that_, do we?" He smirked at Gabriel, who sighed and said nothing.

Maury slammed the last drawer shut. "God dammit! We rented this place furnished and equipped. Why isn't there any God damned coffee in it? I got sugar and salt and whatever the hell this shit is, and I think this other stuff is tea leaves, but no fucking coffee!" He stormed around, banging a pot into the sink for water and then banging it on the stove, sloshing only a little, before turning on the fire. He puffed out air angrily. "We get tea, looks like."

Maury walked over close to Gabriel and murmured something Peter couldn't catch. Gabriel turned and looked back at Peter and shook his head. Maury frowned and went back to watch the not-boiling water. Peter perked up. _What the hell was that about? Me, obviously._ It also told him that at least half of Maury's fuming anger about the coffee was for show.

Gabriel asked, "What was he doing to Peter?"

"I dunno. Ask Peter." It wasn't true, but knowing that didn't help.

Gabriel looked back at Peter, who shrugged and said, "I felt… he was going to tell me something important and I needed to know. Everything else didn't matter. I just… needed to stand there and listen to him, give him a chance to tell me."

Maury came over to the door and looked around Gabriel's shoulder at him. "He never got to tell you, right?"

"No. Why do you keep asking me that? What could he have told me?"

"Er… really, Peter…" Maury shook his head and went back to the stove.

Peter got up quickly and pushed past Gabriel into the kitchen. He walked over next to the old man and said, "No, seriously. What could he have told me? Is it really something he says, the information, or is it something the ability does to warp your mind into thinking he said something?"

Maury looked at Peter, then back at the pot of still-not-boiling water. He sighed and shut his eyes. "I don't know." It was another lie. "There's things _I_ could… no, never mind. You wouldn't listen to me anyway. You would have listened to **him** though, or at least I figure you would have. Those fortunetellers get a hold of someone, people always believe what they tell them."

Peter pursed his lips and tapped one finger on the counter, trying to decide whether to press the issue.

Maury offered, "I could see in his mind that he fixed on you as being the most vulnerable of us. He could see the links between us, who felt what about who and by turning you, he'd screw up all of us. And I agree with that. If he turns me, you and Gabe will dump me. If he turns Gabe, you and I will clobber him. But if he turns _you_… well, you saw what happened when I put a taser to you." He jerked his head at Gabriel. "He liked to killed me. A taser! To _**you!**_" Maury looked back over at Gabriel, trying to convey how ridiculous it was to think Maury was actually trying to hurt Peter with such an ineffective device. This time Gabriel looked down. Maury snorted and went back to monitoring the stove.

Peter considered that. He said finally, "So Abbas didn't lie to you?"

"Nah. His old man just had a few tricks up his sleeve."

"This is different than the emotional compulsion Abbas is under?"

"Yep."

"How?"

Maury thought about it for a moment, then frowned and shrugged wearily. "I don't know, Peter!" But his words had that unnatural quaver of a lie. He threw his hands up in mock surrender. "I really don't know. It made sense once upon a time but I really can't think of why or how right now. I'm out of caffeine. Healing always knocks the drugs out of a person's system. I didn't bring my usual uppers because I'd already taken the dose." He looked at the water in his pot and said with genuine relief, "Thank God! Water's boiling." He edged a tiny bit away from Peter.

"I wish you'd quit lying to me," Peter said quietly, seriously. "I can hear it, you know?" Maury knew Fuad had been trying to subvert him in some way and it was different from whatever Bandar might do. Why he wouldn't explain the difference was the mystery.

Maury frowned at him and then spoke low and serious in return. "Then stop asking questions about things you really don't want to hear the answers for. That's the other part of why Fuad picked you. You're nit-witted enough to stand there and listen to him." Maury stepped closer and pointed his finger at Peter accusingly. Peter heard Gabriel shift, but he didn't interfere. Now that he was sensitive to it, he realized he _felt_ the physical proximity as Maury got in his face.

Maury went on, raising his voice, "You can't even _imagine_ what someone might be able to say that would sway you. That is _so arrogant, _Peter, it's mind-boggling and yet even now, with me telling you, I can see on your face you're wanting to deny it. I could tell you, but it wouldn't do any good. You believe what you want to believe, no matter what the hell the reality is!" Maury shook his head. "You have _no idea_. You're _just like your __**father**_ - stubborn and arrogant as the day is long." He punctuated it with more pointing.

Maury stood there stiffly for a long moment, as if trying to stare Peter down. It didn't work. His expression faltered and Peter realized he intimidated Maury on some level. The old man looked down and away, shuffled a little and shoved the canister of tea at him without looking in his direction. "Now start putting tea leaves into cups. I couldn't find a strainer either, so we'll just have to drink it like Claude."

"Who?" Peter asked, wondering if Maury meant Claude Rains, the invisible man and former agent.

Maury looked at him blankly for a moment, then said, "The English. Drink it like the English." He bared his teeth. "You use your teeth to strain it."

Peter nodded and opened the canister, following directions and letting the tension defuse. It had been a long time since anyone had mentioned Claude. He wondered what had ever happened to him. He thought about the rest of what Maury had said. He hadn't been lying that time, but the thing that stuck the most was the part about being like his father. He couldn't remember anyone ever accusing him of that. A lot of people had been afraid of his dad too.

xxx

Fifteen minutes later, they were finishing some of the worst tea Peter had ever had. He didn't need to worry about straining out leaves because he hadn't made it further than half the cup. At that point, he decided he'd rather go without and quit. He was dully watching Maury mind meld with Molly, thinking about how he wanted to object, but this still wasn't the time. Also, having seen it several times now and not interfered, he was getting inured to it. Even knowing how desensitization worked didn't defend him from the effects. Peter sat alone, having waved Gabriel off. He had a lot to mull over and his tired brain wasn't cooperating.

The old man rose abruptly and went to their equipment. He started loading up. "Come on, gear up. We've got a window here." He holstered two dart guns and put a taser in one pocket, a signal scrambler in the other. He went on, "The alchemist is about sixty feet from the other two. Probably another room. We go in, grab, get out. Nullify everything around us. Can you do that without interfering with each other?"

Gabriel nodded. "The more people we have to exclude though, the more concentration it takes. And if I get shot or something, anything that shocks the system, there's a good chance I can't keep the focus."

"You can squelch me if you have to, though it was pretty helpful this last time for me to see what Fuad was planning. I have to block everything out anyway as soon as the action starts or else I get overwhelmed. Bring us in right next to him if you can, Petey."

"Would you quit calling me Petey?" the younger man grumbled.

Maury flashed him a broad grin. "Yeah, right. Okay, lover boy, let's go."

Peter narrowed his eyes at him as he felt Maury's mind touch his enough for them both to get a moment of feedback.

Maury's smile dimmed. "Are we going?" he asked.

It took Peter a moment to realize he needed to let Maury tell him their destination. He nodded and dropped his defenses. He visualized the location and in an instant they were there.

They were standing in a restroom. Against the wall behind them was a man urinating into a floor-set trough urinal. In front of them was a short row of stalls. Peter furrowed his brow at the nearest stall door. He'd been pretty sure they were facing the right direction, but he had a throbbing headache now. Gabriel grabbed the guy telekinetically and hauled him back to them. The man yelped, still peeing, and flailed at being thrown off-balance. "Got him," Gabriel said, getting him by the scruff of the neck once he was close enough.

"Let's go!" Maury called out.

Peter ignored the nagging feeling that something was wrong and took them back to Philadelphia. There was no one there with Fatima this time. She was lying down on her bed. Their captive was still emptying his bladder and now also saying something agitated in Arabic. Luckily the floor was bare concrete in the hall and they had mops. It occurred to Peter they really should have set up a receiving area for these guys.

"Damn it! Wrong guy!" Maury said. It was the first time he got a good look at the man's face. "And why the hell do you keep bringing us all the way around the planet? We have the townhouse for this."

Peter whipped around and looked. The nagging feeling coalesced into realization. "He must have been in one of the stalls." He didn't comment about the townhouse because it didn't make sense. Philadelphia was where the containment cells were. Maybe this had something to do with why there wasn't a receiving area?

"Shit," Maury said.

_Strangely appropriate curse,_ Peter thought, wondering if Maury had enough presence of mind to mean the double entendre.

Gabriel handcuffed the man anyway, who had finally managed to finish relieving himself, and drug him over to an eyebolt that protruded from the wall. Peter had always wondered what those things were for. Now he saw as Gabriel snapped the other side of the handcuff into it. He backed up and Maury shot the man once with each of his dart guns. He collapsed after a few seconds and another outburst of Arabic, angry this time.

"All right. We go back." Maury took Peter's elbow and Gabriel joined them. The trip back wasn't the instantaneous flicker he was used to and it also was not without pain. His head hurt. The inside of his ear felt wet but he didn't have time to investigate it. The door to the stall was swinging shut and the man who had been inside was hurrying towards the exit, adjusting his thoub as he went. Gabriel's telekinesis caught him and drug him back just as the exit from the bathroom opened and two men entered. Peter had seen their faces before. They were the other two executives of Halo.

He tried to teleport out. He had a sudden stab of pain in his head. He gritted his teeth. They could **not** get stuck here, inside Halo's main building. The men were pulling out guns and yelling. Water began to spray from the ceiling - he had no idea why, but it couldn't be good for them. He concentrated on getting home to the exclusion of all else and the world faded away to nothingness. He wobbled on his feet. He was falling… then floating… then laying somewhere soft. There were sounds of a scuffle and Maury cursing, asking, "Where the fuck are we?"

Peter blinked his eyes open. He was lying on a bed. His head still throbbed with a constant lance of pain that kept time with his pulse. For some reason, the regeneration wasn't making it go away. Gabriel was standing over him, looking at him with one of Sylar's intent I'm-figuring-you-out (or perhaps I'm-about-to-open-your-skull) expressions, head tilted. The man's hair was beaded with moisture and his shoulders were wet from the sprinkler system that had gone off in the restroom. Peter fought off the desire to pull away from him. Instead, he reached out and put his hand on Gabriel's arm. The man's intentions became clearer immediately. _He won't hurt me. That's not the Hunger. He's just concerned._ Peter calmed.

Peter looked around as Maury walked up next to Gabriel, looking similarly damp. Peter recognized the place. "We're in my bedroom," he managed. "My head hurts." He looked over to see the man they'd abducted was crumpled on the floor with two darts sticking out of him. Peter realized he must have passed out for a few seconds, at least.

"Your bedroom, huh?" Maury said. "I'm not up for a threesome, so don't get any ideas."

Peter scowled at him. Gabriel brought over a box of tissues and handed him one. "You're bleeding from your ears." Peter wiped at himself and sat up.

Maury said, "Don't get up. As long as we're here… you have coffee in this place, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I'll go make some." He started to walk out.

"What about the other two?" Peter asked.

"They've got a teleporter," Maury called over his shoulder as he walked out. "No telling where they are now. We need to give them some time to settle down and dig in. We're not in any hurry." The old man stopped at the door and pointed at Gabriel. "Even though we're not in a hurry, you don't wear him out, you hear me? And don't be noisy, either." He shut the bedroom door behind him and puttered off to find Peter's kitchen.

Gabriel snorted softly. "Like I'd do anything with him around."

Peter sank back into the bed. "My head hurts like crazy."

"I don't think there's anything I can do about that. I've looked and… it's like there's a part that's burned out, or overtaxed. There's nothing for me to fix. We just have to wait for it to heal. Or recharge. Whatever." He looked around the room for a moment and added, "Why did you bring us here?"

"I don't know. Somewhere safe, I guess. I wasn't thinking."

"Mm." Gabriel scooted Peter's legs over and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Too bad you can't take one of my abilities," Peter said. "Then you two could go on without me."

Gabriel leaned over and smoothed Peter's hair back. Before pulling away, he ran a fingertip across Peter's forehead, making Peter tense suddenly and his eyes widen even though he knew he wasn't going to do it. His mind flashed to just the day before when Gabriel had told him he'd survive if he used intuitive aptitude to take Peter's ability. "Shh," Gabriel said. He leaned back and looked away.

Peter watched him warily for a long moment, then said slowly, "I didn't mean _**that**_ way. I meant like you got them from Heidi and Mom."

"Mm."

Peter sighed, frustrated at Gabriel's lack of conversation. "Why haven't you ever taken any of my abilities like you got theirs?"

Gabriel looked down at him and then away. "I love you, Peter."

Peter pursed his lips. "Why?" He was asking about the abilities, not why he loved him.

Gabriel took up Peter's left hand in both of his and turned it, looking at Peter's palm. He stroked his fingers over it and then began to rub gently, starting at the wrist and working down to the fingers. Peter looked away, assuming he wasn't going to get an answer. It felt nice, though. After he was done, Gabriel said, "I love you, but I don't understand you."

"You're saying you understand Mom?" Peter asked incredulously.

"Yeah. Mostly. She's not too hard to figure out, once you work at it." He tilted his head and gave Peter an expression that was solely Sylar's. "Her motivations are a lot more straightforward than I used to think. Once I realized she really did love Nathan, despite what she did... Gabriel's mother loved him too. Even with… even with everything. I can't read her very well, but I understand her."

Gabriel sighed. "You're a mystery though, Peter. You don't make sense to me and if I can't figure out what makes someone tick, then I can't figure out how to replicate their abilities. At least… not without… being invasive." He looked away. "In any case, I wouldn't go on without you. Maury's right about that: Fuad picked the right one to try to turn."

"What is it about me that doesn't make sense?"

"Peter…" Gabriel rolled his eyes. "You love me, but I'm the last person on Earth you _should_ love. By your own admission, you hardly know me. You say things that aren't the truth, but you aren't lying when you say them. You don't trust me, yet you put yourself entirely in my hands. I can't figure you out and maybe it's better that way. It makes me be careful." His voice softened. "I always have to be careful with you."

Peter nodded slowly and said, "I don't think it's better. You're not being careful - you're hiding yourself from me." Gabriel simply looked at him, so Peter added, "I've seen you with Noah, Angela and Maury. You're more relaxed and comfortable around _them_ than you are with _me_. Even Claire. Yeah, you're more intimate with me, but you…" Peter looked off for a moment and then back, "You relax physically, but you've always got your guard up."

Gabriel's brows lowered and he tilted his head down, pulling his chin in. It was a defensive, somewhat angry posture. "I don't really feel I _can_ let it down. There's… I…" Gabriel huffed and looked away. "I don't think you want me the way I am. The…" He shook his head. Words failed him.

"Do you remember, at lunch with Claire," Peter asked, "where you said your two sets of memories were like school and home?" Gabriel nodded and Peter went on, "I'm going to love you no matter where you are - Gabriel **or** Nathan."

Gabriel snorted. "Why would you have a nerdy watchmaker when you can have a worldly politician? You loved _Nathan,_ not this other person."

Peter smiled and ignored the comment about Nathan. "There's nothing wrong with being a normal watchmaker."

Gabriel's head snapped around, like Peter had said something very wrong. In an instant he went from looking like Peter had stabbed him in the heart to teeth-bared and angry. "Then let me spell it out for you, Peter: I'm a serial killer as much as I am a senator, but there's only one of those you'll tolerate!"

Peter tried not to flinch away from Gabriel's unwarranted fury. In a deliberate gesture, he reached out and put his hand on Gabriel's arm. Gabriel shook him off immediately and Peter repeated it, touching a little more tentatively. The second time Gabriel put up with it. He wasn't angry so much as hurt and Peter could sense that. Mentally, he thanked Maury for that small, throwaway statement that had told Peter how his ability worked. He'd had it for _years_ and never realized.

Ability or not, Peter couldn't know he'd unwittingly echoed one of the more hurtful things Gabriel's mother Virginia had ever said to him. Peter wanted to argue, to tell him that just as he wasn't a senator anymore, he didn't have to be a serial killer… but whatever sore spot he'd hit with the watchmaker comment had turned Gabriel so defensive he was being vicious. Peter just looked at Gabriel blankly until the other man swallowed and dropped his eyes.

Gabriel muttered, "Sorry. I overreacted."

When Gabriel said nothing else, Peter rubbed back and forth along Gabriel's arm. "Hey… I'm not going to say you're perfect. No one is. But stick with me and we'll get through this. We'll make it work. I'm not going to leave you. I know who you've been - to some extent. It's who you're going to be that's more important." Gabriel nodded mutely and Peter changed the subject. "Do you have any idea how long until I'm better?"

Gabriel studied him. "Thirty minutes, maybe an hour. And you won't have much juice in you when you do. So… given that Molly's in the house in Riyadh, we'd probably be better off to go straight from here to the target area and then from there to Philadelphia. She'll be okay for a while. I'll send Rachel to bring her back if she's going to be there more than an hour or two alone. If she has a problem, she can find Maury. He can detect when she uses her ability to locate him."

Peter nodded. "He seems to have a lot more than the usual telepathy."

Gabriel shrugged. "It might just be that the usual telepathy is a lot more than you or I thought it was. Matt never…" His voice faltered and he gave Peter a cautious look. Peter rolled his eyes and looked away, annoyed that Gabriel was still so guarded, even after they'd just talked about it. "Well." Gabriel cleared his throat and changed the subject. He pulled out his phone and was reminded again that with the signal scrambler nearby he had no reception. "Do you have a landline in here?"

"No, sorry."

"Okay. Well, I'm going to go up to the roof and make some calls. Rest." He leaned over and kissed Peter on the forehead, then walked out. Peter heard him talk to Maury for a while first, then head out.


	117. And Then There Were More

Maury carried in a steaming cup of black coffee and set it wordlessly on Peter's nightstand. He walked over to the Arab who was crumpled on the floor and pulled the darts out. He rolled him over onto his back in a matter-of-fact fashion. Peter sat up and leaned back against the headboard. "Maury, you should take a break too. That guy's going to be unconscious for hours."

"Got to see what these guys are packing," Maury said. He pulled out a really large caliber gun from a shoulder holster. "Wow, this sure would have put a hitch in my get-along. I wondered what he was reaching for." He looked at it. It had silver chasing and an ivory handle. "Fancy, too. At least I'd be dead in style."

Peter sipped a little of his coffee, then blew on the drink to cool it. "You're pushing yourself too hard."

Maury smirked at him. "Is that your professional opinion, Mr. Petrelli? As someone who does so regularly?"

Peter smiled in return, deciding not to get riled at the man. "Yeah, it is. I have a lot of experience at it. You said earlier you were getting too old for this."

"Peter, there's only two ways for me to leave this world." Maury paused in emptying the Arab's pockets. "The first is for me to retire, go live alone and miserable and be crazy dealing with people I can't stand. I tried that. It sucked. I'd probably die by inches, like everyone else does these days. I wouldn't accomplish much of anything, but… it'd be quiet, I guess. Just me and my regrets. I sure do have a lot of those.

"The second option is to stay in the business. As long as I'm useful, the health plan is excellent. I'll never stay sick or even dead for very long afore I get fixed. When I go, it will be sudden and it will be doing something I want to do." He paused and stared sightlessly at the Arab in front of him. "That's how I want to go: quick, making a difference." He shook himself and went back to searching the body.

Peter leaned his head back, smiling softly. "Making the world a better place. I can get behind that." Many of his hospice patients would have appreciated the chance to go out like that. He wondered if Maury had known Charles Deveaux, but then realized he must have. He wondered how they'd gotten on, since Charles had been such an optimist and Maury was the opposite. Charles had been happy to die in his bed; Maury wanted to go out fighting.

Maury snorted. "Better place? Fat chance of that. I'll settle for just having a world. Better, worse - doesn't matter to me."

Peter frowned at him now. "How long have you been at this?"

Maury walked over to sit on the end of the bed and Peter moved his feet to give him space. Peter thought that was surprisingly companionable. Maury was examining the contents of the man's wallet. "You know what Company founder means, right?" Peter didn't answer. "Well, about that long - thirty, forty years. Before that I was robbing people and being a menace - killed folk, worked for the mob a little, that sort of thing. Still got relatives working for them."

Maury paused to examine a card, frowning at it. "Wish I knew Arabic." He put the contents back. Peter noticed it was in the same order as he took them out. When he was done, the wallet looked untouched. He tossed it over on top of the guy and sighed. He turned to say something and his eyes caught on the wall next to Peter's face.

Peter looked. There was a head-shaped indentation in the wall from where Gabriel had thrown him into it a few weeks before. Peter had startled him and Gabriel had reacted without thinking. Like most of Gabriel's violence, Peter didn't hold it against him. He didn't see any point in denying it though. He'd already had that run-around with Noah. "Gabriel," he said simply.

Maury nodded slowly. "He can be a pretty rough customer." He peered at Peter intently. "Are you okay with that?"

"Yeah," he answered matter-of-factly.

"Huh. I didn't take you for a sub."

Peter snorted. "I'm not, but that doesn't have anything to do with it." There was a lot more to it than that, but he didn't want to get into it. _I really need to get that wall fixed._

"Ah." Maury nodded like that explained everything.

"Wait," Peter said. "How do you know it wasn't _me_ who threw _him_?"

"Because you're not guilty about it."

Peter blinked and sighed a little. That was true. He would be. "You don't care, do you?" At Maury's look, Peter elaborated, gesturing at the wall. "You don't care that he and I are together. You don't judge." At Maury's age and being, as far as Peter knew, heterosexual, being non-judgmental was a very, very rare trait.

The old man shrugged. "Chuck was all messed up last week. He'd been surfing the internet and came across this website about the worst things people had ever seen online. Like an idiot, he followed the links and so now here he is having an emotional breakdown about it. But… Peter," Maury looked over at him. "That stuff wasn't put there by space aliens. Human beings thought of it, did it, filmed it and put it out there for everyone to see. Then when other people found it, they linked it so even _more_ people would see it." Peter looked at him blankly, not understanding how this tied in to his relationship with Gabriel.

Maury rolled his eyes. "People, Peter! It's _people_. Every horrible thing in the world is thought up by people and I hear their thoughts." He pointed at his temple. "I hear them every day, every night and I've heard them for more than four decades. I hear people thinking the worst possible things and a lot of _im_possible ones. So pardon me if you and Gabriel screwing doesn't make it very high on my list of things I need to be outraged about."

"Oh," Peter said. "You _do_ care, but not about morals or standards. You care about _people_."

Maury scowled at him, but said nothing.

Peter prompted him, "That's right, isn't it?"

The old man grumbled, "Freakin' empaths." Maury exhaled shortly and looked at the Arab on the floor. He reached up and rubbed his face. "I gave that up a long time ago, Peter. Or at least I tried to. Got tired of watching them hurt themselves." He stood up. "Got _real_ tired of it." He walked out of the room before Peter could continue his effort to draw him out.

Peter mulled around what that meant. He'd always known Maury wasn't the unfeeling bastard he pretended to be, not the sadistic pervert Gabriel thought of him as. He was mean and he was frequently cruel, but there was more to him than that. He made such a habit of antagonizing people that it was easy to forget his humanity. He'd been flirting with Peter's mother though. He needed to understand the man and he thought he was starting to get it.

Peter heard Gabriel come back in the apartment. He rolled off the bed, feeling a bit better and picked up his coffee. He crossed to the kitchen to get some sugar to doctor his drink. Gabriel was making a report to Maury of his phone conversations. He'd spoken with Angela and Molly, both at length, though it had taken a while to get a connection with Molly. Angela was sending over some agents to pick up Al-Walid ibn Turki, the alchemist currently unconscious on Peter's bedroom floor. Molly said the other two were still together, but now they were in London.

"Where at in London?" Maury asked.

Gabriel thought for a moment. "She didn't say. Why? What's in London?"

Maury answered, "Headquarters of the loyal resistance, that's what. Probably not a coincidence."

"Is that the anti-Company European group you've mentioned before?"

"Yep," Maury nodded. "Whose most recent accomplishment was to sink our facility in Italy this last fall and kill fourteen people, releasing all twenty-two of the specials under confinement on the continent? Uh-huh – that's them." He blinked and shook his head. "This is going to be a really long night. Get yourself some coffee, then you need to go back up and give Molly a list of names to cross check with those last two Halo guys. If any of them check out within a hundred feet or so, even one, then tell Angela to get us set up to go to London in the morning – money, ID, hotel reservations, the usual stuff. We'll port in."

"I'll need the names," Gabriel said.

"Peter, you got pen and paper around here?"

"Yeah." Peter fished some out for him and stood next to Maury, reading the names he wrote. Claude Rains was first. Gabriel walked off to pour himself some coffee.

"His name's actually Claude Rains?" Peter grinned. That was ridiculous. He'd always wondered though.

"Nope, but the name's not important. You can't find him using his original one anyway. He's too smart for that. What's important is that Molly knows who I want her to look for and she does. She's met him. She can find him, unless he knows to hide from her and he shouldn't… not yet. She even worked with these bastards for a while." He wrote down several more names.

"Micah Sanders," Peter said softly. It was the only other name he recognized.

Maury looked to see if Peter had anything else to say about it. When he didn't, he handed the list to Gabriel, who scanned it. "Micah. That's Rebel."

"Yep," Maury said. "Well, that's _his_ name. The group he's part of, maybe even leads, is also called Rebel, as in the Rebellion. We're the Evil Empire. I guess that makes Arthur the Emperor and Gabriel Darth Vader and Peter's Luke Skywalker for whatever fool script he's got running around his little technophile brain."

Peter interjected, "Luke Skywalker wasn't on the same side as the Emperor and Darth Vader."

Maury shrugged. "Sue me. I only saw the first three movies."

_But,_ Peter thought, _that __**was**__ in the first three movies. _And Maury was lying. He set it aside as irrelevant.

The older man was still talking, "He's why we keep isolated backups and so much stuff still on paper and in heads. Even the backup systems are no help if he can get to them physically. Little pain-in-the-ass. Rebel will be every bit as scary as Halo and less restrained about it if they get a teleporter on the payroll. Go see if that's who our targets are meeting with." He finished up with a gesture for Gabriel to hurry.

After Gabriel left with his phone, coffee and the list, Maury took his drink and sat on the couch. Peter joined him, sitting on the opposite end. Maury drummed his fingers rhythmically on the side of his cup.

"What are you thinking?" Peter asked, since Maury's mind was obviously working at something.

The older man puckered his lips. "They're running. They've abandoned their headquarters. They don't have any reason to be in London except Rebel." His eyes moved back and forth across the floor as he thought it through. "They're still panicked right now. It's night in London. They're having to wake people up. They'll take time to get together. We've lost the element of surprise, but we still have momentum. If we wait until morning, we won't have that. Rebel knows where our US facilities are. He can tap into enough systems to figure out where the new inmates are. Halo's teleporter can bring them in there, then out, and they can collapse the place afterwards just like in Italy. But… if we can get the teleporter, then it will be at least three or four hours before Rebel could get here, assuming they want to."

"Why three or four hours?" Peter thought he knew, but he asked anyway to be sure. It was about as fast as a supersonic jet.

"That's about how long it will take that flying kid to get here with their terrekinetic. He can probably only carry one person and that's who I'd bring if I were them." He took a long pull at his coffee. "Mm. Good coffee."

"It's the last of the stuff Gabriel brought back from Riyadh a few weeks ago."

"It's good," Maury said. "I should have got some while I was over there. Anyway… if we go now, then we've got to make it work in one jump because that's probably all you have in you – one there and one back and if I burn you out a second time you won't recover as fast tomorrow. We've still got Rachel, but she's been pretty busy too." He turned his head and paused. Peter took a drink and listened as Maury discussed moving people around like game pieces. "Not sure how much juice Molly has left either. If we wait, then Bandar will use his emotion mojo on Rebel and then we're going to lose something big on our side because they're going to come after their own."

He looked over at Peter. "I don't think we can wait until morning. I think we have to go now and risk it. If it doesn't work in one jump, if we miss either of them, then we'll dump you and turn around with Rachel to go right back and hit them again. We can't let them prepare." He chewed the inside of his cheek. "Maybe send Michael if I get shot. He's good in a scrap. Noah knows too much to risk exposing him like that anymore."

Peter said reassuringly, "We can suppress their powers. It's just a grab-and-go. We should have done it in the restroom at their headquarters instead of leaving. Then they would have never talked to Rebel."

"You take too many risks, Peter. We thought the empath would be easy and he nearly got you. We had one in the hand in that restroom. I didn't know you were having issues and there's no telling who was coming in behind those two. They weren't alone. You might be bullet proof, but I'm not."

Peter huffed. "I didn't know I could overuse my abilities."

"Oh yeah," Maury smirked. "Keep at it and eventually you'll go blind."

Peter looked at him blankly for a moment, then laughed as he realized Maury was making a masturbation joke.

Maury leaned back and tried to relax. "Ah, I got you there for a moment."

"You did, you did," Peter said agreeably. "But seriously, how much is too much?"

"Varies by the individual. We did a bunch of tests in the 90s. The general constraints are that it's always harder to jump with someone else, with a lot of weight, or to go very far. We have an index. I'll have Clarice tally yours up after we get done with this mission, now that we know your limits."

_Great_, he thought unenthusiastically. "You experimented on specials," Peter mused quietly. He wasn't terribly happy about that, but he kept it out of his voice.

"Yep." Maury eyed him, picking up on the emotion despite Peter's efforts. "I'd give you details, but it would just piss you off."

"Probably," Peter allowed. He understood the desire to know, though. He was really starting to understand how vital that information was, even if he disapproved of the methods the Company had used to get it.

"What we _should_ have done," Maury expounded, "Was jump back and forth from the townhouse. That was the original idea, but I kept forgetting you hadn't been there when we'd discussed it, then there were things happening and I forgot to tell you where to go on the way back. Fog of war. All things considered, the operation's been going pretty good."

Peter shook his head even though he supposed he had to agree with that. He decided to hazard a question while he had the chance. "Why do I need to touch people now?" Maury gave him an unreadable look. "To _feel_ them," Peter added. He hoped Maury knew what he was trying to say, because otherwise he sounded silly.

Apparently Maury did. "You have to touch them to drain them, right?"

"Yeah," Peter nodded.

"There you go. All you used to need to do was be around them, right?"

"Yeah." Peter leaned back, seeing the connection. Maybe the reason he hadn't figured it out for years was because it was proximity, not contact, and proximity was pretty vague. He considered that it might even be gradual, depending on distance, which would make it harder to detect. But now that his ability had changed, the contact was definite and immediate. He still hadn't noticed until Maury had mentioned it. He wondered how much else there was to know.

Maury nodded. "My ability used to be touch-dependent too. It broadened."

"Will mine?" He didn't want to be able to drain people's abilities without touch, but he would like to be able to sense their emotions as well as he once did.

Maury shrugged. "Maybe." He turned towards Peter with an enthusiastic expression. "You see, all we need to do is get some _other_ empaths, lock them up in cells and we can design a double blind experiment to ascertain the optimal-"

"No, stop it!" Peter laughed, pretty sure Maury was joking. The old man laughed with him, making it clear. They sat quietly for a moment, both smiling. Peter was finishing his coffee just as Gabriel came back in.

Maury levered himself up off the couch, holding his back and grimacing. "I get down and I can't get back up." He sighed, stretching. "Get any hits?"

"Yes. Abigail."

"Abigail. Huh. I don't remember what she does. You?"

Gabriel shook his head. "No. I didn't pay any attention to Europe."

"Yeah, me neither. That was Angela's area. Well, let's all go up on the roof. We're going tonight."

"Tonight?" Gabriel looked at Peter, who stood up.

"I'm fine," Peter lied. Then he smiled ruefully, recalling there was no point in trying to get things by Gabriel. Peter had gained his ability to detect lies from Gabriel, after all. "Okay, I'll make it. How's that?"

"You'd better," Maury said, then he turned back to Gabriel. "Yeah, tonight. We can't let that emotion manipulator get hold of Rebel or we'll have a huge problem on our hands.

Gabriel nodded. "I hadn't thought of that."

"That's why I get paid the big bucks," Maury muttered.

"Last time I checked the financials, you weren't being paid anything," Gabriel said.

Maury grumbled something inarticulate that for some reason registered as a lie. Peter rolled his eyes. It was an exasperating ability at times. It seemed to key off of a person's intent to deceive, but even then it was picky about what it detected. Unless a statement was really clear, he could never be quite sure.

They went to the roof, where Maury got on the phone to Angela and ascertained that Abigail's power was to generate force fields. Then he called Molly to get the location, which devolved into an argument almost immediately about whose responsibility it had been to make sure she had detailed maps of England with her. He paced off to the edge of the roof, using language to the young teenager that Peter would have objected to if he'd used it to a grown man. Gabriel had his hand on Peter's shoulder, actually physically holding him back, but Peter wasn't fighting him – just pressing steadily. Gabriel told him, "Calm down. That's how he always talks."

Peter steamed and shook his head. "Not to adults it isn't. It's out of line. It's uncalled for. He's being abusive."

Gabriel sighed. "Yeah, I know. Calm down anyway. I've nearly killed him twice today. Trust me, I understand."

Peter exhaled and stopped pushing forward. He relaxed himself and shut his eyes. Gabriel was right. _And if I do something that makes Maury strike out at me in any way, Gabriel really will kill him. Or he might._ It was a sobering thought.

Maury snapped his phone shut and walked back. Peter's face was stony, but he didn't say anything. Maury related the address. "That's the best she can do. We'll end up somewhere within a couple hundred feet of them. After that we've got to search, and it's in the middle of the city, so it's not going to be an easy one."

Gabriel said, "Too bad we don't have the reverse of one of those scramblers."

"Eh?" Maury chirped.

"There's a tracking signal. These Halo guys are emitting it constantly from those implants they have. That's why we have the scramblers – so they can't find their guys and home in on them. If we could track their signal, it would lead us right to them."

Maury blinked and thought about that. He snapped open his phone again and dialed. "Angel, we need a cell phone signal locator thingie – something that will track the signal these Halo guys are using. I know the agents have them. Get Rachel to find one, get directions on how to use it, then pop up here to the roof of Peter's apartment. If it's going to take more than twenty minutes to get her here with it, then call me back and we'll go in blind." He waited a bit, then said, "Yeah, sure, if you trust her in there. … Uh-huh. Looked clean." He looked over at Peter. "Peter, is your apartment… um… never mind." He spoke into the phone again, "Yes, it is. … Okay, bye."

"What do you mean, clean?" Peter asked. He wasn't a clean-freak by any means, but his apartment was tidy mainly by virtue of having very little in it.

"She's going to cancel the team on their way here to pick up Al-Walid and have Rachel take him with her on the way out. Since we won't be there to keep an eye on her… you know, just make sure you don't have anything sensitive lying around."

Peter considered what he had in his apartment. If she snooped, she might see a few things he'd find embarrassing, but nothing dangerous. He'd taken down the clippings about specials a couple months ago and disposed of them. "No, it's fine. Is she prone to that?"

"Don't know. Don't want to find out the hard way. She used to be a part of Rebel, so we handle her with kid gloves on this."

"Why'd she leave?" Peter asked.

"Angela." Maury didn't elaborate.

Peter looked at him evenly. "We've got nothing else to do up here until she gets here, you know."

Maury waved his hands helplessly. "I know. I don't know what she told her. They've got a history, I know that much. It's all tangled up with Kelly's too, but Angela seems to think it will turn out okay. When she says it's okay, then it's okay." He shrugged. "She's _your_ mother. You know her. You think she's going to tell me everything?"

Peter smiled thinly. "Who's Kelly?"

Gabriel put in, "She's that commander from Lynboro that Maury and I talked to a couple weeks ago. Verbal commands." He looked off into the night. "Like Eden."

Peter nodded, though he wasn't sure who Eden was. He'd heard her mentioned in the Company - something about dying in the line of duty. His head snapped back to how Gabriel was looking away from them. The other man glanced back, saw that Peter was looking at him and looked away again, guilty. _Okay. That answers what happened to Eden. But Sylar never had the ability to give verbal commands. I wonder what happened?_

Now that they'd reminded Peter of Kelly's ability, he recalled she'd been mentioned at the last board meeting for potential recruitment as a director. He was kind of glad to hear there was a history there. At the time, it had sounded almost random, like they were making her a job offer based solely on her ability. Peter was reminded that he didn't have all the information Gabriel did, much less Maury or his mother.

Maury added, "If it wasn't the middle of Tuesday night with all hell breaking loose, I'd have her come up so she could help out on…" He snapped his phone open and dialed. "Hell with it," he muttered. Into the phone, he said, "Angela? … Yeah, I know." He grinned and then grinned even more broadly at something she said. His face relaxed and warmed in an unguarded moment. Peter smiled at the other man's expression. It spoke volumes about how Maury felt about Peter's mother.

Maury was gazing off into the distance. "Yeah. … Call Kelly and get her out of bed. Have her drive to Philly. There's no way I can handle all five in one night. … Yeah. … Yeah, he can and he will." He glanced over at Gabriel with an annoyed expression, then away. "Uh-huh. … Right, but I want her there anyway. … Because all she has to do is talk to them. It's faster and easier and besides, I can hear what she's telling them to do. … No, I don't, as a matter of fact. We've gone over that." He looked back at Gabriel again. "No, not really. That was kind of good, actually, other than the hole-in-the-head part. That's been taken care of, by the way. … No, no. I really don't care. Listen, just get her over there. … Thanks." He hung up.

Gabriel smiled mockingly. "You don't trust me."

"No, I don't." He cocked his head at the taller man. "Should I?"

Gabriel let his face take a serious turn. He looked off to the side, then back at him and said, "You should in this."

Maury nodded. "Good to know."


	118. Maury's Musings

Peter walked off to the edge of the roof, leaving Maury and Gabriel alone. The two men watched him go, then looked at each other. They didn't need to speak. Neither wanted to be in the company of the other. Maury headed towards the opposite side of the roof and Gabriel followed Peter.

After a little bit of searching, Maury found a spot to sit that was less uncomfortable than his other options. He watched the interplay between the other two men, indistinct in the dim light. They remained distant and careful, handling each other with great caution. They didn't have any of the easy, relaxed demeanor he would expect of an intimate couple. Neither of them touched the other without asking permission with eyes or gestures. There was trust and love, but both were blind, based on a total surrender rather open-eyed understanding and acknowledgment. Hell, he was more relaxed with Patty than these two were with each other, and he'd been with her less than a handful of times and hardly shared anything of himself during it.

_Oh well,_ he thought. _They'll get over it or they won't. Not like I care._

He rolled his shoulders and directed his thoughts to more pressing concerns. He was concerned about Lilith. She was a telepath, similar to himself, but she'd used her ability to possess people and in doing so abandoned her own body. It gave her a form of immortality and made her very, very difficult to track. It also made her hard to kill, because killing her host didn't kill her. Maury didn't know the specifics of her ability, but she always turned up again and usually in a foul mood, after they killed her host. Her last known host had been Chandra Suresh. They'd tried to take her down by destroying Chandra's mind, draining everything that he was, using the newly discovered ability of a young boy from Haiti.

At the time, it had seemed like it had worked. Apparently not. Now it seemed she was using Halo to further her research. That research had always been (as far as Maury knew) the creation of people with abilities. He was sure there was a huge load of symbolic crap hiding there about thwarted mothering instincts, but it didn't really matter. What mattered was that she interfered directly in people's lives, using her ability to push thoughts and possess whoever she needed to make the matches she wanted. She'd been doing it for decades, if not centuries. Specials found each other, time after time, out of all the people in the world and more often than not they reproduced.

So many things that seemed like coincidence or fate simply weren't, even though the Company founders kept calling it that as a code word for what they really meant (just like they used "destiny" to refer to the preferred future timeline). It took most of a decade for them to piece together that there was a larger force at work in events than themselves. They'd been young and full of themselves at the time. It had seemed impossible that anyone else might have had the same designs as themselves, but had even longer to put them into effect. They were naïve enough to think that while standing right next to Adam, knowing what he was. What did they think he'd been doing with himself for all those hundreds of years?

Maury shook his head and looked across the roof at Peter and Gabriel. This new generation was a little better informed, but not a lot. Since Angela had seen that Peter would betray them, they couldn't tell him more than was absolutely necessary. Given Gabriel's complete subservience to Peter, there was no way to include him in their confidence without him blurting the information out to Peter at the first opportunity. Such manipulation and information siloing had become the norm for the Company, years ago when they had never known who might be possessed and who wasn't.

Even if they shared their information, he didn't know what they could really _do_ about Lilith. She was unstoppable. They'd used up all their good ideas about how to thwart her more than twenty years before, back when it had been an active war. Although it was always possible that a new combination of abilities or circumstances would stop her, he was sure she wouldn't give them the opportunity to test a theory more than once. He would think it was amazing that she'd left them alone this long and hadn't sought any kind of revenge, but nearly all the Company founders had died of violence, many at Adam's doing, and Maury found that "coincidence" to be no different than all the others he'd seen in his life. She'd had a hand in it, he was sure.

Just like she had a hand in what was going on now. He saw the effects of her touch all over the place, since he knew what to look for. Mohinder had a list of activations and they'd already seen the disappearances of specials the Company didn't get to fast enough. The US government, and probably other governments as well, were being used as cat's paws in her plans.

She built organizations to carry out her goals, just like she'd had Adam build the Company. The founders had thought that by locking Adam up they'd ended her influence. When they discovered they were wrong, they took the war to her. After Chandra was dealt with they thought they were finally free. Now he wondered how much of that free will had been an illusion.

Maury had talked it over with Angela, but they didn't know what to do except proceed as best they could. Angela had told him she couldn't see reliably into the future right now, as she was going to be called upon soon to make a decision that would fundamentally affect that future. She wouldn't speak of it more than that. He didn't want to risk his growing relationship with her by pressing, so he left it alone.

The best thing to do seemed to be to capture Halo. They needed their resources and they had a lot of them. Maury needed a healer who could take out mental commands, because without that he couldn't touch Arthur and neither could Gabriel. Peter could, but they couldn't trust him for already-contemplated reasons. Arthur had implanted commands into Maury and in turn, Maury into Gabriel, that sabotaged their effectiveness against him.

They also needed from Halo the ability to instill loyalty and obedience to tighten their own ranks and a backup teleporter or alchemist was never a liability. Plus, maybe they'd be able to learn more about Lilith's activities. Maury was too wary to risk approaching Mohinder again directly. He'd use disposable proxies from now on.

He was mulling over candidates for such when Rachel popped into existence on the rooftop, holding a device that looked like a large, flat-faced walkie-talkie. Maury, Gabriel and Peter converged on her. It was nearly time.


	119. False Betrayal

They arrived in the chilly, predawn gloom of London. As it turned out, Peter was the most technologically savvy of the three and thus, he had been given ownership of the signal detector. Rachel had brought it to them preset to the right frequency, or what they hoped was the right frequency, based on the signal from the Fatima and Fuad. He turned in a slow circle and tried to ignore the other two men as they argued.

"God, it's light. What the hell time is it?" Maury exclaimed, looking around.

"6:22 am, local time." Gabriel answered absently.

"**God-dammit!** Why didn't you tell me?"

Gabriel sounded perplexed. "Why would I? It's the time. It's obvious."

Maury responded, "Some of us don't have clocks in our heads, asshole."

Gabriel began to look annoyed. "You have a brain in there though, right? Do the math."

"Well, I thought it was more like four or five am here. They might have been awake already. It makes a difference. You should have told me!" Maury accused. "I wouldn't have bothered coming if I knew it was after six!"

Now Gabriel was beginning to be outraged. "How am I supposed to know what time you think it is?"

"Well, if you'd let me into your head, or even let anyone in, like lover-boy over there, then maybe we'd find these things out before it's too late!"

"I might be a little less reluctant if the Parkmen of the world weren't so dead-set about fucking me up." Gabriel's voice was a growl. Peter glanced over briefly, then back at the device he was using.

Maury grumbled, still loud enough to be clearly audible in the quiet alley, "Wouldn't be so easy if you weren't such a fuck-up to start with."

Gabriel snarled at Maury and raised his hand. Peter decided this was a good time to interject, "Hey! I have a signal." Gabriel dropped his hand and exhaled sharply. Peter glared at Maury, but the old man didn't seem to notice. The dim light accentuated the dark circles under his eyes, making it look like he'd been hit. He looked tired and rundown, which was probably why he was grouchier than usual. Peter had to assume Fatima's healing didn't negate the need for sleep either. Peter let go of his anger and cleared his face. He returned to business. The faster they got this done, the faster they'd all get some rest and stop tearing at each other.

"Is it close?" Maury asked.

"I can't tell. It's directional," Peter answered. "That way." He gestured and started off. The others followed.

Gabriel said quietly, "Let's kill the abilities." He and Peter activated ability nullification. Maury put his hand to his head and winced.

"You okay?" Peter asked.

"Yeah," Maury said. "I'm fine. Just blind."

"Blind?" Peter asked.

"Mind-blind," Maury clarified. "One of you is shutting me off."

Gabriel looked at Peter pointedly. Peter sighed and simply turned his nullification off entirely. "I can't concentrate that much. I'm sorry." His head ached terribly, but he figured he could still get them home.

"No, that's fine," Gabriel said. "Not much reason to have two running at the same time anyway. It's not like it doubles up." Gabriel carefully adjusted to exclude Peter and Maury both and they continued.

They walked steadily through the dim, foggy streets of an older district in the main city, surrounded by looming brick buildings and narrow alleys. The city was rapidly waking up with cars and buses meandering through the haze. There were an increasing number of pedestrians making their way from home to work. Maury cursed quietly at intervals for no obvious reason. Peter kept half an ear on the old man's breathing and didn't go too fast. Peter stopped at a corner and tilted his head, turning the scanner one way and then the other.

"What's wrong?" Gabriel asked.

"Well… either they've split up, or we've been following the wrong signal all along, or they're moving."

"Fuck," Maury contributed.

Gabriel sighed. "Let's go with the idea they're moving or split up. Pick a signal and go with it. We're here. Might as well."

"Yeah, play out the hand," Maury said tiredly.

"Okay." Peter led them on, hoping whoever they were following was on foot. If they were in a car, they'd be out of range soon. They crossed the street and went down a cramped alley. It opened at the end to a larger space between buildings that was being used as a parking lot. A car was backing out. "I think that's them," Peter said. He was very unsure though. Given what Gabriel did next, he hoped like hell it was them and not some random person heading to work.

Gabriel acted immediately, hitting the car with a huge bolt of lightning that rent the air with a resounding crack and boom. It was impressive, but it didn't do much good since the car's tires insulated it. Luckily for them, their targets weren't much smarter in their tactics and bailed out of the safety of the vehicle. Peter was relieved to see he'd been right and these were the people they were after. They imagined they had the advantage in Abigail's force fields.

For a moment, it seemed like they were right. She conjured a wall at the same time that Gabriel attempted to strike them again with electricity. They were still too far out for him to nullify her ability, but her wall deflected the lightning just fine, in a direct line back to the one who released it. Gabriel of course wasn't nullifying his own powers; he was knocked back, head over heels and lay on the ground twitching and smoking. Peter wondered what would have happened if he'd actually managed to connect with that blast, but he didn't dwell on it. Maury staggered for cover behind a nearby car, holding his head. Apparently he hadn't been expecting Gabriel's lightning bolt either and hadn't been quick enough in turning off his ability. Peter took a more direct route and flew straight for them. They needed to end this before someone got hurt.

He cut off their abilities as he drew up to the force field and the blue wall sputtered out of existence. Peter's face was serious. The Arabs had already drawn their guns, but they had been blocked from using them by the same field that was protecting them. Now they opened fire with large caliber bullets similar to the gun Maury had taken off Al-Walid. Peter was knocked back and spun in the air by the impacts, crashing to the ground when his concentration was finally broken entirely.

He healed fast. That was the good news. The bad news was that he was still rattled mentally and didn't remember to nullify anyone's powers as he regained consciousness only a few seconds later. He sat up and heard one of the Arabs yell something to the other, who ran to him and grabbed his face, staring into his eyes. The bearded man muttered something to him in broken, accented English. Peter didn't understand everything he said, but it didn't really matter.

Emotion surged through him. _**BETRAYED!**_ His gut twisted and it was as if the ground fell out from under him, then the man was jerked away from him by some unseen force and smashed back against their car. Peter blinked and shook himself, getting to his feet just as one of Maury's darts took down Abigail. Gabriel was rounding on the teleporter, who was desperately and futilely trying to leave via his ability. He'd have done better to run, as Gabriel was close enough to nullify him.

Gabriel lifted him from the ground with telekinesis and held him for Maury to shoot once with each gun. Maury limped over and put a dart into the crumpled man next to the car, then switched guns and gave him a second one. He turned and shot Abigail again too, adding a neutralizer to her tranquilizer as he'd done for the Arabs.

"And that's that," Maury said. He turned and gave Peter a long, calculating look, the barrel of the dart gun steady on him for a lot longer than it should be for an ally.

Peter's emotions were a wash of confusion. Someone had betrayed him and he could feel the metaphorical knife in his back. He was confused though about who and how and why. He assumed it had to be Maury or Gabriel. It didn't make much sense, but he was sure of it. He tried to shake it off, but it remained stubbornly. He had the nagging feeling the bearded Arab had done something to him.

Before he could figure it out, Maury holstered his gun and got in his face, saying, "What the hell do you think you were doing flying up there like a hero and getting shot to pieces? What did you expect them to do when you took down that shield, or were you too stupid to think that far ahead?" Maury hesitated just long enough to read Peter's reaction before he turned and faced Gabriel. "And you! You ought to know better than to try lightning on a fucking _**car!**_ We're lucky they're as dumb as you two and didn't just drive off leaving us holding our dicks!"

Maury stiffened suddenly and Peter realized the old man was being lifted just slightly. He was on his toes trying to relieve the pressure on his throat. Gabriel said calmly, "We won. Shut it." He released Maury, who shot him an intent look like Gabriel was missing something obvious, but he said nothing.

Peter spoke carefully, because he knew one of his 'friends' was out to get him, "Let's get them together and go home. We're not supposed to be fighting _each other_." _ Not unless one of us has __**already**__ betrayed the others._ He struggled against the suspicion, but it simply wouldn't go away.

Gabriel shoved their three captives together while Maury peered inside the car. The telepath said, "I don't see anything in there we want." He gathered with the rest of them as Peter crouched and extended his hands to the bodies. They all touched. He concentrated and exhaled slowly, taking his time at it. The pain in his head increased slowly, burning and then scorching and finally searing, but the world faded away despite it and they were in the level 2 break room in Philadelphia again. He sat down hard on the floor and didn't bother to try to get up.

Maury yanked the scrambler out of his pocket and turned it on. He'd had to leave it off while they were using the signal detector earlier. He tossed it on top of Abigail and walked over to the phone, calling for guards. He looked back over at Peter, who was still looking stunned with the exertion. His eyes traveled up to Gabriel who was looking down at him, then up at Maury. Maury rotated a finger next to his temple and pointed at Peter, who was still staring forward at their three captives, trying to think. Gabriel scowled and squatted down next to his lover with a worried look.

"Peter?" Gabriel asked tentatively.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Except… you know, this." Peter gestured at the bodies, intending to mean the teleportation but the line took on more meaning after he'd said it. The whole evening had been a little ultra-violent for his tastes. He couldn't recall why he'd even agreed to it.

"It's over now," Gabriel said gently. "At least for a while. Come on, let's get you in a chair." Gabriel hooked a hand under Peter's arm to lift him.

"I'm fine! Get away from me!" Peter pulled away from Gabriel and got to his feet on his own. He wasn't sure if he could trust him and he very strongly didn't want to touch him. There was a gulf between them all of a sudden and Gabriel felt less like a friend and more like a worrysome stranger. Peter shook his head and walked over to sit down on his own.

He tried to sort out his thoughts. They made sense - for the most part - everything flowed logically, but he couldn't shake the sense that someone had betrayed him and he was on the wrong side. His brain worked at finding reasons for his emotions, building up rationalizations for how he felt. It wasn't hard to build a long list of reasons, good reasons, why he should oppose Maury, Gabriel or even both of them. Everything that had happened to him was being cast in a new light.

Peter looked over at Maury, who was leaned up against the wall with his eyes almost, but not quite, shut. His breathing was slowing from the exertion. Gabriel put a cup of water in front of Peter and Peter had an odd flash back to his suspicion only a few months ago that Gabriel had been going to poison him. He tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. He picked up the cup and pretended to drink. "Thank you." His voice was acid, despite his desire not to give himself away.

Gabriel gave him a very long look and finally said, "You're welcome." He moved away and set to stripping the bodies of weapons and items they might not want them to have in containment. Maury shoved off the wall and helped, giving advice for him to check their shoes and feet, groin and waistband and a half dozen other tips. Listening to them talk turned Peter's stomach.

Somehow they had joined forces against him and duped him into this mission where they'd attacked Halo for no good reason. Now that they had all five executives in captivity, they didn't need Peter anymore and their motives were being laid bare. Or at least that was what was running through Peter's mind - the latest of a dozen rationalizations that he kept coming up with, as his heart searched for one that made his intellectual side happy.

When the guards came in, Maury pointed at the teleporter, whose name was Faisal, and said, "Keep him neutralized at all points, but he doesn't need to be tranqed. Otherwise you can put him in level 3. Put the woman in level 2 - no precautions. She's not part of Halo. I'll deal with her later." He pointed at Bandar, the man who had grabbed Peter's face. "Keep him neutralized **and** tranquilized - level 4."

Gabriel asked quietly, "Is he the one who can fix Abbas and…?" He didn't finish his sentence. Peter found that awfully suspicious.

"Yeah," Maury said.

"Can you deal with him?" Gabriel questioned.

"Not now," Maury answered. "Let me get some sleep. And in any case, he's unconscious. Not many telepaths can work through unconsciousness, unless they're dream-walkers, not telepaths."

Gabriel said, "I didn't think _any_ could."

Maury shook his head and stood up with difficulty. "I ran into one once. Just the one."

Gabriel nodded.

The guards were getting out the backboard. Maury added, "Oh, and make sure neither of them die. Not a problem for this guy," he pointed at Faisal, "but Gabe knocked this other one around real hard. Check him for head injuries and broken bones, whatever."

Peter finally saw something he was willing to help with. He stood up wearily. "Let me. You shouldn't move him."

"**NO**."

Peter stopped at the emphasis in Maury's voice. It resonated in his mind like the command it was. Maury was using mind control on him. Gabriel looked uneasily between the two of them. Since he wasn't the target of the command, he couldn't be sure that Maury was using an ability. The four guards backed off suddenly and fanned off two to either side, obviously supporting Maury over Peter. They put their hands to their weapons as a man, but none drew.

"Whoa, whoa," Peter said, realizing that if Maury had betrayed them, this was a strategically horrible place to confront him. Maury had guards who would obey him even without his powers, he was armed and Peter was barely on his feet.

Peter looked from the guards to Maury, realizing he must be directing them mentally, which seemed more likely than them being bizarrely coordinated in his defense. Peter raised his empty hands, which made Maury turn his head to the side and the guards draw their weapons. It wasn't a conciliatory gesture for someone of Peter's abilities, so he lowered them slowly. Gabriel shifted his weight but didn't act. That mystified Peter. Earlier Gabriel had been so quick to attack Maury, but now it was clear he was on Maury's side against Peter. If Peter had been able to teleport, he would have.

"It's okay… it's okay," Peter said, stepping backwards and sitting down. "I won't. It's not a big deal."

"Good," the old man said guardedly. The security immediately holstered their weapons and changed from getting Faisal to removing Bandar instead. They moved quickly. Maury stood still, making it more obvious to Peter that he was controlling them. Peter didn't interfere. Neither did Gabriel.

When they were gone, Maury said evenly, "He got you, Peter."

Peter figured he meant the Arab. And yes, he might have done something to him, but all he'd done was make it obvious what was really going on. Peter knew now that all he needed was time to work out the details. Evidence would help too. He was sure it was there. In the meantime though, he didn't need Maury and Gabriel jumping to conclusions. He said, "He did not. He didn't have time." The younger man looked annoyed.

"How long did it take me to get those guards?" Maury waved in the direction of the departed security detail. "He had you five times as long."

Peter denied it. "He didn't get finished. He couldn't speak English. I didn't understand him. It didn't work."

Maury said, "Will you let me look?"

"No." He was definite about that.

Gabriel spoke up, "That doesn't prove anything, Maury."

_Maybe he's not against me after all,_ Peter thought of Gabriel._ Maybe it's only Maury._ His feelings about Gabriel were tied in a knot at the moment. But if he could decide it was only Maury he was against, then the dilemma would resolve.

"Will you let _him_ look?" Maury hooked his thumb towards Gabriel.

Peter looked up at the taller man steadily, meeting Gabriel's searching gaze. Peter shook his head and looked away. He couldn't be sure. He needed more time to think it through and figure it out. Something wasn't right here and no one was going to get inside his head until he knew what was wrong. "No."

Gabriel jerked a little and exhaled, lips tight. He looked away. Under other circumstances Peter would have seen his reaction as upset and tension. Now though he saw it as disappointment and anger. Maury kept watching Peter. A long moment passed where none of the three moved further. Peter looked between them and realized suddenly that the other two men were talking mentally. "What are you two doing?" he asked suspiciously. He returned to the theory that maybe they had both betrayed him. Somehow the frequent flip-flops didn't register as illogical.

"Nothing, Peter," Gabriel said too quickly, lying.

Maury laughed. "Yeah, we were talking about you, Petey. Don't worry, Gabe's going to protect you from me." He smirked at the taller man and walked off, limping a little. He'd turned his ankle while running around in the dark. He badged himself through the door to the stairs and headed out.

Peter glared at Gabriel, who furrowed his brow at Peter and then walked over to wet a paper towel. He came back and said, "Hold still. Let me fix you here."

Peter jerked his head away from Gabriel when the other man tried to clean the blood from his ears. "Don't touch me. At all." Peter spoke through clenched teeth. He snatched the paper towel from the other man and did it himself with another glare. He didn't want any form of intimacy from Gabriel.

Gabriel sat down slowly in the other chair. His voice was careful, like he expected Peter to blow up in anger at any moment. "I'm sorry. Peter, you're not acting right. You're quiet, too quiet. It's not like I ever really know why you're the way you are, but…" He extended his hand across the table, palm down, but still an obvious invitation for contact.

Peter ignored the gesture. He threw the paper towel away and took a drink of his water. Belatedly he remembered he'd resolved not to drink it because Gabriel had given it to him. To make sure he didn't make that mistake again, he threw the cup at the trash as well, the liquid splattering across the floor. He didn't care. Gabriel pulled away slowly, his expression closed.

Peter said, "I'll stay here until they get these other two, then I'm going… I…" He looked at his watch. "Huh. Not even one yet. I guess I'll fly home."

Gabriel's face looked raw and pained. He sighed and dug around in his coat pockets. After a while, dissatisfied with what he'd found, he went over to the first aid kit and rummaged in it.

"What are you looking for?" Peter asked, suspicious again.

"Something… here. I found it. I'll show you." He walked closer to Peter and stabbed him with a quick-release syringe of tranquilizer, locking up his body with telekinesis for the moment it took to inject him.

In the second that Peter had to realize what Gabriel had done, and before the compound took effect, he knew who had turned against him. He looked up and breathed, "It was _you_." Darkness took him.


	120. Wrapping Up

Maury limped up one flight of stairs to the ground level of the Philadelphia containment facility. They had a freight elevator at the other end, but it didn't always work and the Company was loath to let outside repairmen work on their equipment without careful supervision and mind-wiping afterwards. He wished he'd pocketed the extra vial of Claire's blood. _Fat lot of good it does me stuck in Riyadh._ He went down two halls and badged himself into the kill zone, then went through the next protocol to get inside the backup security center. It was empty. He settled himself into a chair with a sigh and powered up the system.

While it loaded, he stretched and rubbed at his gritty eyes. His head hurt. So did his ankle, his back, and both knees. _God, I need a massage. Then sleep. And painkillers. No, I need painkillers, then a massage until I fall asleep on the table. That would be nice. Some fat blonde chick with a lot of upper body strength. Oh… yeah. That's what I need._ His fantasy included a lot of rubbing and some adjustment and nothing sexual at all.

The system came online. He brought his thoughts back to business as he entered the right passwords and put his hand on the biometrics scanner. He flipped through the menu and brought up the surveillance video feed of the level 2 break room. There were two bodies on the floor: Faisal and Abigail. Peter and Gabriel weren't there. As he panned the camera back and forth he saw the four guards come in with the back board and start to load Faisal. He went back to the menu on a second screen and pulled up the stairwell level 2 cam, then level 1. When those proved empty, he went to level 3 and then 4, seeing the door shutting. He pulled up the level hallway 4 camera which was already panning to track the movement.

Gabriel was carrying Peter, cradled against his chest. He took him into cell 4D and laid him out on the central platform, then began applying restraints. Maury flipped the feed to the 4D cell cam and searched the nearby drawers until he found a clipboard with an admittance form on it. He started filling it out, checking the screen from time to time to make sure Gabriel wasn't having any problems. The man had told him he'd take care of Peter and he was true to his word, but his mind had been full of doubts and hopes that Peter was untouched.

When Maury was done filling out the sheet, he looked up to see Gabriel finishing applying the neutralizer. Parkman leaned forward and squinted at the screen. Gabriel was very close to Peter, doing something else. He realized he was kissing the unconscious man and it wasn't a light peck either. It was pretty involved, with his hand running across Peter's chest, knotting his fist into the other man's shirt. The other was in the younger man's hair.

Maury laughed and said, "Ewww," then laughed again. _That's kind of kinky. Don't you get carried away there, Gabe, or I'll have to separate you two with a hose._ He watched, but Gabriel didn't take it further than the fondling and the kiss. He sank down on the bed shelf and a moment later shifted to lie down.

Maury shrugged and put the admittance form on the scanner. Taped on top of the machine were directions for scanning a document. He followed them. _I probably should have filled this out on the computer to start with._ He didn't like computers though. They were so impersonal – even more annoying than people. He looked back at the video feed. Apparently Gabriel was going to sleep in there with him. _That's kind of sweet, in a faggish sort of way, I guess. As long as he doesn't wake up and molest him later._

He thought back to the commands he'd given Gabriel the previous November. There was nothing there that would prevent Gabriel from taking Peter if he didn't resist. Parkman hadn't thought to cover circumstances where Peter **couldn't** resist. Maury shook his head and looked away. _It's __**his**__ lover. I hope he has some sense. Wouldn't be the first guy around here without any, though. Harry used to screw the female guards in the cells, but they weren't prisoners… or tied down… or unconscious… though it's not like they could quit or sue for sexual harassment or anything. Then there was Thompson, but he always limited his joyrides to the people we were terminating so it's not like anyone cared. I'm not sure how many directors knew about that other than me and Bob, but I'm sure at least half the agents did._ Maury pulled up the right screen and routed the scanned admittance form to central security.

_I really ought to do a report on how this Halo stuff turned out. I need to annotate the entries for these five new guys. Oh yeah, got that accidental bag too, so there's six. And Abigail, so that's seven._ He rubbed his eyes again. _Surely this can wait until I get some sleep._ He got out his phone and dialed Angela. She answered after several rings.

"Hey, did I wake you?"

"Of course not, Maury."

"No rest for the wicked, eh Angel?" She never had slept much. "We got all five of them and two extras. One some schmuck who was taking a leak and the other is Abigail of Rebel's group. I figure the schmuck is a bodyguard but I haven't checked. We just dumped him off with a tranq and a neutering and left him for the guards. He was gone when we came back so I hope they found him. Oh, and Peter was messed with by their emotion guy. We've got him on ice for the moment. Gabriel's fussing over him but I think he'll keep him that way. I need to rack out. Can you handle the fall-out on this?"

"Does Rebel know you have Abigail?"

"Not sure, but they'll figure it out."

"Very well. Is there any reason why we need to keep her?"

"Not really. You going to give her back?"

"Yes, if it will keep them placated and out of our affairs. I'll use Rachel."

"Hm. She's good for that?" 

"I believe so, yes."

"Okay. Well, I'm not going to argue, but I'm not sleeping here, that's for damn sure. Oh, and tell Molly she's on her own for a while and to stay inside."

"I'll make arrangements for her extraction."

"Sure. Good." Angela was subtly reminding him that he'd turned Molly over to her and she was Angela's responsibility now. _All the better. _"I've got to go. Good night, babe." He ended in a soft, affectionate tone.

She matched him. "Good night, Maury. Thank you. You've done good work."

He smiled warmly to himself and pulled up the status list for current inmates. He flipped to the various cell cams, checking them out for a few seconds each, confirming they were where they were supposed to be and matching the status listed for them: contained, restrained or neutralized. He noted that Abigail was in a cell now on level 3. One of the level 4 cameras wasn't working. He tried it on different screens but the signal wouldn't clear up.

Finally he called central and asked the woman on duty there, "What's up with 4E? I can't resolve visual there, but there's no alert." He could see the motion and energy level readings, which were well within normal range with enough thermal signature to indicate it was occupied by a single person.

"Sir," she said, recognizing his voice - and of course she could see he was calling from the other security station, "Visual and audio surveillance was deactivated on that cell by order of Noah Bennet. I can override if you authorize me to."

"Oh." _That must be Arthur. I haven't seen him since he came in. I wondered where they had him stashed._ "No, no, that's fine. Let his orders stand. Who all has been down there though? Anyone? Is Noah there now?"

"No, Mr. Bennet left about an hour ago. He assigned Harvey Ethridge to personal surveillance and left orders that no other guard was to relieve him. The other guards have been in the area admitting to 4A, B and C. Let me pull up the visitor's log." After a few moments, she said, "Mr. Bennet has locked all files pertaining to 4E. I know Mr. Grey went to 4E on Sunday though and… um, he's across the hall from it now."

_Ah, so you were watching that little show too, eh? Now I know where Gabe was Sunday morning while we were going through all that paperwork. Guess he hasn't shaken that daddy fixation. _ "Okay. Well, don't worry about it. Let me know if there's any unusual activity in 4D… anything more than what you already saw. Observe and report only. Don't interfere - under any circumstances."

"Yes sir."

Parkman turned off the system and groaned as he pulled himself to a standing position, leaning heavily on the counter to do it. _I hope Angela handles Kelly when she gets here, because I'm bailing. That roach motel down the street sounds great._ He wandered off into the night.


	121. The Tour

**A/N: We've crossed over into Wednesday, March 9 here, following some of Gabriel's activities while Peter is knocked out and restrained.**

The smell. It permeated his brain, if not his nostrils. Gabriel could smell it and for him, it was the smell of fear, his own personal terror. He awoke with a start, surprised he could wake at all and jumped off the platform, which turned out to be the bed shelf instead of the central platform he'd thought it was.

The room was otherwise as he remembered it: dull concrete, grey and bare. He crouched in a fighting stance, bringing his hand up. Electricity sparked from his palm, individual arcs flashing into existence between his fingers and coalescing faster than thought into a ball of lightning that begged for release. Indeed, there was his enemy, his first target; through the open door he saw the agent already ducking to avoid his blast. It wouldn't save him.

The door was _open_.

In the fraction of a second that he considered that, the guard dove out of his chair and out of his line of fire. Gabriel remembered blocking the door open himself, precisely because he couldn't stand to be locked in one of these rooms. It was bad enough when he was awake, but the idea of sleeping while locked in here… He took a deep, steadying breath. The stench of the drug hung in the air. So did the familiar smell of Peter.

To his left, Peter still lay on the platform, looking smaller than normal, fragile and helpless. Or perhaps that was Gabriel's own feelings coloring his perceptions. The neutralizer compound kept him unconscious and subdued, at a powerful concentration they wouldn't have dared to give to anyone without his level of regeneration. It was strong enough that Gabriel could smell it clearly, though apparently it wasn't enough to quell his own abilities. He let go of the lightning and dropped his hand.

He walked towards the door and paused next to it, hearing the man outside shift slightly.

"Mr. Gray?" The man asked tentatively.

"Ethridge," he answered calmly. "I'm coming out now."

"Of course."

Gabriel walked out and looked at the guard, who was putting his weapon away. That was important. Normal guards weren't supposed to be shooting directors, even if they looked like they were about to kill them. Certain commands were conditions of employment in the facilities, once Maury had the time to implement them and Gabriel to crosscheck him. But whomever Noah had chosen to relieve him on watching Arthur Petrelli apparently hadn't been subjected to the usual run of commands.

"Good job there." Gabriel walked across and idly picked up Arthur's log sheet. He glanced in. The man was asleep, apparently getting his days and nights worked out a little better. Gabriel knew it was a little past seven in the morning. He looked at the log, seeing nothing unusual except that Harvey's notes were less detailed than Noah's, who had written things down as trivial as how long the old man spent pacing. Arthur had gone to sleep at three, just after things had calmed down. Gabriel had managed to get about two hours of what could loosely be termed "rest" himself, spending at least half the time on the shelf just lying there with his eyes shut, struggling with his demons. He put the logbook down and turned back to Ethridge. "Any activity from the others?"

"No. There's only one awake on this level. I'm not sure what's going on with the rest. He's been pacing a lot. He's tried to talk to us once, but we're not making contact. We closed the blast shield."

"Which cell?"

"4B."

"Ah." That would be the man they kidnapped out of the bathroom, the one who was taking a leak. They'd been nullifying abilities, in addition to the fact they'd caught the man by surprise and at a distinct disadvantage. There was no telling what he could do, if anything. It was very unwise to have left him without continuing neutralization. The dart would have worn off an hour or two earlier. He might be a random mundane employee, or he might have been Al-Walid Ibn Turki's bodyguard, complete with hostile abilities. So far, obviously, he hadn't used them. "Does he speak English?"

"Don't think so."

Gabriel walked down the hall slowly, looking in at C and A where two men were restrained and neutralized lay on platforms similar to Peter's. He closed the blast shield for C and opened it for B, not wanting to allow the man in B to look across and see cell C. The man immediately rose from sitting on his bed and came to the view port. After a moment, he bowed a little and gave respectful, hopeful greetings in Arabic. Gabriel recognized the phrase, but thought that returning them would mislead the man into thinking he knew the language. "I don't speak Arabic. Do you speak English?"

The man looked at him for a long moment, his lips moving slightly as he worked out what had been asked. He said, "No."

Gabriel nodded. "Okay. Do you want out of there?"

The man thought about that, then shrugged and said something questioning in Arabic.

Gabriel nodded again. "Okay. That's about what I thought." He closed the blast shield. He heard a fist hit the glass a moment later and the man shouted "Help! Help!" Gabriel ignored him. If he had a dangerous ability, he would have used it. The man had command of a few words of English, but not enough to hold a conversation. He'd get a translator before attempting anything meaningful. Gabriel opened the shield again for the cell across the hall, C, and took the stairs up.

Level 3 was full to capacity just as level 4. The two members of Halo were in the last two cells, D and E. Al-Walid was still unconscious. Faisal, the teleporter, was sitting up in his room, holding his head. Gabriel took down the clipboard where it hung on a hook near his door. Faisal had been given a standard neutralizing injection four hours after admission, which was appropriate. It was a 24 hour dose. Al-Walid had probably had the same thing.

Faisal had woken when given the injection but there was no information about whether he'd been cooperative. Gabriel assumed the man had still been sedated by the tranquilizer. Someone must have reviewed his case and given direction on medication. The default was full neutralizer and tranquilizing, even on level 3, until disposition had been given by a director, regional manager or facility manager. Someone had done disposition. Gabriel assumed it was Angela, since Noah had left and Maury had said he was leaving right away.

The Arab looked blearily at Gabriel, who toggled the speaker and addressed him, "Do you speak English?"

After a moment, Faisal said, "Yes." He swallowed and added, "You are Gabriel?"

"Yes."

"The one who took Arthur?"

"Yes." All of Halo's leadership would know that. Faisal had been there to see it, though it had been Peter using his face.

"And Abbas?"

"Yes." Now he was confirming something Faisal suspected, but couldn't be sure of. It was fairly obvious though.

Faisal nodded and stood, wavering a little. He took the chair and dragged it over to the window, then sat heavily in it and rubbed at his face, trying to rid himself of the clinging depression of the tranquilizers. That he was awake at all meant his metabolism was higher than normal, but not supernaturally so. The tranquilizers were usually an eight hour dose, though people did sometimes wake after six hours, as Faisal had. The neutralizing darts didn't last nearly as long, unless someone was hit with multiples. The Arab asked, "What do you want?"

Gabriel leaned against the side of the glass and said, "Well, for starters we need to get your friend Bandar to reverse what he did to that guy he grabbed when we caught you. Then we need him to help Abbas, if that's possible. I'm afraid my associate broke him in the course of getting information about you. He's in a coma right now. He tried to kill himself."

Faisal winced. Gabriel wanted to make it clear that Abbas had been loyal to them. It would make it easier to get them to help him.

"Then, we need to talk about consolidation - our company and yours. We have a mutual concern in locating the people activated by the eclipse. Both of our groups want to find them, track them, integrate some of them and control the others. We don't have to work at cross-purposes. We have Arthur Petrelli. His wife leads the Company."

"Very well." He sighed and looked down as if defeated.

Gabriel cocked his head. When the other man didn't continue, he asked, "What do you mean - 'very well'?"

"What should I mean?" He didn't look up.

He stood away from the wall and regarded the teleporter evenly. "Will you work for us?"

The Arab nodded. "I am working for Arthur Petrelli. We are now working for you." He was lying. He looked up at Gabriel, a distressed expression on his face, imploring. "That you have done this things to talk to us is… I am confused. Do what you do. It is what you have done." He looked down again and hung his head.

Gabriel pursed his lips slightly. Faisal's English was passable. He was pretty sure he was getting the message, but if there was nuance, he was losing it. "Bullshit. Why did you fight? Why did you run? Why did you approach our enemies?"

He saw a gleam in the other man's eye for a moment. He wasn't the passive creature he was pretending to be, but he went on with the act, being about as good at reading Gabriel's emotions as he was at playing on them. "We were afraid. We did not know what you wanted. You attacked Arthur in front of us. But if you are working with him, then we are on the same side." Faisal gave him a conciliatory smile. If he was going to attempt subterfuge as an opening gambit, then he really needed to be better at it.

Gabriel nodded absently, vaguely pleased to run into someone who wasn't an expert at manipulation. He needed to read the other man's mind what was going on, but all of his thoughts other than what he was saying were in Arabic. He didn't think Faisal thought the Company was being run by Arthur or that Arthur was even free.

"Let me out," the Arab said. "I can help you. We will work you and us and all." He tried very hard to look genuine.

Gabriel was not fooled. He smiled slightly. "Not yet. Do you need anything?"

The other man's face hardened as he realized his ploy wasn't working. He glanced back and around the room. The accommodations were spartan. He had a desk, a chair and a bed with a thin mattress, but it was an actual mattress and not the mat Gabriel had slept on in level 4. He even had sheets and a blanket with it. He looked back and said, "I would like a cup for water. I would like to eat." He started to say more, then shut his mouth.

"Breakfast will be brought around in the next hour. As I'm sure someone with your ability understands, you're in a different time zone. I'll relate your other needs."

Gabriel made a note on the log of the communication. He started to move on, then put the log down and looked intently at Faisal. The other man perked up a bit and said, "Yes?"

"You said you worked for Arthur?"

"Yes." He sounded unenthusiastic.

"I know you weren't happy about that."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Why do you want him back?"

Faisal's mouth moved, framed by his moustache and goatee. He looked down, obviously thinking. Gabriel leaned forward and listened to his thoughts. Mainly, the man was trying to find the right words in English. Gabriel didn't have the skill to read intent through the language barrier, but he could catch flashes of images. One stood out clearly, which was of a man shooting himself in the hand. Faisal said, "We need him to do his job."

"What is his job?"

"Um… yes. Yes. The people with gifts?"

"Okay. But why? Why can't you have someone else do it?"

Faisal was silent for a moment and then stood and paced. He stopped behind his chair and looked at Gabriel. "There **is** someone doing it ready now."

"Already," Gabriel corrected automatically.

After a beat, Faisal nodded. "Already."

"Who?"

"I… I don't know." In his mind was the man shooting himself in the hand again, giving some frightening ultimatum and then collapsing to the floor. It was a man Faisal knew, who was not acting like he should have been acting.

Gabriel made a frustrated exhalation. "How can someone be in charge if you don't know who they are?"

Faisal shrugged helplessly. "We wanted to get Arthur back so he could do his job."

"Then what's his job?"

"His job is people with gifts."

Gabriel stood up, shaking his head. This was going in circles. Part of the problem was that Faisal didn't have enough English to be detailed in his answers, but most of it was that Faisal clearly didn't have the information Gabriel wanted. "All right. Thanks. We'll talk again."

Gabriel moved on, looking in briefly at the other specials they had on level 3, but they weren't with Halo. On level 2 he saw Fatima was dozing or sleeping. Her log listed her full name now: Fatima Abdullah Al-Malik. It also showed that she'd consumed an astonishing amount of food over the night. He peered into her cell. Maybe she wasn't as skeletal as she had been the night before, but she wasn't heavy enough to account for the sheer mass she'd apparently put away. After puzzling over it for a minute, Gabriel put the log back down. It wouldn't be the first time he'd seen an ability blatantly flout the laws of physics.

He didn't see Abigail, so he went by central security and talked to the guards about their charges. He was unsurprised to find that Maury Parkman hadn't simply left, but had hung around a bit to make sure things were locked down properly before he turned in. Gabriel admired his work ethic. Angela had wired in directions on all the Halo admissions and authorized Abigail's release to into Rachel and Patricia's custody. They told him Kelly had set up office in one of the level 1 rooms, so he went up to see her.

A few weeks before, Gabriel and Maury had driven to Lynboro to see her, accompanied by Rene and Noah. Noah had met her before and she wasn't a fan of his, but she'd indicated interest in moving into the Company. She'd been blackmailed and threatened repeatedly by Leona Mills, Rachel's mother, who was in the same town. Leona had built an organization that provided protection services to specials and anyone else with enough awareness and resources to hire them.

Kelly had initially helped Leona form her organization, but they had a falling out over control issues. Kelly hadn't been able to get the upper hand against Leona, which either said a great deal about Leona's willpower and cunning, or did not reflect well on Kelly's willingness to use her ability. Obviously she hoped the Company would help her in that regard. She hadn't yet understood that the Company didn't care about Leona's group.

"Hello, Mr. Grey," she greeted him when he came in. She was sitting at the desk, having brought a laptop that she was browsing on.

"You can call me Gabriel. Did anyone fill you in on why you're here?"

She laughed. "Nope. I just got a call in the middle of the night from someone named Clarice who told me Maury Parkman wanted me here. I get here and all I got out of the guards was that he'd left an hour before." She inclined her head. "I didn't try to get anything else out of them. Was I supposed to?"

"No. Please don't tamper with the guards or our agents. Some of them have training on how to resist you and others might have hidden commands that trigger if they're manipulated against Company interests. Did they call you about breakfast?"

She nodded. "Yes, a little while ago."

"Good. Then we can eat together and I'll explain the situation. Come on." When she looked at her briefcase and computer, he added, "You can leave your stuff here. It's safe."

As they left, she said, "I noticed these rooms lock from the inside. I thought they were for holding people. They're really nice rooms for jail cells."

He smiled. "You haven't seen the rest of the facility then?" She shook her head. Gabriel went on, "These aren't cells, really. This is what they call level 1. Agents use them, people like you use them, me if I'm around – any visitor who we don't care to limit their movement. The guards don't watch the camera feeds unless they've been given direct orders to do so or there's an alarm in the room for fire or smoke or something like that."

They came to the stairs and headed down. He went on, "Main food prep is on level 3 along with the central security station. Let's stop here on level 2." He opened the door and led her in. "Most levels have five to twelve cells. All the ones here in Philly have five. This was never meant to be general facility. We're kind of full at the moment. They used to put people here before handling them at Pinehearst or the Primatech hospital, but both of those locations were lost. We're almost done rebuilding Pinehearst and that will take a lot of the pressure off."

He stopped in front of Fatima's cell. "As you can see, we have view ports here so we can see whoever's inside. On level 2, the inmate can control the tilt of the blinds, but they can't control whether they're up or down. So if we want to see in and they've closed the blinds, we can raise them. They have furniture, their own bathing area with a privacy screen and we let them have books, maybe even a television or radio – anything they want within reason, as long as they stay cooperative. The doors only lock from the outside. We keep people with abilities here who are highly cooperative _and_ who have abilities that aren't a danger to anyone. Like, say, someone with enhanced vision, or Fatima here who has healing."

He led her back to the stairs and they went down. "We keep mundanes here on level 2 as long as they're not destructive." On level 3 there was a hall at right angles to the rest. Two guards were bringing out a cart with food trays on it. Gabriel told them, "Set our food aside here in the break room when you get a chance." They nodded to him.

To Kelly, he gestured and they followed the cart down the hall with the cells. "Here on level 3 we have concrete walls and the furniture's stripped down to basics – no rug, no privacy screen, no bathing in the cells. If they behave themselves, we might let them have extra stuff. The standard is that we keep people here who are basically cooperative, but potentially dangerous. We trust them to behave themselves, but they're monitored constantly and security is right here on the same level because they're the biggest risk."

"I thought there was a level 5 for the most dangerous people."

He smiled thinly. "You've heard of that, huh? Well, some facilities have a level 5, but we don't have one here in Philly. We do have a level 4. The lower levels generally aren't as dangerous because we keep them locked down a lot tighter. Ideally if the inmates down there riot, we just leave them in their cells and let them have their little tantrum. Probably half the time the inmates down there are either sedated, physically restrained, or both.

"They don't have much in the way of furniture and we can shut down the whole level and gas it for level 4, gas individual rooms for level 5. That can be at a concentration for unconsciousness or we can move it up to a lethal dose if necessary. We only keep the troublemakers on level 4 or 5, or those with such dangerous or unpredictable powers that we couldn't keep them up here."

"You do experiments on them here?" They'd started back, walking very slowly. She took an interest in watching the people eat. Their passage evoked a range of responses from the inmates, all of whom were recent arrivals and had not yet become jaded to people passing by their windows.

Gabriel paused to look in at Al-Walid. He was still asleep. His food would be collected in a half hour along with the trays of the other inmates whether he'd eaten or not. "No. Other facilities." He looked back to read her expression, but she didn't seem upset or angry.

"I'd heard there were experiments. Are these holding cells for that, to give you a population?"

He sighed. "We have experiments that involve abilities. I'm not going to deny that. Some of those require test subjects. Right now we're only doing voluntary tests. Like this injectable neutralizing compound they developed last year: to figure out the right dosage, we solicited for volunteers from the permanent inmates. In exchange they got privileges. There have been other sets of experiments. The current leadership of the Company isn't pursuing those avenues of exploration." _God, am I ever having to tap into Nathan's politico-speak for this._

"Current leadership. You said that was you, Mr. Parkman and Mrs. Petrelli." They'd reached the break room and took seats.

"Yep, that's it."

"So the three of you don't believe in torturing and experimenting on your prisoners, like I've heard?" She smiled to soften it, but it was a serious inquiry.

"Do you?"

"What?" she was thrown. He'd been answering her questions so cooperatively, she hadn't expected him to throw the ball into her court. "Ah… well, it's unethical, I guess."

"Is it? You guess?"

"Um… yes. It's wrong to torture people." She spoke much more firmly.

"Tell me what it means to torture people." Their plates were served. The guards headed off as a pair with trays for 4B and 4E. Those on the aerosol neutralizing compound wouldn't be served. They weren't awake to eat.

She sighed. "I know where you're going with this. It's that whole Homeland Security thing and waterboarding and stress positions and so on." He nodded. "Well…" She struggled for a moment, not willing to take the easy way out and parrot a political stance. Finally she said, "I don't know."

"Yeah? Well, we want you to do something to people that's definitely a form of torture from a legal standpoint. I want you to brain wash them, make them do what we want them to do. Then stand there while Maury and I twist their minds into pretzels because we happen to like pretzels." He grinned wolfishly at her. "And if you don't have the stomach for it, I want to know now because people important to me depend on getting this done."

She buttered her toast. "Pretzels?"

"Cheese-filled."

She laughed. "Okay." She ate quietly, not really answering him. After a while she said, "So that's the deal? Join the Company so I can brain wash whoever you tell me to?"

He shrugged. "You'll get to brain wash the people _you_ want to brain wash too, as long as you're not outvoted. Mrs. Petrelli breaks ties. The Company has goals, which are basically whatever we all agree they are, but obviously we have a strategy we're already somewhat committed to." He finished off his bacon. "I say brain washing because that's what your gift is. Everyone's good at something and like Maury and I told you before, we're recruiting you for that ability. Of course we want you to use it."

"Who are these people you want me to talk to?"

"Does it matter?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I'm not just an ability on legs. I have opinions." She looked indignant.

Gabriel smiled. "Good. Good. It's a long story. I'll try to shorten it." He ate his eggs silently for more than a minute, with her casting him odd glances.

Finally she said, "You have a weird way of telling a story. Either that, or it was so short I missed it."

He looked annoyed at the interruption. "I was _thinking_. Maury and I already gave you the basic Company background. Our Company isn't the only one out there. A group in Saudi Arabia started a company called Halo - decades ago. They had some goals of their own, backing terrorist cells and working out how to destabilize the world economy. We're taking them over. They had six people in charge." He counted Arthur among them, since he didn't want to get into the nuance. "All of them are now being held here. One of the six has used emotional manipulation on two people and we want him to reverse that. That's where you come in."

"I… you want me to tell him to reverse it."

He nodded.

"What's emotional manipulation?"

He smiled. "You might not believe this, but I'm not sure."

"Oh."

"From what we were told by Abbas Hasan, who was in a position to know, it seems to be very similar to your ability. However, he needs to touch his target in addition to talking to them. He touches them, skin to skin, and creates an emotion of his choosing. He can link those feelings up to concepts or people, making his targets fanatically loyal without hollowing them out."

She smiled a little. "Ah. It's like giving them different priorities, but leaving them free to decide how to accomplish it."

He nodded. "I think so. He usually works in concert with another of the six whose specialty is understanding emotional connections and knowing which ones will work best for a person."

"So… I could go to people he'd worked on and tell them to do something, and they might do it, but they'd fight it if it conflicted… because they'd really care."

He nodded more strongly. "Yes, exactly."

"Ah. Can't you do it yourself? Telling this Bandar fellow what to do?"

"Yesterday I had a couple pretty good examples of why it's smart to play it safe and conservative when dealing with abilities. I'm going to be concentrating on reading his mind and watching. I need someone watching him who can stop him instantly, without hurting him. I can, but I can't do both at once."

She nodded.

He gestured for her to come with him. "Let's go down to security so I can find out where Abbas is. I didn't see him on the tour."


	122. Negotiating From Strength

**A/N: Still on Wednesday, March 9.**

Abbas was delivered a few hours later, trucked in from the Petrelli house and brought down to level 4 on the freight elevator. Gabriel was surprised to see Maury next to the gurney that wheeled him into the landing of the stairwell, then across it into the hallway with the cells.

"I didn't know you were here," the taller man said.

"Just got here," Maury replied, looking Kelly over. He asked her abruptly, "Are you joining, or not?"

"I'm joining," she said firmly. He nodded as if that settled the matter. She looked down at Abbas as they steered him into the break room. "What happened to him?"

The Arab looked bad, with two blacked eyes and a grotesquely swollen nose. His face had been washed, but little else had been done for him.

"My fist," Maury said.

"How… er…" she trailed off.

He laughed at what she was thinking. "It wasn't a fair fight. We don't believe in fair fights here. He was handcuffed, held down, I had two tough guys as backup and I'd gotten his number before I ever put a hand on him." He looked over to Gabriel. "So why did you have this guy trucked over here?"

"I want Peter fixed. I'd rather they started with Abbas though, so I know what they're doing."

Maury eyed the Arab. "There's no hurry for either of them. I mean, yeah, this guy might be useful and all, but I'd think we'd leave the fixing up to Halo. He belongs to them."

Gabriel frowned. Maury's answer didn't make a lot of sense, like he didn't understand that Gabriel was trying to get Peter back on his feet. "This is just a step to getting them to take care of Peter. We can't have him thinking we've turned against him, or whatever it is he's thinking now. They _changed_ him!"

Maury thought that over and shrugged. "Okay," he said slowly, eyeing Gabriel like he didn't believe his reason. Still, he said, "I'll buy that, but we're not fixing Abbas until negotiations are settled. You know he's got the hots for you right?"

"That's all I need," he said sarcastically. "Someone else who only sees me as Nathan." _And again, it's like he and I are having different conversations – me about Peter and him about Abbas._

Maury laughed. "You could start a collection." Gabriel snorted and the old man moved on, saying, "So how do you want to approach negotiations?"

Gabriel let the matter drop. He'd bring it up again later. For now he shrugged. "I was thinking we'd go talk to Bandar. His ability ties them all together. He's supposed to be passable at English so I don't think we need a translator. Are you sure he needs to touch someone to do his thing?"

Maury nodded. "Pretty sure. Abbas was sure. And when he went for Peter, he grabbed him. He wouldn't have bothered doing that unless he had to. You keep him off of me."

Gabriel dithered for a moment. He'd rather do it himself, but he couldn't think of a good way to manage it. Maury might need him to use his telekinesis to hold the man back without hurting him or letting him touch anyone, which was something Maury wasn't able to do. He stroked his chin indecisively. "Okay, yeah."

The older man looked at Gabriel intently for a moment. "You really don't want him getting a hold of me, you know? Because I'll have my full brain. I just won't be working for you anymore."

"You don't work for me now," Gabriel said with an indignant snort.

"True. Keep him off me though. I don't want to do anything embarrassing."

Kelly laughed a little. At Gabriel's look, she said, "You two argue like an old married couple."

Maury choked and coughed, thinking if he'd said something like that Gabe would have killed him. Again. But Kelly was a woman and a relative stranger and she didn't have a history of pissing Gabriel off. He ignored her, stalking off down the hall. Maury and Kelly followed.

He opened the blast shield and went through the standard checklist before opening the cell. Noah Bennet drifted down from his post to watch. He and Gabriel exchanged a blank look, then Gabriel finished making sure protocol was followed. He toggled the door and Maury walked in. Gabriel followed, blocking the door open for the time being.

Bandar was restrained and unconscious on the platform, a tube in his nose and a device hanging from a stand next to him. He was dressed in a plain, light blue medical-grade outfit. Maury put his hand on the man's forehead for a moment and concentrated. "Looks good," he said as he took his hand away.

"What's that he's getting?" Kelly asked.

Maury answered, "Aerosolized neutralizing compound. It inhibits brain activity and usually abilities. It's also very short acting. He'll wake up within minutes of taking it away. Sometimes seconds." He looked at the readout on the side of the machine. "Probably a minute or two for him." He turned off the device and removed the tube. The tape took a couple of hairs from the man's moustache along with it. He rolled the device to the front of the room and out to Noah, who took it.

Maury said, "Just to clarify: Kelly, you order him not to use his abilities on us and to use them on Abbas to straighten him out. Gabriel will make sure he doesn't touch any of us. I'll do the talking." Kelly nodded obediently. Gabriel made a disagreeable sound but didn't actually object.

A minute later, the man woke up blinking. He was still fully restrained. Maury gave him another minute to get his bearings before talking to him. "Bandar bin Abdullah Al Farhan Al Saud. Big name. Lots of powerful relations there, if I understand it right." The man looked at him blankly, giving him nothing the other two could detect. "We've got you and the other four executives. There's two ways this can go. You can be cooperative and we can talk merger, or you can be a pain in the ass and we can talk hostile takeover."

The Arab looked away from him and said nothing. Maury puckered his lips. "Alright, pain in the ass then. I didn't really expect anything else." He looked at Kelly. "Tell him to speak in English and to think in English."

She did exactly as directed. Bandar stiffened and his eyes widened. His face twitched with emotion. Maury smiled and leaned closer to the man. He said softly, "I can have her make you to do all kinds of amusing things." He leaned away and paced around Bandar, who was paying close attention to him now. He spoke more normally. "But we don't need to do that. Do you want to reconsider your position? We're not going to kill you or torture you or rob you. Not talking about putting you out of your position or threatening your family or even giving you a bad reputation." Maury's eyes jerked to the Arab at the end. "Funny what matters to people."

Bandar coughed and cleared his throat. "What do you want?"

"I want you to listen to Kelly here while she tells you not to use your ability on any of the three of us." After a pause, Maury added, "That would be your ability to influence a person's emotions. … Yes, your gift."

The Arab narrowed his eyes at Maury who smiled at him thinly. "Yes, mine is to read your thoughts. But I'd rather you talked. Out loud." The telepath gestured to Kelly, who issued the command he'd asked for. He turned to Gabriel and said, "Go ahead and let him up." He backed away to stand with the two of them near the door.

Gabriel worked the restraints with telekinesis and Bandar rose to sit, then turned and stretched before getting down. He looked around at the cell. "Where am I?"

"America," Maury said.

"Where at?"

"Underground," Maury said, continuing to be vague.

The Arab gave him a long, even look. He regarded his clothing and his fingernails, then scratched at his moustache where the hairs had been pulled. He stroked his beard thoughtfully and walked to the far end of the cell, looking at the facilities but making no motions toward using them. Gabriel looked at Maury, who was just watching and waiting.

Since nothing interesting was happening, he lowered his blocks to read the Arab's mind, picking up that he was seriously mulling over the offer to discuss a merger. Bandar glanced over suspiciously at Maury, uncomfortable with not being able to conceal his thoughts, but he'd had this experience before with Arthur.

He spoke, "I will need to see my friends and discuss your offer with them. I do not speak for them."

Maury shrugged. "Fair enough, but I hope you understand we're going to keep some of you from being able to use your abilities – Faisal particularly, but Fuad had better behave himself too." He held up a finger. "**You** get one chance and this is it. If you use your ability without our permission, even once, you'll lose it. We have drugs that can block you from using your gifts and we have abilities that can take it away _permanently_, as in _**forever**_. We'll make the same offer to Fatima and Al-Walid. If the three of you agree that Fuad can behave himself, then we'll let him off the drugs too. Faisal stays muzzled. Got it?"

He nodded, though clearly he only understood about half of what Maury had said. He mulled over some of the words, like 'particularly,' 'permission' and 'muzzled' and wondered what they meant. He seemed to have the gist of it. He said, "You will need to wake Fuad first."

Maury frowned at him and said nothing, waiting to see if his thoughts would reveal duplicity or scheme. The man's thoughts kept stuttering as he failed to find English words to express himself. He could handle common phrases and conversation, but he was missing pieces of what Maury said and having to guess at his meaning from context. It didn't seem to be a trap, but on the other hand he knew he was being watched.

Gabriel asked, "Why?"

"He knows English better than any of us. He will understand what you are saying better than I do." It was in his mind that Fuad could tell him if he should trust them.

Gabriel nodded. "Well, then we go get Fuad."

"Wait a second," Maury interjected. "We've got another guy – one of your guys from Halo. He was in the bathroom with Al-Walid. Who is he?"

"Ah. That is Misbah."

"What was he doing there at Halo at that hour? Why was he called in?"

"Eh." He was otherwise silent, remembering the interlocking pattern on the carved wooden screen in his office.

"Uh-huh," Maury said, recognizing the dodge. He was a little surprised to see that he knew how to do that and hadn't tried it right off. "Then he's important and he stays in his cell. Speaking of which, you get to stay here too. Lunch will be served in a little bit, half hour or so." He turned to leave and the others followed him, shutting the door behind. Gabriel made notes on the clipboard by the door as Kelly and Maury went down the hall to 4A. Noah went back to his station. Maury started through the same basic checklist they'd observed with Bandar before opening the door.

Kelly asked, "He's unconscious. You can see him. Why the paperwork?"

"Oh, you see a few dead folks who didn't follow directions and it kind of makes you paranoid." He glanced up at the man on the platform. "He _looks_ unconscious. This," he waved the clipboard, "tells me if he's supposed to have had enough dope to make him that way. Messiest mistake I ever saw was a girl who had these telekinetic claws. Some idiot forgot to top off her tank. It ran out, she woke up and was able to rotate her hands enough to cut her restraints. Then she disabled the alarm on the unit that goes off when it runs low and laid there and looked unconscious until the next shift came in. They didn't check the chart. She had about three, four minutes to cut them to ribbons before they gassed her to death."

Gabriel joined them as Maury hung up the clipboard. Maury said, "And I'm going to let him go first, just in case, because that's how I am." He smiled at Gabriel, who rolled his eyes and opened the door. Maury said in an exaggerated aside, "You don't get to be old in this business by taking risks. Gabriel here's died dozens of times, but he's kind of a slow learner."

"Shut it, Maury," he grumbled as he checked the medication and removed the tube.

They waited quietly while Fuad awoke. Gabriel nullified abilities after the first motion indicated the man was waking. He informed Maury and Kelly of what he was doing. Fuad's head came up after a while. Maury paced forward. "Hi there. You're now a guest of the Company. We caught all of your executives and a couple other guys, including your son-in-law." He paused for reaction.

"Oh," Fuad said simply and put his head back down.

"We have guards outside and I'm sure you recognize me and Gabriel there. We'd like to have a talk with you - just a nice, normal little chat. Are you up for that?"

"Yes, I'm awake. I'd prefer not to be tied down."

"Will you behave yourself?"

"Of course. Like you say, you have guards outside and people who caught me before right here."

Maury smiled slightly and backed away to let Gabriel work the restraints from a safe distance. Fuad sat up slowly, studying each of them in turn. He touched his forehead. "What have you done to me?"

Gabriel spoke, "If you mean your ability, it's being suppressed."

"Hm."

Maury said, "We'd like to keep this between the upper management of both groups. The Company wants to merge with Halo. If you want to fight about that, then we'll fight. We'll use whatever dirty tricks we have to in order to win and given what's happened so far, I'd say it's looking pretty bad for you. If you want to work something out with us, then we'll talk. We'll negotiate and see what sort of bargain we can reach. Which do you want to do: fight or talk?"

Fuad smiled easily, sliding down from the platform. He took two steps towards them and stopped when Gabriel tensed and raised a hand. "I'd like to talk. I'm sure we can work something out."

"I'm sure we can," Maury said dryly. "But first, we have some orders for you. I'm sure you won't like them, but we can't let you out to sway whoever you want. It would make negotiations pretty lop-sided. Kelly?"

Fuad held up a hand to them and she hesitated. He looked like he was listening for something. Kelly went on, telling him not to use his ability on anyone they did not give him permission to use it on. Maury added, "Any of his abilities," and she repeated the command with the correction, not sure why it was important. She guessed Maury had seen something in his mind.

"Drop the nullification," Maury said.

"Right now?" Gabriel asked.

"Might as well. The commands either took, or they didn't."

Gabriel shut down his power. Maury jerked his head slightly and blinked at the Arab. He turned and looked at Gabriel, then Kelly. Gabriel activated the nullification again, unhappy with Maury's reaction. "Maury?"

"I'm fine," he said distantly, then shook his head.

"Crap," Gabriel said, glaring at Fuad, who was studying them intently.

The Arab saw the look and put his hands out, palms level with the floor and fingers extended. "I did nothing."

"He didn't do anything, Gabe. Don't get your panties in a bunch." Maury took a step forward and addressed their prisoner, "Can you turn that off?"

"No."

Maury shook his head, sighed and turned back to the other two. "Go ahead and let him do it. He's got a constant sensory power. He's probably lying about being…" He looked at Gabriel and brushed his mind. "…about being unable to drop it."

When Gabriel let him in, he asked, _Is he lying?_

_No_, Gabriel answered.

_Can you keep this up with me? This link?_

_Yes, but you stay out of everything but the surface or you'll go the rest of your very short, unpleasant life without eyes._

_Got it. _"But we're going to trust you," Maury said to Fuad cheerily. Gabriel removed the nullification again.


	123. United They Stood

_This is kind of useful, you know - the mental link._ Maury kept his thoughts carefully focused. He took Gabriel's threat seriously, which gratified Gabriel to a ridiculous degree. Gabriel thought to himself that if only Matt had shown him this kind of respect, he'd still be alive. It was a depressing thought, really. It made him angry - angry at how things had turned out, at himself for making that choice.

He took it out on Maury, because he was there. And he reminded him a lot of Matt, on many levels. Their mental voices even sounded similar - the feel and the heft of their minds were each familiar, almost terrifyingly so. Matt had been heavier, somehow and he didn't mean that in reference to his physical form. It was what Maury would have called 'power,' but Gabriel had no word for it. He just knew it as a distant, excruciating memory from a time he couldn't bring himself to think of.

He pulled his mind away from that period of his life and tried to lash out with his mind. _Quit talking to me! I don't even do this with Peter. It's freakish!_ He tried to put some emphasis in it, to hurt with it, to do to Maury some shadow of what had been done to him so long ago, a year and a half now. But if that was even possible he failed. Or maybe Maury blocked him. Or maybe Maury just took it, which didn't make any sense, but somehow it felt like the most likely thing. Gabriel couldn't tell.

He considered cutting the contact entirely, but he didn't. Cutting Maury out would be a form of running away, it would be a retreat, an admission that the old man scared him and could hurt him. So instead he tightened his defenses, partitioning his mind so that Maury would hear only what he specifically allowed him to hear. He would be in control. He remained hyper-vigilant.

"So," Maury said to Fuad, as if nothing too distracting had been going on in his head, "I'd thought Bandar had to be in charge, what with the ability to make people believe whatever he wants - like him, love him, that sort of thing. We talked to him first, obviously, but then he said it was all about you. Not in those words, of course." He paused. "Your thoughts?"

Fuad looked between the two telepaths and watched what he saw as a wash of emotions and feedback, what might have been actions and reactions, possible futures, possible feelings, confrontations and resolutions. It struck him as awfully _busy_. There was nothing at all going on between Kelly and the other two, but Gabriel and Maury were doing something. He'd seen people arguing animatedly having less of an exchange.

He had no idea what it meant and so he examined his clothing and was annoyed by it. His face didn't show it, but his thoughts did. He felt embarrassed and disgraced by the Company's version of prison garb, uncomfortable with how it rode up in his crotch. He sat on the bed shelf and looked at the three of them with a pleasant expression though.

_Are these the sort of things that go through people's minds all the time?_ Gabriel thought, despite his earlier demand for no communication.

_Yep. Deep thinkers we ain't, _Maury replied, he started to project something else, but the Arab was pulling together what he wanted to say in English. Even his Arabic thoughts held a shadow of meaning in English, so they were able to get the intention of most of his inner dialogue.

Unaware of their conversation, Fuad said, "We are a council, not a hierarchy. No one is in charge."

"You're lying," Gabriel said.

Maury told him, _Don't tell him that. Tell __**me**__, and I'll play it._ Gabriel gave him a feeling of irritation and made another futile attempt to figure out how to inflict some form of damage with telepathy, but Fuad was talking again and it distracted him before he could focus on it too much.

"No one is supposed to be in charge," Fuad amended smoothly. "Arthur Petrelli was." In his mind, he debated the correct verb tense and decided he should've used 'is', but didn't see a need to correct himself.

Maury said, "Still seems like Bandar would have been calling the shots more than you."

Fuad looked at him blankly, watching the current of emotion play and flow between Maury and Gabriel, but not between the pair and Kelly. It was really starting to get his attention now, as it was still changing. He didn't know he was seeing the effects of an ability, but he knew for a fact that _something_ was going on. "Bandar's gift is limited without my sight. But none of the five of us is in charge. Without Bandar," he spread his hands and smiled slightly, "all I can do is perceive and inform."

Gabriel asked Maury, _What was Fuad going to tell Peter? Ask him that._

_That's not important right now,_ Maury thought back._ And in case you haven't noticed, I'm not mentioning Peter at all to these guys._ Gabriel **had** noticed, but he didn't know what it meant. He made a more tentative probe at Maury's mind, feeling around the edges for a weakness.

Maury thought, _Please stop that, Gabriel. It's very hard to concentrate with you trying to stab me in the back here._ He sounded polite and maybe a little put-upon, but hardly so much as annoyed. _Fuad's noticing. It's a problem._

Gabriel wasn't very sure what to think about that. After a moment of blankness, he realized that he'd become completely distracted from what they were trying to accomplish here and gotten himself lost in the idea of... yeah, stabbing Maury in the back was pretty much what he'd been trying to do. It was also stupid. Gabriel gave himself a mental shake and brought his attention back to Fuad.

Maury puckered his lips and said, "Okay. What about the other three? What are their roles?"

Fuad glanced uneasily between the three of them, then met Maury's eyes steadily. "We work together. You will not divide us like this." Fuad, more than anyone else, knew who was loyal to who, how much and why. Halo's leadership was united and of a voice, even if they had strong differences of opinion.

_That's impressive,_ Maury projected to Gabriel, with a wistful tone to his thoughts. _Leadership that's not trying to kill each other. Useful._

Gabriel grumped a little mentally at the insinuation. _Not really. Bandar and Fuad probably created it with what amounts to mind control._

_It doesn't have to be that way,_ Maury thought.

_Then why the hell __**is it**__?_ Gabriel thought back at him hotly. It wasn't exactly a fair thought, since the Company regularly used telepathy to communicate between the directors, though it had taken Gabriel a great deal of effort to allow even that.

Maury thought something argumentative, but he didn't bring it forward into a coherent thought. The older man nodded to Fuad. "All right. I want you and Bandar to give us a promise of good conduct on yourselves and the other three before we let you guys get together to talk."

"I need to talk to Bandar first."

"He's already agreed." Maury's statement was a lie and it rang in Gabriel's mind as such. _Interesting_, Maury thought. _I didn't think that was a lie._

Gabriel sucked in air and redoubled his defenses, putting that information out of Maury's reach. He didn't want the telepath learning anything more about how his ability worked. In fact, he didn't want him knowing anything at all about him, which was kind of silly, under the circumstances. It didn't matter though. Gabriel could feel a rising panic. Fuad gave him an odd look at the flash of emotion.

_You can block me out like this…_ Maury started, intending to show him how to partition more effectively, but Gabriel interrupted him with _Get the fuck out of my head!_

Gabriel was too rattled at the moment to even kick Maury out, but the old man's mental presence was gone immediately anyway.

Fuad looked between the two of them. Gabriel was breathing hard and he was sweating, but no one gave any explanation for what was going on. "I do not call you a liar," the Arab said respectfully, "but I will need to talk to my friend Bandar before _**I**_ agree." After a pause he added, "Is everything well here?"

Kelly looked at Gabriel with concern, but said nothing. As far as she could tell, perhaps he was merely sick. Maury smiled thinly at Fuad and then dropped the expression to look seriously at Gabriel. "Do you want to take a moment here?"

"Yes," Gabriel snapped. His tone made it clear his problem wasn't his stomach, but his temper.

The three stepped outside. Maury looked him up and down, his eyes stopping on Gabriel's trembling hands, which he shoved into his pockets a moment later. Maury turned and looked away down the hall, keeping Gabriel only in his peripheral vision. To Kelly, Maury said, "Go get us some coffee."

"I'm not your _secretary_," she objected. "What's wrong with him?"

Maury ignored her question pointedly. "Fine. Then go tell someone else to get us some coffee."

She pursed her lips and stared at him for a moment. Gabriel leaned against the wall, put his head back and stared at the ceiling. Something about his tense posture made her soften hers. She turned and left.

A few minutes passed. Gabriel said quietly, voice heavy with anger, "What the fuck did you do to me?"

"Triggered a panic attack. Sorry." Maury didn't look at him.

Gabriel shoved off the wall and loomed over Maury. "I don't have panic attacks!" he snarled, breathing harder.

"Okay." Maury kept watching down the hall, like there was something interesting there. Gabriel bared his teeth and raised his hands like he was going to do… something. Maury added quickly, "It might have been something else."

"Like _what?_"

"I don't know," Maury said, lying and improvising badly. He hadn't expected this. "Any number of things. It was my fault." That last wasn't a lie. Gabriel snorted and walked off. He paced and finally calmed down.

After a few more minutes passed, Maury turned a little and said, "You know, we can just leave him alone for a while. It might work better that way-"

"No! We're not stopping because I… freaked out. I'm fine. You don't scare me."

Maury nodded, not so much in agreement but more like Gabriel had said something likely about the weather. Kelly opened the far door and came down the hall carrying two cups of coffee. They were silent as she approached. She offered them each one. Maury sighed and said, "Thanks." He looked at the cup blankly for a moment as if considering whether he really wanted it. Or if he wanted to drink it.

"I didn't spit in it, if that's what you're thinking," she said.

Rather than be offended, he just gave her a half smile. "I know. We need to work together here. Get together. Pull together. We're all on the same side."

She looked at Gabriel, who sipped his drink. "So what's wrong with him?" she asked again, just as bluntly.

Maury said easily, "Some abilities have unforeseen side effects."

"What does that mean?"

Gabriel opened his mouth to speak, but Maury cut him off, defending him more smoothly than Gabriel would have, with, "There was a lot going on in there. Fuad's ability is very mental; Gabriel and I were talking telepathically; and we got some bad feedback going. We just needed a moment."

"You seem fine," she said grudgingly, of Maury.

"I wasn't." He lied. Gabriel stared at him. Maury was lying to protect Gabriel's ego, to protect him from having to admit he'd been frightened and angry and lost his cool at an inappropriate moment.

Kelly looked back and forth between them. A better read of people would have known something was up, but people with who could dominate and control with their voice rarely had any empathy or sensitivity to the feelings of others. Maury knew that. He played to it. She said, "Huh. So are you both better now?"

"Yep. I'm good." He looked between Gabriel and Kelly. "Are we all together on this?" They nodded - Kelly matter-of-factly, Gabriel still a bit stunned. "Okay. I just need to know one more thing." He turned to face Gabriel and bowed his head.

Gabriel jumped when his mind brushed against his own. His breathing sped up. _What are you doing?_

_Can we go back to doing it this way?_

_Hell no!_ He felt a ridiculous jolt of terror go through him again, followed swiftly by the thought that if he killed Maury, he'd never have to deal with that feeling again.

Maury cut the connection, raised one hand partway and made what might have been a soothing motion, or a gesture for 'wait' or any of a handful of other things. Gabriel swallowed and took a deep breath, realizing Maury was still covering for him. Maury said, "Let's go as we are." They walked back in.

They dickered back and forth about conditions and intentions, each trying to get a better feel for what the other wanted. Despite the rough treatment Halo had received, Fuad seemed genuinely willing to consider serious talks. It was like if someone had invaded your house and trapped you in your bedroom, then after an hour of letting you calm down, they started trying to tell you why they broke in and can they please just sleep on the couch? It changed the nature of the conversation, but it was a conversation Halo never would have entertained without the demonstration of force.

Fuad asked, "Are you honest about seeking an agreement with us?" He gestured at the cell he was in, his thoughts lending the gesture the implication that he wasn't inclined to believe them while he was incarcerated in such a manner.

Maury nodded. "Yeah, actually. We need your cooperation to get what we want. It's just that I'm going to deal from a position of strength if I can. I'm sure you understand that." He paused for a moment to read a vague affirmation from the Arab, along with some equally undefined memory of Arthur. "You stay there. I'll go grab your friend." He walked out and down the hall to release Bandar.

Maury looked at Kelly and she twitched a little, then nodded. Gabriel glanced between her and the old man, realizing he'd been cut out of whatever telepathic communication they'd just shared. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or offended.

Maury returned with Bandar a few moments later. Fuad started to speak, but Maury raised his hand and said, "Wait." The man frowned at him but held his silence. Maury turned to Kelly and said, "Same as before - thinking and talking in English only." She nodded and relayed the command.

Fuad's brow furrowed and his lips pressed together. He was thinking that was annoying and uncalled for, but he didn't object. He turned to Bandar and inquired, "You are well?" The other man nodded. Fuad looked at their three captors, each in turn, for a long moment. Bandar stood quietly. Then Fuad looked at him and inclined his head slightly.

Bandar turned to them and said, "We will talk with you."

The decision seemed too simple, like something had gone on between the two Arabs that Gabriel couldn't see, even though he was trying to read their minds. He suspected Maury knew what had happened, but he shied away from asking him.

Maury said to them, "All right. Then if you'll follow me we'll go upstairs to a larger room. You can wait there while I get the others out of their cells and we'll have lunch." He started to go, then turned back and added, "I just want to be clear about what we're doing here. The Company is going to take over Halo whether you cooperate or not. The reason why we're talking to you is that you each have information and resources we want. We want Halo intact. We want your cooperation. If we're not going to get it – if there's nothing we can put on the table to get it, then there's no point in talking." He looked back and forth between the two men.

Fuad thought Maury was afraid, concerned and defensive. He was insecure and worried about everyone in the room – his own people more than the Arabs. He thought this very clearly, looking right at the telepath and Gabriel picked it up because he was listening for it. Fuad was uncertain if his thoughts were being read directly, but he knew Maury was sensing something from him and knew when he concentrated on his ability. He hoped Maury was seeing that Fuad knew where his weaknesses lay. By projecting it as he did, Gabriel saw them too.

Fuad and Maury stared at each other for a very long moment, until Maury dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet. He looked deferential and perhaps intimidated, but Gabriel suspected it was a ploy. Fuad thought the same, for there was no apprehension in his aura. The Arab's eyes narrowed slightly. Maury smiled up at him in amusement. This time, it did show through, as the amusement at least was genuine. "Follow me," he said and walked out.

They were most of the way to the room they were going to use for their conference, when curiosity finally got the better of him and he reached out to touch Maury's mind. When he felt an emptiness of barriers, he projected, _I'm not scared of you._

Maury responded simply, _Okay._

Gabriel ordered him, _Tell me what was going on in that exchange between Fuad and Bandar__._ He made it a command. He tried to be in control of the situation.

Maury didn't challenge him. He didn't resist it. He just thought back, _Okay,_ and told him what he wanted to know.


	124. WWND?

The negotiations were tedious. The most tedious part for Gabriel was sitting quietly and letting Halo work it out, while still paying attention and waiting for the rare time when he might be able to say something helpful. It gave Gabriel time to sort through his different perspectives on the matter. He rarely had the leisure to think such things through. Had he only had the memories of Gabriel Grey, he would have been frustrated by the arguing and discussing, feeling that someone should take charge and make everyone else obey – maybe not him, necessarily, because he didn't feel qualified to handle all this "people stuff", but someone. Someone strong. Someone assertive.

Someone like Sylar. Now Sylar's preferred approach to getting Halo to merge with the Company would have been to tell everyone exactly what they were going to do, perhaps kill the one with the most useful and desirable ability to make sure the others knew he was serious, and then leave, because he had better things to do than hang out with a bunch of suits. Better things to do like go downstairs and have a few choice words with Arthur before cracking his head open one way or the other and figuring out what made him tick.

But Sylar really didn't have any experience getting other people to do what he wanted, at least not while they were out of his sight. So he sort of doubted that Sylar's approach would work in reality. Oh, Halo and the Company would probably merge all right, but it would be a merger with the goal of taking him down. They'd both be terrified of him and he'd pay for it by having to live on the run, assuming they didn't nail him right away.

The component part that had the most experience dealing with these situations was Nathan, and he was actually quite good at it. He'd had officer training in the military and extensive negotiation classes in law school. He'd arbitrated a lot in practice and filled every role in a negotiation, including the one he was filling right now, which was that of facilitator. These were all things that had made him well-qualified to be a politician and right now, being political was what he needed to be.

His memories of success led him to adopt that path, listening carefully, figuring out people's motivations and goals and occasionally interjecting when things were getting bogged down, off track or too heated. He didn't disengage like Gabriel would have. He didn't take over like Sylar would have. He didn't really like doing it though. It would have been a lot more satisfying to tune out or tell them off.

_Does lie detection work if you're not paying attention?_ Maury asked him telepathically. After a very defensive start, Gabriel had lowered his defenses to allow Maury to read his mind. To a limited extent, the reverse was also true, though there was no legitimate purpose for Gabriel being in Maury's head. He just wasn't going to let it to be one-sided. Not that it helped – Maury's mind was a steel trap in more ways than one. Gabriel had tried to hurt him several more times and was ignored. He couldn't pull any information out of the man that he wasn't willing to part with, so Gabriel had eventually quit trying. It wasn't the point anyway. The shared mind-reading was so that Maury could tell when people were lying without Gabriel having to signal him. Other than the occasional comment, that was all they used the link for.

Gabriel sat up straighter and looked around the table. Maury was right. He'd tuned out as thoroughly as if he'd done it on purpose. It bothered him a little that his internal monologue had probably also been listened to by the old man, but Maury had been surprisingly discreet about whatever he overheard in Gabriel's head. The first few hours, Gabriel had been extremely paranoid, keeping all his defenses at maximum, to the point of giving himself a crushing headache. After lunch he'd given it up and relaxed a little, letting stray thoughts wander through his mind unguarded. He told himself Maury had had a good six months to read him at the board meetings before he got telepathy on his own and became able to block him out, so it wasn't like he hadn't already seen right through him.

For the moment, he ignored the steady stream of conversation from the translator next to him and just looked at Halo's body language and posture, facial expressions and tones of voice. He considered what Nathan would make of it. He thought, _They're crabby. It's getting late. If my attention is wandering, so is theirs. Let's call for dinner and take this off-line, give it a rest until tomorrow._

Maury considered that for a moment and then said, _Good call._ Gabriel felt a tiny jolt of gratitude at the compliment. He sensed an equally small degree of grumbling from Maury about the gratitude. _Don't get used to it. But… you've done good today. Took a lot of the work off me._

Gabriel looked Maury evenly for a moment, then addressed the group, "Faisal, I think that's an excellent point and I'll make a note of it, but I think we should wrap up for the evening. What does everyone say about that? We can come back to this in the morning."

There was general agreement around the table and several stood to stretch. Fuad knelt next to Fatima and they spoke quietly in Arabic. Gabriel and Maury had been forced to relax their initial "English only" policy at the table as not all the Halo executives spoke it. Instead of making Halo use translators to talk to one another, it was simpler for Gabriel and Maury to use translators to listen. Maury linked to his mentally, which gave him faster understanding and spared the man's voice. Gabriel wasn't comfortable enough to do that and at least at first, he'd worried too much about dividing his attention from defending himself against Maury. Now, he wasn't sure if his paranoia had been justified.

Gabriel walked out of the cafeteria that had been transformed into their meeting room. He paced the hallway to get some circulation going and clear his mind. He still had a massive headache. Maury came out a while later and came down the hall, probably to tell him dinner was ready. He could smell it.

First though, Maury wanted to talk. He said, "I think we've got this in the bag. Fatima never cared and Fuad's with us. If we have Fuad, then we have Bandar. Al-Walid hates us on principle and Faisal's just upset he can't get everyone to agree. Let them sleep on it and I figure the other four will wear down Al-Walid until he agrees just to get them off his back. They all know we're not letting them go until they do."

Gabriel nodded. His thoughts were elsewhere at the moment. "You think we can trust them?" He stared vacantly at the wall.

Maury cocked his head at his inattention. "Yeah, I think so. Far enough, anyway. You can never really trust anyone, you know."

Gabriel turned to look at the telepath intently. "Then let's have them reverse what they did to Peter."

Maury closed up. "I think that's a little premature…"

"_**Premature?**_ He's been out for a day. We can't just leave him like that!"

"Whoa, whoa. Calm down there." Maury held his hands up and made soothing motions. He also stepped back.

"_Calm down?_" Gabriel paused and exhaled sharply and looked at the wall again. He'd tried to broach the subject immediately, when they'd first talked to Fuad and Bandar. Maury had shut him down and Gabriel had let him. He'd tried to bring it up at lunch and got cut off again. Maury diverted it into a discussion of Abbas.

While Gabriel cared about what happened to Abbas, it was nothing compared to his motivation to get Peter back on his feet. He'd been the one to put Peter down. He'd locked up his lover just like Peter had locked him up. It was intolerable to keep him that way any longer than absolutely necessary. He was **not** going to do to Peter what had been done to him. It looked too much like revenge and there was no way he was going to put that between them.

Also, with all that was going on in his head, this continuing low-level mental fighting, he wanted nothing more than to have Peter take him into his arms and comfort him. He needed someone - he needed to just get away from all this, but he couldn't. Heidi could help, but she wouldn't _understand_ the way Peter would. The way he _might_, if they could get that damn emotional compulsion off of him. _'It was you' _echoed in Gabriel's mind constantly, a knife in his gut.

Rather than calming him down, reviewing his motivations had just wound him back up again. He wheeled on Maury, who dipped his head in addition to putting his hands up at his threatening demeanor. He said, "Gabe, wa-", but Gabriel cut him off, asking, "Why? Why not?"

"This isn't a good time."

"**Why** isn't it a good time?" the taller man pressed, taking a step towards him.

Maury snapped, "Would you get over yourself? There are things going on here other than your frustration that kissing sleeping beauty isn't waking him up!"

Gabriel twitched forward towards Maury, then paused, thinking about what he'd said. He cocked his head like a dog that had heard an interesting sound. "What's going on? Why would you want to keep Peter out of this? What are you hiding from him?" After a beat, he sucked in air as he realized whatever Maury was up to, he was making Gabriel complicit in it. "What are _**we**_ hiding from him?"

Maury looked up at Gabriel, who loomed over him. Maury had his back to the wall. In a very even, calm tone of voice, he said, "Back off."

"Or _**what**_?" Gabriel growled. If anything, he moved closer. "You think I won't add another murder to the roster? Who knows? Maybe you'll make it an even hundred. **Now tell me what I want to know**."

Maury's face fell slowly and his lids drooped. He looked down and to the right. He slumped. For a moment, Gabriel thought it had worked. Then he thought about what he was doing, forcing someone to answer him. In either case, Maury wasn't telling. He wasn't saying anything, just standing there silently. _In for a dime, in for a dollar…_

Gabriel grabbed him with telekinesis and shoved him up the wall. He raised his hand, fingers spread. In the back of his mind, he thought about how this was a really dumb place to kill Maury if his intention was to indulge his Hungers and drain the man's essence. Doing anything else gained him nothing. Doing this gained him… the better point was, he thought sourly, that it lost him everything. If Matt could take his memories with him, then certainly Maury could do the same. The only thing he'd get was satisfaction and very little at that.

"Go ahead," Maury said fatalistically. "I'm not going to tell you what you want and you're not strong enough to make me. If this is what you do to people who don't bow to you, then go ahead."

Gabriel stared at him. "You can stop me. You're strong enough to do that. You're not even trying."

Maury looked at him disbelievingly. "What the fuck, Gabe? Do you think I'm a fucking moron? That's what killed my _**son!**_ I'm damned either way and I'm God damned well not going to give you a fucking _**excuse!**_"

Gabriel pulled back abruptly and Maury slid down the wall to stand on his own feet. A chill went through the taller man at what he'd been about to do, what he'd been trying to provoke Maury into doing. He knew Maury had hit the nail squarely on the head that he was looking for an excuse. It was as if what he'd done to Matt wasn't enough and he felt the need to take it out on anyone remotely like him. He looked down and away. He leaned against the far wall, feeling weak and confused. He covered his face with one hand, wishing he could get rid of his conflicting desires. He wanted to kill, but at the same time, he didn't want to. It was depressing. He wanted Peter _desperately_.

"Tell me you're sorry," Maury ground out through clenched teeth.

Gabriel lowered his hand, blinked at him and said nothing.

"Tell me… you're sorry… for trying to kill me." Maury looked at him intently, as if this was very important to him.

Gabriel looked away and mumbled, "I'm sorry."

"**Louder**. I _need_ to hear it."

The taller man looked at him. He should be angry, but instead he just felt tired. Maury had a strange tone to his voice - almost pleading instead of commanding. Gabriel gave him what he wanted, speaking tonelessly like he was a child reciting lines as punishment. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you. I shouldn't have. Maybe you deserve it, but I shouldn't be doing it. I-"

Gabriel's voice stopped with a sudden surge of emotion. He looked away and then decided to hell with it – he might as well finish the statement. He was talking to a guy who'd been in his head, after all. He'd debased himself to Maury before and what he had to say now wasn't embarrassing, just honest. "I love Peter. I can't stand that you're not helping him."

Maury exhaled and looked up and down the hall. They remained alone. Everyone else was probably eating. He stepped a little closer anyway, ducking his head and looking up at the other man's face. "Gabriel, you have **got** to stop trying to kill me. One of these times you're going to succeed and you won't be able to fix it. You keep _pushing_ me. You've **got** to stop. We're friends, all right? Not enemies anymore."

Gabriel stood up to his full height. "Then stop fighting with me."

"And start obeying you? Is that it?"

Gabriel huffed. "I can't say that would make me unhappy."

"Oh yeah? You feel like knuckling under to **me**? I mean, fair is fair. I don't see any reason why _I've_ got to be the one taking it from _you_."

Gabriel snorted. "Why not? You take it from Arthur." There were any number of insulting ways that could be read. Gabriel meant most of them.

"Yeah," Maury said slowly. "I'd rather die."

Gabriel peered at the older man, wondering what, exactly, that meant. "Because it's me?" he asked uncertainly.

"No." Maury looked away and said nothing else.

"Fine. Is there anything I can say to you to get you to tell me why you don't want Peter up and around right now?"

"No." He was lying.

Gabriel stepped closer to him. Maury eyed him warily, but didn't move. Gabriel raised his hand as if to put it on the older man's shoulder, then changed his mind and dropped it, stepping away again. He paced and dithered, trying to figure out what he needed to do, what he needed to say. His desire to hurt Maury was as useless as Sylar's solution to Halo's negotiation. _What would Nathan do?_

Maury spoke distantly, "Dinner's ready. It's rude if we don't at least show up," then he sighed and walked off down the hall towards the cafeteria. Gabriel watched his retreating back for a moment, then followed. _What Nathan would do was help his brother, no matter what Maury wants._


	125. True Betrayal

Gabriel played nice through dinner. It wasn't hard. Halo ate apart and said little to each other. For lunch, Kelly, Gabriel and Maury had tried to eat with them and they'd decamped to their own table immediately. Fuad apologized for their behavior, but he said they would prefer not to eat with them as prisoners. For dinner, Kelly, Maury and Gabriel sat together with the translators and a couple of the guards. They didn't have much to say to each other either.

It didn't take much encouragement for Kelly and Maury to leave. Kelly was tired. Maury said he'd stop by and give Angela a report. Gabriel promised to wrap things up there at the facility. He walked the older man out as they discussed plans for the next day. By the time he was back inside, most of Halo had gone off to bed in their new accommodations on level 2. Gabriel debated waking them, but they were still dealing with the time change from Riyadh. He went down to see Peter instead.

He sat on the bed shelf and stared across at the other man. He sat alone with his thoughts for some time, hands clasped before him. He tried and failed to think of any reason why Maury didn't want Peter awake. Now that he thought about it, Maury had been very suspicious of Peter for the whole operation. Gabriel just couldn't find a reason for it. Finally he rose and walked over to where Noah was trading off with Harvey Ethridge, his relief for the night.

"Hey." He leaned against the door frame and watched as Noah packed up the last of the case files he'd been putting together while watching Arthur. Noah paused for a moment, but didn't look up. They hadn't spoken since Maury's unhelpful insinuation.

"Have you asked her?" Gabriel finally said, speaking of Claire and how Maury had implied Gabriel had raped her.

Noah glanced at Harvey, clearly not wanting to talk in front of him. He snapped his case shut, but kept his eyes down. He didn't look at Gabriel, just like he hadn't for months after he became a director, as if by not looking at him, he'd go away or didn't really exist. "There's no reason to." Noah walked off down the hall.

Gabriel followed. When they were almost to the doors, he said, "I didn't do it, Noah. You know that."

Noah badged out and pulled the door open so it wouldn't relock. Still facing away, he said, "I don't want to talk to you, Gabriel." He waited a very long beat, finally going so far as to glance back at the other man. Gabriel said nothing, respecting Noah's wishes. Noah walked through the door.

Gabriel sighed and grumbled and walked back down the hall. He looked in at Arthur, who was playing chess with himself. Gabriel had Harvey buzz him in. After a long, tense and silent first game, Arthur began asking him about his strategy – asking him, not telling him, which was surprising.

Gabriel and Nathan both had been excellent players for very different reasons. Nathan was good at reading people and predicting their strategy; Gabriel was good at working the possible combinations of plays. Intuitive Aptitude was icing on the cake and for the first time in a long while, Arthur was truly challenged. They worked through different configurations on the board, talked about maneuvers and tactics and played a few games start to finish. It was late when Arthur finally called an end to it and retired for the night.

XXX

Gabriel tried to sleep and failed, so he went back to central security. He felt rocky and he still had a headache, still felt bone tired from hours of exertion, using abilities and being on his guard constantly. Unexpectedly, Bandar and Faisal were awake. Once he thought about it though, it made sense. It was morning in Riyadh and they'd gone to sleep nearly seven hours before.

His mind had become stuck in a rut, fixated on the idea that if he got Peter back up, everything would be okay. He just had to do it in such a way that Peter wasn't looking at him with that expression of hatred he'd worn before he'd knocked him out. Gabriel made up his mind and went to talk to Bandar, leaving Faisal alone. He woke Fuad too and the three convened over tea in the break room. Fuad and Bandar were the two most sympathetic to the Company's cause. They had no problem sitting with him. They also both spoke English, which was probably no small part of the equation.

"Now, I think it was mentioned," Gabriel said, as he looked at Fuad, "and of course you know, that we have your son-in-law, Abbas." Fuad's eyebrows twitched. Gabriel went on. "He's not in very good shape. We used abilities to force him to reveal information to us and doing that made him suicidal. He's in a coma right now for his own safety."

He looked between the two men. Bandar watched Fuad's expression, as he so often did. Gabriel said, "And then there's another man, one of ours, whom you affected during the last fight, in England. I'll give you back Abbas, if you'll give me back _him_."

Fuad folded his fingers together and touched his knuckles to his lips, peering intently at Gabriel. "Abbas… can we see him?"

"Yes. I've had him brought here. Do we have a deal?"

"No."

Gabriel cocked his head, feeling a surge of fear that this meant they wouldn't help Peter. He caught Fuad's eyes flash at that and knew the man was reading him. He had to be. From what Maury had said, it couldn't be turned off. "Don't you care about your son-in-law?"

"I will have to see him first," Fuad said cagily, putting his hands down on the table, "and see what you have done to him. It may be that he is no longer my son-in-law."

"All right. Follow me." Gabriel stood and led them down to the cell Abbas was in. They walked in and Fuad circled the gurney at a distance. He waved a hand back at Bandar and said something in Arabic. Bandar stopped where he was and seemed to be waiting.

Abbas still looked terrible. He'd been changed into the standard issue light blue medical grade shirt and trousers. Someone had installed an IV, catheter and monitoring equipment on him, with the latter hooked to a port in the wall so security would be alerted to any change in his condition.

"I will need him awake," Fuad said.

Gabriel stepped forward, next to Abbas, and glanced uneasily between the two men. There was no way to bring him out of the telepathically induced coma without taking his attention off the Halo executives. Fuad backed up to stand next to Bandar and said, "We will not interfere." It was the truth, so Gabriel looked down at Abbas and set his mind to unraveling Maury's mental trap.

He'd never done it before. He'd imagined that since it wasn't designed to hold against an outside force, it would be fairly simple to get rid of. It was not. As Matt Parkman had struggled fruitlessly to release Molly and later Angela Petrelli, Gabriel labored without result. It didn't help that he was tired and his mind overtaxed from using telepathy for such a prolonged period. He stopped when Fuad called out to him, "Gabriel Petrelli?"

He snapped his head up and looked at the Arab. He'd been introduced as Gabriel Grey at lunch, so Fuad's mixing of his name was unexplained. Gabriel noticed there was blood coming from his nose. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped it off. "I'm sorry. I can't. I can't do it. Maury can, I'm sure. We'll have to wait." Or go directly on to Peter, if he could talk them into it. Peter was only unconscious because of the drugs. Remove them, and he'd wake.

"Can I try?" Bandar asked.

Gabriel shrugged and stepped back. "Sure." After saying it, he had a host of second thoughts, but he kept them to himself.

Bandar walked forward and put his hand over Abbas' heart. Whatever Bandar could do, Maury's mind-trap was no hindrance to it. Abbas gasped immediately, woke, choked and curled over on his side with a half-stifled sob. Only the rails of the gurney kept him from going over the side. The medical devices chirped warningly at his change in status.

Gabriel blinked in surprise and stepped forward, waving Bandar back. The other man hesitated until Gabriel raised his eyes from Abbas to him, challenging him. Bandar took a single step away, putting him out of arm's reach of the younger man and a bit further away from Gabriel, who did 'intimidating' very well.

Abbas looked up, but Bandar was the first person he saw and past him Fuad. He didn't look further. He looked down and slumped, shaking silently.

Fuad stepped forward next to Bandar, ignoring Gabriel's raised hand to warn him not to come closer. His voice was deep and sonorous. "My son, listen to me. Your duties are not complete. Your family still needs you. What is done is done and I know it was through no will of your own that this happened."

"I was weak," Abbas whispered, still looking down.

"So you were. Now rise and show your strength by helping us make the most of how things are."

Gabriel inhaled deeply and understood how Fuad could command loyalty without an ability to force it. He kept waiting for Bandar to use his ability, but it didn't happen. Gabriel really should have thought about that, but his mind was fogged with exhaustion and worry.

Abbas levered himself up slowly and glanced back at Gabriel. It was only a passing glance. Gabriel's face was nearly that of a stranger to Abbas. The Arab removed the sensors and IV line. He fumbled out the catheter. Gabriel flicked off the unit before it could make too much of a racket. The guards were no doubt watching them through the cameras, but since Gabriel was right there authorizing whatever was happening, security would do nothing to bother them.

Fuad went on to Abbas, "If you had chosen to betray us, you would not feel such shame. You would be angry at **me**, not at yourself." He closed the last of the distance, glancing briefly at Gabriel before reaching out to put his hand on Abbas' shoulder. Gabriel allowed it and backed off. Fuad went on, "You must forgive yourself, Abbas, as you have always been so swift to forgive others. You did not do this thing. It was done to you. Allah Al-Ghafoor knows we are weak. That is why He gives us His strength. Take up His strength, I beg you."

Abbas nodded haltingly, breathing unevenly. Bandar gave Gabriel a look of hate that he'd participated in bringing a man like Abbas to this humiliation. Gabriel looked away guiltily. Fuad patted his son-in-law on the shoulder and gave Gabriel a much less scathing look. He turned to Bandar and took the other man by the hand, leading him around the gurney to stand closer to Gabriel. It was an unacceptable gesture in the West, but perfectly normal for male friends among Arabs.

Fuad addressed Bandar. "This is a trade for their other man. Are you willing?"

"Yes," Bandar said sullenly. He shot Gabriel another dark look.

Fuad faced Gabriel. "You must understand that what was done can not be undone. That is not how Bandar's ability works." Gabriel felt another surge of ice shoot through him. Fuad saw it and raised his other hand, palm down in a placating gesture. "It is as if he struck him. Striking him again will not undo the first injury."

Gabriel gritted his teeth, thinking he'd been lied to. "Then what is it you were asking him to do? You asked if he was willing?"

Fuad nodded. "Yes. If he instills one emotion, then he can instill the opposite and it will counter it. They will both be there and they will war with one another, but your man will feel both. These will not be undone except by the passage of time and events." He gestured to Bandar with his free hand. "He creates an emotion in the heart. The mind hurries to find thoughts to explain those feelings. If events support these new thoughts, then the mind is at ease. If not, the heart will eventually revert. It is thus that you can not use this ability to make a slave and then mistreat them, but you can use it to make an enemy into a friend and then if you are genuinely warm to them, you will never quarrel again." He turned to Bandar and asked, "What did you make him feel?"

"Betrayal. His friends had betrayed him and he should turn to fight them." He huffed. "It was not complete. I was too fast."

Fuad looked at him for a moment and said, "I say in Arabic, unfinished," and followed it with a single word in that language. Gabriel frowned, but he realized that it was probably important for Fuad to understand exactly what Bandar had done before he could address more how to undo it. Bandar nodded.

With his free hand, Fuad scratched at his beard. "He can make him trust you to a greater extent than he feels betrayed. That can be done. Your lover will not know it. Although he will feel the treason, he will think it less important than believing in you."

Gabriel twitched at the word 'lover,' but there was no point in denying it. Obviously Fuad could see his emotions in regards to Peter. He was glad that Fuad seemed unfazed by it. Bandar was giving him a disapproving look, though, like he was particularly unclean. Abbas turned to watch them more closely. Gabriel already knew Abbas' preferences were flexible.

"I…" Gabriel chewed his lip for a moment. "I don't want him to trust me anymore than normal. Just counter what you did artificially and let him feel like he wants to feel."

Fuad nodded and said, "Just so you understand - you do not remove the sin by repeating it."

Gabriel asked, "What are you saying?"

"He will not feel as he wants to feel. He will trust you and he will feel betrayed by you," Fuad told him. "Do you understand this?"

"Yes, of course I do!" Gabriel snapped. He was tired. He just wanted Peter back. They could do that. All of these other questions were inconsequential. What he didn't understand was why they were even asking them. Gabriel shifted his weight uncomfortably. "What if you do nothing? Won't he feel like I turned against him, like he can't trust me?"

Fuad nodded. "Yes."

"Then do it. I can't have that." It was simple.

"As you say," Fuad nodded deeply and let the American screw himself over. It was a small punishment for what had been done to Halo and he had perfect deniability. He had explained the risks - perhaps, and obviously, not thoroughly enough because what Gabriel wanted was not going to be accomplished. The relationship had already been damaged. Damaging it more might even make healing the rift impossible. It all depended on what happened to Peter afterwards - whether events confirmed his new, conflicted emotions or whether they gave him reason to doubt and return to his previous state.

Gabriel added, "I want him to know it. This won't be a secret between us."

Bandar said, "I need to speak to him in Arabic." He gestured at Fuad.

Gabriel nodded. They had a brief discussion. When done, Gabriel asked Fuad, "What did you talk about?"

"He wanted to clarify exactly what you wanted done."

"That's all?" Gabriel listened carefully for a lie.

"Yes."

"All right." Gabriel turned to Abbas. "Abbas, you're going to have to stay in a cell for a while."

"I want him with me for the negotiations today," Fuad interjected.

Gabriel sighed and looked between the two. Five executives were already too many for him, Maury and Kelly to keep on top of. With six they would be outnumbered 2:1.

Quietly, Abbas said, "Father, I need the time alone."

"You need to be around people," the older Arab said. "I can see this."

Abbas looked down respectfully. "I will do as you wish, but I am having trouble even now with all of you here. I believe I need to be alone."

Fuad looked over at him and released Bandar to walk over to his son-in-law. Abbas turned his face away from him. Fuad said something to him briefly in Arabic. It was obviously a question. Abbas nodded.

Fuad turned back to Gabriel and said, "He will join us later, when he is well."

Gabriel looked at Abbas intently. There was something there, something different, something intriguing. He felt a deep urge to figure Abbas out and suddenly realized what it was. Abbas was, or would soon be, manifesting an ability and for whatever reason, Abbas could tell it was about to happen, as if he could feel it inside of himself. Gabriel remembered his own feeling of incompleteness, that he was on the cusp of something if he could only just realize it and move beyond it. He smiled. "Yes. He will."


	126. Luckiest Man Alive

Maury rang the doorbell on the Petrelli house and scratched idly at the bristles on his cheek while he waited. He supposed he should have gone by his apartment that morning and shaved instead of heading straight back to work. His beard hairs were grey and didn't show up much against his skin until they got a bit longer. He wondered what he'd look like with a beard these days. It had been over a decade since he'd had one. The door opened and Michael Fitzgerald took up most of the space. The blond man studied Maury carefully and said nothing.

After a long beat, Maury asked, "Are you going to let me in?"

Michael didn't answer. His lips moved slightly, but no sound came out. Maury tilted his head and listened. Michael was thinking, _You have to tell me to let you in. Angela said. Tell me to let you in. Is he hearing me? How do I think louder? There's a way that they-_

"Let me in," Maury repeated, this time using his ability to back it up. Michael stepped out of the way immediately.

Michael said, "She's waiting for you in the sitting room."

"Thanks," Maury said absently, then looked up at Michael. _I really ought to give him some training on mental defenses since she's decided to keep him around longer term._ "Do you like your job?"

"What?"

"I said: do you like your job? What you do here – do you like it?"

"Oh. Yeah, yeah, sure. I do." Michael looked perplexed to have been asked such a thing, but he enjoyed his work. He elaborated, "It's real easy and she's nice. I get to see a lot of people."

Maury snorted softly. _Of course he gets to see a lot more than he was seeing stuck in a cell in Omaha_. "Are you going to keep doing it?" Michael looked faintly alarmed, not sure at all where the director was going with this line of questioning. "You're not slave labor. Not anymore, at least. Your six months was up at the end of January."

Michael's 'rehabilitation' and release from long-term confinement had been dependent on voluntary submission to mental programming as well as six months of labor in whatever capacity the Company decided was best, with no limits for danger or safety of working conditions. Considering what he'd feared he was getting into, the work itself had been a cakewalk.

The big man nodded. "Yeah, we talked. She talked to me. I know. I asked to stay on. She said yes."

Maury nodded. "Okay." He made a note to address mental defenses with the bodyguard at some later date. He nodded at Michael to dismiss him and walked to the sitting room.

Angela was waiting for him, having just set aside her laptop. He hooked a thumb back in the direction of Michael and asked her, "How is it that you're waiting for me, you expected me, _**me**_, mind you, and yet you asked him to test me? If you knew I was going to be here, then why bother with a test? You already knew how it would turn out."

"Yes, I did. That's why it was a test you would pass."

He rolled his eyes at the indecipherable answer and sat down in the chair next to her. A small table sat between the two seats. "Now I know why you precogs take drugs all the time. Must be the only thing that makes the world make sense to you."

"Yes, it is," she said distantly.

He glanced at her sharply. "I was being facetious."

"I wasn't."

He sighed. He rubbed his forehead and decided to drop it. He was being grouchy because he was tired.

"How did things go?" she asked.

"Pretty good, actually. You want the full report?"

"Yes, please."

He put out his hand across the table and she slipped hers into his. It wasn't for any reason of closeness, but his gesture told her how fatigued he was from the day that even the slight advantage of contact was something he needed. Hours upon hours of near-continuous use of his ability had exhausted him. It was part of why he was annoyed to be tested at the door. He'd expected to have to relay the information to her telepathically and was husbanding his power as much as possible. To have to squander some of it on a pointless security measure was irritating.

He related to her what had happened in the day's negotiations with Halo, what he'd gleaned of motivations and personalities, what he'd divined of their intentions from the welter of thoughts and speculations he'd been picked up from them. He hadn't read any of them in depth - he'd been unable to, given that he had to spend most of his time linked to a translator just to understand them on a verbal level - but he picked up a lot from tones, body language and facial expression. That language was universal. He also reported favorably on Gabriel's conduct, mentioning the panic attack, but omitting the confrontation they'd had before dinner.

Twenty minutes later, she slid her hand from his and the pain in her mind receded immediately, fading to nothingness as the contact ended. Maury lifted his fingers to his temple and slowly rubbed a small circle. He had no escape from the ache of overextending himself. The pain made him nauseous. He carefully controlled his unruly stomach, though if he had to do any more, his control would slip. He was truly at the end of his ability.

"I think you got all the important parts," he told her.

"Yes, I think so," she said softly and stood. She'd felt what he went through just so she stayed informed. She walked to the side of his chair and stroked his head. He put his hand down and looked up at her in surprise. She smiled at him. "You don't complain."

He snorted. "I complain all the time."

She ran her hand to the back of his head and turned him to face away from her. She put her hands on either side, starting at his temples and massaging his scalp, running her fingers across the slightly oily skin and wispy stray hairs. He slumped and said quietly, "Thank you. You're being really nice. You don't have to do this for me. I'll be fine."

"I know." She worked over his scalp to the base of his neck, then rubbed the muscles down his spine. She came back up lightly along the sides of his neck and then brought her hands around his face as she stood behind him. Her fingers pushed into his jaw muscles and over his cheekbones, then ghosted across his forehead.

"That's… really good," he murmured.

"It's been a long time since I touched a man like this." Her hands fell to his shoulders and rested there for the moment.

He stood up and turned to face her, putting his left hand on her right hip. He rubbed his lips together slightly and leaned in to her. He hesitated for a moment and she turned her head to meet him. He closed the distance and kissed her on the mouth, his hand sliding around to the small of her back and pressing her lightly against him. She put her arms around him and felt his warmth.

He broke the kiss and simply enjoyed the embrace, his cheek against hers. "I'd like to do more. Oh… how I'd like to do more if you'd let me, but Angel, I'm _so_ tired. I'm sorry. My head's killing me. I don't think I _can_." He knew she knew that. The cynical part of his mind thought that was exactly why she was flirting with him like this. He was 'safe' at the moment, incapable of even using his mind against her, much less his body.

She hugged him and said, "Stay until morning. You'll be able to then."

"Stay here, with you?" He drew back so he could see her face. Cynicism be damned. Hope came to life.

"Yes."

He smiled slowly and kissed her again, more lingering and deeper than before.

XXX

He woke up when the bedroom door opened. She slid into bed with him. He muttered something about snoring and kicking him and something less articulate. She told him to go back to sleep and he did. When he woke later, she was still with him and awake. "Did you sleep at all?" he asked muzzily.

"Yes," she said simply.

"Hm." He got up and visited the facilities and rinsed his mouth out. When he came back, he kicked off his boxers and climbed into bed, rolling over to face her. He ran his hand across her skin, watching her face in the dim light. He couldn't see her expression yet, not after the brightness of the bathroom, but he could feel her presence in his mind. He wasn't trying to read her, but it was there anyway. He ran his fingers up her arm and across her shoulder, scooting himself closer and propping himself up on his elbow. She was naked under the sheets. He smiled.

She lifted her head a little as he caressed her face, then he leaned in and kissed her gently and softly. He touched her like she was fine porcelain, though he knew full well she was made of sterner stuff. He leaned back, savoring her taste and the impression of her lips against his, willing and sweet. He could feel wisps of her mind through the contact. Touching people's skin with his hands or his face often did that, if he wasn't determined about blocking. He wasn't now - there was no reason to be. He said, "Angela." It was almost a question.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

He could see her well enough now to see her smile and even without that, he heard it in her voice as she said, "Maury." Her tone was faintly chiding.

"Yes?" he answered, smiling in turn. He knew he wasn't going to get a similar answer. It just wasn't who she was, certainly not yet.

She said in a kind, amused voice, "You always were a sentimental fool underneath all that."

"Mm," he said and leaned in to her again, this time kissing along her cheek towards her ear. "I like it when you talk dirty to me." He let his hand drift lower across her body and after a few minutes she arced her back and then rolled on her side to face him. They embraced.

Their love-making was slow and passionate and careful – neither was in a hurry, they wanted one another, and yet there was the cautious distance of new lovers. After they were done, she left to shower and he lay sprawled out on the bed, thinking, _I am the luckiest man alive. Even if Arthur finds a way to make me pay for this like Angie said he would, this was fucking worth it. _He exhaled happily and stared at the ceiling for nearly a minute. _I wonder how big the shower is? I'll bet it's palatial. _ He got up to find out and slipped under the warm water with her.

It was easily big enough for two and had a built-in seat. She smiled at him with hooded eyes as he entered. He thought about asking if she minded, but didn't. After kissing each other under the water, touching and caressing for a while, he murmured, "Let me wash your back."

She handed him the sponge and shower gel and he worked up suds. She moved the shower head to spray against the wall. He started on the top of her buttocks and worked upwards. She asked, "Maury, do you think a person can ever really change?"

He huffed slightly, scrubbing at her lower back. "For your sake, I hope like hell they can."

She shifted a little and asked, "For _my_ sake?"

"Yeah. My track record with women sucks. At least, the ones I really care about. The one-night stands, that sort of thing, never gave me a problem." He hesitated. "I was… with you… I'm hoping for more than that." He made a few abortive motions with the sponge, then swept up her wet hair and put it over her shoulder. She reached up to help him get it out of the way and their fingers touched, danced and twined together for a while.

"Mm. I liked it."

He smiled a little at his pang of insecurity at her non-answer. His smile widened as he thought, _Would I have expected anything else from Angela, the consummate realist?_ He rubbed higher, across her shoulder blades and the middle of her back. _ I wonder who she had in mind? Clearly it wasn't me. Maybe herself? Gabriel? _

He thought back to one of his encounters with Gabriel earlier that day. The man had pushed him hard, mentally as well as telekinetically, in a fit of pique about Maury concealing information from him. He'd apologized, but Maury had been reminded of how frightening a person he was, how quick to move from disagreement to lethal violence if it suited him. He was as bad as Arthur without the long-term vision, which made him worse (more unpredictable, less reliable) and better (easier to thwart, simpler to manipulate). Gabriel mentioning how he wasn't quite up to three digits in murders didn't help.

"Who were you thinking of?" he asked.

"Arthur."

_Oh, that stings! _ He chuckled. _I stay the night, we sleep together, we make love, I'm here in the shower washing her back and she's thinking of __**him**__. What a way to make me feel wanted, Angie._ He shook his head, grinning ruefully at his own wounded pride.

"What if he has?" he said. "What if he's changed and he's everything now you ever wanted him to be?" He finished with her back. _Would you go back to him? Are you going to dump me already? Guess I'm no good in bed. I knew I should have taken her mind. At least I would have known what I was doing wrong._

She turned around to face him. "It doesn't matter. He wasn't _here_. You **were**. My future has changed. I've made different choices." She wrapped her arms around him. He kissed her forehead and she laid her head on his shoulder.

_Different choices? Me rather than him? Was this the choice she was talking about that would change the future?_ Her skin was cool under his hands. He glanced up at the shower head and wished he had telekinesis to redirect it without moving. After a few moments, he reached up to move it so the spray hit her back, rinsing her off and warming her. As he'd expected, though, his motion ruined the moment and she took a step back from him.

She moved her hands smoothly across him, slick with soap and water. "Your turn."

"Sure." He turned and rolled his shoulders, irritated. He'd been enjoying just standing there holding her.

"Stiff?"

"A little. It's not too bad."

"Michael does a very good massage." She lathered up the sponge again.

He chuckled. "Have you been abusing your privileges with the hired help?"

She snorted and began in the middle of his back, spiraling out. "Of course not. He's a good man. Speaking of that though, have you been abusing **yours** with the agents?"

"What? Hey, **she** came on to _**me**_. And I'm… I'm not… we're just friends, that's all." He sounded guilty even to himself.

Angela's hands stopped moving. After a long moment, she said, "Maury… who do you think I'm talking about?"

He blinked and looked over his shoulder at her. Her face was still and severe. "Uh… Patty?"

She smiled slightly, her face softening. "Ah." She blinked. "Yes, I recall… her."

Maury's eyes shifted to the side, thinking of who she must have meant, then back to her. "I haven't touched Claire. Not like _**that**_. It's very basic commands. We can't let someone with her ability be so vulnerable to mental attack. She's the _future_ as much as Gabriel is."

She nodded and started cleaning him again, turning the subject away from her granddaughter. "Patty. Didn't you recommend her to be an agent? She was with Matt."

He nodded. "They broke up. Not well. Yeah, I recommended her. She's a good kid. Lotta potential, I think."

"Your judgment isn't clouded?"

He shrugged. "I'm not seeing her anymore. I didn't see her much to start with either."

"Hm. You said Gabriel put a hole in your head. I don't see it." She reached up and stroked the back of his head, leaving a trail of soap bubbles behind.

"Didn't I tell you? No… I don't think I went over that part. Fatima put me back together. Fuad's bodyguard, laser-eyes, got me across the legs really good and I passed out. She healed me." He avoided mentioning the part where Gabriel had nearly killed him again. "I was about played out at that point anyway, but after she did her thing, I had a second wind. I wouldn't have made it the rest of the night without it. That was a really rough day."

"Things should be better for a while."

"So the Halo thing is going to pan out?"

"I think so."

"What about Peter? Gabriel's about to lose his marbles over me leaving him on ice. I'd assumed that last attack on Pete wasn't reversible and that was that." It had been the topic that provoked Gabriel into assaulting him yesterday – a very light assault by Gabriel's standards (and Maury's too), but it was an attack any way you looked at it. Maury wouldn't tell him why he wouldn't have Fuad and Bandar try to fix Peter.

"Peter will be as he has been." She sighed.

"So it's already happened? Or it hasn't happened yet? You said he was going to stand against us."

"He will and he is." She smiled. "I'm sorry, Maury. It makes sense to me and it probably will to you later."

"You're sure we shouldn't do anything about that?"

"Maury, he's my _son_."

He shrugged. She'd done some pretty ruthless things already with her sons, but he nodded and took it on faith, as he did with so many things with her. "Should I have Bandar reverse what he did to him?"

"You don't need to."

He sighed and made an effort not to grit his teeth. _'Don't need to.' That wasn't my question. __**Should**__ I? I've got to know what to do about Peter because without that I can't know how to handle Gabriel. If he keeps hitting me like he has been, eventually he'll kill me and I figure he'll disintegrate my body. That will be that - no coming back if that happens._

She finished his back and rinsed him off. They got out and dried separately. Angela stepped over to him and kissed him deeply. He returned it with interest. When they parted, she ran her hand across his stubble-covered cheek. "You should shave."

"Are you offering your razor, dear lady?" he smiled. "I didn't know we were on _that _intimate of terms."

She huffed. "I still have some of Arthur's things here. I have two sons, a male bodyguard and a butler. Surely you can find what you need somewhere around here."

He looked her up and down and thought, _I have what I need, that's for sure._ He started searching through drawers for shaving cream and razors anyway.


	127. Wake Up Call

Peter woke up blearily in one of the Company containment cells, strapped to a concrete platform. He suppressed the urge to cough. He could taste the neutralizing compound and it made him queasy. It passed quickly, but he hadn't recovered completely when a heavily bearded Arabic man leaned over him and put his hands on his shoulders, looking intently at him. Peter's eyes flew wide and he felt he really ought to fight the man off. He _should_ nullify his powers. He _should_ pull away and get some distance between them. All he managed was a half-hearted pull at his restraints and then he couldn't think of anything at all, his mind blank, his body still.

Bandar told him to _**TRUST**_ and somehow, Peter did. A voice off to the side murmured something indistinct and Bandar backed away from him. There was a long silence as Peter blinked after the man, but then rational thought came back online and he inhaled sharply, trying to think of what he should do. His emotions were in a knot again, now even worse than before. Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Peter - it's okay."

Peter's head snapped around to look at Gabriel and he trusted him. He knew immediately, intellectually, that was wrong, but it was how he felt. He relaxed into it as his emotions overrode his common sense. He could fight it later. Now wasn't the time, or so his heart told him.

When Peter relaxed, Gabriel looked up at the two men on the other side of the room and nodded to them. He kept looking at them, at the one named Fuad. The pressure of his fingertips on Peter's shoulder increased. His breathing changed slightly and he leaned forward, tilting his head down slightly. Peter turned his head back and forth tracing Gabriel's eye path. Fuad noticed the scrutiny, but he turned with Bandar and walked out.

"Gabriel?" Peter asked. The expression on Gabriel's face looked a lot like the fascination of the Hunger. Peter had seen it a few times before. It was always there for Gabriel, but his self-control got shaky when he had to endure long periods of stress and exertion. Peter wondered just how long he'd been unconscious and why. He tried to remember the last thing that had happened, but he couldn't bring it to mind. _There was something about London…_

Gabriel glanced down briefly at Peter then returned to staring after the departing men. They had something he wanted and he wanted it badly. He started around the platform, moving after them slowly.

"Gabriel," Peter repeated more sharply. Finally he gained more than fleeting attention. At Gabriel's questioning look, Peter asked, "Are you going to let me loose?"

Gabriel glanced at the door, but they were alone now and his eyes returned to Peter's face, to his lips. Peter's brows pulled together slightly, but then Gabriel was sliding his fingers through the holes in Peter's shirt left from the shots he'd taken. His other hand was in Peter's hair and he leaned down to kiss him passionately, letting his hand roam across Peter's chest. _Yeah, okay, his self-control is well and truly shot to pieces, _Peter thought, taking comfort in the thought that Gabriel's instinct with Peter was amorous rather than homicidal.

Peter wasn't sure how he should be feeling, but he shut his eyes and yielded, answering the kiss. He grunted when Gabriel shifted and pressed into his mouth more forcefully. It was like he was trying to swallow him down. The other man backed off a little and slid his hand under Peter's head, cradling it and putting his hand between the back of Peter's head and the hard concrete of the platform. Gabriel kissed him more gently.

His lids heavy, Gabriel lifted away from Peter and said, "I need you so bad. You have no idea how much of a turn on it is for me to have you like this."

Peter smirked a little and rattled his restraints. Of course with enhanced strength they wouldn't hold him if he really tried. He didn't. He was trying to sort out what situation he'd woke up into. He'd been neutralized; Halo executives were roaming around, using their abilities on him at Gabriel's behest; Gabriel was having trouble controlling himself… Peter went with it. He trusted. He did feel compelled to point out, "It's a little public in here, isn't it?" He glanced beyond the other man at the bubble shielding on the ceiling for a security camera.

Gabriel turned and regarded the camera for a long moment and Peter wondered if he was going to destroy the device and resume his previous activities. Then he turned back and unwrapped Peter's wrists, letting him go.

Peter sat up and looked around the barren cell. He ran his hands through his hair. His emotions were still in conflict with his thoughts. He was pretty sure he'd felt that way before, but this time the conflict was different. It was jarring and made it hard to think. Gabriel took his hand and tried to move next to him, as if he wanted to climb into Peter's arms. "Whoa," Peter pushed him back gently. "Whoa. Give me some space."

Gabriel took a deep breath and nodded. He stepped back, looking down.

Peter asked, "Last thing I remember… did you stab me with a syringe?"

"You were acting weird." Gabriel confirmed. He adopted a neutral expression, looking up as far as Peter's knees.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Remind me never to act weird around you." His brow furrowed. "No… you're right. I remember now. You'd betrayed me somehow. Or… something. I can't remember the details."

Gabriel's eyes jumped to his face and then back down. "Do you still think I betrayed you?" There was a slight edge to Gabriel's voice.

Peter gave him a reassuring smile. "No. I… I didn't think that before, but I _felt_ it. Just like I'm feeling this now… this is…" He gestured between himself and Gabriel, saying, "artificial? What did you…" He shook his head. "I want to trust you, but I know that's wrong… sort of." He had a feeling he needed to be alarmed about the situation, but it was tough to feel that very strongly when he trusted Gabriel so much.

Gabriel stepped over to him and put his hands on the tops of Peter's thighs. Peter caught them and lifted them away. "No," he said firmly, watching Gabriel's face closely. "I'm not rejecting you, and I _do_ trust you, but you aren't dodging this. I need answers." Betrayal and trust were beginning to make war in Peter's head. It wasn't helping. Just because he trusted him didn't mean he wanted the other man all over him, which was obviously likely if he didn't enforce some boundaries.

Gabriel exhaled and pulled his hands away. He hopped up to sit on the platform next to Peter. "You've lost a day. That is, you were unconscious for a day. You remember we went to London and picked up Bandar and Faisal?" Peter nodded, noticing that Gabriel called them by their names now and not by their abilities. "Bandar got a hold of you and made you think Maury or I had betrayed you."

Peter obviously thought about that for a moment, then nodded. That fit, but it wouldn't have been so easy to convince him of it if it hadn't been true, now would it?

Gabriel went on, "Once he does something like that, he can't turn it off or just erase it. I talked to him about it and the best he can do is overwrite it with something else. So that's what I had him do."

Peter interrupted him, the sensation of betrayal suddenly making sense. "Wait. _What_ did you have him do?"

"I…" Gabriel hesitated, looking at Peter's face uncertainly. Maybe he was just now realizing what he'd done. Or maybe he didn't even understand why Peter would ask. "I… I had him make you trust me."

Peter blinked at him. _Why would he need to do that? Why does he need to have someone use abilities to make me trust him?_ "Okay," Peter said in a small voice. The betrayal was confirmed.

Gabriel exhaled a big breath and slumped as if bone-tired. He looked away. "Theoretically… you should be back to normal. Except… of course… his ability doesn't prevent you from knowing what happened. At least, not the way I had him use it. He can be more subtle, but I didn't want to trick you."

Peter rubbed his hand up and down his jeans uneasily. "Okay." He really didn't know what to do or how he should feel, but if Peter was good at one thing, it was feelings. He knew his own emotions and he knew they'd been manipulated. He knew who'd done it. Gabriel had tried to make him love him, make him trust him, and it confirmed every impression he had that he'd been betrayed.

He smiled a little, trying to be reassuring for Gabriel's sake, but it fell flat. "Kind of a weird ability," the younger man said, sensing he ought to say something or else Gabriel might get suspicious and have Bandar repeat the process. "I think things, but it doesn't keep me from feeling differently."

Gabriel was silent for a long beat and then said, "I know that feeling." He reached over and brushed the back of his fingers along the side of Peter's thigh.

Peter looked at him questioningly. Finally Gabriel said, "Nathan loved you. Sylar didn't. I thought I should kill you, but I loved you. Took me a while to work that one out."

"How did you work it out?" Peter asked, both curious about Gabriel's thought process and wondering if he had some perspective applicable to Peter's current turmoil.

"Thinking's over-rated. I went with the emotion." Gabriel glanced briefly at him several times, then away. "Once you returned it, that is. Until then… I couldn't… I couldn't integrate it. It was like being two people."

"One of whom wanted to kill me," Peter said evenly. This wasn't a surprise, as he'd seen it previously in the single time Gabriel had let him read his mind with any sort of depth. Gabriel hadn't realized what he was doing at the time or he never would have allowed it.

"Yeah," Gabriel said, looking away.

Peter caught Gabriel's hand and gave it a squeeze, bringing the other man around to face him. He tried to think of words to say, but none came to mind. All he could think was that Gabriel might have intentionally inflicted on him a parallel of his own feelings as a sort of revenge. _Why would he do that to me? Why did he do what he __**has**__ done to me?_

Gabriel told him, "Let's get out of here." Gabriel hopped down and picked up a sack Peter hadn't seen, next to the base of the platform. It contained a new shirt and jeans, to replace what he was wearing. His clothes had been riddled with bullets and were spattered with dried blood.

After Peter changed, Gabriel led the way out. They passed a guard Peter didn't recognize who was watching a cell with a closed blast shield. Peter realized, as they went down the hall, that must have been Arthur's cell. He was glad to see his father was still locked up. It was easier to think of things unrelated to the two of them, so he asked, "So how did everything turn out?"

"Pretty good. The negotiations were beyond tedious. Maury and I made our proposal to Halo, then they argued all day about it. You'd think, if they're all loyal to each other and liking one another, that they'd agree on things, but it doesn't work that way – no better for them than for married folks." Gabriel smiled. "We're going to have to take out Arthur's commands, but from what I can tell, there aren't many." They walked up the stairs.

"What time is it?"

"Four twenty-six in the morning. Are you hungry? I'm sure there's somewhere around here still open. Then I want to swing by Angela's. Maury headed up there last night to give her a report. She hardly ever sleeps though, so she'll probably be up early."

"She wasn't in on the negotiations?" Peter asked, getting comfortable talking about something that didn't make him feel like his heart was breaking.

"No."

Peter nodded, wondering vaguely why she'd stayed away. "Sounds like a plan."

Gabriel checked in at security and made sure things were locked down. Bandar and Fuad had been escorted back to their cells, so they left. They ate at a Denny's in Cherry Hill and Gabriel filled Peter in on what he'd missed. Peter kept the other man talking, and talking about business, turning away every foray Gabriel made to more intimate subjects.

Kelly, the person who could command others with her voice, had worked with Maury and Gabriel in managing Halo. Currently, all members of the group except Fatima were under orders not to use their powers without permission from Maury or Gabriel. They had all been upgraded to the minimum-security cells on level 2 for the time being.

"What about Arthur's ally?" Peter asked.

Gabriel shook his head. "Very little information. Maury cut me off when I brought it up, but I gathered they'd had an incident - a physical altercation - when they attempted to shut down R&D, or at least get control of it. I'm sure I'll get a better chance to ask. Mainly I was worried about _you_. I'm glad you're back." He smiled.

Peter returned it, but he was full of doubt and Peter immediately changed the subject to ask about the concentration of neutralizing compound they'd used to keep him unconscious. It was a ridiculous question that Peter really had no interest in, but Gabriel was exhausted and clearly not thinking straight. He let Peter guide the conversation.

After they finished eating, it was nearing six so they teleported to the Petrelli house, ending just inside the entry. The house smelled of cigar smoke. Peter sniffed. _No one's smoked cigars here since Dad was here._ He turned and strode rapidly to the living room, with Gabriel following.

Maury Parkman blinked up at him from a chair, having just taken a cigar from his mouth. He was in the process of folding up the newspaper he had been reading. "What the hell are…" He stared between Peter and Gabriel, looking first surprised, then offended and finally guarded.

Peter, likewise, was staring at him. The older man was in one of Arthur's robes, bare feet and hairy legs sticking out the bottom and implying he was wearing nothing else. The remains of an early breakfast sat next to him on a plate on the end table. Peter made a garbled noise as he processed that things between Maury and his mother were much more… advanced… than he'd suspected. He said, "I'm… um, I'm… going to go get a drink." He turned and went to the kitchen.

XXX

Gabriel looked after him briefly, wondering if Peter really intended to get something alcoholic at this hour. Not that he'd get drunk from it… but it was highly out of character for him. A lot of things had been out of character for Peter since he'd woken, but it would probably be all right after a while. Gabriel turned back to Maury, who said to him, "I didn't expect anyone here so early." He looked uneasy. "And you weren't supposed to get him up until I was there!" He pointed energetically in the direction of the kitchen.

Gabriel flopped down on the couch. "Well… here we are." He smirked at Maury's state of undress and impotence to enforce his desires.

"This doesn't bother you?" the older man asked cautiously, gesturing slightly at himself. The last thing he wanted was an overprotective reaction out of the other director. Maury's presence at Angela's house, at this hour and in this manner, could only mean one thing, which was true to boot.

Gabriel looked at him critically. "I have a feeling this shouldn't be my business." He sprawled out as if to intentionally cover the entire piece of furniture. At the moment, anything remotely like Nathan wasn't a good idea. What would Nathan do? Nathan would have a lot of things to say about his mother sleeping with someone while Arthur was still alive and around. The thing with Kaito had been old and past and never impacted his adult life other than a few words and looks and a hug that lasted 'just a lit-tle too long'.

This was not old, not past and had a huge impact. This was _his father_ she was cheating on with all that meant for his current father figure fixation. Gabriel tried very hard not to be Nathan. He'd been pushing Maury around and slamming him into things a lot lately and Maury had finally called him on it the day before. The older man had a point - he was right and Gabriel needed to cool it. He hadn't expected his temper and patience to be tested so soon. Clearly Maury knew what was going through his mind.

"Hm." Maury put the newspaper down. "Yeah. Hang onto that thought, will you?" He stood and walked out, padding downstairs to the basement. Angela needed to be warned.

XXX

Back in the kitchen, Peter poured himself a glass of orange juice and stared at it for a long time. _Maury's happy, Mom's probably happy. What's going to happen with dad? Does he know? Does he have a right to object? Technically they're still married. But really, he kind of gave up those rights a long time ago. _He took several deep, steadying breaths and tried to ignore the feeling that Maury had betrayed him. At what point did artificial feeling end and authentic begin? He exhaled and took a big drink of his juice. He walked out. It wasn't like they hadn't been flirting and carrying on for weeks now. He just hadn't thought it was going to go any further.

Maury had left and Gabriel was lying across the couch. Peter took the seat where Maury had been. He rubbed his forehead and said simply, "Mom." _As if I don't have enough going on in my emotional life right now, my mother and Maury are together now._

"Uh-huh." Gabriel made a rough half-laugh of acknowledgment.

Peter sighed. "I know this should be funny, but it's kind of hard to feel that at the moment. It's my _mother_. That's… with… _Maury Parkman_." From a religious point of view, he supposed divorce was a worse sin than adultery for Catholics. Adultery could be stopped; it could be forgiven. Divorce was simply not allowed. Not that Peter was particularly observant these days, but it was how he'd been raised.

Gabriel shrugged. "Well… I suppose this answers a mystery for me." At Peter's look, he said, "I asked her if she wanted to come with me and Heid and the boys on Valentine's Day a couple weeks ago. She insisted she'd rather stay at home. She didn't even want us coming by, not even to drop off the cards the boys made for her." He grinned. "I'd thought it was just a bad day and she was moping. Now I'm thinking she had other plans." Gabriel waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Peter smiled and exhaled sharply. "Oh boy," he said sarcastically. "Yeah, well, I hope she's happy. I mean, I hope this is something that makes her happy." He shook his head slowly.

Angela herself came into the room, clad in her nightgown and housecoat. Her hair cascaded around her shoulders, loosely styled and damp from a recent shower. Her voice carried a note of tired outrage. "Peter, you should call first, or at least knock." Maury followed her.

"I'm sorry. I will next time. Promise." Peter was watching the floor, but his voice was honest. It had never occurred to him that he might be intruding on something private.

"The same applies to you, Gabriel," she said to him.

"I can't teleport, so no worries." Gabriel turned his head to look directly at her, smirking.

"That hardly matters," she said curtly. "Now what did you boys come here for that was such an emergency as to warrant this intrusion?"

Peter stood abruptly, cutting off whatever Gabriel was about to say. "It can wait. Can we meet you for lunch?"

Maury said, "Come back at eight and you can take me to Philly. I want to roust those guys up and get them around a table for breakfast, get them talking again." He puffed at his cigar, but stayed a couple steps behind Angela as if using her for a shield.

"We'll do that," Peter said, cutting off Gabriel again, who gave up on trying to get a word in. Peter rose and walked over to his mother, hugging her briefly. He gave Maury a wan smile over her shoulder. He could tell the older man was wary of him. There could be a lot of reasons for that, but Peter needed to be sure of something before he left. Peter did something he hadn't done before and brushed his mother's mind lightly with telepathy. _Mom? Is everything okay?_

She let him read her so she wouldn't have to project something Maury might otherwise overhear. _Everything's fine, Peter. He's… he's very welcome here._ There was an overlay of pleasant thoughts in her mind. There was none of the turmoil Peter associated with mind control.

_This is what you want_? He broke the hug and smiled at her.

_Yes_, she thought to him_. _She smiled back and let him see in her mind that she was charmed by his concern and proud that he was smart enough to consider how someone's abilities could be used to instill false affection. Or trust, as he knew.

He nodded. "We'll be back at eight."

XXX

After they left, Maury walked up behind Angela and wrapped his arms around her, clasping his hands together over her belly. He put his chin down on her shoulder and brushed her mind with his. She tightened her mental defenses with a moment of concentration. He rubbed his chin back and forth along her shoulder and then pressed his cheek against hers. He probed at her consciousness again. It was easily within his power to overwhelm her. He held her a little more tightly and rubbed his cheek against hers. Finally she lowered her defenses, opening her mind to his.

She was irritated at the thought he was likely to keep poking at her until she gave in. She wondered if he was jealous of Peter hugging her, or any attention she gave Peter or Gabriel. She knew he was possessive. It showed in many aspects of his work. She recalled what he'd said to Gabriel about the man keeping his hands off "his things", meaning Molly, but there was also Claire. She didn't want to be one of Maury's "things."

He snuffled her housecoat and nightgown to the side and bit her shoulder firmly, holding it in his teeth for a moment as she jumped and then settled again. He let go and kissed her on the way to her neck, where he nibbled at her much more gently. She made a soft sound at his affections and leaned into him.

_Was I thinking too much?_ she asked, amused.

_Yes._

_You're the one who wanted to read my thoughts._

_True._ He worked his way up to her ear and drug his teeth along the edge of it, feeling it in his mouth and through her mind, hearing her reactions to the sensations. His eyes were shut and he let himself be lost in the moment. He worked his hips against her backside until he felt an echoing response within her, then stopped. He didn't think he had it in him for twice in one morning, but he wanted to know he was wanted.

After he stopped, she thought at him, _Tease_. It was without heat. She didn't want to do anything either, but she liked the attention. She turned in his arms and kissed him.

_Shouldn't we be getting to business?,_ he thought, still kissing her intently.

_No,_ she responded.

_That's what I wanted to hear._ He embraced her more tightly and deepened the kiss, breathing her in. Maybe twice might be in the cards after all.


	128. Disillusionment

Peter took Gabriel back to his apartment. He walked over to the entrance of the kitchen and hesitated there, leaning one arm against the wall and his forehead against that arm. He didn't want anything from the kitchen, but he felt restless and unsettled. Gabriel walked up behind him and ran a hand up his back. Under other circumstances, that would have been soothing. He stepped away from the touch and went to the fridge, getting out a bottle of water.

Gabriel smiled at him and said, "Hey, we've got two hours to kill here…"

"Not interested," Peter said flatly, trying to sort out his feelings. 'Complicated' would be an understatement and he thought that of all people, Gabriel should understand he needed his space right now. Gabriel was right that Bandar hadn't gotten rid of the feeling he'd been betrayed. It was just that now he trusted the person who'd betrayed him. It was as bad as mind control, except his thoughts kept trying to find rationales for his feelings and since they were mutually exclusive, he just felt confused and at a loss.

The other man paused for a moment, then walked over to him and tried to put his arms around Peter. His hands ended up on the younger man's hips, as Peter wasn't cooperative with the hug. "I'll bet I can make you interested," Gabriel murmured, his intentions clear and just as clearly not something Peter was into at the moment.

"Leave me alone," Peter said with a warning tone. He set the water bottle down on the counter, unopened.

Gabriel gave him a sly look and closed to kiss him. Peter twisted suddenly out of his embrace and back a step. When Gabriel reached for him, he vanished, teleporting away.

_Well,_ Peter thought, _that was badly handled. I already knew his self-control was in the dumper and apparently his judgment is too. He's going to freak out now. I could go back…_ He glanced around the roof of the Deveaux Building. It was deserted, as he'd expected. With a sigh, he pulled out his phone and dialed. He couldn't leave things hanging, despite how he felt about being emotionally yanked around.

"Peter?" Gabriel answered immediately, as if he'd already had the phone in his hand. Peter didn't doubt that.

"Yeah. Hey. I just need some time alone, please."

The line was silent. _Yeah,_ Peter thought. _He's pissed. Bailing on him like that wasn't right. He wasn't doing anything I haven't welcomed in the past - except for the part about ignoring what I wanted. Wouldn't be the first time for that, either, _he thought sourly at the end. Sometimes Gabriel was more than he wanted to deal with.

Peter offered, "I'll call you at eight and pick you up then."

Again there was no answer. As tempting as it was to say good-bye and hang up, Peter knew that wasn't the best course.

More softly, he said, "Can you give me some time, Gabriel? I need it. I need to sort myself out. I'll come back at eight. I'll be back. _For you_." He paused. He heard Gabriel exhale forcefully. "Is that all right?"

"Fine." Gabriel bit it out.

Peter nodded, unseen, glad he'd gotten a response at least. "Listen, you said you hadn't slept last night. Just catch a few Z's. I'll-" The line clicked and went dead. Peter smiled and laughed a little. _Okay, yeah, maybe I deserved that. Hopefully that's as bad as it'll be._

He walked around the roof, looking at the debris and trying to think about something other than his confused feelings. The dovecote was empty, as no one was tending the pigeons. He remembered spending time here with Claude, learning about his abilities. Peter bent and picked up a broken wooden pole from next to the wall. It looked like the one they'd been using to spar with. He tried to use one of the abilities he'd picked up from Gabriel, but rarely used, and pull memories from the object.

He had to try time after time to get it to work. The abilities he used frequently were easy to access, but things he used rarely weren't always available when he reached for them. He had to work at remembering how to use them. He supposed Maury or even Gabriel could probably tell him why, but he didn't want to ask. Even when the ability started to function, he didn't see what he wanted. He was digging for things years past, so he wasn't surprised when it didn't turn up quickly. He was annoyed though when several minutes didn't turn anything up.

_Maybe I've got the wrong stick._ He dropped it back where it came from and went to a section of wall where Claude had thrown him off the roof. He was sure of the spot, even though it looked different in the morning light. He tried, but again, there was nothing there of Claude and himself. He saw various other scenes from the past, so he knew the ability was working. _I wonder if I can't see it because we were invisible? Isaac couldn't see us in his visions. I'll bet that's it._ Peter remained irritated that he couldn't see what he wanted to see, even with the possible explanation. Nothing seemed to be working right in his life.

He sat on the edge of the wall and dangled his feet over it, looking off over the thirty-story chasm. _Claude. I miss him, even though he was a jerk. I thought he had all the answers, that he understood what the Company was up to, what my parents were up to._ His mind flashed back to Abbas Hasan's broken and bloody face when he'd left him at his mother's just a few nights before and also to the wailing, upset child he'd taken from a home in Rockford. _Now I'm helping them beat people senseless and kidnapping children - which is probably the same sort of thing that caused Claude to leave the Company._

Peter put a hand over his face and rubbed at his eyes, then he ran his hand back through his hair, angrily. _How did this become __**right?**__ Because I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't thought it was right at the time. I've let myself get trapped into thinking I don't have other options. There's __**got**__ to be other options._ He thought about Phillip, the disease vector, then his mind jumped to a related subject. He put aside his pointless anger and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone again.

It was surprising it was even there. Of course he'd called with it earlier and seen it when he changed clothes in the cell, but he hadn't thought about it either time. He realized whoever had admitted him into the cell at the containment facility hadn't done their job of stripping him. That let out pretty much everyone other than Gabriel or Noah. _My money's on Gabriel. He'll break the rules for me, that's for sure._

He flipped the phone open and texted Emma. "Where r u? Cn i c u at diner at 7?"

He looked at the time again while he waited for her reply. The date was next to it. _Crap, I'm supposed to work today. I'll bet I'm up for doubles again and probably tour three. Sure hope so, because if they want me in at 8 am, I'll have to stand up Gabriel and Maury._ Not that he would really mind that.

He called in to check his schedule. They expected him in for the 4 pm shift and he was right - he was signed up for a double. Jackson gave him an earful for not answering his phone the last couple days, failing to be available during a time when so many EMTs were sick. He'd read Vasquez's write up. It had gone into his permanent file. But, since the hospital was still short-staffed, he didn't mention anything about firing him. Peter felt disappointed by that. When he hung up, Emma's reply came in. She'd meet him.

She knew the place - he didn't have to say where. They'd eaten breakfast together there most mornings for over a year. It had become a ritual for them. His days didn't seem complete without it and now with the turmoil in his emotions, it was comforting to return to that small slice of normalcy. When he would finish his shift at the hospital, he'd go to the little pastry diner down the street. Emma was would usually be waiting for him, working on her laptop or sometimes reading a book. He would order a bagel with cream cheese or pita with hummus or sometimes even both if he and Hesam had been unable to find time to grab a meal. She preferred croissants with jelly, but sometimes she experimented with muffins or biscuits.

She had taught him signs, ten each day and they went over the ones from the day before. It was a game. They each had to make up a proper sentence using each word and preferably, telling something about themselves or the last day. They had silent conversations and he'd unwind, relax and brighten in her presence. She opened up, blossomed and engaged with him and the world around her, instead of hiding in her shell as she was wont to do.

They nearly always ended with a kiss, even most of the times when they weren't getting along otherwise. It was a moment of intimacy they shared regardless, long and lingering and saying the things they wanted to use words for but didn't know the right ones. Emma had told him once their kiss was better than sex. He'd laughed and told her he must be doing something wrong in bed, but she'd only shaken her head and told him he was doing something very right, here.

He got there first today, which wasn't surprising. He ordered a decaf latte and bought a newspaper. He scanned through it, but Hesam was right - you'd think nothing unusual had happened in the previous week. It hadn't even been a full week since the eclipse, but everything was business as usual as far as the media was concerned. He looked up to see Emma settling in across from him with a fruit salad and a croissant.

"I saw you didn't have anything to eat," she signed, pushing him the fruit across the table to him. It was a peace offering of sorts, or at least he hoped it was. She was understandably still upset to discover he'd been, in her words, 'cheating on me with either your brother or a serial killer and I'm not sure which I'd prefer!'

He smiled ruefully at the memory of that fight and picked a strawberry off the side. He signed back, "I ate earlier. I came here to be with you."

She smiled back with much the same expression and then furrowed her brow at him as she got a good look at him. "You look different."

"Different how?" He thought of how Noah had told him just last week that he didn't make a convincing Peter Petrelli anymore. Peter had thought at the time he just hadn't shifted his shape back entirely, or correctly. Gabriel had told him the ability had some drawbacks in that regard. By the end of that experience, Peter had been in Gabriel's form for nearly a full day. It had felt like his skin was going to crawl off his body on its own. He understood why Gabriel couldn't stand being anyone else for more than a few hours at a time.

She looked him over and shook her head. "I didn't really look at you Monday, but…" Her hands stilled for a long moment and she finally shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you are just tired."

He reached out and held his hand open. She looked at it and he flashed to a memory from only a day or two before. It was a very similar gesture to one Gabriel had made to him in the break room - a gesture Peter had deliberately ignored. He'd felt angry that Gabriel even imagined they would share a gentle touch like that after he'd betrayed him in whatever nebulous, ability-inspired fashion that he had.

Gabriel had injected him almost immediately thereafter. Now Peter was on the receiving end of someone's reticence. It hurt. He couldn't say he understood why Gabriel had injected him, but he understood the impulse. After a very long pause, Emma put her hand in his and they simply held hands. He felt his chest relax a little. Finally he released her to sign, "Are you feeling okay? You were sick the other day."

"All better. So many people were sick at the same time. It was really strange. Thank you for coming to visit me. You didn't have to do that though."

"I wanted to be with you," Peter signed.

She set her lips together firmly in disapproval, but her hands were still. Peace offering and hand holding aside, she remained upset with him.

Peter thought about what she'd said and realized he'd never had a chance to tell her about Phillip. They rarely talked about abilities at all - or about the end of the world, time travel, or seeing the future. The dramas in their lives were day-to-day, changing one life at a time. They had always talked about her classes and his work as a paramedic, her career goals and his latest patient. He liked that about their relationship. It helped him compartmentalize.

It was something to talk about though and she wasn't putting forward any other topics. Above all, he wanted to avoid the reason for their break-up, which was Gabriel. Peter sighed. "What you were sick with… that epidemic was caused by a man with abilities. He could make diseases."

She stared at him blankly. He forked a piece of pineapple out of the fruit salad and ate it. She gestured excitedly, effectively exclaiming, "That is very dangerous! Can he make worse diseases? That's terrible."

"He can't anymore. He's dead. Killed by his own poison."

She nodded slowly. "That is good. If he made it on purpose, then he deserved it."

Peter inhaled and signed sharply, "Don't say that! No one _deserves _to die."

"_Some_ people do." Peter lifted his hands to respond, then put them back down. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was trying to pick a fight with him. Actually, he thought, he did know better and it was very possible that was exactly what she was doing.

"Why did he do it?" she signed to him. "Did he make the disease on purpose?"

Peter sighed. He didn't like the answer, as it supported her argument. He wasn't going to lie, though. "Yes, he did it on purpose. He said he wanted to see how far it would spread, how many people it would affect."

Emma shook her head emphatically. "Then he deserved it." She said it (well, signed it) with that annoying QED air that his father had always used when he considered himself the victor in an argument with Peter, which was nearly all the arguments they'd had. Nathan did it too, but only when he really wanted to rub it in.

Peter gritted his teeth and looked away. The truth was he felt guilty for killing the guy - not for taking away his ability, because finding out that was lethal had been an accident. It was a bad call, like making the wrong decision as a paramedic. Even though he'd still beat himself up about it later, he knew that sort of thing wasn't always his fault. What he felt guilty about was his failure to act when he realized Phillip was dying.

There was a moment there where he could have taken him to a poison control center or to an isolation ward or to Claire or even just to the Company's Philadelphia station, which at least had some degree of ventilation control and a full medical kit. Yet he hadn't done anything. He'd let him die. He didn't want to hear he'd done the right thing, least of all from Emma, whom he considered to be the most moral person in his life at the moment. His feelings towards her were unambiguous. He suspected hers were as well, or else she wouldn't be here talking to him.

He wanted someone to tell him he'd done wrong, that what he was doing was hurting people, that he was abducting nice old ladies from their homes in the middle of the night (in their house coats for God's sake!) and locking them up in prison cells. _Maybe that's why I wanted to see Claude. He was never slow to tell me about my failings. The ends can't justify the means. They just __**can't!**_

He saw Emma was signing again, so he looked back. "Peter, he has hurt millions of people, maybe billions if it spreads around the world. What if it mutates into something stronger? That's an ability no one should have!"

His signs were small and clumsier than usual, unconsciously conveying his lack of conviction in what he was communicating to her. "Maybe he could have kept it under control. Everyone deserves a second chance." _Like I deserved. I was fated to blow up New York. Nathan gave me another chance. Without it, I would have killed as many as Phillip might have._

He'd never shared that with Emma, though, so his past wasn't on her mind. Something they'd argued about far more recently was. "You think everyone deserves a second chance, like Sylar. Some people _**do not**_, Peter!"

He felt a surge of anger at her dragging Gabriel into this. But if she was going to, there were a few things he wanted to get off his chest. "Even Sylar deserved a second chance," he signed curtly. "I don't know how many lives would have been saved if someone had given him another shot at being a decent person!" _Including Nathan's._

"He had a second chance and a third one and a fiftieth one, Peter! _Every time_ he went to kill someone he had a choice, a chance to be a decent person. _Every time_ he didn't do it. The only reason he's doing it now is because of what you did to him."

"No," Peter shook his head emphatically. "The only reason he's doing it now is because I love him."

Her mouth dropped open and Peter realized he'd said the wrong thing. A very wrong thing, even if he thought it was the truth. What he'd meant was that Gabriel had someone in his court, helping him, loving him and encouraging him to be a good person and so that was exactly what he was being. He was, in many ways, a justification of everything Peter believed in - that even the worst people could be good if they were treated well and had the right incentives. If Peter hadn't been there for Gabriel, he suspected the other man would be a very different sort of person right now, so it wasn't just what Matt had done to him that had improved him. However, confessing his love for Gabriel, to Emma, was not smart.

Her hands almost shaking in rage, she signed, "Thank you for breakfast, but I'm not hungry either. I have to go." She stood up stiffly to leave and he stood as well.

They looked at each other for a very long time. He tried to think of how he could explain in a way that wouldn't just make her more angry. He couldn't. Despite what Gabriel had done lately, he still loved him, but his feelings were in tumult. He couldn't find the right words and he was too paralyzed to express himself any other way.

Finally she shook her head and walked out. He let his breath out slowly, regretting that he hadn't moved to her, but the moment was gone. There was no kiss, no good-bye and even though he didn't want to leave her, she was the first out the door. He sank back into his seat and covered his face with his hands.


	129. Breaking Bread

Long after the door had closed behind Emma, Peter put his hands down and unfolded the newspaper. He wasn't trying to read though; it was just a cover and a shield from the world, much as his hands had been. He let his eyes slide out of focus and his mind empty. He tried to get himself away from his thoughts and feelings.

It was a method he'd used before, ignoring pressing issues by seeking to live only in the now. It was amazing out how many emotional dramas defused once he removed his reactions from them. He breathed. He waited. He let the world fall away. It helped.

When it was near 8, Peter called Gabriel to figure out where he was, then teleported to him. The other man had taken a cab to his law office. Gabriel met him on the roof, since Peter had never been to the office itself and wasn't keen on teleporting blind. If he was off by just a few feet, there would be a lot of awkward questions to answer. Being off a few feet on the roof didn't matter. They were alone.

Gabriel gave him a guarded look and asked in a clipped tone, "So. Did you get sorted out?"

"Yeah, I think so." Peter hoped that sounded like the truth, though he was pretty sure it wasn't. Just looking at Gabriel twisted him up inside.

Gabriel was polite enough not to mention the lie, if it was one, looking off to the side at a pigeon that was settling back in after taking flight when Peter had arrived. Peter closed the distance between them cautiously. Gabriel didn't turn to look back at him until he was close enough to touch. Peter stopped then.

The shorter man said, "I'm sorry I left so suddenly. I didn't mean to hurt you by that." He reached up and encouraged a kiss, which was granted. Peter kept it short, then hugged him, thinking, _This is what I should have done with Emma. I shouldn't have left her standing there. I should have gone to her. I should have told her I loved her. I shouldn't have let things end that way. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice - not with him too._

Gabriel was still tense, but he relaxed slowly. He put his arms around Peter and sighed. Peter turned his head to lay it on the other man's shoulder and stroked his back slowly. A long, tender moment passed and it seemed like whatever Gabriel had had Bandar do to him could have been handled, could have been resolved, could have been put behind them, if only they had had a little longer. Instead, Gabriel's phone buzzed and they both chuckled at the interruption. The taller man stepped back and pulled it out. He flipped it open after a glance at the screen and said, "Hello Parkman. … Yeah, we'll be there in a moment. … Sure." He hung up. To Peter he said, "Duty calls."

Peter smiled at him, thinking about how much different he was from Sylar. Even if he hadn't saved Nathan, Peter realized he'd at least saved Gabriel. It gave him a warm, happy feeling. His smile deepened and for now, he buried his other emotional problems. Denial was no stranger.

Gabriel leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek, then said, "Thank you for coming back."

Peter nodded. When Gabriel didn't look likely to say more, he teleported them, this time to the garden behind the Petrelli house.

Maury came up to the door and opened it, waving them in curtly. Peter tilted his head and remained standing in the doorway for a little longer than necessary. He was perplexed that Maury felt at home enough in the place to admit him. He knew he needed to get over that. His mother was in the background talking on the phone. Clarice was setting up for the day at her improvised station in the living room. Maury repeated his gesture to invite them in and this time Peter walked inside. Gabriel followed.

Angela finished and hung up, walking over to them. Maury shifted his weight back and forth uneasily and finally asked her, "What'd they say?"

She answered, "They can't confirm it."

The old man said, "But the pattern is there, right?"

She looked between Gabriel and Peter for a long moment, then back to Maury. "Straighten things out with Halo. We need their sifter."

Maury sighed and nodded, muttering, "Bookies. Always with the bookies." He walked over closer to Peter, then turned back to Angela and said, "It takes so many people to run this thing. I don't see how she did it."

Angela pursed her lips and tilted her head. "Maury, she didn't do it alone. She had Arthur, she had Halo and who knows who else. **If** she's even involved. Get Halo's sifter and we'll find out."

"Who are we talking about?" Gabriel asked.

"No one I'm going to tell you about right now." Maury paused and looked over at Gabriel. Peter looked too. Gabriel didn't look thrilled at being left out of the loop, but that was the extent of it.

Maury chuckled and said to Gabriel, "Hey, I'm not telling you what you want to know and you're not killing me. Things are looking up."

Gabriel snorted and said sourly, "If what you mean is that one of Arthur's old adventuring pals is running parts of Halo right now and you need someone good at probability to figure out exactly which person it is, then it's not like you're hiding much of anything from me."

"Oh," Maury said, sounding disappointed. "You knew that, huh?"

"Yes, I knew that."

Peter blinked. He hadn't known that was what they were talking about, but every now and then he got the impression that Gabriel was a bit smarter than average.

Gabriel went on, "And I infer from your need to use someone with probability that this individual is able to evade Molly's detection ability and has an unstable physical appearance." He looked at Maury very intently and said, "What exactly did you find out in Mohinder Suresh's head?"

"Ah… well… uh…" Maury looked uneasily at Angela, who for once looked rather pleased.

She said, "Oh, Gabriel. You're coming along so nicely. Now Peter, please take Maury and Gabriel to Philadelphia. They have business."

Gabriel huffed but didn't pursue it. He looked at Peter, saying, "To Philly then?"

Peter said, "Yeah, but hang on. Is Abbas still here?"

"No," Gabriel said. "I had him taken out yesterday evening. He's awake now."

"Is he okay?" Peter asked.

"Nnnn… sort of."

Peter sighed. Gabriel didn't elaborate. The younger man said, "Okay then. Let's go." Peter put his hands on each other man's elbow. A half-second before he shifted them, out of the corner of his eye he saw Maury blow Angela a kiss. Then they vanished, appearing suddenly in the break room. Peter was smiling. Maury shot him a suspicious look, then looked away, embarrassed, when he realized Peter had seen the kiss. Peter smiled more broadly. Maury walked forward to the security guard who had snapped to attention at their arrival. Apparently he'd been waiting for them, because he handed a clipboard each to Gabriel and Maury.

The three of them got to business. The negotiations were every bit as tedious as Gabriel had reported. It was made considerably worse by the Halo executives speaking in Arabic whenever they weren't talking directly to Gabriel or Maury. Even though they had two translators, it was difficult to follow at times. Maury had taken over "his" translator in short order, linking his mind to the other man's and understanding what was being said in a direct fashion. The translator seemed to have long practice with this, or at least he wasn't in the least perturbed by it. Gabriel monopolized the other, which left Peter with nothing to do but listen to words he didn't understand and watch body language.

After a half hour, Fatima passed him a note with a small drawing on it of a rose. She was looking much better than the last time Peter had seen her, which verified for him that her emaciation was linked to her ability. She encouraged him to doodle in return, pressing the pencil into his hand and gesturing at the paper. His drawings tended to be on the level of stick figures, but he tried, hoping he understood correctly what she wanted. He drew a building off to the side and passed the notepad back to her. She smiled and sketched a landscape around his building, elaborating on it. She passed it back and he put a boxy-looking car parked next to it. She added a tree.

It reminded him of being with Emma, early on when he didn't know sign language and she was trying to teach him. He started asking her for words in Arabic. She caught on quickly and taught him a few as they exchanged the notepad and engaged with one another. By the time lunch rolled around, he wasn't paying any attention at all to the rest of the room and neither, he suspected, was Fatima. When it was his turn to draw, she'd glance around and listen in, but rarely had anything to say. He was glad someone else was as bored as he was with politics.

As the formal negotiations were called to a close, the Arabs withdrew to another table to talk as drinks and places were set for the meal. Gabriel looked over at the notepad, with a corniced office building, a parking lot, several trees, flower beds, a bird and a butterfly, in addition to a bicycle and a couple stick-figure pedestrians. He looked at Peter with a carefully blank expression. He looked between Peter's face and the notepad several times and finally said, "You do know, that on some level, the fate of the society as we know it rests on our success in this, right?"

Peter laughed. "I'm not part of this. That was clear from the moment we showed up and they had clipboards for you and Maury, translators for you two. We were short one chair - mine. It was like I didn't exist. I'm just an agent, Gabriel. What am I even doing here?"

"Don't you want to be part of the board of directors?"

Peter looked upwards for a second. "You know, the more I'm seeing of what you really do on a day-to-day basis, the more I'm going to say no. I don't. This isn't interesting to me. Obviously it is to you and I'm cool with that, but I don't think this is my calling, if you know what I mean." He looked past Gabriel at Maury's translator, who was staring at him too intently. The man looked away and jerked a little as Maury withdrew his mental presence. Maury ignored him, clearing the table of his notes as food was brought in.

Gabriel glanced over, following Peter's eyes. Peter could have sworn they had a mental exchange, but he couldn't tell for sure. Just that momentary look dug up all kinds of feelings Peter had been doing a great job of suppressing all morning. Gabriel turned back to him. "We really need you here as a guard, even if you aren't taking part directly."

Peter thought of his schedule at the hospital. He thought of how his emotions remained in turmoil concerning Gabriel. Just being around him made him tired. It was hard to process; hard to deal. "How much longer is this going to be?" He slipped the notepad under his chair as flatware and a napkin was put down in front of him.

"We're pretty much in agreement, to be sealed with a shared meal right now. After that, we're going to give them an hour or so to talk to their contacts in Riyadh and wherever, then we'll get back together and decide what to do next to get in control of Halo. Or, for them, to get back in control. We'll need you for that."

Peter shook his head. "I have to go back to work at 4."

"Work? But this is your work." Gabriel looked at him uncertainly. "Wait, you mean, back to the _hospital?_" He sounded incredulous.

"Yeah, my **job**," Peter responded resentfully.

"Peter… this is a lot bigger than being a paramedic."

Peter looked at him intently. That comment had way too many echoes of his father's disapproval of his career choice and suddenly he understood that disapproval in a way he never had before. Even though Gabriel was probably joking about the 'fate of society as we know it', he had a point. Jackson had said on the phone that most of his drivers were back, having recovered from the illness that had struck nearly everyone.

Still, being a paramedic was his _life_. Peter felt pulled in two directions at once, but at least he still had a few hours to think it over. One of the guards put a plate of chicken breast with wild rice and asparagus down in front of Gabriel, then Peter. He failed to have the grace and practice of most waiters. Peter looked at the meal and decided to change the subject. "No more frozen dinners?"

Gabriel accepted the dodge and let it be. "No. We had it catered."


	130. Soul Searching Crap

Gabriel and Maury settled into the backup security room to get some work done while their guests from Halo took a break and Peter checked on whatever it was he needed to check on. While he was waiting for the machine to recognize his passwords and biometric data, Gabriel ran his hand along the counter and pulled up various events from the recent past. He was bone tired and just wanted a distraction. Even in the few seconds it took, he needed something to keep his attention.

He sifted through the images of the past. He knew there had been a few emergencies and alerts - nothing serious though - in the last few months, but apparently they hadn't coincided with anyone's presence in this room. He scanned a little further back and then stopped at what he saw.

With few exceptions, the only person in here was Maury. He saw, in the last four or five months, one glimpse of Angela and a couple of himself, along with a pair of technicians who came in once. Maury was obviously very comfortable in here, working all hours, eating in here and falling asleep in his chair as regular occurrences. Gabriel had stumbled across an involved moment between Maury and one of the agents. It was one of the more recent recruits, a busty woman who was servicing the director in a way that wasn't part of the job description.

The computer completed the security protocol and finished turning on. He glanced at the screen. He knew he ought to just go on and do his work, but he couldn't, not with that image in his mind. He turned to Maury and said, "Maury, are you having… consensual sex with the agents, or are you using your abilities on them?"

The older man rotated his chair and looked back, his eyes going to where Gabriel was still absently rubbing the counter. For a second, his expression was worried, or maybe chagrinned - Gabriel wasn't sure. Then Maury shrugged and said, "Yeah. I'm a super-stud," he said flippantly, turning away. "The ladies can't resist an old fart like me."

None of that was a lie. Gabriel struggled to figure out how that was true, since it was either consensual or not, using his abilities to coerce them or not. He gave up on trying to figure it out and tried for clarification, asking, "Are you using your abilities to make them have sex with you? Yes or no?"

"That's none of your business." Maury kept facing away.

"That was an agent I saw you with! It's my business." A sudden thought of Claire flashed through his head, followed by Maury's claim he hadn't 'mind-fucked' her. Now Gabriel realized what he'd meant.

Maury chuckled. "Well, I can set you up with her if you'd like, if you want to play the field. You could look like me. She'd probably get off on that."

"That's sick!"

The older man shrugged. "Yeah, I thought the age gap was kind of gross too. But she's easy. She'll probably do you even looking like you do."

"I'm not looking for sex, Maury!"

The older man clicked through several screens, found what he wanted, and opened a file. "You seem to be obsessing about it right now. What's going on, Peter not giving it up anymore since you took matters into your own hands and fucked up his heart? You had a good thing there…" Maury shook his head, but didn't look back. "And I think you may well have ruined it."

Gabriel tensed. He wondered if Maury had any idea how close he was to getting assaulted again. Then he realized he was being played. He took a deep breath. With a bit of pleasure he noticed Maury pause briefly at the sound of his breath. Then he went back to moving his mouse. It firmed up for him that for whatever inscrutable reason, Maury had been provoking him deliberately.

In a low, even tone, he said, "Maury, you said we were friends."

Maury turned to face him, his expression intent. Gabriel was surprised at suddenly getting the older man's full and undivided attention. He went on and said, "Are you using your abilities to have sex with these women?" He thought of the agent, Angela and Claire.

Maury leaned forward, regarding him without blinking. "I don't see how being a friend bears on this."

"I can't have you raping people!" he exclaimed, exasperated at the non-answers. With most people, evasion like this meant they were guilty. With either of the directors, Maury or Angela, he could never tell. It made him hesitate in his judgment.

Maury lifted his brows, his eyes boring into Gabriel, who suddenly realized that only a few months before, he'd raped Peter and Maury knew all about it. Maury probably knew more about it and his motivations than Gabriel knew himself. "You know that's wrong," Gabriel said softly. He knew the man did. He knew that Maury, with his ability, knew exactly how much that hurt people. And although even just a few weeks ago Gabriel would have thought Maury knew and did it anyway because he liked it, because he was a sadist, he'd begun to doubt that.

Maury had been far too calculated in manipulating Abbas and he'd deliberately taken on the Arab's heart attack when he could have just let it affect the younger man. Whether Abbas survived it or not was immaterial - they had their information and they didn't need him anymore. Yet Maury had not let him die, at great risk to himself. Gabriel didn't believe anymore that Maury enjoyed hurting people. He didn't want to believe he would get off on coercing them with his ability. "Why would you do it?"

Maury withdrew and snorted. He whirled his chair back to face his station. "Is it so hard to believe it might have been consensual?"

Gabriel cocked his head. Was it consensual? If so, then why did he keep refusing to answer? Was it that he expected Gabriel to trust him… that he wanted to be trusted? Gabriel reached out with telekinesis and turned the chair back. The expression on Maury's face was stony. There was an implied threat in the younger man using an ability to force Maury to continue talking with him.

Gabriel dropped his hand and looked away, contrite. Maury turned slowly back to his computer. Gabriel spoke anyway, just to the other man's back. "You know… you know I couldn't bear the thought that I'd done that to someone, especially someone I…" He sighed. Maury was not moving, obviously listening though still facing away. "If you want to be friends, I have to know."

"And what would you do about it, if I was using my ability to make them have sex with me?"

"Parkman, I care about some of these women you've been with."

Maury turned his shoulders and head, looking back at him. "Yeah? I know that. But really, what would you do?"

Gabriel opened his mouth, then shut it. He could stop him, of course, but would he? There were other things he could do, obvious things like try to mentally program the women against Maury, but what about women like Angela, who would probably resist him and Claire whom he'd never force? Whatever Maury had done to them, they probably wouldn't cooperate with having it changed.

He could threaten Maury with death, castration, neutralization and all manner of things he probably wouldn't carry through on. Like Maury had told him just the day before, he had to stop pushing him - he had to stop threatening him. It was what the older man was asking him right now - what would he do, since they'd already established that Gabriel couldn't control Maury? The opposite did not seem to be true, but other than their first encounter, Maury had avoided giving Gabriel orders, even under heavy provocation.

He still didn't know the details of what had happened. He hadn't seen anything in the montage he'd witnessed that looked forced. She'd cried, but he was pretty sure that was before anything happened, not after. Was it really rape if they thought they wanted it?

Gabriel said, "I'd try to talk you into not doing it anymore."

"You'd nag me?" the older man asked disbelievingly.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Yes Maury, I'd nag you. Friends don't let friends do immoral things. You're better than that." Now Maury rolled his eyes. "You **can** be better than that. Hell Maury, it didn't occur to me what you _might_ have been doing. You don't seem like that kind of guy. With Angela… I thought that was authentic." Gabriel looked for clues in the other man's expression, but he wasn't getting them. He did have the older man's sharp attention again. "You two were flirting for months. I thought she really…" He looked away.

Maury turned back to his screen. He clicked something. "I haven't made anyone have sex with me against their will. Not for a very long time."

Gabriel rubbed his lip, thinking about how subjective 'a very long time' was. Days? Months? Decades? "Parkman, you said on the roof of Peter's apartment that you didn't think you could trust me. Can I trust you?" He left it open-ended and broad. If Maury dissembled or evaded in any way, he had his answer. The chance that he'd tell the truth seemed remote. But if he wanted to be trusted and that was the reason why he wasn't answering, then there was really only one way he could answer that question.

There was a very long pause, and finally the older man said, "Yes," and nothing else.

Gabriel sat up straighter, trying to imagine what that meant and how Maury could have twisted that. "Then… you… How was that first question I asked you not a lie? You said you'd done it."

Maury shook his head. "You asked me if I'd had consensual sex and used my abilities. Yeah. Yeah, I did." He looked back over his shoulder at him, challengingly.

Gabriel thought about all the comments Maury had made about sex and telepathy. Clearly, very clearly now that he thought about it, the two weren't mutually exclusive for the other man and they might not even be separable, since intimacy involved letting down one's defenses. What if sex triggered his ability somehow? Gabriel realized he was rushing to judgment on something he knew next to nothing about - and a very personal matter that he had no right to inquire of. He swallowed. "Oh." After a beat he added, "I don't think I understood. I think I might now."

Maury accepted that. He sighed and looked back at his computer. "I don't know what Angela feels for me, but it's what _she_ feels for me. I didn't put it there." His voice took on a grumpy tone. "Now, if we're done with this soul-searching crap, I have some work I want to get done."

Gabriel nodded silently and turned back to his station.


	131. Getting Out

After the meal was done, the toasts and pledges and promises were over, the Halo five retired to working phone lines and internet access so they could talk to their employees in Riyadh and communicate the new vision. Gabriel and Maury took off to do something very similar, heading up to the backup security station. Peter declined to go with them. It seemed like an excellent time to go check on some of the people he'd been bringing in and see how they were acclimatizing.

He went to central security and asked, "What cell is Susan Greer in?"

The supervisor looked at him blankly, then pulled out his clipboard and stared at it. He flipped through to the individual pages on inmates. "What other aliases does she have?"

"Um," Peter thought about that. "She shouldn't have any. That was her name in the profile I was given. I brought her in here just Sunday - four, five days ago."

"Oh, okay." He went back to the first page and looked at it. Peter leaned over to look too, because he couldn't see why she'd be hard to find. The first page was Monday, but there should have been a listing for her on it. They both saw that the only admissions on Monday had been two men, both of whom had been cycled out yesterday by Maury. Peter saw that with the addition of Halo, the facility was nearly full.

After they read through carefully a second time and still couldn't find her, Peter said, "But… I brought her in on Sunday. She was injured. Maybe they moved her right away." That didn't make sense though. Claire had come down to heal her, though now that he thought about it, Claire had only mentioned healing Patty - not Susan. His stomach felt a tickle of uncertainty.

The guard nodded. "Let me get Sunday's log book. I wasn't on duty that day. Mr. Bennet was."

Noah was always scrupulous about the paperwork. Even if he'd had her immediately transferred, there should be a record of it. There was - it just wasn't the one Peter was expecting. It wasn't the one he wanted to see. Peter was reading the log upside down, but he saw it pretty much simultaneously with the guard reading it. "Oh, here it is," the guard said. "She was admitted and terminated."

"Terminated?" Peter felt a stab of ice in his gut. "She wasn't even conscious when she got here! Did they… did they at least give her medical care? What happened?"

"I…" The man shut the logbook and eyed Peter carefully, as if Peter's tone was setting off warning bells. "I wasn't on duty that day, sir."

Peter looked away and chewed on his lip, not noticing the man's reaction. He tried to think of possible explanations for Susan's termination. Maybe she'd woke up and attacked someone and been killed in self-defense. Maybe she'd died from her injuries and they wrote it up wrong rather than admit they'd mistreated her. But neither meshed with what the logbook said. The word 'termination' meant one specific thing. It meant her killing had been authorized - not accidental. A slow rage kindled in him. He looked back and his voice was a growl. "Where's Mr. Bennet right now?"

"He's on level four, sir."

This time Peter noticed the unnecessary honorific and his eyes narrowed slightly. He ignored it and headed for the stairs. He imagined that some of the guards treated him like he was more highly ranked due to his name and relations. It bothered him, but there was nothing to be done about it. He usually didn't fraternize with the other agents. He had a life outside the Company and many of the agents were of a different mindset than he could stomach - the kind who looked at a termination order without a blink.

Noah was where Peter expected him to be, outside of Arthur Petrelli's cell. He was a valuable, versatile agent, still tied up babysitting a man without powers – a man who was fast becoming obsolete due to Gabriel and Maury's negotiations with Halo. At the point Peter showed up, Arthur and Noah were in the middle of a game of Go. Peter didn't look at his father. He said, "Noah, I need to talk to you." His tone and expression said more than his words. Noah clicked off the audio, nodded to Arthur and walked down the hall with Peter.

Once they were well out of sight of the cell, Peter rounded on Noah. "Where's Susan Greer?"

Noah raised his brows slightly and leaned back a little, as if Peter was radiating threat. "Who?"

"_Susan. Greer_. The woman I brought in Sunday, who crushed Patty's leg and had a broken neck. Where is she?" Peter leaned towards him, intent.

The older man said nothing for a moment, simply looking at Peter. Peter exhaled sharply. He glanced up and down the hall, then leaned back in, speaking with emphasis. "The logbook says she was terminated. Why?"

"Yes," Noah said slowly. "She was terminated."

"_Why?_"

Noah exhaled slowly. "Peter… she almost killed your _partner_. She almost killed **you**. She was dangerous. Very dangerous. She killed without gestures, just by looking at someone."

"Then blindfold her!"

Noah pursed his lips and said nothing, but he leaned away a little more. There really wasn't much he could say. Peter knew that if Noah had been on a mission to stop a troublesome person and that person had maimed Rene and nearly killed Noah in an unprovoked fit of violence, then he'd have shot her to death on site. Bringing her back and having Claire bleed to help her was ridiculous. Peter knew this. He just really hadn't thought about it.

Peter chewed on his lip again and clenched and unclenched his fists. He felt betrayed all right, but he'd never expected it from this quarter. This was the final straw, the spark that unleashed the dormant fire of betrayal that he'd been banking under a mantle of trust. His anger flared to full force, filling him from feet to crown.

It wasn't like he didn't know Noah Bennet had ice water for blood. He was glad Noah wasn't bothering to tell him it was policy. It was, within limits. Anyone who attacked an agent with lethal force, even in the field, was to be reviewed for termination. Provoked attacks were almost always waived. Peter remembered Noah asking if Susan's attack on Patty had been provoked and damned if he hadn't told Noah it wasn't.

"Who authorized it?" Peter demanded.

Noah started to say something and Peter cocked his head and bared his teeth slightly. He knew the man was going to lie to him, or evade, or try something to protect the directors. He knew Noah too well. Noah froze for a moment, reconsidered and actually answered him. It was probably more a sign of their friendship than of how threatening Peter was being at the moment. "Your mother."

Peter had wanted it to be Gabriel or Maury. He could do something about them. He already felt a broken trust there even if he couldn't find it intellectually. _My mother!_ He hadn't trusted her in years. "So I bring someone in and she orders her _killed?_" _Don't they realize I'll never bring anyone dangerous in again? _He shook his head and paced, steaming. Suddenly he stopped. _Brian Taylor. The kid who disassembled things. The woman who could change the water level. What about them?_

"Peter?" Noah Bennet's question rang out in the now-empty hallway. The younger man had vanished as it was being said.

A half hour later, Peter was in his apartment throwing clothes and toiletries haphazardly into a duffel bag. Brian Taylor was dead. The water woman and the kid were neutralized and unconscious. They'd been that way for days, pending disposition from a director. They were in Omaha and none of the directors had been out there in the last few days to review their cases personally, so they were still on hold.

Their abilities made them difficult to hold if awake (in the case of the child) or potentially lethal (in the case of the woman, who might be able to drown the entire facility). Abbas had been asleep – really asleep, not in a coma, so Peter didn't know how he was. The only ray of light was that Abigail, the woman captured in London, had been released.

Peter's conscience kept up a steady stream of battering remonstrations. _Two of the four I brought in were murdered. Then there was Phillip. I killed him too, accidentally. Three out of five. Five people with abilities and three are dead, two are comatose. This is horrible! With Abbas and Abigail, one is still apparently screwed up and who knows about the other? Gabriel wants me to spend the day helping them get Halo running so they can find more of these people and do this over and over, on a larger scale. Three out of five are dead. They know what they're doing - Gabriel, Maury, my mother. They _know_. They think it's worth it. How can they be so wrong?_

His mind pulled up Emma, telling him Phillip deserved to die. He shied away from the thought. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to hurt them, any of them, for what they'd done. If anyone 'deserved' something, they deserved pain for the people they'd killed in the name of expediency or misguided safety. He was so angry about everything that he was shaking.

He threw a last handful of underwear in the bag and zipped it shut. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at it. Gabriel had already called him twice, but Peter hadn't answered. He didn't want anyone tracking him with it, so he tossed it on his bed. Almost the second it left his hand, it rang. He jumped at the noise and picked it back up. It was Gabriel. Again.

This time Peter answered, but instead of giving any of the standard greetings, he snarled, "_**Stop**_ calling me."

"Please, Peter. We need to talk."

"No, we _don't_. Why don't you try talking to the two people the Company **killed** because of their abilities, huh?"

"They- Peter-" Gabriel's tone was pleading.

"Yeah?" Peter taunted.

"They were dangerous."

"Yeah? Oh yeah? You know, that's the same thing Noah said about **you** a few months ago and you know what? I defended you! And that was _after_ you manhandled me at New Year's! He's dangerous, you're dangerous, _**I**_ am dangerous. I almost blew up New York City, Nath-"

Peter's throat seized for a moment and he took a deep breath. He was riding the edge of hysteria. It wasn't even Nathan's voice on the phone, so he wasn't sure why he'd slipped. He was just so incensed and his mind kept flashing to his brother working with his father and later Danko, working through the system and using it to hunt, kill and oppress people with abilities. And now Gabriel was doing the exact same thing all over again.

"I know," Gabriel said gently. "I'm sorry."

"What are you even apologizing for?" Peter said, outraged. _He can't know what I was thinking!_

"I… I knew it was coming. Both times."

"Both? What?" Peter was confused. He tried to pull his thoughts out of Nathan's betrayals of him to figure out what Gabriel meant.

"About… blowing up New York. Ma told me beforehand and-"

"Yeah, I figured that out," Peter snapped at him, interrupting. "I'm not a total blockhead." Nathan might have even told him - Peter didn't remember at the moment, but it wasn't news.

"And… well, after the eclipse, we changed the policy for intakes. We don't have enough space to house them or agents to guard them, so if they're judged too dangerous to keep, they're terminated."

"And you voted for that?"

"We all did," Gabriel said quietly. His voice wasn't sad or even particularly remorseful.

"You- Gabriel, you're killing people!" It was the same fallacy his brother had adhered to, the idea that he was protecting the masses by harming a few.

"Yes." His tone was calm and flat. Peter knew, from the way it was devoid of expression, that his face would be as blank as his voice if Peter had been there to see it.

Peter hesitated. A host of things ran through his mind. _ Is he answering that he knows voting for that policy would be the same as if he was killing them himself? Is he saying he's personally killing people? _"Wait, how are these people terminated?"

"What?" Gabriel sounded thrown by the question.

"How are they terminated? What happens to them?" Peter paused and then decided to hell with it, might as well be explicit. "Are you taking their abilities?"

There was a terrifying moment of silence, and then Gabriel said, "No. It's lethal injection, if we can manage it. Brian Taylor was gassed. He almost killed a guard. I don't know what happens to the bodies. I hadn't inquired. Does it matter?"

Peter put his hand over his face, over his eyes. His emotions were running so high he wanted to scream. People had been murdered because of what he'd done. Over and over, he'd been manipulated into these situations where people were hurt because of him. If he'd done the right thing with Nathan back at the Stanton, if his judgment hadn't been twisted and clouded, they might have done something different and Nathan would still be alive… "Gabriel, I can't be a part of this. I can't be a part of this life. This isn't how I'm going to live. And if it's how you're going to live, then I'm not going to be part of that either. _It's over!_"

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Peter clicked the line closed and tossed the phone on the bed.

_Everyone's turned against me. I can't even trust Noah or Emma anymore._ Everything was a swirling storm of betrayal. At the same time that he felt he should trust Gabriel, he also felt he couldn't. It was left to his intellect to break the deadlock. He knew he couldn't trust Nathan - they'd been over that ground many times. Of course he couldn't trust Sylar - that was patently obvious. And the merger of the two of them had ordered his emotions manipulated, trying to force Peter to love him because he was insecure and possessive, unable to handle the idea of Peter not being his, even for a few hours. All things considered, it wasn't much of a dilemma.

It would seem that his decision was already known to the Company, because they reacted as if they'd expected this from him. A signal had gone out shortly after his arrival at Omaha that Peter Petrelli was no longer to be afforded the privileges of an agent. He was surprised they weren't trying to detain him. He expected that was coming next, once they got the resources together for it. Gabriel had told him last week he'd had a dream where he and Peter broke up, the Company hunted Peter and eventually captured him. It was starting to look more and more like a likely future. _I guess I'll have to avoid getting caught, _Peter thought.

There was still one thing to check. He wanted to make sure Abigail was safe. She was the last person he'd checked on and he'd had to use a telepathic command to get the information. He went to London, to the apartment address he'd had the guard pull from Abigail's file. Apparently they'd had Molly update with a more detailed location after getting back from Riyadh. He didn't know if Abigail would be there, but she might. It was a place to start.

He popped into existence in the middle of the living room. A young colored man was sprawled on the couch. He twitched a little at Peter's arrival, blinked, said and did nothing else. Peter looked at him. It was Micah Sanders. He'd grown a lot. He had to be sixteen, or close to it. Micah's face was blank while he examined the new person in the room, not showing any of the shock or dismay Peter would have expected.

On the other hand, Micah had probably been through as many or more adventures than Peter had, and he was half Peter's age. Peter raised his hands briefly anyway to try to show he meant no harm. He lowered his hands back to his side as Micah leaned back against the couch and looked unconcerned.

From the other room, a woman's voice called out, continuing some conversation that Peter had arrived in the middle of, "While we're out, I want to go by the store and get some batteries and lunch meat. Can you think of anything else we need?"

Peter looked in the direction of the voice, but said nothing, since Micah had not announced his presence. Micah continued not to do so, saying, "Not right now, no." Peter followed his lead and stood silently. His heart rate was slowing down and he was relaxing, feeling better to be somewhere that didn't have all the pressures of home. He'd escaped. He'd gotten out. He felt better already.

The woman said, "Okay. Well, the soup's almost done. How far out are the others?"

"About… uh," Micah's eyes slid out of focus a little, then snapped back. "About three minutes, maybe five. You should set another bowl out. Do we have enough for six?"

"Six? I think so. Are they bringing someone with them?"

Peter could hear clattering of dishes going on from what he presumed to be the kitchen. He took deep breaths. He could smell something savory.

Micah tilted his head at Peter and raised his brows in invitation. Peter put a pleasant smile on his face that didn't reach his eyes and shrugged, then nodded.

The young man on the couch said, "Yeah, we're going to have a guest for dinner."

The woman muttered loudly, "It's probably Claude's ide-" She walked out into the dining room carrying bowls and yelped when she saw Peter. She dropped the dishes and brought her hands up. He reached out with telekinesis and caught them before they hit the floor. Micah jumped up. A force field sprang into existence between Peter and Micah. Peter felt his telekinesis suddenly become difficult and extenuated. He let the dishes drift to the floor as quickly as possible, then released his power and sagged. Apparently her force fields at least partially blocked his ability.

Micah was speaking to her, "Hey, hey, it's okay. He's alone. He's been kicked out of the Company. He's going to eat dinner with us."

"He attacked me just a couple of days ago!" Abigail was furious. The force field between himself and Micah shifted suddenly to be a spherical bubble around Peter, trapping him. He eyed it, aware he could neutralize it, but not doing so. He held up his hands to touch it. They weren't shaking anymore. He was pleased to see that.

"Let's just give him a chance, okay? I've dealt with him before." Micah turned to face Peter and said, "What are you here for, Peter?"

"I just wanted to ta-, to see if Abigail was okay. I can leave."

Micah put up a hand suddenly. "No, don't. Don't leave. What do you want to talk about?"

Peter shook his head. "Nothing, really. I… just wanted to make sure that what I had been told was true and she was okay."

"Why'd the Company kick you out?"

"How do you know that?" Peter wasn't sure himself if he'd been kicked out. It was news to him, but it made sense given that his privileges had been revoked. He was glad to hear it. It removed any conflict of interest he might have felt.

Micah's eyes slid out of focus again for a second. "They sent that order from Philadelphia to Omaha electronically, that you were on the outs and to stop cooperating with you."

There was a knock at the door, then it opened. Two people stood outside - a tall, gangly, 20 year old white man with a moustache and a Native American-looking woman several years older than him, but still a few younger than Peter. Peter looked for Claude, then realized how silly that was. He was probably standing right behind them. The two he could see looked startled and wary to see him, then angry.

"So, do you want some soup?" Micah asked as if nothing untoward was going on. The two at the door walked in and fanned out, taking their cues on how to act more from Micah than Abigail. They regarded Peter with curiosity and calmed down.

Peter dropped the duffel bag off his shoulder and set it down, thinking about something Maury had said about the importance of eating to bring people together and emphasize shared goals. He'd been talking about Halo, but it applied equally here. The bag slid against the side of the force field awkwardly and caught up against his leg. "Sure."

Abigail shook her head, but she ended the sphere.


	132. Hurt Feelings

They both reached for the phones when they rang. There was one next to each terminal. Gabriel glanced back and frowned at Maury, but the other man didn't take the hint and put the phone down. Gabriel put the receiver to his ear, saying simply, "Grey."

Maury hesitated for a moment, then listened in when he heard Noah Bennet's voice on the other end. "Sir," Noah said stiffly, obviously still unhappy about having to talk to Gabriel, "I was just speaking to Peter. He's discovered that one of his intakes, Susan Greer, was terminated. He became upset. He teleported out."

"Where did he go?" Gabriel asked.

"I don't know. He might have been going to visit his mother. She signed the order." After a beat, Noah went on, his voice marginally less tense, "I just thought you should know."

"Thank you." Gabriel set the phone down. Maury did too, watching Gabriel closely. Gabriel rubbed his lip and picked up the phone again. He dialed Peter, getting his voicemail. He told it, "Peter…" starting off sharply. He softened his tone and continued, "Peter, call me."

As soon as he hung up, Maury picked up the phone and dialed. Gabriel watched, thinking he was calling Angela. Not so. Maury told the phone, "Hey, Parkman. Give me Chuck. … Yeah, thanks." He exhaled sharply and looked at his computer screen. After a moment he cocked his head and said, "Yeah, hey. I need you to call up an agent's cell phone - Peter Petrelli. Tell me where he is. … Yep." He waited for a little while longer, then said, "Okay, yeah. I want you to track him for the next twenty-four hours or until I tell you to stop."

Gabriel perked. Maury continued, "If I haven't talked to you otherwise in twenty-four hours, call me and ask me what I want you to do next. And if he gets within a thousand feet of me, let me know. Oh, and let me know if he goes to the Petrelli house. … Find someone to monitor overnight. … Good." He hung up.

"He's not at Angela's," Gabriel said.

"Nope. He's at the Omaha facility." Maury started bringing the admissions records for Omaha. He muttered, "Brad Travis… or something like that… Brent, Bryce… ah, there it is. Brian. Brian Taylor. Another of Peter's intakes. Dead, terminated. Tried to kill a guard. Neutralizing compound didn't take entirely."

"How often are people immune to that?"

Maury shrugged. "One in twenty, maybe a little less. Gets most of them." He was dialing again.

"He's going to be pissed."

Maury grunted, then said into the phone, "Hey, this is Parkman. Peter Petrelli's going to be there talking to your guys in a little bit. Call me as soon as he leaves. … Yeah. Good-bye."

Gabriel continued as if there had been no interrupting phone call. "We could really use his help on Halo, in case something goes wrong."

Maury shook his head. "Nope. Help's over. We didn't need him anyway. He's gone."

"What do you mean, '_he's gone'?_"

Maury tapped on his keyboard and ignored the other man. Gabriel wheeled his chair closer, close enough that Maury glanced over at the uncomfortable proximity. Gabriel said, "Maury, please. Please tell me what you've been hiding about Peter. I need to know what you mean. Please." After a pause, he added, "I'm _begging_ you."

Maury turned from the keyboard and looked at Gabriel, blinking at him, genuinely surprised. He pursed his lips and looked back at the computer screen as if it was calling for his attention.

Gabriel touched Maury's knee with two fingertips to fix his attention on himself. "Maury. You just told me Peter was gone. Yesterday you implied there was a reason, a good reason, why I shouldn't wake him up. You didn't tell me the reason, and so I woke him up." Gabriel spoke very slowly, as if he thought Maury might not understand him otherwise. "If you don't tell me what you mean about Peter being gone, then I'm going to leave and try to find him, as soon as I can." He cocked his head at the older man. "That's not what you're trying to manipulate me into doing, is it?"

"No," Maury answered without hesitation and it was the truth. Gabriel exhaled and looked down, his fingers still pressing against Maury's leg. While Gabriel looked down, Maury looked up. Angela had been absolutely sure they shouldn't interfere with Peter's course. This moment with Gabriel was pivotal, but Angela had said nothing of it to Maury, because she couldn't without changing his reaction to it. Had she not taken Maury to her bed, then at this moment Maury would be leaping at the chance to exact a misplaced revenge on her through her son. He would say the right words to send Gabriel over the edge and forever ruin his relationship with Peter. But she had extended love and affection and approval to the old telepath. It meant he wanted to hold her family together - what was left of it.

"Gabriel," he waited until the man looked up. "Angela told me Peter was going to turn against the Company. She was very clear that I wasn't to stop him and we **had** to let him go his own way. He's stubborn and arrogant. He thinks he knows right. The more you force him to fortify and defend his position, the less likely it is he'll give it up. Let him have his way. Who knows?" Maury shrugged and looked away. "Maybe it will work - whatever it is he's going to go off and do. Because you know him - he's not going to do nothing."

Gabriel leaned back in his seat, giving a more normal space between them. He put his hands on the armrests of his chair. "She said… to let him go?"

"Yes."

"She said… I shouldn't go after him?"

Maury frowned. Angela hadn't been specific about Gabriel. He hedged his answer to get past the lie detection. "She said we shouldn't go after him, right. But let's say you did. What do you think that would accomplish? Do you think you can drag him back to your cave by his hair and that will improve anything?"

"I could be with him," Gabriel sounded uncertain and vulnerable.

"Gabriel, if he wanted to be with you, he wouldn't have _left_."

Gabriel shifted uneasily in his chair, hurt by that piece of truth. Maury couldn't help but twist the knife. "He doesn't know, does he?" At Gabriel's guarded look, Maury smiled thinly and nodded. "About Matt. He doesn't know that was a murder. I wondered what the hell was going on there, why he'd still be with you after that. You managed to lie to him, even with him being able to hear the truth as well as you can - yet you still managed to lie to him." Maury smiled mockingly. "Bravo, Gabriel. That's the kind of thing really great relationships are built on."

Gabriel set his teeth together and shut his eyes, trying to breathe deeply and ignore the lie of the sarcasm.

Maury went on. "What would you do if you went to him, anyway? Continue living a lie? Or do you think maybe it would help to tell the truth and let him have three murders on his conscience instead of two?"

"Maury," Gabriel coughed to clear his throat. It had become choked with anger. "Maury. Please stop trying to make me angry. If you don't want me to kill you, please stop provoking me."

Maury's voice dipped into anger as well suddenly. "I don't give a shit if you kill me or not. There are worse things I can lose than my life and I've already lost most of them." Gabriel's eyes snapped to Maury's face, listening intently.

Maury went on, "And anyway, you've got better self-control than that. If you kill me, it's because you _want _to, just like you killed Matt." He sneered at Gabriel's expression. "Oh yeah, I know. I saw it through your own eyes when I was in your head a couple weeks ago."

Gabriel stood up and paced rapidly. "Why the hell haven't you told everyone about that, anyway? You like hurting people so much, me especially, why haven't you done that?"

"Why should I tell Peter the truth? He's no friend of mine."

Gabriel lunged at Maury so fast the older man jerked back in his chair. Gabriel put his hands on Maury's armrests and leaned in, putting his face inches from that of the older man. "No, he's not. But you said you wanted to be mine." He cocked his head. "Did that mean anything? You said I could trust you. You've been in my head – you know what I'm like, probably better than I do. You know what I've done. Yet you're still over here offering an olive branch when you're not slapping me in the face with it!"

Maury swallowed, shut his eyes and turned his head in what looked like shame. After a beat, Gabriel let the chair go and resumed pacing.

The phone rang. Both men stared at it. Gabriel started towards it, but paused when Maury held up his index finger. "Let me say this first: I'm sorry. I see people hurt and I want to hurt them worse. It's… like a bad reflex. I'm truly sorry." He reached out and picked up the phone while Gabriel gaped in surprise to get such an admission.

Into the phone, Maury said, "Yeah. … Okay. Sure, I'll be right out." He hung up and stood.

"What was that?" Gabriel asked suspiciously.

"Halo wants to talk to me before having Faisal try to teleport. If it works and the neutralizers have worn off on him, they're going to head back over to Riyadh and try to sort things out."

"What about Peter?" Gabriel asked.

"Stay here. Answer the phone. Omaha should be calling soon. If he starts causing problems for the Company, minimize the damage. Just like you told me mentally when Bandar got him - if you do it, you'll feel better about it. If I do it, you'll get mad. You have to handle this, Gabriel. I'm going to go handle Halo. I know you'll do the right thing." Maury walked out, leaving Gabriel to sink back into his chair. He had a lot to think about.


	133. Counseling

More than a half hour later, Maury was walking down the hall towards the backup security center. His mind was busy with what he'd need to do to transition Halo into the Company. He had a lot of work to do. He was considering which of the many tasks was the most important as he badged into the room and saw Gabriel sitting motionless, slumped in his chair, with an empty, hopeless expression on his face. Maury's priorities were immediately reorganized.

He stood just inside the door and watched the man, wondering just exactly how far Gabriel might have gone in recovering Peter. _No,_ he thought, _this isn't the response of the body to action. This is the response when you _haven't_ taken action - the depression of inaction - a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness._

After a moment Gabriel looked over at him, which was a good sign. It meant he wasn't entirely unresponsive. Maury asked neutrally, "How did it go with Peter?"

"You were right. He's gone." Gabriel went back to staring off into the distance, which told Maury the other man wasn't done talking yet. There was something else to say. Maury stayed where he was and waited for it. Seconds stretched to a minute, then more than one. Finally Gabriel's brows drew together slightly. He had to tell someone. Maury knew he probably wouldn't have said it if he'd been asked, but left in silence, he had to give voice to his feelings. "He left me. He said he didn't want me to be part of his life anymore." His voice hardened at the last, tensing to avoid breaking.

Maury walked forward slowly and steadily. He pulled his chair over to a middle distance from Gabriel, about four feet. He swiveled it to face the man and sat down, so he never turned away from him in any way. He leaned forward to adopt a posture of intent listening. He put his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands before him so as to appear unthreatening and open. He raised his brows slightly and relaxed his face. It was careful. It was methodical. He was working. He put aside his personal reactions in order to deal with this as a professional.

When all of his posturing hadn't caused Gabriel to turn to him, he said, "Peter's going through a lot right now."

"You **knew** this was going to happen. I've been an idiot. You've been blurting it out at every turn and I wasn't listening!" Now he turned towards Maury with his teeth bared. _He's engaging. Good._ Maury held his position, tilting his head slightly to look receptive and following eye contact. He parted his lips a little.

Gabriel took the expression as a signal to go on, which it was. "You said we were driving each other apart! That crap about Star Wars and who was who! Peter even caught it, that Luke wasn't on the same side as whoever it was you said I was. This has nothing to do with what's happened recently. It's about Matt! It's about everything! It's about what I am!" Electricity crackled and snapped between his hands as Gabriel sat up in his chair. The back of Maury's mind noted the humor involved with Gabriel, whom he'd labeled as Darth Vader, using lightning and having anger management issues. _He's prone to Force-choking people too. More parallels than I'd intended._

Maury sat up a little more slowly, putting his hands down on his knees. "Please don't kill me," he said evenly.

Gabriel defused, letting the electricity bleed away. He looked off to the side and shifted to maudlin. "I've tried… I've really tried. I've tried to be good enough. I put on this mask whenever I'm around him. It wasn't enough! I've done too much." Gabriel hung his head. After a moment, he lifted it again, his expression hardening as his anger returned.

He glared at Maury, but before he could speak, Maury held up one hand and said, "Don't make me leave. Let me stay."

"Why?" Gabriel growled.

"Because you need to be with someone… and I'm here."

Gabriel's rage bled away like the lightning had earlier. His face fell into sadness again. He breathed heavily. "I killed Elle. She was my last… partner. Last one I cared about, anyway."

"Go on," Maury said calmly. He knew Gabriel was indirectly intimating that he currently felt murderous towards Peter. Maury also had known Bob's daughter very well. She'd needed a lot of work.

"Elle Bishop." Gabriel looked up at him. "Did you know her?" Maury nodded, but said nothing. "I killed her," Gabriel continued. "She loved me; I loved her. And I killed her." He swallowed thickly and took a shuddering breath. "I've eaten brains - seventeen of them… I think. I'm not even sure how many. I've raped. I've tortured. I vivisected an old man so I could understand how he worked. I don't know how many people I've killed. A couple of them were kids, early on. I couldn't… I didn't stop myself. I didn't stop myself. My God!" He choked and retched, holding his head until the spasm passed. Maury scooted over a trash can surreptitiously, but it wasn't needed.

Gabriel covered his face, but kept speaking, his voice catching and too fast and breathless as the words tumbled out. "The amazing thing was that he'd have me at all! I thought he loved me anyway, that it was okay, that if I was just better and stopped… and was a better person for him that it was okay and it's not and he's gone… because I wasn't _enough_. I wasn't **good** enough for him. I tried… and I'm just not good enough." He wiped at his eyes, though there weren't tears yet. Gabriel struggled to control his breathing.

"I hate you," Gabriel said sullenly.

"That's okay," Maury said gently. He knew Gabriel was trying to displace his distress into violence and anger. Violence was comforting for Gabriel. It solved problems for him – problems like having related his feelings to Maury. He'd snap and kill again if given the right provocation. His subconscious was looking for a target even if his conscious mind was not. Maury wasn't going to be one for him - especially not when his own hide was on the line.

Gabriel glared at the man and repeated, "I _**hate**_ you."

Maury nodded. "I know. It's okay."

Gabriel turned his face away and growled, "You're always trying to piss me off and get under my skin. Well, here's your chance! Tear me a new one. Say something _vicious,_ Maury. Or are you just saving it up to humiliate me later?"

Maury scratched at his knee idly and leaned back a little. He looked relaxed and unafraid. "I'm not going to use this against you. It might seem weird to think of it, but I've handled mental trauma for the Company for the better part of four decades. Me and Danny. Anything organic, Linderman would fix. Everything else, I got. There's a lot of stuff that goes wrong with a person that can't be fixed by healing the tissue. All kinds of things: denial, hysterical blindness, psychological disorders, amnesia, post traumatic stress disorder, anger management, Stockholm syndrome, battering… broken hearts."

He paused and watched Gabriel for a moment. The other man was listening to him, even though he was looking away and acting like he wasn't. Well, he was trying to act like he wasn't. Maury saw through it. "And I've seen a lot of cases where an ability had a psychological component to it. Most do, though I'll admit yours ranks right up there with the worst. Even Peter's has one. Since adopting his dad's flavor, he isn't as empathetic as he used to be. He doesn't pick up on emotions as easy. He'll be more committed now, more loyal, since he'll only bond with whoever he's with instead of everyone he walks past."

He definitely had Gabriel's attention now. The other man was breathing more shallowly and holding himself very still. His eyes darted back and forth, undoubtedly as he was correlating what Maury had said with what he'd seen of Peter.

Maury said, "Even without everything else that's happened, switching over that power wasn't as simple as maybe he's led you to believe. Given his personality, I doubt he's even mentioned it to you, assuming he's noticed." Gabriel's head snapped around and he nodded slowly in confirmation.

The older man leaned forward. "He's half-blind from how he used to be. He can't sense how you're feeling. He's probably not consciously thinking you don't love him as much as you did, but that's what he's _feeling_."

Gabriel turned to face Maury with his whole body, swallowing and blinking in hope. Maury gestured off to the side and half-shrugged. "And then you factor in everything that **has** happened… He's gone through a lot lately, Gabriel. That's what I meant earlier about letting him go. Give him his space. Let him sort himself out. It's not about _you_. If it was, he'd have never gotten together with you in the first place. You think he doesn't know Sylar's track record? I've read your file, Gabriel. A bunch of it last summer was written by _Peter!_ No, this isn't about you. This is about _him_."

Gabriel looked down and to the side, eyes still darting a little as he thought things through. He was breathing deeper, more normally now. He blinked several times again and then looked up. He had regained his composure. He tilted his head and asked, "What happened to that bad habit of hurting people worse when you see them in pain?"

"Ha. Three things." Maury held up fingers to illustrate. "First, this is my job: you're my job. Remember Angela saying I was supposed to keep your mind in one piece? Second, that's mainly a reaction people whining about things that just aren't really that bad, if they'd just grow a pair, suck it up and get on with their lives. Like earlier – Peter's not where you want him to be. Boo-fucking-hoo. Get over it. But if he's really left you, that's different. Then you've got something to cry about. If you're still crying about it tomorrow, **then** I'll make fun of you. Third, I kind of like you. You don't take shit from people, me included, and I admire that."

Gabriel studied him for a long moment and said, "All of this… talking me down, what you used to do for the Company… you're a fucking psychologist."

Maury tilted his head and said, "What better thing for a telepath to be?"


	134. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?

"Cool," Micah said. He gestured at the woman now picking up the bowls from the floor and said, "You've met Abigail, obviously." He turned and pointed at the tall man with the moustache. "That's West." He waved to the Native American woman who had come in with him, "That's Sparrow."

Abigail sorted dishes on the table. "And Claude's here somewhere, hiding. Claude, come on out now. He already knew you were here. _Someone_ didn't tell me he was here before I mentioned you earlier." She glared at Micah, who smiled roguishly.

Claude did not make an appearance. Peter didn't expect it. He figured Claude had either already left, or more likely was picking a good site outside for eavesdropping, one that afforded a good escape route if anyone looked for him. Peter had talked to Noah a few times about his previous partner and in the rare moments he could squeeze something out of the older man, he'd gathered that much of Noah's careful adherence to Company policy and practice was due to Claude's teachings. He'd been a mentor to a lot of people over the years. And now, Peter realized as he looked around the room, he was mentoring Rebel.

"No, it's okay," Peter said, walking over to the table. "He's probably long gone." For Claude's benefit, he added, "I'll see him if he wants to be seen. No sooner." He scanned over the table, saw they needed spoons, and went to the kitchen to find them. Abigail gave him a long look, figured out why he was going through the drawers, and moved on wordlessly to getting crackers and a loaf of bread on the table. Peter thought she could have at least pointed out which drawer it was, as he finally found what he was looking for.

"We're not having anything fancy here," she told him as he distributed spoons. "Not like the Petrelli _mansion_, is it?"

Peter gave her a wry smile. His family's reputation preceded him everywhere, it seemed. "I'm sure what you're having is great. Thank you for inviting me. That takes a lot of trust, I know."

"A lot of stupidity, actually," she grumbled. Peter pretended he hadn't heard her. Sparrow brought out glasses without comment and they all sat to eat. They had vegetable beef soup with bread and crackers. It was hot, filling and good, though Peter ate only a little. He'd eaten lunch an hour earlier, after all. The atmosphere around the table was quiet.

Micah finally broke the silence, saying, "So. I've been listening to what was going on with the Company in Philadelphia, where they were holding Halo. That's when I heard Peter had gone AWOL and was no longer an agent. Then a few minutes later, he shows up here." Micah glanced back towards the living room. "With a duffel bag of clothes, unless I miss my guess. I've seen a lot of people on the run. What are you running from, Peter?"

Peter smiled sourly. "Heh. I'm not running from anything." He thought about how much he should say and what he should say. As angry as he was about how things had turned out, he didn't want to be a traitor in turn. If Maury's comment about that Italian facility were true, then Rebel, as a group, had murdered people before. Saying the wrong thing might put people at risk. "I didn't like… the direction things were going. It wasn't something I could be associated with anymore."

"How do we know you're not trying to infiltrate us?" West asked. He seemed to be honestly asking, not merely suspicious.

"Why would I?" Peter responded.

Micah said quietly, "We were just talking, the other day after they took Abigail, about how the rest of us could be next. They can do that sort of thing, with a teleporter on their side and Molly."

West grunted. "Teleportation is cool, man. Trumps flying."

Abigail indicated Peter and said, "He teleported **and** he flew. He's got more than one ability."

Peter didn't say anything. The Company wasn't releasing the news of Arthur's abduction even among their own ranks. He wondered what Faisal and Bandar had told them. The others at the table exchanged nervous looks. Peter furrowed his brow at that. It was almost like they were afraid of him. He'd terrified the guards in Philadelphia, when he'd teleported back to check on Abbas and find out what had happened to Abigail. He hadn't had much time there, what with Maury and Gabriel in the same building.

Abigail went on when no one said anything. "Micah and I have this theory-"

"**You** have a theory," Micah interrupted.

"Fine," she said. "_**I**_ have a theory. Peter took Sylar's ability as his one power and now he's been picking up the abilities of other specials the way Sylar did. Which would explain a lot about all these specials disappearing and you turning up with a boatload of powers, fighting alongside Sylar."

Peter stared at her blankly, caught between shock and dismay. "I… I… no," he said weakly, knowing he needed to deny this one immediately. He had not been cutting people's heads open for their abilities. The thought was sickening. _What kind of awful rumors about me are out here in the world of specials?_

"Then how do you have so many abilities?" she pressed him. "Micah said the Company records show you were limited to only one ability now - one at a time. You got it synthetically after running into someone who stole all yours."

_How much do they know? How much do I tell them? What the hell is in the Company records about me? And why isn't it up to date? I've had multiple abilities for months now._

He was saved from answering by Micah, who said, "He can't be responsible for everyone disappearing. There's been too many. And besides, Sylar didn't kill every special he came across."

Abigail said, in the tone of someone who had had this argument before, "He only didn't kill the people he had a use for. Everyone else was meat!"

"He didn't kill me!" Micah said. Peter's brows raised a little. _Micah and Sylar knew each other?_

"That's because he had a use for you."

"No he didn't! I've told you that. There was **no reason!** He just let me go. He even died for me." Micah pursed his lips and shook his head. Peter continued to be surprised. _Wow… Gabriel's right. There's a lot about him I don't know. Even as _Sylar_ he was willing to sacrifice himself for another? That's not just a trait he got from Nathan? …not that Nathan was ever really willing to sacrifice himself for anyone but family._

Abigail didn't seem to care about Micah's rejoinder. "He had a use for you. I'm sure. He didn't do anything without a reason."

West muttered, "That's true." He looked up at Peter and said, "But it doesn't matter. This is Peter, not Sylar. Unless he's using Sylar's little skin-changing trick to look like Peter."

Everyone stared intently at Peter, who said, "Listen, my name is Peter Petrelli. I'm not Gabriel… uh, Sylar. What kind of proof do you want?"

West said, "Do you have Peter's driver's license?"

Peter blinked at him. Shape-shifting changed minor details like clothing and jewelry. Honestly he hadn't used it enough to find out if it changed his ID too. He'd never had a reason to check. He wondered if it duplicated credit cards and other things. Shrugging the thought away, he pulled out his wallet and fished out his license. He handed it across. It was studied carefully and passed around the table as though it were a foolproof litmus test.

Micah didn't bother to look. He glanced over at Peter with an almost amused expression and passed the card on to Abigail. Peter suspected Micah knew how pointless the ID was. Assuming his ability couldn't duplicate it, the Company handed out false sets of identification as standard issue. Peter glanced around the table and realized he was the oldest person here by most of a decade, excluding Claude, who was still unseen. Claude had been in the business twenty years more than him and Maury twenty years more than Claude. _No wonder I always feel like I'm five steps behind them. I'm standing around doing stuff like these guys looking at my ID while they're laughing up their sleeves at my naiveté._

After looking at it intently, Abigail passed the license to Sparrow and said, "Even if that is… if you are Peter, it doesn't mean you aren't here for our abilities."

Peter pushed his bowl away. He was finished anyway and the thought of picking through their brains was nauseating. "I'm not here for your abilities." _I never realized how simple it made things with Gabriel that he could tell if I was lying. It meant he always trusted me. He always trusted me, and here I am, potentially betraying him. _He tried to purge that thought immediately. It was mostly untrue, after all… wasn't it? He huffed and stood up. "Listen, I should leave. Thank you for dinner." He walked over to his duffel as an argument broke out at the table.

"No one's stopping you," Abigail said sarcastically.

"I think it's really him-" West said.

Micah called out to him, "Peter, hang on!" He scooted back his chair.

"What does it matter, anyway? He doesn't need our help," Sparrow interjected.

West added, "I can find out for sure, you know, just one phone call."

Abigail raised her voice at Micah, "Let him go, for God's sake, Micah. This is stupid!"

Micah said, "Let me go!"

Peter looked back to see the young man shrug off Abigail's hand. Again he had the intense feeling that Rebel was young and disorganized, on a completely different level than the Company meetings he'd been attending lately. He picked up his duffel bag. "Micah, you know how to get in touch with me. I've… I've got to go find out where I need to be." He walked out the front door and shut it behind him. He glanced up and down the apartment hall. He only walked a few feet away before turning and leaning against the wall, letting his bag drop to the floor. He shut his eyes and waited for Claude to say hello. Or hit him with a stick. Whichever came first.


	135. All In The Family

_"Charles Darwin bred pigeons when he was working out his theory of evolution—married up various permutations to get maximum potential."_

_"What do you mean by that, 'maximum potential'?"_

_"I think he meant you, friend."_

_~ Claude, Peter (Heroes, Unexpected)_

XXX

Peter leaned against the wall in the hallway and listened as the argument in Abigail's apartment became even more heated, with raised voices and rapid steps back and forth. The noise covered any sound Claude might have made. Peter was unsurprised when the familiar British voice said, "Poodle. It would _seem_ that you have well and truly slipped your collar."

Peter smiled a little and kept his eyes closed. _What is it with him and the dog analogies?_ "It's good to hear your voice."

"Do you miss it? The collar, not my voice."

Peter hesitated for a long moment, then said, "Yeah. A little. For both."

"Oh?" When Peter didn't reply, Claude went on, "So just how _do_ you have so many powers these days?"

Peter hazarded a look, but as he expected, Claude wasn't visible. "You don't know?"

"No. News reports are a bit shoddy over here across the pond," he said sarcastically. "If you're here to gain trust, then you'd better start by telling the truth. Unless you're here for something else, as some of that lot think."

Peter shut his eyes again, realizing that even looking for Claude was something of an aggressive act, under the circumstances. He rubbed his forehead. "Did you know my father is still alive?"

"I didn't know anyone actually thought he was dead."

Peter tried to look for him again reflexively and caught himself. It was just surprising. _Did everyone except for me know he was still alive? _His expression must have said as much, because Claude offered, "I heard there was a funeral, of course, but that doesn't mean anything. Your brother had one too."

So Claude was definitely keeping up with the news on the Petrelli family. Peter said, "Yeah, well, he's alive."

"Ah. I think I see it now. You took **his** ability - your father's - then drained him, and now you're the big dog."

Peter was glad his eyes were shut. It made it easier to keep his expression neutral. Claude was close, but not entirely right. It was close _enough_ though. He nodded.

Claude's voice was ice cold as he said, "Then don't you bloody touch me. Don't even reach out for me."

Peter nodded again briefly, keeping his eyes shut. _I wonder why he's still here at all? It must be because of Rebel. He wants to protect them._ He exhaled slowly. A minute passed in the hallway in silence. The argument within Abigail's apartment seemed to have ended. He could hear the clatter of dishes and the murmur of voices that were not raised in anger.

Peter jerked his head towards the apartment and said, "What happened at the Company's Italian facility?"

He heard Claude exhale slowly, then say tightly, "That wasn't my idea. I left afterwards." After a pause he added, "_They_ weren't all in agreement in it either. You've seen how they bicker. I only came _back_ because you took Abby. By the time I got here she'd been let go."

Quietly Peter said, "There were fourteen people who died there."

"And at least a dozen more after they let those wankers out. People suck, Peter." His voice held a heavy edge of anger. As if that brought something to mind, he turned sarcastic and said, "Your brother had a funeral, but he's still around. Pretty resilient, he is. Dying easy isn't a problem the Petrellis ever had."

Peter didn't wait for Claude to bring up Sylar. The members of Rebel had already voiced that theory and obviously Claude was building towards it. "He's not really Nathan. Nathan died and I caught Sylar. My mother-"

Peter lifted his chin and moved his head uncomfortably. It was time to face the truth about something. The muscle of his jaw clenched. "_**We**_ took what was left of Nathan's memories and personality and had a telepath put it in Sylar's head. We'd hoped he'd end up as Nathan." He swallowed. "He's not, but he's not Sylar anymore either. He has shape shifting, so he poses as whichever is convenient."

"Ah," Claude breathed out the word. "You said… we?" He hadn't missed the emphasis Peter put on the word.

"Yes," Peter said firmly. "My mother and I." They'd acted independently, making their choices at different times, but Gabriel was right in that each had made the same decision to change him.

"I see. You really are a product of your breeding." Claude sounded disgusted with him.

Peter turned and looked at where he was pretty sure Claude was standing, from the sound of his voice. He heard a small sound, probably as Claude shifted his weight or perhaps drew a weapon. Peter ignored it, suspecting accurately that Claude wasn't going to run off or precipitate an attack that might endanger his wards - not while Peter was mere feet from their door. Peter wasn't terribly happy to find that he was scary as hell to these people, but it had its uses.

Peter was thinking about how Noah had said he didn't seem like himself anymore, Emma had said he was different and Maury had accused him of being just like his father. He hadn't even really looked the same in the mirror. He was thinking about the fawning respect the guards had given him in Philadelphia and Omaha after he'd become angry. Nearly all his life Peter had struggled to be different from his family, leaving it to Nathan to fulfill the expected roles and obligations. _Why is it that everyone is seeing me like this? What has happened to me? What did I do to myself when I took Dad's ability?_

"A product of my breeding?" Peter turned away, staring at the wall opposite him. He didn't see any reason to upset Claude by continuing to look at him. Or near him.

Claude hesitated, then responded, "Oh yeah. You're a French Poodle. All the Petrellis are a bunch of inbred bastards. Just like most of the rest of us, apparently."

A slur against his family was something Peter understood, but he was confused by the last sentence. "Like the rest of who?"

"Aye, yeah, that's something I wouldn't mind talking to you about. Maybe you can do something about it. I sure as hell am stumped." Peter's brows furrowed slightly, but he kept looking at the wall across from him. Claude went on, "Do you remember me talking to you about those pigeons I used to take care of in New York?"

Peter nodded. "Yes."

"It's a funny thing about most domestic animals, pigeons included. We can arrange their breeding to select for certain traits and we have - humans have. You can put a bird in with a cock robin and most of the time Nature will take its course. A little while later you'll have the results and then you can breed them to other birds or cockerels who have the traits you want. You can get some fantastic variations, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes, tumblers to fantails." Peter assumed these latter were names for types of pigeons. "As it turns out, someone found out you can do the same thing to _people_ and end up with abilities.

"Among animals, to set breed characteristics you do what's called in-breeding, mating brothers to sisters, sons to mothers and daughters to fathers. You discard the ones with traits you don't want, but when you _**do**_ get what you want, it's pure. Then you can breed one to another, eliminate the negative recessives and what you're left with is a reproducible result - a purebred, and that's how you set a breed. It's been happening so long I think we've begun to get a taste for it."

"A taste for what? For manipulating people?"

"Ha," Claude laughed. "No. For incest. I suppose you're lucky you don't have a sister."

Ice water flashed through Peter's veins. With an effort, he kept his expression calm. Claude knew nothing of Peter's relationship with his brother. In addition to that, what flashed through his mind was his unconsummated attraction to Claire and Emma's confession about the rumors of her mother and her mother's brother. He'd figured out that most of those with abilities were related, but he hadn't thought about what it took to maintain that, or what it meant for personal relationships_._ "Go on," he said guardedly.

"Anyway, once you have these families established, you start crossing them. Typically, the outcrosses are where you get your best performers and you need to do it anyway to pick the traits you want to incorporate back into your purebreds, to improve the line. I never really thought about the interracial and cross-cultural couples that had been cropping up in the past couple of decades. I thought it was just a product of the time. I've seen some things recently to make me think different."

Peter glanced over in Claude's direction for a moment, then at the door to Abigail's apartment. He looked at the floor. "Why are you telling me this?"

"We heard right away that Arthur'd been taken by one of your lot. I went straight to Riyadh. You see, I'd been there before, investigating a few months ago. I'd walked into a trap when I was there earlier. Arthur got me out. After that I stayed clear. So when Arthur disappeared, I thought that was my chance. I went back and followed Mohinder Suresh - what I'd been trying to do before. He's doing some of the most _in-ter-esting_ things, Peter. He has a list of who the eclipse activated and he's working with a woman who seems to be busy putting the hens in with the cockerels. All of these little groups keep forming up, finding each other… just fortuitously, almost like coincidence."

_He has a list?_ Peter thought. _We don't have to look for these people? Why didn't Maury see that when he looked in Mohinder's head last week? But he knew… he knew how many people had changed, or at least he had a good idea of it. Maybe he __**did**__ see that. _Only then did he clue to the second part of what Claude had said. "Wait… how? She has mental powers?"

"Yep. And unless I miss my guess, she's the same one the Company fought for most of a decade. Used to work with Adam. They called her Lilith, though she goes by all kinds of names and faces. She's a wraith - possesses people. Doesn't even have a real body, to hear folk talk, but I'm operating on old information and rumors. Of course, one of those was that she was dead - really, finally, completely dead." Claude paused for a moment and then added, "But what do I know?"

Peter's mind reeled, trying to take in all the implications of what Claude was saying. It was the answer to everything he and Gabriel had been speculating about, but now he had a name. He remembered Emma telling him she didn't know why she'd picked Mercy Heights Hospital to work at, but since Peter was there, she was happy that was where she'd ended up. He remembered his mother telling him and Nathan that the Company founders had met through fate and coincidence. If what Claude was saying was true, these weren't chance happenings. "But… if she's been manipulating families for generations…?"

"She was Adam's accomplice. Or maybe his muse. I'm not sure which one wore the trousers, but she's old."

"How old?"

"Not a clue, but Mohinder has genealogies that go back over a hundred years of what looked to me like careful, planned pairings."

Peter blinked at the floor, still trying to figure out what this meant.

Claude offered, "Your girlfriend's Emma Coolidge, isn't it?"

"What?" Peter's head snapped up. "How do you know that?" It wasn't a secret, but for Claude to know that sort of detail about Peter's life meant he'd been watching him pretty closely.

"It's in the genealogy. You're going to have three kids and one of them is supposed to marry Nathan's latest son Noah."

Peter choked and sputtered. "What?"

Claude laughed. "I suppose Lilith can see the future too, or maybe that was Arthur. I know _he_ could. Harry used to say your mother had you named a decade before you were born. They say she always knew she'd have two sons."

"Harry…?" Peter asked weakly, still struggling to cope with the fact that someone had already laid out his romantic future for him.

"Harry Fletcher, Company founder. Dead now. My cousin, by the way. I didn't know that though until I saw the family tree Mohinder had. It's funny how so many of us are related. Orphans, foster families, broken homes – anything to disguise who belongs to who, apparently."

Peter blinked. Lives destroyed, systematically, to accomplish some goal. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are they doing this?"

"I suppose it's to make people with special abilities. It's the same reason why people arrange the breeding of animals instead of taking any mutt they come across. Poodles were originally bred as gun dogs, retrievers, hunting animals that were obedient and fearless. Now they're pampered, ridiculous-looking things with too much hair in their face."

Peter glared briefly in Claude's direction and heard the other man chuckle. Claude had never been a fan of Peter's hairstyle. Claude went on, "Human beings are a horrible lot, Peter. I tried to tell you that before. If they can get away with treating each other like animals, they will. Whoever this Lilith is, that's exactly what she's done."

Peter pushed off from the wall suddenly and he heard Claude backpedal. Claude said, "Whoa there, mate. What are you doing?"

Peter left his duffel behind. "Something unexpected."


	136. Initiative

Peter appeared in Mohinder's lab between two blinks of the eye. Mohinder was there, standing at what amounted to a Smart Board, scribbling some chemical formula that looked like a giant centipede eating its own tail. He turned and looked at Peter, surprised. There was another man in the room, an older Indian man with grey hair and a stooped stature.

Mohinder said, breathlessly, "What are you doing here?"

"Not underestimating the power of surprise." Peter turned to the older man and said, "Don't move. Don't cause me any problems. Leave us alone."

"What?" Mohinder said, putting down his marker. For a smart man, he had always been a little slow on the uptake, but now he was recovering himself. "What are you-"

Peter turned back to Mohinder and pushed him against the Smart Board with telekinesis. "I'm going to get some answers." He started to walk forward, but stopped when Mohinder's face contorted and he shoved himself free of the wall. Peter was taken off-guard just like Gabriel had been when he'd found that telekinesis was no match for the thews of enhanced strength. Mohinder lunged for him, but Peter was not so startled he couldn't react. He vanished, appearing behind the other man.

He nullified Mohinder's ability, or at least he hoped he did. Peter's hope was put to the test as Mohinder swung around and slugged him squarely in the face with his left fist. For a normal person, it have been a lethal blow if he hadn't quelled Mohinder's strength and both of them knew it. Mohinder had just tried to kill him, unless he was certain Peter could regenerate. Peter's nose and upper lip knit back together almost in an instant, in the time that Mohinder looked from his fist to Peter's face, perplexed. Peter shoved him into a chair with telekinesis and bound Mohinder to it with the same force.

Nearly a year before, Matt and Maury Parkman had gone to find Mohinder and Molly in Chennai, India. The Company had wanted use of Molly's power to locate people, but Mohinder was not cooperative in turning her over to them. Maury had had him shot, a nearly fatal series of injuries. Before they left, Matt made sure Mohinder would get enough medical care to survive. He also did something similar to Mohinder to what he'd done to Sylar, tearing his mind apart so he would be too fractured to pursue Molly and cause the Company problems.

Peter had first seen Mohinder only a week before, when Peter came to Riyadh to confront his father. Maury Parkman came with him. He was supposed to block Mohinder from experimenting on children and furthering his father's plans, in addition to Maury mining him for information on Arthur's location. Peter had never had a chance to find out what the telepath had discovered.

Then, as now, Peter had been puzzled by Mohinder's physical condition. He was lamed and his right arm was thin and deteriorated. He wheezed when he was agitated, as he was now, and when he stood, he favored his right side. It wasn't an impossible outcome of gunshot wounds, but it was unlikely. What was more confusing was that one of Halo's executives had tremendous powers of healing and yet Mohinder's situation had not been improved.

Peter had a lot of questions. Mohinder's condition wasn't the most pressing of them – that position was held by the twenty or so children Mohinder had been experimenting on. If Maury hadn't stopped him, then it was up to Peter to save them.

"Now," Peter said. "Answers." He stood before Mohinder and paused, calming himself and clearing his mind like Matt Parkman had taught him years back. He made a final layering of the telekinesis, glanced over to make sure the older man wasn't likely to interfere, and then turned his head and let his eyes slide out of focus.

_Get out of my head!_ Mohinder was thinking loudly as soon as Peter listened.

_What did Maury Parkman do to you?_ Clearly the telepath had not done what he was supposed to do.

Mohinder wasn't helpful. He repeated, _Get out of my head!_

Peter probed for the answers, pulling memories to the surface of Mohinder's mind. He wasn't practiced at this, but he was patient, careful and calm - three things that made up for much. Mohinder's memory of what Maury had done to him was blurry at best, having been deliberately obscured by the old telepath. Maury had dug through Mohinder's memories much as Peter was doing, without bothering to ask Mohinder for what he was looking for.

Given that Maury had worked at it for nearly half an hour, and how fast Peter had seen Maury work before, he knew whatever the man had been doing he'd been thorough at it. During part of that, Peter had been standing by waiting for information on Arthur's current location. It hadn't occurred to him to question how long it was taking. Peter had been too distracted by his upcoming confrontation with Arthur.

Failing to find any signs of what Maury wanted _specifically_, he looked for commands. He found them, dozens of them, inserted like acupuncture needles, precisely targeted. It didn't _feel_ like Maury's work, which was the best Peter could do to express his impression of the commands. Peter tried to remove one, but it was much more difficult than he'd expected.

As he applied himself to it, he became more sure this was nothing Maury had done. Peter had seen Maury's commands - some were blunt and obvious, when he was being quick; the rest were insinuative, using the victim's own personality and motivations to enforce compliance. These were neither. The commands stitched together Mohinder's previously shattered mind, repairing large portions of the havoc Matt Parkman had inflicted on the man. There were no commands of obedience or anything like that - whoever had done it had put him back together, bit by bit, and made him sane. Peter stopped trying to remove the commands and instead marveled at the effect of the work.

Mohinder jerked against Peter's telekinetic grip and in an instant Peter realized he'd overstretched himself trying to keep Mohinder neutralized and immobilized while he was distracted by telepathy. It was hard enough to concentrate on two powers at a time - three had been too much. He felt a stab of pain in his head as his nullification faltered and Mohinder surged against it.

Mohinder threw off the telekinetic bonds and stood, but then he hesitated short of an attack. It was Peter's moment to reestablish control of the situation, but when Mohinder paused, Peter did too. He took three quick steps back, getting some distance and held one hand up between them at the ready. Mohinder raised his left hand and flexed it, feeling his strength in the limb again. He glared at Peter, then sat back down.

Peter knew he couldn't hold Mohinder with his mind alone as Maury had done. He wasn't practiced enough with telepathy. He clearly wouldn't be able to maintain concentration to use multiple abilities in tandem, either. He could always try talking. "What did Maury want to know?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Mohinder snarled at him.

_Good idea and I will, but he won't give me a straight answer._ Peter tried a different tack. "I thought you wanted to make amends for what your father had done, instead of repeating the same atrocities."

Mohinder looked back at his lab partner, who was still standing silently to one side, obeying Peter's earlier command. He turned back. "And I thought you wouldn't support his goals."

"Support his goals?" _Does he mean his father's goals? Or my father's? Or someone else?_

Mohinder reached over to rub his right arm and offered nothing.

Peter tried again, "Do you think I'm supporting my father's goals?"

"What are you doing here, Peter? What do you want?" When Peter didn't answer right away, Mohinder said, "Everything's going according to plan. When the results come in, I'll forward them as arranged. You can tell him that. I don't have anything ready yet. She's still gathering data."

Peter realized that Mohinder really did think he was on his father's side, acting as his agent. "Okay," he said, trying to think of how he could use this to his advantage… and why Mohinder would think this when Peter had had such a violent and sudden entrance.

Mohinder went on, "Maury didn't do anything. I don't think he knows." He looked off to the side, chagrinned. "I mean, of course I couldn't hide the information from him, but he doesn't know what it means. Arthur was right - he only thinks in three dimensions."

_Three dimensions?_ Peter blinked as he thought about all the time travel plotlines in the comic books he'd read as a kid. He swallowed. His father had had time travel. Just because Arthur was safely ensconced in a cell right now didn't mean that a past version of him wasn't still running around now, in the present.

Given that Peter had already stopped him, in the past, he wondered if that meant he was unstoppable now, since he clearly hadn't been stopped prior to Peter confronting him on Halo's roof. And if his father had seen that attack coming, as he obviously had, then he could have escaped into the future or past and done whatever he felt needed to be done _before_ Peter apprehended him. It boggled Peter's mind. Feeling he needed to say something, he said, "That's… that's good," a bit lamely.

Mohinder looked at him intently and Peter amended, "I mean, I have a hard time thinking that way too. I don't really understand it."

Mohinder snorted and didn't say anything. He'd learned the hard way not to monologue to Petrellis. He got up and went back over to the board. He picked up his marker and began to redraw the portions smudged out when Peter had forced him back against it.

"I'm here to check up on progress," Peter said, trying to lure Mohinder into revealing more about what was going on. He wasn't as good at it as Gabriel, who had managed to trick Mohinder into saying quite a bit only a few weeks earlier. Gabriel had been posing as Nathan at the time and trying to learn what Arthur was up to.

The Indian shook his head without turning. "No, I've changed my mind. I don't think you're involved yet. You haven't talked to your father. I **do** see things in four dimensions and we're not at the right point in time yet." He looked back over his shoulder and said, "These aren't atrocities. They're a biological imperative. You'll understand, one day."

Peter exhaled. Clearly his father had either shared his visions of the future with Mohinder, or taken him into the future so he could experience it directly. Peter knew, from painful, personal experience, that the future was not set. Caitlin was lost to him as a result of unstable timelines. "No. I don't think I'll ever understand that. We have a choice. We always have choices."

Mohinder turned away from him and walked to his computer, checking something on the screen. "Free will is an illusion, Peter. We've already made our choices - they just haven't happened yet."

"That's not true! Mohinder, you can make _different_ choices. You've been experimenting on children, killing them, murdering them! You can stop all of that." Peter had a strange sense of déjà vu. It was the same argument he'd had with Gabriel, but where the other man was mired in his past, Mohinder was trapped by the inevitability of his future. He recalled Maury once saying something about how Matt had lived in the future too much, having become deranged by his precognitive ability.

Mohinder swung around to face him. "I'm not going to stop it, Peter! That's the point! These are the choices I've made and I'm going to make. I'm not going to change them - not because of you or anyone."

Peter looked around the lab and considered destroying it. That wouldn't stop Mohinder - it would just slow him down. Peter would settle for that if he couldn't do anything better, but there were lives at stake. "Where are the children?" he asked, getting back to the important thing. This Lilith needed to be stopped from inflicting whatever on the next generation.

Mohinder looked back at him, brow furrowed. He went back to his computer.

Peter repeated, "Where are the children you were experimenting on? There were two dozen or so survivors. Tell me where they are."

"The Green Crescent Foundation for Disturbed Children," Mohinder blurted out. "It's just three blocks north of here." The Indian man's expression turned angry as he realized he'd been manipulated. Mohinder jumped towards him and Peter backpedaled into a clearer area of the floor. He'd expected the reaction and was ready for it.

As Mohinder came at him, Peter reached out to catch his shoulder and throw him in a judo-style disengage, but Mohinder's hand snagged on Peter's arm. His grip tightened fast and hard, snapping the bones in Peter's left arm. Peter brought his right up, palm slightly cupped, and slammed it against Mohinder's temple as hard as he dared with his own enhanced strength. It was a knock-out blow and it worked.

Peter knelt next to him and checked his pulse and other vital signs, making sure he hadn't hit him too hard. Any head injury was problematic, but Mohinder seemed all right. Peter's arm was fully healed again, thanks to regeneration. He looked over at the elderly Indian man who was still unmoving, and told him, "You're free now." Peter changed his face to match Mohinder's and teleported three blocks to the north.


	137. Institutions

Peter, disguised as Mohinder, limped inside the facility and lifted a badge out of his front pocket. It had appeared there when he'd shape-shifted to match the Indian's appearance and clothing. He looked at it and wondered if it would stand up to the scrutiny of the scanner next to the door that led out of the reception area and into the facility proper, and if it did, it answered his questions about the authenticity of the ID he'd shown around the table to Rebel. _ There's only one way to find out._

He put it on the scanner and it beeped. _Huh. Shape shifting gives me authentic, fake IDs. Why does that seem weirder than just rewriting my DNA and making me look like someone else?_ A green light flashed on the thumb pad above it. Peter put his thumb on it confidently. The door clicked open. He walked in. _Now where? A place this size should have several hundred patients._ He limped slowly down the hall, finding a use for Mohinder's infirmity. It allowed him plenty of time to look around without being too suspicious about it.

The place had been built in the last ten years, so it was new without being brand-new. The rooms he passed seemed normal enough for children with behavioral issues. Nearly all had their patients sleeping within. Peter wasn't sure what time it was, locally, but it was dark out and the place was quiet except for the whirring of machines and the murmur of noise from a television somewhere.

At the intersection he was walking towards was a nurse's station. One of the two women there stood and approached him, saying something that included 'Suresh.' _Crap,_ Peter thought. He did not speak Arabic, yet he was pretty sure Mohinder did. He tilted his head and kept his response purely mental, _Speak English to me__._

To his relief, she knew the language. Many Arabic medical professionals gained their training in the United States. He'd known that, but it was still a gamble. She switched and said, "Dr. Tabari said she was not to be disturbed. Can I help you?" He had the impression from her mind that Dr. Tabari was someone Mohinder worked with frequently. It was who she thought he'd come to see.

He nodded and said quietly, "Come here." He looked past her at the other nurse, who wasn't even facing them anymore. Dr. Suresh was a regular fixture. She had screens to watch that were more interesting.

The one who had been talking to him stepped closer, a confused, concerned look on her face. Peter didn't feel too bad about what he was going to do. It shouldn't hurt her and it wasn't something she should resist.

_Think about my work here. Think about what you know of it._

The nurse knew that Mohinder worked with a special set of two dozen patients, most of whom were foreigners. Their condition was not contagious, but it was progressive. It was mainly mental, including delusions and increased fantasy life. Their brain patterns and blood chemistry were the subject of frequent study. Dr. Suresh had spent hours upon hours obsessing over their DNA and how it differed from thousands of samples he had from all over the world. Even now, in fact, Dr. Tabari was beginning some procedure that would last most of the night. It had struck the nurse that it was suspicious that Drs. Suresh and Tabari undertook most of their procedures after hours, when staff was minimal.

Learning that, Peter changed his command. _Tell me about Dr. Tabari._ He glanced over to make sure the other nurse was still unconcerned. She was. A quiet talk in the hall was none of her business.

Dr. Zafirah Tabari was a specialist who traveled the world to locate and treat people with this particular mental illness. In adults, it manifested as a belief they had extraordinary, superhuman powers. She was always interested to hear of new cases and was only rarely at the facility. When she was, she worked closely with Mohinder and with another foreigner Peter recognized in her mind as his father, Arthur. Zafirah had a number of personal quirks Peter glossed over. At this very moment she was doing something. He suspected he had stumbled over Lilith already.

_Show me how to get to where Tabari is now._

She led him down the hall and up the stairs, a whisper of confusion in her mind about what was going on. Peter quelled her uncertainty with a single pushed thought. When he had pulled the rest of the route from her mind, he sent her back to her station with the reassurance that everything was fine and nothing upsetting had happened. She left him in the hall. When she was gone, he continued to examination room four and let himself into the viewing room.

The viewing room was a narrow chamber with windows lining one side that allowed observation of the operating theatre. A three year old boy was strapped to the operating table, moving restlessly as if uncomfortable and looking smaller than he was on the adult-sized table. All manner of monitoring equipment was hooked up to the child. A single, middle-aged woman sat in the operating theatre, dressed in the pale green outfit that was apparently standard for the facility. The nurses downstairs had been dressed similarly. She was watching a readout on a monitor, the back of one finger resting against her lips. The boy made a sound of discomfort, but she didn't react.

_What kind of procedure is going on here?,_ he thought. The woman seemed engrossed, so Peter looked around the viewing room. Unsurprisingly, everything was in Arabic. He wondered if Claude spoke it. After thinking about it, he figured that instead, Mohinder's notes had probably been in English. Tabari's notes were not so convenient, even though he found a notebook with the boy's picture and pages of notations. He flipped through them idly and his brows climbed suddenly. Scattered throughout were entries in English, in a different handwriting than the Arabic. They didn't tell him what he wanted, but they told him enough.

The one two entries before the end was in English and described preparing the boy for adrenocortisol treatment and cortexiphan conditioning. Peter didn't know what either of those compounds were - adrenocortical hormones regulated the stress response, but the handwriting was legible and the spelling was clear. It was something else. _And now that he's been 'prepared', the procedure is being carried out._

He looked up in the room again. The boy's face was scrunched up in distress and he was saying something, but the woman continued to ignore him. Instead, she picked up a syringe and reached for the IV shunt. Peter opened the door and she paused, looking back at him.

"What are you doing?" he said, still disguised as Mohinder.

"What's happened?" she countered, studying his face.

"Nothing. I wanted to know how the procedure was going. What stage are you in?" Peter suspected his charade was not going to last long, but at least she spoke English - among other languages, if what he'd picked up from the nurse was accurate.

Tabari looked back to the boy, who was regarding Mohinder with trepidation. "We have saturation on the cortexiphan. The uptake levels are very high, in the 7.8 range. If he responds to the adrenocortisol, then we'll have it." She inserted the syringe into the shunt. The boy whimpered, seeing her motion. He did not associate it with anything good.

"Wait," Peter said, trying to stall her. "We'll have what?"

The woman looked at Peter for another long moment and he thought he was found out. She removed the syringe and set it down carefully. "We'll have manifestation." She looked at Mohinder's face. There was a trace of surprise there, where there should have been none. And the accent wasn't right. Peter felt a mind brush his own. He knew in an instant both that he was found out and this was the Lilith Claude had spoken of. _Damn it!_

He nullified her ability. The expression on her face changed as she detected that. Maury had noticed instantly when it happened to him, so Peter had expected that. What he didn't expect was that she didn't seem to have any other reaction to it. She turned and looked at the monitor again, saying, "I don't think the uptake levels will go any higher with a Shaw. As you know, continued exposure to cortexiphan can cause serious degradation. I'm going to carry on with the experiment."

Peter wondered if she was talking to herself, but he reacted when she picked up the syringe again and took up the shunt in her other hand. He lunged forward. It was a mistake born of instinct. If he had used his abilities as often as Gabriel, then perhaps he would have reflexively used telekinesis to thwart her instead of putting his body in harm's way. But he hadn't, and so he did.

From her fast reaction, she had expected his motion. She injected him with the compound. He managed to jerk away before she could empty the entire syringe into him, but he was sure that any at all was not a good thing. He jumped back and fell, not familiar enough with Mohinder's crippled body to be agile in it - if such a thing were even possible, given Mohinder's condition. Still, she sat calmly on the stool and watched him, making no other threatening move.

She looked between the amount left in the syringe and Peter. He blinked up at her from the floor, registering that she was doing nothing else at the moment. He stood up uneasily, hoping like hell his regeneration would make short work of whatever that stuff was. He suspected though that anything designed to activate abilities would not be easily stopped by one.

"What is that going to do to me?" he asked.

She smiled slightly. "We're about to find out."

The door between the viewing room and the hall outside opened. Peter backed away from the door that connected the operating theatre to the viewing area and looked through the window to see who it was. Mohinder stood there, staring at him. Peter gave up his disguise, shifting back to his own face. His skin rippled and crawled for far too long and his bones shifted uncomfortably at first, then painfully. He heard the little boy cry out at his alteration, but he couldn't stop it. Peter couldn't force his body to the right shape. He couldn't nullify himself. As far as that went, he wasn't nullifying Tabari either anymore… or Mohinder.

Mohinder was not happy about how he'd been treated earlier. He grabbed Peter by the throat and shoved him against the wall, holding him up off the floor. Peter squirmed, but his abilities weren't his to command anymore. He struggled more to control himself than to get free. Several pieces of equipment in the room began to vibrate. Electricity jumped between Peter's feet and the floor. His hands glowed and flashed erratically.

"Who is he?" Tabari asked calmly.

Through clenched teeth, Mohinder answered, "Peter Petrelli." He grunted as he was mildly electrocuted. "What did you do to him?"

"Peter Petrelli, hm? Oh, just forty or fifty units of adrenocortisol."

"Oh." Mohinder's expression cleared, as if Peter was no longer a threat and everything was explained. He dropped Peter to the floor. Peter's skin crawled again and he shifted rapidly, uncontrollably, through three different people. He grabbed his face, trying to stop it, but his concentration was shattered by his mind flying open. He was barraged with a jumble of thoughts and emotions - terror from the little boy, concerns and fears from Mohinder and a cold, painful mental barrier that held him out of Tabari's mind, but didn't prevent him from crashing against it.

Mohinder was worrying that Peter had picked up a radiation power and thinking that unlike Tabari, he couldn't recover from death. He turned to her and said, "Perhaps I should move him into an isolation room?"

She remained unfazed. "Yes. That's a good idea, but try to keep him calm. It's the stimulation that's setting him off. When his powers wear off, he'll be helpless."

Peter recalled his inability to teleport only a few days before. If the drug caused him to overuse his abilities until he couldn't use them again, then he would truly be helpless - helpless and in their grasp, locked in an isolation room in Riyadh, and no one would know where he was, or even to come looking for him. If it was stimulation that was setting him off, then he was about to get some.

As Mohinder came towards him, Peter surged off the floor in a flying tackle, slamming the other man into the wall. It crashed around him at the impact. Peter staggered back and vanished, finding himself standing in his apartment, looking at Gabriel. He was sitting on Peter's bed, his hands over his face, elbows on knees. He lifted his head at the sound, but Peter was gone again. He flashed through four other familiar places before forcing himself back to the room in Riyadh. Mohinder was on his knees on the floor, holding his ribs with his left hand. His right hung uselessly, as it usually did.

As Peter came back, the room flashed with unbearably bright light. The boy screamed. Mohinder yelled. Tabari made a muffled sound of dismay. Peter fought down the useless brilliance, praying he hadn't blinded the little boy. If he had, it could be fixed. He recovered his sight before any of the others, beginning to feel a deep ache in his head and chest both. He was starting to get overextended. His skin crawled and he deformed into Mohinder again and electricity shot out across the room, from his body, like from a van der Graaf generator.

The boy screamed again. _ If I kill him, that's going to be impossible to fix if I don't have my abilities to get him to Claire. I've got to __**end**__ this._ He reached out with telekinesis in what he intended to be a short, slashing arc targeted on Tabari - something painful and debilitating without necessarily being lethal. He didn't have Gabriel's finesse with the ability and it ended up more as a devastating bludgeoning. He smashed her right into the panel of equipment behind her. Death had to be nearly instantaneous.

Everything loose in the room took flight in a dangerous clatter. Peter himself flew back into the wall, unable to control his flight. Mohinder struggled from where he was and rushed to Tabari's side, checking her. It was futile though - even in his addled state Peter could tell her injuries were incompatible with life. His head was spinning with exhaustion and pain was gripping every part of him. _I've got to get out of here. If I stop here, Mohinder will have me._ The cold, calculating expression the Indian man's face looked like nothing Peter had ever seen on him before. Peter didn't stick around.

He focused what he had on getting back, getting home, and getting somewhere safe. The last time he'd teleported somewhere with such a formless destination, he'd ended up in his apartment. This time he was in Nathan's old bedroom in the Petrelli mansion.

He groaned and fell to his knees, then flew up into the ceiling, taking most of the impact on his back and shoulders. The room blazed with several successive flashes of light and books tumbled from their shelves. The whole structure rattled and for a moment, Peter feared he was going to tear the house down. He felt his features shift one last time and his mind open, then there was emptiness. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.


	138. Bedside Manners

Gabriel rubbed at his face as he sat at Peter's bedside in the Petrelli mansion. Even through regeneration, he was starting to play out and his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. He felt emotionally drained and dead inside. He'd caught a couple hours of fitful sleep Tuesday night. It was now late Thursday.

A lot had happened. Since Peter had teleported out earlier that day, Gabriel had deactivated Peter as an agent and issued an alert for the same. He was not to be cooperated with or aided in any way. He didn't know if it had been the right thing to do. He didn't know if the emotional manipulation had been the right thing to do. A lot of things didn't seem like the right things to do, but he'd done them anyway. He was just so _tired_.

Gabriel had hoped to drive Peter away from the Company and stop his interference. Gabriel told himself it had nothing to do with Peter breaking up with him. It was for Peter's own good - or so he tried to imagine. After all, Peter had become so enraged in Omaha that he put his fist into a concrete wall. He hadn't hurt anyone – he hadn't even really threatened them directly – but they were scared of him and they should be. Gabriel needed to get him away from them before Peter did something he'd regret.

What Gabriel wanted to know was what had happened to him since then. Peter had gone back to his apartment and it had seemed he had stayed there so long after the phone call that Gabriel finally went by. As it turned out, Peter had just abandoned his phone there. Gabriel had wanted another chance to talk. He didn't want it to be over. Instead, he found the phone, unattended. That said a lot to him.

He'd thought he saw Peter once, a flickering shadow of someone becoming real and then vanishing, but he wasn't sure. He wanted to think it was his exhausted imagination, but it reminded him too much of Arthur's peculiar frame-advance teleportation, which was now Peter's ability. Peter had come in, saw Gabriel was there, and left. Gabriel sighed. That had said a lot too, but still here Gabriel was, waiting beside Peter because it was the only thing he _could_ do.

Within minutes of appearing at his apartment, Peter had shown up here, if not in this room, then just down the hall. He'd done a number on it as well, throwing the furniture around as though making a determined effort to wreck the room, slamming himself into the walls, scorching things, and finally collapsing on the floor. Were it not for that last part, Gabriel would have thought it was some bizarre attack on his identity as Nathan. It was Nathan's room he'd been in, after all.

Peter hadn't roused when his mother tried to wake him or even when Michael carried him into the next bedroom, Peter's own. Gabriel only knew this from talking to Angela at length about Peter. She had shared much of what she'd seen of Peter's separation from the Company with him. Most of it wasn't specific, only conceptual, but like Maury, Gabriel agreed to go with it. She had no idea how long it would last – days or months – she couldn't tell. He said nothing of Peter breaking it off with him.

He stared fixedly at Peter. He was alive, at least. Gabriel could hear the delicate music of Peter's body. If Peter were right, what Gabriel was hearing was a form of aura perception, taking the form of sound instead of sight. Peter had always been the "loudest" person he'd ever heard, even louder than Arthur, though with fewer dramatic basso profundo undertones than his father.

But right now, Peter was not loud. He was subdued, no louder than anyone else – maybe even a bit quieter. It worried Gabriel and not a little. As far as Gabriel could tell, Peter still had his abilities. They were just burned out, every one of them. He couldn't imagine why or how that could be. Even the regeneration was overtaxed. Gabriel had gone so far as to test it by putting a small cut on the back of Peter's arm. It had not healed.

Finally, when he began to nod off in his seat, Gabriel picked up his laptop and busied his mind with work. He was thrilled when Peter stirred a half hour later. Gabriel put aside his laptop and leaned forward, waiting silently and patiently. He smiled politely when Peter blinked his eyes open and looked at him. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he was afraid of Peter's anger, guilty at having made Peter a party to murder, apprehensive that Peter would know about Matt. Peter's last words to him on the phone stung him, cut at him and the wounds continued to bleed. Gabriel tried not to show it.

Peter looked at him blankly, then past him and around the room. His lids were heavy, like he was sedated or exhausted. He blinked a few more times and rolled over, settling in. Gabriel watched his back. He knew Peter wasn't asleep – he could hear that in his music, but he could also hear what he suspected was fatigue. Gabriel picked up his computer and waited for a while, thinking. He couldn't force this. He had to let Peter come to him and if he wouldn't, then it really was over. In the meanwhile, Peter needed his rest. Gabriel went back to work and a few minutes later, Peter drifted off to sleep.

Gabriel kept at it until his phone buzzed. It was Heidi, wondering where he was. He took his conversation into the hall outside and decided to go home and see her. Peter might be asleep for hours more, or his powers might kick back in within the next minute and he'd be fine seconds after that. Gabriel didn't know, but his wife wanted him home and Angela had already offered to take the night shift and he was dead on his feet, leaning against the wall even now because standing seemed too much to do.

He went back for his laptop and paused next to the bed. After a long moment, he bent and placed a kiss lightly on Peter's cheek, wondering if it would be the last time he had the opportunity. Peter smiled and moved slightly under the covers. Gabriel sighed and his heart fluttered at that innocent smile. He left before he did something worse than he already had this day.


	139. Angst

Gabriel went home. It was a lonely drive and his thoughts kept turning to Peter telling him he didn't want to be part of his life. He couldn't get away from that, no matter how much he told himself Peter was just having a bad time and maybe things would be different in the morning.

He put away his things, changed clothes and changed his face to Nathan's before getting in bed beside Heidi. He put a hand on her hip, mostly to reassure himself she was really there and he wasn't alone. She reached back muzzily and patted it, then went back to sleep. He joined her.

She rose with the baby some hours later. Since he was awake anyway, he dialed Angela. She answered, "Hello?"

"Hi Ma. Did Pete wake up?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"He left."

"Crap." Gabriel sat up from the bed, whipping the covers off him. Heidi, who was breast feeding from the rocking chair in the corner, watched him. "Did he say anything? Where did he go?"

"There's no change from how he was before. He's angry. I tried to talk with him, but he wouldn't. He's going to take matters into his own hands and I told you what that meant. You must leave him be."

Gabriel sighed, shut his eyes and fell back on the bed. He looked at the phone and hung up, tossing it on the nightstand. For a moment there, he'd had hope. He'd hoped Peter might have changed his mind while he was asleep, or woke up on the right side of the bed, or _something_. He was gone again and it was Gabriel's job to outthink him, out-maneuver him and keep the Company safe from him. If he didn't, then Maury or Angela would do it and neither of them would be as gentle. He didn't want to do it. He pulled the covers up over him and went back to sleep.

XXX

The baby was crying.

He tried to go back to sleep. Surely Heidi would take care of Noah. He didn't want to get up. He didn't want to face the day. He wanted to lose himself. He felt tired - so tired. And depressed. It wasn't too much to ask for the occasional chance to sleep in, was it? Apparently it was.

The baby was crying.

Heidi's voice came through the intercom, saying, "Nathan? Nathan, can you get Noah? I'm making lunch for the boys." He growled and put a pillow over his head. It didn't help. A few seconds later, Heidi's voice came back, concerned, "Nathan? Are you up there?"

He knew if he didn't answer, she'd come rushing up the stairs and there would be hell to pay for him scaring her by not answering. He called out, "Yes! Yes, I've got him." He rolled out of bed, tossing the covers back angrily, a snap of static electricity leaping from his hand and making a small scorch mark on the fabric. He got up and stalked over to the cradle, looming over it.

Noah quieted, looking up at him. Gabriel's nose wrinkled in disgust. He could smell the urine and the faint whiff of stale milk that the baby seemed to have all the time, no matter how thoroughly he was cleaned. His expression was not what little Noah wanted to see. He began wailing again.

The sound was like nails across a chalkboard and all of Gabriel's patience was gone. _Peter left me. He left me. He left me. _Visions flashed behind his eyes of brutal murders, heads cut open, people tortured or toyed with before he finished them, blood on his hands, his face, some of it his own… His eyes fluttered and tried to roll up in his head. He shook with a spasm and shifted from Nathan's guise into Sylar's.

The baby was crying.

It was his baby, but that didn't matter. He looked at it clinically, detached, maybe a little morbidly fascinated. It was so small. He remembered Peter against the wall, Mohinder fixed to the ceiling above, cutting into Peter's head and being perplexed as it healed. The joy at realizing he didn't need the cheerleader - Peter would be enough. _I always thought Peter would be enough. But he left me._ He remembered writing Peter's name down on a legal pad the previous year, trying to figure out how to anchor himself in Nathan's personality. _I knew Peter would keep me from slipping. But he left me._

The baby was crying.

Heidi's voice, querulous, from the monitor: "Nathan?"

"What?" he snapped. It was Gabriel's voice and it was very angry.

"I'm coming up."

He hardly registered her answer. His baby, his wife, his life, his family - did any of it really matter? _Am I done here? Is it over?_ He thought of tracking Peter down and killing him. It wouldn't be too hard - one neutralizer dart and he would be out. He'd promised Peter he wouldn't, but there was no reason to honor that if everything was over.

The baby was crying.

But first, he needed to do something about this noisy creature before Heidi got here and complicated things. She was already on the stairs. He reached into the cradle. Noah wailed even louder. Gabriel started to seize him with far more force than was healthy, but before he even touched the child, he stopped himself. _This is wrong. This is wrong. What am I doing? What am I doing?_ The confused welter of violent thoughts crowded what sanity he had.

The baby was crying.

He still needed to fix that. He picked him up, but gently. The moment his hands touched Noah, there was a snap like static and for a moment he feared he'd electrocuted the infant. The impression wasn't helped by Noah shutting up instantly, like someone had flipped a switch. He held the child before him and then brought him to his chest. A great feeling of warmth and contentment spread through him. All his psychotic thoughts were still there, but it was as if someone had turned down the volume so they were tinny, distant sounds, easily ignored. He shut his eyes and sagged against the crib, holding his son to him.

Heidi was behind him. He wished she'd stayed away longer, but that was an unreasonable wish and he knew it. He didn't get angry about it - not now, not while he had Noah in his arms. A few minutes before, her mere presence where he didn't want her might have been enough to send him over the edge. Now it was just how things were. He carried the baby over to the changing table, but hesitated without putting him down.

_Will I be safe if I'm not holding him? Will I hurt her? Myself?_ He looked back at Heidi and said, "I love you." Her eyes danced between Gabriel and Noah, trying to take in what was happening. Gabriel's mind flashed to a moment when he'd held little Matty Parkman while Matt stood by helpless and tense, terrified that if he provoked Sylar, he'd do something awful to his child. He hadn't, but he remembered relishing Matt's fear and hate.

"I'll change him," she offered, clearly having read that something was very wrong.

"No, let me." After thinking a moment, he added, "Please?"

She nodded, still standing at the ready to interfere.

He put Noah down lifting his hands away slowly. Nothing changed, except the baby began to fuss again. He changed the diaper without difficulty, wiped him clean, refastened his clothes and picked him back up. He turned to face Heidi, who finally relaxed a little and sat on the bed. Gabriel walked aimlessly around the room, rocking the baby, rocking himself. Noah was happier to be dry and content to be held. He made noisy, inarticulate baby sounds.

"He's hungry," Heidi said neutrally.

He probably was. Gabriel answered, "I need to hold him. He's good for me. I need to hold him. Please?" Again he looked to her for permission and again she granted it. He nodded too.

"What happened?" she asked.

He looked over at her. There were all sorts of ways he could answer that without lying; all sorts of interpretations and spins. He knew what she was asking, though. "Peter left me." He watched for her reaction, but she was merely confused.

"What do you mean, he left you?" When Gabriel didn't answer, she said, "He 'left you' left you?"

"Yes, he left me." Gabriel sighed. "As in: he's not with me anymore; he doesn't like me; he doesn't love me; he probably hates me; he doesn't want to be with me; I'm not worthy of him in his eyes; I'm kicked to the curb; he broke up with me; he's done with me. Shall I break out a thesaurus?" He gave her a withering look.

She snorted and couldn't quite stifle a laugh. Gabriel felt a surge of rage at her reaction. It wasn't unexpected. After all, she didn't like Peter much and he was her husband's lover. It was amazing she'd put up with the affair at all. He bowed his head to put his lips on Noah's fuzzy head, trying to find calm, trying to keep everyone in the room alive. Noah's skull still had a soft spot in the middle. It throbbed slightly, reminding Gabriel unkindly of the brain so close beneath the skin. Images of bloodshed and gore flashed behind his eyes. He blinked it away and started pacing again, restless and upset. He heaved a huge sigh and said, his voice catching slightly, "I don't know what I'm going to do without him."

She rolled her eyes in exaggerated dismay. "Oh, _**grow up,**_ Nathan! Quit acting like some angsty teenager!"

He wheeled, his anger crystallizing at being mocked, rising beyond what holding Noah to him could subdue. His mouth dropped open in shock. She didn't look afraid of him at all. He thought she should - she really should. Noah made a complaining squawk.

She spoke before Gabriel could act, saying, "Do you think you're the only one who's been left behind and cast aside like you never really mattered? The only one who's watched the man you loved walk away without so much as a glance behind him?" Just in case Gabriel didn't catch the subtext, she added, "Who knows? Maybe you'll see him some evening on the news, giving an interview about terrorists!"

He shut his mouth, his wrath receding as quickly as it had washed over him. She was talking about what Nathan had done to _her_, simply walking away from their marriage, as thoroughly 'done' with her as he imagined Peter was with him. He wasn't alone. She might not know how much he felt like he was coming apart at the seams, but she knew how much this must have hurt him. He stroked Noah's head, trying vainly to tame the unruly patch at the crown that stubbornly stuck straight up. He gave her a jerky nod and swallowed.

She asked, "Why? Why did he leave you?"

Gabriel kept pacing. Noah made a few squalling noises and hit him on the chest with his tiny fist. Gabriel couldn't help but smile a little and rub his son's back. "Because I'm a murderer."

She blinked. "Why would you say that? It's not true."

"Yes it is," he told her. She was still looking at him in confusion. He growled in frustration. Here he was trying to reveal something important, something that would drive away Heidi like he'd driven away Peter, and her ability to detect lies was fouling it up because of the technicality that Peter hadn't left him for _that_ reason. He elaborated harshly, "**I **_**am**_** a murderer**. I murdered Matt Parkman. I killed him because I could get away with it and I did. You're right: Peter didn't leave me because of that. He left me because I agreed with a Company policy that executed some people who needed to die. Now do you get it?"

"Oh," was all she said. He'd expected her to have more of a reaction than that. He stared at her for a while, but she seemed to think it through a couple times, then looked at him blankly.

"And?" he prompted, since she wasn't saying anything to illuminate her thoughts to him.

"And what?"

"So what are you going to do?" he challenged.

She blinked again. "Um… I don't know. I'm sorry Peter left you?" she offered the last as a question, as if genuinely not sure what Gabriel was looking for.

He stared at her for a moment. Had she seriously just failed to care about the fact that he'd killed people? Not knowing what else to say, he agreed, "All right. Yeah. I'm sorry too." He walked over and sat next to her on the bed. He sagged, wishing Peter was as accepting as Heidi was. Or maybe Heidi just hadn't really processed what he'd said. It probably didn't matter as much to her since she didn't know Matt Parkman. He couldn't leave well enough alone. "Do you just not care?"

"About…? Um, yes, I care. I'm sorry he left you." At Gabriel's cocked head, she added, "I'm… I know he meant a lot to you. You said you loved him."

He looked away. "Yeah. Yeah, I did. I still do." Apparently she didn't give a rat's ass that he'd killed Matt, or anyone else. She was full of surprises. He had this image in his head of her as a nag, quick to berate him for the slightest fault. Maybe she'd been like that with Nathan, but she wasn't with Gabriel. He assumed there was some fundamental difference in how he acted with her.

He also had this image in his mind that she was kind and good-hearted and compassionate, but as he thought about it… she wasn't. She was kind _with him_, she was good _to him_, she had compassion _for him_, but for the greater world beyond she was a realist and very practical. She was tough and determined and greedy… and apparently not above looking the other way for a murder or two. Gabriel wasn't sure what to think of this. He still loved her but… but what this how Peter felt about Gabriel's… tendencies?

"Oh-ahwa!" Noah contributed to the conversation. He hit Gabriel again on the shoulder. Heidi reached over and stroked the baby's arm. "Are you going to beat Daddy up for me?" she cooed at him.

Gabriel wasn't done trying to dig himself a hole though. "Do you know I'm not really Nathan?"

"You've said that before." She made faces at Noah as if what Gabriel was saying wasn't important.

"I know, but I don't know if you understand it. What was I was upset about before Christmas was that… I'm not Nathan. I have his memories and that's it. Not even all of those."

She shrugged. "I know. That's why we're getting married, silly." She gave him a small smile and bumped her shoulder into his.

He huffed. "You're not mad at me for pretending to be him?"

She turned and shifted so she faced him on the bed, drawing up one leg under her. "Do you mean I should be mad that you're not a distant alcoholic who cheated on me indiscriminately, didn't tell me what was going on in his life and who was manic depressive - full of himself one moment and morose the next?"

"Um," he said, feeling distinctly unflattered to count Nathan as a part of himself.

"When did Peter leave you?" she interrogated.

"What?" He failed to follow the sudden shift in topic.

"When did Peter leave you?"

"Um, yesterday."

"And today, really, the first time we've had much of a conversation, you told me about it. Do you see how different that is from how Nathan was? He didn't tell me anything! He didn't tell me he could fly - you told me about your abilities the first day we met. He didn't tell me anything about how he was getting elected - you've answered every question about the Company I bothered to ask. He never told me he thought Peter died at Kirby Plaza; I had to find that out by grilling one of Angela's maids when she wasn't looking - you told me he left you right away. Nathan, I'd be angry if you acted _**more**_ like him, not less!"

"Erm." It occurred to him that after shortly after she'd been told Nathan was dead, she'd slept around with at least one other man. It wasn't like there was any reason why she shouldn't be with a different man. At some point, she'd _chosen_ to be with him. He wondered when that had happened.

"Nathan, I know it's tough for you that Peter walked out on you and I can see it's tearing you up, but you have a family. Look at this little boy. He depends on you. Downstairs are your sons, or if you want to think of it that way, Nathan's sons and you're Gabriel-"

He cut her off. "No. Never. They're _my_ sons. I don't care who their father is."

"Okay," she allowed. "_Your_ sons. Peter's gone. Fine. Maybe he'll come back. He's kind of immature himself. Maybe this is just a phase." Gabriel wanted to object, but Heidi was unwittingly close to what Angela had said of Peter, though Angela had couched it in terms much more complimentary.

She said, "My point is you have people who love you and care about you. You haven't been left _alone_." He knew she was talking again about how Nathan had left her. "I'm here, the kids are here, your weird mother is here - even your horrific father is around where you can go talk to him." She reached out and rubbed his shoulder. "You don't know what you're going to do without him? You just keep doing and keep going on. That's all you can do. It gets easier." She looked away for a moment, then down at his knee. "Don't waste your energy being angry at him. It doesn't help."

He swallowed and leaned in to her, kissing her on the forehead, then the lips for a long, chaste kiss. "Thank you. For talking some sense into me." He was reminded of Maury telling him he shouldn't be alone. He knew he wasn't. He'd hold it together for as long as it took.


	140. Filling Time

A day passed. There was another incident with Peter at the Omaha facility and it was a complete botch-up. When Gabriel read the report, he wanted to kill several more people. He wanted to lay the fiasco at Maury's feet or Angela's, but he knew he was ultimately responsible. He was the one who had given the orders - sloppy, imprecise orders that led the guards to respond violently to what could really only be characterized as Peter's attack on the place.

The only saving grace was that Angela had had Maury teleported over to the facility that afternoon to review cases and release everyone they didn't have a long-term interest in holding. By the time Peter showed up, most of the guards had no idea where to find the child he was seeking. Gabriel had failed to give directions on how Peter should be handled if he entered a facility and as such the guards followed standard protocol. They attempted to subdue Peter in any way possible.

Peter had escaped. Gabriel was relieved. He didn't want to deal with the dilemma of deciding what to do with Peter if they'd caught him. It was easier to let him be free. He wasn't tracking him, though Maury was. Maury had Molly checking his location at intervals. Gabriel had declined to do it and didn't want any part of it. He told himself that if Peter wanted to leave, then he could leave. He'd come back when he came back. It wasn't like Gabriel didn't have enough other things to keep his mind busy.

Of course it was at this particular moment, with Peter missing and Halo in overdrive and specials mucking up reality and the future uncertain, that Simon, his eldest son, decided to act out. He'd discovered girls a few years back but apparently this year, they were consuming his attention. Gabriel and Heidi were discussing boy's schools. Simon was not pleased.

It was enough to try any man's patience. Gabriel understood painfully well how and why Arthur Petrelli had gotten into the habit of ordering people around when mundane persuasion failed. For now at least, Gabriel resisted following the same course. If he'd been more stymied in other fields, more harassed by the Company matters, or more worried about Peter, he wouldn't have had quite so much patience at home.

Reports from Halo were coming in daily. Mohinder had moved off with the majority of his department to pursue his research elsewhere. For the time being, his funding was left in place. It made it straightforward to track him, but all of the directors agreed to leave him be until they decided what to do about Lilith. For the moment, they had few ideas, none of them workable, and a lot of issues with new specials to keep them distracted.

They were back to implementing bag-and-tags, using the radioisotope injection as a tracking system. The satellite wouldn't be up and running for another year, but when it was, they'd be able to pick up on their targets. For shorter term, they were using chip implantation. Since that was detectable and removable, they didn't expect to rely on it for as long as the injection. For most cases, they were using drugs to addle and tranquilize their targets, blurring their memories. The Haitian was working cases, but he persisted in taking them on a freelance basis.

The merger of resources seemed to be going well, though there were still a number of communication issues. On Monday morning, Gabriel had a long teleconference with Fuad and then dropped by Nathan's law office so he could stay apprised of events. He went office to office with his junior partners getting an informal progress report from each. He could hardly expect better since he hadn't even told them he'd be in the office. He scanned their minds for anything noteworthy. Other than two of them lying about their billable hours (and one quite a bit), there was nothing he needed to address immediately. He told his secretary, Madge, to keep track of the one's hours and give him a report in a week.

Madge stopped him before he left and said, "Oh, Mr. Petrelli, a Ms. Coolidge sent an email this morning asking for a consultation with you. She sent one Friday too, but you were out."

"Coolidge? Emma Coolidge?" That was Peter's lover - his _other_ lover. Or perhaps now, his only lover. Gabriel had an entire file of facts about her and her life. He probably knew more about her than Peter did, having paid for an entire investigative operation on her. He'd never met her. Why would she want to talk to him now?

Madge looked at her computer, then said, "Yes, that's right. She didn't leave a number. What should I tell her?"

Gabriel stuck his lower lip out for a moment and waggled his head back and forth. "She's deaf. She only uses her phone for text messages. Email her back right away and tell her I'll meet with her whenever and wherever she wants. Suggest here. After hours are fine too."

Madge's eyebrows rose, her imagination filling in the blanks. Gabriel smiled genially. "She's my brother's fiancée," he said, and he hoped he was exaggerating their relationship. Peter had mentioned once that he might marry her one day, but as far as Gabriel knew, he hadn't proposed. On the other hand, with the degree to which Peter compartmentalized his life, Gabriel wasn't sure he _would_ know.

"Ah," Madge said, but her suspicions were not allayed.

Gabriel snorted softly, but left it alone. "Call me as soon as you have a time with her."


	141. 24 Hours of Nothing

Peter woke with a throbbing pain in his head. He rolled his head at a small noise. It was Gabriel setting aside his laptop. He looked back at Peter carefully. His guarded expression and polite smile reminded Peter of why he'd left in the first place. _Oh yeah, they killed those guys. The Company… Gabriel… killed those guys._ He couldn't bring himself to think much more than that - he was so exhausted.

He was hurt all over, especially inside, which was a weird feeling. Intellectually, he knew he didn't even have much in the way of nerves in some of the places he hurt - but it hurt regardless. Peter glanced around the room. He was in his old bedroom at his mother's house. Even his eyes hurt. _I suppose the regeneration played out too. I didn't know that was possible._

He rolled over, his back facing Gabriel, and pretended to go back to sleep. He didn't want to talk to Gabriel. He wanted to be irritated that the guy was sitting at his bedside, mooning over him, but instead Peter was soothed and pleased by it. He didn't feel like he wanted to feel and that was annoying. It was tough to be mad at someone who was being so sweet and considerate, waiting patiently for him to get better - and Peter wanted to be mad at him.

After a few moments, Gabriel picked up his computer again. A few minutes after that, there was the gentle tap of keys. Peter exhaled and relaxed as he realized Gabriel wasn't even going to press him to talk if he didn't want to. He stopped pretending and really did fall asleep.

When he woke the next time, he was alone. He felt bad about that. _I suppose it serves me right for being a heel and not even saying hello._ His head didn't hurt as much and he no longer felt bone-tired. He still didn't feel well, though. He drug himself downstairs to find his mother awake and sitting at Clarice's station, carrying on a video conference with Ando's wife. Peter tried to recall what her name was… _Kimiko?_ His mother smiled briefly at him and asked Kimiko if she could take a break from the discussion. It had something to do with satellites. Noah had told him once the Company used to own and operate their own satellite.

Peter walked in the kitchen and got himself some juice. His mother came in and started, "Peter-"

He cut her off. "Listen, I don't want to talk. I don't know why I even came here." Not only did he still feel irritable, he was still angry about the executions. The former might pass quickly, but the latter wasn't going away anytime soon.

"You came here because this is your home and we're your family," she said sharply in a no-nonsense tone. She added more gently, "We care about you, Peter." Peter filed away her use of the plural for later review.

"That's nice and all, but you need to care a little more about other people too, Mom. **You** authorized Susan Greer's termination order. You had her _murdered_. Brian Taylor was Maury's call. Have you gotten that little boy I brought in out of that cell yet or is he still in there?"

"It's been less than a day since you left, Peter."

"That-" _I missed work._ He looked at his watch. It wasn't working, having shorted out during the electrical storm he'd generated. Normally, he was insulated from his own abilities, but nothing about that drug-induced manifestation had been 'normal.' He looked at the clock over the stove. It was 3 AM. _Crap. I can't even make the second half of my shift._ He shook his head. Gabriel was right, in a way. His work situation was ridiculous. He finished his juice. What he'd been doing was more important than working as a paramedic. _I need to get a job with more flexible hours. _He leaned against the counter and rocked his forehead against one fist.

_Well, at least I ended Lilith and her plans. Christ. I'm upset about the Company killing people and _**I**_ killed someone. I wonder what Mohinder meant about her being able to overcome death? She wasn't regenerating. She didn't have any time to jump bodies. I killed her too fast and there was too much going on. Anything telepathic would have been disrupted._ After a beat he thought, _I'm probably so upset about them killing people because _**I**_ did, including Phillip. Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better._

He looked up to see his mother regarding him steadily. He looked away from her almost immediately, unable to meet her eyes. They weren't accusing - they were simply knowing and that pained him more than an accusation.

"Come back to us, Peter," she said simply.

"No." He shook his head and stood. "I'm going to go get that little boy out of that cell."

XXX

He went back to his apartment, showered and dressed, remembering belatedly that he'd left his duffel outside Micah and Abigail's flat. His cell phone wasn't on his bed anymore either. He dug around in his dresser, looking for another watch. He was pretty sure he had seen one in this drawer when he'd been packing his duffel. After a moment more searching, he found it and put it on without looking at it, other than to make sure the time was right.

Omaha was a long drive by car, but his abilities were still not working. He assumed they'd come back eventually. From what Maury had said, it would take a day or two. It was possible his mother would have the boy moved before he could get there, since he'd foolishly announced his intentions. He stuck to the plan anyway. Even if she moved him, he was at least out of the cell. Hopefully the Company would take the hint and work something out so he could be released.

Twenty hours later, Peter arrived at an all-night supermarket a few miles away from the Omaha containment facility. He would leave the vehicle parked there and teleport in. His abilities had come back slowly and they still weren't at full power, but he didn't think he'd have too much of a problem for one very short jump in and one very short jump out. That was, unless they'd staged a reception for him and he needed to use more than one jump. As it turned out, clearly they had. He ended up teleporting back to his car, empty-handed and staggered with unexpected exhaustion.

Several different guards had been told different things of the boy's location: he was still in a cell on level 4 with several other neutralized, tranquilized people; he had been transferred to level 5 in preparation for Peter's arrival and an attempted trap; he'd been on level 3 with a room mate, neutralized, but awake; or he'd been transferred to another facility entirely.

All of them believed they'd been told the truth, but the boy was gone and Peter couldn't search the whole place without complications - or collapse. He'd had to endure being shot several times, an attempted gassing and barely evaded being darted twice. He didn't want to hurt the guards and agents who were there doing their jobs, so he just left. Besides, every use of his abilities was not only painful, but debilitating. Maury had been right that if he overtaxed himself to the absolute limit, as apparently the adrenocortisol had done, then it was a slower recovery than just overdoing it a little. Knowing the reason didn't keep it from being very frustrating.

He got a room at the most mom-and-pop, hole-in-the-wall motel he could find. He'd hoped to find one without internet or surveillance and he'd succeeded. He paid cash. He caught a few hours sleep before getting back on the road. When he woke, he still felt hollowed out inside, but the headache was gone. He figured he'd manage.

When he got back to New York, he went by the hospital first. It was a bright, cheery spring morning - a Sunday, unless he missed his guess. Twenty minutes later he was walking out with the contents of his locker. He'd been fired for absenteeism. The flu had passed and Jackson was no longer desperate for paramedics, especially ones with a problematic attendance record who didn't call in when they were going to miss their shift. In a way, Peter was relieved. He went to the diner where he often met Emma, but she didn't show up. Without his cell phone, he couldn't text her. With her deafness and her stubborn refusal to get a phone for the hearing impaired, he couldn't call her either.

He strolled along the street in the sunshine with nowhere to go and nowhere to be. There was no schedule or loved ones ruling his life. It was strangely liberating. He paused outside a shop to exchange pleasantries with a thickly mustachioed man who was opening up his store for the day. Peter looked up to see the sign and an errant breeze blew his hair into his face. He batted it out of his eyes with long habit. The sign read, _'MacGuire's Barber Shop.'_ Peter kept touching those over-long bangs he'd so carefully grown out over the last couple years, since Elle had cut his hair so short. A little while later, he walked out of the barber shop without those bangs. Instead he had a short temple fade, feathered across the top and front.

_A new look. A new life. What to do now?_ After dropping off his things from the hospital at his apartment, he wandered the city, walking, taking cabs and riding the subway. He watched people. It was interesting to do it without a goal in mind, without an agenda clouding his perceptions. His telepathy didn't even intrude, as he'd burned himself out at Omaha, using every bit of his ability to try to find the boy. If he'd had his abilities now, he'd have been more serious about deciding how to put them to good use, but instead he finally had a break. He smiled to himself. _I'm being 'normal', like Claire wanted to be, like Nathan wanted to be._

He shied away from contemplating what Gabriel was up to, or Emma, or his mother or the Company. Instead he thought about the list Claude had said Mohinder had, a list of the people who had newly manifested abilities. The Company didn't have that list. They had to scour news reports, which had become scarce of late, suppressed by the government. Then they had to sift good reports from bad, use Molly to locate people and get a team in place.

Peter had been the heavy among teams this last time. He could teleport directly in, without prep, to deal with people who had dangerous, lethal abilities and the inclination to use them. No other team would rush in like he had, because they'd get chewed up and spat out like Patty had been. Patricia had not been stupid or weak - she was simply overmatched, as nearly all the agents would be. Unless Gabriel himself took the field, which was highly unlikely, the Company had no replacement for Peter.

It occurred to him that although the survival record of his intakes wasn't very good, he **had** managed to capture everyone he was sent after. Other than Philip, which was to some extent self-inflicted, he'd brought them in without a fatality. The Company would not be able to take people as quickly as he had. They'd have to be careful and that would make them slow, which meant if he had the list, he'd be able to get to people first.

He leaned on the railing of the terrace in Central Park, overlooking the statue of the Angel of the Waters. His mother had been particularly fond of the place, telling him it was rich with good memories and memories yet to come. At the time it had just seemed like more of the poetic, vague nonsense she often said. He smiled. A lot of what she said made sense once you knew about her ability. His own abilities were gradually coming back, his awareness of them rising in his mind. Realizing that, he bought a pretzel from a street vendor and headed back to his apartment. He'd get some sleep and the next day, he'd go find Claude.

XXX

_Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, _

_for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are._

_~ Niels Bohr_


	142. The Rain Is Gone

Maury Parkman blinked, getting his bearings in the new location. Rachel had teleported herself and him directly into Claire's living room, right inside the front door. He'd been here before, several times, so the place had been clear enough for him to describe exactly where he wanted to show up. Claire and Anita were waiting for them - Gretchen too, though he hadn't expected her to be here. He swept his mind over the three women, sifting through their surface thoughts as he oriented. For him, it was like walking into a room with everyone talking at the same time. All he had to do was listen.

Gretchen, who looked in at them from the dining room table, where she'd been working at a computer:

_There they are / He's really old / I hope Claire doesn't get into trouble / He might get her into trouble / ((dislike)) / She's still angry / I can help / Who's that woman with him?_

Anita, who stood a step behind Claire, in a position that looked casual, but to Maury was clearly using Claire as a shield:

…_are they who they look like? / Can't really defend against that / ((idle thoughts of pulling her gun and bracing while Claire moved forward to engage them, then Anita picking her shots)) / The mission…_

Claire, who had walked forward close enough for greetings:

…_probably reading my mind right now / is that what that expression means? / something about tilting the head / and Rachel? God, she looks terrible! / What's he been… maybe _they_… been doing to her?_

He smiled slightly and raised his mental defenses, blocking out all but emotionally charged or directly projected thoughts. He said, "Rachel, this is Claire, Anita, and that in there is Gretchen." He nodded to them. "I'm Maury Parkman," (this introduction was mainly for Gretchen's benefit, as he'd only met her once before), "and this is Rachel." His hand had already been on her shoulder for the teleportation. Now he patted it and glanced at her in the course of the introduction. He really hadn't paid attention to what she looked like, but following up on the concern in Claire's thoughts, he looked now.

She was in yesterday's clothes, or maybe the day before and there was a dark stain on her pant leg. She wore no makeup. She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was unwashed and her posture tired. He gave her shoulder a squeeze and projected to her, _How are you doing?_

She didn't bother to answer him directly, instead opening her mind to him and letting him see for himself. Her thoughts jumped around skittishly. He'd noticed that before, but she wasn't the first jumper he'd ridden. Their minds were always a bit hard to pin down. Now her thoughts were tinged with hints of fear, confusion, exhaustion, self-pity and concern. She **was** tired, but she had no intention of admitting that. She wanted to be important. It was her ability that made her important. She knew how vital she was to the Company. She intended to keep working until she was unable to continue. Her resolve on this was great.

He took his hand from her shoulder and made a mental note to watch her for overexertion. Telepathy worked at the speed of thought, much faster than the spoken word. So for Claire, Gretchen and Anita, there was no peculiar lapse as he turned back to them.

Claire waited patiently for him to give orders. Anita did not, saying, "We're ready to head out now. The motion detectors would tend to indicate she went to sleep a half hour ago. I have the floor plan of her apartment." She spoke of the reason for Maury's presence. He intended to use his telepathy to read the thoughts and memories of one Olivia Dunham, a special agent in the employ of the FBI, currently assigned to the Fringe Division. Olivia was finally crashing from her whirlwind schedule for the last week and a half, affording the Company the rare opportunity to sift her mind for valuable information.

"Good," Maury said. "Can I use your restroom first though?"

"Sure," Claire said, giving directions.

"There's no hurry," Maury said over his shoulder as he walked off. Ideally he'd prefer to catch her after an even hour of sleep. She'd be the most disoriented when he woke her, assuming she had a normal sleep cycle. In the bathroom, he took his time. He did his business and snooped through the medicine cabinet, under the sink and looked at the bathing products in the shower. From this he surmised that Gretchen lived here full-time; Anita did not. Anita had a room across the hall, so it was possible she was involved in a non-professional manner and just hadn't bothered to bring over so much as a toothbrush, but he doubted it. She wasn't gay, for one thing.

When he came out, he directed Rachel, "Go on in. Always good to get that out of your system before a mission." Mentally he added, _Take five or ten minutes. Shut your eyes in there. Clear your head. Wash your face._ To the others he said, "Let's have a seat. Show me those floor plans and tell me what's been going on lately. We'll leave in a half hour."

Anita carried most of the report giving duties. She was organized and attentive, with a good memory. These were traits the Company looked for in mundane agents, though they didn't always have the luxury of finding them. Mundane agents tended to carry the lion's share of the paperwork and filing duties. Specials were privileged and got to skip most of the drudgery.

The Fringe group had spent the last week rushing around the US, tracking down specials and assisting with their capture in two cases. They'd assessed the status of four others, already incarcerated, while near Detroit. Maury nodded and listened, but there was the impression he knew much of this. He did, but it didn't mean he knew all of it and it was their information that made things hang together.

When he estimated Olivia had had an hour to sleep, turned to Rachel and told her it was time. He walked over to put his hand on her shoulder as she stood from the couch. Claire and Anita started to join them, but he waved them off. He'd intended to take them with him, but the more people he had Rachel jump, the more it wore her out. She wasn't an unlimited resource and with Peter gone and Faisal just as busy with Halo, he needed to conserve her.

"We're not going with you?" Claire asked.

"No. Less is more. If we're not back in half an hour, don't come try to rescue us. Tell Angela and let her decide what to do next."

In twenty minutes, they were back. He debated whether he should have gone straight home and then called, but ultimately he decided on face-to-face. The mission for Claire and Anita was changing anyway. He'd confirmed that Olivia was an agent of Lilith, receiving instructions from her in the form of visions or waking dreams. It told him of a limit to her ability – she could find people and apparently she could even sense when they gained their power, but she couldn't command them or even speak to them directly. She had to send her messages to a receptive mind and veil it in such a manner as to play on that mind's desires.

He told them of their new mission. "You're going to Detroit tomorrow morning, to pose as technicians for the installation of neutralization devices. You're going to get first-hand experience of the detainment area and if possible, find out the identities and abilities of those already incarcerated. I'll have the specs on the devices sent to you, but essentially it's the same thing we've already trained you on using."

Anita nodded and said, "We'll be taking tranquilizers?" She was trigger-happy as always.

"No," he said, frowning at her. "Let them do all the dirty work. You're technicians. Not shooters. If they have someone uncooperative, you just stand back and let them handle it whatever way they want to." He looked at Claire. "If they get heavy-handed and you want to have some moral qualms about it, go right ahead. Complain. Tell them you'll report abuses if you want, but don't get in so deep they lock you up. I doubt that will happen, but honestly I'd be kind of interested to see how far they'll take it." He paused and gestured at her. "With you."

He turned back to Anita. "Don't get yourself roughed up. Install the stuff, do whatever poking around you can get away with, take pictures, and so on. You know your equipment. If you get separated from Claire, your highest priority is to get out of there alive and let us know everything you can."

Claire leaned back, frowning. He wasn't saying she was expendable or sacrificial, but it sure sounded like it. Anita was to leave her behind because she'd be fine. Claire could handle being roughed up. Despite Anita's butch persona, she was much more fragile.

"Ideally, you'll both go in, both come out, see every inmate they've got, find out names and information and have enough time to get some pictures. If not, that's fine. This is just exploratory at this point."

Gretchen, who had been puttering around in the kitchen, stood at the entrance of that room. Maury stopped talking, creating the pause in the conversation she was waiting for. He already knew what she was going to ask: "Would you like to stay for dinner? I've got ham and beans – kinda sorta homemade."

"It's good," Claire added. "And it's completely homemade." She had some questions for Maury and hadn't worked out how to ask him yet. She didn't want to do it in front of everyone. More time might give her more opportunities.

Maury glanced over at Rachel, who looked receptive to the idea of staying and eating. Personally, he was amused as always to eat pork. Even after all these years, it tickled him. "Sure," he said.

They ate. It _was_ good – the meal was a little awkward, but it was good. Gretchen made constant, nervous small talk with Rachel, who seemed happy enough to talk with her. Maury made the occasional comment, but was otherwise quiet. He wasn't thinking anything deep and profound. It had been a long couple of weeks. Rachel wasn't the only one running on fumes.

Afterwards, he stood up and asked Claire, "Hey, is there a convenience store around here?"

"Yeah," she answered with a slight pause, wondering why he was asking. "There's one down on the corner."

He nodded. "Good. Come on with me and show me where it's at. I want to buy a cigar and get a smoke in while I'm here. Angela's not wild about me smoking in the house."

"Oh." She brightened, seeing her opportunity. "Okay." They headed out. While waiting for the elevator, she said, "Angela?" She was trying to decide if there was any subtext going on there. It was her grandmother, after all.

"Yep." He gave Claire a smug smile that removed all doubt.

"Oh," she said, voice small. She wondered what, if anything, that had to do with the Company, now run by Angela, going after Halo, which she regarded as Arthur's organization. If Maury was reading her mind (which he was), he gave no indication of it. They got on the elevator and rode it to the ground floor in silence. Claire found her nerve failing her.

He let the silence stretch on, making small talk about the neighborhood and allowing long pauses between their exchanges. They walked to the store and after some careful consideration he picked what he wanted. He got a cheap disposable lighter with it. Claire bought a fudgesicle.

But as the walk back loomed before them and she still hadn't asked any of her questions, she pointed at a retaining wall along the sidewalk and said, "Can we sit? I don't want to drip this and… I have… I wanted to ask some questions."

"Sure." _I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever work yourself up to it._

He lit his oversized coffin nail and took his first puff while she unwrapped her fudgesicle and had a seat. "Um… so." She took a deep breath. "What happened to Adam?"

"He died," he said, taking a seat a few feet down from her – a polite distance away. He took several more puffs to get his cigar well stoked.

She huffed. "You know what I _meant_." She was getting tired of the 'I'm not reading your mind' charade.

"Course I did." He smiled at her aggravatingly.

Rather than get angry, she rolled her eyes and sighed, smiling. "Okay. I get it. I'm supposed to say it out loud. Fine. So what did the Company do to him? You had him for years and years, right?"

"Right." He sucked at his teeth for a moment and then said, "We kept him in a cell."

She waited, sucking on her fudgesicle. With another eye roll, she said, "Why?"

"He hit Vicky." He shrugged. "We were all a bit partial to Vicky." He frowned and looked at Claire. She had no idea who he was talking about. "Victoria Pratt?" She shook her head. He sighed. "She was one of the Company Founders." He briefly considered adding a course on Company history to the curriculum. It was definitely needed, if only to counterbalance what the older agents might say.

"Anyway," he went on, "he hit her. And it didn't help that he was in the process of trying to kill nearly everyone on the planet. Ninety-plus percent of the mundanes, at least. We might have been able to handle that - after all, we were still arguing about doing it ourselves - but we couldn't have him beating up our women."

Claire stared at him, unsure how much he was joking, if at all. She cleared her throat a little. "How long was he in the cell?"

"Thirty years. Give or take."

She ogled a little. She hadn't realized just how long he'd been in. "And he never aged…" Just trapped. Alone. "Was he alone?"

"Most of the time, yeah. It was the primary thing used to torture him."

"Torture? Why did you torture him?"

"I didn't."

"But you just said… Okay, why did the _others_ torture him?"

"Because they could. At first it was under the guise of experimentation, then after a few jail break attempts it was under the guise of punishment. Then after that it was under the guise of safety. It wasn't, really. They just wanted to hurt him. He went completely insane after a while. One of my harder cases." He stared at the ground and kicked a pebble, his face impassive and for a moment, eyes seeing nothing but the past.

"What happened?" she asked softly, a morbid fascination driving her thoughts.

"Once I got a connection to him, he recovered really fast. That took quite a while though." He took another long drag on his smoke.

"How long?"

He shrugged. "The time wouldn't mean much to you, considering I spent most of it in his head and Adam's perception of time is expanded. Let's just call it a really long time."

She sat silently for a bit, imagining the sorts of torture he must have undergone. She thought of vivisection and limb removal and painful, cruel experiments until Maury began to laugh. She looked at him quizzically.

"No, no. They got that out of their system all in a month. And anyway, he could handle that. Contrary to what all those fitness gurus say, the body is strong - it's the mind that's weak."

"Then, what did they do him?" She worried that her father was right and one day, everything they'd visited on Adam would be visited on her.

Maury rubbed his forehead. "Claire…" He wanted to tell her that her father was paranoid, but he wasn't. He wanted to tell her that she was unlikely to do things to create the same envy, jealousy, fear and desire for vengeance that Adam had, but she might. He doubted he'd live more than a decade, if that. She would probably survive for centuries, assuming she was careful and lucky. And into all that time, she'd be carrying the advice he might give her tonight.

So instead he said, "Claire, Adam's friends turned against him and him against them. In the end, there was no one who visited him, no one who even cared what happened to him, no one who tried to defend him. The only things he had that mattered to anyone was what he knew - which he wouldn't give us; and his blood - which we _took_ from him. They wanted to go to treating him like a vegetable, strapping him down for the rest of his existence."

Claire blanched and suppressed a shiver at the thought.

He went on, "I argued them out of it and the only reason I did was because I'd agreed with him once about some of his goals. His mistake was living his life so there was no one who gave a shit about him. He thought that pushing everyone away insulated him when they died, as they inevitably do. But that backfired on him." He sighed.

"What… so what happened?"

"I got them all to meet in the middle. I talked Adam into acting like a human being again and not some animal. I talked the others into treating him like an animal and not some inanimate object." He smoked for a bit. "We got a pattern down, sort of a negotiated settlement. He gave us what we wanted and in exchange we'd give him some of the things he wanted."

"He wanted out, didn't he?"

"Of course, but that was never on the menu."

"What was?"

He looked at her, arching a brow. She was still nervous about the prospect that one day the Company would put her in a cell. Her father seemed to think it was inevitable. If it was, she wanted to know what they could possibly offer, other than release, that would matter to a person. She couldn't think of anything.

He snorted at her naiveté. "All kinds of things. A sketch pad and a piece of charcoal. That was his favorite, but he'd always tear up the drawings. He was really talented, so that was too bad. Better food. Better drink – he was really fond of absinthe. Better clothes. Control over the lights in his room. A pack of cards. Books. He never was much of a reader, but we wouldn't give him television or radio, so he made do. Shoes – slippers, really. We wouldn't give him shoes. Not after the boot incident and that wasn't even his boot. And every now and then, we'd give him someone to talk to, in an adjacent cell or standing outside. It was hardly at all, early on. Later on we got clumsy and stupid and lulled. Eventually they put him next to someone who helped him escape."

"That was Peter," she said.

He nodded.

She sighed. "How likely is it I'm going to end up like him?"

"Hm. That you'll end up in a cell at some point – virtually guaranteed. It's just too easy, doesn't hurt you and gives us a lot of options. That you'll end up in there for very long – I don't know. Pretty unlikely." In truth, much depended on her uncle, Peter. Maury was sure Gabriel would follow his constituency, but Peter was an unknown factor. He was perfectly willing to go it alone if his morals required it.

She raised her chin. "What would happen if I left the Company and refused to help?"

He gave her another lingering sideways glance. She wasn't serious, but she was afraid and fear made people do stupid things. "Then we'd negotiate. You have something we want – your blood. We have something _you_ want – not messing with you all the time. I'm sure we'd come to an agreement eventually. And yeah, sticking you in a cell forever and a day would be a lot more of an option if we thought you were going to run away on us."

He could hear her thinking over what Noah had told her, that the Company would eventually take everything from her. She thought about Sylar's comments to her that she'd live forever. It wasn't really within her power to kill everyone who might come after her. At the end of the day, her power made her a victim – someone who could be beaten, shot, stabbed, gassed or poisoned without fear that they'd lose her. They could use any and nearly all methods at their disposal to bring her in and make her cooperate. Even if she didn't feel pain, she would still feel the isolation. Even boredom would become a torture. She sighed heavily.

"Let me know if you're planning on leaving the Company," he said, making it an order. She was inexperienced enough not to notice. At some point, he was sure, she'd learn to throw off his commands and they'd be useless. Regenerators could do that, though it might take her days or decades to figure it out. Gabriel still hadn't, though he had a lot of mental issues that kept him from examining his own mind too closely. He puffed on his cigar and pawed a little deeper into her mind, plucking out what he wanted to know. She noticed that and winced, turning her head.

"Stop it!" she said and he did. She scowled at him resentfully but said nothing. She wasn't really angry. It was sort of like if he'd reached out and started going through her purse. It was inappropriate, but as long as he quit when she slapped his hands away, she wasn't very upset. He'd done it before and he'd do it again. She had no idea how fast he could be in retrieving information.

She sucked the stick of her fudgsicle clean and he entertained a few dirty thoughts. He smiled, stuck his own substitute phallic object in his mouth and puffed on the cigar. He preferred to think of it as a substitute nipple. He pulled it out and regarded it, shook his head and put it back in his mouth, still smiling.

"What is it?" she asked, ignorant of his thoughts.

"It's life. That which gives us life, we cling to until the day we die." Brief flashes went through his mind of the people who had given him life, aside from his parents: Adam showed up twice; Linderman had healed him scores of times; Gabriel and Fatima once each, most recently. And here was Claire. He was sure to use her the same way and cling to her until the day he died for the last time.

She blinked at him, still having no idea what he was talking about.

_Oh well,_ he thought. _Wouldn't be the first time I tried to say something profound and no one understood me._ Out loud, he stood up and said, "Come on. Let's get back before the girls get worried about us."


	143. Paper Trail

Peter showed up outside Abigail's apartment. A quick glance up and down the hall verified that he was alone. He knocked and waited. After a bit, he heard noise inside and saw a flicker of movement at the peephole. Then there were voices and an argument. Finally the door was unlocked and opened by Micah, who was wearing a t-shirt and boxers. Abigail had on a housecoat.

_Huh. I guess they're in a relationship. Bit of an age gap. He's only sixteen. She's got to be five or ten years older than him. Come to think of it, I wonder if that's legal here. It's statutory rape in most parts of the US._ Peter drug his thoughts back to why he'd come here. He didn't think Micah was being abused or taken advantage of. It wasn't his business.

"Can you get in touch with Claude for me? I need to talk to him."

Abigail frowned and said, "Claude doesn't want to talk to _you_."

Micah contradicted her, saying, "Sure." Abigail glared at his back, but if Micah knew, he didn't show it. Peter suspected this was not a relationship that would last, but that, also, wasn't his business.

"Okay," Peter said. "Well, that was it. Have him call… I forgot. I don't have my phone anymore, so-"

"Hang on," Micah interrupted him and wandered off. Abigail continued to glower at Peter. Annoyed by the glare, he walked off down the hall a little to wait.

Micah stuck his head out the door a few minutes later and then padded down the hall to him. Peter met him halfway. Micah handed him a cell phone. Peter was surprised. "Uh, hey, I wasn't asking for-"

"Don't worry," Micah cut him off again. "It doesn't have an account or a phone number. No one can call you. Just keep the battery charged." He handed him a cord.

Peter looked at the phone blankly. "Can I call out on it?" _What's the use of a phone that doesn't work?_

"No. But I can call you - anytime, anywhere. Just text in if you want to talk to me. I'll hear it. And if you need, I can just connect the call to whoever you need to talk to."

"Oh," Peter said. "So you'll call me after you talk to Claude?"

"Exactly."

Peter nodded, understanding a little more how Rebel managed to operate under the Company's radar.

"Now… if that's it," Micah said, "I think you can see we're not exactly morning people."

"Sure," Peter nodded. "Thanks, Micah. You've really helped me, when you didn't need to. I appreciate it."

Micah gave him a stunning smile and laughed. "Hey, that's what heroes do." He went back to the apartment and Peter took his leave. He spent the morning sightseeing in London, people-watching, much as he had the day before in New York. It was relaxing and restorative.

He got the call that evening, as Peter was contemplating whether to go in a disco. It had been ages since he'd been clubbing. His decision was interrupted when the phone began playing the opening for Star Wars, A New Hope, as the ring tone. Peter grinned at Micah's sense of humor, remembering how Maury had said Micah had an obsession with science fiction, including Star Wars. He answered, expecting to hear the young man. Instead it was Claude.

The older man wasted no time getting to the point. "What do you want?"

Peter didn't hesitate to answer in kind. "I want to go get that list from Mohinder and start contacting these people before anyone else gets to them."

"What do you need me for?" Claude's voice remained gruff and demanding.

"I went to Mohinder's lab and I didn't see the list. I need you to show me where it was when you saw it."

Claude was silent. Peter could hear him breathing.

"I'll meet you at the apartment." He hung up abruptly.

Peter nodded and turned away from the club, heading for the alley on the side. When he was unseen, he teleported outside Micah's door, hoping that was the apartment Claude meant. There was a sudden noise very close to his left and Peter brought up his hand without thinking. All was quiet, but he thought he could hear someone breathing. In fact, he could feel the air stirring against his hand. Claude had to be inches from him. He dropped his hand as soon as he realized who it was.

He faced the door and said, "Sorry. Are we going inside?" Peter raised his hand as if to knock.

After a long beat, Claude said, "No." His voice confirmed he was as close as Peter thought he was. "Are you ready to go now?"

Peter nodded and gave Claude's direction a brief look. "You'll either need to tell me exactly where it is, with coordinates, show me the address on a map, or let me read it in your mind."

"You have telepathy too?" Claude sounded anxious.

Peter nodded. He looked away and exhaled.

Claude said, "Well, since I don't have the coordinates…" Peter had a strange sensation that made his skin prickle along his shoulder, then there was a knock at the door. Peter furrowed his brow.

A minute later Micah answered, fully dressed this time. "What's up?" Peter was left to assume Claude had reached past him to knock.

Peter said, "I think we need a map of Riyadh."

"Oh," Micah said. "I can pull one up on the internet. Is that good enough?"

"That's great," Peter said.

A few moments later, Micah had the map displayed on a big, flat-screen monitor that was prominent in the living room. Claude morphed into visibility, which didn't even warrant a look from Micah. The older man pointed at a spot on the screen. "It's… this neighborhood." Micah enlarged it, flipped back and forth between satellite and street views, discussed landmarks with Claude and finally they were pretty sure they had the right place. Claude had found it by tailing Mohinder, so he didn't have a proper address. He was certain he could find it again on the street, but the map wasn't the same.

Peter studied it and talked to Claude about the layout. When he thought he knew where he was going precisely enough to land them inside the apartment, he said, "Okay. I've got it. Do you want to go now?"

Claude shrugged. "You're the one calling the shots."

Peter gave him a careful look, making sure Claude was on board with this. "Is everything okay?" Peter glanced over at Micah, who had flopped down on the couch and was eating corn chips. He looked unconcerned.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Claude answered cagily.

Peter eyed him, glad he could see Claude's expression. The other man rolled his eyes and said, "The last time we spent any amount of time together, you were a bomb that could go off at any moment, entirely outside your control. Now you're still a bomb that can go off at any moment, but you're entirely under your _own_ control. Pardon me if I don't find the latter to be more comforting than the former."

Peter couldn't think of anything to say to that. It wasn't so much that Claude didn't trust him – it was that Claude didn't trust _anyone_. That he was willing to go along with Peter on this said a lot, but Peter suspected it said more about his desire to protect Rebel than to help him. Peter nodded and reached for him, saying, "Okay, let's go."

Claude jumped away. "Don't you touch me!"

Peter stepped back and put his hands down. "I can't teleport you without touching you." _He should know that._

"Well… yes." Claude edged closer to Peter until he was within reach. "All right." Claude continued to watch him like a hawk. "I'm ready."

Peter reached out slowly and touched the other man's coat. Then they were in Mohinder's apartment. Claude stepped away from him immediately and vanished. Peter hesitated, but apparently that was all Claude was doing – getting away from him. It was kind of depressing to be treated like a monster, or at least like a potential threat. He wondered how often Gabriel got that kind of treatment.

Peter looked around, but the apartment was empty at the moment. It featured all the usual signs of inhabitation – clothes on the floor, dishes next to the sink, papers and books strewn about. There was a large table in the living room covered with papers. Most of them featured chemical formulae, but there were also stacks of paper with what Peter guessed to be DNA code printed on them in sequence. He lifted one to find it was the continuous roll, zig-zag, old-style printer paper. Some sections of code were circled with notes next to them, usually just more chemical names.

There was a desk crammed under a window, also littered with papers, next to a set of shelves stacked with notebooks. After shuffling the papers on the desk, Claude was now pulling the notebooks out and looking in them one after another. It was unsettling to watch them move on their own, then vanish as he took them entirely off the shelf. Peter figured Claude would tell him when he found something, so he went back to checking what was on the table.

Peter glanced over at Claude again and delved into the memories locked in the table. Mohinder had owned it for several months, but no more. During that time, he'd fallen asleep sitting at it dozens of times, worked tirelessly, and hit it several times in frustration. No one else was ever in the apartment with him. He was incredibly devoted to his work. Peter thought he looked lonely and driven.

Peter wondered why Mohinder's infirmity had never been healed. He'd been working with Halo. Fatima's ability should have made short work of fixing his maiming. Instead, he'd been left crippled. Fatima did not strike Peter as the sort of person who would refuse to help. She'd healed Maury when clearly he was the enemy. She'd done the same for both Peter and Arthur. It made no sense that Mohinder would be so damaged, while clearly being so important to Halo's, and Arthur's, plans.

He let his fingers trail along the edge of the table and walked over to the tiny counter in the kitchen. Sitting near the wall were four photographs. Three were framed, but one was just leaning against the wall. One showed Mohinder and his parents, apparently at his graduation. Another was of Mohinder's mother with his sister Shanti. Both were dressed in formal red and gold dresses. Shanti had her head against her mother's hip like she was tired, but her expression was happy. A third picture showed his mother and father when they were young. It was a black and white, staged studio photo. Chandra was already going bald.

The last was dog-eared and wasn't framed. It was the only one where Peter recognized everyone in it. It showed Mohinder standing next to a picnic table, with Matt Parkman sitting, holding a burger. Molly was standing next to Matt, beaming, with an ice cream cone in her hand. Mohinder was laughing in the picture.

Peter picked it up and pulled a series of memories from it: Mohinder crying on the couch, holding the photo; Dr. Tabari pulling it out of a drawer in a lab and looking at it before replacing it; Mohinder showing it to Arthur Petrelli in a posh office, throwing it on the desk and looking stricken; Mohinder sitting at the bar where Peter was standing, staring across the counter at it with an expression of longing and confusion. Swallowing at the intensity, Peter set it down, leaning it back against the wall. The ability gave him intimate glimpses of people's lives, of scenes they wouldn't have shared with him knowingly.

He realized the place was silent – the notebooks weren't moving on their own anymore. He felt his skin prickle as goose-flesh erupted. He could even feel a tiny warmth from Claude's presence next to him. It was too close, but Claude had a different idea of body space than most people. He ran into them and shoved people around constantly when he was unseen – and he generally got away with it. Peter said, "Please stop being invisible."

"Why, do you miss me when you can't see me?" As he'd surmised, Claude was right next to him.

Peter could hear the grin in Claude's voice. He answered, "No, I'm concerned about the opposite. If I can't see you, I might run into you. Since you don't want me touching you…"

He heard Claude shift away a few feet and then he saw him as well. Peter turned back to the pictures and said, "Did you know Mohinder?"

Claude opened the refrigerator and helped himself to a purple soda. He scowled at the label. "Naw. After my time."

Peter nodded, still looking at the photos. "Did you know Chandra?"

"Naw. Before my time." He took a swig out of the soda and looked pleasantly surprised at the taste.

Peter looked back at him. "Before your time? He died in 2006."

"Naw. Well, yeah, I suppose he did, but that wasn't what I meant. The Company took his memories in '86 or '87, or at least they tried to. Everything he knew about specials – erased right out of him. Or so they say. I think I was in training at the time."

Peter nodded. "Then the man Mohinder grew up with, the one he knew as his father for the last 20 years..."

Claude regarded Peter silently for a moment. "Not all there. Might have something to do with Mohinder working against them, you think?" Claude's expression told Peter that was exactly what _he_ thought was motivating him.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Peter agreed. "He said, back at Coyote Sands, that he was going to look into his father's research. I'm thinking maybe he found out what the Company did to him." After a pause he said, "Why _did_ they do that to him?"

"Probably just to be mean." Claude downed the rest of the stolen soda and stuffed the empty bottle in the pocket of his grimy trench coat. He continued, "No, really Chandra was working with this Lilith bird."

Peter cocked his head, thinking back to the Activating Evolution book. He'd read it cover to cover several times, trying to figure out what Chandra was trying to say in it. Every reading had made things a little clearer. Everything Claude had said of Lilith's intentions matched what was in the book, though Peter hadn't thought of things from that angle. Chandra had presented the evolution of special abilities as something that arose due to the mere progress of humanity, not the manipulations of an outside agent.

Peter asked, "If he had his memories wiped, then how did he write the book, Activating Evolution? I don't recall when it was written exactly, but I think it was… 2004 or 2005. It was about people with abilities."

Claude shrugged. "No idea. As I said, after my time."

Peter and Claude stood in the kitchen, looking at each other for a moment. Claude turned and looked at one of the cabinets, obviously mulling over the idea of ransacking the place for something to eat. Peter interrupted before Claude got started, saying, "Did you see any sign of the list?"

"Oh yeah," Claude said, opening one side of his trench coat to reveal a rolled up set of papers in a deep pocket. "First thing I found. It was right on top of his desk. It's missing a few pages though. Don't know why." He closed his coat and snagged a package of bread off the counter, pulling out a slice.

"First thing you found?" Peter shifted his weight, annoyed that Claude had found it and said nothing. He was also annoyed by the man's persistent, almost compulsive theft. Noah had told him once that he always ordered two meals whenever he and Claude were on assignment because Claude wouldn't order for himself, but he would sit across from him and eat half his food (or all of it, if Noah only ordered for one). "Okay. What about the genealogy you said was here last time?"

Claude wandered over to the table, stuffing his face on the way. He looked it over and said, around the bread, "Not here."

"What do you mean? It's not here right now, or it wasn't here to start with?"

Claude swallowed, finished with his impromptu snack. "Not here now. Must have took it someplace. All we need is the list."

Peter nodded and walked over to him. "Ready to go back?"

Claude nodded back and this time he wasn't so paranoid he watched Peter reach out to him. Peter felt a little easing in his chest at that.


	144. Gone Rogue

Peter and Claude returned to find that Peter was no longer alone in his mission. Micah had heard Peter's exchange with Claude on his cell phone, made some (correct) assumptions about Peter's intentions, and gathered his team. Now Rebel stood ready to help out in foiling the Company - or at least that was how they saw it. Peter decided not to tell them that the Company would likely be thrilled to have another agency making first contacts and minimizing the damage people with newly minted abilities might do.

They stood around the dining room table, eating chips with cheese dip and discussing their options. Micah threw a map of the world up on the TV and populated it with the locations of the people on the list. Most of them were located in clusters - New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas were the three most prominent in the United States. There were others in India, China, several in and around Germany and one in England. To Peter's surprise, despite Halo's existence, there wasn't much of a population of specials in the Middle East. In fact, all the Middle Eastern members on the list were already employees of Halo.

What was left of the list was one hundred names on each of three pages and seventy-six names on a fourth page. He believed, from the tabs of paper left at the top of the page, under the staple holding them together, that there had been three other pages, now missing. A number of names were marked off. A few had question marks, asterisks or other marks next to them. A few had abilities written next to them, but that was rare. Most had a numerical code off to the side. Claude opined that this was a generational or family marker, saying he'd seen the same on the family trees Mohinder had had before.

It didn't matter. They had six hundred and seventy-six people to save, with three hundred and seventy-six named, as well as 24 children. They'd start with the ones they could find.

"What we need is a base," West said. "Somewhere we can operate out of and store our stuff between missions."

Abigail contributed, "It needs to be close to one of these clusters and we can start with those people first."

"I can teleport," Peter said, "so the distance doesn't really matter."

West shook his head. "And I can fly. But you still have to allow for how everyone else gets around when you're not right there."

Micah said, "I just ran a subroutine, calculating distances and number of specials. The most central places for us to be are Frankfurt, New York and Las Vegas."

Sparrow said, "We've already disrupted the Company here on the continent. Even if they find people here, they can't lock them up. Unless they've built a new facility since last fall?"

She looked at Peter, who frowned. "By the way, what happened in Italy is **not** happening again. No more tearing down buildings with people in them, no more letting people with abilities loose without knowing what they can do and what they intend to do."

Sparrow looked confused. "There wasn't anyone left. I waited until everyone was out."

From over on the couch, Claude explained, "What he means, Sparrow, is the agents."

"Drones," Abigail said with disgust. "They don't count."

Peter stared at her. Noah Bennet was not a drone. Patricia Pennington was not a drone. Harvey Etheridge was not a drone. Neither were dozens of other agents he knew personally. He exhaled and said quietly, in a voice that made more of an impression than if he'd raised it, "Yes, they do. They're human beings, whether they have abilities or not. Killing them is murder. It's wrong. I'm not going to be party to it."

Micah smiled smugly, then turned away and busied himself dipping his chip in the cheese. West sighed, crossed his arms and looked at the two women. It was clear to Peter who was in agreement with him and who was not.

Sparrow shrugged and said, "Listen, we've had this stupid argument a dozen times. No one's going to change their minds, so let's do what we agreed to do. We stay away from targets we don't all agree on."

West nodded and picked up the list. "Okay, then that means we'll stay away from Company facilities altogether."

Abigail frowned and said nothing. Sparrow shrugged again and said, "I'm best against buildings, but whatever."

Peter said, "We're not going after the Company. We're going after _people_." He pointed at the list in West's hands. "We're going after _those_ people and those kids Mohinder was experimenting on."

West nodded and said, "Then we're back to the start of needing a base - somewhere for people to go, somewhere to take them if they need a place to hide."

Sparrow said, "What I was getting at earlier, is that the Company doesn't have anywhere to put specials here in Europe. So we might as well put ourselves in the US, where they still have a half dozen places and they have their claws into the government so much they can get away with almost anything."

Peter said, "I agree with you. The US is probably best. But this is **not** about thwarting the Company. It's about helping people. That's what's important to me. That's what I want to do."

"You don't want to stop the Company?" Abigail looked confused.

Peter rolled his eyes in exasperation. "No! Listen, yeah, they make mistakes, but they're trying! We all make mistakes." It felt surreal to be defending the very group he'd left only a few days before. But in doing so, his anger at them was slipping away. Peter had never been good at holding grudges. What he **was** good at was giving people another chance.

"They're '_trying?'_" Abigail said. "You've got no idea what they're trying to do! They're a bunch of manipulative, old psychos!"

Peter opened his mouth to reply and then shut it. Claude laughed from the couch, perfectly aware that Abigail was talking about Peter's mother and the man who was, if not Peter's brother, then at least was someone Peter was comfortable to have pose as such. Abigail knew his mother was on the board, and she probably thought his brother was, but she wasn't thinking of what the relationships meant.

After Peter thought he was in control of his tongue again, he said, "I've sat in on their board meetings. I know exactly who's running the Company and I have a really good idea of what they're trying to achieve."

Claude said, "I think you should listen to him on this one, sweet. He knows what he's talking about better than any of us."

Peter glanced at him gratefully and went back to looking at the rest of Rebel.

West asked quietly, "What do they want, then?"

Peter sighed. "They want to save the world. All of it. All of us. Specials and mundanes alike." Abigail was shaking her head energetically in denial. Peter went on anyway, "They don't always do it right - they make mistakes just like anyone. And some of them have lost their humanity over the years and they see people just like some of you do - like certain people don't count, like they're drones, like they deserve to die." Abigail had stopped and was listening to him as Peter used her own words against her. "They're just like you." Peter gave a lop-sided, wry grin. "We're all just a bunch of manipulative, crazy people trying to help each other out. This isn't about fighting with the Company. It's about helping people. Let's stay focused."

"Las Vegas," Micah said.

"What?" West looked at him, confused.

Micah answered, "That's where we should set up our base. I like Las Vegas. I think we should get a bar or a club."

"Why?" Abigail asked.

"No, that's a great idea," Sparrow said. "We need somewhere that a lot of different people can go in and out of without making people think it's a drug house or something."

"And it'll have food," West offered. When all the others looked at him, he shrugged and stuck a chip in his mouth, mumbling around it, "Just saying."

Abigail turned to Micah and asked, "Can you take care of all the electronic stuff to get us a place?"

He nodded. "I think so, but at some point we'll have to talk to people." He looked at Peter and said, "It's not stealing. I just put numbers in an account."

Peter frowned and sighed. He'd already agreed inside, but he felt he needed to point out the fallacy anyway. "Someone, somewhere has to cough up the money for those numbers eventually."

Micah's expression told Peter the young man had already figured that out. "Yeah… well… So it comes out of the bank's profit margin. If it makes you feel better, I'll do transfers that lead it back to an insurance or a credit card company."

Peter smiled. "Yeah, that would make me feel better." Despite an awareness of the economics of it, he was still amused at the thought of sticking it to a corporation in that category (or the shareholders of same).

"Okay," Micah said eagerly, realizing he'd won Peter over. "So you can handle the talking-to-people part? You have an ability for talking people into things?"

Peter rocked his head back and forth in an ambiguous gesture. "Yeah, sort of. It'll do." He could deliver orders with telepathy, which had the same effect, even if the mechanism was different.

"All right then," Abigail said. "We have a plan. Get a place, get organized, start contacting these people and introducing them to their new abilities. Let's get some sleep. We'll start in the morning."

They nodded and broke apart. Micah asked Peter, "Hey, you want to surf the couch?"

Peter shook his head. "No, no. I… I have a place." He was pretty sure the Company was tracking him. If they weren't, then they could and they'd be able to until Molly refused. As long as Maury could get to her, Peter doubted she'd be able to disobey the telepath. If he stayed here for hours, they might go ahead and set up a raid. If he went back to his apartment, the only person who'd be at risk was himself.


	145. The Other Woman

**A/N: The character in this story referred to as Nathan is Gabriel. He looks like Nathan, he's posing as Nathan and Emma's never met him as Gabriel. So for the purposes of this chapter, I'll stick with calling him Nathan.**

Emma had no idea where to find Gabriel Grey, but Nathan Petrelli had a law firm. Peter had mentioned it before. When Peter didn't show up for work on Thursday, she didn't know he was missing. When he skipped Friday too and hadn't even called in, a few of his friends at the hospital asked around. Hesam made the effort to track Emma down and ask her about Peter, using a lot of unnecessary hand gestures. His method was irritating, but she was alarmed by the implication of what he was asking. When Peter didn't answer her text, she became frightened.

This **was** Peter they were talking about. When Peter went missing from work, it was usually serious. She tried to remember the last thing they'd talked about, other than the fight about Gabriel. He'd said something about a man who could make diseases. What if he'd infected Peter with something worse than the flu everyone had had?

She'd walked out after the argument, but it didn't mean she didn't care about him. He'd checked on her and taken care of her when she was sick. The least she could do was make sure he was still alive. She didn't get an answer from the Petrelli & Partners law office on Friday (well, she did get one, but it only told her that Nathan was out of the office), so she had all weekend to worry.

She went by Peter's apartment. There was no answer. She texted him several more times. There was no response. Finally on Monday after her second email, the law office said Nathan would meet with her immediately if she wished, wherever she wanted. If anything could scare her more, that did.

And so it was that when she arrived at the Petrelli & Partners offices, she wasn't in the best frame of mind. She was ushered into Nathan's office, one wall of which featured big windows overlooking the street from three floors up. Another wall was lined with darkly stained shelves of law books, most of which were leather-bound with gold lettering. The third wall had cabinets below and shelves above, with a small counter on top. Two red leather, overstuffed chairs sat in front of the immaculate desk. The whole room was tidy and professional. A skeleton clock with a dinner-plate sized face hung on the last wall, next to the door, its gearing and the progress of the mechanisms clearly visible.

Emma swallowed nervously, a little taken aback by the enforced opulence of the place. Nathan himself was dressed in a suit more expensive than her entire wardrobe. He stood next to the desk, gazing at her intently. He was a good-looking man, to say the least, and easily as intimidating as the room. She knew he had multiple abilities, but she had no way of knowing he was reading her mind.

As she looked at him, she was struck by the urge to slap him or claw his eyes out or something else equally useless and undignified. She stood up a little taller and pressed her lips together, facing the man Peter had said he loved. At least, she supposed, Peter hadn't left her for someone for whom she couldn't see the attraction. Surprise chased across Nathan's otherwise impassive face. Emma was good at reading expressions, which came with the territory when you're deaf and interact regularly with the hearing world. She wasn't sure why he was surprised, now, rather than when she'd come in.

She opened her mouth and looked around the room briefly, then back at Nathan. "All I want is to know if Peter is okay." She was worried he was sick or injured or having some problem. Surely Nathan would know.

Nathan's brows drew together slightly. He gestured at one of the chairs and offered, "Could you sit down?"

She shook her head angrily and huffed. "Is he alright?"

"I… Emma… Peter is okay, I think. He left me last week." Nathan hesitated, watching her, listening to her mental confusion at that. She'd assumed Peter had left her for Gabriel. He'd told her he loved him. Nathan said carefully, "I'm sure he feels very strongly about you."

"I walked out on him," Emma said suddenly. "What do you mean, you _think_ he is okay? You aren't sure?"

Again, Nathan gestured to the chair. He said nothing. With an exasperated sigh, Emma sat. Nathan stepped behind his desk and settled into his black leather executive chair, sinking into it as carefully as though he thought he might need to stand at any moment. He said, "I'm not watching him. I don't think he would want me to. But I know some people who are and if there… if he died, or they knew there was a problem with him, I'm sure they'd tell me."

She thought that was all she had wanted to know and she really should go now. Curiosity nagged at her though. There were so many unanswered questions. She blurted one out. "Why did he leave you?" _After he was so adamant that you deserved another chance? After he said the only reason you weren't a killer anymore was because he loved you?_

Nathan's face looked pained suddenly. He looked away and blinked, then back to her. "He left me because… I disappointed him. I… am not the person he wants me to be." Nathan swallowed and looked away again. He reached up and brushed his nose with his finger, then touched his chin and finally put his hand down. He nervously adjusted the position of a pen.

Emma read the motions correctly as signals of apprehension and distress. She took a deep breath. She'd left Peter and that had made it easier for her. Peter had left **him**, which probably made it harder. That he'd parted ways with _both_ of them seemed very out of character for him. He'd also left his job and wasn't at his apartment… so what had happened to him? "Why did he leave at all? Where did he go?"

Nathan answered much more quickly. He was more comfortable talking about this. "The Company was doing things he didn't agree with. Some of the people with special abilities, the ones who were murderers, who were provably violent and couldn't be neutralized, were killed. Peter… He became upset about that."

"Like the man who made the diseases?" Her mind flashed through the conversation she'd had with Peter.

Nathan's brows twitched. "No… I… don't think I know about that one. Do you have a name or a place?"

She shook her head, thinking about how angry Peter had become when she had told him the man deserved to die for the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people he had inconvenienced and endangered. "That's why we argued," she said. "About how when people do certain things, they deserve to die." She raised her chin and eyed him coolly. _Like __**you**__._

Nathan nodded slowly, casting his eyes down briefly.

She thought about Peter's stance in the argument. It would be satisfying to find out Peter was alone in holding that view. "So you agree? Dangerous murderers should be killed?" _Like __**you**__._ "What the Company is doing is right?"

"_**I**_…" Nathan took a deep breath and pushed it out. "_**I**_ tried to _kill_ Sylar. I gave my _life_ trying to stop him. It's nice to think that even dead I managed to get the bastard. _Of course_ I think they should be killed."

Her mouth fell open slightly. That was… **not** how she'd seen things here. She'd thought she was dealing with Sylar, shape-shifted to look like Nathan. Peter had told her over and over that his brother Nathan was an integral part of him and that he wasn't really Sylar anymore, but she hadn't believed it. She hadn't thought of his situation from Nathan's point of view. It was bizarre… almost gruesome, to be trapped in the body of the man you died to kill.

"Peter doesn't see it that way," Nathan said softly. He looked to the side, but not so much that she couldn't clearly see his lips. "And that's okay."

"Where is he now?" she asked.

"I told you. I don't know. I'm not going to follow him. I told him that - if he wanted out, that was fine. He was out and I wouldn't follow him." His expression was tense, as if he was conflicted about it.

"What if he was hurt, or sick? Would you know then? Would the people you have watching him see that?"

Nathan spoke with a little too much of his teeth showing, conveying his anger. She couldn't hear it in his tone as well. "I don't have them watching him. I was asked to watch him, to supervise that, and I refused. I just know there are people doing it. They don't report to me." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. He started to speak, then put his hand down so she could see his face and started again, saying, "I don't think they'd know. They're probably just monitoring his location. They'd know if he died. When was the last time you saw him?"

"Thursday morning." Nathan nodded and she asked, "When was the last time _you_ saw him?"

"That afternoon. No. No, that evening. He showed up at his mother's place. He was…" He looked at Emma for a long moment, considering what to say to her. Finally he went on, "He had lost his abilities temporarily. I don't know how or why. He woke up once and wouldn't talk to me. His mother said he woke up later that night and left."

What Nathan said alarmed her. "He might not have his abilities?"

"He had them back just a few days later – at least some of them."

"Some of them? What if he gets into trouble and he can't heal? Maybe he's hurt somewhere and can't get himself back to somewhere safe!" She gestured signs with her words, forgetting herself in her worry.

Nathan looked down and said nothing. Emma stood up abruptly and leaned over the desk. "You **must** find out if he is okay!"

"I won't." He blinked up at her. "I told him I wouldn't. It's not what he'd want."

In exasperation, she signed something crude about what Peter wanted. Nathan's eyes followed the motions and a hint of a smile touched his lips. Mistakenly, she thought he must understand sign language. The mental projection of her meaning was easily clear enough for him to follow. She said, "I don't care what he wants. I want to know he's safe. I **have** to know he's safe. Tell me where he is."

"I don't know." His voice was firm and steady, his expression unwavering.

"Then tell me who does."

Nathan pulled his head back a little and tilted it slightly. "Emma. A very powerful and sometimes bad man is in charge of keeping track of Peter. He can read minds and he doesn't respond well to people who are upset. I don't think it would be wise of you to seek him out."

"Who is he?"

Nathan gazed at her for a long moment, but her determination was unfaltering. She wasn't going to drop it. If Nathan wouldn't help her, then she'd go to Peter's creepy mother and if that didn't work, she'd think of something else. When she didn't back down, he relented. "I'll talk to him for you. What is it you want to know?"

"I want to know exactly where Peter is and if he's okay."

Nathan nodded. "I'll find out." He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. After little while, the phone was apparently answered. Nathan said into it, "Yes. I need to know where Peter is, right now, and if you know anything about his condition. … No. … I know. This isn't for me. … Think what you want. There's nothing going on – I just need to know. Are you going to find out, or shall I go around you? … Of course. Good bye." He hung up and set the phone down on his desk. To Emma he said, "I should have the information within a few minutes."

Emma sat back down and fiddled with the edge of her skirt. When she looked back up, Nathan asked, "Would you like something to drink? Water, liquor, soda, juice?"

She gave him a long look and said, "Something strong."

"As you wish." He left briefly and came back with chipped ice. He turned to her, holding up a bottle he had retrieved out of the cabinet and asked, "Amaretto on the rocks okay?" She nodded and he poured generously. She took a deep drink of it.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

He smiled, but it was false, not reaching his eyes. He sat down with a glass of brandy and raised it in a toast. "To our absent lover."

She giggled and this time his smile was genuine. He drank and said, "Sometimes I wish I could still get drunk."

"You can't?"

"Nope. Regeneration prevents it. Well, I suppose if I drink enough on an empty stomach, I could get a buzz, but it's not worth it."

She took another drink and felt the subtle effects of the strong liquor. She said despondently, "I don't understand why Peter would leave both of us."

Nathan took another drink and watched the contents of his glass instead of her face. "He feels betrayed."

"But why? He's talked about the Company before. He enjoyed working with that man and he knew it was always possible at least with that man, that he might shoot someone. Peter said they'd argued about it, but he still worked with him." She meant Noah Bennet, but the name slipped her mind. She'd never actually met him and Peter didn't talk very much with her about his Company work.

Nathan sighed and pushed his glass aside. "Peter was attacked last week by a man who could manipulate emotions. He made Peter feel like he was betrayed."

Emma blinked at him.

"And… I tried to get that man to reverse it. He said it couldn't really be done. All we could do was to let time pass and…" Nathan touched his chin again, then his jaw before picking up his glass. "…and let real emotions overwrite it. I didn't wait. I was worried about what he might _do_. I tried to _make_ him trust me, but now he just feels manipulated. He has to find out he wasn't really betrayed. He has to find out he can really trust me… us…. And that his emotions are genuine."

"That's why you won't track him down?"

He nodded. "Yeah," he said with a bitter expression. He finished his drink. "That, and I told him I wouldn't. He left me. If he's going to come back, **he** has to do it."

"That's immature," she said, her tongue loosened somewhat by the drink.

He smiled at her. "Yeah. But there it is."

The phone buzzed and he picked it up. He pulled out a notepad from a drawer and wrote something down. He talked a little more, but much of the time the phone was in front of his mouth and Emma's read of his words was garbled. She wondered if that was intentional, given how careful he'd been previously in the conversation. He hung up and handed her the notepad wordlessly.

On it was an address in London, England, along with the note that at 8 am that morning, just five hours earlier, he'd been in New York, at his apartment. "Why is he in London?" she asked, not expecting an answer.

Nathan said, "The more important thing to notice is that it takes longer than five hours to get from his apartment, through airport security, across the ocean on a transatlantic flight, through customs and out of the London airport to wherever he is now. However, if he can teleport, then it all makes sense. He has his abilities back. I think he's safe."

"He's not even in America anymore," she said, still confused about what was going on in Peter's life that would send him running around the globe.

"No. The Company's enemies are in London." He chewed on his lip briefly. "I was told by someone who can see the future that he's going to turn on the Company and work against us."

Her expression sobered. "What will the Company do to him?"

"Nothing, if I can help it, which I can. All three of the senior directors are in accord that we're going to let him do what he wants. We'll try to minimize his interference with our operations and leave it at that."

She frowned. "Why didn't he take his phone with him?"

"I don't know. It's not like we can't track him by other means and he knows that. But he was upset at the time. Maybe he forgot. Or maybe he just got tired of me calling him." Nathan's face was depressed at that.

She finished her drink and set the glass down on the desk. Her eyes looked for a coaster, but she saw none. Nathan raised his hand and flexed his fingers. The glass rose and gracefully journeyed through the air to the counter, where it settled on a coaster she hadn't noticed.

She stood. "Thank you." She started to leave, then hesitated for a long moment. She turned back to him and said, "You know, Thursday morning, he told me he loved you."

"You know, a couple weeks ago he told me he was thinking about asking you to marry him." Emma felt a jolt of adrenaline pass through her. She blinked suddenly and her breathing sped up. She hadn't known that. They'd been separated a few weeks ago, or at least fighting. But of course that hadn't kept Peter from showing up on her doorstep when she was sick, like nothing was wrong between them. Clearly he wanted to get back together with her. She hadn't realized he was that serious about it though.

Nathan smiled and it was genuine, if faint. He waved his hand vaguely in the air. "He knew there was a lot of stuff coming up - the eclipse and the fallout afterwards. I'm sure he was going to wait until after to ask." Nathan leaned forward and said, "He probably still will, when he gets back."

She looked over his face uncertainly. "Marry **me**? But he loves _you_."

"He loves you _too_, Emma. It's not like I'm not married. I love my wife very much." His eyes went off to the side for a moment, then back. "And I love Peter." He shrugged. "That's just how it is. No one ever complains that parents aren't able to love more than one child. My mother always told Peter and me that we were both her favorites. It was the truth."

She gripped the back of the chair tensely, thinking about her uncle's (father's?) free-love attitude and reckless lifestyle. "No," she said, her voice catching. She thought of Peter's confession of incest. "No. Peter can't be that way."

Nathan shook his head. "Peter is the way he is and that's not… that's almost certainly not the way you're thinking of him. You **know** Peter. You know how much he cares about the people he loves and what lengths he'll go to in order to protect them and keep them safe." He leaned forward, very intent on her. "Don't confuse Peter with other people in your life. He's not a user. He's not a taker. He **gives** of himself more than anyone I've ever met."

She swallowed, alternately tightening her grip on the chair and relaxing it. "He can't be with both of us!" she said finally.

Nathan leaned back and tilted his head, lifting his brows expressively. "He already has been. He hasn't loved me, or you, any less for it."

She blinked at the truth, feeling tears beginning to well up. The room seemed to close in on her. Nathan stood quickly and walked around the desk to her, opening his arms to make clear his intention to hug her. She looked at the door.

When she looked back at Nathan, he said, "He still loves you, Emma. No matter what you do."

She shut her eyes and turned to him. He hugged her, rocking back and forth slightly. She couldn't figure out where to put her hands, uncomfortable with embracing him. She finally put them on his hips and looked at his face. He smoothed his hands up and down her back and said softly, "A friend of mine told me once that Peter was 'inhumanly forgiving'. Thank God he was right, or he'd have never had me. You're a much better person, Emma. He'll come back to you. You'll see."

Emma couldn't think of what to say to that, so she put her head down on his shoulder so she couldn't see what else he might say. After a little while, she pulled away and wiped at her eyes, accepting Nathan's handkerchief for a moment before giving it back. She smiled weakly at him and shook her head, then turned to the door and walked out.


	146. Angela's Musings

**A/N: Angela, thought process, musings after lunch. Tuesday, March 15, 2011. For reference, Gabriel met with Emma on the 14****th**** ("The Other Woman"), the same day Claire talked with Maury in "The Rain is Gone".**

I've found hope again. My dreams of the future aren't so dark these recent days. The old dreams have dimmed and faded, warping like a photograph thrown into fire. They seem like nothing more than passing fancies, like actual dreams, instead of the visions. My new visions have children and families in them and even though sometimes there's death and blood, it's immediate and visceral, not like the endless devastation I used to see. A few people dead is something I can live with. A little pain, a little suffering – it's horrible no matter who it happens to, but if I can make it so it only happens to a few people instead of all – then I can sleep soundly, when I do sleep.

Lately I've been laying in bed watching Maury Parkman sleep. It's funny. He sleeps very differently than Arthur. Arthur slept on his side, knees drawn up and arms folded in, one hand between his knees, naked, facing away from me. Nathan slept the same way, though Heidi once complained that he would turn to face her no matter which side of the bed she was on. This only bothered her when he drank, because then he snored and if he was drinking she was already angry at him.

Peter slept in a way I always thought of as more normal, but that's probably just my point of view since it's closer to my own: stretched out, either face up and touching whoever is near with a foot or a hand, or turned on my side facing them. Maury sleeps in a sprawl and he doesn't like me touching him at all. I know why, of course, at least for the touching. It's because of his ability. He can't block as well, or at all, when he sleeps, and so I face him and watch. His dreams are interesting. I try to stay awake for them because it's much easier to process that way. He's laid bare in them. He knows I see him this way, but it hardly matters. He's a fool for me and it's been so long since anyone was. I like it.

And so I've found hope. I'd like to lock it up in a box and keep it for later because I know how easily things can change. Even now we ride on the precipice of Peter and Gabriel's precognitive abilities. I've spoken to Gabriel and he won't be using his, despite Arthur encouraging him to do so. It's nice that he listens to me – Nathan never did. I've explained what I've seen and he's told me his own glimpses. He didn't care for them and hearing that the future has changed has made him averse to risk. So he'll refrain from using his ability. That's the easiest way to preserve things, but when you do it that way you don't know if one of the others might do something to change it. I have to keep watch, as I always have. Let Gabriel and Peter be innocent a bit longer. But not for much longer.

It's funny to think of those two as innocent, but they are, the darlings. Both of them have their hands stained in blood - Gabriel from killing, Peter from saving - but neither of them really know what they're doing or why. They're starting to and I'm glad of that. I'd like to see them as truly understanding the world around them, during my lifetime. The future needs to be protected.

The future hasn't turned out anything like what we'd planned. (I say 'we', but there's hardly any of us left.) All the more fools we for thinking our powers would reach so far as to allow us to craft reality itself to our design. I am reminded of a cartoon I saw recently, where a couple of ants were discussing their efforts at exploration. One was reporting back to the other that it had completed a thorough survey of the kitchen floor and now had proof they were alone in the universe. I don't know if we're alone or not, but I suspect our abilities do not make us much more than particularly strong ants, in the grand scheme of things.

By now in the original plan, Nathan would have been president with Peter at his side. Peter's abilities would have been vast, but he was mainly defensive. It was Sylar who was the weapon, expendable, obedient and loyal. Oh yes, it might seem amusing to some to think that a killer like him would have those traits, but we saw it even then. He was never insane - or at least no more insane than anyone else would be, subjected to the same pressures. I never expected him to murder my son, though.

But then I never expected _Peter_ to kill Nathan either. He nearly did twice over (and a third if you count botching the job on Sylar's body, which I don't), though that stunt at Kirby Plaza was Nathan's own fault. I was so angry at him after that. There was so much that I could not tell him, precisely because of what he had done. Had he stuck to the plan, I would have told him everything. But he didn't. Headstrong and more heart than brains! I miss my son. I truly do. I've known from the start that they would be part of this, with all the dangers inherent in that. I knew, and I made myself cold and harsh and distant because that's what I had to be. It was a price that had to be paid. But oh, what a price it was!

I try not to wonder what would have happened if we'd tried something different. There's no use going down that road. After Kirby Plaza, we had to make new plans – there was only Daniel and I working on it then - and we did. There were always new plans and old ones resurrected as the timeline would adjust and hiccup and find the path again. We knew the Company would come down to one before it was reborn. That was foretold. And it was known too that Nathan would lead us, just as Peter would save us and Gabriel and Claire would make it all possible.

One would think by now that I would be used to Fate's twisted sense of humor.

The current plan is to groom Gabriel for the role we had imagined Nathan to fill. Peter will find his own path, but as long as those he loves are with us, then so too will be Peter. He will follow his heart, as always. Claire less so and we must keep her to hand with more attention. Her ability is life itself. The new directors will pave the way towards an organization that will monitor and police specials while otherwise allowing them the same freedom according to anyone else who is powerful, whether that power comes of money or talent or fame. No one is truly free.

It will probably be years before the Company evolves into that which we have seen and it remains possible that reality will tip one way or the other. I have dreamed so many horrors - worlds where disease had killed so many, or where we had turned against our fellow man and instituted slavery of the lowest sort, worlds where natural disasters wrecked the planet or ones where war was unceasing. That we have muddled along in a sense of normalcy is the result of great effort, though I doubt many see it. We have teetered on the brink more than once. I have hope that we may never come as close as we already have.

That makes it all worth it - the hope, that feeling that there may yet be something worth smiling about, that my children and grandchildren will see me as something other than a monster, that they might someday understand why it was necessary. The true measure of whether a cost is worth bearing is what you get out of it. We were willing to mortgage our souls for the future we wanted and we have paid dearly to get it. The point of a mortgage though, is that after you have made all the payments with interest, you have the thing you mortgaged and you own it outright. I think my payoff date might be nearing.


	147. Psych Report

Maury addressed Noah after the meeting. "Do you still have the file for Gabriel Gray?"

"Yes."

"Put this in it." Maury handed him a single sheet of paper with text on it. Noah nodded and slipped it into his papers. Later, at home, he'd pull it out and read through it carefully:

March 15, 2011

At the request of the chairwoman, a psychological analysis was carried out on subject Gabriel Grey to update for recent events. See also Documents 5281, 5765 and 7120 and case files Gray, Gabriel and Petrelli, Nathan.

Recent events

Capture of Halo - Subject proved he can follow a plan, obey orders and maintain an unusual presence of mind during stress and violence. Subject also showed he can negotiate in good faith and is capable of diplomacy, tact and subterfuge.

Changes to the board of directors - Care should be taken that the subject does not regard the new directors as threats or challenges. He has been introduced as a senior director and given a mentorship position over those who seemed of the most subordinate personality types. He should not be paired with dominant personalities.

Termination of relationship with Peter Petrelli - This will have a strong impact on him, much more than to be expected for the end of an intimate relationship. Daily contact must be maintained with a trained counselor, preferably an hour or more. Heidi Petrelli has been contacted and given direction on maintenance. If signs of a breakdown are detected, he is to be neutralized and brought in, despite the irreversible issues this will cause. It has been predicted that the relationship with Peter Petrelli will be renewed. Much of the rest of this report is written with that expectation.

Triggers for Manipulation

Under baseline conditions, use an intellectual approach; promise power, authority and control; adopt a subordinate stance; and reiterate your desire to be loyal and obedient to him if he would only choose your desired option. Avoid threats; dominant behavior; jokes or sarcasm; emotional arguments (he is indifferent to people being emotional during arguments, but reacts negatively when people try to play on his own emotions); and appeals based on parentage or his uniqueness/specialness (both of these latter conditions have gained strong negative associations). Be very careful with flattery or overt manipulation - best not to use either.

Under times of emotional stress or provocation, adopt a subservient, submissive posture; emphasize your helplessness; beg if necessary. If you feel your life is in imminent danger, total surrender is a more reliable survival mechanism than fleeing.

Reacts strongly and inappropriately to threats to anything he is emotionally involved with (in order of decreasing strength): Peter Petrelli; Heidi Petrelli; Noah, Monty, and Simon; the Company; Angela Petrelli; Claire Bennet; Noah Bennet. Responses may be irrational, immediate and violent; exhibiting poor or nonexistent planning; and may include self-destructive acts.

Mental control or intrusive mental contact evokes anxiety and fear responses. Strong enough stimulus can cause panic attacks with full physical symptoms.

The Hunger compulsion is largely controlled, but it still exists. Given that a target's helplessness generates a conflicting signal of protectiveness, successful induction would require a defiant, rebellious target who is free to assault him physically. There also needs to be a persuasive utilitarian purpose to the ability gained.

Warnings

Subject's violent tendencies should not be underestimated. He will readily kill whenever the situation calls for it. He has a lethal, immediate ability as well as the ability to dispose of bodies.

Has made multiple suicide attempts and demonstrated a variety of self-destructive behaviors. During any time of high emotional stress, he should be monitored constantly, supported, and not left alone. He is not independent enough to resolve his own issues.

May deliberately encourage abuse from loved ones.

Pathologies

Subject continues to exhibit a strong, near-classic Stockholm syndrome directed towards Peter Petrelli, whom he regards as his captor. To those who objected to my previous diagnosis of Stockholm syndrome, I would remind them that it only manifests in situations where the captor demonstrates kindness to the hostage and where the hostage believes an emotional bond has been formed. The subject continues to perceive himself as in a hostage situation. If Peter strays from the role of captor, the subject may exhibit violent tendencies towards him. Peter seems unaware of the role he serves in the subject's life.

Subject suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with triggering conditions of mental contact. In summer of 2010, stress response was observed at merely witnessing mental control of others. In the fall of 2010, this was relaxed until only being personally targeted by mental contact evoked a stress response. Over the winter of 2010 and early 2011, subject could participate in mental contact with a controlled stress response (this mainly due to work performed by Peter Petrelli in the interest of resolving thought disorder psychosis brought on by fulfillment of the Hunger compulsion). He has denied having anxiety attacks related to this. When pressed about his denial, he had an anxiety attack.

Subject has codependency characterized by low self-esteem and excessive compliance, including complete sexual compliance against primary orientation.

Subject has dissociative amnesia and thought disorder psychosis relating to all incidents of power absorption since the integration of Nathan Petrelli's memories.

Subject has rape trauma syndrome stemming from mental disintegration by Matthew Parkman. This includes complete amnesia of the event itself and incomplete recall of events leading up to it. Last coherent memories before the incident are of Peter Petrelli comforting him while he was Nathan at Mercy Heights Hospital. First coherent memories following the incident are of Peter Petrelli comforting him at the Sullivan Brothers Carnival. Primary coping mechanism was the adoption of a different persona (Nathan Petrelli), with subject believing the responsible parties would not repeat their assault on the new persona. As the subject became more secure in his relationships and the emotional bonds forged therewith, he discarded this persona. Secondary coping mechanism is seeking comfort from Peter Petrelli.

Therapies

Aversion - The subject has been given aversion therapy to respect the boundaries of others. This was a trait the subject did not have prior to the mental disintegration, having become accustomed to using his abilities for casual wish fulfillment. He exhibited similar inappropriate, boundary-less behavior erratically after the disintegration, demonstrated by repeated house-breaking and stalking behaviors. Although he responded well, it is difficult to arrange treatments that are safe to all participants. This has been discontinued at the present time.

Exposure - The subject has been repetitively exposed to surface level mental communication. This has seen a steadily decreasing stress response. Encouragement has been given to Peter Petrelli to engage the subject mentally and Noah Bennet reports this has happened to a limited degree. If mental contact were to be reinforced with positive experiences, such as sexual activity, recovery would be faster.

Directed recall - Incidents of power absorption can be reclaimed and integrated by drawing the memories to the surface and providing context through the mind of a telepath. Care must be taken to allow post-integration emotional processing in a safe environment (without processing, the reaction will probably be violent and/or self-destructive). The incidents of Paul Washington and Claire Bennet have been addressed in this manner. I have avoided addressing Matthew Parkman for fear I will be unable to maintain professional conduct.

Sexual orientation has been skewed from a primary heterosexual outlook to include bisexual tendencies due to the integration of Nathan Petrelli's memories. Subject suffers cognitive dissonance: greater for masculine males, less for effeminate ones. Sexual arousal follows standard heterosexual gender roles. Gender identity of Peter Petrelli has been rekeyed as female to facilitate healthy sexual expression in that relationship.

General notes

Subject is not a sociopath. He is a serial killer. This is an important distinction. He has nearly all symptoms of a serial killer; almost none of being a sociopath. He is frequently mischaracterized as being a sociopath.

Serial killers are characterized by: social withdrawal, abnormal dependences on one's mother or ulcerated relations with one's parents, delusions of grandeur, severe depression, a general feeling of emptiness as to the future, inability to take criticism, feelings of persecution, inability to assert one's self, parental taunts as to one's inability to be sufficient, mood disorders, and a general failing in attempts to succeed.

Sociopaths are characterized by: the lack of a conscience, the manipulation of others, pathological lying, cruelty, shallow emotions, and the inability to love and/or have lasting and profound personal relations.

While he is violent in both public and private contexts, I see no indication that he is abusive. Peter Petrelli has admitted to multiple violent sexual interactions, but is tolerant of it and so I see no need to interfere with what is an otherwise functional relationship. Heidi Petrelli admits to being severely physically abusive on at least one occasion; this situation is being monitored. Both partners (Heidi and Peter) seem well-adjusted to the subject's needs and the converse appears true as well. His ability to form enduring, positive relationships should not be impeded. They are the key to his stability and serve to counter-act his pathologies.

Masochistic. Is not intimidated by the prospect of experiencing physical pain. Has been witnessed to inflict harm on himself as a coping mechanism, including cutting, burning and electroshock. Given regeneration, there is no reason to treat. To "hurt" him, pain must be administered swiftly, in great measures and intentionally so that he knows the infliction of pain and damage was the primary goal. The shock to his system will override his desire to feel the sensation of pain. The knowledge that someone wanted to hurt him will have more of an impact.

Enjoys playing roles and exploring different behavior patterns, but only when he feels secure that such experimentation is safe. He performed these activities extensively under the persona of Sylar, but has been too inhibited since the mental disintegration to do it again.

Worst fears are emotional isolation, loss of loved ones, and powerlessness

Greatest desires are emotional security, an opportunity to use his powers, and to be a leader

Personality profile

No formal testing has been performed using standard instruments. Classifications listed below are from observation.

INTJ - Introvert, Intuition, Thinking, Judging – (The following excerpt is taken from the Myers-Briggs Personality Profile. Emphasis mine.) INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an **unusual independence of mind**, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake ... INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and **disregard for authority** may come into play ... **Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel** ... This happens in part because many INTJs **do not readily grasp the social rituals** ... Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense.

Kiersey personality sorter: Mastermind

DiSC - (in order of importance) high D (determined, ambitious, aggressive), high C (cautious, exacting, systematic), low/moderate S (deliberate, stable, consistent), low I (warm, demonstrative, trusting)

IQ – Native, unaltered IQ is 130-140. Augmented with Intuitive Aptitude it ranges from 140-160, depending on subject matter.

Noah leaned back and rubbed his eyes, then picked the paper back up. _Five different pathologies. Five. Just as crazy as he always was._ He read through them again. _Nothing about the father-figure fixation. Nothing about the conditioning. _ He sighed. _The personality profile at least looks normal._ He snorted at "Mastermind" though he knew that was what it was really called. He looked back at the pathologies.

_Nothing about the memory integration itself. Just that… no, there was something..._ He scanned through the rest. _Ah, there it is. 'Bisexual tendencies due to the integration.' But nothing about percent recall or what Gabriel makes of having two sets of memories, or whether he views himself as mainly Nathan or mainly Sylar. Nothing about identity disorder, except this bit here about role playing. Which is bunk, because he switches faces at least once a day. He's not inhibited about it. He's just careful._

_Which brings me to this other part._ He looked at the passage comparing serial killers to sociopaths. _I don't get why he doesn't think he's a sociopath. He has no conscience and he manipulates people constantly. Everything he does is calculated. This whole human act of his is just an act. Isn't it?_ Noah thought about how ridiculously grateful he'd felt after Gabriel had removed the commands Noah had had to enforce loyalty to the Company, but then how he'd been smashed down to reality when Maury had implied Gabriel had raped Claire. It had reminded him, forcibly, of who he was dealing with. He remembered the emotionally charged discussion he'd overheard between Gabriel and Peter, discussing that Gabriel had raped Peter.

He also remembered sitting in the park listening to Gabriel confess that he'd killed Matt Parkman. He'd been struck at the time that Gabriel hadn't sounded sorry he'd done it, only sorry that it was going to cause him trouble in other parts of his life. And that was really the issue, why Noah thought he was a sociopath when Maury didn't. Because Gabriel didn't act like he had any remorse over hurting people – just dismay over the repercussions.

He put the paper down again and leaned back, looking at the ceiling. _ I would have expected Peter to leave him over what he'd done, but I don't think Peter _knows_. I think he just left because of the terminations… which was a little overblown, even for Peter, but I can see it given his morals._ He briefly entertained the thought of tracking Peter down and telling him about Matt Parkman's murder, just to make sure the prediction about Peter and Gabriel getting back together didn't come to pass. But he'd promised he wouldn't. He'd promised Gabriel, which stung, but he'd said it of his own free will and there was no way he was going to go back on that.

Gabriel wasn't just angry and thwarted that Peter had rejected him. Instead, Maury at least thought he was suicidal and needed to be watched carefully. A sociopath would never hurt themselves unless it was for show. They didn't do anything for anyone, unless it benefitted them.

He sighed again. Noah Bennet didn't like letting go of his illusions any more than anyone else. He remembered Gabriel feeding a bird while they'd sat together in the park. There'd been no reason to do it except maybe a moment of unexpected altruism. Just like what Noah had initially thought had provoked the removal of the mental control. Later he'd realized that by doing so, Gabriel had gained his loyalty more surely than by any number of commands and it had made him doubt Gabriel's motivations.

He read through the report again. It was doing a lot to change his mind. _Maybe he is just a killer. Maybe he's just like me._


	148. All Obstacles In My Way

**A/N: This would be happening on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, the same day Maury Parkman handed Noah Bennet the document in Psych Report, two days after Peter's adventures of Paper Trail and Going Rogue.**

Claire sat down in a chair next to Maury Parkman, in the new Pinehearst facility in New Jersey. They would have the grand opening in a week, purporting to be four years to the day since it had burned down. This morning they had a special advance celebration for Company members. Claire wore her new Pinehearst pin and a cheery nametag that identified her. She'd been bothered to see Sylar among the keynote speakers addressing the assembled employees and discussing their future.

"I want some answers," she said without preamble. Maury looked up from his notepad and blinked at her. She thought, _I know you're reading my mind. I know you're the one who's been behind them taking my blood. Maybe you're using it to keep yourself alive. Maybe you're using it on whoever. I don't care. But if you want to keep access to it without me doing my best to make it difficult, then you're going to answer me._

"What do you want to know?" he asked mildly, his expression neutral enough that she wasn't sure if he'd listened to her thoughts.

"I want to know why Peter is with Sy… Gabriel. Or Sylar. Whoever." _I know this was all one big plot. It had to be. You don't have to tell me what's going on or why, but I have to know why it had to involve Peter banging the man who killed his brother. Because that's just sick. It doesn't make any sense at all and it's been eating me up. Is he mind-controlled? What the hell?_

"Well, this isn't the sort of conversation I'm going to have in public. Could you go shut the door there, babe?"

She tightened her lips at being called 'babe,' but went and shut the door. She stood facing it for a moment, concerned that she was closed in with a powerful telepath who had already proven he could take her over whenever he pleased. She'd threatened him. It was possible she'd even threatened his life, kind of unintentionally, depending on what use he was putting her blood to. Well… it wasn't like she hadn't walked into that hotel room at the Stanton with Sylar, knowing full well what he was. One thing about Maury - he wasn't worse.

She walked back to her seat and sunk into it, not showing fear or trepidation. She didn't even feel it much. Maury rubbed his hands together slowly and pivoted his chair to face her. He reached out his hands, elbows on the armrests of his seat. He raised his brows slightly in invitation. She took a slow, deep breath and slipped her hands into his. They were warm and dry.

Her perception of reality flickered just a bit, like a bad film.

"Careful now," he said. "Just relax and this will be easier."

She tugged her hands out of his and looked around, a small line forming between her brows. "What…? This isn't… this isn't real." She stood up and moved her hand through the air. It didn't feel quite right, like she wasn't feeling her arm move. Like it wasn't moving at all.

With a sudden jerk through her whole body, her hands were back in Maury's and she was sitting facing him again. She blinked, but she didn't pull her hands back. She took another deep breath and looked around. "Is this… is this like that movie that came out last summer with Leonardo DeCaprio where I can't tell if I'm in a dream or not?"

He smiled and started chortling, putting his head down for a moment until the laughter subsided. "Yes, that's it exactly, but I brought you back awake because I don't want to fight with you over it. You're strong – a lot stronger than most - and there's no reason for you to resist this. I'm going to give you want you want and then you're going to give me what _**I**_ want. So there's no reason for me to trick you here. Understand?"

She nodded.

"Alright," he said. "I'm going to make an illusion inside your head. It's an artificial reality, like a dream. I'm going to control most of the elements. You could control some too if you knew how, but like I said, we're going to give each other what we want so we might as well cooperate. It's advisable for most people to close their eyes, otherwise they dry out. But you can do what you want. We'll be able to talk there without anyone overhearing us."

Claire nodded and closed her eyes. It was only for a second though, because Maury slipped his hands out of hers and leaned back. She looked around. Nothing had happened. "What?" she asked. "Am I doing it wrong?"

"No, you're doing fine. Do you think we're in reality, or the dream?"

She looked around. She moved her arm again. She chewed her lip. It hurt, just a little, and it shouldn't. "This is a dream."

"You're sure?"

Her lip didn't hurt anymore. She smiled. He was adjusting the projection to match her thoughts, but his adjustments weren't quite fast enough. She had to notice the discrepancy before he could fix it. "Yes, I'm sure." She stood up and walked around the room. "I could do anything here?"

"Yes," he said calmly.

"It's like your own private holodeck," she said, though her thoughts were a bit more explicit and embarrassing. _Too bad it's Maury Parkman._

She glanced over at him and it was Peter Petrelli, with his shirt hanging open and an easy, welcoming smile on his face, hair dangling over one eye. She jumped. "_Don't you dare!_" she hissed at him.

He laughed and morphed into Sylar on one of his best days. "Is this more to your liking?"

"I… **NO!**" She tried to think of a gun or a knife or even a rock to put in her hand so she could hurt him. Or at least pretend to hurt him. The dream wasn't cooperative; her hands remained empty.

Sylar shrugged with exaggerated affectation. "What's the problem? It's not like it's incest in here and you can get your rocks off with Sylar without having to deal with any consequences." He leaned forward. "You could even have _both_ of them if you wanted."

"It's… wrong! You'd be getting off to it."

He rolled his eyes, looking so annoyingly superior as Sylar. "Less than you might imagine, actually." Peter walked in the door, a duplicate of the version that had been sitting in the chair before. He stood behind Sylar and put his hands on his shoulders, kneading gently with a smug, self-satisfied look that didn't belong anywhere near her uncle's face. Sylar relaxed into the touch and said, "Don't try to tell me that a certain degree of frustrated sexual interest isn't behind your outrage at our relationship."

She choked and spun, staring out the window. In the reflection of the glass, she saw Peter dip down and Sylar's chair turn a little. They kissed. She watched with fascination, but she ground out, "I thought you were straight."

Sylar paused in licking Peter's pouty bottom lip, letting his eyes jump to hers. The reflection had become quite clear, like a mirror. She could see everything she might want to see. "I am." He pulled Peter back to his mouth and her uncle made a plaintive mewling sound that went right to the center of her sex.

"Stop it! Alright! Stop!" She turned, bringing her attention to that split second delay between her perceptions and his overlay. She was never going to be able to look at Peter again without hearing that noise. Good God, she wasn't going to be able to masturbate without thinking about it!

Peter vanished like smoke and for an instant she thought she'd accomplished that herself. Then Maury was back to himself and leaning forward at the table, elbows on it, face serious. "Okay. It's okay. I won't tease you like that unless you want me to. You have my word."

She hesitated, because for some reason he seemed unusually sincere in that promise. In the dream reality she was in, it seemed more binding than anything else. She took a deep breath and purged her mind. She sat at the table opposite him. "Okay. What I want to know… and seriously, not some porno-flick stuff or psychobabble… I want to know, seriously, what Peter sees in Gabriel, or Sylar. Why the hell are they together?"

He steepled his hands. "Because you're concerned someone made them get together? You're afraid Peter needs to be rescued from the cruel sexual slavery Gabriel is holding him in?" His tone was only half-mocking.

She frowned and swallowed, but answered, "Yes."

He tipped his head to her. "Commendable. You've been thinking, and caring, more than most. No one other than you and your father has given a shit. Which is ironic, given the havoc either of those two could cause if they didn't have anyone who cared for them. Well… Angela cared, but it's her son. As it so happens, I just recently finished a review of the subject for her, an update, since she's been keeping enough of an eye on the situation to know when to interfere and when not to. She's known for years, by the way."

"Years? What?" Claire's mind stuttered. There was no way Peter and Sylar had had a relationship going back further than… was it? There had certainly been weird vibes between them at times and she'd always wondered why one of them didn't track down and finish off the other. Then there was that whole thing where Angela and Arthur tricked Sylar into thinking he was their son… and Peter had been so sure Sylar had saved his life there at Pinehearst, for no reason at all, really.

"No, Peter and Nathan," Maury clarified. She stared at him disbelievingly. If anything, the idea of Peter and Nathan _'together'_ was even harder to comprehend than Peter and Sylar. "Yes," he said with a soft sigh. "Your father and your uncle had a sexual relationship for many years."

He waited for her to digest that. It took a while. It was almost impossible to reconcile with the wholesome, heroic figure Peter cut and the complicated, human persona of Nathan. Normal people didn't do that sort of thing with their family members. Surely only mouth-breathing basement dwellers did that – not people who were, as far as she could tell, mentally and emotionally healthy in all other ways.

"Why… but… really?" Her voice rose to an embarrassing squeak at the end.

"Really." He watched her steadily. "I'm not saying it's normal, but it's not as rare as you think and there's certainly no correlation between it and being insane or socially dysfunctional. No more than there is for any other expression of sexual preference."

When she clearly still didn't believe him, he extended a hand to the side and Peter appeared in the middle of the table, sitting cross-legged in nothing but swim trunks, speckled with water like he'd just come from a pool. She gasped for a lot of different reasons. Maury dismissed the illusion. "That's your father's brother, remember? He's related to you."

"I didn't know he was my uncle when we first met!" she insisted.

"You know he is now, right?"

"Well…" She shifted uncomfortably. "When did you see him like that, anyway?"

"I didn't. It's an image from _your_ imagination."

She ground her teeth. "I wish…" _I wish you didn't know these things about me! God, I hate telepaths!_

He chuckled.

"Okay," she snapped. "You made your point. Whatever. So they did… whatever." She took a deep breath and put that aside. It didn't mean she necessarily believed it. "Is… But… Sylar _killed_ Nathan. I just don't get it. That's even _more_ reason why Peter wouldn't be with him!"

"Well," Maury said, turning towards the whiteboard on the near wall. "Let's look at your assumptions about why it wouldn't work."

Text began to appear, numbered and bulleted points. She read them carefully and as she did, it was almost like she could hear Maury reading it to her. She could hear his tone of voice and pick up the layers of meaning behind the bare words.

Sylar killed someone. It doesn't really matter who.

Murderers take lovers and get married. Soldiers take lovers and get married, irrespective of how many people they killed in combat. Gang members, thugs and various other violent criminals in our society take lovers (and probably get married at similar rates to the rest of the population, but I don't know that for sure as I've never looked at the numbers).

Killers are idolized and have been throughout history. See any action movie. Or for that matter, watch any popular evening soap with a recurring villain. There will be legions of fangirls mooning over said villain, if he's handsome and tragic enough.

Violence is sexually exciting for many people (maybe all, or maybe just violence in certain contexts, but there's a long history, pretty much as far back as we have records, of ladies swooning at the prospect of a battle-hardened champion visiting their boudoir).

Based on the above, it's clear that killing someone doesn't mean you won't fall in love and be with someone else. Nor does it make you unattractive to others. Quite to the contrary, it makes you _more_ attractive.

Sylar killed Peter's brother. Now this is the most persuasive reason why the pairing wouldn't work, because kin-slaying has always been unforgivable. Mitigating it though is that Sylar incorporates an unknown degree of Nathan (unknown at least to Peter). So what we have is:

He has Nathan's memories and quirks.

He thinks he's Nathan (or at least, when the relationship begins, Peter believes this).

He looks like Nathan, including a convincing portrayal of many of his personality elements.

He has excised some of Nathan's less admirable qualities such as deception, infidelity, indulgence/hedonism, and impatience/short attention span. Peter doesn't consciously consider this, but it makes him more attractive to Peter (and probably to anyone else).

Given the above, Peter has a hard time pinning the blame for the kin-slaying on him, because he's not the same guy as he was when Nathan was killed. In fact, he's a lot _like_ Nathan (though Peter does not notice he's an idealized version of Nathan… if he did, the fabricated nature of the persona would be more apparent – more on Peter's denial later).

"Wait," she said. "Idealized… what? Like he's a perfect version of Nathan?"

Maury nodded. "Of course. He might have some of Nathan's quirks and flaws, maybe a wandering eye or a little bad habit of getting a drink every now and then, but nothing serious. Nothing that's actually going to inconvenience him - like adultery or alcoholism. He's pretending, or at least he was. It was a role."

"Was he planning this all along? Trying to seduce Peter?"

"No. And he didn't seduce Peter. I'll get to that. Listen… or rather, read." He pointed at the whiteboard and she read on.

Sylar killed Peter's lover. Here's where we get into psychology of a sort that most people find disturbing, but has been demonstrated enough to look like it's probably true:

There is a lot (and I mean a lot) of historical precedent for taking brides from captured peoples. There's a lot I could say about this, but it is worth noting that killing someone's lover doesn't make you an unacceptable partner. The most persuasive evidence is your own reaction. No matter what he's done, he's still sexy to you.

She didn't bother to deny it and kept reading.

If you defeat someone's lover in a social or physical confrontation, it's human nature to disrespect your lover and respect the one who defeated them. It's similar to the hero-worship mentioned above. If you think the fight was a fair one, then all the more so. I don't think any fight between Nathan and Sylar would be "fair", but Nathan and Peter thought there was enough chance of winning that they started the fight without waiting for backup or seeking other forms of resolution.

A submissive partner that you can push around and abuse is more attractive than one you can't, to dominant personality types. Peter's about as dominant as you get, without any of the insecurity you often see with that. Peter was instrumental in shattering Sylar's identity. In that respect, he's already pushed him around and abused him. Peter had a lot of indicators that Gabriel would accede to whatever Peter demanded of him – the biggest of which was that even after what Peter had done to him, Gabriel wasn't going after him. At least, not in any negative way.

On the face of it, this seems like a very unlikely pairing. But in addition to the above, there are a few other reasons why it might work…

We live in a closed social group. People with abilities have a great deal of difficulty maintaining relationships with those who do not. Mundanes are women in refrigerators (metaphorically, we hope), they don't understand, and they have so many other potential partners who don't come with the baggage of an ability. It is very difficult to find one who wants you once they find out you're a freak of nature.

Similar to #1, we are an outgroup with all the social pressures that come with that. It is very difficult to want someone outside that group. You betray your group identity to pair up with one of the oppressive majority.

"Wait," she interrupted again. "What does this mean for Gretchen and I?"

He tapped his lip and looked at her speculatively. "There's a lesson that's very hard for most people to learn. I wonder if you've learned it yet. It's not to ask questions you don't really want the answers to." He regarded her silently and Claire went back to reading the whiteboard. She missed seeing him tip his head to her in respect again.

Peter already had a sexual relationship with Nathan. Someone who could convincingly portray Nathan would tap into that.

Peter was grieving Nathan's loss. Taking on the form of who he had lost allowed him to cling to the illusion the person was not gone.

Peter is unusually able to ignore reality. Although this usually takes the form of thinking the best of people, it also manifests in over-confidence and denial of unpleasant truths. When inescapably confronted with reality, he is willing to work for months or even years to change things to his way of thinking. He is willing to take suicidal measures to prove that he is right and reality is wrong (including very basic things, like jumping off buildings to prove he can fly and gravity won't affect him). Once he chose to believe that Nathan wasn't dead, he was willing to go to nearly any length to prove it true. I'm not sure he's changed his mind _yet_.

Peter has a martyr complex. He is always looking for a cause to sacrifice himself for – the more hopeless the better. Redeeming Sylar is such a cause.

Peter finds meaning in helping people who are hurt. I have been told that his girlfriend is deaf (a disability) and emotionally damaged from incidents in her past. Peter's first career choice out of college was being a hospice nurse, working with the most helpless and vulnerable of patients, the most hopeless of cases. This did not satisfy his basic needs because there was little recognition of his help and his patients died on his watch, so he moved on to becoming a paramedic. He doesn't want the day to day care of people. He wants the immediate emotional gratification of helping them at that moment – of his very presence being a balm and an aid, and if possible helping them in a way that no one else can or will. His choice of girlfriend is not an accident. Nor is his choice of Gabriel, in my opinion. He is obsessed with being the hero.

Peter is dominant and Gabriel is so submissive to him, and to him particularly, that he'd let Peter kill him in a heartbeat. He'd let Peter use him for sex and he'd be thrilled at the opportunity. He'll give up taking abilities and adopt an entirely new life if he needs to. He'd throw away everything if it was a condition of Peter forgiving him for killing Nathan. Not only _would_ he do this, but he _**has**_ – every bit of it.

Claire's mouth fell open. Maury added very quietly, "He'll do the same for you too, so be careful. Best if you just stay away from him. He's damaged in a way regeneration isn't going to fix. Let him heal. It might take him a few years."

Maury tilted his head at her as the text on the whiteboard vanished. "I don't want it to sound like Peter is a jerk. He has a lot of admirable qualities. But he's arrogant, he's stubborn, and he's as human as the rest of us. And yes, he's 'banging' the man who killed his brother. He likes sex with men and this was a man who pushed a lot of the right buttons for him.

"I was surprised too at first, then I got to looking around at his other options and the number of factors at work that encouraged the two to be together. I quit being surprised. Peter can sense how genuine someone's feelings are. He almost couldn't **not** respond to that. Gabriel pretty much metaphorically threw himself at Peter's feet, at the first sign that Peter might take him.

"Gabriel might have went to Peter first, but it was Peter who started the sex." She sat up and paid close attention to that. He went on, "Right now they're still working out the relationship. I can see it when they're together – they're both still not completely sure of the other. My advice to you is to stay out of it. You have a whole host of unresolved issues relating to these two men and Gabriel will **not** have a healthy reaction to you."

She blinked at that and looked down. She imagined what she could do to Gabriel with the information Maury had given her. But if it was true, then it was just too sad to contemplate. Instead she asked, "Peter… started it?" She sounded like she didn't want that to be true.

He nodded. "And for the most part, he started it with Nathan too. Nathan had resigned himself to a lifetime of frustration, but he slipped one too many times and Peter finally figured out he had feelings for him. It was Peter that acted on them."

Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know this?"

"Nathan's memories, in Gabriel's head."

She swallowed. That was a pretty reliable source, she supposed. "He really… They really do love each other?"

"As much as anyone. More than most."

She sighed. "This… no one _made_ them like this?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Oh, someone may well have, but that's a power beyond mine to comprehend."

She stared at him, unsure. He shrugged and said, "Destiny. Fate. Coincidence. Adam, Eve, Lilith, God Himself. You said I didn't have to tell you the big plot." He smiled, amused at how much he could say right out in the open without her knowing what he meant.

She nodded, accepting that. She stared at the table for a moment, then stood up and walked around it. Maury stood as well, for he could see what was in her mind. She couldn't bring herself to ask for it. It wasn't part of the deal anyway. Maury morphed into Nathan and she hugged him. Her heart wept, even if her body did not.

The moment stretched on for what seemed like hours - the smell of his cologne, the fine fabric of his suit, the warmth of his body against hers and the slight pressure of his cheek on the top of her head. She held him and it didn't bother her to know that it wasn't really him. She knew that, but it was comforting all the same, like praying when you weren't sure there was really a God.

Finally she stepped back with a sad smile and a single tear on her cheek. Nathan reached up and wiped it off with the back of his hand, using the same gesture Peter had used in Kirby Plaza. "Thank you," she said softly, only she wasn't talking to Nathan. He dropped his hand to take hers in each of his. She could feel the moisture of her teardrop on his knuckle and she rubbed her thumb across it. A moment later it was gone and she was holding Maury Parkman's hands.

He pulled them back quietly. "Do you have your answers?"

She nodded soberly.

He nodded too and stood up, collecting his notepad and sticking his pen in his pocket. "Think about it. Don't interfere with them. I'll talk to you about collecting on my end of the bargain eventually, after you've had time to decide if I told you anything worthwhile today." He left, leaving her to sit in her chair and consider what he'd said.


	149. Gone Are The Dark Clouds

Claire slid into the empty chair on the other side of the table from Maury Parkman, putting down her tray. He blinked up at her in mild surprise, then surveyed the rest of the Pinehearst cafeteria. It wasn't very big, but there weren't very many people in it either. There were plenty of other places Claire could have chosen to sit.

His eyes came back to her. She smiled briefly, offloading her sandwich, drink and the bag of chips from the tray and leaning back to push the tray onto a nearby empty table. She turned back and said, "Mind if I join you?"

He looked pointedly at her food. "Little late for that, it seems," he said almost too quietly for her to hear.

But she did hear him. She just ignored the sarcasm, low key as it was. "So I was thinking… about that thing you offered last time."

"What thing is that?" Her thoughts were in an almost intentional disarray, as far as he could tell. He found out what she meant anyway. His eyes narrowed slightly, then he took a drink of his soda, failing to entirely mask his smug expression.

_The sex thing with Peter and Sylar_. She blushed. "Um… yeah. So… yeah. That was interesting to me. Um." She looked away.

Precisely because she was embarrassed, he played innocent, asking a question he knew the answer to. "What are we talking about here?"

"You _know_."

"And _you_ know I don't work that way. You have to **say** it. I like making people admit to things. It gets it out in the open, solidifies it in their own mind - makes it real."

She blushed harder. "Okay, fine. I want to know more about that mental stuff, where you can make me think I'm with other people." She looked around furtively, not wanting to be overheard. But it was fine, because no one sat near Maury Parkman.

Maury put his drink down and leaned back in triumph, smiling. "You want to do that?" _Well, whaddya know?_ he thought.

"Well…" _Yeah_. "I might. But I want to know more first."

"Like what?"

"What would it cost me to get you to do that?" He picked up a bit of dissonance in her mind at that question, something about 'cost' and needing to find out what he wanted, but he didn't pursue it. People thought all kinds of things. He didn't chase down every stray concept. He was still tickled by the idea that he'd pegged her so accurately that she was back for more.

"You don't think I'd do it just for kicks?"

"You said you didn't."

"No, I don't." He was silent, thinking about what he could get away with and what he wanted most out of it. She ate and watched him. Finally he said, "Two vials."

"Of my blood?"

"Yeah." He went back to his food.

"You've already got that. I already agreed to let you take what you needed." She added sullenly, "I said I'd cooperate." That had been the deal last time - he'd tell her if Peter was safe with Sylar and she'd work with the Company. Did he not believe her?

"This would be off the record - for **me**. I don't _need_ it. I just _want_ it."

Her mouth made a silent 'oh' shape as she processed what that meant. He really was using it for his own purposes, whatever those might be, and he didn't want anyone else to know about it. Which meant the blood they'd extracted already had been approved, probably by both Sylar and Angela. Maybe he just didn't think the Halo directors would vote how he wanted or maybe he didn't intend to bring it up. She didn't know, but she saw that she had something he wanted that she was willing to part with. He knew he had her at that point and she knew he knew, but knowing all of that didn't mean the negotiation was over.

"Why two vials?" she asked.

"Why not?"

"Why not six or ten? You know it wouldn't kill me."

"If you want your customer to come back a second time, you don't make the price too high. Two's enough."

"What makes you think I'll be back? Maybe I just want to do it once and see what it's like."

He smirked and chuckled. _Like that's going to happen._ "Maybe so. In that case, I'll still have two vials."

She pursed her lips. "Before I decide, you'll need to tell me about what I'll be getting."

"What do you want to know?"

"Well… will you know what I do? In the… that other reality?"

"Yes."

She wasn't real comfortable with that, but he knew the who and from what she could tell, already knew enough details of her fantasy life to fish out specific images on demand. It was creepy, but it was done. "Do you… um… feel anything?"

"No. Not in the way you mean. If you're touching a mental construct, it's not like you're touching me. Not unless I want it to be and I won't do that."

"Why not?"

He took a deep breath. "I won't."

She gave him a long look like she was certain there was more to it than that, and there was, but he didn't speak. She wondered if it had something to do with Sylar attacking him. There was a certain glee in imagining that Sylar might do whatever she told him to. Maury frowned, so she moved her thoughts along to a better subject and said, "You said I could be with both of them. How many people could there be at a time?"

"However many you can perceive and I can project. Most people's attention tops out around five or six. More than that sort of blur together until you look at them individually. I mean, they'd be there as figures, but without much detail. You wouldn't really notice it though."

"Could I be someone else?"

"Sure."

"Oh." She thought about that and decided she was happier just being herself. "Can there be more than just me in there?"

"You mean like…?"

"Like if I wanted to bring in Gretchen and she and I were… you know, with…" she shrugged, "each other. Or another couple."

"Yeah, I can do that."

"So you can take two people under at the same time?"

"Yep."

"How many?"

He sighed and thought about that. "One easy. Two or three is doable, but the detail isn't as fine. Four or five, I need them all to be cooperative or it has to be fairly quick - five minutes, maybe ten. It's easy for things to get out of hand, for them to detect the illusion. Six or seven people, I can only keep it up for a minute or so if they're fighting me. Up to ten, would be a single command, maybe a suggestion. I top out at about ten or twelve if everyone's working with me, they're used to it, and all I'm doing is hosting communication. I still can't do it very long, but if there's another mentalist or telepath there we can trade off."

"That's... that's how you ran the director's meetings for the Company then, right?"

He nodded. "I didn't run them. I just coordinated. But it's the same ability, yes."

"And Sylar has telepathy."

"We're not here to talk about him."

"Right." She snapped her thoughts back to the subject at hand and away from speculation about how the Company was run. "Does this sort of thing go… um…" She glanced around again, but they remained secluded. "All the way?"

"Yep." He dipped his head to the side briefly and added, "Further than reality, actually."

"Oh." She looked at the last third of her sandwich and asked, "How do you know… what they're like? I mean the people I'll be with." She meant all manner of things with that - dimensions, personalities, preferences - everything. She thought of that sound he'd had the fake-Peter make and wondered if Peter really made sounds like that.

He smiled in good humor. "Well, first and foremost I'm going to use your own expectations and preferences. Secondarily I'll use what I know of them that isn't so private I'd get in trouble for sharing it. Last of course I'll just make stuff up. I'm good at that."

"So, like if Sylar had a scar on his thigh and you didn't know about it and I didn't know about it, it wouldn't be there in the dream?" She was actually thinking more about length and girth, but she didn't say that.

"Nope."

She nodded and chewed a bite.

Maury said, "And anyway, if it's a fantasy, do you really want them under-endowed or merely average?"

"Are they?" she shot back.

He looked a little startled and mentally replayed what he'd said. "I didn't say that. Most people are average. That's what _'average'_ means."

She mulled over pointing out that wasn't what average meant, or that his very defensiveness was validating her theory, but she didn't do either. "So while you're doing this, are you… there? I mean, do you have to be holding my hands? You do all sort of mental stuff without that."

"I get better reception that way. Stronger signal. I don't need it, but it's easier and I'm lazy."

"Hm. Would I notice if… something happened in the room while you're doing that? Like, am I totally asleep for it?"

"If I block out your perception of reality, which I will, then no, you wouldn't know what else is going on."

"I've heard you can trap people in nightmares."

He nodded. "This is the same thing, except, of course, I'm trying to make it pleasant instead of horrific, or what I do more often, which is just boring." He smiled. "I suppose that's a form of nightmare by itself. I cut them off from the outside world and they're just stuck in their own head with nowhere to go. You aren't in any danger. If the Company wanted you strapped down to a table somewhere, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"But… since I live forever, what _would_ happen if you trapped me like that?"

"You'd get out of it eventually. You're really strong, mentally."

"What does that mean?"

"It…" He shrugged. "It's hard to explain. You started figuring it out almost immediately when I put you under last time. I couldn't keep you trapped for long and even that would require my full concentration. Regenerators have special defenses and you're stronger than the others I've met." He pushed his empty bowl to the side. "You're asking an awful lot of questions."

"I just wanted to know what I was getting into." That wasn't really true and his brows climbed as he finally saw it - she was learning about his power. All of this, all these questions and probes and explorations were just finding out about what he could do, what his limits were, and how that related to her. Yes, she was interested in the fantasy, but not nearly as much as he'd imagined. She'd duped him and that realization hit him like a physical blow.

He leaned back, away from her, blinking. _I keep forgetting she's a Petrelli!_ he thought, thinking this was the sort of crap he should have been more alert to, given that she was Angela and Arthur's granddaughter and had been coached by Noah Bennet. People didn't often sit right in front of him, let him read their mind and _still _manage to pull one over on him.

Before he could get two wound up thinking about it, she said, "Two vials, huh?" and he saw that she was thinking that to some extent, she needed to go through with it or else he wouldn't trust her again. She didn't so much want his trust, but she didn't want his suspicion. Even now he was considering cracking her open to see what she was really up to. Her thoughts seemed to indicate it was just curiosity. He dug deeper and she flinched, but didn't fight it. It was curiosity, but it was also the beginnings of defending herself again exactly what he was doing to her now.

He pulled back. This was an arms race and the best way not to go down that path was simply to not go down it. He'd commanded and manipulated her casually, without really asking permission, because that was what he did to people. That she was trying to work out how to defend herself and sabotage him shouldn't have been a surprise. He kicked himself for what he'd done. _I deserved Gabriel slamming me against that wall. Too bad it didn't shake the right things loose._

"Two vials," he said, accepting the bargain. "When do you want to do it?"

She retrieved the tray and stacked her empty dishes on it. "I need to check on a few things. I'll let you know." She hesitated, looking him over and wondering if she should apologize for tricking him into explaining so much about his ability.

He started laughing. "Go on, babe. Get out of here." _An apology? I ought to thank her! Sometimes I need a good kick in the pants._


	150. That Had Me Blind

That night Claire tossed and turned on her single bed. She could hear, from Gretchen's breathing across the room, that she was still awake as well. They'd kept separate beds because Gretchen kicked and even if it didn't hurt Claire, it did wake her up. Finally she decided that if they were both awake, she might as well get it off her chest.

"Are you awake?" Claire asked only to be polite, in case her girlfriend didn't want to talk and took the opportunity to pretend to be asleep.

Gretchen answered immediately though. "Yeah. What's up?"

Claire sighed and stared at the ceiling in the darkness. "You know Maury Parkman?"

"Yeah." Gretchen had met him three or four times and Claire mentioned him often, but she didn't know him well.

"He's a telepath." She hesitated, losing some of her nerve. _This is stupid. I should just tell Maury no and leave it be. He probably won't care. I could always just give him the blood and not go through with the other thing._

"What about him?" Gretchen inquired.

Claire sighed again. "Well," she said and then paused_. I might as well. If I'm going to tell him no, then there's no harm in telling her_. "I was talking to him the other day, asking him some questions, and he didn't want to say the answers out loud where anyone could hear him. So he showed me this other way he could use his ability."

She turned her head to look towards Gretchen's side of the room. "He can make an fake reality, like a waking dream or a hallucination, where it all seems really real. Like, I was sitting down at first, but after he used his ability, I thought I stood up and walked over to the window and stuff, and I hadn't. I just thought I had. When he stopped, I was still sitting in my chair."

"Huh," was all Gretchen said.

"So… that way, he could talk to me without anyone overhearing." She hesitated again, looking through the dark at where Gretchen lay.

Gretchen rolled over and propped herself up on her elbow. "What is it that's got you so worked up? Because it can't be that."

Claire looked at the ceiling again and smiled. _Yeah, she knows me too well._ "No, not exactly. It was really _real_…" She didn't know how to finish.

Gretchen said, "So you could do anything you wanted in it?"

"Yeah." Claire looked back over at her, hoping Gretchen would save her from having to spell it out by figuring out where she was going with this.

"You could fly or run really fast or have any of those other powers you've talked about?"

"Yeah," Claire said glumly, looking back at the ceiling. She hadn't thought of pretending to have other abilities - not that it was all that interesting to her. She moaned around about her ability and sometimes mentioned others, but really she'd rather have none at all.

"Or… Could you have other people with you? Illusionary people?"

"Yes," Claire said clearly.

"Like Angelina Jolie? Wow, that would be cool."

"Exactly!" Claire said.

"Really? You thought of Angelina too?" Gretchen sounded excited and surprised.

"Well, no, not _exactly_," Claire hedged. "But something like that."

"Oh." Gretchen's voice was quiet. "How real is it?"

"Really real. You can just barely tell it's not real."

"Wow. That would be cool." Gretchen was silent for a moment, then asked with open curiosity, "So, who did you do it with?"

"Gretchen!" Claire exclaimed. "I didn't do it with anyone!"

"Why not?"

Claire made several inarticulate, outraged noises. "Well, I thought that… You know… Okay. Do you think I'd be cheating on you if I did it?"

Gretchen thought that over and exhaled sharply. "Maybe I'm not understanding. Why would I think it would be? It's just a fantasy, right?"

"I know, it is. But Maury sees it."

"Why?"

"What do you mean?" Claire asked.

"Why does he see it? Is he a pervert or something?"

"Oh, he's something, but he's the telepath. It's his power that makes it work. He has to see it."

Gretchen inquired, "So why would he do this if he wasn't just being a perv?"

"He offered to do it for me if I'd give him two vials of my blood off the record. He's been shooting up with it."

"Oh, that makes sense. He's so old I doubt his weenie even works anymore."

"Gretchen!" Claire exclaimed again with the same flustered tone.

"No, seriously. It stops working after a while for old guys. I'll bet he's using your blood like Viagra."

"That's…" _likely, possible,_ "…disgusting."

Gretchen went on, "Okay, so he sees it. Does he… touch you or anything?"

"No. I mean, not like touch-me, touch me. He held my hand. He said skin contact made it easier, but I don't think he was just saying that so he could touch me. He was real serious and stuff. I don't think he was up to anything."

"Okay. He doesn't have the hots for you or anything else, does he?"

"No. At least, I don't think so."

Gretchen went on, "You said that with his ability, he could make you do whatever he wanted."

"Yeah," Claire said dryly.

"So if he _wanted _to have sex with you, then he could just tell you to do it."

"Uh-huh." Put that way, Claire felt vaguely insulted he hadn't at least shown an interest. Maybe Gretchen was right and his equipment didn't work anymore.

"Why doesn't he tell you to give him your blood?"

Claire sighed. "He _has_. It's just that if I'm cooperating, like it's my idea or I agree to it, then he doesn't have to worry about me telling…" _Gabriel, Sylar _"… anyone else. Or… causing problems about it."

The rumor was that Gabriel and Maury had had a fight. It was caught on camera in one of the level four cells, but the film had been erased. It was the day after she'd told Gabriel that Maury had been using commands on her. Maury had never mentioned it. She'd nearly died of embarrassment when she found out she was the subject of the Company rumor mill.

Claire had learned the lesson of when to keep her mouth shut. Sylar apparently had enough of bio-dad's personality that he went ballistic when he thought someone was threatening his little girl. Or maybe he was just a possessive bastard. It was endearing and annoying at the same time. It was troubling to her that Gabriel had gone out immediately to do something about it and as far as she knew, Peter hadn't done squat. Peter hadn't even seemed all that concerned when she told about it at lunch - at least not nearly as much so as Sylar.

Gretch interrupted her brooding and asked, "Do _you_ think it's cheating?"

Claire rolled over and faced the other girl's side of the room. "No… not really. But… I didn't want to… you know, I didn't want to do it and find you that you thought it was cheating, because then it would be too late. You know?"

"That's sweet, Claire. But no, I don't think it's cheating."

Claire sighed and relaxed. She rolled over and looked at the ceiling, thinking about what little Maury had shown her. She smiled. It would probably be fun - a lot of fun.

Gretchen asked, "So if it's not going to be Angelina Jolie, who was it going to be?"

Claire's smile turned rueful. _Gretch __**would**__ have to ask._ She could think of few things more embarrassing than admitting that she might fantasize to her uncle and Sylar being together. "Do I _have_ to tell you? It's… not something I want to share." Quickly she added, "There is no way, no way at all, that I'll ever be with the people I have in mind. No way. That's why I'm doing it this way. I've always… wondered." She looked over at Gretchen and tried to change the subject, asking, "Isn't there anyone you've wondered about being with, but never thought you'd have the chance, and even if you did, you wouldn't do it?"

Gretchen gave a soft sigh. "Well, if I had the chance, I'd do Angelina Jolie in a heartbeat. She's a little old though. Maybe Emma Watson. You know, if I got to pick. Mm." She was quiet for a moment and decided not to push. She said softly, "Good-night, Claire." Gretchen rolled over to face the wall and Claire gave a quiet sigh of relief. _My girlfriend is super-cool_.


	151. Dreams of a Lover

**A/N: This is March 24ish. Warning for a scene that almost becomes non-consensual sex.**

Peter lay in his bed and tried to focus his thoughts on one of the powers he'd gained from his father. Like with the clairsentience, he had to really work to get the ability to function. He went over it time and again until he finally felt sure he had remembered it well enough to use. He focused on it and thought about Claude Rains, whom he wanted to talk to about Rebel and contacting people new to their abilities. He held the image of Claude's face in his mind, activated the ability, and promptly fell asleep.

The ability was dream walking, so falling asleep wasn't entirely unexpected. Still, he felt like he wasn't in control anymore - the ability had a mind of its own and like precognition, it took him where it felt he needed to be, rather than where he wanted to go.

He found himself in a park, at a picnic. Boy Scouts were running around purposefully in a scavenger hunt, their voices vague and echoing. Gabriel was dressed as one of them, but he was an adult. Somehow, this made sense, but after all, it was a dream. Gabriel was oddly real and sharply defined against a slightly blurred backdrop of the park.

Peter watched as Gabriel went to one of picnic tables and pulled out a drawer from it, like it was a desk. In the drawer were many pairs of glasses, all heavy rimmed, nerdy-looking things in black plastic. He sorted through them, but every time he picked up a pair, it would transform into something else. He even pulled out a welding mask and a set of scuba goggles that had looked exactly like the other glasses until he picked them up.

Peter realized he was in one of Gabriel's dreams. He sighed and thought about Claude again. He shut his eyes for a moment and tried to leave Gabriel's dreamscape and find Claude's. This wasn't where he wanted to be. He was angry at Gabriel for manipulating his emotions and cooperating with the Company's immoral policies. He opened his eyes. He was still in the park, still in Gabriel's dream.

He walked up next to Gabriel and watched what he was doing. _Maybe if I just break the cycle of whatever's going on here, we can both move on? _he thought. Gabriel squinted at him, but didn't show any recognition. He looked silly in an adult sized Boy Scout uniform. Peter couldn't help but grin at him, but again, Gabriel had no reaction to the expression. There was now a bottle of lens cleaning fluid on the picnic table and a micro-fiber cloth. Gabriel took them up and began cleaning a random pair of glasses. They were horn-rimmed and looked like Noah Bennet's.

On impulse, Peter reached past him into the drawer, which was now a box of glasses sitting on top of the table. He pulled out a pair and in Peter's hands they didn't change to anything else. After considering them for a moment, he leaned forward and slid the glasses gently onto Gabriel's face, asking, "Is that what you were looking for?" He brushed a few errant strands of Gabriel's hair to the side. He still loved him, he realized with a pang. Angry or not, his heart was still moved just to see him.

Gabriel blinked at Peter, as if surprised to see him there. "Yes," Gabriel said, taking the glasses off and looking at them before replacing them. He looked like such a nerd wearing them. It was adorable and sexy. "Yes, thank you. What are you doing here?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. I think you're dreaming."

Gabriel looked around as if seeing his surroundings clearly for the first time. "Am I?" He studied Peter for a long moment. "You're part of my dream?"

Peter looked around at the park. "Not really. I think you pulled me in here telepathically or something. I was trying to get in touch with… someone else, but here I am instead." Peter gave Gabriel a faint smile. It was an awkward way to meet, given they'd broke up only a couple weeks previously. But as he'd said… here he was. A half dozen boys ran past, waving some prize excitedly. "I didn't know you were a Boy Scout," Peter said.

Gabriel leaned his hip against the table. While Peter had looked away, Gabriel's clothing had changed to a grey turtleneck with black slacks. "Yes you did." At Peter's look, he added, "Nathan." Peter nodded with an _Aha_ expression and looked around at the park, trying to figure out which park it was. This would have been from before Peter was even born. He found it fascinating, a weird window into Nathan's past.

Gabriel stepped up next to him and put a hand to his upper arm, getting his attention. He rubbed up and down Peter's bicep, but Peter stepped away from him. "Hey," Gabriel said, following him despite Peter giving him an annoyed look. "Hey, I like it when you're in my dreams…" He smiled suggestively. Peter turned away from him, feeling conflicted. He wondered if Gabriel would even remember this when he woke.

Gabriel stepped up behind him and put both hands on his shoulders, starting to rub them. Peter sidestepped and shook him off. "No. I'm not in the mood. We're… you're…" Peter shook his head. They'd broken up. This was not happening. When Gabriel ignored him and closed with him again, Peter turned to face him, expression intent. "Stop it, please."

Gabriel sighed and took his glasses off. He tossed them on the table as if he didn't need them anymore. "Fine. We'll do something else first." Gabriel took Peter's upper arm again and before he could shake him off, the world faded behind them. They had accelerated upward, flying. Peter felt his stomach drop to his feet and his sense of balance spun. The air rushed past him and for a moment he fought to be back on the ground, stable. It didn't work. It was the first demonstration that Gabriel controlled this dream world, not Peter. Peter didn't understand the significance.

He looked over in surprise to see it was Nathan with him, cutting through the sky. Peter asked, "What… why are you Nathan?"

The other man shrugged. "I'm always Nathan. I just don't always look like him. Besides, Nathan flies."

Peter grinned to himself after the initial shock wore off. _Yes, Nathan flew. This is kind of fun._ He pushed away from his brother and threw out his arms, revolving slowly as they burst through clouds, punching through to the other side. As each cloud approached, he had a thrill of anticipation, a momentary fear of impact, and then they were inside it and blinded by greyness until a wall of white loomed up. The interior of the cloud was like a fog and left him feeling damp and cool. With a blinding flash of light and warmth, they were through the other side and shooting into the clear sky above.

They danced in the firmament together, taking turns chasing one another. Peter laughed. They dodged and ducked, rolled and dived. His stomach somersaulted with the flips and dips. A wall of thunderheads formed up before them and Peter rocketed into it, fearless and overconfident as ever. Lightning flashed and darkness surrounded him. He couldn't see Nathan anymore. He felt his sense of direction faltering as blackness was all he could see. He threw out his hands, reaching for someone, anyone. He had the sensation of falling. Lightning flashed again and his right hand was hit. It stung like someone had driven a nail through it.

Peter tried to yank his hand back, but it wouldn't move. It was fixed in place. There was a moment of vertigo as the world tilted around him and he was lying on his back on a stack of drywall in the hospital. It was the same one he'd nailed Sylar to when he was trying to get Nathan back. His left hand hurt suddenly with the impact of another nail. There was a booming crack of thunder that shook his very bones. Now he was the one held down as the other man crouched over him, legs spread across him. He could feel the warmth of him where they were nearly touching.

"Gabriel?" He tried to pull his hands free, telling himself it was only a dream and with enough focus, he should be able to break loose. Nothing gave. He pulled harder, struggling more, but his muscles seemed made of taffy. He looked back and forth desperately at his hands. It made no sense. Even in the real world, he should have been able to tear the nails through his hands, painful as that would have been. He'd often wondered why Sylar hadn't done just that, why he'd laid there on the table and effectively _allowed_ Peter to summon Nathan in him.

He was no longer dealing with Nathan. Gabriel tossed the nail gun aside and opened Peter's shirt, leering at him. A moment ago, it had been a t-shirt. Now it had buttons and they were undone in an instant. Peter jerked uselessly against the nails and tried to buck Gabriel off. He could see where this was going. His body was responding to the anticipation.

"No. No! Gabriel, stop this!" He was angry and trying not to be afraid. He knew Gabriel would feel his fear and feed on it. At the moment, it was easy enough to focus on anger, but the complete loss of control ran through him like his blood had turned to ice water.

Gabriel bent over and licked him from belly button to collarbone, wet and hot. The ice was dispelled, but desire was quickly joining anger and fear in warring for supremacy in Peter's mind. He tried to turn his body away from his lover's attentions but it was no use. He was trapped.

"Stop it! Stop it, Gabriel." Peter was breathing harder, whether from panic, rage or arousal he couldn't tell. His body was hyper sensitive to every touch and caress, quite against his will. Gabriel bit his own lip and shifted to grind his groin against Peter's. Peter threw his head back, blinking against the assault of sensations he didn't want. His teeth were set together, bared. "Gabriel… stop it." His tone took on a slightly pleading edge, "Stop."

He became naked in an instant and he knew Gabriel was too. The other man shifted to put a knee between Peter's legs. Peter struggled against him, trying to kick him or buck him off, but again his body betrayed him and Gabriel slipped between Peter's legs, spreading them. He crouched there for a moment, touching Peter's inner thigh and looking perplexed at why his lover was fighting him. He said, "It's only a dream, Peter."

"Looks like a nightmare from where I'm at," he said, teeth clenched. "Don't do this, Gabriel."

The other man moved forward, slipping his hands under Peter's knees and pushing them forward, tilting Peter's hips. Peter fought against it, but it was useless. Gabriel hesitated, unsure again at Peter's resistance. "It doesn't have to be a nightmare." After a beat he added, "You usually don't… seem so sincere in resisting. You're not enjoying this?"

Peter brought his head up and looked directly at Gabriel. "No. No, I'm **not**. This isn't a normal dream. I'm not a fantasy. I'm **real**, Gabriel. I'm really here." It mitigated Peter's anger a lot to hear that Gabriel thought this was just his own imagination. It didn't do much for his panic, though.

Gabriel shook his head as if that was unbelievable or inconsequential. He moved forward again, leaning over, and Peter could feel Gabriel's body against his own. In a moment the man would begin. Peter knew he didn't need lubricant or anything else here. It would just work. Reality had nothing to do with it.

"Gabriel, don't. Please don't. I don't want this. _I don't want it!_" A note of alarm crept into his voice at the end.

Gabriel paused again, looking at Peter's face.

Peter tried softer, whispering, "Don't. Don't." He shook his head, "Please don't." As Gabriel continued to hesitate, Peter lifted his head slightly and said, "I'm here with you, Gabriel. I'm not a dream. This feels real to me. I'm going to wake up eventually and I'm going to remember this. It's just like if you did it to me in real life. It's going to be between us. You don't want that. Don't do this to me. Please don't!"

Instead of moving on with the act, Gabriel shifted his weight back and ran his hand along the inside of Peter's thigh, looking at his face intently as if not sure he believed him. Peter swallowed, gaining some hope. He continued with what was working and said, "Please don't. Let me go, Gabriel. I don't know what I can say to be any more clear about this: do **not **_**rape**_ me. That's what this is. It's not a game, it's not your imagination, it isn't a fantasy."

Gabriel blinked and looked aside, shutting his eyes. He breathed evenly and for a very long moment, Peter couldn't tell if he was going to disregard him and go on, or stop. Finally Gabriel carefully clambered out from between Peter's legs and crouched to his right. Peter panted, in relief now. His legs were down and he pulled them together tightly. The other man leaned over him, trying to kiss him. Peter winced and turned his face away.

Gabriel said in a confused tone, "You're real?"

"**Yes, I'm real!**" _How many times do I have to say that?_

Gabriel looked back and forth between Peter's eyes as if he _still_ wasn't sure. After several seconds, the nails disappeared and Peter was free. Almost the moment he realized that, the world tilted again and he was sitting in a recliner on a beach, clothed in shorts and an open, flowered tourist shirt. He pulled the shirt closed immediately. "Thank you," he said quietly after taking a moment to collect himself.

The other man didn't look away from Peter, regarding him with disturbing intensity. He said, "If you're real… then why are you here? I thought you were done with me." He spoke like Peter had used him and discarded him, a tone that pained Peter to hear.

"What?"

"You're _done _with me. I'm not good enough for you, so I'm out."

"No, that's not it," Peter denied.

"Isn't it? Why else would you leave?"

"You tried to make me trust you, love you! You tried to **force** me to feel that way. You betrayed me!"

Gabriel gave him a puzzled look. "Do you really think, if that's what I was trying to do, that I'd have done such a sloppy job of it and then let you run out on me afterwards?"

Faced with logic, Peter hesitated. The younger man swallowed. "No… I… I don't know." Peter looked back and forth across the beach, trying to see how he could get out of here. Seizing that thought and no other, he stood up. There was another wave of vertigo and instead of standing, he was lying - this time in his own bed, alone.

He sat up and put his hands over his face. After a few moments, he rubbed his hands across his upper arms as he held himself. He curled over and tried to calm himself, using a standard breathing exercise. Gabriel was right, he knew. If Gabriel had tried to do what Peter's heart had been accusing him of for over a week, then he wouldn't have stood aside after Peter had left. He would have come after him. He would have made sure it worked.

He tried not to think about it, just as he tried not to think about how Gabriel obviously entertained rape fantasies starring Peter. _At least he thought I would enjoy what he was doing. He was genuinely put off when he realized I didn't. And he stopped. Finally._

Laboriously, Peter brought his mind back to Claude, whom he still needed to talk to. Surely he could find him in the dreamscape. If he ended up in Gabriel's dream again… well, it wasn't that bad as long as Gabriel kept his mind off sex. The flying had been awesome. The park and the beach were fine. And Gabriel hadn't betrayed him. He knew that now.


	152. Dreams of a Mother

_Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children._

_~ Eric Draven, The Crow_

XXX

Peter did the same thing he'd done before, concentrated hard on his target and activated the ability. He had the same result: once again, he ended up somewhere he'd have rather not. This time, he was standing in his mother's house. She was sitting on the sofa knitting, looking much younger than she'd been while he was an adult.

He wasn't an adult now. He was 10 or maybe 11, a slender boy with close-cropped hair (at his father's insistence), lanky and awkward. Angela set aside her knitting and bustled over to him, hugging him. His face was smashed into her ample bosom, more ample than it was in reality. She'd become unexpectedly plump and soft, something she'd never been when he was a boy. It was creepy. She said, "Oh! Peter! It's always so **good** to see you."

She pushed him back to hold him at arm's length. She was back to her normal self, thinner, but still younger than she was in real life. Her hair was longer too, with brown highlights.

"Um, Mom?" He tried to step away from her, but she didn't let him. He realized that just like in Gabriel's dream, he had no power here. "Mom, this is a **dream**. Do you understand that?"

She released him and laughed. "Of course I do, dear." She patted his cheek. "I have dreams all the time."

"No, this is different. I'm really here. I'm not a part of your dream. I'm using a different ability."

She spoke dismissively. "Yes, you have so many abilities. That's wonderful, dear." She went back and picked up her knitting, ignoring him.

_Okay. I guess Gabriel wasn't just being stubborn. Of all people, my mother should understand her own dreams and realize I'm not supposed to be here. I think he genuinely couldn't tell I was real – maybe not even after he stopped with the sex, but at least he played along._

He walked around the couch to her, uncomfortably aware that a trip that would have taken four steps as an adult took nine or ten as a child. "Do you know why I'm here?"

"You came here because this is your home and we're your family," she asserted.

Peter paused with his mouth open. She'd said those exact words to him just a few days before, the last time he'd seen her. "I went to see Gabriel first."

"Of course," she said, watching her knitting carefully. "Gabriel's very important to you. You're even more important to him. He misses you, the poor dear. You really should think of how your actions affect that man. It's quite a bit more than you think. Remember how Nathan reacted when he thought he'd lost you? Heidi is doing a wonderful job of keeping him stable, but he needs **you**. It's your forgiveness he needs - your acceptance is his salvation."

Peter shook his head. He didn't want to talk about Gabriel. _But then why did I mention him?_ He looked at what she was paying so much attention to. "What are you doing there? I didn't know you could knit."

"Of course I can knit, Peter. My mother's maiden name was Weaver!" She shook out the fabric she'd been working on and it was a screen with all of reality moving across it. It made his eyes hurt to look at it. He shielded them. She said, "It's the loom of fate, Peter. If we're lucky, one day one of your daughters will have it. It skips the boys, for some reason."

The cloth folded itself back into a pile in her lap. She continued working at it. "The important thing," she told him, "Is not to drop too many stitches. You don't want to have little loops sticking out because then someone will pull on them and you risk having the whole thing unravel." She sighed. "You don't know how hard it is to keep it all together in one piece. Sometimes… sometimes you just have to tie a knot in it and hope that doesn't tangle people up too badly. Other times you just have to cut short the thread and start again." She looked up at him with a sad expression. "I'm so sorry, Peter."

"For what?"

"Tangling you up. This wasn't the future you were going to have, but it looks better than that other one." She turned and looked out of the living room, towards the garden. The entire back wall of the room had become floor-to-ceiling windows. Peter could see blood splashed on the glass and outside there were bodies on the ground. One was slumped over a table and moving feebly. The sky was orange and the clouds roiled as if they were the front wave of an explosion.

"What?" He jumped up, startled, and looked at his mother, who merely shrugged and went back to her knitting. He hurried outside. Even though he knew it was a dream, his instinct was to do something, to help.

Everyone Peter had brought in for the Company was lying on the patio, killed gruesomely. Maury Parkman was at the table with a silver dinner knife in his back. Instead of the single P monogramming the rest of the Petrelli family cutlery bore, it had AP on it for Arthur Petrelli. Somehow Peter knew his father's fingerprints were on it too. Maury stirred and looked past Peter. Angela had walked out behind Peter. Maury whispered hoarsely to her, "You did this to me!"

She sighed as Peter tried to check Maury for other injuries, but found none. He didn't dare pull the knife out… but then he reminded himself this was a dream. _Maybe it's symbolic of something._ He pulled on it, but it twisted and turned in his hand, slippery with blood. Maury cried out in pain and Peter jerked back, upset that he'd hurt the man worse.

"You knew this would happen," Maury blamed Angela again, gritting his teeth against the pain. "You **told** me it would happen! He like to have cut my heart out, your husband did!"

"Yes, I warned you," she said tiredly, "and yet you did it anyway. I told you he would make you suffer."

Maury turned weakly to Peter and said, "I didn't think there was anything left he could take from me… but he'd taken it already. And you… you just _had_ to twist the knife… You haven't done it yet, but you will. I know you will. My blood's on your hands." Maury gestured and Peter lifted his hands, stained with the older man's blood.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Yeah, you will be," Maury snarled at him, then turned away to slump against the table.

"Come away, Peter," his mother told him. "Leave him. This sort of thing happens all the time." She sounded supremely unconcerned.

Peter realized he wasn't a child anymore. When he'd walked outside, he'd become an adult again, but still not his true age of 30. He was now in his early 20s. He jerked his head, flipping the hair out of his face with annoyance. "What sort of thing?" He kept looking at Maury, feeling bad about him even though he was just a figment of his mother's imagination. Or was this a foretelling of the future?

"People are always getting hurt and they blame me because I knew about it. It's not like I can do much about these things when they bring them on themselves! Now let's go inside and I'll give you that care package I put together for you to take to college. I don't think you get enough to eat there. Make sure you don't drink too much. I can't have you being an alcoholic like your brother." 

He looked at his bloody hands. Maury lifted his head and gestured at them, speaking in a normal, conversational tone now. "Your part in that hasn't happened yet. This is all just a metaphor."

Peter frowned and followed his mother. She was fussing over a large, ornate wooden box on the coffee table. She said, "This is Pandora's Box. I let loose all the miseries years ago, so you needn't worry. All that's left is hope and I'm giving that to you."

"Hope?" he said in confusion.

"Yes, Peter. You're going to need it. There will come two moments when all seems lost: in the first you need to have faith in the power of love; in the other you need to trust that despair and fear can not touch you." She picked up the box and handed it to him. It was very heavy, but he managed it.

"And speaking of love, don't forget to wear a condom! Not that I mind, really. It will be nice to have another grandchild or three." She beamed at him and reached out to pat his cheek again. "You'll make a wonderful father."

"What?" he said dumbly.

"A condom, Peter. Don't play coy with me. I know how young men are and I'm not going to have another accident like with Nathan. If ever there was anything that made me think that horrible Lilith creature was still around, it was when that Meredith woman had Nathan's baby! We did everything we could to keep him safe and away from that sort of thing and just look at what happened! Fate! I can't weave it fast enough. There are too many hands at the loom."

She shrugged. "Oh, I don't know why I even bother. No one ever listens to me. Now go on, Peter. You probably need to be somewhere."

He woke up with a jerk, clutching at the empty air. It took him a moment to realize the box wasn't there anymore and to separate the reality from the dream. He felt confused. The cell phone Micah had given him buzzed slightly, set to vibrate. He reached out and picked it up, hesitating a moment. _Did my mother know I needed to be back here to get this call? What was all that other stuff she said? How much of that was literal?_

The phone vibrated again and he answered it. It was Micah. They'd finally found the girl they were looking for, the one who could breathe out clouds of what amounted to chlorine gas. Peter got the location of Micah's team and went to help. He had hope. Things were going to work out. He could feel it.


	153. Bloodstained

**Title:** Bloodstained  
**Rating:** T, PG-13  
**Characters/Pairings:** Gabriel, Patricia Pennington (OC)  
**Words:** around 850  
**Summary:** Gabriel has become a director of the Company. Patty is an agent. On a simple walk out to the car, someone Sylar wronged in the past tries to assassinate him.  
**Warnings:** Violence, gunshots  
**Notes:** Shattered Salvation AU, March 25, 2011. Written for the Heroes Challenge #25, Bloodstains

Patty wasn't thinking about anything important as Gabriel walked her out to the Pinehearst visitor parking lot. They were talking about what could be said over email or the phone. It wasn't the sort of thing that kept her alert to her surroundings. It wouldn't have mattered though if he were. She didn't have any abilities.

One moment they were walking together. The next, Gabriel jerked and fell over backwards like he'd been yanked down. She looked at him dumbly, waiting for him to get up. Surely he'd just stumbled? It seemed like seconds later when she heard the shot. On the heels of that sound, his body jerked again as a second bullet slammed into his chest. She screamed and ran behind the nearest car.

It was hardly how agents of the Company were supposed to react to danger. The other shot echoed off the Pinehearst building behind her, shiny-new and in operation barely more than a week. She cowered, trying to figure out where the shots were coming from. She quickly narrowed it down to the roof of an apartment building visible in the distance, across the lake and mostly screened by trees.

Gabriel was shot twice more while she looked, including kicking up a spall of asphalt from a miss. He was moving somewhat, still alive, still conscious, even though the top of his head had been blown clean off. She could see that from where she was. It was regrowing, which was even more disgusting. Patty had once had the experience of receiving Claire Bennet's healing blood, but it was very different to have it happen to you and feel relief, than to see it happening to someone else.

Knowing where the shots were coming from was no help. Security had come out of the Pinehearst building and took cover immediately. All they had was pistols, so that was no help. Patty usually carried one herself, but she hadn't today. Not for office work. It was silly to think she'd need it. She flinched as another shot slammed into the director's body, this time under his jaw and exiting out the top of his head.

Seeing the carnage, she threw up. She had to do something – the guards were staying back as long as bullets were in the air. She didn't know how long he'd keep healing, or even if he would. Surely there was a limit...?

She waited for the next shot and darted out to him, grabbing an arm and pulling. It was no good. He was too heavy. Trying not to be sick again, she crouched behind him, all the while wondering when the next shot would be into herself. She hooked her hands under his armpits and pulled him up against herself, staggering back towards the cover between the parked cars. Another shot came, slamming into his leg. He groaned.

She pulled with all her strength, finally getting him mostly behind the vehicles. There was one last shot that ricocheted off the parking lot. She collapsed, his mutilated head on her lap. Her stomach heaved again as his brain knit itself back together and blood soaked into her shirt and slacks. She tried to lift him off of her, but he was a dead weight. A moment later, one of the guards ran up between the cars, glancing down at him with a grimace.

For what seemed like minutes, they crouched there and waited. There were no further shots. Gabriel started to sit up woozily. The guard reached over and pushed him back down, on top of her. "Stay down," he hissed. He was as buzzed on adrenalin as anyone else would be.

Gabriel though was much more blasé about violence, even when it included his own death. He waited, finishing healing over the next few seconds. He rolled off of her and forward, coming up in a crouch. He put his hand on the security guard's shoulder and said, "Stay here. I'll be safe, now that I know what I'm looking for."

"You can't stop bullets."

Gabriel smiled thinly. "Yes, I can." He stood up and walked out, looking immediately towards the distant apartment building. No one shot at him. He glanced back at them and asked, "Was anyone else hurt?" His eyes were on the blood all over Patty's front.

"No… I'm fine," she got out on the second try.

He nodded and looked over the security guard as a second and third ran up to join them. Then he took off into the air, heading towards the apartment building. Patty looked down at the blood stains on her hands and her oh-so-very-professional clothes. It made her really think about the line of work she was in.


	154. Foreshadowing

Peter leaned with one hand against the wall, looking at the calendar. Today was March 28, a Monday. _In almost three weeks,_ he reflected, _I'm supposed to be best man at Gabriel's wedding to Heidi. I haven't talked to Gabriel since… March 10? Has it really been that long? _He'd been absorbed by his work with Rebel, finding people new to their powers and encouraging them to live at peace with everyone else.

He'd had only one contact with Gabriel in that time, but it had been in a dream. Peter had been trying to activate one of the abilities he'd gained from his father, one he hadn't used yet. It was dream-walking. He supposed he needed more practice with it, but his experiences with it so far had been disturbing enough that he simply wasn't going to use it anymore. His first attempt put him in Gabriel's dream. His second landed him in his mother's.

He hadn't intended to end up in the dreams of either. He'd been trying to talk to Claude, who had rather predictably gone into hiding shortly after Rebel got into full operation. Peter was thinking that he could appear in the man's dream and have a conversation like normal. Apparently the ability didn't work that way. It had its own idea of who he needed to see and what he needed to learn. Gabriel's dream had helped him come to terms with the emotional manipulation. His mother's had given him hope. Neither had pushed him quite far enough to actually contact them, whether by phone or visiting.

He turned away from the calendar and walked to the bar. He wasn't happy with how things had ended with the phone conversation with Gabriel on March 10, when he'd told the man he didn't want to be part of his life. It had been final and unequivocal and not at all how Peter really felt. It had been his anger talking, but time had cooled his emotions. He still hadn't thought of how to reconnect, or even if he should. He wondered if Gabriel remembered what had happened in the dream.

He slid onto a stool next to Marco, a burly black man who could turn things into glass. They exchanged masculine grunts in greeting. Micah thought Marco was DL's half-brother, which made him Micah's uncle. Marco had taken a job as the bartender, but at the moment he had no patrons to tend.

Peter picked up his beer and took a drink. A lot of his habits had changed in the last couple weeks. For one thing, he never used to drink beer. _I miss Gabriel. I miss Emma. I miss Ma. _He took a longer drink, finishing off the bottle. He was beginning to understand Nathan's alcoholism, but fortunately, due to Claire's ability, he couldn't really get drunk. He resisted the urge to try something stronger. His mother had warned him against drinking when he'd talked to her in the dream. She'd warned him about other things too. He furrowed his brow and tried to remember. It didn't come to him. He recalled Gabriel's dream just fine, but a lot of hers remained unclear to him.

He was waiting for the others to get back. They'd finally figured out where the children were, the two dozen kids that Mohinder had been experimenting on - though there were only twenty-one now. Three had died as a result of the ongoing tests. This evening they'd teleport to the lab where the kids were, rescue as many as they could and teleport back out. They were being held in the coastal city of Odessa, Ukraine, which Peter found to be too bizarre to be a coincidence. He didn't know what, if anything, it meant.

They had found out about the laboratory by intercepting communications within the Company. It was a certainty that Company agents were also closing in on the place, but Rebel wanted to be there first. Peter was still bothered with how the Company had treated the boy he'd found who could disassemble things. No child should be kept unconscious and locked in a cell.

It wouldn't be the first time they'd faced off against the Company, but so far Peter's policy for avoiding direct confrontation had held. There had been bloodshed (Sparrow had caused an eruption of stone that lacerated an agent who was in street clothes) and even attempted murder (West had taken a bullet to the calf while flying away with a girl who could control insects), but no one had died. The rule was, when they saw the Company, Rebel split. Although the Company didn't seem to have the same practice, at least they didn't give chase. Rebel's main enemy had been the government anyway. Compared to them, the Company was almost a relief.

Late one night, Peter had talked to Micah about a dilemma that had preyed on his mind since the dream with Gabriel. If the Company truly wanted to stop Rebel, they could, but they hadn't. With someone like Gabriel at their disposal, Molly's ability, and the resources of Halo, they could make short work of all of the members of Rebel other than Peter. Peter had no illusions that he couldn't also be taken down. He could think of a half dozen ways, but they hadn't been used. Peter thought the Company was intentionally avoiding them when possible. It had certainly made Rebel's work easier. He didn't think it would last though. At some point, the Company would move against them. They **had** to, or else they would fall apart - a paper tiger.

Micah agreed. He was in touch, almost constantly, with a woman and man who worked for Halo and had abilities very similar to his own. One had even gone so far as to download his consciousness into a mainframe. Micah considered them friends of a sort. They told him that standing orders existed to take any and all members of Rebel into custody if they interfered with Company projects, but there was no authorization to seek them out or track them down. The policy came from the board of directors, which now included Fuad, Fatima, Al-Walid and Faisal, in addition to Angela, Maury, Gabriel and Kelly. Bandar had split ways with Halo and gone off on his own.

Peter was beginning to worry, with each new special they tracked down, that it would be the tipping point for setting off the Company and then there would be open war between them and Rebel. Rebel was no longer just the four of them and Peter. It was now a growing organization made up of many of those they'd saved, who were connected to one another through Rebel and willing to risk themselves in turn.

Peter's musings were finally interrupted by the arrival of their core team - Micah, Abigail, West and Sparrow. Claude had stayed in London (or… actually Peter had no idea where he was, but he'd said his good-byes to them in London). They talked for a little while, discussing the plan and what little they knew of the layout of Mohinder's lab. It was not customary in the Ukraine to have electronic copies of older buildings, so they were going off satellite photos and exterior shots.

The lab was in a three story brick building that had once been offices for a mining company, then sold to a corporation that had laboratories set up to test cosmetics, then finally purchased by a real estate arm of Halo and partially renovated into apartments. The partial status of the renovations was probably what made it appealing to Mohinder. He could live in and house his subjects in the same building as his lab.

Rebel stood together, held hands, and went. Peter took them to the center of the building, on the second floor. They were in a common room / play area. The windows to outside were dark. It was the middle of the night here, though it had been afternoon in Las Vegas. They'd hoped that would not only slow the response of the authorities, but mean that the fewest people were present. Beyond the double doors into the common room, they found a hallway that stretched the length of the building in each direction. The group picked a direction, staying together, went down the hall.

Each door had two names on it, first names only, with a picture of each child who was supposed to be in the room. The doors were locked to keep the occupants inside, not to keep intruders out. That was disturbing by itself. They opened the first door and got started, with Abigail putting up a force field in the hall and fortifying it to contain any sound as much as possible.

The children were all around four years old. Although they were frightened to be woken in the night, they went cooperatively with their new guardians. Micah said in a very low voice, "They've been taught that resistance is futile. Anyone who's seen Star Trek knows it's not. It's just what the bad guys always want you to believe."

Peter nodded. When children this young were silent and obedient, it generally meant they'd been treated very badly. In a perverse twist, the children who were _not_ abused were those more difficult to handle: boisterous, assertive and unafraid. The children they were rescuing were terrified. Being neutralized and held in a cell for a few days or even a week was beginning to look positively humane.

Rebel funneled the children out of that whole wing of the hall without a problem, moving ten of them to their base in Las Vegas where others stood ready to help them. Two of the rooms, even though they had two names on the doors and two beds, had only contained a single child. Still, the single jump with so many people surprised Peter with a stab of pain in his head. He had a brief feeling of dread. He'd worried about how many people he would need to move for this mission. Maury Parkman's comment to him about passengers being tougher to move than himself rang in his mind. He pressed on though. When they started on the other end of the hall was when the plan started to fall apart.

The first door had only a single name on it and though the door across the hall from it had two, the difference caught their attention. There was also no picture identifying the occupant. It just read, "Barbara." Peter tried the door. It was locked from the outside just like the rest, but inside the room was different. There was only one bed and it was sized for an adult. It also contained an adult, a blond woman whom he thought he recognized immediately, blurting out, "Tracy?"

"What?" she said, blinking at him in the light from the hall.

West helpfully provided, "Her name is Barbara, Peter," in case Pete had missed the label on the door.

She was a perfect match for Tracy Strauss and Niki Sanders both. "Um," Peter said dumbly. He hadn't been involved in the discovery that Tracy was part of a set of triplets, but he he'd heard a rumor that Eric Thompson Jr. was part of a set of clones… He rolled with it. "Okay, yeah, come with us."

Barbara got out of bed, wearing a knee-length gown, but she was no unquestioning child. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

At the same time, Sparrow hissed, "Someone's coming!" and seconds later they all heard footsteps reverberating from the stairwell that was across from the common room. The members of Rebel pressed into Barbara's room and shut the door a little too loudly. Abigail put a force field over it while Sparrow urged, "Let's get out of here!"

Peter said, "We're not done. We've got this whole wing. The room across from this one has kids in it. The rest probably do too."

The door rattled as someone tried to open it. Peter said, "Get together. I'll take us down the hall." He reached out for Barbara's hand and she jerked away from him, backing against the wall. Peter looked at her face and saw fear there. Reassuringly, he said, "We're here to save you. Please." He held out his hand. There were voices and sounds outside, indistinct through the force field. She swallowed, stepped forward and slid her hand into his. Peter gave her a warm smile and she answered it hesitantly. In the next instant, they were at the end of the hall. The short jump didn't give him a twinge, even with so many people. Peter was grateful for that.

However, they'd left the frying pan only to leap into the fire. Now they were in chaos, having teleported into the middle of a squad of black-clad Company agents. Peter recognized the outfits and equipment immediately. He teleported again, but Micah, West and Sparrow had already dropped the handholds. Peter was back in Barbara's room with only Barbara and Abigail. Luckily the door was still shut – whoever had been trying to get in was now distracted by the commotion down the hall.

Abigail let go and shrieked, "What the hell did you do that for?" She went to the door, which was, of course, locked from the inside. She slammed the heel of her palm against it, reinforced by her ability. The door made a cracking noise, but didn't break.

"Get back," Peter ordered and as soon as she was clear, he hit the door with telekinesis, knocking it out of the frame and into an agent who had been standing in the hall outside. They'd only been gone a second or two, but the situation in the hall had devolved into a firefight for some reason, as Company agents on either end of the hall shot at one another and at Micah, Sparrow and West.

Abigail created a bubble of force in the middle, blocking projectiles from either end and making a protected space she and Peter could step out into. He looked up and down the hall, then snapped his head back. Bandar was standing behind the agents to the left, giving them orders in clear, well-articulated English. He paused to smile at Peter and said "Betrayal" to him. Peter felt the faintest tug at his emotions and he realized Abigail's force field was blocking most of Bandar's ability just as it had previously blocked Peter's. He brought up his hand, but there was no point. He couldn't affect the Arab either through the field.

Mohinder was thrown down the stairs like a rag doll behind Bandar and the four agents standing with him. They wheeled as Mohinder rolled, narrowly missing being hit with three darts coming from up the stairs where he'd come from. Peter thought he heard Noah Bennet's voice from upstairs, trying to give orders to his agents near Bandar, but their loyalty had been captured by Bandar's ability to influence their emotions.

"What do we do?" Abigail's voice was high with alarm.

Peter glanced back to the other end of the hall where Micah, West and Sparrow were on the ground, along with one of the six agents that had been on that end. _Two teams of six and another upstairs… this is a full assault. They wouldn't do this without backup, no, leadership of someone with abilities. Probably more than one. _ "Take my hand." He held out his hands and teleported back to Las Vegas as soon as the women touched him.

Abigail said, "Why- What about Micah? You can't leave him!"

"I'm not going to. I'm going to go back. You're safe here." He looked to Barbara. "You're both safe here."

She had tears in her eyes. It had all happened so fast. She'd been caged and experimented on and now a handsome stranger had come in the night to rescue her. Before he left, she rushed forward to hug him. He blinked, surprised and then, fathoming her situation and her jangled emotions, he returned it to sooth and comfort.

When she hugged him, he smelt her hair and felt her warmth pressed against him and he knew, somehow, he could have something with her. In another universe, he did. In another universe, his mother had ultimately rejected Maury Parkman's advances out of loyalty to her husband Arthur. Maury had gone on to spearhead a hunt for her son, fueled by a desire for revenge for being spurned. Instead of counseling Gabriel to be patient with Peter, he urged vengeance and highlighted Peter's faults with halogen intensity. Peter was hunted and eventually scarred, fated to battle the man he loved in a final showdown of epic proportions. He had no where to go to in that world, no home to speak of. And when Barbara hugged him to her, in that universe, and he felt a connection, he connected back.

But that was not this universe. In this universe, one, single choice had been made differently and set reality into motion like a Rube Goldberg device, actions leading to consequences, reactions causing expected, almost predestined, responses. And because of that one choice different, in this universe when Barbara hugged Peter, he felt the connection, hugged her back briefly and warmly, then disengaged with an expression that was polite and caring without being anything more. He had other people in his life and in his heart, even if he wasn't with them at the moment. He was not the empty, angry, damaged person he had become in that other world. One decision can change everything.


	155. Watchmen

Peter teleported into one of the smaller stairwells that were at the ends of the building. He picked the one next to where he'd last seen Micah, West and Sparrow. As he expected, they were still there, lying on the floor outside in the hall. One agent stood guard over them. When she saw Peter through the window in the door, her eyes flew wide and she raised her gun. "_Sleep_," Peter commanded, and she did, falling back against the wall and slumping to the floor.

He opened the door, pulled West over to Sparrow and Micah and took the three of them back to Las Vegas. His head hurt badly and he knelt on the floor beside them, taking a moment to regain his composure. He was far from done. He also used the time to glance over them. There was no bleeding and he could see the darts in two of them.

He jerked them out and looked at one. The outside of the dart helpfully identified it, saying "Combo." He'd heard these were being developed - light dose tranquilizers paired with neutralizing compound. He was relieved to see that lethal means were not the method du jour. He teleported back, trying to target the inside of the room across the hall from Barbara's.

The first room went fine and two more children were moved. His nose was bleeding and he felt light-headed. He ran a wet bar towel over his face and headed back. He couldn't afford to lose his powers now. On the second room, there was only one child and she had taken cover under her bed when she heard the fighting in the hall. Peter was trying to coax her out when the door opened behind him.

He heard the sound at about the same time that he felt the dart hit him. He spun, hitting the back of his head on the bed and caught the agent with telekinesis. He slammed the man against the doorframe hard enough to knock him out. Then he reached back awkwardly and yanked the dart out. He bared his teeth at it and threw it down.

The agent slid further to the floor and Peter checked him. He knew he shouldn't have done that - head injuries were bad news - but he hadn't been thinking. His regeneration had already taken care of the whack he'd given himself against the bed, but it was beginning to labor against the tranquilizer. The agent's pulse was fine and he wasn't bleeding. Peter felt groggy and out of sorts. _I was… I was doing something…_ He was too drugged at the moment to think clearly. He turned to see the little girl had crawled out and he staggered to her. She let him pick her up and he stood, swaying, trying to teleport. It didn't work.

As it turned out, Peter's previous assessment that it was unlikely for Gabriel to take to the field to advance the Company's missions was inaccurate. Gabriel stepped into the door, backlit by the hall lights and with lightning filling his hand, ready to take out whoever had brought down his agent. Peter blinked at him and held the girl a closer. She whimpered at the menacing visage.

Gabriel let the electricity vanish and said abruptly, "Peter! … What did you do to your hair?" The comment was incongruous and jarring, given the bogey-man image he'd cut just a moment before. He gaped at Peter's head for a long moment. Peter's eyes rolled upwards briefly and he felt a moment of satisfaction that his new hairstyle bothered Gabriel. The other man shook his head and exhaled sharply. He looked briefly at the agent on the floor, then stepped over him. Peter backed up, very aware that for the moment, he was powerless. The foggy-headedness was at least not getting worse.

"He hit you," Gabriel observed, pulling the dart on the floor to him with telekinesis. "But you're still awake and on your feet. I would guess the tranquilizer was overcome by your enhanced regeneration before the neutralizer kicked in."

Peter swayed a little and blinked rapidly, trying to fight off the urge to lie down and go to sleep. His head hurt with a constant throbbing that had nothing to do with the drugs. He supposed what Gabriel said made sense, but he was finding it hard to think. He was remembering the last conversation he'd had with Gabriel, where he'd essentially broken up. He wasn't sure where that put things between them, but it couldn't be good.

Gabriel looked at him intently and cocked his head like he was listening to something. "Hm. Not entirely overcome." He reached out his hands and said, "Peter, give her to me. Let me carry her. You look like you're about to fall down."

Peter knew it was over. He was going to be taken in and probably incarcerated until the Company decided he wasn't a threat - however long that might take them. He thought about Adam being trapped in a cell for over thirty years and himself being held for six months for no reason at all. And this was Gabriel, combining all the bad traits of both Sylar and Nathan.

Peter had never entirely trusted him because he'd always suspected that if Peter were entirely powerless, entirely unable to resist him, that Gabriel would take advantage of that. If Peter were locked up, Gabriel could just keep trying until he got it right - with mind control or emotional manipulation or whatever he pleased. It was irrational, but fear often is. Peter couldn't just give up though. He reached for his ability again, yet it was still denied to him. Everything seemed lost.

Gabriel took a step closer and there was nowhere else for Peter to go. He'd backed up to the wall and there was no way he could run or fight with the girl. Gabriel looked at Peter's arms wrapped protectively around her… and froze. Gabriel stared at that for a long, still moment, not even breathing. His expression, odd as it was, gave Peter hope. Peter wondered why _this_ moment would give Gabriel such pause. It didn't make sense, but maybe there was a way out of this after all. His mother's words to him in the dream chose that moment to echo back to him: _have faith in the power of love._

Finally Gabriel reached out again and tried to speak, but his voice failed him and his hands shook a little. Peter let the other man take the little girl from him, looking at Gabriel's face and trying to understand the intense emotion there. When his hand brushed Gabriel's as he handed him the child, he could feel nothing but affection and yearning there. Gabriel cleared his throat and said roughly, "Come on," and started to leave. When Peter didn't follow, he said, "Please? I want to talk to you."

Peter nodded. These were not the conditions under which he wanted to have a conversation, but he followed anyway. They walked down the hall to the common room, which held six children and ten agents, as well as Noah Bennet, Eric Thompson Jr. and Faisal. Two of the agents were down, one missing a head (and of course, dead) and another sitting on the floor cradling his broken arm. Faisal was standing next to the injured man.

There was a moment of apprehensive silence when Peter walked in the room. _Somewhere along the line, I guess I got a reputation for being scary,_ Peter thought with a trace of worry and amusement. He stopped just inside the door, thinking about the general order that said all members of Rebel, including himself, were to be detained and brought in if encountered in the course of a mission. They wouldn't have issued such an order if they didn't intend to follow it. He'd certainly been 'encountered.' _Nathan's been in this situation before. He turned me in. Twice, and I know he loved me too._

Gabriel carried the little girl over to where the rest of the children were huddling and put her down gently. He murmured something to her and walked back to Peter, who was standing at the door. Eric had walked over to him and had brought out a pair of handcuffs. Gabriel waved him away, saying, "I've got this." Eric backed off and Gabriel jammed the door open. He walked into the hall, gesturing for Peter to follow. He did, but Gabriel didn't leave line of sight of the room.

Gabriel stepped intimately close to him and this time Peter didn't back up. He lifted his chin and looked Gabriel in the eyes, but again he was confused by the emotion in Gabriel's face. It wasn't threatening or possessive. It looked like he might cry. His fingertips trembled slightly as he lightly touched Peter's arms.

"Thank you," Gabriel said quietly, pitching his voice so it wouldn't carry. When Peter didn't reply, he said again, "Thank you. I know… I know it wasn't a ring or anything and I didn't make a big production of giving it to you, but it's the only thing I ever did give you… A part of me… and," he swallowed and cleared his throat a little. Peter was shocked - Gabriel **did** have tears in his eyes. "And it means a lot to me to see you wear it. Especially after… what you said. I thought it was over. _**Thank you**_." Gabriel leaned in to the stunned Peter and nuzzled his brow, kissing his temple lightly.

Peter looked down at his hands. _It wasn't a ring? What the hell is he talking about?_ He wasn't wearing any rings, but on his left wrist was a watch. He turned his arm slightly, already realizing what he was about to see. Because months before, when Peter had first tried to desensitize himself to Gabriel's face (Sylar's face), Gabriel had shown him how his shape-shifting allowed him to alter what he wore as well. He had changed a Rolex Arthur had given Nathan as a birthday gift into a Sylar watch, emblematic of the serial killer and immortalized in Isaac Mendez's painting.

Peter sucked in his breath. After Gabriel had given the watch to him and asked him to wear it, Peter had just held it and later, after Gabriel had left, he'd tossed it in his dresser drawer and never thought about it again. Now he **was** wearing it - he had put Sylar's name on himself like a label that said 'property of _' or 'belongs to _'… or like a ring. And for Sylar, or Gabriel, a watch, a timepiece, meant so much more than a ring ever would.

Peter looked up at Gabriel's face and realized this was another of those pivotal moments. If he denied it, if he explained that he hadn't realized and it hadn't meant anything to him, then Gabriel would be crushed. The rejection would be complete. It really would be over between them.

Gabriel bent and tilted his head to kiss him and the longing and entreaty in his face was total. Peter saw a flicker of doubt cross those strong features as Peter didn't meet him immediately. There was no reason for the doubt. For someone who loved him this deeply, Peter couldn't possibly turn away. The last two weeks had not hardened his heart. He'd had time to sort out his priorities, pursue his goals and find himself. He'd had time enough to become lonely and to miss the people he'd left behind.

Peter kissed him, slow and deep and wondrous. The world melted away and he knew nothing but the feel of Gabriel's mouth on his and the light touch of his body, so tense, his passion barely restrained. He felt Gabriel's right hand ghost up and down his left arm, fingertips brushing across the watch as if to reassure himself it was really there.

Peter thought, _I'm never going to be able to take that off without disappointing him. I wonder who else noticed? Micah? Abigail? Claude? And if they did, what did they think? What's _**Emma**_ going to think? What am I going to do? I think I know what this means to him, but what does it mean to _me_?_

They broke apart and Peter leaned forward, putting his forehead down against Gabriel's shoulder. It occurred to him they were having this exchange in full view of at least a dozen people, if they didn't count the kids. He inhaled Gabriel's scent and felt it go through him powerfully. It was tough to care who saw them. His thoughts were in a whirl of confusion, but his heart knew exactly what it wanted. He remembered something Gabriel had told him about thinking one way and feeling another:_ 'Thinking's over-rated. I went with the emotion.'_

Peter had missed Gabriel in a lot of ways. He shifted uncomfortably, struggling to bring his mind back to more cerebral matters before his body got out of hand displaying its desire to go further. Gabriel gave him a peck on the ear and Peter twitched. He usually hated being touched on the ears and Gabriel knew that, but on the other hand Gabriel used that knowledge to tease. Peter pulled away and looked at Gabriel's face - he was being playful. He was happy, joyous even.

Peter smiled and felt a flush of warmth at Gabriel's expression. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. He looked away, looking back in the common room, trying to get himself under control – this was not the time or the place for this kind of reunion.

There were a few more kids in there and one other adult. Between Rebel and the Company, all twenty-one of the children were accounted for now. Faisal, the dead agent and the one with a broken arm were gone, probably teleported away. Peter blinked and exhaled. He'd been so totally distracted, he hadn't noticed as people had walked past them into the room. Speaking of distracted, he had come here for a reason and that reason was over. He needed to get back to Rebel.

He reached out and caught Gabriel's elbow, pressing his lips together for a moment. _He's not going to like this._ Peter wasn't even sure if he'd go along with it. It was putting everything to the test, but he had to know. He swallowed and said, "Let me go."

Gabriel breathed in unevenly and looked Peter up and down like Nathan used to do, reading his body language. "What?"

"You have to let me go, Gabriel." Peter reached up to touch Gabriel's face. The other man closed his eyes and took Peter's hand in his, rubbing his face against it like a cat. Peter felt an ache inside as his stomach somersaulted again.

Very softly, Gabriel said with his eyes still closed, "I wish I could tell you I'll be different for you, that I'll change, that I'll be a better man. I want to be, Peter. I want to be _so bad_, but I am what I've been made to be." He opened his eyes. "I love you anyway."

"Gabriel," Peter reached up to put his hands on either side of the other man's face. "What you are - is enough."

Gabriel shook his head. "You don't know everything, Peter. What I've done, I-"

"Shh. Gabriel - I don't want to. If I did, don't you think I would have asked?" Peter tilted his head with the question. "I never asked Nathan about what happened in Bosnia, when he was shot down, what he did to get out of there alive." Peter looked off to the side for a moment, then back. "I was Noah's partner in the Company for months and he's killed a lot of people. I know some of the things you've done and I love you anyway. If you need to tell me everything, if you need to tell me _for yourself_, you can… but later. I don't need to know and I don't really want to."

Peter stroked his face, lowering his hands slowly, letting them rest on Gabriel's chest and feel his warmth beneath his fingers. "What you have is like an addiction. I had it once and it consumed me. I don't know how you manage it. I know… sometimes you might slip. If you fall off the wagon, let me help you back on. It's what I do. What's important is that you try… and I know you are trying." One hand swept up to Gabriel's shoulder and squeezed. "Keep trying," he whispered.

Peter had suspected, for some time, that Gabriel had killed in the last few months. He wasn't sure who or why or the circumstances around it, but too many of Gabriel's answers had been nuanced and evasive, especially recently. Too many of his expressions had been guilty or tortured when the subject came up. He tried to hide himself too much and too often.

Peter had made it clear early on that he had zero tolerance. It was a narrow-minded point of view and Peter regretted it. It had bred the very insecurity that stood between them. Right or wrong, Peter knew he had to give up on judging Gabriel. That was the role of an enemy, not a friend and certainly not a lover. Similarly, he had to know if he could trust him, which was impossible to do as his prisoner.

Peter looked back and forth between Gabriel's eyes for a moment and then repeated, "Let me go." Peter dropped his hands to his sides and waited. Peter knew Gabriel was possessive, jealous and wildly insecure. He had a lot of good traits, but those were the bad ones that would be tested sorely by what he was asking for. Peter was asking him to let him go without conditions or negotiation and Peter wasn't even offering a promise of coming back. He intended to come back, but Gabriel didn't know that and Peter didn't intend to tell him.

It was cruel, in a way, but a dark voice in Peter's soul had to know if Gabriel would extend the same trust Peter was going to put in him. Did he understand Peter enough to know he could never keep a relationship with him if he held on too tightly? Was the Company so much of his life and identity that he couldn't release Peter after he and Rebel had thwarted them time after time?

Gabriel shifted his weight uneasily and glanced away, then leaned forward to touch his forehead to Peter's. "**I want you…**" he breathed, the air from his voice puffing against Peter's skin. Peter felt a surge of electricity run through him that had nothing to do with Gabriel's ability. He didn't want to leave. He didn't want to leave, but he had to. He shivered and bit his lip against his reaction to the husky voice, heavy with need. Gabriel smiled at him, obviously pleased that Peter was having trouble remaining impassive. He concluded softly, "…in my life. Whenever you're ready."

Gabriel took a step back and said in a more normal voice, "With your regeneration, the neutralizer should wear off within an hour, maybe less. Watch out though - we didn't get Mohinder or Bandar. They got away, but we weren't here for them anyway." He cleared his face of emotion, stood taller and assuming a mantel of leadership, squaring his shoulders like Peter had seen Nathan do so many times.

Gabriel turned and walked back into the common room. Faisal had returned and Gabriel conferred with him, then gave directions for the rest to be moved out to vans that would be coming to take them to the airport. Peter guessed they were reserving Faisal's juice for the leadership.

Peter turned and walked down the main stairwell, feeling like he was walking on air. Behind him, he heard Eric Thompson Jr. saying, "What are you doing? You're just letting him leave? We **have** him! Rebel is _nothing_ without **him**!"

Gabriel's reply was indistinct, but no one came after Peter. He paused at the front door and looked at the watch on his wrist. It had a black face and white numbers, with "SYLAR" across it in small, but clearly visible letters. He smiled and shook his head. His stomach was still lurching with butterflies. _To hell with what people might think. I'm going to wear it._ He went out the front door and into the night.


	156. Like Father, Like Son

Peter walked down the streets of Odessa almost randomly, looking at the architecture in the dim light. It was probably two at night, local time. He looked at the cell phone Micah had given him and texted in that he was okay and would join them soon. There was no answer, but Micah was probably still drugged. He wondered, again, _Why Odessa, Texas and Odessa, Ukraine?_ One of the Company's earliest and best agents had lived here, named Ivan Spektor. Noah didn't talk about him much, but Clarice had mentioned him several times. He'd handled nearly all of the early instruction of the agents. He was dead now - Peter had never met him.

Peter came to the mouth of an alley and saw one man kneeling next to another, with the latter crumpled on the ground as if injured or unconscious. Peter started towards them immediately, not sure if he was interrupting something as malign as a mugging or murder, or as benign as a Good Samaritan checking a passed out drunk. It occurred to him that as he didn't speak Ukrainian, Russian or any of the other local languages, he was going to be at a disadvantage no matter what the situation was.

Although Peter was naturally quiet and dressed entirely in black, he was still noticed some distance back. The kneeling man stood up and even in the darkness, Peter recognized the hunched, asymmetrical profile. He stopped immediately, glancing between Mohinder and the man on the ground. There was just enough light to see the fallen form had a thick beard - it must have been Bandar. He waited, wondering if Mohinder likewise recognized him.

"Peter Petrelli," he said, without a trace of Mohinder's characteristic accent. Peter blinked, remembering two things: Dr. Tabari saying his name just like that, and Bandar speaking perfect, fluent English to the agents just a little bit ago. Two weeks before, Bandar had struggled with the language when under the stress of combat.

"You're not Mohinder," Peter said. It wasn't a question.

"No, of course not. Bandar's not any use to me at the moment, which is too bad. It would be nice to reinforce that sense of betrayal he gave you."

Peter swallowed and backed up a step. So… Lilith gained use of the abilities of whoever she possessed. Right now she possessed Mohinder, who had apparently ripped an agent's head entirely off. And Peter couldn't regenerate at the moment. Mohinder took a limping step towards him. Seeing that limp, Peter remembered his own clumsiness when he'd taken Mohinder's form. There was nothing useful he could do here and if he wasn't careful, he might end up as the next person possessed. With his abilities, when they returned, that would be devastating. He turned and ran.

A couple blocks later, he paused to catch his breath, but he didn't think he was being followed. After watching back the way he came for a minute, he turned and kept heading away, his mind busy. _She's still out there. That must have been what Mohinder meant by overcoming death. But I killed her so fast! How could she…? Claude told me everything he knew and that wasn't enough. Who else might know? Mohinder… My father._ Peter sighed and tried to think of anyone else who was likely to have personal experience with her. _Maury and Angela. And Rene - Claude said Chandra was working with Lilith and they erased his memories. Maybe some members of Halo… but Gabriel and Maury talked to them about who was really in control. Halo said it was Arthur - always Arthur, since he'd shown up just a couple years ago._

_I have to talk to my father._ Almost as though that thought was a catalyst, he felt his regeneration suffuse his body, kicking back in. A few seconds later, his other abilities were at his disposal as well.

He went back to the bar in Las Vegas, where Micah was sitting in a chair and holding an ice pack against the side of his head. West and Sparrow were also sitting things out. Many of the other specials they'd contacted and saved had been gathered this evening to help them with the children. The kids they'd brought in had already been cleared out and split up to different households and hotel rooms for the evening. The plan was they'd get back together in the morning, take stock of which children spoke which languages, and split them up for more permanent arrangements. Rebel had worked hard to find and screen volunteer families in their extensive network of people with abilities.

Micah waved at Peter with his free hand and said, "Got your text. Thanks. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he answered. He still had a headache, but teleporting only himself had been simple after taking the groups. His mind was still running through the ramifications of what he'd seen. For one thing, Bandar going off on his own and breaking away from Halo was in a whole different light now. _She had to have possessed Mohinder. He was the only one there when I killed Tabari. Or maybe she can program someone to be the next in line for possession and automatically reverts to them? Or maybe she just floats around as a consciousness, a ghost, until the right someone comes along. I have to find out how this works._

Abigail was talking to him. "What?" Peter asked.

"I _said_, how do we know you're you?"

Peter stared at her, recalling that Gabriel had shape-shifting and they knew that. He said, "Do you want to see my driver's license again?"

Micah chuckled and said, "Okay, yeah, that's Peter. And besides, that other guy can't teleport."

Abigail nodded. "Good point. Sorry, but we can't be too careful. Now what happened to make you an hour late?"

"I got neutralized. Couldn't use my abilities for a while."

"And you got away?" she said disbelievingly.

Peter shrugged. "Yeah." He didn't want to explain about Gabriel.

"They let you go? The Company got you, shot you and they let you go?" She sounded even more disbelieving.

Sparrow put in, "Abby, they let you go too, a couple weeks ago." She scowled at her.

Peter changed the subject. "If everything's under control here, I need to go talk to someone and find out some information. Micah, can I talk to you privately?"

The young man nodded and put down the ice pack. They walked to the far end of the room and stood next to a pair of ancient arcade games and a pinball machine. Micah looked him up and down. Peter couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever noticed the watch. Micah had said a few things that indicated an awareness of the relationship, but he'd never outright asked. Peter moved on before he could obsess about it. "I need to go talk to my father, but I doubt they're still holding him in the same cell. Can you find out where he is?"

Micah's eyes went distant for a full minute, then he focused on Peter and said, "No. Not directly. There's a lot of places he could be. The facility systems are isolated. I have to be within a few feet of one of their terminals to access it. And even if I was, are they going to list him by name?"

"No," Peter shook his head. He thought for a moment. Maury and Angela might know about Lilith, but they were unlikely to tell him anything useful and certainly not for free. They were also far less likely to let him go than Gabriel was, if they had the opportunity to capture him. He had no idea where Rene was. If he was going to get a cryptic, expensive answer, he might as well go to the one most likely to know, which was Arthur. He'd worked with her, probably for years. If anyone would know how to stop her, he would. "Do you know where Molly is?"

Micah raised his brows. After a long beat, he said, "Yeah, for the most part. She emails me sometimes."

"Okay. Can you ask her to look for Arthur Petrelli for me?"

"Is it that important? I've asked her for favors like that before and she's turned me down. She said she couldn't."

Peter looked at the ceiling briefly and shook his head at the ludicrousness of what he was about to say. "Tell her… tell her _I'm_ asking, and that it's for the good of the Company."

Micah looked at him evenly. Suspicion was writ large on his face, but he didn't say anything. He looked back and forth between Peter's eyes. Peter knew it sounded like he was an agent of the Company, sounded like maybe he'd never really been kicked out and had been playing Rebel all this time. Or maybe it was just that he knew what words to say that would bypass Molly's mental commands and he was lying, manipulating her for his personal advantage. Neither were comforting possibilities.

Peter said softly, "Please trust me, Micah."

Micah nodded and turned away. "Okay. I'll tell her that. I'll call you when she answers."

He had the location a few hours later. The break had been very helpful for Peter. The ache in his head had retreated considerably. Peter teleported directly into his father's cell on level two of the Philadelphia containment facility. It was a nice room with furniture, a rug on the floor and a screen around the toilet area for privacy. His father looked unsurprised to see him. He closed the book he'd been reading and held it on his knee by one hand. Peter looked at the cover. It read _Chance, Love and Logic_, by C. S. Peirce.

"Good book?" Peter asked.

"Yes." His father smiled slightly at him. "The chapter on Evolutionary Love is particularly enlightening. I've finished it - I was just rereading a few parts, waiting for you. Would you like to borrow it?" He extended the book towards his son.

Peter blinked. _Waiting for me. Damn it. He's ahead of me. Again._ Refusing his father's offer was not a good way to start the conversation, however. "Sure," he said impulsively and took the text.

Arthur nodded. "I think you'll like it. Here's a few quotes from it: 'A great respect should be paid to the natural judgment of a sensible heart.' And to paraphrase, 'to condemn sentimentality is the most degrading of the blasphemies.'" Arthur's face lit up slightly and he held up a finger to stall what Peter was about to say, "Oh! And this: 'the great evolutionary agency of the universe is Love.'" He smiled more widely. "It's a bit sweet, especially for a philosopher famed for his pragmatism, but as I said, I thought you'd like it. Russell said he was the greatest thinker America ever had. It's a pity he's not better known."

Peter had the feeling his father had requested the book specifically with the intention of giving it to him. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. He settled on perplexed, thinking about how Mohinder had spoken of thinking in four dimensions when working with Arthur.

"Thanks. I'll read it." He glanced around the room uneasily, trying to think of how to broach his request.

"What can I do for you, son?" Arthur folded his hands and leaned forward.

Peter's eyes jerked back to him. _Of course he wants to know - the better to manipulate me. Well, I might as well tell him. It's the only way to find out. _Peter had tried to steal information from his father's mind before, when he'd captured him prior to the eclipse. It had not gone well and while he was a slightly better telepath now than he was then, he still doubted his ability to pry out anything helpful if he used force. "I need to know about Lilith."

"Ah." Arthur nodded. "Lilith," he said and the name rolled off his tongue with a peculiar accent and cadence. His voice took on the tone of someone giving a class lecture. "She is a very powerful figure. In the Judaic folklore, she was the first wife of the biblical Adam. She rejected the natural authority of man over woman and was cast out for her heresy."

Peter opened his mouth to interrupt and point out he wasn't asking about figures of myth, but then he shut it. Maybe his father was trying to tell him something. It would be better to listen.

Arthur went on, "Alone in the wilderness, she was beloved by demons. Some even say she was the mother of all who had extraordinary, superhuman abilities."

Peter shifted his weight, leaning forward slightly in attention. _He __**is**__ trying to tell me something._

The older man said, "When she returned to mingle with humanity again, she preyed upon little boys." Peter thought about how the three children who had died had all been male. He hadn't seen any significance to it at the time. "You see," Arthur said, inclining his head, and speaking more normally, "Breeding females are too valuable to spend frivolously."

Going back to the teaching tone, he said, "In Islamic myth, she was one of the demons who stole infants and was warded off by the sign of Fatimah, the Prophet Mohammed's blessed daughter." Arthur blinked slowly and smiled up at Peter, looking almost smug.

When it seemed that he was done, Peter sighed. He'd hoped to get something more explicit. "How do I stop her?"

His father leaned back against the wall and lifted his brows. "I've already told you that."

Peter growled as he thought back over what little his father had said. "The sign of… The sign of Fatimah is a hand!" Peter held his out, fingers together and palm vertical, in what in the Western world was generally accepted as a signal to 'stop.' Peter knew what it was - the hamsa, or Hand of Fatimah, was a common motif in jewelry and as far as mystic symbolism went, was supposed to ward off evil influences. It was terribly general though. He couldn't imagine what his father wanted him to understand - or why he didn't just come right out and tell him.

Arthur tilted his head to the side and said, "You always were a bit slow, Peter."

Peter snapped, "And you were always telling other people what to do, driving them away, never letting anyone get close to you!" He added sarcastically, "How's that working out for you, now that you're alone and locked up with no one who cares about you?" Peter felt bad for saying it, but there was no recalling the spoken word. He had a lot of buried, unresolved feelings towards this man.

His father took a deep breath and said, "I think I'm supposed to say, 'Touché.' But I have to point out… how many people know what **you** are doing here? What's happened to everyone who used to be close to you? How… how is **that** working out for you, Peter?"

Peter gaped for a moment, then exhaled and looked around the room. He looked at the book in his hand. He wanted to throw it at his father, but he didn't.

Arthur said, "Perhaps that was unfair of me, since I do have you at such a disadvantage." Peter scowled at him silently. "I'll tell you what, son. You go think about it. It will come to you, I'm sure. And if it doesn't, then come back here and I'll tell you in plainer terms."

Peter could almost hear the translation in his head: _I'll use little bitty words so you'll understand._ He tapped the book rapidly against his thigh, trying to calm down. His father had given him an out. And he'd promised to explain it even if that meant Peter would have to put up with his condescension. He took a deep breath. Peter had spent most of his life rebelling against this man and fighting not to be him, to be better than him. _I'm better than __**this**__. I'm not going to let him get me angry. Just let it go. _"Okay, if I do figure it out, how do I know it's going to work?"

"It will work. I have it from a very reliable source." Peter looked a question at him and Arthur elaborated, "Myself."

"You?" Peter said. "Future you?" For lack of a better way to talk about time travel, he used Hiro's labels.

Arthur smiled again. "No. Past me, but I saw it in the future. It works."

Peter nodded and turned his mind to where he wanted to go next. As if reading his thoughts, his father said quickly, "Son!"

Peter looked at him sharply. Arthur stood and took a moment to brush the wrinkles from his slacks. For the first time, Peter realized Arthur was dressed in normal business casual clothing and not the light blue, standard issue garments the Company used for prisoners. He'd been wrong, he saw, that no one cared about Arthur. Someone was bringing him books. Someone was bringing him clothes. Someone had upgraded him to a level two cell and given him more furniture and comforts than usual for such a room. Arthur wasn't alone in the world.

After a beat Arthur straightened, swallowed and said, "You've grown into quite a man, Peter. I… I just wanted you to know… I'm proud of you."

"Thank you," Peter said softly, wondering if this was authentic, or more manipulation. It was true, at least, and knowing that sunk deep into his heart and warmed it to an almost ridiculous degree. He looked his father up and down, thinking about the hug with which Arthur had stolen Peter's abilities and the handshake by which Peter had stolen Arthur's. Painful as it might be, he was going to opt for the no-contact route for now. He hefted the book. "I'll think about it - what you said about Lilith. Thanks for the book."

"Oh, one other thing," Arthur said.

Peter made a gesture for him to go on and Arthur said, "I **would** like to be out of here."

Peter looked around the room, wondering what it had cost his father to say that and what he expected to get out of it. Not knowing how to respond, Peter just nodded and teleported out.


	157. Dirty Laundry

Peter teleported to the Deveaux rooftop to think. It wasn't as helpful as he'd hoped. It was dark and misting, two things he really hadn't been thinking of - the time or the weather. He stood under the arch of the door and looked at his watch, but it unhelpfully told him it was 5:12 pm, Las Vegas time. He supposed that made it 8 here. He rubbed the face of the watch, remembering how pleased Gabriel had been to see him wearing it. It made Peter smile and his stomach went back to giving him weird happy sensations.

_My father's right. I've driven everyone away. That little 'let me go' stunt - I shouldn't have done that. Course, if I hadn't, I'd always wonder. Speaking of wondering..._ He chewed his lip and decided to take a chance. He teleported outside Emma's apartment and pressed the button that would activate the flashing lights inside. She came to the door quickly and blinked in astonishment. When she didn't indicate anything, he signed, "Can I come in?"

She looked back in her apartment and for a moment he wondered if someone was there. It **had** been weeks, after all. Only a little more than two, but still, he felt a second of panic that he had been away too long. But then she opened the door and stepped back. He walked in and saw the probable cause for her hesitancy. Her couch and coffee table were covered with rumpled laundry.

"You're folding laundry?" he said, then remembered himself and turned to sign the same thing to her.

She nodded and walked over to stand next to the basket on the coffee table. "I've been putting it off for too long."

"Can I help?" he signed.

She gave him an exasperated look. "You showed up after all this time to help me fold laundry?"

"I love folding laundry!" he signed with enthusiasm.

She stared at him, then said out loud, "You are lying!" She came over to him and slapped at him playfully. He _was_ lying, so he laughed and put his hands up to defend his face. He stepped forward, into her, where she couldn't hit him without backing up. She did and stumbled on the edge of the coffee table, grabbing at him by reflex. Her hand caught in his shirt and they both went down together in the clean clothes piled on the couch.

He was suddenly very aware that he was lying on top of her. From her expression, she had the same awareness. He started to lift himself off, but she tightened her grip in his shirt instead of letting him go. Peter relaxed against her, settling most of his weight on his knees, which were on the floor now that he'd shifted. She sat up and looked at him, really looking at him, but she kept her hands twined in his shirt. He returned her examination, looking at the contours of her face and the shape of her lips. His eyes lingered there for a long time, but he needed permission first.

"You're wet," she said, reaching up with one hand to touch the moisture on his hair. The other still held his clothes. He could feel himself beginning to react to the situation. He suspected she could too - they were that close.

He was still damp from standing in the light rain on the roof of the Deveaux Building. She hooked her feet behind his thighs and it was the permission he'd been waiting for. He moved his hands from the outside of her shoulders around to her back. He leaned in and she met him in a kiss. It was tentative at first, then with abandon.

He was suddenly very aware that he was lying on top of her. From her expression, she had the same awareness. He started to lift himself off, but she tightened her grip in his shirt. Peter relaxed against her, settling most of his weight on his knees, which were on the floor now that he'd shifted. She sat up and looked at him, really looking at him, but she kept her hands twined in his shirt. He returned her examination, looking at the contours of her face and the shape of her lips. His eyes lingered there for a long time, but he needed permission first.

"You're wet," she said, reaching up with one hand to touch the moisture on his hair. The other still held his clothes. He could feel himself beginning to react to the situation. He suspected she could too - they were that close.

He was still damp from standing in the light rain on the roof of the Deveaux Building. She hooked her feet behind his thighs and it was the permission he'd been waiting for. He moved his hands from the outside of her shoulders around to her back. He leaned in and she met him in a kiss. It was tentative at first, then with abandon.

She sucked his tongue into her mouth hard enough for him to make a throttled noise. There was no slow gear here and his body was letting him know it was perfectly fine with that. He ran his hands up and down her back. She scooted forward while simultaneously wrapping her legs more firmly behind him and began to grind herself against his rapidly swelling member. He panted and leaned back enough to get his hands into her shirt, where he fumbled at the buttons.

Emma was no help, leaning in whenever he paused to kiss him with a wanton, roving mouth. She reached down and unfastened his pants, somehow managing to take much less time at it then he had with her shirt. Still, it gave him enough of a break to unhook her bra. Fortunately it fastened in the front. He cupped her breasts and bent to suckle first one, then the other. Emma arched her back and groaned loudly.

He loved her sounds. She was deaf; she was uninhibited in making them. She knew she was noisy, but she had no idea how loud she sometimes was. It thrilled him. He had no intention of telling her. For one thing, when he was with her, he had little shame about being equally vocal.

She leaned back on the clothes and he bent over her to reapply his ministrations to her breasts. Emma brought her feet up and hooked them in his waistband, shoving down forcefully. His pants, underwear and all, went to his knees and bunched on the floor. Peter glanced down, then up at her. She grinned and undid her slacks. He pulled them off quickly and took up his former position between her legs.

Again, she wrapped herself around him and pulled him against her. He reached down and adjusted himself. She bit her lip and rubbed herself up and down against the heat of his shaft.

"Oh my God," Peter muttered. He could feel her pubic hair scratchy against him, her heat and slick moisture. He could feel how ready she was, how wet, and how she strained against him, raising her body a little more with each grind until she topped him. "Ah!" he cried out as she brought him into herself. His fingers clutched her sides involuntarily and his hips began to jerk.

She started making a mewling, begging noise, high pitched and pleading as she urged him on. She took his arms and pulled him over her. He began thrusting in earnest, grunting with each stroke. It was hard and fast and she met him with her whole body, rising to his tempo and matching him. Her calls became more drawn out and protracted with each forward drive he made. The sound ran through him like fire and he felt himself coming undone. It spread through his loins and across his skin in a racing tingle that built unbearably until he came with a shout. He shuddered against her.

She continued to clinch rhythmically against him and he realized he'd come first. He shifted a little and slipped his hand between them. She crooned and began to whimper as he worked her, still hard enough for her to feel him within her. She was so close that it only took a moment before she spasmed around his shaft, moaning her satisfaction for him to hear.

The whole thing couldn't have taken more than a couple minutes, start to finish. He panted against her. Maybe under other circumstances he'd have been embarrassed by his lack of stamina, but with the way she was clinging to him and the satisfied, wordless murmurs she was making - he thought he'd done great.

_Well. __**That**__ wasn't the reception I expected,_ Peter thought. _That was wonderful, incredible even,_ he reflected as he folded towels and felt a deep sense of contentment with the world. At the moment, he could not care less about Lilith. The people he loved mattered more. Gabriel was happy with him, Emma still wanted him, his father was proud of him… things were looking up.

Emma put aside a stack of underwear and signed to him, "So, are you going to get your job back at the hospital?"

He shrugged and spoke, relying on her lip reading because his hands were busy folding clothes. "I don't know. I still have a problem I need to take care of first, but after that… I don't know. I wish I still had healing. If I did, then I'd go back to being a paramedic for sure. Every day I was helping people."

She nodded and signed, "Can't you get healing again? There was someone you got it from before."

He nodded, putting aside the bath towels and starting on washcloths. "Yeah, but now I have to **take** it from people and then they don't have it anymore. I steal it." He sighed. "I know two people with healing, but one's a really nice old lady from Riyadh and the other is a faith healer in Michigan. Neither one of them deserve to lose their ability. Even though the faith healer thinks hers is the hand of-" He stopped, blinked.

"What?" Emma signed, alarmed at his sudden stop.

He looked at her. "That's it! It's the hand of God! The faith healer in Michigan thinks her ability is the hand of God… and Fatima is the name of the woman from Riyadh who can heal. Lilith is warded off by the sign of Fatimah, which is healing, which is the hand of God."

Emma smiled gently and said, "Peter… you're not making sense. Can you sign it?"

He laughed and signed, "It's not going to make sense this way either. My father told me… um, no, let me go back. There's a person with the ability to possess people and when she does, she can survive their death. After they die, she just possesses someone else. She's lived a long, long time that way. Her name is Lilith." He spelled it out and then continued with word signs, "I've been trying to find out how to stop her because she's been hurting people. My father told me I could stop her the same way the mythological Lilith was stopped, by using the sign of Fatimah. Fatima is the woman-"

Emma took over, repeating what he'd said earlier. She ended with, "So how is healing going to stop her?"

"I'm not sure," Peter signed, looking down. "But it _feels_ right. Obviously people being hurt doesn't drive her out - it doesn't stop her ability, but maybe the reverse would. I know when I lost my memories, Adam had me bring them back by regeneration, focusing my own healing. He _knew_ it would work that way. I wonder if I could focus healing to restore the mind of whoever she's possessed, pushing her out, maybe destroying her?" He slumped and looked troubled.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I still have to get healing. Or talk one of these two women into walking into a fight. Probably a dangerous one," he ended, thinking about how Lilith seemed to be using Mohinder as a bodyguard.

She reached over and patted his knee. "You'll figure something out," she said with perfect confidence.

He smiled weakly and looked at her beatific face. He scooted forward and reverently took her face in his hands. She blinked at how forward he was, but he wasn't unwelcome. They came together again in an embrace, as gentle and careful as the earlier time had been rushed and intense. He'd missed her, but no more.

They kissed slowly and sweetly, exploring each other carefully as if each were made of delicate blown glass. Peter ran his fingers down her neck, stroking gently with only the tips. He came to the first button and undid it. It was so much easier when he wasn't trying to do it as fast as possible. He'd been tempted to just rip it off. He was glad he hadn't.

Now he unfastened it easily while she explored his face by touch. When all the buttons were undone, he leaned back to look at her body and smiled. The female form was lovely to look on - there was no doubt about that. It was like visual poetry. As much as he liked men, there was something mesmerizing about a lovely set of breasts. Apparently she shared his opinion in reverse, because she gave him only a moment to look before reaching out and beginning to undress him.

She didn't stop at his shirt, continuing until he was naked. He helped her finish getting out of her clothes for the second time. She pulled off her last sock while standing on one foot, one hand on his shoulder to steady her. He was sitting on the couch. She tossed it away and pushed him back and to the side. A stack of folded bath towels went to the floor, quickly followed by a few washcloths and a couple sets of socks. She climbed over him, straddling him. He was ready, but as of yet she didn't take him within her.

He reached up to massage her breasts and she leaned forward to make it easier. She ran one hand over his skin while holding herself up with the other. It occurred to Peter that by barring Gabriel from ever using telekinesis on him, he'd made a lot of very interesting positions difficult or impossible. He made a resolution to talk to Emma later about her comfort zone with abilities in bed. For the moment, he bent himself upwards to suckle her, flicking her nipples alternately with his tongue. She began to rock against him.

Emma pushed him back slowly and bent to do the same to him. He cradled her head against his front and groaned in appreciation. She couldn't hear him directly, but she could feel his vocalizations through his chest. She smiled and nibbled on his nipples, pulling on them and rolling them between her lips.

Peter's hands went lower, down her sides. Her hips were out of his reach, but she knew what he was asking for. She came forward and positioned herself over him. He grasped himself and aimed. She lowered herself, rocking and moving so as to work him into herself. She wasn't as wet as she'd been earlier even though their foreplay had already gone longer than the entire act. He didn't mind and neither did she.

He made shallow thrusts at first as she settled herself against him. She was still wet _inside_ - after all, it was less than half an hour from the first time. "Oh! Ah!" he moaned when she slid down him and he was abruptly slick again. When he was all the way in, she leaned forward onto his chest, curling herself slightly against him. He took her hips in his hands and pushed into her tenderly, slowly and carefully. She called out softly with each motion, crooning in pleasure.

She hugged him to her. It made it harder to stay in her, but he managed. It let him kiss her cheek and feel her hair against his face. She sat up at last and he felt his full length go inside her again. So did she and she gave it a full-throated noise of appreciation. He grinned and slipped one hand between them, finding her clitoris. She steadied herself as he began to thrust harder into her.

He pushed and flexed. She rocked and bent. They moved together in harmony, a visceral, primal rhythm of love and sensuality. She came in a slow climax that he got to watch from start to finish. When she contracted around him, he put both hands to her hips and thrust harder and faster. She was her most vocal when he fucked her hard right after orgasm. It drove him wild and this time did not disappoint. He came a minute later.

He pulled her down on top of him and she snuggled against him. Compared to Gabriel, she was light. He ran his hands through her hair, tangling it inadvertently. "You're wonderful," he said, even though she couldn't see his lips. As if she knew what he'd said, she nestled against him more firmly. "I want to marry you. Would you marry me, Emma Coolidge?" She didn't answer. She knew he was speaking from the vibration in his chest, but he wasn't making any indication she should sit up and see what he was saying. He could be talking about the weather for all she knew.

He'd said such things to her before, but only when she couldn't know what he said. He didn't know if their rocky relationship would be aided or ended by an attempt to make it permanent, but he was beginning to feel the need to at least _try_ to make it that way.

Peter had been watching the way Gabriel lived his life (and wow, was that ever a shocker to realize he was looking to _Gabriel_ for relationship advice, even if he was only observing and not actually asking). Commitment was really important to the other man. It was more important to people than Peter had realized. When he'd thought Gabriel had died, when he'd broken up with Emma a few months ago, he'd come to appreciate the value of having someone in your heart and knowing they'd always be there for you. He was wearing Sylar's watch. He needed to make a similar commitment to her. _One of these days,_ he thought, _I need to ask her to her face._

After all the clothes were folded (and refolded, for the ones that had been shoved off the couch the second time around), they went out for a late dinner. She signed through most of the meal, as she'd eaten earlier and was there mostly to be with him. She told him about work and the scandal involving the mayor and his late, over-active response to the flu epidemic. It sounded like his heart was in the right place, but he'd gotten cross-wise with the CDC and the federal government, so it had gone badly for him. Peter felt sorry for the guy, who probably didn't even know what he was reacting to.

It was late when he walked her home and the rain had stopped, leaving the streets slick and clean. He kissed her just inside her door and set down the umbrella they'd carried just in case. Before he left though, she snagged his arm and caught his eyes. She signed, "I talked to Gabriel after you left."

His brows rose. As far as he knew, Gabriel had never met Emma otherwise. Peter had worked very hard to keep those two sides of his life separate. Now they were talking? He nodded. She didn't look angry, but she clearly had something she was trying to work herself up to saying.

"He said… you were going to ask me to marry you."

Peter froze. A surge of anger at Gabriel went through him. _Gabriel and his big mouth! Oh boy, is he ever going to pay for that! That bastard! Did he tell her that to get back at me for leaving him? Wait… why would he tell her __**that**__ to get back at me? That doesn't make any sense._ He calmed down, shoved away thoughts of his_ other_ significant other, and paid attention to Emma. "Yeah?" he said weakly.

"Do you want to? To marry me?"

"Are… are…" Peter stammered and then swallowed and tried again, his mouth suddenly dry and uncooperative. "Are you asking **me?**"

"So he was telling the truth?" she signed.

"Um… y-yeah." _ But I don't have a ring yet and I'm wearing Sylar's watch and I thought you were really upset with me but the makeup sex was __**awesome**__ and…_

She grinned broadly and hugged him. He hugged her back, looking upwards and feeling the beginning of a goofy grin of his own stretching across his face. When they separated, he signed, "Yes. I want to be with you." After a pause, he decided to forge ahead, since the surprise had been ruined anyway. It wasn't like he hadn't been trying to work himself up to this for months. "Will you marry me?"

She reached up and stroked the side of his face, speaking, "Peter Petrelli - I love you." She leaned in and kissed him passionately, but all he could think of was how she hadn't said yes. When they finished kissing, she said, "But we have to talk about Gabriel." He blinked, his expression going to guarded in an instant. She continued stroking his face. "He seemed like a very nice man when I met him. I can see why you like him."

Peter glanced off to the side, then back at her, his brows furrowing slightly. She didn't seem angry, but she was adamant. _What the hell did they talk about?_ The careful compartmentalization of his life had fallen apart while he was away and he hadn't even realized it.

She signed, "We'll talk later. Not tonight." She pushed him towards the door and he went, dumbfounded. He stood outside it for several minutes, unable to think, he was so rattled.


	158. Show Me Your Secrets

After a while, standing by himself outside Emma's apartment became awkward. Peter needed to go somewhere else. His first instinct was to track down Gabriel and give him a piece of his mind about telling Emma (prematurely) that Peter was going to propose. He hadn't even told _Gabriel_ he was going to propose, though he had told him he _might_. Someday. He just hadn't intended for it to be today.

In fact, he hadn't even decided to do it at all. He'd thought about it a lot, but never felt his life was settled enough for that sort of commitment. He looked at his watch for the time and was reminded of his apparent commitment now to Gabriel. _I didn't intend that either. But… people want me in their lives. It's all I ever really wanted. It's __**everything**__ I ever really wanted._ He shook his head at the peculiarity of life and teleported to the garden behind his mother's house.

It was a little past midnight, but his mother rarely slept. Tonight was no exception, but when Peter went to the glass door to the garden, he could see Maury Parkman sprawled across the couch, mouth hanging open, snoring. Peter could hear the racket from outside. He could also hear a rhythmic clink and heavy breathing. He leaned up close to the glass and looked over. In the corner of the room, Michael was curling weights. Ear buds hung from his ears. Apparently Angela's odd hours had rubbed off on her bodyguard, Michael.

Peter was debating whether to knock when his mother walked in the room, carrying a book. It occurred to Peter that he'd left the text his father had given him over at Emma's, but he didn't have much time to ponder that. Angela had noticed him and walked to the door. She opened it and he backed up, so she came outside. Beyond her, Peter saw Maury stir and blink in their direction. Peter walked out on the patio with his mother.

When she turned around to face him, he hugged her. She embraced him warmly in return. "Oh, Peter! You've come back to us!"

_Whatever that means_, he thought, but he smiled and agreed, "Yeah." They stepped apart and he said, "I need to get in touch with Fatima." He knew where she used to live, but before he started teleporting to places in Riyadh, he thought it best to find out if she was still actually there.

"All right. She'll be here next Tuesday for the Company's April board of directors meeting."

"The board of directors…? Oh." _Yeah, she's a director now. And the board meets on the first Tuesday of each month. Gabriel will be there too. _He started to say something else, but his mother looked distracted. Looking past her, Peter saw Maury on the other side of the glass door. The man met Peter's eyes warily, then turned and walked away, leaving them alone. Angela looked back to Peter.

Peter said, "I need to talk with her privately."

"She doesn't know English. Do you know Arabic?" She asked seriously, as if he might just happened to have learned an entire language in the last few weeks. When he shook his head, she went on, "Then you'll need a translator. Given that I don't think your request to see her is for light conversation, I would suggest you enlist the aid of Abbas Hasan. He's been working as an intermediary between Halo and the Company. He's quite busy, but she will trust him and his assessment of you. I have his business card inside. Please come in."

"Is Maury…" Peter didn't know how to end that sentence, or even how he'd intended to end it.

Angela did it for him. "Is he sleeping here? Sometimes. I don't know about tonight. Now that he's woke up, he might go home or stay here. He does what he wants." They walked inside. Michael jumped to see Peter there and yanked the ear buds out of his ears. He looked chagrinned that he'd missed a potential threat.

Peter said to his mother, about Maury, "Are you okay with that?"

She turned and looked at her son sharply. "And why wouldn't I be? We're both adults, Peter. We both do what we want."

"And we do it when we want it." Maury leered at Peter from the doorway to the kitchen, making it unnecessarily clear what the 'it' was he was referring to.

Peter tried to frown at him, then rubbed his forehead and looked away. The whole thing was a bit embarrassing. He sighed. "Okay. Yeah. Good."

"Want something to drink, 'son'?" Maury said, milking it for all he was worth. He said it with enough sarcasm that Peter was amused rather than offended.

"Sure. Water, please."

Maury nodded and went to fetch him a bottle. He returned with it about the same time Angela came back with Abbas' card. Peter looked at it for a moment, then flipped it to look at the ominous-looking eclipse logo on the back. "Thanks," he muttered to Maury, taking the water in his other hand.

Angela said, "Those are their old cards. They're having new ones made with the godsend design."

Peter nodded and pocketed the card.

Maury said, "Eric Junior tells me you were at the bust earlier today in the Ukraine."

"Yeah," Peter said absently, then immediately caught himself. He couldn't afford not to pay attention to Maury. His change in attitude must have been some kind of signal, or perhaps Peter had unconsciously noticed a subtle shift in the old telepath's tone. Because the next thing he knew, his head ached like it was splitting open and all he could see in his mind was Maury's eyes, boring into him. He flailed mentally to fight off the invasion, seeing flashes of his time with Emma, with Gabriel outside the common room, running from Mohinder and Bandar, talking to his father… and knowing that Maury was pulling his private moments from him.

He bared his teeth and reached out, grabbing Maury by the neck. He sunk his fingers into the pudgy flesh like they were claws. He intended to stop Maury Parkman's ability forever. Reading his intention, Maury dropped to his knees immediately. Every trace of Maury's mind vanished from Peter's except for his mental voice, which pleaded with him faster than he could have ever spoken, assuming Peter wasn't currently crushing his windpipe. Maury projected to him, _NO! NO! Please no! I had to know if you were really you! I was trying to protect her! Protect all of us! No… please. Please Peter! Don't take that from me!_

His begging made Peter hesitate. He looked over at his mother, whose hand was on her chest. She looked ashen, but she wasn't interfering. What Peter noticed as well was that she wasn't surprised by the attack. He looked back at Maury and tilted his head. _Show me your secrets. You've invaded my head for the first and last time._

Peter didn't make it a command. He didn't have to. He was utterly serious and Maury knew that with the certainty that only someone who can see your thoughts can have. Haltingly, Maury lowered his defenses, but not so slowly that Peter was annoyed. He didn't dare risk pushing Peter too far. He laid himself bare, still mentally whispering a plea for Peter to leave him telepathy.

Large in his mind were the many times he'd stood by and watched Arthur drain people of their abilities and with each time, Arthur became stronger and more infatuated with his power. He hoped Peter wasn't that much like his father. Arthur had become a monster who had only recently begun to drag himself out of the pit of inhumanity, artificially aiding himself by reading the philosophies and religions of great thinkers. He was literally trying to learn how to be human again.

Peter flashed through scene after scene of Maury's memories, gleaning his intentions, desires and motivations. He focused on the ones involving Gabriel or his father. He could see that Maury had visited Arthur just as Peter had, but the one responsible for Arthur's luxuries was Gabriel.

Maury had talked with Arthur while he was in his cell and tried to be smug about how he'd stolen the man's wife from him. There was a lot of history there. Peter didn't take the time to delve into it. Arthur had crushed him by telling Maury he'd already taken his revenge against the old telepath by arranging the death of his son, Matt. It was a strange, circular logic - if Matt hadn't died, Maury wouldn't have made a play for Angela; but if Maury hadn't made a play for Angela, then Arthur wouldn't have arranged Matt's death. Maury couldn't understand it, but what he could understand, what he'd seen in Arthur's mind, was how self-satisfied Arthur was that he'd done to Maury what he deserved by ending his line and destroying his family.

Maury had thought, _no,_ Peter realized, _**knew**_ and had known for some time now, that Gabriel had killed Matt intentionally, deliberately, and without Arthur's provocation. All Arthur had done was to put them in the same room and as Arthur had said, 'let nature take its course.' He had instructed Gabriel in how to conceal the deed later, from lie detection or even telepathy. He hadn't activated his ability. He'd merely shown him how to get what he wanted without consequences and Gabriel had taken it.

Peter stiffened at the realization of what Gabriel had been hiding from him for months, the murder he was ashamed of, that he desperately wanted to confess, but was terrified Peter would leave him over. Gabriel had undone the mental blocks against it, but couldn't figure out how to tell those closest to him about it. He'd poured his heart out to Maury, of all people, and more than once.

Maury needed Peter to be with Gabriel, otherwise Gabriel was unstable and difficult to control. He'd been coaching him, manipulating him, steering him while Peter was gone, keeping Gabriel calm and centered and reminding him Peter would be back soon… all he needed to do was be patient. He'd been trying to bring them back together, or at least keep Gabriel from doing anything rash that would blow things apart.

The scenes were beginning to fade into blackness. _What are you hiding?_ Peter thought, putting more force into the projection.

_I'm dying, Peter,_ Maury answered, his emotions mixed on whether or not he cared. _Asphyxiation. _Peter relaxed his fingers, restoring breath to Maury. Maury doubled over, clutching his throat and coughing. He didn't close his mind. He hunkered on the floor terrified of what Peter would do now. He continued to entertain thoughts that he might rather be dead than live with the fear of Peter doing this to him whenever he pleased, as Arthur had. He'd had only three weeks of blessed freedom from the fear of Arthur and this sort of attack. He'd really enjoyed those three weeks.

Peter turned his head the other way. Maury's submission was complete and authentic, just as he'd submitted to Arthur, who used much the same threat of removing his ability. He'd also assaulted him mentally, though Arthur had been imposing his will rather than trying to understand. It was a mental rape regardless. With that thought Peter realized what he was doing to the man, who was on his knees before him, trembling and coughing, tears running down his face. Maury was humiliated. He was devastated, and all because he'd been doing exactly what he'd said he was doing - making sure Peter was who he claimed to be, making sure he wasn't possessed by Lilith.

Snippets of his mother's dream of the future came back to him: _blood on my hands, I had to twist the knife… and I'm sorry for it._

Peter shook his head, tears beginning to flow down his own face - though he couldn't tell whether it was from emotional transference or the knowledge of how monstrous his action was. With an effort, he tore his mind away and covered his eyes. "I'm so sorry. I am so sorry, Maury. I'm sorry." He sank to his knees as well, having no idea if the man would accept any kind of apology from him. He'd threatened Maury with everything he held dear and was reading him like a book, doing exactly the same thing to the old man that Peter had attacked him for. Turnabout was **not** fair play. It was awful. It was mean. It was evil.

"Fuck you," Maury said hoarsely.

"I'm sorry," Peter said again, swallowing and looking up at his mother. She was still frozen where she stood, not fully aware of what had transpired between them and unwilling to take sides.

Maury started to get up and Peter took his forearm to help him. Maury stopped and looked at the touch. He shut his eyes and Peter jerked his hand away as if scalded. It wasn't that Maury had done anything, but that he was too broken and defeated to object. He was just going to let Peter do what he wanted without stopping him, because Peter terrified him just like Arthur did.

Peter felt fresh tears flow down his cheeks. "I'm sorry I did that. I shouldn't have," he whispered. "I didn't know. And after what you've done… I thought…" Peter swallowed. Maury had done so many things to annoy and harass Peter and Gabriel, he threatened people with his ability and abused his power. His attack on Peter had seemed like just another ploy, perhaps a prelude to trying to lock Peter into a nightmare and take him captive.

Now that he'd really seen into the man, Peter understood they weren't power-mad abuses, but far more calculated than Maury let on. Peter had had glimpses of that fact before. _ I should have known. These are people, not the psychos Rebel thinks they are._

Maury finished rising on his own. "Leave me alone," he said and walked off to the bathroom, retaining what dignity he could. He'd soiled himself. Peter shut his eyes and shook his head. He covered his face and heard his mother walk off, following Maury. At a sound, Peter glanced up to see Michael Fitzgerald looking mortified to have witnessed whatever it was he'd just witnessed.


	159. Maury Recovers Himself

Peter rose from the floor and wiped at his face with the back of his hand. Michael brought over a sweat towel he hadn't used yet during his workout. "Thanks," Peter said simply.

"Sure. What'd you do? And… why?"

Peter looked at him and realized that from Michael's point of view, Maury had given him some water, made small talk, and the next thing he knew, Peter was throttling the telepath and reducing him to a wreck on the floor. He was lucky, he supposed, that Michael's job was to protect _Angela_, not Maury.

"Something I shouldn't have," Peter said. He could hear his mother's voice in the background of the house. He wiped his face again and walked towards the sound. He stopped outside the bathroom - apparently they were both inside. He could hear Maury sobbing roughly. It tore at him. "Ma?" he asked tentatively.

They both fell silent and Angela walked out to him, pulling the door to, but not closing it.

Peter said, "Is there anything I can do to help?" Perhaps from an outsider's point of view, what he'd done to Maury hadn't been that bad, but Peter knew how much it had affected the man. He'd felt it. He'd threatened him, he'd meant it, and he'd taken what he wanted while essentially holding a gun to Maury's head. If he couldn't fix this, then he would **always** be holding a gun to Maury's head, just by his simple presence and the potential of what he might do. If he hadn't seen Maury's mind, he'd be afraid of the revenge the man would wreck on him, but Maury was too shattered for that. He'd surrendered. It was total. There would be no revenge - not even something indirect like with Angela.

"It would help if I knew what you did," she said gently.

It was the same question as the one Michael had, but this time Peter gave a real answer. "He attacked me to make sure I wasn't Lilith, but he didn't explain that. So I started to drain his ability and he begged me to stop. I made him tell me his secrets." Her eyes flew wide at that, but Peter suspected, this being his mother, that had more to do with what Maury might have revealed than a concern for his privacy. "Just the recent ones," Peter explained.

"Oh my," she breathed, glancing back at the bathroom.

"I'm sorry," Peter said, aware that most or all of what they were saying was clearly audible to Maury.

His mother said, "I don't know what you _can_ do. I'd say I'd call you later, but you're not carrying your phone anymore."

Peter said, "Do you know where it is?"

"Gabriel has it," she said.

Maury called out, unsolicited, saying, "I told him to take it back to your apartment."

"Then it's there," Angela said. "You should go. I'll call."

Peter nodded and teleported out.

XXX

"He's gone," Angela said unnecessarily. Maury had known the instant Peter left, his consciousness vanishing with that odd emptiness that accompanied teleportation. Maury folded his clothing carefully so the soiled parts were turned inward and opened the door a little. He handed them out almost furtively, using the door to shield himself. It was a weird body language given they'd slept together, showered together and he'd paraded around most of the house in greater undress, but he was shaken by Peter's counter-attack. His instincts were playing defense.

Angela said nothing of it. "I'll get you some of Arthur's things to wear until these are clean."

"No," he snapped. He didn't think he could bring himself to wear anything of Arthur's right now. She looked back at him inquiringly. "Just… bring me a towel." She nodded and headed off. He shut the door and after a moment, locked it. That was entirely unnecessary too, but it made the illogical part of his hindbrain feel a tiny bit better.

He sat on the toilet and drew himself together, forcibly turning his thoughts away from what had just happened. He remembered a time in Fort Worth when he'd hung out with a band in the early 60s and a handful of people who styled themselves Bohemians. A few years later they'd be part of the free love movement and then two of the women would go to San Francisco. Long before then he'd left with three of the men on a trek to Alaska, ostensibly to understand the vastness of Nature and get in touch with Mother Earth. More realistically it had to do with seeing if Jason's brother would hire them on an oil exploration crew.

Maury had just been along for the ride, looking for idiots simple enough to part from their goods. Alaska had been ripe, as long as he was smart enough to confine his depredations to the card tables and shift his crowd every now and then. He'd won a guitar in one game and taught himself how to play. He'd known a little piano from lessons as a kid at the Sprangle's house two doors down. The woman there had been a loony and killed her first son and nearly beat the second to death too, but she was a good piano teacher.

There hadn't been many women in Alaska. He'd had his first blow job from a man whilst there. It hadn't been to his taste, much, but it was better than making do or risking the trouble he'd get in if he pushed too hard with one of the locals or a whore. He'd rather have some man's mouth than a woman who'd been used by the entire camp in the last week, anyway. Diseases were rampant. He'd gone back to the states after getting some itch that just wouldn't go away.

Maury put his feet flat on the floor and relaxed his shoulders. Thinking on the past was doing its job - the memories were shoving current events out of his mind and off to the side. He'd bring them out again later and examine them more thoroughly, but later - when his emotions weren't so high.

Angela knocked twice and he stood up more naturally, unlocking the door and opening the door wide. He still felt a pang of defensiveness, but he covered it, standing before her like nothing was wrong. He took the towel, "Thanks," but didn't wrap it around himself.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked carefully.

He rolled his eyes in a show of casualness. He blew out air. "A stiff drink. Three fingers."

She nodded. "I have some of Arthur's scotch. Will-" she hesitated. He'd flinched. She went on. "Will that do?"

"Sure," he said brusquely, flipping the towel over his shoulder in a continued show of how unaffected he was. He walked down the hall with his lower half exposed, a challenge to the world. He'd cleaned himself earlier in the bathroom, immediately after undressing.

Guessing at the cause of his discomfort and false bravado, Angela added, "Of course it's not his. We finished those bottles years ago. It's just something a friend bought me for Christmas this last year."

He smiled back at her. He knew she was lying to salve his ego. Declining to wear Arthur's clothes must have tipped her off. "Sure," he said. "Listen, I'm going to go up and take a shower, just to make sure I got everything clean. I'll be back."

She nodded and he headed for the stairs. He paused in the living room, looking at Michael. "Michael, get to bed. I might need you tomorrow."

The big man nodded and asked, "Do you want me to do something to Peter Petrelli?" There was a trace of eagerness in his voice that made Maury smile. He studied Michael. The man genuinely liked him, which was rare. Peter had punked Maury twice and Michael wasn't happy about it. Maury grinned. Michael wouldn't last two seconds against Peter in a fight, which made it all the funnier that he was willing to scrap on the old man's behalf.

"No," he said warmly. "Thanks Michael. If he ever grabs me like that again though, feel free to come over and slug him one. Nothing disrupts telepathy like a ham to the puss."

He walked up the stairs smiling at the mental image of Peter getting one.

XXX

Maury got back to sleep eventually. The liquor helped. He had bad dreams about Peter morphing into Arthur and pulling his heart out - Maury's or Peter's own; it varied. No guesses needed to know what that meant. In the last one, Angela was standing off to the side watching impassively. He woke with a start when he realized she was there. Beside him, she blinked awake too. He realized he must have pulled her into his nightmare. He grunted and reached for her, then hesitated. She moved into his arms and he rolled over on top of her, kneeing her legs apart. He kissed her face and her neck, then leaned over and fumbled for the lotion in the bed stand.

He applied it to her and himself and took her a few moments later, after working himself up to it. He could tell she wasn't into it, but she realized he needed it. He claimed her. He had control over something in his life – something that mattered. Someone loved him… or at least was willing to give themselves to him even if it wasn't necessarily love. It took him a long time and in the end a lot more focus than it would have in better circumstances. He finished and lay to the side, panting. She stroked his chest a few times, then slid out of bed to clean herself.

He murmured something that might have been gratitude. He fell back asleep and this time it was dreamless.


	160. Failed Apologies

Peter had been concerned that Gabriel might be at his apartment again, but his fears were unfounded. The place was empty. His cell phone was lying on the bed almost exactly where he'd thrown it. He considered the time zones and called the number of Abbas' card. It was an international call, but his phone worked fine for such calls leaving the US. It should be 8 am or so in Riyadh. Abbas answered on the fourth ring.

"Hello?" Abbas said in a lightly accented, American voice. Peter recognized it from the night when he'd assisted in abducting the man. Maury wasn't the only one he needed to apologize to, he realized belatedly.

"Hi. This is Peter Petrelli. You know my family."

"And so I do. What can I do for you, Peter?" He sounded genial and friendly, like their primary association hadn't involved Peter holding him while Maury punched him in the face.

"I need an interpreter. I need to talk to Fatima. My mother, Angela, suggested you."

"Angela. What a sweetheart." Peter detected a note of sarcasm and dry humor there. "Of course. What did you have in mind?"

"I'd like to talk to her today, if that's possible."

"Is it an emergency?"

"Not quite," Peter said.

"Okay. Can I call you back at this number?"

"Yes."

"She'll want to know why you want to talk to her. What should I tell her?"

"Tell her it's about her ability."

Abbas was silent for a little longer than necessary. "I'll tell her. Talk to you later." He hung up.

A half hour later, Abbas called back and said, "I need to know, more specifically, what you want to talk to her about."

"Tell her it's about using her ability to stop Lilith."

"Lilith…?"

"Yes." After a pause where Abbas didn't say anything, Peter elaborated, taking a guess, "Tell her Lilith is the reason why she didn't heal Mohinder Suresh."

"Ah. Okay. Let me call her back." They rung off and a few minutes later, Abbas was back on the phone to Peter. "Can you come to the rooftop today? You're the teleporter, right?"

"Yes. Which rooftop?"

"The main building in the Halo complex here in Riyadh, with the garden on top. The one where you shook your father's hand while looking like your brother."

_Actually, I was looking like Gabriel, but whatever._ "When?"

"Give me five minutes to get up there."

It occurred to Peter this might be some kind of trap. "Okay." He hung up and teleported there immediately.

It was already warm in the morning with a drying, whipping wind. Somewhere in the desert, there was a sandstorm brewing. Peter got behind one of the windbreaks and stood on the shaded side. He was alone. A few minutes later, Abbas came up to the roof and shielded his eyes, squinting. Peter gave him a moment, but no ambush seemed to be forthcoming. He walked over.

Abbas shook his hand immediately, his eyes widening, dilating and tilting his head up. He inhaled sharply.

"Are you okay?" Peter said, alarmed at the odd reaction.

"Fine, fine." He was lying. Abbas coughed and covered the cough with his other arm. "Let's go inside, out of this wind."

Inside there was also no trap. Abbas rubbed at his eyes. "A lot of wind there. So, we can go meet her at her place or she can come here. I think she'd rather we went to her. She doesn't get around much and no one likes this weather."

Peter nodded. "That's fine."

Abbas said, "You've already been there."

After a beat, Peter realized Abbas was suggesting he teleport directly to her house. He asked, "Is it okay if we just teleport right into the same room I was in last time?"

"She's expecting us," Abbas said, which wasn't really an answer.

Peter rubbed at his upper lip and said, "You know, I have the funny feeling I'm walking into something here. If I were paranoid, I'd think it was a trap. Why am I feeling this way?"

Abbas eyed him for a long moment. Peter could almost hear his thoughts, but he blocked them out. He'd had enough today of seeing what people didn't want him to see in their heads. He was starting to really understand why Gabriel was so reticent to use his ability that way.

The Arab said, "I don't know why you're here, so I'm covering my bases. The computer says you're not part of the Company, but a director says you are. Fatima says she'll meet with you, but she doesn't know what you're talking about. You want me to be an interpreter - I'll be an interpreter."

"So does that mean I'm walking into a trap, or not?"

"It means it's a trap that won't spring unless you do something I can't deal with."

Peter nodded once. "Okay. I understand that. I'm here to deal in good faith. I'm sorry for what we did to you."

Abbas smiled thinly. "Right," he said sarcastically. "I'm totally over it." He smiled again, despite the obvious sarcasm (and the lie). He extended his hand. After a beat, Peter realized what he meant, took his hand, and teleported them to Fatima's living room.


	161. Gifts Explained

Peter teleported himself and Abbas into Fatima's living room, feeling a slight pang at the extra effort of moving a passenger. Her bodyguard was there and still twitchy, even though Abbas had warned him of their arrival. Peter eyed him and after a moment the man called out in Arabic towards the other room. Abbas let go of his hand and Peter took a moment to look around. The furniture was simple, but the main thing he noticed were the plants sitting on nearly every horizontal surface. They were all kinds: orchids and lilies and there was a bonsai tree and here was a spider plant and over there was a red and green and yellow cactus. The walls were plaster with colorful tile around the arched entrances.

Fatima herself tottered in, looking thin and frail as she usually did. She said something sharp to Abbas, who answered her immediately and bowed respectfully to her. She said something else and Abbas nodded, gesturing Peter towards a set of low seats. She turned to Peter and gave formal greetings. He'd heard them enough to recognize them, but unlike Gabriel, he hadn't memorized the proper response. Instead he said, "Thank you. Thank you for seeing me." Abbas repeated his words in Arabic. Peter glanced at him.

Fatima gave directions to her bodyguard, who fetched coffee that had been previously prepared. Peter accepted one of the small cups. It was spiced with cardamom and saffron. A plate of pitted dates was set out as well. The guard gave him the hairy eyeball again before withdrawing to one of the doorways. Fatima urged Peter and Abbas to eat and drink, but as custom dictated, took nothing for herself at the moment.

Peter scratched at his eyebrow and then rubbed his jaw. "This is going to be hard to explain. There is a person with the ability to possess people. She's… like a spirit, or a wraith. She doesn't have a body of her own. She possesses people and uses their body until they die, then she possesses someone else." He paused while Abbas related that. Fatima grunted and said nothing.

Peter went on. "The Company called this person Lilith. She's been hurting people for decades, maybe centuries. She has to be stopped." Peter wrung his hands together briefly and looked at Fatima. He smiled. "And this is where it sounds a little crazy, which… well… if you know my Dad, maybe you'll understand…" Abbas started to speak at Peter's first pause, then caught himself when Peter went on. A moment later, he hesitated at the next pause, then translated. "Thank you," Peter murmured to him, trying to find the rhythm of using a translator. It was awkward. He understood why Maury just bypassed it and linked up mentally with someone for the service.

"I asked my father how to stop her and he said she could be warded off by the sign of Fatimah. I think he meant your healing ability, because I've had other experiences where healing ended mental trauma, memory loss or countered mind control. I'm thinking that if I, or someone else, were to heal Lilith's current host, then it would destroy **her**, and bring back whoever she was currently riding."

Abbas translated and this time Fatima had a lot to say in response. Abbas responded back to her and they had several exchanges, before he turned to Peter and said, "She says this being is currently using Bandar and she understands now what you meant about Mohinder Suresh. Can you bring Bandar to her?"

"I… I don't know where he is. And I think if do anything where she has warning, that she'll possess someone else. If the body she's in is injured, drugged or even killed, she's still able to possess other people. It has to be a surprise."

Without speaking to her, Abbas said, "Even though he's removed the tracking device, your Company can find him. They're keeping track of him even now." He frowned and turned to Fatima, speaking to her in Arabic for a bit. She asked a question and Abbas turned back to Peter. "She asks what you want of her? Do you intend to take her to where Bandar is and try to surprise him?"

Peter looked around the room uneasily. Her bodyguard stood at the doorway, far enough away not to be looming, but clearly still involved. Peter looked at the elderly woman and said, "The only people I know who can heal are yourself and one other person, who isn't involved with other people who have abilities. You understand what's going on. I can't heal people… but I have my father's gift to take abilities."

Peter stopped, because Abbas reached out and put his hand on Peter's knee. Peter looked at him, but couldn't see what the man wanted. He was looking at him intently, peering into him. Peter didn't feel any mental intrusion, but he was reluctant to do anything aggressive given what had happened with Maury. Fatima said something querulous in Arabic and Abbas leaned away, removing his hand and speaking to her rapidly.

The bodyguard shifted and came another step into the room, watching Peter for the slightest twitch. Peter held very still. Abbas turned to Peter and said, "You're here to take her ability so you can thwart this Lilith and restore Bandar to us?"

"No." Peter swallowed, eyes darting between the others. "I'm here to ask… to tell her what my options are and ask her advice. If she won't help me, then I'll try talking to the other healer I know, but if she won't help me either, then maybe there's some other way and I'll try to find it. I'm not going to take anything without permission. I'm not threatening her or you or anyone. Please."

Peter looked intently at Abbas, wishing he could better convey his sincerity. He glanced at the two others, neither of whom understood English, so he looked back at Abbas and added, "I don't like to hurt people. I am very sorry for my role in what was done to you. There had to be a better way. We were wrong not to keep looking for it." Abbas made an annoyed gesture and gave him a grimace, turning away as if he didn't want to hear more. Peter continued anyway, "When they approached me to be involved, they'd already worked out the plan."

Abbas began talking to Fatima, ignoring him. He spoke with her for some time, then turned back to Peter and said, "This ability of yours - is it permanent?" Peter nodded. "So her ability to heal people would be gone forever?" Peter nodded again, glancing over at her. She was watching the exchange with alert eyes. Abbas spoke to her briefly and she made a 'go on' gesture at him. He turned back to Peter and said, "Will this hurt her? Will it take long?"

Peter looked at her, realizing she was agreeing if things were going to the point where these questions were being asked. "It… she might feel a little sick afterwards, but it won't hurt much. It doesn't take long - a few seconds. I'll have to touch her."

Abbas rubbed his mouth and then his forehead in agitation before telling her Peter's answer. She nodded and extended her hand towards Peter. Abbas immediately objected, as respectfully as he could. She and he argued in Arabic. Peter waited while she gave Abbas a dressing down, finally standing and tottering over next to the Arab man. She towered over him and made forceful, angry gestures at Abbas. She was very emphatic about whatever it was she was saying.

Abbas finally replied with something subdued, but firm. She pointed off to the side of the room and replied curtly. He pulled out his phone and she repeated herself with more emphasis. Abbas stood and walked over to where she'd pointed, dialing.

She sat down next to Peter and offered her hand to him again. He looked past her at Abbas, who looked at her hand and said, "Please wait, Peter Petrelli. Please. She's never liked her ability, or how she has to live to use it. She's not thinking it through. Let me-" He stopped to speak into the phone, his eyes constantly on Peter.

Peter frowned at Abbas, then smiled at Fatima. He nodded at her and jerked his chin at Abbas. Fatima looked over at Abbas and rolled her eyes, making an exaggerated gesture of exasperation. Abbas spoke into the phone rapid-fire. He snapped it closed and spoke to Fatima, whose expression was very nearly a snarl, but she said nothing. Looking past her, Abbas said to Peter, "My father-in-law is coming soon. If he thinks all is well, then you may do as you wish with our blessing."

Fatima said something angry to Abbas. He answered her respectfully, glancing uneasily at Peter several times. Almost apologetically, Abbas looked back at Peter and said, "This is a cultural thing. We… She… She is a matron, but…" He seemed to struggle to find words that didn't sound insulting or degrading in a Western frame of reference.

Peter just said, "I can wait. I'm not in a hurry." He assumed that somewhere in the mix, Fatima's ability was seen as an asset for Halo and that as a woman, surrendering the power to someone else was not solely her decision to make. Peter wasn't comfortable with that, but he'd see how things turned out.

Abbas nodded and a few moments later, Fuad was there with Faisal, the Halo executive whose power it was to teleport.

Fuad looked at Peter and Peter remembered the time before when the man had turned his powers on him. Peter realized he was in a room of relative strangers and with Fuad's ability, he could be taken. He relaxed. What would be, would be. The august Arab stepped closer and Peter felt the world fall away like it had before, but this time there was no imminent feeling that Fuad was going to tell him something. After a long moment, Fuad blinked and the feeling passed.

After a long, introspective silence where everyone in the room waited for Fuad to speak, he told Peter, "You should mend things with your father. Nothing else will stay together for long unless you do that." Peter blinked at him, wondering what the man saw with that ability of his. Fuad went on, "I am told you wish to take Fatima's ability and use it on this Lilith. Doing so will kill Lilith permanently and bring back my friend Bandar. Is this true?"

"Yes," Peter nodded.

Fuad turned to Fatima and they spoke for a while. She calmed and when they were done, she offered her hand to Peter a third time. Fuad said, "You have my blessing."

Peter slipped his hand into hers and psychically pulled the ability from her. He inhaled sharply as it flowed into him in an easy rush. It reminded him of the time months before when he'd drained life energy from Gabriel. Gabriel had pushed it into him rather than him draining it. Now it was the same - he wasn't taking the ability so much as accepting it. He could feel the difference plainly.

"Ha!" Fatima said when it was done and very nearly fainted. Fuad supported her on one side and Peter on the other. She shrugged them both off with curt comments. Peter let her, but then she hugged him. She began chattering excitedly to the others and struggled to her feet with more energy than she'd had before. She turned to Abbas and began talking to him at length, pointing at Peter.

Abbas nodded to her repeatedly and turned to Peter, trying to translate while she was still talking to him, "She says there are some things you should know about her ability," he hesitated while she tugged at his sleeve and said something urgent, "Don't eat people…" He turned back to listen to her.

"What?" Peter said, standing.

Fuad made a calming gesture. "It's all right. It can be overcome."

"Overcome?" Inside, Peter was panicking. _Did I just inflict myself with a literal Hunger? Oh my God! Why didn't she mention that before? No wonder she wanted to get rid of the power._

Fuad put his hands on either of Peter's shoulders and said sternly, "Calm yourself." Peter felt a brush of Fuad's ability and it was momentarily difficult to focus on the world. He blinked and the feeling was gone. "Calm yourself. We will explain all." The man looked at Peter steadily and his calm, authoritarian demeanor did what his ability could not. Peter took a deep breath and nodded.

Peter listened to the explanation. Using Fatima's ability made one hunger for the life force of others, which she had satisfied by eating raw eggs and sprouting seeds. Once upon a time, she **had** eaten someone, when she had not understood that the ability **must** be fed and that by refusing to feed it she surrendered her self control. Her power also conveyed the ability to consume impossible quantities, if those quantities were of living matter. Cooked food was of no use to the ability, but of course she still had to eat normally.

As Peter had noticed, overusing her ability without consuming enough to balance it, made her emaciated and thin. She expected the same effect on him. He wasn't sure how that would interact with his enhanced regeneration, but he supposed he'd find out eventually.

As side effects went for abilities, it was a doozy, but Peter had heard of worse. At least it wouldn't turn him into a psycho-killer like Sylar's Intuitive Aptitude had. This was controllable. If he never used healing, then the downside never kicked in, but given his intentions, he expected fat chance of that. He understood though, why she wanted to be rid of it. He thanked her.

As they were talking about things, Fuad offered, "You might not be aware of this, but Bandar was my closest friend. I knew immediately when he came to us with that demon within him that he was no longer the man I knew. I thought at first he was a shape-shifter, like your brother Gabriel, but soon I could see that was not the case. Bandar was gone - the man that I knew. I dearly hope you can bring him back."

Peter nodded. "That thing you said about my father - were you saying I needed to do that first? Right away?"

"No," Fuad shook his head. "You need not ever do it. I can see your connections to people and I can see the next knot of events important to your emotional life. It is a gift I share with my son-in-law, Abbas. What I see is not the future. It's not even probability. It is event-and-consequence, action-and-reaction. I see that if you do one thing, these other things will happen. I do not see _if_ you will do that thing, or why, and in no way does my ability allow me to make you do these things." He shrugged. "I can force someone to see it and to listen to me, but I can not make them carry it out."

Peter remembered fallaciously thinking that Fuad's ability was minor, with a trivial impact. But knowing what was most important to someone, how they should act on it and what would happen if they did was a powerful, if subtle, ability. Coupled with the capability to force someone to listen to and understand that revelation, he could see how that would be an impressive gift for a leader to have.

He checked his watch, eyes skirting over Sylar's name. In Las Vegas, it was after 11 pm. Here, it was 9:30 in the morning. It was hard to imagine that this was the same "night" during which he'd made the raid on Mohinder's facility in the Ukraine. He wondered where Bandar was now. He looked up to see Fuad looking at the watch. He smiled politely at Peter, who blushed, realizing Fuad probably knew what it meant even more than Peter did.

"It is a very nice watch," Fuad said noncommittally.

"Thank you," Peter said, looking away. He looked back and tried to change the subject. "I need to find out where Bandar is now."

"We get updates each day, but I don't expect another until late in the day." He glanced over at Faisal, then back to Peter. "I am told Bandar was allowed to escape from last night's raid on their facility in Odessa."

_So, they __**did**__ let him go on purpose._ "Why was that?"

Fuad eyed him for a moment and said, "Mr. Parkman and your mother have said that Lilith prefers to keep the same host once she has chosen one for permanent use. As long as they know what body she is in, they can track her. There have been many discussions of how and even _if_ she should be stopped, but no workable plans have been offered yet. No one has proposed the idea of 'healing her to death', as you have." He smiled.

"I think I'll just be restoring a suppressed personality and letting it destroy hers." Peter blinked several times, thinking of how the ability would interact with Gabriel, and Nathan's fragmented consciousness within him. _If I used this on him, would Nathan be restored? Or would Sylar overwhelm it because it's his body? Would it be possible to guide it so I ended up with what I wanted?_ He looked at his wrist, at the watch. _What _do_ I want?_ His breath caught and he stood. "I have to go. I have to try this now, before Lilith finds out about it somehow and can't be tracked so easily."


	162. Let It Rock

Peter teleported back to Las Vegas, wishing he could innately adjust to the time zones the way Gabriel seemed able to. He supposed if he ever got around to activating intuitive aptitude, he'd have that fringe benefit as well, somewhere behind the part about being driven to smash open people's heads to see what made them tick. So… no, he probably wasn't going to access that ability any time soon. He rubbed his head. He wasn't sure how many jumps he had left in him.

It wasn't yet midnight. It looked like they had all of three patrons in the club, who were friends of someone with abilities anyway. Peter had seen them before. The club had only been "open" a week and hadn't bothered to advertise. Rebel had been delighted to discover Peter had Gabriel's stolen ability to turn things into gold. They'd urged him to make as much as possible. Peter had declined - making only enough for their immediate needs.

He found Micah easily enough. He was playing pinball - it was an older model game mechanical enough that his ability didn't automatically garner him victories. He actually had to work at it, which he enjoyed doing. Peter leaned on the side of the unit and watched the progress of the ball, resisting the urge to tweak it with telekinesis. After several rousing cycles, Micah lost the ball down the hole. "Damnit," the young man swore.

"If you can't lose, then you can't really win, either," Peter said philosophically.

"Huh," Micah said, taking a drink of his beer. Peter frowned at him. Micah shouldn't be drinking alcohol at his age either. There had been quite an argument about it, which Peter had won. Apparently getting the agreement that no one would serve Micah alcohol had not prevented him from getting his own when Peter wasn't around. Micah shrugged at Peter's frown and gave him that heart-meltingly innocent grin that worked so well on women. Peter wouldn't say he was entirely unmoved by it himself. Micah said, "Well, it **is** why I'm playing pinball. If I just wanted to win, I'd be playing Pac-Man over there."

Peter nodded and decided this was not the time to revisit the drinking policy. He said, "I need another favor from Molly. This time I need to know where Bandar is."

"Bandar - the one with Halo? Or, who used to be with them?"

"Yep."

"Okay." Micah looked distant for a moment, then said, "What are you up to, Peter?"

Peter looked at him for a long moment, then said, "Let me get a beer and something to eat and I'll tell you."

Over a basket of surprisingly good cheese fries (it turned out that West was pretty handy at fast foods, having worked long hours at a variety of places through high school), Peter explained about Lilith. Towards the end, Micah's attention wandered for a moment, then he said to Peter, "Um… Molly wants to know why you want to know where Bandar's at."

"Because he's hurting children and I'm going to stop him." Peter furrowed his brow. She hadn't asked any questions when he asked for where Arthur was, but on the other hand asking his father's location might seem more reasonable.

After a pause, Micah said, "Now she wants to know how you're going to stop him."

"I…" Peter tilted his head. "Why is she asking that?"

"I don't know. I- Oh." Micah blanched.

"What?"

"Sylar. Or, Gabriel, I guess." It was the name Peter tended to use when referring to him, so Micah used it.

"What?" Peter exclaimed.

Micah said, "I turned on her laptop's camera. Gabriel's standing behind her, telling her what to type."

"Oh…" Peter said. _Crap. Well, that sort of makes sense. Maury and my mother certainly weren't overseeing the operation, so it had to be Gabriel. _As the 'senior' director on hand, compared to Faisal, it would fall to Gabriel to do cleanup, including post-operation tracking. "I don't want him involved. The more people that are there, the more chance there is for this to go wrong. If Lilith were to possess him, I don't know what I'd do. Does he know you see him?"

"No."

"Then just tell her I'm going to stop him and I need to know where he is. Tell her I say it's important and I don't have much time." He tried to think of what to say that would keep Gabriel from interfering. He couldn't think of anything that would quell Gabriel's desire to protect Peter, if he thought he was in danger. _Guess I'll just have to be quick._ "Tell her I have to do this alone and I can't wait."

Micah frowned, but after a minute, he said, "She's typing. Um… she says it's the same place he was before. He's on the third floor, with Mohinder."

"Thanks. I've got to go." Peter stood up and looked around. Their customers had cleared out fifteen minutes ago. The only people left were Marco, Micah, West and himself. He teleported out.

Peter visualized the third floor version of the common room and that was where he ended up. It was outfitted rather dramatically as an operating theatre, with new-looking equipment. Peter could see why they hadn't abandoned it immediately. However, he could also see he had chanced into the same room as his quarry. Although Bandar and Mohinder both looked surprised to see him, Bandar still reacted far faster than Peter had expected.

Before Peter could do anything, Bandar gathered himself and said, "This is hopeless, Peter. Despair!" It sounded so theatrical Peter should have laughed. Instead, he fell to the floor, utterly convinced that it _**was**_ hopeless. He'd teleported into a trap - he knew it, felt it, even if there wasn't much rational to back it up. There was no way to stop Lilith. He was defeated and for a very long moment, he could only wallow in despair.

He stared at the floor, feeling crushed by darkest depression. Bandar was still talking to him, driving him deeper into an emotional abyss. Very distantly, he knew it was an ability oppressing him as surely as though Sylar were pinning him to the floor with telekinesis. It was just an ability. He could end abilities. Couldn't he? He didn't know if he could, but his mother's words echoed in his head like out of a dream: "_you need to trust that despair and fear can not touch you_." He clung to that shred of hope and activated ability nullification, even knowing it wouldn't help.

But it did help. The feelings didn't end, but they lifted and stopped getting worse. He focused on Fatima's healing and his own regeneration and while neither of them could directly counteract the effects, they ameliorated them greatly. It was enough for him to rise to his feet with a curl to his lip and a harsh set to his face. He walked towards Bandar, putting himself between him and the door, cutting the man off from easy escape. He would end this, one way or the other.

It put Mohinder at Peter's back and he knew that, but his nullification affected both men and Peter had Michael Fitzgerald's enhanced strength. He'd had that ability for months and between it and regeneration, he didn't think he had much to fear from Mohinder Suresh. Like Bandar, Mohinder didn't immediately realize his abilities were gone and merely hit Peter in the back with the heel of his palm. It hurt a little. Peter looked back and said, "Stay out of this, Mohinder." Then he went on with his business.

What he didn't expect was for Mohinder to physically jump on him, wrapping his good left arm around Peter's throat while he valiantly (and unsuccessfully) tried to use his crippled right arm to tighten it into a stranglehold. **That** was annoying. Peter would have blamed Lilith for using Bandar's ability to instill such loyalty, but it had been there before Lilith possessed the Arab. He didn't want to hurt Mohinder. He'd come here with one target in mind and that target was not Mohinder.

He peeled the Indian off of him and threw him into the surgical table that was affixed to the floor in the middle of the room. It was a solid enough obstruction that Mohinder hit hard and didn't immediately get up. Peter turned back to see that Bandar had a syringe in hand and filled. Bandar tossed away the bottle and eyed Peter.

It gave Peter pause, but he didn't think this would be much of a threat either. It's much harder to inject someone than most people realized and Peter had an excellent understanding of this. He'd been gotten before because he didn't expect it and had committed all his momentum to moving right into a prepared strike. Now the opposite was true - he was ready and he wasn't going to stand there and get poked. To Bandar's (or rather, Lilith's) credit, the expression on his face revealed he knew the same thing. He brandished the weapon anyway - it was all he had.

Peter froze him with telekinesis and Bandar made some fumbling attempt to maneuver the syringe. It dropped from his immobile fingers and rolled across the floor towards Peter. He looked at it, then stepped over it and next to Bandar. Healing required physical contact. At the same time, clearly Bandar's ability could be used through touch and it might not be nullified. Maury Parkman's telepathy, for example, still worked under nullification if he could get skin to skin contact. Peter took a moment to clear his mind. He wanted to be sure he did this right. He couldn't dare to underestimate Lilith's mental abilities.

He reached out his hands, putting them just over the skin on either side of Bandar's head. The Arab's black eyes flashed between them and Bandar said calmly, "You can't kill me. You know that. At least tell me why you are doing this."

Peter thought of the thousands of lives Lilith had disrupted, manipulated and in many cases, destroyed. He thought of the three children she had experimented on, who had not survived it. He thought of himself, jumping off a building to prove he could fly, when in fact he couldn't. He'd nearly died. If any of it had been informed, if her subjects had given consent, it would have been different. He answered her, "Because it's the right thing to do," and pressed his hands against Bandar's head.

He felt it immediately as she tried to possess him. It made him dizzy and nauseous, but he didn't stop what he'd started doing as soon as he touched the Arab. He suffused the man with healing, trying to imagine repairing his mind and his identity as Peter had so many times dreamed about fixing Gabriel. He'd never tried it with Gabriel because he'd never realized healing could be used this way. He could feel it working almost immediately and he felt satisfaction at the fear he could sense coming from Lilith. She couldn't tear her way free of Bandar's mind and every second of healing _him_, destroyed _her_. It drove out the lingering feelings of despair and fear that had gripped him.

What he didn't sense was Mohinder sneaking up behind him - not until the needle plunged into his jugular with scientific precision. Peter jerked back, losing his concentration on the telekinesis. He yanked the syringe out from where it flopped against his neck, the needle still inside him. That was, unfortunately, unnecessary. Mohinder had released it because it was empty now.

Maury Parkman's words chose that moment to echo through Peter's head: 'stubborn and arrogant as the day is long.'_ I brought this on myself. If I hadn't insisted on working alone, if I hadn't dismissed Mohinder as insignificant, if I hadn't gotten so wrapped up in myself and what I was doing… this wouldn't have happened! Crap!_ The drug hit him a lot faster than before, when he'd been injected in the muscle. Then, he'd at least had a few seconds and the onset was sort of gradual, building up the more agitated he became. This was not gradual.

The first thing he lost voluntary control of after the telekinesis was the nullification. It stuttered on and off. He tried desperately to keep it on. Bandar's ability wasn't instantaneous. All he had to do was keep it disrupted.

For an odd moment in the battle, none of the three of them did anything. Peter was trying to get his abilities back under control. Bandar was apparently struggling with himself, one personality at war with the other. Mohinder was looking between them, trying to judge what the two of them were going to do next.

Mohinder settled on looking at Bandar and said, "Are you okay?"

"Barely." He grimaced and pointed at Peter. "Kill him!"

Peter suspected things were about to get a lot worse.


	163. Clutches of the Villain

Mohinder looked at Peter and to Peter's surprise, hesitated. He looked back at Bandar and said, "Surely there's a use for-"

"I said _**KILL HIM!**_" Bandar roared. "Tear his head off! He almost _**killed me!**_ _**No one**_ does that!"

Mohinder blinked and actually backed up a few steps at the verbal assault. Peter was breathing deeply and calmly, focusing on emptying his mind and getting control again. The adrenocortisol was only a drug and like any drug that might loosen inhibitions or make it difficult to control yourself, it didn't make you not yourself. He was pretty sure he could still focus on one ability at a time, but it would take all his concentration.

Peter said, "Bandar, if you can hear me, you have to help." The Arab grimaced again, his features in turmoil. It was disturbingly similar to when Nathan and Sylar's personas had fought over his body. Peter said, "Fight her!" and lunged for the man.

If Mohinder hadn't been there, he'd have had her, Peter was sure. But he _was_ there and despite his reluctance to outright kill Peter, he had no compunctions against yanking him away from Bandar and slamming him down on the surgical table. The excitement drove Peter's abilities into overdrive again. The critical minute of focus was lost.

Everything not nailed down in the room, which was a lot of things, began to fly through the air. Bandar seemed unperturbed, though Mohinder was ducking. Bandar grabbed an attachment of the table and flipped it on. The drill tip sprang to life with a whirr. Peter jerked his head around at the sound. Lightning jumped from him and arced erratically through the room, but it didn't hit enough of the right places to short the instrument out. "Hold him!" Bandar yelled and this time Mohinder obeyed.

Bandar rammed the drill into Peter's shoulder and shoved it in with all his strength. It was about the shape and size of a fat pencil. It tore through the flesh, a combination of Bandar pushing and the rotating drill tip dragging it forward until it scraped and lodged against the backside of Peter's shoulder blade. Peter yelled - in pain and in consternation. He telekinetically threw Bandar away, but it was more of a random event than purposeful.

"Keep it in him!" Bandar called out.

Mohinder, whose strength was back since the nullification was inactive, replied, "What on earth for?" He held Peter's arms down anyway, getting both of Peter's hands in his one good hand. Peter's strength was gone at the moment. Peter struggled anyway and his skin crawled. He shifted into Mohinder, which earned him an affronted look from the Indian, then into Bandar.

Peter stopped struggling abruptly and shut his eyes. He forced himself back into his own form. _This is getting me nowhere. I have to focus again. Maybe they'll talk and give me time._ He tried to slow and deepen his breathing, but something about having a medical instrument stuck mostly through one's self made it a lot more difficult than it should have been. He could feel the blood in his chest, his lung struggling to heal with the object still within him.

Bandar told Mohinder, "It's so he can't get away. It's attached to the table, which is bolted to the floor. If it's part of him, he has to take it with him when he teleports. He can't move the whole building." After a pause, Bandar said, "If you won't kill him, then we might as well keep him." Peter could hear from Bandar's voice that he'd moved up next to the surgical table. _He's in reach. If I could only focus enough…_

"What was that?" Mohinder asked. Peter kept calming himself and didn't get distracted, not even when he felt Mohinder's grip loosen and the Indian man inhaled sharply in surprise. Then he left Peter's side entirely as if jerked away. That was the moment. Peter's hand shot up and to the side, grabbing Bandar's arm and pushing the healing into him with everything he had. Bandar hadn't even been looking at Peter, as something at the front of the room had distracted him.

He wheeled, eyes wide, and stared at Peter. He said, "You're afraid of me! Let me go!"

Peter expected to feel something, but this time there was nothing. They were only words - empty words - and the delay of saying them was all he needed. Bandar and Mohinder both had no special abilities, but it wasn't Peter nullifying them. Bandar - no, Lilith - screamed and made one last attempt to tear free from his grip, but to no avail. Peter hung on until the only thing left was Bandar's original consciousness, fully restored. The man's expression changed dramatically and Peter finally released the death grip he had on his arm. Peter sagged away from him as Gabriel came up. Faisal caught Bandar and pulled him back.

"Gabriel?" Peter said weakly, and the entire room was illuminated in a brilliant flash of light. Peter laid back and shut his eyes, trying to pull himself back together. It was harder with all the questions and warnings and admonitions and thanks running through his mind. When everything had been on the line, he'd been more motivated.

"Hang on," Gabriel said. "This is going to hurt."

He pulled out the drill just as Peter realized what he was doing and yelled, "NO!" Then he teleported. He flashed through a series of places, including the Mercy Heights locker room, which embarrassingly wasn't empty at the time, and eventually stopped in Isaac Mendez's loft. His head felt like it was going to split open and he bled from his nose and ears.

He waited, clinging to his self-control with everything he had. Several minutes ticked by before he trusted himself enough to attempt another jump. He went back to the lab. If he judged his limits correctly, he'd managed to stop himself before he burned out entirely on teleportation.

When he returned, Mohinder was against the wall, pin cushioned against it with various sharp pieces of metal Gabriel had found in the room. He was bleeding and breathing raggedly, like Peter had come in right after a scream. And Gabriel was just getting started.

Peter leaned against the surgical table and said as calmly as he could, "Gabriel?"

The other man spun around. "Peter!" He surged towards him.

Peter held up one hand and said firmly and clearly, "Stop," and just like every time, except once, that Peter had told him that, Gabriel stopped immediately. He eyed Peter suspiciously. "I'm me, Gabriel. Listen." Peter swallowed and tried to stay in control. "He injected me with something, something that causes my…" He shut his eyes and breathed. His hands were glowing. Electricity snapped between his fingers.

Bandar's voice piped up from where he was standing to one side with Faisal. "There's a cure for it. There's a… something in here. I remember. I remember some of it."

The place was an absolute mess. There was no way they'd find it without help. Peter heard Gabriel crunch across some of the debris and confront Mohinder. "You know where this cure is?"

"Yes."

Mohinder yelled as there were a series of sucking and tearing noises. Peter couldn't take the sounds of suffering. It activated his telepathy. He crumpled to the floor and curled in on himself, trying to block it out. He twitched and shook as everything Mohinder felt ran through his head in extraordinary detail. Peter gritted his teeth against the other man's anguish and terror. Gabriel fairly drug Mohinder across the room, flinging him into the cabinets. "Find it! Use it! Help him!" Gabriel commanded. Peter flinched and shook his head. He hugged himself and cringed like Mohinder wanted to, but did not.

After a minute and an assortment of clattering, Mohinder drug himself unsteadily to Peter. Gabriel grabbed him by the hair before he got there. Peter winced even though he'd managed to get his defenses up enough to block out the sensations. Gabriel asked Mohinder, "I need a yes or no answer from you. Is that a cure for what's wrong with Peter?"

"Yes," Mohinder hissed.

"Is it going to hurt him?" Gabriel asked, to make sure.

"No. Nothing other than the needle itself."

Gabriel let him go. "_Don't hurt him_," he growled threateningly.

Mohinder nodded apprehensively and went to his knees next to Peter. He glanced back at Gabriel, very clear that he was only alive at the moment because Gabriel had a use for him. He looked back at Peter and blinked several times. His eyes were wet, his face cut and he had jagged, bleeding holes in his arms and legs both. His hands were shaking, which wasn't a surprise, given his condition. The more he tried to control it, the worse the tremors became. Gabriel stepped over to the side so he could see better. He snarled.

Peter took several deep breaths and reached out to take the syringe from the man. When Gabriel stirred, Peter held his hand up briefly to him and he stilled. Peter turned the syringe on himself and asked Mohinder quietly, "Is intramuscular okay?" Mohinder nodded and Peter sunk it into his bicep with a wince. He felt it begin to work almost immediately and shut his eyes at the blessed relief. He opened them a few seconds later as Mohinder made a strangled yelp. Gabriel had telekinetically lifted him off the floor by his throat.

"Gabriel, put him down," Peter said. Gabriel looked at him and did. Mohinder staggered and fell, having lost too much blood and muscle control to keep himself upright. Or perhaps, under the circumstances, he just didn't even try. Faisal and Bandar stood off to the side, taking no part in things. They were speaking quietly to one another in Arabic.

Peter rose and walked to Gabriel, putting his hands on the other man's hips. His regeneration was working properly again and had healed his injuries. He looked up at Gabriel and started to speak, but the other man kissed him aggressively, almost savagely. Peter let him, and Gabriel pushed him back a couple steps with the intensity of his desire, advancing until Peter answered it with his own passion and held his ground. Their mouths pressed together with enough force that it was almost painful. Peter tasted the blood that had run down from his nose. It didn't seem to bother the other man. Gabriel finally broke away and licked the blood off his lips lasciviously. He leaned his forehead against Peter's, looking into his eyes with an arrogant, self-satisfied smile.

_Huh. That's… that's __**very**__ much _not_ Nathan,_ Peter thought. But even thinking that… it wasn't off-putting. It was just different. "Thank you for coming for me. You saved me. Thank you."

Gabriel chuckled. "I couldn't possibly leave you in the clutches of the villain."

Peter snorted. "I'm not exactly a damsel in distress."

"I'm not exactly a hero," Gabriel mused. He tugged out a handkerchief and cleaned Peter's face.

Peter chuckled and let Gabriel fuss over him for a moment, then he stepped back. He thought about something Micah had said to him, 'That's what heroes do.' He looked down at Mohinder, who had become ashen. He was sitting in a slowly widening pool of his own blood and doing nothing to help himself. His eyes looked glassy. Peter squatted next to him.

He reached out and touched Mohinder's right hand, withered and crippled in addition to being mutilated by Gabriel's impromptu torture session. Peter lifted his chin and let the energy flow through him and into Mohinder, closing his wounds, stopping the blood loss and beginning to restore the tissue damage.

Gabriel pulled Peter away by the shoulder. "What are you doing?" He was angry, then afraid. "Peter? Peter, is that you?"

"I'm me," Peter protested, standing up. "Gabriel, I'm me. I am Peter Petrelli. I am not Lilith. I'm not possessed. It's the truth."

"There's ways around that," Gabriel said, staring intently at Peter as if he might see the answer on his face.

"I know," Peter said and because he was looking right at him, he saw Gabriel's tiny flinch.

Bandar offered, "He destroyed her. I felt it."

Gabriel looked between Peter and Mohinder, untrusting. Peter stepped back and pulled himself free of Gabriel's grip on his shoulder. "Gabriel, you do your thing." _Which apparently includes pinning people to walls and torturing them for hurting me._ "I do mine." Gabriel exhaled slowly and frowned, but he looked away, signaling his acquiescence.

Peter squatted and finished healing Mohinder, restoring not only his immediate health, but also his vitality and the wholeness of his body. Mohinder's eyes widened as he realized how far Peter was taking it. He wasn't just being kept alive for further use or questioning. He flexed his right arm and clenched his fist in wonder, moving the fingers smoothly and easily for the first time in over a year. Tears ran down his face and he stuttered, "P-P-Peter?"

Peter stood up, swaying slightly. Gabriel steadied him. The extra muscle bulk he'd had for months was gone, although he could feel it regenerating even now. He put his hand to his chest as it filled back out. In a minute, he was as he had been before. _That's… weird. _He assumed his regeneration was to thank for the restoration, but he was still inexplicably hungry and he was sure it wasn't for food. He understood, again, why Fatima had been willing to lose the ability, especially given that she had no easy way to ameliorate the emaciation.

Mohinder, still on the floor, looked up at him and said, "Why?"

Gabriel grumbled, "I kind of have that question too."

"Because everyone deserves another chance, Mohinder," Peter said. "_Everyone_. I'd have given Lilith one too if I'd been able to figure out how."

Gabriel's hand, still resting on Peter's back where he'd steadied him, rubbed up and down slightly. Faisal said something in Arabic to Bandar, who stepped forward and said, "Faisal says he'll take me back to Riyadh. He wants to know if you need him to return to take you back to New York."

Gabriel looked at Peter, who shook his head and answered, "I can make one more jump. Thank you." Tilting his head, Peter said, "How much do you remember?"

"Very little," Bandar lied. He turned back to Faisal and spoke in Arabic. Within a second, they were gone.

Peter laughed out loud. Perhaps he was feeling a little hysteria, but for some reason, **that** was funny.

_XXX_

_We win by tenderness. We conquer by forgiveness. _

_~ Frederick W. Robertson_


	164. Lazing Around

**A/N: All of the following chapters took place in the same 24 hour period (March 28, 2011): Foreshadowing; Watchmen; Like Father, Like Son; Dirty Laundry; Show Me Your Secrets; Failed Apologies; Gifts Explained; Let it Rock; In the Clutches of the Villain; Lazing Around. To say that Peter has a really busy day is an understatement. Most of these chapters represented just an hour or so of talking, or a few minutes of action, but still… he's pretty worn out by now.**

Peter took Gabriel's hand and said, "Come on. Let's go."

"What about him?" he asked, jerking his head towards Mohinder.

Recalling the conversation he'd had with Mohinder about free will, Peter said, "He has some choices to make about his life." Speaking directly to Mohinder, who was watching them closely but still sitting on the floor, Peter said, "I suggest you make new ones. Things are different now. I've seen the future and this wasn't it. We're living our own lives. Destiny doesn't have a role in this anymore."

Peter started to turn away, then looked back as something occurred to him. He said, "If you come to New York, Molly needs a father. She doesn't have anyone right now."

Hope and confusion flashed in Mohinder's eyes. Gabriel made a disapproving sound, but said nothing. Peter drew together his concentration and took them away from the place in a final jump. Gabriel glanced around. They were in Peter's apartment now. He turned back to Peter and said softly, "Are you okay?" He wiped Peter's nose again with his handkerchief.

Peter took it away from him with a grimace and used it himself. "I'm fine."

"Uh-huh," Gabriel said with enough sarcasm that Peter knew that had registered as a falsehood. He stepped close to Peter, in front of him and took the dark-haired man into his arms briefly. "What happened?" He pulled back, looking Peter up and down. "You sound different – just a little."

"What's it sound like?"

"Drawn, attenuated. And I see you've burned yourself out on teleportation again."

"Huh," Peter said. "I took Fatima's ability. For her, it took from her physically to use it. I guess the regeneration prevents that for me, but I still feel... empty." Peter touched his chest and stomach.

"Hm." Gabriel lifted his brows. "Fatima doesn't have her ability anymore?" At Peter's nod, he asked, "Does Fuad know about that?"

Peter nodded again. "He gave his blessing, but it was her decision."

"Well. This changes everything I was going to do with the Company for the next week." He gave Peter an appreciative look and stepped next to him again. "Not that I mind. It seems I have the night off - what's left of it, anyway."

Peter reached up and put his hands on either side of Gabriel's head. Gabriel couldn't possibly have seen the parallel to what he'd done to Bandar, because he didn't react in the slightest. Of course, Peter realized, he hadn't been there for that part either. Peter asked him, "Do you trust me?"

Gabriel relaxed and stood perfectly still, blissful just to have Peter's hands on him. "Absolutely," he said, without a hint of reservation or exception.

Peter thought about his realization that Fatima's ability could bring Nathan back to him, if he used it right, perhaps in conjunction with memory manipulation or telepathy. There was a way, if he was willing to work at it. _I wish I'd never realized that. I wish I'd never even thought about it_, he thought bitterly. He looked down, his thumb stroking Gabriel's cheek pensively.

At his troubled expression, Gabriel tilted his head slightly and said, "What are you thinking?"

Peter smiled and looked back into the other man's dark eyes. He let his left hand fall to Gabriel's shoulder as his right moved around to cup his face. "I was thinking about how much I love you just the way you are. I accept you. I wouldn't change a thing." It was bittersweet, but it was true.

Gabriel leaned in and kissed him, soft, slow and sweet.

Peter smiled and looked back into the other man's eyes. He let his left hand fall to Gabriel's shoulder as his right moved around to cup his face. "I was thinking about how much I love you just the way you are. I wouldn't change a thing." It was bittersweet, but it was true.

Gabriel leaned in and kissed him, soft, slow and sweet. His hands ran up and down Peter's sides restlessly. "You have no idea how much I want to do things to you right now." Peter slid his arms around Gabriel's body and held him firmly. Gabriel was almost thrumming with suppressed energy. He ground himself against Peter and panted. Gabriel bit his lip and said, "Yes?"

Peter looked at him, trying to read Gabriel's uncertain expression. It was an odd time to be uncertain. "Yes," Peter replied, guessing he was asking permission to continue. Gabriel nodded and began to kiss him aggressively. It was sexy at first, but overpowering after a few moments. When Peter tensed, Gabriel stopped immediately. He began kissing him much more softly, gently. Peter relaxed and brought a hand up to run through the man's hair.

"I had a dream, a couple weeks ago," Gabriel said while nuzzling Peter's collarbone. He began to unbutton Peter's shirt.

"What kind of dream?" Peter scratched his nails along Gabriel's scalp with one hand, holding his hip with the other.

"I don't know." Gabriel kissed him again on the side of the neck, biting the flesh lightly. Peter groaned a little. "But it seemed really important. I was a Boy Scout. Then we were flying. You were in it, you see. Then we had sex. Or we started to, at least." Peter was listening attentively, very interested in how Gabriel had perceived his attempt at dream-walking. Most interesting was that he seemed unaware even now that it had been more than just a dream. He was telling Peter about it like Peter wouldn't have known about it.

"What happened next?"

"Mm." Gabriel wrapped his arms around Peter and hugged him tightly, then backed up and took off Peter's shirt. "Bedroom?"

Peter nodded and went. Gabriel hung the shirt on the doorknob as they passed, then pulled his own shirt over his head and tossed it on Peter's dresser.

"Next?" Gabriel frowned and looked around the room - anywhere but at Peter. Finally he went on, "You didn't want to have sex with me. You said I was raping you." He took a half step closer to where Peter was standing beside the bed. "Do you want to h- can I? Would you rather I didn't? I mean…" He looked confused.

Peter closed the distance to him. "I want to be with you. I want to have sex with you. I want you to make love to me." He smiled. "Not all the time, though. But I do right now."

Gabriel nodded and bit his lip again, running his fingertips up Peter's bare arm. He bent to kiss him on the jaw, then down his neck to his collarbone. "I like… doing this to you." He brought a hand around to Peter's chest, gently tweaking his nipple. Peter arched back. "I want you to enjoy it. You won't let me do it again if you don't and oh… how I want to do this over and over." He came back up to kiss Peter's mouth and then started to move on. Peter grabbed his head and steered him back for another kiss, then another.

Gabriel unfastened Peter's jeans and pushed them down. They fell a lot more easily than Peter thought they should. He smiled against Gabriel's mouth, suspecting his lover was cheating and using telekinesis to get in his pants. He didn't complain though. Gabriel's trousers were off even faster.

He finally broke the kiss and Gabriel nudged him back. Peter took the hint and went back on the bed. Gabriel leaned over him, eyes shut for a moment, dry humping his body. Peter curled his hand behind Gabriel's neck and pulled him down on top of him. He wrapped his legs around the man and brought them into full contact. "Ah!" Gabriel said, rocking them slowly back and forth. Peter kissed his cheek and his ear, licking the lobe. "Oh!" Gabriel said. "You've never done that before."

"Mm. First time for everything."

Gabriel turned his head and let Peter nibble up the delicate cartilage of his ear, licking and kissing. He worked his way down behind his ear, adding his teeth just a little, evoking groans of pleasure as Gabriel continued to flex his hips against him rhythmically. Peter's mouth roamed down the other man's throat, enjoying the taste of his skin and the feel of a body gripping his own tightly.

Gabriel disengaged himself and stood. Peter made a dissatisfied sound, then scooted to the edge of the bed, one leg still wrapped behind his lover. Gabriel called the lubricant to him and poured generously. He smoothed it over himself then moved forward and leaned in, putting his shaft next to Peter's. Carefully, he gripped both in one long fingered hand and slid it up and down.

"Oh!" Peter said. "You've never done **that** before either!"

"You like it?"

"Oh yeah." Peter breathed harder, giving truth to his words.

Gabriel worked them both with regular strokes. Peter made small sounds of encouragement. Gabriel eventually asked, "Can I be in you?"

"Yes." He wondered why he was even asking, under the circumstances. "Are you asking because of that dream?"

"Yeah," Gabriel said distantly, pulling back and applying lube to Peter's anus. "I take you for granted too much. That's been really clear, these last few weeks. Thank you for having me, Peter. Thank you." He sounded ridiculously grateful, as he often did. Peter tried not to think about how much his departure must have hurt and how weird it was, in a way, that Gabriel was taking him back without a murmur of complaint. Gabriel lifted the leg Peter still had hooked around him and pulled it up, straightening it.

Peter put his heel on Gabriel's shoulder. "New position?"

"Yeah, guess so. Are you limber enough for this?"

"Sure. It was always Nathan who was inflexible."

Gabriel laughed at the joke and started manipulating Peter with the fingers of one hand. The other went alternately between their members.

"I'm ready," Peter said. He liked a good hard fuck every now and then, but he appreciated how Gabriel was being especially careful with him now. The near-rape in the dream had been on his mind as well, but this was the opposite. Gabriel was being very careful about Peter's desires without being overt. Peter noticed. The other man began to enter him with short, easy strokes. Peter felt the pull up his hamstring at the position. It was great for novelty, though he didn't think he'd want it like this regularly.

When he was all the way in, Gabriel said, "I've really missed you. Really… God, I missed you. I was so scared when you left. I wanted to go with you. I wanted to bring you back, be with you wherever you'd gone… anything!" He pumped into Peter steadily, holding his thigh with one hand and stroking Peter's shaft somewhat irregularly with the other. "I'm so glad you're back. I'd thought you'd never have me again. I had nightmares… that weird dream… and others. You kept telling me you were real. You're real **now**. You wouldn't have me then. I couldn't even have you in my own fucking dreams." He thrust harder, a little of his anger and frustration bleeding into his movements.

Peter put his hand over Gabriel's on his penis and helped him sync it with his thrusts. Peter was panting, open-mouthed. It was a bit weird as sex talk went, but Peter liked to hear he was wanted, needed and that he'd been missed. "You got me now," Peter huffed out.

"Oh, God, I do! You're letting me… you're letting me… you're letting me!" He rammed into Peter harder and faster, obviously closing on his climax. Peter pumped his hand faster. He wouldn't be far behind and he'd go first if Gabriel would just hold off for a little bit. He curled his foot inward, brushing the other man's face. It was enough of a distraction to get their timing right. His penis throbbed and spurted under their joined hands and Peter arched off the bed slightly, his toes curling. Gabriel grinned and came a few strokes later.

"Ha. Yeah," Gabriel panted. "You let me."

"I let you," Peter murmured. "Now come here and let me kiss you, you handsome stud, you." He lowered his leg, flexing it a little to work the cramp out from having it stretched for so long.

Gabriel laughed and pulled out, leaning over Peter. Peter wrapped his arms around his neck and kissed him. When they were done, he put his forehead on Gabriel's shoulder, holding him while his breathing continued to slow. Peter said, "Thank _you_ for having **me** back. I'm the one who left, you know. You didn't have to take me back."

Gabriel chuckled. "I'm not… yeah." He kissed Peter's shoulder because it was the part he had nearest his lips. They disentangled and crawled fully on the bed, flopping down wherever convenient. "Don't worry about that. I'll always take you back." He gave Peter's hand a squeeze and then ran his fingers up to Peter's wrist. He traced the face of the watch, eyes half shut.

Much later, they lay naked on the bed together, both staring at the ceiling. Gabriel's fingers kept playing up and down Peter's forearm idly, brushing over the watch Peter had intentionally left on. He said to Peter, "I keep expecting you to say something to me about torturing Mohinder."

Peter huffed, still looking upward. "What should I say?" _Mohinder did a lot of bad things. A little torture is the least of the karma he has coming to him._

"I don't know. Some kind of rebuke."

"Consider yourself rebuked."

Gabriel chuckled. "And that's all? Not even a disapproving look to go with it?"

_You saved my life, Gabriel! Seems kind of ungrateful to be disapproving._ "You have to do something else to get a disapproving look. Try mailing in three proofs of purchase and a coupon." He smiled lazily. "Peter's disapproval: Some assembly required."

Gabriel laughed and rolled on his side, facing him. "So that's it? You don't care?"

Peter snorted softly. "Of course I care. Don't be a bad guy and I won't have to stop you. You _did_ notice, right, that I made you quit that?"

"You didn't _make_ me quit. You asked me to. So is it okay if I'm just a little bit bad?" He leaned over and bit Peter on the left shoulder, pulling the skin between his teeth and holding it there while he rolled his eyes to look up at Peter's face.

Peter looked down at him and smiled. There was no reason to fight over who made who do what - especially when he'd gotten his way. He reached over with his right hand and twined his fingers into Gabriel's hair. He had quite a lot of it. It had been growing out, even though he kept it combed (and usually slicked) back. Peter made a fist and Gabriel made a soft, keening noise of approval. "It would be unrealistic of me to expect you to be entirely good. A little bit bad is fine. Might even be fun." Peter pulled on his hair a little, trying to encourage him to let go of his shoulder.

It had the opposite effect. Gabriel bit down harder and Peter grunted, losing the smile and removing his hand from the other man's hair. That hurt. Peter didn't like hurt. The grunt was his way of expressing his dislike without actually criticizing. Gabriel had figured this out some time ago. He let Peter go immediately and kissed the spot in apology.

He reached up and touched Peter's forehead in a strange gesture, sweeping his finger along it and off to the side near his temple. It took Peter a moment to realize Gabriel had just mimed brushing his hair out of his face and tucking it behind his ear. Peter blinked. _That's weird._ Gabriel extended his hand further, running it across the top of Peter's head. His hair wasn't quite long enough to get a grip, though that didn't seem to be his intention.

After carding the hair through his fingers for a few moments Gabriel shifted suddenly and sat up. Peter glanced at him, but Gabriel seemed fascinated by Peter's hair. Peter rolled his eyes. He'd seen Gabriel get obsessive like this before, where the other man seemed to shut out the whole world except for whatever part of Peter he was touching.

Gabriel arranged himself cross-legged on the bed and lifted Peter's head, scooting under him so his head was in Gabriel's lap. After shifting his head for a moment, trying and failing to find a comfortable position for his neck against Gabriel's shin, Peter pulled a pillow over and leaned up. Gabriel slid it under him and Peter got comfortable. Gabriel tended to take his time about these things and now was no different. He got started, picking up Peter's hair a pinch at a time, rolling it between his fingers thoughtfully before moving on to the next. It was very intimate, more than a bit odd, and kind of relaxing. Peter supposed everyone had their quirks. He let his thoughts drift.

It was kind of weird, how much Gabriel obsessed with touching him from time to time. _Usually after we've been apart for a while,_ Peter thought. _Maybe he's staking out his territory or…_ Peter's brow furrowed and he looked up at the intent expression on Gabriel's face. It was a lot like Micah's when he was using his ability - eyes unfocused, like he was seeing something else entirely. Peter reached up and grabbed Gabriel's hands, making the man gasp a lot more than he should have, if all he'd been doing was fondling his hair.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked.

"Nothing!" Gabriel lied. He pulled his hands out of Peter's grip and put them in his lap defensively.

Peter laughed at how transparently guilty he sounded. "_Nothing?_"

Gabriel mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "Nothing important" and was distinctly not true.

Peter waited a beat, but Gabriel didn't incriminate himself any further. Peter said, "Are you pulling memories out of my… hair?"

Gabriel swallowed and fidgeted for a moment before saying, "Yes. Um… It… your skin only retains memories for a day or two at the most."

"And my hair holds them longer?" _Stalker much? No wonder he was upset I'd cut it. How long has he been doing this and I didn't realize it?_

"Sometimes. Kind of depends. It's always garbled. That's… That's why I look at all of it, if I can." He kept glancing around uneasily. His fingers brushed the top of Peter's head briefly, then retreated back.

Peter could tell Gabriel was looking for some sign of forgiveness for the invasion of privacy. He reached up and stroked Gabriel's knee, trying to ease his nerves. "I wasn't with anyone while we were apart, if that's what you're looking for."

"You were with Emma," Gabriel said promptly.

"You saw that?" _God, is everyone going to know that? First Maury, now Gabriel!_

Gabriel blushed. "It doesn't matter. I mean, I know you were… I mean, it's okay if you're with _her_. I mean, at least it wasn't…" He shut his mouth.

"You mean you'd be upset if I'd been seeing_ her_ all this time and not _you_." _Jealous twit,_ Peter thought, but there was no heat to it. Gabriel had made it amply clear that he was possessive, just as Peter had made it amply clear he didn't appreciate being someone's possession. Since fighting about it wasn't going to change it, they did their best to respect each other and avoid the issue.

"Yeah." He frowned, then brightened. "But you weren't, so it's okay!"

Peter grunted. What wasn't okay was that Gabriel knew in the first place. How many private moments had Gabriel 'witnessed' before now? "Speaking of Emma: you told her I was going to ask her to marry me."

Gabriel blinked at him, guiltless about that at least. "Yeah. You were, right?"

"Yes, probably." Now it was Peter's turn to be uncomfortable. "That kind of thing is normally a _surprise_."

"I don't see why it should be. If you love someone, and you want to be with them, then you should tell them that."

Peter froze, thinking about why wearing the watch meant so much to Gabriel. "I want to be with you too, Gabriel."

The other man smiled and blinked. "I know," he said softly. There was a lot of emotion in his voice. He reached over to take Peter's hand from where it was touching his knee and gave it a squeeze, holding it. In a more normal tone, he said, "You should tell Emma how you feel. She needs to know."

"She sort of already does," Peter grumped. "**You** told her."

"'_Sort of_' isn't the same thing. Trust me."

Peter looked up at him for a long moment and nodded. Gabriel had been afraid Peter would leave him for pretty much the whole tenure of their short relationship. Peter had never committed to him, other than, unintentionally, with the watch. In fact, a few times Peter had explicitly demanded the right to see whoever he wanted. Gabriel had not dealt well with that. He seemed to think the watch was a vow. Peter wasn't sure how he felt about that, but knowing what Gabriel thought it meant brought that meaning into existence and bound Peter by it whether he liked it or not.

Gabriel nodded too and pulled his hand back. He ran his fingers slowly through Peter's hair, clearly not using his ability now. He was just touching him. "Are you still planning on coming to my wedding?"

"Yes."

"Kind of scared me for a little while there. I thought you were gone."

"You knew where I was," Peter said confidently.

"No. I didn't." Gabriel sounded annoyed. "Maury wanted me to keep track of you and I refused, so he did instead. Or I suppose he did. I wouldn't let him tell me. I found you once for Emma, a few days after you left. She was concerned you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere."

Peter laughed a little. "She was?"

"Hey, it's not funny. You were in the process of being turned into a lab rat when I showed up earlier."

Peter sobered. "Okay, point."

"And anyway, it doesn't matter where you were, if you weren't coming back."

Peter reached up and stroked Gabriel's leg again. "I'm back."

Gabriel smiled. "I noticed." He changed the pattern of touching Peter's hair, taking a lock of it between his fingertips. "Do you mind if I see where you were?"

Peter sighed and rolled his eyes. He was tired. It had been a really long day and even if the adrenocortisol had been largely neutralized, it had still taken a lot out of him. So had the healing, in a literal sense. He didn't want to fight about anything right now. "Knock yourself out," he said and shut his eyes. Sleep found him soon thereafter.

He woke up briefly when Gabriel got them both under the covers. He reached out to touch the other man and went back to sleep. When he blinked awake later, he thought for a moment he must still be dreaming. Nathan's face was before him, in repose. Peter smiled slowly. He watched him for a while, then turned and started to sneak out of bed. Nathan's arm snaked around him and pulled him back.

"Hey!" Peter laughed and let Gabriel roll him into bed and onto his back.

"You don't get away that easy," Gabriel growled playfully.

Peter smiled up at him, waiting for the inevitable change into Gabriel's face. It didn't happen. After a long moment, Gabriel said, "What?" Gabriel reached up and touched his own face, but he didn't shift. Peter realized that by even drawing attention to it, he had confirmed the man's tendency to stay as Gabriel around him. He said, "I usually sleep as Nathan. Heidi…" He trailed off.

Peter nodded. That made sense. He was usually Nathan at his house and with his family, so if he was going to revert to Nathan, it would be when he slept. Since he hadn't shifted yet, Peter reached out and touched his cheek, sliding his fingers across his cheekbone and then down to his chin, touching the corner of the mouth as he went. He traced the faint scars on Nathan's chin and wondered if the ache he felt for Nathan would ever really go away. It was less than it had been a year ago, when it had been nearly unbearable and every time he saw Gabriel looking like this he'd wanted to slug him. Now he wanted to kiss him. _How things change._

Peter's eyes had lingered long enough on Gabriel's lips for the other man to get the drift of his thoughts. Gabriel lifted himself over Peter, watching his face carefully to make sure he had read Peter's mood right. He said, "Do you want me to stay like this?"

Peter blinked at him, his breathing quickening. "I get a choice?"

Gabriel leaned down and kissed him lightly, teasingly, and then lifted away. "Yes. You know who I am, right?"

"I'm going to find out," Peter said. He reached up and pulled Gabriel down more firmly, for that kiss.

Peter broke from the kiss and ran his hands down the sides of Nathan's body and around his hips. He found the man's buttocks and seized them, gripping him and pulling him up. With Gabriel's body this was harder than it was with Nathan because Gabriel's torso was just that two or three inches longer that made it inconvenient. Peter grinned as Gabriel took the opportunity to grind his groin against Peter's. They rocked together, feeling each other's desire building.

Gabriel leaned in to kiss him again, but Peter turned his face away and kissed across Gabriel's cheek to his jaw. He paused there, lifting his mouth to Gabriel's ear, and said, "I want to give you a blow job."

Gabriel hesitated. "I won't last." In one of Maury Parkman's acts of unexplained vindictiveness, he'd afflicted Gabriel with a performance issue. He was premature when anyone touched him directly with the intent to stimulate. It was on the list of things Peter intended to take care of, but with Gabriel's paranoia about mind control, so far he hadn't been able to address it.

"I don't care," Peter breathed. "I want your dick in my mouth. I want to taste you." Gabriel growled appreciatively. "And then I'm going to put my cock up your ass and fuck you into submission." Gabriel made another sound of approval, but it was more muted. He leaned back and gave Peter a piercing look, his eyes narrowing just slightly. Peter saw that, but went on, "First… you have to go take a shower. Clean up."

Gabriel continued looking at him for a moment, then smiled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He rolled off the bed and walked into the bathroom.

Peter called after him, "And brush your teeth!"

Gabriel laughed. "Is that your subtle way of saying I have morning breath? In case I missed that you wouldn't kiss me a second time?"

Peter gave him an embarrassed grin. Gabriel chuckled and turned on the shower. He looked out and said, "So, you wouldn't happen to have an extra toothbrush, would you?"

Peter's face fell. "Oh. Didn't think of that." He huffed. "Use mine."

Gabriel looked at him for a moment, then dug around for the toothpaste.

Peter was finishing his own oral hygiene when Gabriel got out of the shower. He started to pass by him to wash himself off, but Gabriel stopped him. "I'm ready now," Gabriel said.

"I need to wash," Peter said.

"No you don't."

"I smell!" Peter complained. "We had sex just a few hours ago and didn't clean up afterwards."

Gabriel leaned in and inhaled deeply. "I know," he purred. "You smell wonderful. You always do."

Peter rolled his eyes. "I always smell good because I always wash."

He nudged Gabriel to get him out of the way, but Gabriel pushed back. "Please? For me, Peter?"

Peter tilted his head, giving Gabriel a curious look. It was an odd request. He let himself be steered him towards the bed.

Gabriel told him, "You can wash afterwards. Promise." He sat on the edge of the bed and spread his legs a little.

Peter knelt a foot or so back from him and said, "Give me a pillow."

"You're not going to be down there that long," Gabriel answered.

"Maybe," Peter allowed. "Maybe not." After a beat, Gabriel handed him a pillow. Peter put it between Gabriel's feet and put his knees on it, stepping forward. He put his hands on the other man's thighs and slid them up to his hips, then back. He scooted forward a little more and nuzzled Nathan's chest - it was much less hairy than Gabriel's. Gabriel had a lot of body hair. He slid his hands behind the other man's back and ran them down to his tailbone, pressing into the muscles of his ass while he licked and sucked at his chest, so far avoiding his nipples. Gabriel groaned.

Peter bent and went a little lower, nibbling and sucking and kissing at Gabriel's stomach. He looked up at him with heavy lids, caressing his back. "Tell me what turns you on."

"What?"

Peter felt Gabriel tense a little under his hands. He kept stroking his back. "I love you. I want to know what you like, what turns you on."

"You know what turns Nathan on better than I do."

Peter looked up into what looked like Nathan's face. _He's testing me! That's what that look was about earlier. I did something… something I don't do when he's Gabriel… when he looks like Gabriel… whatever._ "You're not Nathan. You just look like him. Tell me what turns you on."

Gabriel's brows lifted slightly and he brought a hand over to stroke the top of Peter's head. He rolled it around to the back and down his neck to his shoulder. It was only then Peter realized Gabriel hadn't been touching him, once they got to the bed. Peter leaned in and nibbled at his chest again, saying, "We talked about this before, months ago. You were kind of vague." As Peter recalled, he'd said he liked two things: Peter, and rape. It was a distressing combination.

Gabriel brought his other hand over to rest on Peter's other shoulder. He bent a little, kissing the top of Peter's head and breathing in. "I like the way you smell."

Peter was silent, thinking about that. He didn't dismiss it out of hand, even though Gabriel was just repeating what he'd said earlier. _He might be repeating it because it's important._

Gabriel reached over with his right and took Peter's chin, turning his head so he could kiss down the back of Peter's head. He shifted so he could mouth the nape of Peter's neck, biting him gently. Peter could feel Gabriel's manhood stirring between them as he licked and bit him on the back of the neck. He was breathing harder, his breath hot against Peter's skin. It made goose-flesh rise on his arms and Peter curled his head down with a small sound. It felt like his hair was trying to stand on end.

Peter pressed his fingers into Gabriel's hips, feeling the wordless passion that was gripping the other man. Gabriel opened his mouth wider and bit him harder - not quite hard enough to hurt - and he stopped, freezing in place. A second later he let go and put his forehead on Peter's shoulder, nearly panting.

Quietly, Peter said, "You want to go further?"

"Yes," Gabriel breathed.

"Go ahead."

Gabriel shook his head. "You're not ready." He sat back up.

Peter looked at him, tilting his head and furrowing his brow. _I'd think I'd be the better judge of what I'm ready for,_ Peter thought, but he didn't say anything. Gabriel drew the line for appropriate sexual play in a radically different place than Peter did. After a moment he decided it might be better to err on the side of being conservative for now.

Gabriel looked between his eyes and Peter saw a vulnerability and fear in the other man's expression. Gabriel said, "We'll take this in stages, okay?"

Peter nodded. _He really is a stranger._ He blinked and moved back in to hug him. Since asking an open-ended question wasn't working, Peter decided to get specific. "Do you like costumes?"

"What?"

Peter licked at a nipple, then sucked at it briefly before saying, "Costumes. Sex play. Do you like the idea of people in costumes?"

"Like the Easter bunny, or a clown?"

Peter looked up at him with a non-judgmental expression, but Gabriel simply looked baffled at the idea. Gabriel twitched his brows and said, "Uh, no. Thanks."

Peter bent and kissed the skin next to Gabriel's belly button, flicking his tongue over the dimple of his flesh and appreciating Gabriel's reaction to it. "Mm. What about uniforms? Like a policeman, or a fireman… or a paramedic."

"Mm. Now I can think of a certain paramedic I'm pretty wild about… but the uniform itself… that's not the attraction. Maybe… the role. Pretending…" He tensed again and shook his head, squirming uncomfortably in Peter's arms.

Peter nodded and decided to leave that ambiguous answer alone for now. "Good to know." He straightened and ran his fingers up and down Gabriel's thighs. "What about pain?" Immediately following the question, he curled his hands into claws and drug his nails, short and dull though they were, hard down Gabriel's legs.

"Ah!" Gabriel reached out and grabbed Peter by the shoulders and grinned, lust blooming suddenly on his face. His breathing quickened and he laughed throatily, pulling Peter to him. He kissed him sloppily on the cheek and then hesitated. He kissed Peter's face again more carefully and with a great deal more reserve.

_Okay, that's a HUGE yes, _Peter thought.

"That's nice," Gabriel said in a tremendous understatement, given how he'd reacted.

Peter nodded and followed Gabriel's lead in acting like he hadn't responded as strongly as he had. "What about causing pain?"

Gabriel didn't tense, but he did pull back a little. "I'm… not so much. It's a means to an end, but if I can get what I want without hurting someone, that's fine."

"What about blood?"

Gabriel's eyes darted to the side and back. "No." It wasn't a lie, but his response told Peter there was something there Gabriel didn't want to talk about. _Maybe he likes being hurt so bad it draws blood._ Peter was pretty sure he wasn't up for that.

Peter scooted back, crouched down and licked Gabriel's knee, chewing and nibbling on it, beginning to follow the line of his leg towards his groin. He asked questions between bites and sucking. "Leather?" "No." "Latex?" "Ew. No." "Cling wrap?" "What?" "Anything transparent, see through." "Oh. No." "Armani?" "Yes, that's wonderful." Peter stopped to snort and laugh about that. He'd been close enough that Gabriel's pubic hairs were tickling his cheek. Now he started over on the other leg.

Gabriel stroked himself a few times and put his other hand on Peter's face, then his neck. _It's weird when he chooses to touch me and when he doesn't. I wish I could tape this whole thing and play it back later. I'm sure I'd notice things I'm missing right now._

"Do you like to be dominated?" Peter asked.

"Mmm." Gabriel scratched at Peter's scalp and then ran his fingers up and down Peter's shoulder.

_That's probably a yes._ "Do you like to dominate?"

"Depends on the situation. I like to be in control." He hesitated, then added, "Or rather, I like to _have_ control. I…" He twitched and shifted, his breathing getting shallower. He unconsciously tried to pull his legs together. Peter angled his body to allow the motion, but then Gabriel caught himself and deliberately spread them again. He was tense though.

Peter went back to working on his leg, letting one hand slide around Gabriel's waist while the other gripped his knee. He let a long time go before speaking again, letting Gabriel calm down from whatever subject Peter had inadvertently gotten too close to. _It wasn't like I didn't know he had control issues._ When he was close to Gabriel's groin, he turned to his only partly erect member and sucked the head into his mouth briefly, running his tongue over it firmly before pulling away.

Gabriel groaned and grabbed Peter's shoulders hard. Peter smiled up at him, open-mouthed. "Not yet." He scooted back again. "How do you feel about feet?"

"Uh," Gabriel said, releasing his over-tight grip and trying to focus on what Peter was asking. "Feet are good. You mean sexually? Um… I'm… uh…" He looked around the room. "Well…"

"What is it?" Peter asked when it seemed he wouldn't go on.

"Your feet do nothing for me." He said it quickly and then ducked his head.

Peter tilted his head. "But someone else's feet do?"

"Heidi," he said quietly and again, hurriedly. "You have man feet."

"Um… okay. Yeah. It's okay." _I have man feet. Huh._ Peter took one of Gabriel's legs and rubbed his calf muscle. "There're things I've enjoyed with other partners that I don't really want to do with you. Everyone's different." He thought for a moment and then asked, "Do you obs-… are you turned on by the way Heidi smells?"

Gabriel gave that an immediate dismissive expression. "No, of course not."

_Of course not. Okay. That's weird. I suppose it makes sense to him._ "I think I asked you about bondage before. Remind me how you feel about that."

"I'm… Erm."

Peter tilted his head and worked on the other calf. "Gab-, er, Nathan?, you've held me down different times and tied me up with my shirt. Are you saying you do that and it _doesn't_ turn you on?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes slowly. "Well… yeah, it turns me on. I just… You…" He shrugged again.

Peter leaned forward and raised his brows, trying to elicit a response. Gabriel frowned, reached out and took Peter's head, putting his face to his groin. As much as he rebelled internally against the obnoxious gesture, Peter let him do it. After a beat, he even slid his arms around Gabriel's waist and rubbed his face against Gabriel's quickly stiffening member.

"Too much talking," Gabriel said assertively. "Not enough sucking me off."

Peter laughed and looked up, making sure the other man was joking. He was and his expression was clear on it. Gabriel pushed him back down. "Even if _I'm_ a dickhead, my dick's head is still down there."

Peter laughed again. "Okay, okay. I get the message." He wrapped his hand firmly around the base, gripping tightly enough to make Gabriel shift uncomfortably. When he thought he had the right pressure, he licked his lips, wet his mouth with an ample amount of spit and swallowed Nathan's over-thick penis.

"Agh!" Gabriel said, gripping the edge of the bed with one hand and Peter's shoulder with the other. Peter bobbed up and down slowly and steadily, even as he could feel Gabriel's body trying to rush to orgasm as quickly as possible. His fingers wrapped tightly around his shaft would delay it a little. With one last suck, he pulled off, changed his grip and squeezed the tip for a long count of ten seconds.

"What are you doing?" Gabriel asked, grimacing at the unpleasant sensation.

"Turning you off. Think about something unsexy. Old women, Maury Parkman, people in Barney the dinosaur costumes, all of the above - whatever works."

"Okay… those are bad images." He was losing his erection.

Peter took his hand away and leaned back, his hands on Gabriel's knees. Most of a minute passed in silence, then Peter said, "You've said you like scaring people. What about anger?"

Gabriel shifted and gave him an irritated look. Peter gathered he was reaching the end of the other man's comfort level with discussing things, which was too bad. It was a discussion they really needed to have. Gabriel said, "I don't get off on anger. I mean, I might fuck you while I'm mad, but I don't get mad so I can get hard, if that makes any sense."

"It does," Peter said, giving up on the questions on moving on with the sex. He leaned in, gave head again and then repeated the process for slowing ejaculation. He did it twice more before Gabriel shifted his grip on Peter's shoulder to the back of his neck and said, "Please…" as Peter pulled off for another round. Gabriel's fingers tensed against his neck like he wanted very much to push him back down. Peter hesitated and then gave in. He took Gabriel's penis back in his mouth as deeply as it would go. A few moments later the man's hips jerked and he came in the back of Peter's throat.

"Oh God…" Gabriel groaned, pawing at Peter's shoulder when the dark haired man didn't release him immediately, instead opting to suck him dry. Gabriel squirmed and struggled with pleasure. Peter pulled away at last.

"That was good?"

"That was awesome! It's been… God, it's been forever since I had a blow job."

"Heh. If we practice that technique, you might get to where you can take it longer." Gabriel smiled weakly. Peter went on, "Now I seem to remember a part two to this…"

Gabriel nodded, looking less than enthused, but not actually disagreeable. He turned and crawled further on the bed, then flopped down. Peter climbed up behind him, spooning him and rubbing himself against Gabriel's backside. When he didn't react other than to settle himself a little better, Peter asked, "Do you want me to leave you alone?" He nuzzled the back of Gabriel's neck.

"No," the other man said.

"You don't like this, do you?"

"I don't like you talking all the time." He sounded annoyed.

Peter put his forehead on Gabriel's back for a long moment. _If I don't do it at all, he'll either think I don't want him or he'll be guilty that he put me off. Or is that just me rationalizing what I want? _Gabriel glanced back and shifted under him, pushing his rump up and into Peter. "Is...," Peter asked hesitantly, "Is what I'm doing here okay with you? You don't have to bottom, you know."

"Yes, it's okay," Gabriel answered firmly and clearly, obviously still annoyed by the questions. "It's not my favorite, but you like it and it's okay." He finished more softly, with another push backwards into him, "Please Peter… let me do this for you. Don't talk. Just do me."

Peter considered that, then moved over to his spine and started nibbling his way down it. By the time he got to the tailbone, Gabriel had taken an interest - lifting his head making small noises of encouragement. Peter crouched on the floor and pulled Gabriel back a little to the edge of the bed. He licked over Gabriel's tailbone and down the top of the cleft of his ass. Gabriel was definitely perked up now.

Gabriel asked, "What… what are you doing back there? Is this…?"

Peter answered, "You said you didn't want me talking all the time, so I decided to do something else with my mouth."

Peter smiled and probed lower with his tongue, spreading Gabriel's cheeks. Gabriel made several inarticulate noises, leading Peter to suspect he'd found a sex act Gabriel had no experience with. Peter lapped at his anus, making the other man quiver and jerk. Peter licked up and down, then brought in a finger to probe gently at the center. Gabriel moaned and put a hand under himself, touching his penis.

Peter reached out and used Gabriel's trick of calling the lubricant to himself from across the room. He slicked up his fingers and added a second one to opening Gabriel's ass. He slid them in and out, scissoring them. Gabriel had taken his hand back out and was just laying in wait now.

Peter had seen him do this before. Gabriel wasn't aroused by receiving anal sex. Usually Peter rolled him over so they faced each other and stroked him off at the same time. Today he decided to take Gabriel at his word and continue. He moved in to penetrate his lover from behind. He stroked into him slowly and carefully at first, using extra lube after the first few motions. When he was satisfied he had eased the passage enough, he leaned forward over Gabriel's back, his arms supporting himself on either side. He thrust in with regular movements, eyes shut.

Gabriel shifted a few times under him to make it easier to take him deeper, but otherwise he didn't contribute. Peter looked down at him, thinking about how the man let him do this because he loved him. He let Peter take him, shared his body with him, sought comfort from him - because he loved him. He wanted to be with him, he cared about him, he obsessed about him - because he loved him. All a person had to do was look at how Gabriel lived the rest of his life to see how much his love for Peter made him depart from the norm. Peter seized upon those thoughts and pumped harder, faster into the other man, finally coming in him with a shudder.

He pulled out and laid over him, saying quietly, almost plaintively, "Nathan?" He felt… vulnerable. Everything was so different. He just wanted to be held and this man looked so much like his brother...

Gabriel glanced back, concerned at the tone, then turned so they rolled and eventually he faced Peter. He looked at him and took Peter into his arms. Peter sighed against him and huddled there for a while - until the phone rang an annoyingly short time later. He felt a deep growl in Gabriel's chest. Peter smiled. "Are you going to defend me against the evil phone monster?"

Gabriel gently put Peter aside and stood up. "I'll defend you against the whole world if need be." His cell phone flew out of his trouser pocket and into his hand. He looked at the caller ID and exhaled sharply. He answered it. "Yes?" Gabriel looked back at Peter, who lay sprawled on the bed, watching him. He looked away. "Yeah, okay. I understand. … Yes. Good-bye." He tossed the phone back at his pants and watched it long enough to make sure his telekinesis got it in the pocket. Then he turned and looked at Peter.

Peter said, "Duty calls, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Maury?"

"Yeah."

"I need to talk to him," Peter said thoughtfully.

"What did you do to him, anyway?"

"What did you see?" Peter guessed Gabriel had pulled the memories of the incident by touching him. It was still a little unsettling. At some point they really needed to have a conversation about things.

Gabriel shook his head, walking to the bathroom and starting the shower. "Not much. You strangling him, him on his knees, you and him both crying."

"He tried to get in my head. I over-reacted."

"Huh. If he's alive and talking, then you didn't over-react. He did sound a bit subdued on the phone though. You coming with me?"

"Yes." Peter got out of bed and picked up his toothbrush. He put toothpaste on it and looked up at Gabriel, who had paused in the act of getting in the shower. "What?" Peter said.

Gabriel looked between the toothbrush and Peter's mouth. "Remind me to bring a new toothbrush over here for the next time. I just realized…"

Peter grinned and laughed.


	165. Breakfast Table Discussion

In the morning Maury wondered if even the sex had been a dream, but from the solicitous feminine bustling Angela was doing, he gathered it had been real. _Women. It wasn't even all that good of sex, but she acts like I rocked her world._ He shook his head and ate his breakfast, putting off the solving of the mysteries of the sexes for some other day. After he was done, he pulled out his phone and called Chuck, the tech guy he preferred to work with.

"Hey, Chuck. Where's Peter Petrelli's cell phone?"

After a moment, he answered, "In his apartment."

"Still?" _God-dammit! I told him where it was so I could keep track of the bastard._

"No, it's jumped around a few times through the night."

Maury perked up. "Where to?"

"I can send you the coordinates and the time-"

"No," Maury interrupted. "Just tell me where it went."

"Riyadh for an hour or so, then Las Vegas for another hour and then Odessa, Ukraine for a few minutes, New York for…I don't know, looks like thirty seconds, but I lost the signal on either side for a few minutes. Then back to Odessa for five minutes and back to his apartment. It's been there since then."

Maury rolled his eyes. He didn't really care about the details. Or… maybe he should. "Where at in New York?"

Chuck gave him the address for the loft Isaac Mendez had painted in. Maury couldn't think of why Peter would go there for just a minute or two. "Huh. But he's in his apartment now?"

"Yes."

"Okay, thanks." He hung up and considered what it meant that Peter had gone back to Odessa.

Maury set the phone down on the table and puckered his lips. He called out to Angela, "What did Peter want last night?"

She came in carrying her laptop and set it down. She answered, "He wanted to talk to Fatima. I gave him Abbas' card. Why? Where is he now?"

"Oh, he's at his apartment, but he took another trip to Odessa last night. Real short." He tapped on the table. "You were checking your email?" At her nod, he said, "Gabriel's report come in yet?"

"No, but there are two notes from Fuad. I haven't looked at them yet."

He nodded and picked up his phone again. She turned to her computer and clicked on the screen. Maury hit redial and told the phone, "Hey. Tell me where Gabriel is."

After several moments, Chuck told him, "He's in Peter Petrelli's apartment."

"What?" Maury looked over at Angela, who seemed absorbed by whatever she was reading.

Chuck said, "Well, he might not be _in_ the apartment, but his phone is at that address. I don't get three-dimensional resolution. He might be-"

"No, never mind," Maury told the phone. Of course he was in Peter's apartment if he were at the address. "Tell me where he was in the last eight hours and then give me the same for Peter." Maury listened to the report and then signed off. He turned to Angela, who had finished reading and was regarding him with an aloof expression.

He said, "Peter left here, went to his apartment, then to the Halo Building, then Fatima's house, then Las Vegas, then Odessa, here to New York, back to Odessa, then to his apartment again. Where he's been for the last five hours. God-damn jumpers - they're like crickets.

"Anyway, after the operation, Gabriel was here in New York until about the time Peter went to Odessa, where they joined up, other than Peter bouncing back to New York for a minute, and now they're together at his apartment." He shook his head. Her expression hadn't changed. "Can you top that?" He took a sip of his coffee.

She smiled slightly. "I think so. Peter utterly destroyed Lilith last night and restored Bandar."

"WHAT?" He barely avoided making a mess with his coffee. "How?"

"Healing."

"Healing? He has… Fatima's ability." She nodded. He looked at the ceiling, then his head snapped back to her. "Are you sure? Sure that Lilith's gone?"

"No. We can never be sure. After all, we were sure last time too. Molly can locate Bandar, but that doesn't tell us anything." After a beat she added, "Fuad says it's him and Bandar swears he felt her go."

"Hmp. There's a lot of ways that can be interpreted."

"Yes."

Maury was silent for a while. "What was the other note?"

"From Fuad?" At his nod, she said, "Just telling us Fatima was resigning. She's very happy."

He looked at her levelly and then smiled gently. _Leave it to Peter not to take something like that by force. Dickhead. _"Well. Let's get our ducks in a row for next week's meeting. I'm going to call Gabriel."

Nathan's voice answered the phone, which Maury found interesting. He told him, "Sorry if I interrupted your beauty sleep, or your beauty's sleeping, but we need your report on what happened last night. You were the director in charge. … Can you deliver it verbally in, say, an hour?" Gabriel agreed and cut the conversation short. Maury smirked at the phone, amused to have annoyed the man. He hoped he'd interrupted something intimate and inconvenienced Peter.


	166. The Dirty Dozen

Gabriel and Peter drove to the Petrelli mansion. Peter's head still hurt a little, but it was far better after the rest. Peter let Gabriel take the lead as they walked up to his mother's house. This was his game. Even though it was his mother and an old family friend, the Company was something Gabriel had fought hard to be part of and he'd invested in it. It had become more than a full time job for him in the last few months and he'd been working at it for most of a year before that. He'd switched faces shortly after Maury's had called them, just an hour earlier. That wasn't lost on Peter.

Gabriel knocked and they waited. Taylor Grem, Angela's butler, let them in and showed them into the dining room. Angela and Maury sat on opposite sides near one end, with laptops in front of them. Maury's was closed. Clarice stood quietly at the rear of the room. No one greeted them. Maury gave no indication anything had happened between Peter and himself the night before. Peter pulled out a chair and sat down.

Gabriel went to the head of the table and stood at ease on the right side of the chair. It was where he usually stood, but usually Angela held that seat. His eyes flitted over the people in the room and he said, "Why is she here?"

Maury glanced over at Clarice and back at Gabriel. "I want her here."

Gabriel said drolly, "You don't always get what you want." Peter blinked. They were replaying an exchange they'd had over a month ago about _him_, except the roles were reversed, with Gabriel saying Maury's lines and Maury giving Gabriel's.

Maury gave the same response Gabriel had given before: "I've noticed. Are you kicking her out?"

Peter was looking back and forth between them much as he had when they'd had the conversation before, but now for a different reason. He'd seen in Maury's mind that Maury had worked hard to be a supportive friend of Gabriel's. It had worked. Gabriel had become relaxed with the other man's banter.

Gabriel looked at Angela, then back at Clarice. He pursed his lips and gave a tight smile. "No."

"Good," Maury said. "Then let's get on with it." He bowed his head slightly to Gabriel, who allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch upwards in a smile.

Gabriel explained the operation to extract the children from start to finish, blaming Rebel liberally for screwing it up. Peter decided he was better off just keeping his mouth shut, because what Gabriel was saying was largely true. The converse was also true - the Company's presence had complicated Rebel's operation. He doubted anyone gathered here would care.

"And now Peter can tell you about his own mission, that happened later that evening," Gabriel concluded, ceding the floor. He pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down, making himself comfortable.

Peter raised a brow at Gabriel's choice of seat, then turned and related his own adventures of the night. Gabriel added a few points towards the end about his actions in Peter's absence. Apparently after Peter had teleported out, Gabriel had first confronted Bandar and when a mental probe proved the man's vehement assertions of innocence, he turned on Mohinder, who confessed immediately.

After Peter wrapped up, Maury drummed his fingers on the table, looking unimpressed and unsurprised by the whole story. "That's great. Really is." His tone of voice said the opposite. He waved a hand at Peter and said, "Now to the important thing. What are we going to do about this Rebel?" It was hard to tell, verbally, if he'd capitalized that or not.

Gabriel looked at Peter for a long moment. He leaned forward and adopted a gentler tone that he'd been using. It wasn't the way he sounded when they were alone, but it was close. He said, "Peter. What are _you_ going to do with Rebel?"

"I'm not doing anything with it." Peter glanced around the room, feeling like he'd been set up. He looked around the table at them. "What's going on here? This isn't about the report. You already knew," he said, looking at Maury and Angela, neither of whom denied it. He turned to Gabriel. "Did you know what was going to happen here?"

The man looked down the table at the other two directors. "I figured it out after we got here. Maury's right - this **is** important. We've been talking about it for a week now. Stopping Rebel was the major topic for the next board meeting."

Maury tapped his thumb against the table a couple times. It was a warning. Gabriel looked at him for a moment, then back to Peter. "From the reports we've seen, Rebel now has between twenty and thirty members with abilities, not counting children and associated mundanes. It's led by a charismatic man who has a multitude of powers and the ability to get more, one who knows the Company intimately and has recently defected from it after expressing strong disapproval of the decisions of the directors."

Peter didn't say anything.

Gabriel went on, "Even if that man were removed, Rebel still has a capable, experienced second tier leadership structure that's been responsible for millions of dollars of destruction of Company property, the release of dozens of prisoners and the deaths of eighteen Company employees in four different incidents. They're connected to a number of other organizations that have the potential to be equally dangerous to us, like Unity and LAW, among others. With this recent emphasis on locating new specials, and Rebel's peculiar ability to do so with greater efficiency than either the Company or Halo, it looks likely that Rebel's recruitment will continue. They'll be a serious threat to us within six months, assuming they don't fall apart due to in-fighting during that time."

Peter exhaled and looked from Maury to his mother, then back to Gabriel. "Why would you tell me this? You know I can just teleport out." It might give him a headache, but one jump was easily within his capability. Peter really wished he knew what Clarice's ability was, but he hadn't pulled _everything_ out of Maury. He didn't know why she was there and he couldn't tell if Gabriel had questioned her presence just to do it, or because she was some manner of threat.

"Please don't," Gabriel said softly.

Peter shook his head. "All you have to do is the same thing you did to Halo. Molly can locate them, Faisal can teleport in a hit squad. Most of Rebel doesn't have dangerous abilities. You'd get me too. I'm not immune to everything." Peter flashed to the raid earlier that day. "You **had** me today." He leaned towards Gabriel. "If you guys have been talking about this, why did you let me go?"

Gabriel looked down, then to the side. Finally he looked up at Peter and said, "Because you asked me to."

Maury snorted. Peter glanced at him and Maury looked away immediately, forcing his expression back to casual. The mask had slipped though. He was still afraid of Peter. Peter felt a pang of guilt, but he had other things to deal with. Specifically, he hadn't realized how much he was asking of Gabriel when he asked him to let him go. If Peter couldn't be brought in, because Gabriel wouldn't allow it, then there was no way the Company could stop Rebel without eliminating Gabriel first. Peter was pretty sure Gabriel knew this. He had put himself on the chopping block so Peter could go free.

Peter looked at Maury and Angela. "I've heard you inducted the leadership of Halo as directors." After exchanging a glance, they both nodded. "Why?"

Maury looked away. He hadn't said a word to Peter yet. Angela answered, "The Company needed their resources and we needed to subvert a potentially dangerous organization."

"Subvert them - how?" He looked at Maury. "Mind control?"

"No," Angela said. "That's not necessary. Our goals are not so dissimilar. It is a simple conspiracy of shared interests. The subversion is complete merely through association and cooperation, sharing information and discussing topics of joint interest. There are as many of them on the board as there are of 'us', if you go so far as to include our two newest directors, Gabriel and Kelly."

Peter nodded. He'd thought it was probably something like that. He'd even hoped it was. "Okay. You want to control Rebel, get it out of the hands of that guy with all the abilities you think is leading them?" He looked around the table. They looked uncertain as to what he was proposing, but he had their attention. "Then promote Rebel's second-tier leadership into being directors."

His mother looked like he'd offered her something odious. Maury said almost immediately, "Might work."

Gabriel said, "Aren't they all fairly young?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "If you want to appeal to this new generation of specials, you need some people who are young. I'm not saying they'll do a great job, but you've got eight votes to their four, if you combine Halo and you four."

Angela said, "Halo is only represented by three now."

Maury answered, "Promote Bandar. That one's going to be virtually automatic, anyway."

"Well, that's true," his mother admitted.

Maury went on, "You said you'd seen that we'd have a full roster of twelve within a year. That was last July."

Angela gave Maury a displeased look. "I did not see who they would be. We still have time. There may be other candidates."

"But he's right," Maury said. "Now that we've got Halo, the next biggest organization on the planet is Rebel. After them is the Consortium and they've already declined. There's no reason to beat up on Rebel when joining them works. There's no better way to keep tabs on them than to make them part of this."

There was a moment of silence around the table. Maury took a deep breath and looked directly at Peter, finally addressing him. "What makes you think we won't make them into puppets like we do to everyone else?"

Peter said quietly, "I've seen into you, Maury Parkman. I know I can trust you."

Maury pulled his head back and tensed all over, his chin going up and his jaw flexing at the blunt reminder. He shut his eyes and turned his head away. After a moment he got up and walked out.

"Peter," Angela chided gently. "That was too much."

"It's the truth," he said.

She sighed. "So much of the time, the truth is better left unspoken."

Peter gave a dry chuckle. His mother _would_ think something like that. He stood. "I need to go talk to him."

Gabriel put in protectively, "Be careful, Peter. He can put you under."

"I know," Peter said.


	167. Father Figures

**A/N: I'm massaging the dates a bit for Emma's age and her mother's brother's death. The freaky thing is that the relationship itself was canon in the graphic novels.**

Peter found Maury sitting outside on the patio, fiddling with a cigar he had yet to light. Peter took a seat across the table from him. Maury pointedly didn't look at him, continuing as though he were alone.

"You're a good man, Maury. I know that," Peter said, facing him.

"I am not." He kept looked away, settling into his chair, which conveniently let him look out at the garden rather than across the table. "I've tried out pretty much every depravity in the book." He glanced over, looking so far as Peter's hands before looking away. "Except eating people. I didn't try that one. But I suppose your lover did, so I guess you're okay with that."

Peter's mind flashed to those reports of missing brain sections from Sylar's earliest victims. He'd always wondered. Gabriel's file had been vague. _I really,__** really**__ did _**not**_ want to know that. Which is why he told me, trying to get under my skin. _ Peter looked out at the garden as well. _I really shouldn't be surprised that Gabriel's so cautious around me. He's done a lot of… really awful things._ "I am happy with Gabriel exactly as he is," Peter said.

"Oh, really?" Maury said sarcastically, turning to face him, leaning forward a little and warming to the opportunity.

Peter snapped his hand up and the older man flinched back. "Don't start," was all Peter said. Maury swallowed and backed down, turning away again and fidgeting with the cigar. After a minute or two had passed in silence, Peter said, "People can become better than they were before. They can reform. They can be redeemed and saved."

Maury glanced at him sideways. "Don't give me that religious crap. I know what happens after you die. I've been dead. I've talked to people who _are_ dead. I've watched their minds as they died. Your father was always obsessed with that religious stuff. It's just a pack of lies for the weak-minded."

Peter cocked his head, declining to argue about religion and addressing something that was much more provable. "And knowing all that, you've still decided to be a good person."

"I have not."

Peter smiled and looked away. That statement rang in his mind as a falsehood. He wondered if Maury knew it was a lie. "I'm not saying you succeed. You go out of your way to be abrasive and I don't understand that. But at the bottom of it you're trying to do what's right."

"You know what I hate?" Maury asked. Peter looked over at him. "Empaths. Always trying to feed people their touchy-feely line of bullshit."

"Maybe it's because it takes an empath to see through that hard-nosed line of bullshit you're trying to feed everyone."

Maury smiled a little. "Heh. Made you say 'bullshit'."

Peter laughed out loud at the reminder that Maury's sense of humor was just that juvenile. Peter **did** curse - not very often, but he did. That Maury had noticed and made it a mission to maneuver Peter into coarsening his vocabulary seemed very much his speed.

Maury smirked. "Eh, makes the world a better place if I can drag you down into the mud with the rest of us."

"Okay. Sure," Peter said agreeably.

Maury's tone changed back to cautious and defensive. "What do you want, Peter? Why did you chase me out here?"

"I wanted the chance to say I was sorry. I _am_ sorry, Maury. I shouldn't have done that."

He snorted and examined his cigar some more. "You've had your chance. Now get the fuck out and leave me alone."

Peter swallowed and looked around uncomfortably. It wasn't the response he wanted, but it was what Maury was giving him. He stood up, nodded, and turned to leave.

"Hey," Maury said. Peter looked back. Maury met his eyes for a moment and said, "I appreciate you making the effort." He looked away.

XXX

Peter spent the afternoon locating sources for fertilized, raw eggs and buying up all the bean sprouts and fruit he could get his hands on. Intriguingly, he didn't seem to actually consume the stuff. At least, it didn't seem to make it to his stomach. He ate it and it vanished. Once he figured out how to turn it on and off, he discovered he could eat things too big to reasonably fit in his mouth, including an entire large apple. _I guess this is how Fatima ate a human being. That's a really disgusting thought. I'll stick with eggs and fruit._

It assuaged the gnawing, empty feeling he'd been having since healing Mohinder. He hadn't noticed much of anything while healing Bandar, but perhaps that was because the psychic stuff was different or easier. It took more finesse and concentration, but less power.

He tracked down Gabriel and talked to him about the Company and what sort of issues they'd need to work out if integrating Rebel would really come to pass. It was a good conversation and interesting to really engage with him on something semi-normal. Afterwards Gabriel left for dinner with his family and Peter asked Emma to meet him at a restaurant.

When they sat down, she showed him the philosophy book his father had given him. "Did you leave this at my place?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." He took it and gave it a mixed look.

"I read part of it. It's very… interesting." She smiled.

They ordered and ate, discussing the book. Peter shared with her Maury's insight on Arthur, that he was trying to relearn how to be a normal human being by reading books like this. Peter said, "I think he's trying to reform - genuinely trying. He knew he was going to be stripped of his abilities. Maybe this is his way of accepting it."

Emma watched his signs quietly. Her mind seemed elsewhere.

"What are you thinking about?" Peter asked.

She gave a tight smile and ate a bite of the key lime pie they were sharing for dessert. Finally she answered, "I never knew my father."

"I'm sorry," Peter offered. "What happened to him?"

"I don't know," Emma said. Peter could see her features tighten with emotion.

"Did he die?"

"I don't know, Peter!" she signed emphatically and angrily.

He held up his hands to soothe her. She only rarely spoke of her family other than her mother. Now she shook her head and signed, "There was never anyone other than my uncle and he died before I was born. They always said…" She covered her mouth, but Peter heard her thoughts anyway. It happened most often when he was intent on understanding someone, being open to them, and they were thinking something strongly. What she thought was that they had always said her uncle was her father.

He blinked, remembering Claude's words about Peter's luck in not having a sister. All of Emma's outrage at his relationship with Nathan was thrown into a different light as well. She'd told him about the rumors, but with an air that that was all they were - vicious, false insinuations and he'd believed her. She'd grown up with a secret shame, feeling disgust at herself and her family. To have Peter more or less brazenly announce that he'd done something similar with his brother had been too much.

She stood up. "Peter, thank you for dinner." She shook her head. "I have to go."

"Emma… It's okay. No one's manipulating our families anymore. What happened between them doesn't have to…" _I ended Lilith, it's over,_ was what he wanted to say, but he'd already said too much.

She blinked at him in surprise. "You…?" She swelled with anger and signed to him, "You do not read my mind!" She stabbed her finger at him in rage.

"I didn't mean to…" he answered, but she was already walking away. He snatched up his book, threw down enough money and hurried out after her.

She whirled on him outside, berating him angrily and silently for invading her privacy. He apologized, but it wasn't enough. She stalked off, but he followed her, determined not to let things end on this kind of note… not again and not unless she told him to leave, which she hadn't. He sat next to her on the subway and after three stations, she finally reached over and patted his knee, then turned and hugged him. He kissed her cheek and hugged her back.

When they got to her apartment, she hugged him again and they shared a long, slow, loving kiss, sinking into one another. When they parted an eternity later, she smiled at him and fussed with his collar and his shirt, then touched his chin and jaw. He smiled back at her, enjoying the attention.

"You followed me," she said, enunciating carefully so she didn't have to lean back enough to sign.

"I couldn't let you get away." He blinked and looked away, his hands at the small of her back. She could still see his face enough to see his words, "I didn't understand, before, that sometimes in a relationship, when my partner… goes a different direction," he looked back at her, "that if I want to stay together, I have to go with them. _**I**_ have to follow, instead of expecting them to follow me all the time."

She kissed him again and when they stepped apart, she invited him in.

She led him directly to her bedroom and began to undress. He slipped out of his clothes as well. She finished first and fussed with the bed, straightening the sheets and blankets from their previously unmade state. The last thing he took off was his watch. He looked at it for a moment longer than necessary, then tossed it on top of his clothes. He suspected she had yet to notice anything unusual about it.

He walked over next to her and touched his fingertips briefly to the curve of her back as she leaned over the bed, adjusting the pillows. She looked back at him and smiled, so he touched her more lingeringly, stroking slowly up and down her silky skin. She finished and turned to him, kissing him and putting her hands behind his neck, toying with his hair and the lines of muscle at the nape of his neck.

He smiled, shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them and kissed her again. One of his hands was on her hip; the other was at the small of her back. They kissed slowly but passionately, tongues tangling across one other, lips moving together. He felt a throb at the base of his cock and his body tensed, muscles tightening. All kinds of thoughts swarmed through his mind at once, nearly all of them involving rushing things. He made a low sound of need and stepped forward only an inch or two, but it put his hip and penis in contact with her.

She leaned her upper body back a little and smiled warmly in invitation. He fought back the desire to succumb to his instincts, but he breathed faster, shallower and moved against her a little as he gave her brief kisses along her shoulder. Emma turned and climbed on the bed, rolling onto her back. He climbed over her and she parted her legs for him. He lowered himself, but he was further down her body, his face even with her chest. He wasn't going to rush this no matter what the animal part of him had to say about it.

He kissed the top of one breast and worked his way down, propped up on one elbow. She ran her hand through his hair and urged him towards her nipple. After a moment he decided the position was awkward. He wanted both hands… and there was a way to get it. He floated up slowly with a bit of concentration. It wasn't so much as to take away from the moment. A little distraction might even be helpful.

He kneaded the breast he suckled at with his left while his right tweaked her other nipple. She arched her back and moaned with a low, throaty sound, mixed with occasional keenings. She wrapped her legs around him and moved herself against him, her pubic hair scratching at his stomach. He grinned for a moment at the welcome sensation, then sucked and licked at her nipple, flicking it with his tongue. She twitched and moaned. He switched sides and she continued to grind against him, panting. She tugged at him, as if to encourage him to rise and mount her, but he demurred and went lower.

She spread her legs immediately for him and he spread her lips likewise with his hands. He admired her folds - the lovely pink flesh, slick and ripe - before bringing his mouth to her sex and giving a single, solid lick. She jerked and called out, so he repeated it five, ten times, before settling in with his lips puckered to suck at the swollen nub of her clitoris. She began vocalizing with every exhalation, breathy and impassioned.

He was still floating, so he brought his right hand below his mouth, two fingers extended. She was wet to the point of dripping. He let just the tips of his fingers touch her opening and her sounds changed pitch immediately as she felt him. They became longer and deeper. He put his mouth more firmly on her and tongued her clitoris actively, letting his fingers press into her to the first knuckle. He'd intended to go further, but he felt her vagina clench and spasm as her voice abruptly shifted to higher pitched. She rode out the orgasm and he continued to pleasure her to the last, until she finally put her hand on the top of his head and pushed him back.

She was breathing heavily, lids drooping. He smiled smugly and drifted forward over her. She raised her brows slightly and looked at him, realizing for the first time that he wasn't supporting himself in any visible way. She laughed and his smile became mischievous. She drew him down against her and wrapped her legs around him. His organ was against her and again he felt an overpowering urge to penetrate her. This time he didn't resist.

He glided into her without so much as the need to position himself. That was something he never got tired of with women - the parts _fit_. They were made for one another, like puzzle pieces and you knew when you had the right ones because they joined perfectly. There was no constant fussing with lubricant or careful preparation required. He slid all the way in and she threw back her head, mouth open with a long, "Ooooh!"

He bit his lower lip briefly and began to thrust into her, feeling her answer his motions with her own. He put his head down, his cheek against hers. Her skin was so soft. Her hair was in his face, tickling against his forehead, but he didn't mind. Her body was hot beneath his and he surged against her, filling her with himself, driving into her harder and faster. He wouldn't last long, but he didn't give a damn. He didn't have to. He'd taken it slow at first, he'd brought her off, he could take it at his own pace now and be guiltless about it.

"Emma, Emma, Emma," he told her. "I love you, Emma. I love you." He breathed against her neck and there was no way she knew what he was saying, but he said it anyway.

Her voice went back to higher pitched again with every hard thrust he gave her. He increased his tempo yet again, feeling himself coming undone. His skin tingled and a fire spread through his body. He was thrown for a moment as he felt her clench around his shaft, but then he laughed as he realized she was joining his orgasm. He put his arms around her and drove into her as hard as he could with normal strength. He came inside her, spilling himself with every shuddering jerk. Their shared spasms faded as they panted.

He realized he'd lost his levitation at some point. Instead of reactivating it, he just rolled off to the side and lay, breathing hard and smiling. "That was great. Oh God, that was great."

She smiled back at him, satisfied, and got under the sheets. He joined her and she came to him immediately, lifting his right arm and snuggling under it, putting her head on his chest. He tightened his arm around her and she snaked hers over his chest to hug him. He stared at the ceiling and let himself relax.

The world fell away and all he could feel was her in his arms and him in hers. His brows drew together slightly. Yes, that was definitely her feeling him… He moved his right hand on her hip to feel it as though someone were touching him, in addition to feeling her skin under his.

He raised his mental defenses. He'd relaxed a little too much. He thought about Maury's many comments about telepathy and sex and he wondered what it would be like to be with her and know what she was feeling. He'd focused on his patients as an EMT many times now, sensing their symptoms and tapping into their physical sensations. He'd only been trying to understand their pathology, but he could see a much more enjoyable use of the same.

He raised his head and kissed the top of Emma's. "I love you," he told her and she moved slightly against him. She could feel him speak, but she didn't bother to see what he was saying. It occurred to him also that if he were in her mind, they could communicate without signs or lip reading. It was something to think about.

He thought about that and other things until she twitched against him, then began to snore slightly due to the position. A moment later she shifted, rolling on her side away from him. He still wanted to touch her, so he spooned behind her and eventually fell asleep.

He woke up sometime later, feeling refreshed and like he'd gotten all the sleep he needed. His body was sure of this too, as it was also aware he was pressed against a beautiful, available young woman. He reached out to stroke her hip. She moved her head uneasily and slapped his hand away decisively. She slapped again, vaguely and at the air, then muttered something inarticulate and rolled a little further away from him and the probably unpleasant hardness against her backside.

_Well, so much for available_. He rolled the opposite direction and started to handle his own needs. He wasn't so sleepy he couldn't think ahead though, so he stopped, got out of bed and went to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and when it was warm (which was much faster than in his own apartment), he got in and finished what he'd begun in bed.

He came out later, toweling himself off and looked at the clock. He'd had a little over three hours of sleep. That was what Gabriel had reported he'd needed while he'd had Claire's regeneration, doubled in effect. Now Peter had much the same thing with Claire's ability and his father's as well. A single layering of the ability had cut his need for sleep to four or five hours. Doubled, it was less still. He frowned. It was far too early to wake Emma. He dressed.

He recalled the previous fall when Gabriel had come over a few times after midnight, after Peter got off tour three at work. Now that he thought about it, that was enough time for Gabriel to go to bed with Heidi, wait for her to get to sleep, and then get to Peter's in a leisurely fashion. He could spend hours there and still have time to fly home under cover of dark, catch a few hours of sleep, and be ready to go the next day like he'd had a full night of rest.

No wonder Heidi hadn't made much of their relationship. She might not have even been aware of it, especially if Gabriel routinely went out for other reasons. He'd said as much.

Peter found ways to keep himself busy. He scavenged up a load of laundry and ran it. It had only been a few days since she'd last done it, so there was only the one load. He did the dishes and cleaned up a little. He went out briefly and got eggs for breakfast. He sat on her couch and read parts of the book his father had given him. When he had read as much of it as he could digest in a sitting, he checked the time and made scrambled eggs, then brought it into Emma for breakfast in bed.

XXX

In the morning, after breakfast and seeing Emma off to work, Peter pulled out his cell phone. He called Noah Bennet.

Noah's voice was bland when he answered, which Peter correctly interpreted as cautious. "Hello?"

"Hey, Noah. This is Peter."

"I gathered. How are you doing?"

From Noah's polite, but distant tone, Peter suspected he was still persona non grata as far as the rank and file of the Company was concerned. He didn't think Noah would have any problems bending a few rules for him though. "I'm fine. I guess no one's reinstated me, have they?"

"Not that I know of, but I can't say I've been checking the system." Peter knew that as one of the Company's few pilots, Noah had probably spent the better part of the last day on the plane from Odessa. He'd most likely spent a lot of time sleeping since then, so being out of the loop made sense. "Is this something about…Gabriel letting you leave?"

"Yeah, something. There's been a lot more that's happened. I want to talk. What are you doing for lunch?"

"I don't know. I was thinking egg rolls, or maybe something greasy."

Peter chuckled. "I know a place in Las Vegas that serves some really good cheese fries."

"That sounds good, but Las Vegas is a little far to drive. What you're proposing **is** a round-trip ticket, isn't it?"

"Yes," Peter figured he was up for a short jump there and back. He needed to check in more than the text messages and calls he'd exchanged with Micah. "Where do you want me to pick you up?"

They worked out the details and most of an hour later, were sitting down in the club. It was morning. Although they didn't have any customers, two women and one man were at a table talking while six of the rescued children played quietly among the tables. They were too quiet for their age. Peter was glad they'd gotten them out of there. Noah eyed the children, who had been among his team's targets, but didn't say anything.

Marco, the bartender, was on duty even at this hour. He was living in one of the rooms in the back that used to be a changing room. He brought over a beer and set it in front of Peter without him having ordered it. He looked expectantly at Noah, who said, "I'll have what he's having." Noah looked around and said, "Interesting place. And since when do you drink beer?"

Peter sighed. He debated whether to drink it or give it to Noah and order water. But he didn't want water. He wanted a beer, really badly. He peeled the cap off and took a drink. He felt better immediately. "I've been under a lot of stress."

Noah laughed. "A lot of alcoholics say that."

Peter stared at him, then at the drink. He didn't say anything, his mind replaying what he'd thought just seconds before and how oddly _good_ it had felt to get that drink.

"Just because you can't get drunk doesn't mean you can't get addicted. Alcoholism runs in your family, Peter. Drugs might not work on you as strongly due to your regeneration, but they still have an effect." Noah was just making an observation - he wasn't chiding him or judging Peter's habits. He was just pointing something out that was perfectly obvious to a trained observer of human nature.

"Um."

Marco brought a beer for Noah. Peter said, "Bring me a glass of water, please." He set the beer aside carefully. He'd need to think about that one. He didn't think he'd gone so far as to be addicted, but waiting until he did was stupid. He'd gotten started after an argument with West and Micah about Micah drinking. Peter had won the argument, but he'd ended up with Micah's beer. He'd finished it and for some reason he'd ordered another one. It was all he drank when he was here. Or at least, it had been until now.

"Sure," Marco said, pulling out a pad. He took their orders and headed back. In New York it was lunch time, but in Las Vegas it was a late breakfast, at best. Neither of them were in the mood for breakfast food though and Marco didn't mind firing up the grill early. West came out to help.

Peter filled in Noah on recent events, including his offer to defuse the brewing war between the Company and Rebel by leaving Rebel and bringing their leadership into the Company. Noah looked pained. "I'd be working for a 15 year old?"

"Micah's sixteen."

Noah snorted like that didn't make it much better.

"And Micah's a good guy. Is it any worse than the people you worked for in the past?"

Noah looked away. "Point. Some of the people I'm working for now…" He shook his head.

"Maury?" Peter guessed.

"No. Gabriel." Noah's expression let him know there was still unsettled business there.

Peter considered what Gabriel had told him and what he'd seen in Maury's mind. A few weeks before, Maury had a confrontation with Gabriel where he thought Gabriel was going to kill him for having given Claire mental commands. He may well have been right. Maury had struck back by poisoning Noah against Gabriel, implying he'd sexually assaulted Claire in the course of using Samson Grey's ability on her. It had certainly pushed Noah's buttons. Maury was exceptionally good at that.

Marco served their food – a blooming onion for Peter, a burger for Noah and a basket of cheese fries to split. Peter reached out for one of the fries and Noah blinked, going so far as to lean forward for a better look at Peter's watch. Peter turned it so he could see it clearly and chewed with a defiant expression. Noah's lips twitched a couple times. He swallowed and said in a surprisingly normal tone of voice, "You're back together with him? I'd thought maybe…"

"Yes," Peter said crisply.

"Oh." Noah didn't say anything else, turning to the business of eating. His disapproval was evident, however. He looked at the watch with a sour expression. Peter wondered what it was he **had** thought, given that Peter and Gabriel had kissed and been close in full view of Noah and the other agents. _Of course, I left after that. Although I doubt Gabriel said anything, I'm sure he did and said things that Noah might have read into. Hell, Gabriel might have even thought I was leaving him again - it's not like I said I wouldn't._

They ate quietly for a little while, until Peter broke the silence by saying, "He didn't do it." He was confident Noah would catch that he was talking about the alleged rape of Claire. He did.

"I've thought about it, Peter. It's impossible to tell."

"No, it's not."

"Gabriel and Maury both have reasons to lie and Claire…I can't be sure. I don't know if you know this, but Gabriel… just because you're not detecting a lie doesn't mean he's telling you the truth."

Peter chewed his lip briefly and looked down. "I know." There were a number of things Noah might be saying Gabriel was lying about, with Matt's murder topping the list. No matter what it was, it meant Noah had known things about Gabriel he hadn't shared with Peter. That was his right. Peter trusted Noah's judgment. He looked back up at the older man. "But he didn't do it. I... I got into Maury's head and I went through what he knew… especially about Gabriel."

Noah blinked at him, then slowly paled as he considered what this meant. "Maury… you…?"

"Yeah." Peter looked away, frowning. "It… I can give all kinds of excuses, but what I did was wrong. I've tried to apologize. At least… he listened to me. I got that far. I don't know if he'll forgive me, but at least he listened. He's barely even willing to look at me."

"I can imagine," Noah mused. "It hurts to be violated that way and I'm sure it hurt him worse because it's never happened to him before."

"No, it hurt worse because it _has_." At Noah's intent look, Peter said, "Things I wish I didn't know. And probably shouldn't talk about. In any case, Gabriel didn't rape Claire. Maury just said that to turn you against him, which is exactly what it did. He's afraid of Gabriel. He's trying to 'manage' him by being his friend, or pretending to be his friend. I've read his mind and even I can't tell which. I don't know that Maury knows how to genuinely be anyone's friend. His ability has twisted him up, but at least he's _trying_ to be decent."

"He hasn't always," Noah grumbled, his brows heavy as he brooded on what Peter had said. They ate quietly until the food was gone, at which point Noah asked, "You don't think he did it?"

"No," Peter said.

Noah nodded and looked away. "I'll have to think about that."

Peter bused their table and carried in the dishes. He checked in with West and Sparrow and made sure they didn't need him for anything. They were continuing to sort out issues with the kids, so other than talking him into turning a few rocks into gold nuggets, he wasn't needed. He came back out to find Noah playing peek-a-boo with one of the children. Peter waited until their game was over, then took Noah back to New York.


	168. Sins of the Father

_When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. _

_We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, _

_let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, _

_and only then do we forgive it.  
~ __Lewis B. Smedes_

XXX

Peter took the New Jersey transit train to Philadelphia. He could have teleported, but his head was still giving him twinges from coming back with Noah. He wasn't in a hurry. He read some more of the book his father had given him. He supposed it would probably be a couple more days before he was fully recovered enough to teleport easily. Gabriel was at the Philly containment facility and came up to let him in when he called. Peter didn't bother alerting everyone by trying to use his badge.

Still, he could tell the guards weren't sure if he was a prisoner or a guest. Gabriel didn't clarify, which Peter thought was an ominous sign. He knew the situation wouldn't be resolved until after the April board meeting, when current Company directors would get together and discuss Peter's proposal they induct Rebel. At some point, Peter reflected, he was going to have to find out if Micah and the gang were amenable to it.

Gabriel regaled him with a story about Monty's recent performance in baseball and compared it with Simon's. Peter listened with a small smile, wondering what Nathan would have made of a man like Gabriel becoming a father to his sons. As far as Peter could tell, he was a good father, if often busy and involved in a dangerous and stressful job.

He'd found time to attend a game just the previous Saturday, two days before the operation in Odessa, Ukraine. It was that ballgame he was discussing. Peter couldn't remember Nathan ever making it to any of his son's events. He remembered hearing about the row Nathan had had with Heidi after he'd missed Simon's confirmation. Even though the boys had been much younger while Nathan was involved in their lives, Peter imagined there must have been things to attend. Gabriel had found plenty of things to attend.

They stopped outside of Arthur's cell, which was their destination. Gabriel looked at the door for a moment, then at Peter. "Alone?" he said, repeating how Peter had requested to have the meeting.

"Yeah," Peter nodded. Gabriel nodded and handed his badge to Peter. Peter shifted the bag he was carrying and took it. He'd need the badge because the door would automatically lock again behind him. Peter looked at it, thinking that with shape-shifting and Gabriel's electronic identification, he could wreck all kinds of havoc. "Thank you," he said to Gabriel, for trusting him. It still seemed remarkable to Peter. His heart had been stuck for weeks in the rut of thinking Gabriel had betrayed him… to have it proven over and over that he was wrong was still a small shock every time.

Gabriel nodded. "I'll be at the central security desk, or if you teleport out, call me and let me know where I can pick it up."

Peter looked at the door, then back at Gabriel. "Are you going to watch us?"

"Not unless you ask me to. No one else will watch you either. That's why I'm going to central security - I'll make sure of it." Peter nodded and Gabriel added, "Now, if you set off the fire alarm or we start getting interference on the grid, then yeah, I'll take a look to see what's going on. But not otherwise." He clapped Peter on the shoulder and set off down the hall.

Peter smiled after him, then sobered as he thought about what Fuad had said: 'You should mend things with your father. Nothing else will stay together for long unless you do that.' Peter could see that, in a way. His interactions with his father would impact how he related to Maury, to Angela and to Gabriel. Not so much Emma, but if everything else fell to disarray, Peter couldn't imagine Emma would be unaffected. His life was now interconnected. It was no longer neatly compartmentalized. He'd become… _messy_.

He knocked and waited for his father to give him permission to come in. Then he walked in, slipping the badge in his pocket.

"Why, hello, Peter," Arthur said, sitting on his neatly made bed. "Have you come to concede defeat?" He looked superior and disappointed at the same time.

_Concede defeat?_ "What are you talking about?"

"Fatima."

"Oh! No. I figured that out."

His father's brows lifted. "And Lilith?"

"Gone." Peter handed his father a book from his bag, one of his own he'd brought for him. It was soft covered and had a picture of a Guy Fawkes mask on the cover. Across the top, in red letters, it said 'V for Vendetta.'

Arthur frowned at it. "A comic book?"

"A graphic novel. The entire compilation." Peter sat down in the room's single chair. He said, "It's about a man who fights against the system that created him. He inspires others to take action and rise up on their own against it."

"He wears a mask?" his father said dubiously.

"Yeah. People think he's inhuman, a monster. But that's just the face he's chosen to present to the world. Underneath, he's still a man. His lesson to humanity is…." Peter smiled. "I'll let you read it for yourself. It's a good book." He echoed his father's words to him from before. "I think you'll like it."

Arthur looked at the book for a while and set it down next to him. "They say that comic books are the modern form of mythology. I have, perhaps, been too long in taking the opportunity to appreciate the stories they have to tell. Thank you for bringing this to me, Peter. I look forward to reading it."

Peter nodded. "I looked for 9th Wonders, but it's on hiatus again. I figure it has something to do with all the precognitives disappearing in the last couple of years."

"Hm," Arthur nodded. They both knew what Peter was getting at. As Gabriel had brought up only a few months back, Arthur had a very final method of dealing with anyone who could foretell the future. As far as Peter knew, the only remaining precognitives were himself, Gabriel and his mother - and he and Gabriel weren't very good at it. As far as he knew, Gabriel hadn't even accessed the precognition he'd gained from Matt. What future-sight he'd shown had been drawn solely from dreams, using Angela's ability.

Peter ventured, "I suppose there's probably a couple from this new wave of specials, since the eclipse. I ran into one who could tell when someone close to him was going to die or be hurt, but that's as far as his power went."

"Very useful, however."

"Only if you can change it," Peter pointed out.

Arthur looked at him speculatively. "It has come to my attention that the future **has** changed." Peter looked at him attentively. "Shortly after you brought me here, decisions were made that altered the flow, profoundly. It is… March 30, is it not?"

"Yes."

"I was to be released on March 14th after Maury failed to adequately conclude negotiations with Halo. I gather that he was rather more successful than I had foreseen." Peter nodded silently, wondering where, exactly, the pivot point had been.

Arthur finally said, "It's amazing what love can do to improve a person." He gazed off into the middle distance. "I should stand in awe, abashed, at the changes it has wrought."

"You should?"

His father focused on him and smiled. Somehow it managed to look genuine and false at the same time. "I _should_."

"I've seen love do some pretty amazing things all right."

After a long silence, his father said, "I… loved… both of you, Peter. Both of my sons. But one had to be sacrificed. It was the only way."

Peter looked at him blankly. He'd heard his mother say much the same thing. He hadn't believed her either. It was faulty reasoning, through and through. Any idiot could see that.

"You agreed," Arthur said gently.

Peter blinked and stiffened. "I did not." After a pause he guessed his father meant getting Matt Parkman to shatter Sylar's identity. He added, "I didn't know how it would turn out."

"On the contrary, you knew exactly how it would turn out. That's why you acted. You came back from the future and you shot your brother dead."

_Oh. That. Yeah._ "That wasn't me. That was… That was future-me."_ And he wasn't shot dead. Apparently future-me brought him back too, though I have no idea _why_ he did what he did._

His father spoke slowly, as though he were a particularly dim child, "Then you understand that there are conditions under which a version of you would believe it was necessary to kill your brother?"

"That's…" _ridiculous_, he wanted to say. But he'd done it. Or future-him had done it, which was his father's point. Through a tenebrous veil, he could even see why. If he and Gabriel had remained split up, if the Company had hunted Rebel and himself, then he could see why he would go back and shoot Nathan. Only part of the reason would be to end this future. Most of it would be to spare Nathan living as a shade in Gabriel's mind, to make it impossible for his mother, or himself, to do what they'd done. It would be better than Nathan was dead than to have his semblance carrying out atrocities. He was going to die anyway. Future-Peter would only be robbing him of a few months and giving him the dignity of a clean and final death.

He took a deep breath. "There are probably conditions under which I could be convinced that was necessary. Apparently there were. But t-" _there aren't now_. He didn't finish the statement though. Instead he asked, "If one of us had to be sacrificed, why didn't you pick me? You hated me. I was a mistake. Nathan was your golden boy: went to law school, served in the navy, was going to be the president, for God's sake," Peter's voice filled with anger and emotion. "Why not me? Why did you kill _**him**__?_"

"You were _never_ a mistake. You were later than we expected, but you were _**not**_ a mistake. Great troubles were endured to make you a reality. Great sacrifices were made." His father stared at the floor, seeing past it, seeing something else entirely. He pulled himself back to the present with an effort and a small shake. "You were the better son. You were disobedient and at times weak, but you were the better choice."

Peter's face trembled and he blinked, tilting his head. He'd failed to live up to nearly every standard his father had. "Why didn't you ask me? I would have… I would have died instead. If I could have…"

His father stood and spoke softly, "Peter… that is exactly why we chose Nathan."

"But…" his voice quavered, "He came for me, at Kirby Plaza…"

"Yes, Peter. He did. He loved you. But he would not have died for anyone else. **You** would." He shrugged slightly. "You have. Even before Kirby Plaza, you made your choice to die for a cheerleader who was a stranger to you, knowing full well your fate if you did. If you will recall, Nathan tried to stop you."

"He was trying to save me!" Peter snapped immediately.

"You prove my point, Peter. If he truly believed you were in danger, then by that logic he truly believed Claire was in danger as well. If he prevented you from saving her, then he condemned her himself. Did he do anything to save her? Did he warn her? Did he go to Texas as you did to make sure she was safe?"

Peter said nothing. He hated arguing with his father. It always ended up like this. He hung his head in defeat.

Arthur walked over and put a hand on Peter's shoulder. Peter flinched and looked at it, breathing hard. Arthur's hand was warm. It was still. It was nothing else than human. Peter relaxed, shut his eyes and bowed his head. His father patted Peter's head like he was a small boy. He gave his son's shoulder a squeeze. Peter breathed deeply and reined in his emotions.

"Why? I mean, why did he need to be sacrificed?" He looked up.

"He would have led the world to a new Apocalypse, precisely because he was all those things you have mentioned. He was perfect. He was unimpeachable. He was Superman. After he had passed all the tests and his virtue was unassailable, then Sylar would have stepped into his shoes and the transition would never have been noticed, because Nathan would have become as much the monster as Sylar ever was. He's always had the capacity."

Peter's brow furrowed. He wanted to argue that Nathan wouldn't have fallen morally, but his brother had been on the brink of injecting an entire army of specials at Pinehearst when Peter had stopped him. What would the future have been like if Nathan had been successful that night? Arthur walked back over to his bed and sat down.

"Their fates, Nathan and Sylar, have always been intertwined," Arthur said dryly. "As Sylar with your own." He looked decidedly unimpressed. Peter's relationship with Gabriel wasn't even to be mentioned in front of his mother. His father's opinions were even more hidebound. It had been an affront to his masculinity that Peter had become a nurse. Peter could only imagine the difficulty Arthur had had coming to terms with his son's sexual orientation. His expression now made it clear he knew.

Arthur sighed. "I try to console myself with the fact that it is better to have you two as you are rather than as enemies, for I have seen the devastation caused by that and it is to be avoided by all means. What I saw as the future would have still cost you greatly, but it seems that has not come to pass. It was Gabriel's voice I heard outside the cell? His badge I saw you put in your pocket?"

Peter resisted the urge to reach for it and simply nodded.

His father lifted his brows. "Then perhaps love has gained you more of a respite than even I expected."

Peter smiled a little. It might not be endorsement, but it was at least acceptance. Feeling unashamed, he decided to push it. "He makes me happy," he ventured. "I'm happy to be with him."

His father looked Peter up and down for a very long time and finally said, "Good."

A weight rolled off Peter's shoulders that he hadn't known he was carrying. He sat up straighter. Peter studied the man in return and asked, "I know what my mother did, that night at the Stanton Hotel. But earlier you implied you had a role in that decision too. What did you do?"

Arthur exhaled softly. "Did you ever wonder why you didn't consider using Claire's blood to revive Nathan?"

Peter blinked and it felt like his heart had stopped beating in his chest. He could almost feel the neurons trying to connect. On the one hand, that solution made perfect sense. On the other, it was inconceivable to have tried it.

"Can you think of it even now?" Arthur asked.

Peter bared his teeth and turned his head, focusing his regeneration and the healing. He knew it could be done and an instant later, he had no idea why they hadn't considered it… except for the fact that he'd just had to undo some manner of mental programming that had caused him to ignore the possibility. "You were there!" he exclaimed.

Arthur didn't confirm or deny it, but there was no need.

Peter said, "And the others? You did the same thing to them?"

Arthur shrugged. "Some of them. Some genuinely didn't consider it. The process took several iterations for me to ascertain who needed to be modified and to what extent."

"Iterations?"

"Time loops," his father clarified.

"Time loops," Peter repeated. "Why haven't you come here and let yourself out?"

Arthur shrugged. "I didn't need to. Your mother was going to let me out. Maury would have engaged in severe personal misconduct in addition to professional failure; your mother would be… distraught, understandably given what would have been committed against her; Halo would be at odds with one another; Gabriel would be uncontrolled; you would be in rebellion; and I would be the only one who could resolve all of this. But this has not come to pass. The future that I saw is no longer. It would seem that I left one too many precognitives alive. Only they can change the timeline this profoundly and when they do, they must do so blindly, not knowing what might result from their decision."

"If you'd realized that, before… or… if you had time travel now… would you go back and make sure you didn't leave that precognitive alive?" Peter was asking if Arthur would kill Angela, knowing that doing so would remove her ability to thwart his plans. Peter wasn't sure who was going to let Arthur out of the cell in that circumstance, but it wasn't like any of the other temporal paradoxes had made any sense. That didn't make them any less real for it.

His father faltered slightly and in that moment, Peter saw the human being that he was. It was something Peter had been looking for the entire conversation. It was something he had to know was still there - that beyond the heartless monstrosity his father had become, there still lay the hope of being something better. Arthur said, "It is a choice I could not have made."

They were silent for a long moment. Arthur looked down at the mask on the cover of the graphic novel Peter had given him. "Is he a good person, inside?" he asked, gesturing at the book.

"I like to think he is," Peter answered. "But it can read a lot of different ways. Like most people, most well-developed characters, he's complicated. He's very passionate about his cause. It's a good cause, but that kind of zealotry can motivate a person to do a lot of bad things… and he does. It says a lot about the ends justifying the means."

Arthur looked up at him speculatively. "And do you believe that? That the ends justify the means?"

Peter shrugged honestly. "Nearly every medical treatment starts with an injury to your patient. Either you're stabbing them with needles or having them ingest drugs, shocking them for defibrillation or adjusting the position of broken bones. No one questions if the end result of curing your patient justified putting an IV in their arm. It's something I think about a lot. I think… maybe that's the important part: that a person thinks about it and does their best. It's when you don't think about it, don't care… I think that's when a person is evil."

"Hm." After a reflective pause, he asked, "What do you want from me, Peter?"

Peter stared off into the distance for a moment, really thinking about that. A score of things came to mind, but none of them were really fair to ask of him. He blinked and shook his head. "Nothing." He looked away. "You're my father. You're important to me. I thought… I thought we could work something out."

"Have we?"

Peter didn't answer that directly, but the answer was yes. "There's no real reason why you should be held here. It's not in the Company's mission to hold people who don't have abilities. I'll talk to them." Peter stood up and looked around the room. He saw a half-empty bottle of Scotch next to the day's newspaper and a stack of books beside the end of the bed. There was an iPod sitting on top of the books. "Is there anything you need?"

Arthur sighed. "Many things, Peter. Many things. But whether I will get any of them remains to be seen. I may deserve the punishment we gave to Adam, or even something worse, but I certainly do not want it." He touched his fingers together uneasily and said, "Please speak for me, Peter. No one else will."

Peter nodded. Despite the luxuries Gabriel had arranged for Arthur, he was still imprisoned. Peter looked down and let himself out. The door locked automatically behind him.


	169. Bored of Directors

Six days rushed by between seeing his father and the next meeting of the Company's board of directors. Peter spent most of the intervening time in Las Vegas, continuing on projects with Rebel. He'd told them, in a roundabout way, that the Company was considering making an offer to merge. It wasn't a hostile takeover (despite Abigail's knee-jerk resistance to it) and they had the right to decline.

Sparrow immediately saw through Peter's attempt to disguise the consequences of declining. Were such an offer made and refused, hostilities would surely follow. They turned to Peter, who said simply and honestly that he although he would do everything he could to maintain their freedom and safety, he couldn't promise them success. The tension bred a jittery uncertainty in everyone. Nerves ran high.

When Tuesday arrived, he was glad of a mission to Washington State that kept his mind off of things. The directors were meeting early, first thing in the morning at 8 am Eastern time. For people in Riyadh, it was 3 in the afternoon. Peter wished he was there, but at the same time he was happy he wasn't. He wanted to know what was going on. He'd find out soon enough.

Micah was the first to know. His contacts with Halo had not gone unnoticed. The Company sent their offer electronically, through known allies. In fact, Peter didn't know about it until he asked when he finally made it back in at 2. They'd already accepted. He was a little offended to find that Abigail's acceptance had been contingent on Peter not being included, but since he wasn't anyway, it didn't matter. He had an urge to tell her he'd been offered the job weeks before and turned it down, but he kept his mouth shut. At least Sparrow liked him, he reflected, or he would have thought he had some sort of anti-woman power working on him. Actually Sparrow liked him a little too much.

It didn't really sink in until the next day, when West was giving him orders on a joint mission he was going on with some Company agents, against a small gang in a suburb of Berlin. It wasn't that it was a joint mission - it was that West was _giving him orders_. Not asking his advice, not asking permission, not even asking if he was willing to help out - no, West was telling Peter what his role was going to be, who he'd be answering to (Noah Bennet, incidentally) and where he was supposed to go afterwards for debriefing. Before the Company's offer, that had never been their relationship.

By the end of West's talk, Peter was grinning about how a little perceived authority had entirely changed West's tone. It wasn't like Peter had to follow his orders, even if he was going to anyway. West asked, "What are you smiling about?"

Glad that West couldn't detect lies, Peter said, "I'm really looking forward to seeing Noah again. He and I used to work together."

"Yeah, you'd mentioned that." West got a far-away look on his face. "I heard his daughter's in Boston."

"Claire?"

"Yeah." Now West was the one smiling, but it was more dream-struck rather than amusement.

"_His daughter_ has changed a lot since you dated her," Peter said gently.

"I hope so!" West enthused suddenly. "After all, she broke up with me. If she's changed… you know, we have a lot in common!"

"Really?" Peter doubted that. The story of Claire's life had gone through some really remarkable departures since she'd dated West.

West began to tell him in great detail why he and Claire were a perfect couple. Peter listened and made encouraging noises. Given his own situation, he didn't think he had room to judge. He wondered how Gabriel would react to this, given that he had feelings of both Sylar and Nathan working in that quarter. And of course there was Noah's reaction to deal with. Peter didn't even mention Gretchen. The barriers seemed insurmountable. _But who knows? Maybe they'll work something out._

The mission wasn't an unalloyed success, but no one was badly hurt and they caught two of the people they were after. From them, they'd find the others. Peter helped put a combative, cursing woman into a cell. She was clearly pregnant. He'd stopped the agents from tranquilizing her. She didn't have an ability, but the baby's father did. He was an aerokineticist. Micah had jokingly called him 'the last airbender.' The woman had been working with him on an extortion ring. Peter shut the door quickly and her vituperation fell into angry, sullen silence.

Peter looked at Noah and sighed. He leaned against the wall and picked at the collar of his shirt, where she'd ripped it. He tried a trick he'd seen Gabriel use, shape-shifting into himself to repair the fabric. He was pleasantly surprised that it worked.

Noah said, "If you'd let us deal with her, you could have caught the other two."

Peter shook his head. "Who knows what that tranquilizer does to the unborn? It's not like you've tested it."

"There's always a first time," Noah said. At Peter's affronted look, he smiled. "I'm kidding." He was also telling the truth about not being serious, which calmed Peter a lot. Noah continued, "We would have done the same thing you did, just probably with a lot more bruises on her and us both."

Peter huffed. "I didn't know if I could trust you. It was too big a risk to take."

"You don't trust me?" Noah affected a tone of wounded pride. Peter missed the affectation and thought the hurt was sincere.

"I didn't mean it like it sounded." Peter looked up at the ceiling.

"No, I didn't think you did. If you didn't trust me, you'd have never taken me to Rebel's headquarters last week."

Peter looked at him for a moment and changed the subject. "Is Claire still with Gretchen?"

"Yes, as far as I know. Why?" This time Peter didn't miss Noah's defensiveness.

"Someone was asking," he remarked vaguely.

"Well, you can tell _someone_ that he's taking marriage vows in a few weeks and he'd better damn well stay away from Claire, regardless of what did or didn't happen. That part of his life is **over**."

Peter gave Noah a lop-sided smile. _He has no idea about West._ He decided to play along with Noah's misconception that he was talking about Gabriel. "I'll tell him that, but I don't think it's over. She's either his daughter or…" Peter shrugged. "And either way he has strong feelings about her. He's not going to act on it, but I think he feels as protective of her as you do."

Noah stared at Peter for a long moment, then said, "I doubt that." He picked up the clipboard for the cell and started writing out the young woman's admittance information.

Peter asked, "So, are you going to the wedding?"

"Yes," Noah said without looking up.

"Do you still think he did it?" He was referring to Maury's insinuation about Gabriel and Claire.

"No."

"What changed your mind?"

"You."

"How's that?"

"You wouldn't be with him if he would do a thing like that. Or by God I hope not." Noah looked up and searched Peter's face. "Would you?"

Peter hesitated, then offered soberly, "He murdered Matt Parkman. I'm still with him."

Noah's response was eloquent and wordless. His brows raised slightly and he looked Peter up and down, beginning and ending on his face. Then he went back to filling out his form.

"You knew," Peter stated.

Noah continued to write. "He told me. Confessed. I told him not to tell you - not until this was over."

Peter sighed. "He's tried to tell me a couple times, but I cut him off. I could tell what he was getting at, though. I just tried not to think about it." He looked at the top of Noah's head for a long time, until the older man was finished and hung up the clipboard. Peter said, "He's not going to get over being a killer, is he?"

"No," Noah said shortly. After a beat, Noah spoke very seriously, saying, "That's not something a person _gets over_, Peter. If all a person has, is a hammer, then all your problems start to look like nails. Once a person gets comfortable swinging that hammer, metaphorically speaking, it's _always_ going to be a tool in their toolbox. They'll use it whenever they feel the job calls for it.

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think he'll be any worse than I am. He's had plenty of opportunity to kill people and a lot of provocation. Maybe it's you, or me, or Angela or Maury or the Company… or even Nathan… but he's been given other tools and shown how to use them. He's using them. But that doesn't make that hammer go away. It's still there in the toolbox and it will always be there." Noah paused to regard Peter closely. "Do you think you can live with that?"

Peter looked off down the hall, giving Noah a couple brief glances. "Yeah. I can." His voice was tight. He wondered if he really knew what he was agreeing to. Over a year ago, he'd asked Gabriel if he knew what he was getting into, trying to become a director of the Company and tangling with Angela Petrelli. Peter suspected he was making just as blind and dangerous a leap in accepting a long-term relationship with Gabriel. He hoped it turned out as well, because as for Gabriel, the stakes were not only his life, but his soul.

Noah nodded and started to leave. Peter fell in step with him. "I thought as much. You've got a lot ahead of you, Peter, and I don't envy you the problems I can't help but imagine come with trying to be with someone like him," the older man said. "You should probably talk to Sandra someday. Something I discussed with Gabriel is that you and he need to do something extracurricular together. He suggested self defense training. I agreed to help. Would you like me to set something up?"

"You'd do that?" Peter said, surprised that Noah had warmed enough to Gabriel that he'd still be willing to offer his time.

"A better question is why wouldn't I? I wouldn't pass up a chance to beat the crap out of him for everything he's put me through! He's earned it." Noah laughed.

XXX

_How do violent people become violent people? _

… _The first stage is brutalization… it involves violent subjugation, personal horrification, along with violent coaching. _

… _The second stage… involves the internalization and generalization of a hostile and hypervigilant attitude… _

_Third comes a period of trying out, of violent performance, which, when successful, paves the way for the final stage of virulency. _

_During virulency, the person is rewarded for his violent behavior… _

_By the end of this last stage, the person perceiving threat or frustration, or sensing "evil" in another, is capable of acts of sadistic, unremitting, or lethal violence._

_~ Matthew P. Dumont, __A Recipe for Violence__, summarizing the violentization theory of Lonnie Athens_


	170. Intolerance

**A/N: Small nod to JackVelvet for his punk rock history for Peter.**

"I've forgiven you… a lot," Peter said. "Give me some credit here." It bothered Peter that after all he'd done for Gabriel, the man still thought he held the past against him. It made Peter feel petty and small and unappreciated. It was also very annoying.

Gabriel looked down several times, his eyes flicking back up, then down. "I know. I'm sorry. It's just that I… I wouldn't have." He shook his head. "If our positions were reversed… anyone who did what I'd done would be dead."

"I'm better than that," Peter said brusquely.

"I know," he said softly.

Peter glanced down, grimacing. He hadn't meant to imply that he was better than Gabriel, but it sounded that way. Gabriel closed the distance between them and raised his hand as if to put it on Peter's cheek. At the last second he changed his mind and put it on his shoulder. They were in Angela's house, after all, and there was a code of behavior to be observed.

Peter looked up at him for a moment, then pulled him into a hug. "You're doing great," he murmured, words muffled by the man's shirt. He wasn't sure if Gabriel heard him. They stood together, feeling one another's presence and enjoying the comfort that came with it. Peter thought, _You're a good father, a good husband, a good friend and a good lover. You're a good director. You're a good _person_. You've been under a lot of stress. You're doing good. You're doing great._ He held him and sighed and hoped he was conveying all of this without words.

The sound of a throat clearing loudly got his attention. Peter's back was to the door, but he knew it was his mother. He took a half step back to a more appropriate distance, but Gabriel didn't break the contact entirely, holding his shoulder and rubbing his thumb back and forth over his collarbone. Peter looked up at his face. He heard his mother say stiffly, "Dinner is served." It was probably her tone that set Gabriel off.

It wasn't like hugging was forbidden, but they'd embraced far too long to be polite, as well as all the various things Angela knew were between them. That she didn't approve of Peter's bisexuality was known. About what it meant in regards to his relationship with Nathan was suspected. That he'd carried it over to Gabriel was clear.

"We'll be right there," Gabriel said smoothly and then he slipped his hand to the back of Peter's head, tilted it slightly and leaned in to kiss him on the lips, open-mouthed. Peter tensed all over and his eyes flew wide, but he didn't throw him off or pull away or turn his head like he should have – like his mother would have wanted him to. Gabriel pressed their faces together, his tongue making a quick sweep of Peter's mouth.

If he'd done that to Heidi (or any other woman), Angela might have harrumphed and let it go at that. But that wasn't the case. "Gabriel!" his mother said, scandalized. She knew who was responsible. Her son was better mannered than that, though Peter suspected he'd catch hell anyway for not making a show of refusing it.

Gabriel parted from him and scanned over Peter's face quickly, making sure of where he stood. Peter swallowed, but was otherwise frozen. He didn't know how to react. He'd just been thrown into a fight between two people he loved. He kept remembering his father's grudging acceptance and wondered what Arthur would have done if he'd had to actually see them kiss rather than just deal with it intellectually. His mother had known for a long time and she'd obviously accepted it, more or less, but she'd never had to _see_ it. He breathed fast and shallow, his eyes darting on his lover's face.

Gabriel stepped past him and Peter turned to see him approach Angela. Gabriel wasn't upset – not with seething anger or cold calculation. Peter could tell that. His mother could not. She didn't know him as well and when he walked towards her, raising one hand in a gesture Peter knew was an attempt at being conciliatory, she fell back in fear. It was, oddly, a reaffirmation of what they'd been discussing earlier – that Gabriel couldn't escape Sylar's past. Maybe he could with Peter, but so far, with no one else.

Gabriel hesitated, balled his fist and made an angry gesture like he was trying to throw something to the side or fend off her undesired reaction. "I love your son," he attempted.

She stood straighter and spat, "Then don't defile him like this!" She spoke like he was an object, like Gabriel had seduced _him_. Peter felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He winced at her words.

Gabriel opened his mouth to say something, then glanced back at Peter. He shut it, turned and went out the French doors to the living room.

Angela recovered herself and strode quickly across the room to Peter. She slapped him harder than she ever had, her face livid. It was no love tap. His head snapped to the side and down. His shoulders hunched as he felt the hot shame of her disapproval for how he loved – like he had a choice in how it manifested. He didn't. It was just the way he was. By denouncing _that_, she denounced _him_. Emma had more right to be critical of him, but it hurt a lot more coming from his mother. He had fewer options for dealing with it and her feelings about it were flowing over him like water, drenching him in reprobation.

He stared down, still not moving, not looking up. His vision blurred a little as she turned on her heel and stalked off. He blinked the wetness away and glanced up, watching her retreating form. A motion caught his eye and he saw that Gabriel had come back to the French doors. He looked after her too for a moment with a grim expression and then walked to Peter.

Peter's jaw flexed as he thought about how violently Gabriel had reacted to people hurting him. He lifted his chin and tried to think of how to portray that his mother's response hadn't bothered him, hadn't cut him to the quick. The problem was the pain was in his heart, not his flesh, so there was nothing he could point to and say, '_See, it's all better, there's nothing to be upset about_.'

Gabriel's face was gentle now that he turned it to his lover. He reached up and brushed his fingers across where there should have been an angry red mark, but it had faded a second after it had appeared. He wiped the edge of Peter's mouth with the pad of his thumb, rubbing off moisture from the kiss.

Peter's eyes fluttered and he looked down again, his stomach clenching. He felt nauseous. "I love you," Gabriel said softly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

Peter cut him off mutely, looking up at him suddenly and shaking his head. He couldn't think of what to say, but he didn't want to hear a retraction. He put his hand to the nape of Gabriel's neck and pulled him down for a brief, but defiant, kiss. Then he sighed and put his forehead against the other man's chest.

"Gabriel's mother wasn't very happy with him either," the taller man offered.

"I love my mother," Peter said automatically, in a flat tone. Gabriel Grey had killed his mom. Peter wondered if he should be concerned for Angela's sake. Somewhere, there was a line between acknowledging who Gabriel was, based on his past, and between holding his past against him. He remembered how she'd set up Nathan to be killed by Sylar, how her actions had caused his whole situation, a situation that left him standing here holding Gabriel instead of Nathan. Gabriel had committed matricide before and he certainly had provocation in the current situation, even if the immediate trigger was minor. It only took a spark to start a conflagration.

"Don't hurt her," Peter said firmly.

"I wouldn't. I won't."

Peter nodded, relieved. He stepped back and squared his shoulders. "We need to go eat dinner."

Gabriel looked at him intently. "Are you okay?" He reached up to brush Peter's cheek again, but Peter took another step back out of reach and shook his head.

"We've been in here alone too long already." He saw the hardening of Gabriel's features and felt miserable for being responsible for it. "We need to go eat dinner," Peter repeated. He turned and led the way into the dining room, putting his feelings away and cutting a part of himself off from the rest of the world.

XXX

Dinner was tense. Peter refused to leave immediately after, as if he wasn't going to be intimidated or made to feel unwelcome. If anyone else had a clue, they didn't show it, though several did seem to pick up on the general mood. When Angela offered to prepare an after-dinner coffee, Gabriel followed her in with the stated purpose of helping. She wheeled on him as soon as the door closed behind him and said scathingly, "Say your piece, Gabriel."

"I love him. We both do."

"Love?" She gave a dry laugh. "Like that makes it better, somehow."

He sighed. He should have realized that a sentimental appeal wouldn't matter. He tried a different tack. "It's 2011, not 1950. This isn't a scandal."

"You're married. Is this the sort of relationship you'd feel comfortable explaining to your children?"

He hesitated, then said, "Yes. As much as any other extramarital affair that Nathan had." He inclined his head. "And he had a lot of them. I seem to recall you encouraging me… or him… to find some fast women and have a few more." He rolled his eyes. "Maybe I ended up with someone different than you expected, but it's certainly helped me cope with my mid-life crisis."

"Keep trying, Gabriel. I'm sure you'll find a way to make this _**my**_ fault. It's _always_ the mother's fault." She turned and started making coffee, stewing in her own feelings of guilt that she must have failed Peter somehow for him to come to _this_.

Gabriel walked over to the island and leaned on it, clasping his hands. "This isn't anyone's _fault_," he said softly.

She looked back at him through narrowed eyes. "Of course you wouldn't want to see it that way. I understand."

Her patronizing tone shot through him. He put his forehead down on his hands for a moment, mastering his temper. Finally he raised his head. "If I can accept this… what it's done to _me_… if I can be with him, then you can at least have the grace to accept it as well."

She turned and faced him. "I do **not** accept it. Many men, when trapped into situations they can not escape, might submit to what you have. That does not make it _right_."

His brows drew together in puzzlement. "Wh… What? I'm not 'trapped.' This isn't prison! I _love_ him. And this is how we show that love to each other. It's weird, I'll agree, but I haven't seen much love in my life that's not, at the bottom of it." He cocked his head. "What are you trying to say about us?"

She rolled her eyes theatrically and turned away to get out cups. "You have the essence of it. That's enough. What you and Peter do behind closed doors isn't any of my business, but what you do in my house _**is**_, especially in the open. I could have sent _anyone_ to fetch you for dinner. You could have been _seen_." She hissed the last sentence, like she wouldn't have been able to live it down if the maid had seen them hugging. Gabriel barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. _Oh, the scandal,_ he thought sarcastically. _We might have been __**seen!**_

She went on, "You will not embarrass me in my own house!"

"Peter Petrelli is not an embarrassment to anyone." _At least, not to anyone with any sense_, he thought, but he kept that part to himself, as well as a sense of pride that out of all the people in the world, he was one of the few Peter had chosen to share himself with.

She glared at him. "It is not the person, Gabriel. It's the behavior. I won't have it here."

"They're linked. You're not getting one without the other."

"Do you want me to say that I won't have either, then? Is that _really_ what you want?" She sounded a little shrill, like she might actually do it if he backed her into a corner and made her disown Peter for his orientation.

The coffee was done. When he didn't answer, she turned back to pour it up. He walked over to collect filled cups and saw that her hands were shaking. He picked up two cups and said, "I just want everyone to be happy. What you said, what you did, it made Peter really unhappy. I'm… I'm sorry I kissed him like that, in front of you. I shouldn't have." But it had felt really good to tell her to stick it with her judgment. Anyone who disapproved of Peter loving him was not going to stir up good feelings on Gabriel's part.

"No, you shouldn't have. And that's all…" She took a deep breath. He hands steadied. "That's all we need to say about it." She put on a forced smile and picked up the tray with the other cups. "Now let's look pleasant, put this behind us, and go see to our guests."

"Of course," he said, adopting a neutral expression. He followed her out.

XXX

Later, they got Gabriel's car and headed off. Peter asked, "So what happened?"

"With what?"

"With Ma. You went in the kitchen with her and when you two came out, you had identical expressions - blank as mannequins. What happened?"

Gabriel mulled it over for a bit and said, "I apologized."

Peter gazed at him steadily. Gabriel glanced over at him and shrugged. "Best I could do."

Peter gave him a wry smile. He reached over and tousled Gabriel's hair. "Thanks."

"For apologizing?"

"No, not really. For trying to defend me against everything. Even the idiotic opinions of others. It's sweet."

Gabriel grumped. "You'd think she would have come to accept it by now. You've been out for almost a decade."

Peter made a face and shook his head. "No. There's a reason why I came to Nathan all the time for advice about sex and stuff, when I was younger. It's not like I could talk to _them_." Gabriel grunted again. Peter smiled. "Say, you remember the punk band I was in, don't you?"

"When you were in high school?"

"Yeah. Did I ever tell you about the time Bretty-Brett and I broke into the school band hall?"

"No, tell me about it," said, sounding interested. They drove on through the night exchanging stories.


	171. Telepathic Sex

**A/N: April 11, 2011.**

Peter was woken by a knock at the door at a little past seven in the morning. He tugged on a shirt and looked through the peephole. It was Gabriel. He opened the door.

"Did I wake you?" the other man asked uncertainly.

"Yeah. Come on in though." Peter ran a hand around through his hair, tousling it and waking up further.

Gabriel came inside, then stood there indecisively. It had been nearly two weeks since they'd been together privately for more than stolen kiss or an embrace. They'd both been busy - relentlessly so. Finally Gabriel said bluntly, "Do you still want me?"

Peter laughed. He could think of worse things to be woke up for. "God, yes. Come here." He pulled Gabriel to him and they kissed.

Gabriel was oddly hesitant, waiting for Peter to make the first moves and then aggressively following through. It was a strange pattern and made Peter think about the dream-walking he'd done and how it may have had as much affect on Gabriel as it had had on Peter. Or maybe Gabriel was still smarting from Peter leaving him in the first place. Now that they were ostensibly back together, Gabriel wasn't pressing it, but he was so tense and wound up he couldn't stand it.

When they parted, Peter said, "Have you been waiting all this time for me to… invite you?"

"Yes?" His voice was high pitched. Gabriel nuzzled Peter's face and smelled of his hair and moved his hands restlessly around the outside of his arms and shoulders. But since Peter hadn't done anything else, neither did Gabriel. "You didn't want me anymore." He sounded vulnerable and sad and if he hadn't had such good reason to, Peter would have been less sympathetic.

"Gabriel, I want you. I want you, okay?"

He nodded, but for all the world his expression was unconvinced.

Peter sighed and leaned into him, putting his head down on Gabriel's shoulder. He was still a little too sleepy to try and make sense of Gabriel's problems. He liked the feel of the other man under his hands though, the warmth of his body against his. He wanted to take Gabriel to bed with him and have him fuck him slowly and sensually. He smiled a little at the thought and rubbed his hips back and forth.

Gabriel made a small sound, bringing Peter back to the reality that while he was lost in his own thoughts, Gabriel had no idea what he was thinking. Well, there was a solution to that… "Gabriel. I want to show you how much I love you and how much I want you. Will you open your mind to me? Let me show you?"

Gabriel couldn't stiffen more, but he swallowed and looked away. After a moment, he relaxed. Peter opened his own mind and listened, probing gently. For once, Gabriel didn't automatically wall off most of his mind. He was worrying about the watch that wasn't on Peter's wrist at the moment.

_That's because I was asleep. It's right next to the bed,_ Peter projected.

Gabriel let his thoughts tumble out in a mess, _I love you, I want you, I'm afraid, you left me, I'm sorry, I… I'm an idiot, I should have just gone to work this morning but I _couldn't_, I had to see you, you haven't called, I'm always the one calling you and I've missed you, I don't want to lose you, have you lost interest in me? Is there something I need to be doing? God, Peter, I'm such a… I'm pathetic. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What can I do?_

Peter braced himself mentally against the raging insecurity. _Whoa, whoa. You can calm down. I love you. Can you feel that?_

_I don't feel anything. I'm just reading your thoughts. That's it. It's just like talking. That's all. Except that I'm kind of whining and rambling and feel like an idiot for being this fucking transparent but maybe that's what you want? If it is, I'll do it._

Peter took a deep breath and pulled up his feelings and his emotions and tried very hard to feel and not think. He was much more accustomed to paying attention to the feelings of others, so much so that for a long time he hadn't even realized it was part of his ability. He tried to turn that same attention on himself. He was exasperated with Gabriel, a little afraid of him, a lot desirous even now, and there was a deep, abiding affection for him, thankfulness for what he'd done, pride that perhaps Gabriel was a better man because of Peter's time with him, joy and relief that Gabriel wanted him in return, heartbreak when he'd thought he'd lost him only months before, hope and expectation of deepening their relationship.

Peter could feel Gabriel's mind touch through those emotions. He dipped his head and kissed Peter on the side of the mouth and Peter felt that kiss run through him like it was the most incredible thing in the world. It was like he hadn't been touched in a year, or like he'd been treated roughly and now received a gentle caress. He could feel himself kissed; he could feel inside of Gabriel's mind the sensation of kissing. He stiffened and so did parts of him. "Oh wow," he breathed.

_Mmm_, Gabriel thought. _I think this is what Maury meant about telepathic sex. Will you let me? _He turned his head slowly and began to kiss Peter with an open mouth, letting his tongue explore the entrance to the darker haired man's mouth.

_Oh yes. Please!_

XXXX

Peter panted against the bed, his mind stunned by what had happened. Telepathic sex had not been what he had expected. It had been fast, for one thing. They both still had their pants around their ankles, though shirts had gone before they got too involved. It had also been mind-blowing intense. He was lying on the bed on his right shoulder, upper body skewed so he could look back at his lover at the end. He'd collapsed seconds afterwards and hadn't found the motivation to move yet.

_Mine!_ Gabriel thought at him joyously and bent to gather Peter's upper body into his arms. He squeezed him with fierce exuberance and kissed him on the shoulder. After all the fighting with Halo, with Lilith and the weeks of having to be patient and give Peter his space, Gabriel was thrilled to have Peter back in his arms.

Peter tried to argue about it, but he couldn't pull his thoughts together, especially in the face of the other man's happiness. It fogged his mind. So did the aftershocks of their orgasms and the welter of sensations that weren't his. Gabriel could sense his contention, so he repeated the gesture, hugging him again and thinking _Mine!_, as possessively as before, just to annoy him. _You can't even project, you're so blown,_ he added, obviously proud of himself.

Peter managed to smile at him as his panting slowed somewhat. _I'm not yours,_ he objected weakly. He felt like he was hallucinating, what with seeing and feeling and _smelling_ everything from Gabriel's point of view as well as his own.

_This is mine. You gave yourself to me, shared yourself. I've had you. This time is mine. No matter what happens, I've had this. It's mine __**now**__._ Gabriel turned and sat next to Peter, tamping down the rampant sensations and giving Peter a breather from sensory overload. If Peter had been better at blocking people out, he could have done it himself. Gabriel rubbed Peter's buttocks briefly before reaching down and kicking off his pants. He bent down and tugged off Peter's sweat pants as well.

With the different interpretation, Peter dropped his objections. It was still more possessive than Peter liked, but that was something Peter was getting used to with Gabriel. He wanted what he wanted. He was jealous and afraid of losing it. He wanted to be in charge. He was also kind and giving and loving and a host of other positive things Peter loved him for. Peter thought he could work around the flaws. It wasn't like he expected him to be perfect.

Gabriel lay down across the bed and pulled Peter in front of him, spooning him. Another thing Peter had noticed was the other man's tendency to drag him around somewhat in bed. He didn't ask Peter to move, he just moved him. Peter chuckled. It wasn't like he moved him anywhere he didn't want to be.

Their minds were still connected. Peter's eyelids fluttered with the force of mental images as Gabriel pressed his face to the back of his head and inhaled his scent. It was infinitely more richly textured and meaningful to Gabriel than Peter even thought possible. The aroma was a powerful marker for him, evoking a series of memories – some were sensual, Gabriel with Peter, but curiously most weren't. Most were Nathan and Peter sharing intimate, non-sexual moments.

The earliest and one of the strongest was of Nathan in his early 20s standing next to a lanky, young Peter in the hot summer sun. They were on the baseball field. His arms were around the almost-teen boy, correcting him on how to properly grip the bat. He'd intended to go on with a talk about strategy, but Peter's scent had affected him strongly and inappropriately. Nathan backed off, confused and upset by his reaction. He gave words of encouragement and went back to the stands.

_Puberty,_ Peter thought. _I must have smelled different. He was attracted to me __**that**__ early?_

_Mm._ Gabriel rubbed his face in Peter's hair, putting his left arm around Peter and holding him firmly. He ignored the question, although his thoughts betrayed him even if he didn't project a specific answer. He didn't block Peter from seeing the memories his question provoked. Nathan's reaction had been embarrassing. He'd become harsh with the boy, as with himself for it, and quite a taskmaster for him when Nathan was around.

It wasn't until Peter was an adult and out of nursing school that Nathan had softened his stance towards him. Even then he was making jokes at his expense, buying him women's shoes as a present and making similar jabs at his brother. He was always pushing him, but never pushing him away. When Peter had moved out and achieved some degree of independence, Nathan had felt more comfortable in touching him more intimately. Eventually that had spiraled into the secret side of their relationship.

Gabriel reached up to brush his fingers through Peter's hair. He wished very strongly that Peter had longer hair. It was as if a part of Peter's identity had been lost with it, like some of his sexual attractiveness had been lost. He worried and fretted over the shorter hair and tried to pretend to himself that it wasn't gone. Peter filed away that revelation. Gabriel made do with what was left. He nuzzled his neck, enjoying Peter's responsive moment of bliss. Like with the sex, the feedback made it impossibly strong.

Gabriel leaned away, breathing hard again. If he'd been able to, he would have tried to take Peter again, but he hadn't recovered quite yet. Instead he ran his fingers along the skin of Peter's arm and back, pulling out phantom images of his presence and his touches earlier, then back further in time to where Peter had been and what he'd done in the previous few days.

_Why do you do that?_ Peter thought to him disapprovingly. Knowing he did this lent a whole new dimension to Gabriel obsessively touching him in bed. He wondered just how thoroughly and frequently Gabriel violated his privacy, without Peter even knowing.

_Sorry._ He didn't stop though. He didn't even feel guilty about it. He just trailed his hand down Peter's back to his ass, brushing across his rump lightly. He'd been there… and Emma… and there were various scenes of bodily functions that were of no interest to Gabriel whatsoever. He jerked his hand away suddenly. Peter laughed in his mind. He was surprised and glad there was no spike of jealousy or much of any emotion towards Emma. He thought Gabriel's disinterest in her was odd.

_What do you think about Heidi?_ Gabriel asked him.

_Uh… not much of anything, really._

_There you go._

_Oh._

Gabriel thought to him, _I like touching you. I like seeing your life. I don't have to ask you how your day went. I just see it._

_Still creepy._

_Please don't ask me to stop. It's like asking me not to look at you._

Peter thought about that, annoyed and exasperated. _I won't, but you seriously need to learn some boundaries. Just realize that's __**my**__ life. _Peter tried not to tack on the last part, but it came out anyway and peevishly at that. One of the disadvantages of mental contact was the difficulty in preventing over-sharing. Peter was not good at blocking, no matter how much he tried.

_Of course. That's why I want to see it._ Gabriel put his hand to Peter's hair. It held memories longer than skin. He turned off the ability though and just ran his fingers through it, rubbing the strands between his fingers and enjoying the texture of it, partly to prove to Peter that his every touch wasn't an intrusion into his past. _Please don't fear me. _There was a deep well of emotion behind that. He leaned in and kissed Peter's shoulder, tasting his skin.

Peter arched his back slightly. _Is this how it feels when I touch you… sexually? Puts you over the edge so fast?_

_Yes. Probably why I'm taking this better than you are._

_Oh, I'm not unhappy, _Peter responded._ This is great. I suppose it becomes a problem after a while, but for now it's great._

Gabriel repeated his kiss, dragging his teeth over Peter's skin. This time the younger man arched more and whimpered.

_God, you could get me off just by kissing me, _Peter thought.

_I could get you off just by thinking at you, if I picked the right thoughts._ With that, Gabriel thought about how intensely he loved him, how important he was to him, how much he wanted him, how much having Peter made him feel complete and at ease with the part of himself that came from Nathan. Peter groaned and rolled away from him, twitching and hunching into the bedspread, making a half-hearted attempt to block him out mentally.

When he didn't succeed, Gabriel leaned over him, sliding his hand between Peter's cheeks and probing at him with his fingers. He was still slick from Gabriel's sloppy and copious use of lubricant earlier. They'd been in too much of a hurry to be tidy. He slid two digits in and out, feeling an almost overpowering need to raise himself over the other man and enter him. It was what Peter wanted, what Peter was mentally urging him to do, but the dark haired man wasn't going to last long enough for Gabriel to accomplish it. Indeed – by the time he'd thought it out, he was coming.

Gabriel bent over him and kissed his back, then pulled Peter back on his side. He positioned himself to enter the other man and did so, having just barely recovered enough to manage it. He had to shift his hips several times to get the right angle for entry. Peter was still loose, his mind addled by his climax. He began to whimper from overstimulation and make helpless noises as Gabriel eased inside him as slowly as he could manage.

Some part of Peter wanted to fight Gabriel off and regain his senses. Gabriel pushed that part down as tentatively as he pressed into Peter's body, listening carefully for the emotional wounding such a maneuver would cause if it were done to himself. Peter submitted to him, letting him manipulate his thoughts, trusting in him with a confidence that was almost reckless, it was so complete. Gabriel let it be and focused on the sensations of pleasure.

Peter's thoughts were all Gabriel needed for his own arousal – the sounds were pure ecstasy, icing on the cake. He pushed in four or five times, drawing back nearly his entire length each time. Peter keened wordlessly with each slow motion. At the end of his last stroke, he orgasmed with a small jerk. He held the position for a long moment before sliding out as slowly as he'd begun. He relaxed the delicate mental pin he'd forced on his lover to keep him compliant, marveling that Peter would let him do such a thing without resentment.

Gabriel moved slightly to return to spooning. Peter curled forward, his mind still reeling, recovering slowly from letting himself be used. Even though it had been gentle, he'd submitted entirely and it took a while to pull himself out of it. His body quivered. Gabriel pulled him back against himself, straightening him. He put one leg over Peter's and pulled them back so he had full contact along the line of their bodies, wrapping his arms around him and resting his chin on Peter's shoulder. Peter calmed down to merely panting instead of gasping as he left the bizarre suspension of subspace. _Altered mental state_, he thought, in paramedic parlance.

_I feel so… owned,_ Peter thought. _Yours to turn on and off. Is that me, or is that you thinking that about me?_

_I can't tell,_ Gabriel thought back. _Sounds more like something I'd think._ The boundaries between their thoughts were getting disturbingly vague. Peter could feel alarm about it, but at the same time he also felt disconnected. One of them was upset; the other not. Peter wasn't sure which one was him.

Gabriel reached around Peter's front and smeared his hand in his semen, drawing it across Peter's stomach. Peter didn't like it. His objection was a wordless feeling in his mind. _Funny stance to take when you're willing to have this in your mouth_, Gabriel thought. He smelled of his hand, now covered with lubricant, secretions and a mixture of their ejaculates. The scent was off-putting. _I don't know how women do this, _he thought, obviously referencing the swallowing of cum.

_It's not just women, _Peter thought._ So I'm never getting head from you?_ Disappointment flowed through both of them, echoing oddly in his mind. Gabriel had mentioned his dislike before. His thoughts on it now were a clatter of discordant noises.

_Hm. I guess I could try, if it matters to you._ _Especially if we were linked like this and I could feel how it felt to you. That would help a lot._ He carefully walled off the rest of his thoughts about it. The barrier was a sudden divide, an anchor, that gave a frame of reference for who was thinking what. Peter pushed at that wall, feeling excluded.

_Hey. What's wrong? What is that? I can't help if I don't know…_

_No._ Gabriel tensed and pulled back. The sharing ended, even though the mental contact remained. Rather than being disoriented, Peter felt a sudden, sharp focus. He had preferred the blending of their thoughts. He realized he'd been the one blurring their identities, not Gabriel.

Peter rolled onto his back, turning to look at the other man. Peter hesitated a moment, then considered how comfortable Gabriel had seemed so far with the mental thing and how much Peter had enjoyed sharing his mind. He pushed harder, digging for what Gabriel was concealing. It was too much and just that second of not taking no for an answer drove Gabriel back. He cut the mental contact entirely and pulled away, holding his breath and scrambling back to put more than a foot of empty space between them. "No, please," he whispered hoarsely.

Peter half turned towards him and stopped when Gabriel's eyes widened and he started breathing hard. Peter held perfectly still while Gabriel calmed down from what looked a lot like the start of a panic attack. It didn't take him long. His eyes stayed fastened on Peter's face. Finally he reached out toward his lover, saying, "I trust you, Peter. I trust you." He scooted back over to him slowly and Peter could tell that the fabric of their relationship might have been pulled taut, but it hadn't torn. Gabriel nuzzled Peter's arm, peppering it with small kisses, keeping his head down.

Peter wriggled his arm free between them and stroked Gabriel's head. The other man paused, shut his eyes and leaned into the comforting touch. Peter took a few deep breaths himself. _Boundaries. Fuck. I need to learn some myself._ "I didn't mean to hurt you," he whispered.

"I know," Gabriel answered the same way. "I know." After a beat he lifted his head and said, "Doesn't mean I won't… you know, try to give you head sometime, when you want. That was different. That wasn't what set me off. Just… don't push me on the mental stuff, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good." Gabriel lifted himself over Peter and kissed his mouth. When they parted, Gabriel said, "I think you're messier than I am. Want to shower first?"

"Sure." Peter sat up and gave his lover another smooch, looking him up and down. He added, "Listen, don't wait for me to invite you. My door's open to you. Okay? I **do** want you."

"Got it." Gabriel lay back on the bed and stretched as Peter stood. He showed off a spectacular body, watching Peter intently to see how he reacted. Peter laughed. There was no way he was going to let the other man get away with showing off like that without pouncing on him, so he did. He knew full well Gabriel was testing him. They laughed and wrestled for a bit until Peter fell off the edge of the bed.

He got up, still laughing, holding out a hand to ward off Gabriel from coming after him any more, as he was poised to do. "Okay, okay. That's good. I'll shower now."

Gabriel grinned and settled back on the bed, relaxing. The tension had dissipated. Peter **did** want him. He was happy.


	172. Reconciliation

In retrospect, Peter wondered if this was the first time Mohinder had come by his apartment, or if there had been other times. It had been over a week since the events of Odessa, Ukraine. It was just coincidence Peter was there this morning, though given that Peter was at his apartment and also given the hour, it wasn't coincidence that Gabriel was there too. Gabriel had stopped by on the way to work. One thing had led to another… and now someone was knocking at the door. Peter was lucky they'd finished cleaning up.

He looked out the peephole, then did a double-take. He put a hand on the door and thought for a moment. Gabriel, seeing his odd pose, paused in the doorway to the bedroom, holding his dress shirt in his hands. Peter glanced at him, wondering how Gabriel would react to the visitor. The knock repeated, harder now. Peter unlocked the door immediately. _Guess we're going to find out._

Mohinder Suresh stood outside, holding his satchel protectively, his eyes darting around nervously. They snagged immediately on Gabriel, who eyed him coolly and then shrugged into his shirt. Gabriel walked to the couch and sat down, buttoning it. Peter thought, _So. No immediate confrontation. That's good._

"Come on in," Peter offered.

After another moment of hesitation, Mohinder did. He gave Gabriel another wary look - getting tortured by someone tends to make a person a bit cagey around them. He looked through the bedroom door at the thoroughly mussed bed. He looked at Peter, whose hair, like Gabriel's, was still wet from a recent shower. Mohinder often missed the obvious, but not today. "I can come back some other time… if…"

"This is fine," Peter said mildly. "What can I do for you?"

Mohinder looked between Gabriel and Peter again, then gathered himself and launched into it anyway. To Peter he said, "No, no. It's what I can do for you. I've… I went back and got everything. It's here." He walked over to the dining room table and emptied much of his satchel, which included papers, flash drives, what looked like a rolled up poster, two notebooks and several slender journals. "I thought… maybe…" He edged away from Gabriel, who had come over to look. "I thought maybe you could use it."

Gabriel sorted through the material. Mohinder frowned at him. Peter asked, "What is it?"

"It's all of her notes. Her files. Hers and Arthur's. I'm giving them to you."

"The Company could do a lot with this," Gabriel murmured.

Mohinder's voice hardened and became angry, an outlet for his resentment over Gabriel's treatment of him and perhaps too for the many griefs Sylar had visited upon him in the past. "I'm not giving it to the **Company!** I'm giving it to _**him!**_" He gestured at Peter and took a half step closer to Gabriel in threat. Gabriel dropped the notebook he'd picked up and drew himself up.

Peter stepped up behind Mohinder and put a hand on his shoulder. "Mohinder. You don't need to shout." He walked around the Indian and put himself between the two. It hadn't occurred to him that Mohinder might have more difficulty behaving himself than Gabriel. Gabriel backed off and went around to the other side of the table. Peter looked at the stuff that had been laid out. He reached out and moved a roll of paper enough to see that inside it was something that looked like a family tree. He looked back at Mohinder. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"Whatever you think is right. I don't know if I'm… I don't… I don't know what I'm going to do with myself." He turned from the table to peer hopefully at Peter. "You said you knew where Molly was? She needs help?"

"There's the hook," Gabriel grumbled.

"What?" Mohinder glared at him.

Gabriel looked him in the eye. "You said you didn't want anything, but you do. This is a payment. You're trying to buy Molly."

"I am not!" Mohinder sputtered indignantly.

"Calm down," Peter said in an even tone of voice. "Please. Both of you." He gave Gabriel a long look even though it was Mohinder who kept elevating the tension. Gabriel nodded and walked back to sit on the couch. "Mohinder," Peter said, "Could you have a seat?" When the man pulled out a chair and sat down, Peter asked, "Can I get you some water?" Mohinder nodded.

After a moment, Peter came back. He tossed a bottle to Gabriel, handed one to Mohinder, and put one for himself on the edge of the table. He pulled out another chair and sat down. He said, "I know where Molly is. She's okay, but we need to set up a family situation for her. We need someplace where she has her own room, where she's safe and there's a routine. She needs to be able to study and take her schoolwork. She needs a guardian who loves her, who knows her and who can make responsible decisions about her life."

"The Company has her now?" Mohinder looked over at Gabriel and for once it wasn't a hostile expression. As a result, Gabriel leaned forward attentively, putting aside his own aggression.

"Yes," Peter said. "And it's going to stay that way. Even if someone else is taking care of her, she has to keep working for the Company." He didn't say anything else at the moment.

After a bit, Mohinder said, "I don't have a place yet, but I'll get one. As for a job… I've worked for them before…" He glanced over at Gabriel furtively.

In a very neutral tone, Gabriel said, "I'm sure you know a great deal that would be of interest to us."

Mohinder looked at Gabriel more openly, then turned to Peter. "Would I be safe?"

Peter looked over at Gabriel, who nodded. "Yes."

Mohinder gave an embarrassed, sheepish smile that made Peter wonder if Gabriel was right and he'd planned this outcome all along. "When can I start?"

XXX

After Mohinder left, Gabriel set aside his water and took the chair at the table where the Indian had been. He started going through the documents. Peter just looked at the pile of papers, books and information cards. He didn't touch them. Gabriel said, "Do you think that's wise?"

"What?"

"Putting Lilith's left-hand man in charge of the girl who can locate anyone?"

Peter sighed. "It's got to stop somewhere."

"And eventually it will," Gabriel said, unrolling the family tree enough to see what it was. He set it aside and picked up a journal, flipping through it idly. "I hope you're not naïve enough to think he didn't make copies of all this first."

Peter shrugged. It didn't matter to him - but Molly did. "We can't leave Molly with my mom. That's not a healthy environment. Neither is with Maury."

"Heh," Gabriel chuckled, agreeing. "You don't know the half of it."

Peter tilted his head. "Do I want to?" He glanced to the side, then back. "Can you tell me?"

"Yeah. She's old enough she's starting to think about sex. And I suppose she's old enough, physically, to start… whatever. Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that Maury Parkman has _some_ standards and engaging in pedophilia or… ephebophilia or whatever that is when you have sex with young teens, is against them. That's why he dumped her off on Angela. It occurs to me he left his son at about the same age. I'm not sure Matt ever understood that."

"Ah." Peter nodded. _That makes sense. _It meshed with what he'd seen of Maury's personality too. "Well, she's a Company asset right now. The directors decide where she goes. Do you think they'll accept Mohinder as a guardian?"

Gabriel shrugged. "If I bribe them with this? Sure. More so if I toss in the bonus package of Mohinder himself." He looked up at Peter. "Speaking of which, is this your private property?"

"No. I don't want it. Take it all."

"Thank you." Gabriel went back to sorting.

"That's the last thing I want to have around here."

"Mm. You know, I've been thinking about… Arthur," Gabriel said.

"So have I," Peter said. Gabriel looked up at him. Peter continued, "He doesn't need to rot in that cell. There's a lot of good he could do. I know you've been… helping him. Do you think you could get him out of there?"

Gabriel snorted. "You're asking me? **You** could get him out of there. Whenever you want."

"So could you." Peter leaned forward. "And that's what I'm doing right now - trying to get him out. I don't need to make enemies. The Company has him… and that's how it is. But can I persuade them to let him go? Are there things I can do that will get people out of cells and back into their lives?"

"Meaning… just because you **could** teleport in there and whisk him away, doesn't mean you're going to?" Peter frowned disapprovingly. Gabriel mused, "Might doesn't make right, even in the world of abilities?" He shrugged and offered, "We're meeting this next Tuesday again and every week until we get these new guys settled in. If I'm coming to them with this stuff and Mohinder, I think I'll have a lot of good karma banked. I'll bring it up."


	173. Fight Club

_Welcome to Fight Club. _

_The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. _

_The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! _

_Third rule of Fight Club: if someone yells "stop!", goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over. _

_Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. _

_Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. _

_Sixth rule: the fights are bare knuckle. No shirt, no shoes, no weapons. _

_Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. _

_And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight._

_-Tyler Durden, __**Fight Club**_

_XXX_

Michael Fitzgerald knew a guy who had a local gym that was closed on Tuesday and Thursday nights. With a hefty deposit up front and Michael's promise of good behavior, they were allowed to use the place privately. This first night, Peter wasn't real sure what Noah had in mind, but clearly he had something. He sent them both to get changed and then, with Michael's help, got them into boxing gloves.

"No abilities," Noah said. "Not even regeneration. Don't get carried away. I just want a nice, clean fight with nothing fancy so I can see what you both know already."

Noah already knew Peter's capability. They'd sparred before, but mostly Noah had taught, reinforcing the lessons Peter had been getting from a formal instructor in judo and kung fu. Peter hadn't liked kung fu. He was also proficient in boxing. That had been something Arthur Petrelli had demanded of both his sons. Peter hadn't liked boxing either, but he'd learned to fight.

Peter had preferred wrestling. Nathan had been the reverse, being quite good at boxing and never liking wrestling. He'd later confessed to Peter that the close contact upset him and he had to spend so much concentration on other matters that he invariably lost. Peter had no idea what Sylar was like in a fight without abilities. He'd rarely fought back with mundane skills.

Peter expected that Noah was trying to assess Gabriel. He knocked his gloves together firmly and waited while the taller man climbed in the ring. If he had Nathan's skill combined with Gabriel's reach, then Peter figured he'd be in trouble. He moved forward. Gabriel moved back. Peter cut sideways, watching his opponent. Gabriel was doing something really weird with eye contact. He'd look at Peter, then off to the side, then at Noah, then back at Peter, then again at some other element of the room. When fighting someone, you did **not** take your eyes off them.

Peter watched this for a few seconds, then walked up and slugged Gabriel in the face. It was easy. There was no defense. Gabriel staggered away and got his hands up in front of him. Peter feinted and Gabriel circled back and away. At least he was blocking now, even if it wasn't much of a defense. Peter put his hands down, his chest out and his chin up and walked closer to Gabriel, in range for Gabriel to hit him with a lunge or a quick step forward and a punch. Gabriel continued to give ground.

Peter took a breath and brought his hands up. _If I just keep hitting him, eventually he'll hit back_. He stepped forward to implement this.

"Peter," Noah said.

He paused, eyes still on Gabriel, who was back to doing the weird lack of eye contact.

"Come on out," Noah said.

Peter frowned and backed up, vaguely expecting Gabriel to take advantage of his departure, but the other man did nothing other than straighten, relax and rub his face where he'd been hit. Noah was taping his hands when Peter got out. Michael guessed what he was up to and asked, "You want his gloves?"

Noah shook his head. "I won't be long."

"What's going on?" Peter asked quietly.

Noah didn't answer. He kicked off his shoes and socks and climbed in the ring. He stretched a little. "All right Gabriel. Hit me."

"No."

"We're here to learn to fight. You have gloves on. Hit me."

At least Peter could see that Noah was getting more consistent eye contact and not so many mixed signals. Gabriel took two very certain steps towards Noah, then side stepped as if he'd seen some sign of a counter attack.

"Hit me," Noah said again.

Gabriel put his gloves down and huffed, shaking his head. Noah closed on him immediately, but didn't swing at him. Gabriel backpedaled, but Noah stayed on him, finally backing him into a corner and getting him against the ropes. Noah raised his fist in threat and Gabriel flinched away from him, but he wouldn't hit back. He didn't even raise his hands to ward off the blow. Peter thought back to that time when they were in France, when Noah had Gabriel handcuffed and helpless. He'd hurt him badly, but Gabriel hadn't struck back at Noah then either. At least, not that Peter had seen.

Noah backed up, saying, "Okay. We're done here. Get your gloves off."

Michael started on Peter's gloves. Gabriel's just unlaced themselves on their own. Peter looked over at him with furrowed brows. "Why won't you hit back?"

Gabriel looked away and shook his head. Noah said, "I think it will come out eventually. Let's just start with something else."

He got out pugil sticks and handed a set to Michael and Peter. "You two, over there." He tossed one to Gabriel. "Gabriel, you're with me."

Peter missed whatever initial instruction Noah gave, but he got Michael to stop after a while so he could watch what was going on. All Noah was having Gabriel do was tap him on the chest with the padded end of the stick. He'd back up, dodge and sometimes slap it out of the way. Then Gabriel would do it again. Noah still had his pugil stick in his left hand, but he didn't start using it until Gabriel got a little more aggressive about hitting him in the chest.

Noah didn't start hitting back until Gabriel was putting a real effort into tagging him. They were a match for size and reach, though Peter could tell Noah was putting very little work into attacking. His defense made Gabriel have to carry the attack. Gabriel finally started hitting areas other than Noah's chest and shortly after that Noah called a halt to it. "That's good. That's good." He walked over and slapped Gabriel on the shoulder, who pulled away from the gesture a little. Noah gripped his shoulder and didn't let him get away. He steered Gabriel back over to the boxing ring.

"Okay you guys," Noah said. "Peter, get Michael into some gloves." He helped Gabriel with his.

Michael grumbled a little to Peter, "All I meant to do here was watch."

Peter grinned at him as he tightened the lacings. "You've got all those muscles for something, right?"

Michael snorted and climbed in the ring after they were done.

Noah leaned between ropes as Gabriel climbed in. "Michael - don't use your strength. But otherwise, mop the floor with him."

Michael gave Noah a long look, then turned to face his opponent.

Gabriel had his hands up and defended properly when Michael waded forward, shifting his shoulders back and forth. He wasted no time with preamble. He feinted to one side and ducked Gabriel's casual jab to the left.

"He fights like he doesn't expect to get hurt," Peter said of what Gabriel was doing. Noah didn't answer because in the time Peter had spoken, Michael had connected hard and repeatedly, putting his opponent to the mat. Michael backed up immediately. Gabriel came up to his hands and knees, grimacing and working his jaw.

"You can use your healing for a moment now," Noah said. "Get on your feet and do it again when I say start." Gabriel looked at Noah blankly, then did as directed. "Oh," Noah added, "No healing unless you're down." Gabriel nodded and focused his attention on Michael. Peter smiled a little. _His eye contact is fine now. Getting a face-full of the mat will do that to you._

"Start."

They went at it again, this time with Gabriel obviously being a lot more motivated. Michael still made short work of him. Gabriel got up and went to it again. The third time he was picking himself up he was snarling. Noah got out of his chair and walked to the side of the ring. "Gabriel, don't let your temper get out of hand here."

Gabriel looked at Noah and fixed his expression into something more neutral. Michael gave Noah another long look. Noah said, "You're safe, Michael. Put him down again."

Michael nodded. Peter was pleased to see that his mother's bodyguard could do something with all those muscles. He'd wondered sometimes, since he'd never seen Michael in action and he struck Peter as a clumsy brick. Michael could handle himself well in a fight. That was good, because he was finally in one.

Gabriel started doing what Peter had been wary of to start with, which was fighting with Nathan's skill and Gabriel's reach. He wasn't very strong, but he was strong enough. He worked more on not getting hit and finally started to land some punches on Michael. Michael still knocked him out a fourth time.

Peter laughed. Gabriel was clearly really trying. He was just overmatched and without his abilities he was just a guy who was pretty good at fighting up against a much stronger, more fit guy who knew just as much about fighting. Gabriel glared at Peter, healed and got up for round five.

This time Gabriel was a little luckier, which probably had more to do with Michael getting worn down than with any skill of Gabriel's. In any case, he got the upper hand on the bodyguard and socked him in the jaw and the sternum, then moved in to finish him while he was staggered.

"Stop!" Noah called out. "That's good. Whoa. Michael, get out of there. Peter, you're up."

Gabriel came over and leaned on the ropes while Noah laced up the gloves on Peter's hands. "Why didn't you let me win one?" His teeth were bared, even if his tone of voice was normal enough.

Noah glanced up at him, then back to what he was doing. "You'd won. That was good enough. He can't heal. I don't want him marked up."

Gabriel snorted.

"But," Noah went on, "You can beat Peter up all you want." He gave Peter a nasty smile and finished. "You know what you're in there for. Boxing only."

Peter got in the ring and knocked his gloves together again. Gabriel started off regarding him intently like he had with Michael, but then there was doubt… and hesitation. Peter walked up and socked him in the face again. Gabriel staggered away, putting a gloved hand up to where he'd been hit. He regarded Peter fearfully and it tore at Peter's heart.

"Gabriel," Noah called, "You **have** to fight back. _**Hit**_ him. That's why you wanted me here, isn't it?"

Peter looked back at Noah in surprise. _Gabriel wanted Noah here so he could hit me?_ And at that moment, Gabriel hit him in the side of the head, nearly knocking him down. He tried to blink away the stars and get his feet back under him, but Gabriel hit him again and this time he didn't stay up. Lying on the mat, Peter healed.

Noah came over and looked at him from next to the ring. "Peter," he chided. "You of all people should know you don't take your eyes off your opponent in the middle of a fight."

Peter stared at him incredulously and got back on his feet. Gabriel looked uncertain, almost solicitous. "Are you okay?" he asked, leaning in. It was a stupid maneuver. A lesser man, having been taken advantage of, knocked in the side of the head and then to the mat, might have hit Gabriel in the kisser as retaliation. Peter did not, but the thought ran through his mind as well as the fact that there was definitely something wrong with Gabriel's responses. He wasn't this stupid.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Peter loosened his shoulders and brought his hands back up. He tried to back away, but the other man stayed with him, hands and defenses down. Peter put his glove on Gabriel's shoulder and pushed him away. "I'm fine! Get back."

"Start," Noah said.

The second time around was different. Peter waited until Gabriel finally brought his hands back up, still looking conflicted and uneasy. Gabriel remained reluctant to engage, but he stayed focused on Peter. It was irritating to have to chase the man around the ring. He finally stopped and made Gabriel come to him, which took a while. Noah talked quietly with Michael on the sidelines. Gabriel started in on him and his reach was hard to deal with. Peter got clipped on the chin and the forehead before he got a healthy respect for the length of Gabriel's arms.

He supposed he was lucky Gabriel wasn't hitting him very hard. Peter had mixed feelings about that. It was nice the man didn't want to hurt him, but that was the point of what they were doing. He'd hit him hard enough the first round, so why he was going light now was a mystery.

Peter finally got inside Gabriel's reach and pounded him hard along the ribs. Gabriel jumped back away from him and when Peter followed, Gabriel somehow reached out with his foot, hooked it behind Peter's ankle and pulled him off balance. Then he hit him in the face when Peter dropped his guard, trying to keep his feet. He went down and Gabriel stepped over him. For a tense moment, it looked like Gabriel wasn't done with him. Peter wasn't all that hurt, but he just laid there unmoving until Gabriel walked away and paced in the corner like he was under duress.

Noah told Peter, "Come on out, Peter."

Noah climbed in the ring after Peter got out and Gabriel turned on him, angry, "What is this? Tag-team wrestling? You just going to-"

He shut up and backpedaled as Noah closed on him aggressively and backed him into a corner. Noah started to press it and Gabriel's stance shifted slightly, away from defensive and into offense. Noah stopped.

When the other man didn't continue, Gabriel said cautiously, "Am I supposed to fight you?"

"Well, since it seems we're channeling aggression instead of actually fighting, I thought I might as well get in here and work out some issues. You?"

"Er." Gabriel tried to edge out of the corner. Noah let him.

"You fought clean with Michael, but the moment you started in on Peter you sucker-punched him. Then the next bout you tripped him. Put that next to your reluctance to fight him at all, you asking me to be here and mediate between the two of you and I think you need something more than lessons on how to fight." Noah followed Gabriel around the ring, herding him a little.

"This is **not** a therapy session," Noah said, getting close enough to strike at Gabriel and taking an exploratory punch at him. He didn't have gloves, but his hands were still taped. Gabriel ducked and made no attempt to counter attack.

"You're here to learn how to fight and get better at it, but the first thing you need to learn is how to follow instructions." Noah hesitated, watching Gabriel's uncertain defenses. "You've never been very good at that."

Noah surged forward and Gabriel didn't fall back like he'd expected. Instead he jabbed and sidestepped, hitting Noah on the cheek and surprising him. It wasn't solid enough to push him back though and Noah turned, catching Gabriel in the gut hard enough to knock some of the wind out of him. They traded several short, fast and very hard body blows and then parted, with Gabriel taking one last swing at distance as they separated. It swiffed through Noah's hair and Noah changed course, coming back with a punch that landed squarely on Gabriel's nose while he was overextended. Gabriel backed up, grabbing his now-bleeding nose and said, "Stop. Stop it."

Noah hesitated and tilted his head at him, wincing. "Okay. You did good there. You weren't pulling your punches and if you need to stop, that's fine." He looked at his hand and then massaged his ribs where he'd been hit.

Gabriel's nose stopped bleeding. Peter watched as he licked the blood off his lips. _That's gross,_ he thought, remembering that Gabriel hadn't minded the blood when they'd kissed after dealing with Lilith either.

Noah said, "Peter, Michael - get in there. Try to learn something from each other." He got out of the ring gingerly, then helped get Gabriel's gloves off and get them on Michael.

Noah sat down next to Gabriel. Peter couldn't pay attention, but he could see that Noah and Gabriel were talking. He sparred with Michael, working mainly on footwork and not putting any power into the punches they landed. Peter felt he could stand to maneuver better. His slightly bowed legs usually didn't put him at much of a disadvantage, but it was a disadvantage nonetheless.

He'd given all of his attention to the matter when he heard a choked gasp from Noah and the sound of a body hitting the floor. He wheeled in time to see Gabriel leap on top of Noah, whom he had presumably thrown down. He punched Noah hard in the sternum, driving all the air out of his body. Noah gasped hoarsely.

XXXXX

_What Peter missed…_

"Did you enjoy that?" Gabriel asked as he sat down next to Noah.

"What?" Noah responded. "Hitting you in the face? Oh yeah."

Gabriel snorted. "What was that about this not being therapy?"

"Well, we're here so you can change how you relate to certain people."

"True," Gabriel replied.

"Speaking of which, Peter's a big boy. You can hit him and he won't break."

Gabriel shook his head, tapped his temple and then scratched at it. Noah looked at the odd gesture. "I…" Gabriel shook his head.

"What is it?"

"There's…" He dropped his voice lower so there was no chance of Peter or Michael overhearing him, even though they seemed fairly involved at the moment. "I have some problems about hurting him… at least, in any real way." He touched his temple again and grimaced.

"You too, huh?" Noah said dryly, guessing Gabriel was referring to a mental command.

"Yeah. Maury. It's never really been a problem, and I certainly haven't tried to overcome it, but I look at him and I can't see knocking him down. There's a lot of workarounds to it, obviously."

"I wondered what the issue was." He looked at Gabriel. "Me too?"

"No. I just… well, yes, but that's a different issue."

Noah turned his whole body to face him, blinking. "_**That's**_ why you've never hit me? You _**couldn't?**_" He started to laugh.

Gabriel grabbed Noah by the throat and threw him down on the floor, then jumped on the surprised man and punched him hard in the sternum with the heel of his hand, driving all the air out of his body. Noah gasped hoarsely.

XXXXX

"Gabriel!" Peter yelled and jumped over the ropes. In retrospect, he'd realize he should have thrown Gabriel back with telekinesis, but at that second all he thought of was getting to him and pulling them apart physically.

Gabriel grabbed Noah's throat again and leaned close into his face, snarling. "I **can**! I _**didn't!**_"

Peter grabbed the wrist of Gabriel's free hand in case he swung again. It was a clumsy grip due to the boxing gloves and wouldn't hold if Gabriel tried to get loose. Noah had his hands up in surrender and was still trying to breathe. Peter said, "Gabriel. Stop it. Let him go. Please." He saw Gabriel's grip slacken enough so he wasn't obstructing Noah's airway anymore. Gabriel leaned in again. Peter put his other hand on Gabriel's shoulder, so he had a little more leverage in case something more happened. Noah glanced between that and Gabriel's face while sucking in air.

Gabriel said, "Did you hear me, Noah?"

Noah blinked and nodded.

"Did you understand me?"

He nodded again.

"You have shot me _to death_ time after time and I _**let**_ you. That _hurt_. I didn't _like_ it." He leaned up and exhaled, taking his hands off the older man. "I was trying to say something to you and you wouldn't listen."

"I'm listening now," Noah said carefully. He reached over and touched his side gingerly. It was where Gabriel had hit him earlier in the ring, not the middle of his chest where he'd been hit just a moment earlier.

Peter gripped Gabriel's shoulder and pulled back. "Gabriel…?"

Gabriel stood up and Peter crouched next to Noah, using telekinesis to hastily get his own gloves off. The older man got an exasperated look and tried to push Peter out of the way so he could get up. "I'm fine! I deserved that, at least."

"You deserved that? No, you didn't! You were just sitting there. There's nothing you could have said that deserved that reaction." Peter was very aware he was speaking to Gabriel as much as Noah, as the taller man paced in the background. "Aren't you the one who said I shouldn't set my standards so low?" Behind him, Gabriel stalked off to a full body punching bag and started giving it what for. Peter palpated Noah's ribs, watched the man's attempt not to show how that hurt, and healed him. It was a minor injury and didn't set Peter back much.

He helped Noah up and said quietly, "I think he cracked your ribs earlier."

"Heh. Tell me something I didn't know. That's why I hit him in the nose. He might have been cheating, but I don't want him to pull his punches. Not until he gets a little more confident about throwing them in the first place."

"Cheating?" Peter asked.

"Using abilities. Probably telekinesis."

"Yeah, I guessed." Peter frowned in Gabriel's direction.

"It might be a stress reaction. Don't get onto him too much about it. There's more going on here than I thought. I'm going to table the sparring for a little while. I need to talk to Maury."

Peter looked at Noah levelly, but Noah was just watching Gabriel as he beat up the punching bag. Michael was steadying the other side of it.

"So what was that about?" Peter asked. "What did you say that precipitated that?"

"Private," Noah said shortly.

Peter sighed.

Noah walked over to the punching bag and watched for a moment, until Gabriel stopped and turned to face him. He clenched and unclenched his fists, then looked down, yielding. Noah said, "What time are we getting together on Thursday?"

Gabriel looked up at him steadily, obviously processing that Noah was going to continue the training. Peter walked up behind them, watching. "Same time," Gabriel said.

"Good," Noah said. "All we're going to do for the next couple of times is work out and get some muscle tone going. Hit the showers. We're done for tonight."

XXXX

Peter and Gabriel took the men's locker room. For whatever reason, Michael and Noah took the women's. Peter and Gabriel were silent through the shower. Afterwards, Peter finished toweling off his hair and Gabriel came over to him, wordlessly drying his back. Peter glanced back at him and braced himself to let Gabriel wipe harder, which he did. When he was done, he touched Peter's shoulder lightly and swallowed, turning him a little and leaning in, head tilted and lips parted. His eyes were downcast.

Peter scanned over the other man's face. He briefly considered withholding affection as punishment for Gabriel's ill behavior towards Noah, but he didn't want to be Gabriel's taskmaster. He didn't want their relationship to be about forcing Gabriel into Peter's concept of how he should act, tempting as it was to try to change the man. He kissed him. Gabriel kept it light, mostly lips, letting his hand cup Peter's bare shoulder.

"Why'd you attack Noah?" Peter asked as Gabriel nuzzled his face distractingly.

Gabriel dropped his hand down Peter's arm, touching him in short, light strokes while he rubbed his nose across Peter's cheek. It was different from his normal pattern when he was amorous. "He had a misconception. I corrected it."

Peter snorted. It wasn't much better of an answer than he'd gotten from Noah. He pulled his head back, hoping Gabriel would get the hint he didn't want to do anything, even though they were both naked and alone. Noah and Michael would be waiting for them and they weren't idiots. It was likely why they'd gone to the women's locker room instead of this one.

Peter picked up his shirt from his bag and looked down at it, despite being less than two inches from Gabriel's body. Gabriel kept his head down and bent his neck to kiss Peter on the shoulder. It was a light peck. Peter shifted and put an arm through the sleeve of his t-shirt. He couldn't continue without moving Gabriel away from him.

Instead of taking the hint, Gabriel slid his arm around Peter's waist. Peter opened his mouth to object and Gabriel laid his head on Peter's shoulder. "Um," Peter said instead of the sharp comment he'd planned. He realized Gabriel wasn't signaling sex – he wanted reassurance. Peter's cold shoulder was misplaced. He blinked and hugged the man back, wondering what he was getting at.

Gabriel murmured, "I'm sorry you have to lower your standards to be with me. It really stung to hear that. I'm so sorry, Peter."

Peter stiffened, remembering what he'd said and realizing Gabriel didn't have the context for the conversation: Noah had talked to Peter about how he shouldn't approve of bad behavior from Gabriel just because he was capable of worse. "That's… that's not what I meant," Peter said quickly. Considering what Gabriel though he'd meant, Peter thought the other man's reaction to such a statement had been pretty subdued.

"I'm alright… to be with?" He rubbed Peter's side with short, insecure strokes.

"Yes. Yes, you're fine," Peter reassured. "I love you. That's not what I meant _at all_." He dropped his shirt and put his hands on Gabriel's arms, still and relaxed. Gabriel lifted his head and gave Peter a peck on the cheek.

"Good to know," he said distantly and pulled away. He went over to get dressed.

Peter picked his shirt back up and shook his head. _I need to watch what I say. I'm still hitting landmines with him. Sometimes I think he's the one who's more patient with me than I am with him._


	174. Blow Job

**A/N: April 14, 2011, Thursday evening.**

Gabriel knocked. On Tuesday, Peter had been downstairs and Gabriel picked him up at the curb, but tonight Peter had called while Gabriel was driving over and asked him to come up first. He'd also asked him to come early, well before when they were scheduled to meet Noah and Michael at the gym for their second workout. Peter opened the door and waved him in. He shut the door and stepped behind Gabriel, putting his hands on the man's shoulders. Gabriel stopped, but Peter urged him on to a chair and had him sit down while Peter briskly rubbed his neck, shoulders and back through his shirt.

After the first pass, Peter pulled off the other man's shirt and repeated the massage, a little slower and harder.

"Don't you want some oil?" Gabriel asked.

"No. I'm not going to get too in depth. I wanted to ask you a favor, get you loosened up first so maybe I'll get the answer I want." He said it playfully, but Gabriel tensed a little anyway. Peter laid off the rubbing and flopped down in another chair. He needed to get to the point before Gabriel had a chance to worry and anticipate. He said, "You said, the other day, you'd be willing to give me head sometime."

Gabriel raised his brows at him and took a breath. "Yeah. … You mean now?"

Peter nodded. "I was hoping so. If you're not in the mood, we'll go work out and maybe later, or some other day."

Gabriel sucked at his teeth for a moment and said, "Okay."

"You're all right with it? Now?" Peter looked surprised.

He shrugged. "You tell me what to do." He had some memories of performing the act, but he was pretty sure they were Sylar's and he didn't want to know the details of those. Too many of Sylar's sexual escapades were too dark for his current mindset to want to ponder. Matt had been rather incomplete with transferring Nathan's intimate memories, probably thinking or assuming that Sylar-as-Nathan wouldn't need them. Or maybe it was just another Parkman screwing with his sex life.

The idea of having someone's dick in his mouth was not terribly appealing. He had scores or more memories of receiving head, but they were much more pleasant. Then there was that event in his youth, but it hadn't gone far enough for him to confuse it with an actual blow job.

Peter shucked out of his clothes quickly, obviously very happy. His expression made Gabriel smile. It made it worth it. He watched as Peter draped his pants back over the seat of the chair he was on and then sat on them, so his bare bottom wasn't on the chair itself. Gabriel scooted out of his chair and walked on his knees the short distance to the other man. He sat on his heels and put his hand on Peter's left knee.

Peter's penis was still mostly flaccid, but it was building. Gabriel moved in another step, spreading Peter's knees apart. He crouched and ran his fingers across the man's organ. Peter inhaled sharply and leaned back, scooting his hips out, putting himself closer. Gabriel touched Peter's thighs on the top, then the outside, then the bottom and finally the inside, stroking from the outside in, going from knee towards torso. He repeated the pattern, scratching lightly, then a third time rubbing small circles.

He leaned forward, putting his arms around Peter's waist and pulling him forward as he went up on his knees. It brought his lips level with Peter's chest. He mouthed his lover's stomach, kissing and licking, working his way to Peter's nipples, one after the other and then back again and again. Peter ran his hands through his hair, digging lightly into his scalp. Gabriel loved the feel of that, but didn't say anything. Peter's cock was pressing into him by the end of it. The time of putting off the act itself was nearing an end.

He sat back on his heels and swallowed a couple times. He ran his tongue around his mouth and exhaled. Peter misread his hesitation as indecision or uncertainty rather than simple procrastination and reluctance. He told him, "Just put your hand around the base, so you won't get so much in your mouth."

Gabriel swallowed again and gripped Peter's shaft. He lowered his face to him. He smelled more strongly like the man he was, but he'd also obviously cleaned himself in preparation. Gabriel breathed him in, considering the different scent. He kissed Peter's organ on the side of the top, very hesitantly, blinking away unwanted memories. Then he licked tentatively along the rim. Peter gripped the edge of the seat and pulled in breath. "Yeah, that's right," he told him.

Gabriel lowered his lips to the head, wrapping them over the top and avoiding touching Peter's opening. He slid his mouth over him. Peter touched his hair, lightly, not quite urging him on. He could see this was not something Gabriel was comfortable doing. He wondered if Gabriel had done it before at all. The desire to ask for more was strong, but he reined it in and let Gabriel serve at his own pace.

Peter moved his hips a little, bringing some motion into it. Gabriel removed his mouth and swallowed, not terribly happy about having his face fucked by a man. Peter stopped, reaching out to stroke the side of Gabriel's face. The other man pulled his face away and Peter put his hands back on the edge of his seat. Peter recalled, belatedly, that Gabriel had asked for a telepathic link when they'd discussed it earlier.

Before Peter could say anything about it, Gabriel licked his lips, took several deep breaths and put his mouth back on Peter's organ more properly and less tentatively. He touched it with his tongue, tried to ignore the salty taste of the slick liquid precum at Peter's tip. He sucked at the head, taking care to keep his teeth out of the way.

He was rewarded by a groan of pleasure and both hands on his head, caressing him, directing him. He could have done without the hands, but Peter was saying, "Ah… God, thank you. This is great. Great. Gabriel… that's great. Up and down, please?"

Peter's fingertips gave him conflicting directions with their intermittent pressure. It was annoying, but he didn't shake him off this time. He couldn't imagine he was doing a very good job and assumed Peter was just being patronizing. He swallowed what he could of Peter's cock while holding the shaft and began to move his hand up and down in synch with his mouth.

"Oh! Better." Peter hunched slightly in rhythm with him, hoping that wouldn't put Gabriel off as it had before. Gabriel sucked harder, tonguing the other man, turning his head for a better angle. The better job he did, the quicker this would be over. He ran his other hand along Peter's outer hip, then over his thigh and fondled his testicles, pulling him outward gently so they hung over the edge of the chair. Peter scooted a little to aid him.

Gabriel rubbed Peter's inner thigh, where it joined with his groin, then reached higher and stroked his stomach, then his chest. He rubbed a circle around Peter's left nipple, then rolled it gently between his finger and thumb. Peter mewled in pleasure and Gabriel shifted his hand down to take him deeper into his mouth with each stroke. His partner was beginning to pant and jerk with each pump of his shaft. Peter's penis was swelling slightly yet again, filling out in every direction.

"Um… Um… That's enough, use your hands." Peter pulled him away with fitful gestures. Gabriel let him, having a very good idea as to why and continuing to work him with his hand. Peter reached out for a towel, then came a few moments later. He had apparently set the cloth aside for the purpose, Gabriel realized now, having paid the towel no thought earlier. Peter wiped himself and pulled Gabriel up to his knees. The dark haired man leaned down to kiss him. Gabriel moved back, pressing his lips together.

Peter said, "It's okay. I didn't come in your mouth. It's okay with me." He leaned in again for the kiss and Gabriel met him, still feeling a little peculiar about it. Peter kissed him passionately enough that he gave up on those thoughts and just enjoyed the sensation of a tongue in his mouth instead of a penis.

He leaned back and sat on his heels, sucking at his teeth just as he had before the act. Peter wiped at himself again and said, "You know what I forgot?"

"What?"

Peter tapped his forehead. "Sorry. You said you wanted to feel it, that it might help. Was this okay… anyway?" He glanced down at Gabriel's groin. He was still wearing his pants, but there was nothing showing – no erection.

Gabriel shrugged and ran his tongue around his mouth uncomfortably yet again, wishing he could get the taste out. "It's okay. Not my favorite thing to do, but I can do it." _I'll do it for you._

Peter ran his hand through his partner's hair. "I really appreciate it."

"You always going to pull me off early?"

"Um…" Peter looked back and forth elsewhere, then at Gabriel. "I… I'll try, if you need me to. I mean, it would be…"

Gabriel nodded. "I've had plenty of blow jobs, Peter. I know it's better to stay until the end."

"I can tell you're not… I'm not going to ask you to do that."

"Hm. I'll see." He ran his hand under Peter's calf, pulling it out so his leg made a fairly straight line. Gabriel put his left hand over Peter's knee and hooked his right around and under, stroking his fingertips on the tender, sensitive skin underneath. He knew Peter was wildly ticklish there from Nathan's memories, just like why Peter was adamant about him not touching his ears.

Peter began twitching immediately. "Hey! Hey! That tickles." He tried to jerk his leg away but Gabriel had him blocked in. "Stop it!" He began laughing despite himself, teeth bared. He'd never liked being tickled. He pulled away harder, using his enhanced strength to outmatch Gabriel's leverage and grip. He got his leg away, but his powers ended a second later. Gabriel grabbed him under both legs and yanked him off the chair with a twist to the side, so he didn't hit his head on the chair.

Peter yelped when he hit the floor, not sure of what was happening or why Gabriel was attacking him. He'd told Gabriel to stop and the man _hadn't_. It sent a jolt of fear through him. Gabriel grabbed his lower body and upended him, putting Peter's shoulder blades to the floor and pinning him in a fairly classic wrestling maneuver. Peter fought out of it a second later and rolled away with Gabriel after him, grabbing at him.

He got enough of a view of Gabriel's face to see he was playing. It relieved the younger man. For a second he'd thought… he wasn't sure what he'd thought, but it wasn't pleasant and it wasn't playful. There were still a lot of moments where he didn't know what Gabriel was up to.

They wrestled. Peter pinned Gabriel twice, but each time after he released the other man, he started fighting again. Peter didn't mind much, but after the second time Gabriel took a swing at him and hit him across the jaw, knocking him down. In the moment while Peter tried to regain his senses, the man twisted his arm behind his back and shoved him entirely to the floor, applying pressure to his shoulder.

He tried to break out, but received the expected hard push against the joint and a jerk up and back on his arm. It hurt sharply as the tendons protested. Peter would have to risk getting his shoulder put out of socket if he wanted up. He had no doubt Gabriel would do it, since the only reason he wouldn't was fear of hurting him. As he'd heal as soon as his powers weren't cancelled, this wasn't a realistic fear between them. He was still more than a little shocked that Gabriel had swung on him. He'd hit him during sparring, but this wasn't really the same thing – they'd been intimate only moments before. Peter felt deeply that he didn't know the rules Gabriel was playing by.

It wasn't a legal pin, but Peter ceded it, saying, "You got me." He waited. The appropriate thing for a person to do when their opponent cried uncle in any of various ways was to let them go. It was good sportsmanship to do so immediately. Of course, good sportsmanship did not include continuing the fight after you'd been bested, resorting to fists in a wrestling match or taking advantage of a stunned opponent. Neither Sylar nor Nathan had ever been a fan of fair fights, so Peter wasn't terribly surprised by that.

When Gabriel didn't release him, Peter tried to look back, but there was no give on his shoulder and he couldn't see the man's face. If he struggled, he'd have a dislocated shoulder. If he nullified Gabriel's powers and struggled, he'd still have a dislocated shoulder. In either case, if the man wasn't letting him up now, the fight would still be on if Peter broke loose and he wasn't going to win with one arm.

Besides, he'd already proven he could win, twice. This wasn't about winning. He suspected it was about getting back at him for the blow job. The act had clearly been enough of a turn-off for Gabriel that he wanted to fight him after it. Peter found that amusing, given that he'd chosen to tickle him and wrestle him rather than anything more dangerous. If he had to get wrestled into submission for getting a blow job, then he'd happily get wrestled into submission. It had been pretty decent fellatio under the circumstances, once Gabriel got into it.

He turned his head back and put his forehead on the floor. He tried to relax and get comfortable. Gabriel would eventually get tired of holding him. As he calmed, Gabriel let up pressure on his shoulder with his right hand, still holding his wrist firmly, twisted back with his left.

By removing his right hand, Gabriel couldn't hold him anymore – not unless he could get his hand back to the pressure point before Peter could twist away. Peter didn't tense or try anything as the hand lifted. After a moment, Gabriel stroked his bare back with his fingertips. Peter shivered at the touch and put his head to the side, resting it on the floor. The fight, along with whatever odd dominance struggle it represented, was over – it had moved back to intimacy.

Peter relaxed his entire body, taking deep, slower breaths. He shut his eyes and felt Gabriel's grip on his wrist loosen. The other man continued stroking Peter, almost petting him. He moved Peter's left arm down to his side and held it for a moment before letting go. His left hand joined his right in smoothing across Peter's skin.

"Mmm," Peter said, sighing. It was a nice way to end things. His jaw still hurt, as did his knee and thigh and a spot on his back. Regeneration would take care of those soon enough, when Gabriel finally deigned to let him have his powers back. He smiled at the thought. In the meanwhile he laid there and submitted, letting Gabriel regain his feeling of masculinity or control, or whatever it was he needed.

The man bent over and kissed his back, then started scratching lightly, starting at the nape of his neck and working down, out over his shoulder blades where it was difficult to impossible for Peter to reach on his own. He arched his back and groaned in appreciation. "Ah! That's good, that's nice." The hands roamed down to the small of his back, then came up again and went over the same areas a second time. "Mmm."

Gabriel leaned over and kissed him again, then patted him decisively twice as a signal he could get up. Peter turned his head and looked up before rising to make sure. Gabriel gave him a jerk of his head to get up.

Peter rolled up slowly to a sitting position and scooted closer to his lover, who was sitting on his knees. It made him even taller in relation to Peter than he normally was. Looking up at him, Peter tried something. He leaned up to kiss the underside of Gabriel's chin and along his jaw, supplicating like a beta to an alpha wolf on a nature documentary. Gabriel responded immediately and warmly, turning his mouth to kiss him full on and reaching out to caress Peter's shoulder with a touch that was simultaneously possessive and gentle.

_Huh,_ Peter thought and filed that away under 'How to get Gabriel to do what I want.' It was just posturing, but Peter didn't discount it because of that. Every hug, kiss and pat on the back was posturing - common intimacies that said _We're okay with each other, I love you, I like you_, in a language that transcended words. Peter was fluent in that language. Most people didn't even realize they were saying anything. Peter asked, "Do you want to take me?" He looked up to catch Gabriel's expression.

The man looked away as if considering it, and then said, "No. Not really." He looked down at Peter's face. "Do you want me to?"

Peter shook his head. "No, it's okay. I was just offering." He didn't know if the fighting would be a turn-on for Gabriel. For a lot of men, it was. It was not where Peter was at, but the wrestling had been playful enough up until the end that he wasn't put off by it. Being physical in a way where everyone was happy didn't bother Peter. It was roughness where one party was hurting another intentionally that stopped him cold.

Gabriel reached down and took Peter's chin, lifting his head up and to the side so he could see the angry red mark where he'd hit him earlier. Peter frowned slightly. Gabriel slipped his hand along his jaw line to the spot. Peter twitched his head back from him. It hurt, as any normal person would realize. Gabriel's fingers moved in again anyway. They weren't gentle. Peter's jaw clenched and his eyes flashed. His breathing sped up, but he didn't pull away this time.

Gabriel's fingers stroked along the spot anyway. It hurt each time – a small pain, but Peter had never equated pain with pleasure and wasn't about to now. Peter blinked and looked away. The other man leaned down and tilted his head to kiss Peter where he'd hit him. The dark-haired man kept his eyes on the far wall. Gabriel's fingers might have been rough, but his lips were gentle at least. He moved to kiss Peter on the lips. Peter turned his head and denied him the affection. He said simply, "You hurt me."

Gabriel seemed to think about that, his eyes going to the spot. "I shouldn't have hit you."

"It was unfair," Peter allowed.

"I had to beat you."

Peter nodded. "You did." Peter swallowed. If he pushed this too far, Gabriel would feel he'd lost dominance. It didn't bother Peter's ego to let Gabriel save face. He opened that file in his head titled 'How to get Gabriel to do what I want', read a little, and hung his head. "You beat me. You won."

Gabriel took his chin and brought his head up for a kiss. This time Peter let him. His regeneration kicked in almost immediately. He breathed in sharply as the aches faded, minor as they were. Gabriel leaned back and looked back and forth between Peter's eyes. "You're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He smiled softly. He'd figured something out - Gabriel was predictable. It wasn't a bad thing. It was amusing and comforting. It let him relax a little inside to have a better grip on what was likely to happen next.

"No, I mean with what I did," Gabriel said, cocking his head with an expression of concern.

"Hm. Well, it's a little unfair, but…" He decided that mentioning either Sylar or Nathan would be unwise. "Life's not fair."

"I'll try not to hurt you next time." Gabriel gave him another peck on the cheek.

"What hurt was you rubbing it. Getting hit I expected, you know?" He tilted his head. _Well… I didn't expect to get hit, but it made a lot more sense. I didn't resent it._

Gabriel's face twitched and he looked away as if chagrinned. "I'm… I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes. I know you don't like that."

Peter turned Gabriel back to face him. He kissed him firmly, not wanting to let his lover retreat from him emotionally. Gabriel met him, but he didn't really respond. He didn't open his mouth or move his lips. He just allowed the contact and stared at a point on Peter's forehead. Peter was tempted to push, to turn his head and probe at Gabriel's lips with his tongue. It had worked before; Gabriel would respond eventually. But… maybe there was another way.

He backed off, slumped and lowered his head, turning it to the side. The bristles of Gabriel's chin rubbed against his cheek and he moved his head to accentuate it. He reached forward with his right hand and gave Gabriel a series of light, short touches on his side, asking, begging, stimulating. He turned his head further with the intention of kissing Gabriel on the throat, but the other man was lifting Peter's chin and kissing him aggressively, mouth open and tongue active. Peter submitted to it with a small sound in his throat.

Peter felt like he'd just been shown the steps of a dance and now they were moving together. Or maybe it was like they'd been dancing and only now could he hear the music. He'd known from the start that Gabriel wanted to be in charge. Gabriel had been trying, as best he could, to respond to Peter the way Peter needed. He'd bent over backwards for him, literally and metaphorically, but he still became frustrated at times and lashed out when he wasn't getting what he needed in return. Now Peter had a better idea of what that was. It was something he was willing to give.

He moved into the embrace in a subordinate posture and just in case he had any doubts about cause and effect, Gabriel growled appreciatively and hugged him more firmly. _All I've got to do is let him love me and stay out of his way while he does it. _Peter couldn't help but smile. _I feel like such a manipulative bastard_. But he had to admit, Gabriel hadn't retreated from him emotionally. When they came apart, Peter said, "I think I know what you were doing. You were trying to see if I'd let you do it, let you hurt me."

Gabriel nodded, not meeting his eyes. He remained unhappy with himself because he wanted to do things he knew would cause him problems with the other man. It was like kicking a beehive, but instead of mischief he felt a trace of malice and lot of anticipation for Peter's reaction – for his breathing to speed up, his pulse to increase, his body to react to the pain. He wanted Peter to be scared of him. He wanted some admission that he was special and powerful and that Peter respected him. He didn't know how to ask for that.

Peter smiled faintly, thinking it was another dominance display, with Gabriel trying to win against Peter and relishing any lingering sign of his success. He was more or less right. Peter leaned in and nuzzled Gabriel's cheek, then kissed him lightly, catching his eyes finally. "I'll let you do it as long as you don't get carried away and you let me heal when I ask for it. Please do that for me. Don't expect me to get into it much – I'll do it for _you_."

Peter knew he was allowing a new dimension to their time together. Peter felt safe with Gabriel, even when he was being violent. But inviting him to hurt him in sexual play was crossing a line Peter had never crossed with anyone else. Most of his willingness to do it now was due to them both having regeneration. The rest was that he didn't think Gabriel would take it too far, because he didn't really want to hurt him – he just wanted control, or at least the illusion of it.

Gabriel hugged him and kissed the side of his head, inadvertently blocking Peter's attempt to read him. He ran his hands down Peter's body, caressing him, possessing him, drawing him closer. Peter exhaled in a little puff of air and let Gabriel have him. It felt nice to just curl up in his arms and let it be.


	175. Wedding Bells

**A/N: This is the last chapter in the main story arc of the Salvation of Acceptance. Further chapters after this are dubbed the Continuation Scenes.**

April 17 turned out to be a lovely day, sunny and warm. It was the day Nathan and Heidi had reserved for their renewal of matrimonial vows, something they'd had scheduled for months. So much had happened during that time. Arthur had caused an eclipse and a new wave of people with special abilities had been created; Peter had made Arthur powerless; several hundred people with abilities had been contacted and dealt with; Lilith had been destroyed; the Company had been reformed; Mohinder had taken guardianship of Molly and had begun employment for the Company again; Arthur had been dispatched to Riyadh as a consultant; and most recently, Emma had become sick with a persistent stomach flu.

This last concerned Peter the most today. He was looking good in his tuxedo and Emma looked simply stunning in a peach satin, off-the-shoulder dress. It would have been nicer if she'd felt better, but she was nauseous and out of sorts. Fortunately she wasn't part of the bridal party, so she could sit things out next to Angela, who seemed to have taken an unusual motherly interest in Emma. Emma had met Mrs. Petrelli several times before. They hadn't gotten along. They weren't really getting along now, despite Angela and Emma both making a sincere effort.

On Nathan's side, he had Peter, Angela (who had attended with Maury, which given that the public believed Arthur had been dead for years, wasn't censorious), Emma, Noah, and Claire. On Heidi's side, she had her sister and brother-in-law and their two daughters, her parents, her maternal grandmother, Bridget (Heidi's long-time, best friend), her uncle Bill and his girlfriend of nearly twenty years. Also in attendance were the happy couple's three sons, Mandy (their full-time, live-in maid) and Jennifer (their nanny).

The location was good. They were in an outdoor chapel just off a tiled courtyard at the rear of the church. The main cathedral was booked for a much larger group and they would have looked silly with so few people in all that space. Gabriel (currently looking like Nathan) and Heidi both had wanted a small ceremony attended only by family and a very few others.

Claire's acknowledgement had been legally processed a week previously. There was quite a bit of a buzz about it on Heidi's side of the family. Claire didn't seem to appreciate the attention, but she'd accepted Gabriel's gesture. She spent much of her time standing next to Maury Parkman exchanging snarky comments with him about the other attendees. It was rude, but also rather funny.

Shortly after arriving, Claire had taken the surprising step of going up to Gabriel and bypassing his attempt at a polite greeting. Instead, she hugged him with what looked like genuine warmth. Peter saw Gabriel adopt a plastic smile to cover his confusion and hugged her back minimally. He dipped his head and murmured something to her. She stepped back, bringing her hands along his arms and catching his hands in hers as she looked up at him. She gave his hands a squeeze and walked away. If she'd said anything, Peter hadn't caught it - she'd been facing Gabriel, not him. Later Gabriel would tell him she said it was okay; that everything was okay between them.

The ceremony itself went off without a hitch, other than Heidi tripping when she stepped off the tile and onto the grass. Gabriel caught her flawlessly, no doubt aided by telekinesis. Peter remembered being so perplexed about Nathan's first wedding. In retrospect, it was apparent that Arthur, or perhaps Lilith, had arranged it. He was glad that this time, the decision was made of their own free will.

After the exchange of vows, they went straight into the reception. Champagne was served while the caterers laid out lunch at four tables. As best man, it was Peter's responsibility to give the first toast. He'd put a lot of thought into what he was going to say.

He stood up and everyone fell silent. "Hello everyone. I'm happy to be here, standing before you on this joyous occasion. I thank you for coming and helping me honor these two, who've decided to embark on a new future together as man and wife." He walked behind the happy couple. "They've been down that road before. People tell me it's rocky - dangerous even. I hope someday that I find out." He got a few knowing laughs from those ignorant of what he was really saying about Nathan's past.

He patted Gabriel on the shoulder. "Nathan and I - we had something of a falling out with each other last year, but the thing that brought us back together was when this man came to me and told me that Heidi was carrying his son. He held out his hand," Peter mimed the gesture Gabriel had made to him the previous year, "and he told me about that little life and how much it mattered to him. I could tell how much he loved that little boy who hadn't even been born. I could see how much he loved Heidi and how hard he was working to be the husband she deserved. He's done a wonderful job. He's come a long way."

Peter put his hand on the back of Heidi's chair. She gave him a comfortable smile as she looked up at him. "Heidi and I never got along. But this last Christmas she needed help. The baby was almost due and she and her husband were having trouble. She needed someone to talk to. Everyone needs someone to talk to. And sometimes, that's all we need. I was happy to be able to be there for her. We talked about the baby, we talked about Nathan, we talked about old times and the future. Things worked out. I like to think I helped keep them together." Heidi's smile widened suddenly and she turned to take Peter's other hand for a moment. She squeezed it warmly in affirmation and then took Nathan's.

"Today is the day we celebrate that. To this man, who I am proud to count as a brother and a friend and to his lovely wife, like a sister to me - we've been through a lot together." He raised his glass and drank.

Other toasts were made. They were shorter, but equally congratulatory. Only Noah's was laced with as much double-meaning. He managed to work 'the Company of friends' in there and something about direction, as well as saying there had been times when he wanted to shoot Nathan. Gabriel took it in good humor. His in-laws had no idea why Claire was struggling so much not to laugh.

Peter rescued Emma from the attention of his mother and they sat off to the side, signing to one another. He still hadn't had that discussion about Gabriel yet with her. Peter suspected that neither of them were in a hurry to broach the subject.

The meal went by quickly and they put on some music for dancing afterwards. Gabriel and Heidi took to the floor with a grace and skill born of hours of training together only a year previously. Emma watched the two dancing with great attention, puzzling Peter until he realized she was reading their lips as Gabriel murmured things to Heidi and she replied. When she looked back to him, he signed to her, "What were they talking about?"

She replied, "How much he loves her. It's sweet." She looked back at them for a moment, then to Peter. "I wonder if it's true."

He nodded. "It is. Heidi has the ability to detect lies. He couldn't get something like that past her. He means it." He finished his drink. He'd had champagne for the toast, but afterwards switched to plain water. Other than the obligatory champagne, he hadn't had alcohol for three weeks now - not since Noah had pointed it out. He'd missed it for a few days, but that was all. That he'd missed it at all worried him.

He looked at Emma's empty glass. She too had opted for water after the toast, but more because her stomach was still easily upset. "Do you want me to get you a refill?" he asked, as Gabriel began a dance with Angela and Heidi with her father.

"Yes, please," she signed.

He came back shortly and took a seat next to her, watching as Simon and Monty danced awkwardly with their cousins. He looked back at Emma. She was smiling slightly. From the way her eyes were tracking, Peter knew she was following the lights of the sound. Peter slipped his hand over hers and shared in watching the music. It was beautiful. He thought back to their first tentative moments together, watching the lights in the common room at the hospital, watching as Emma learned about her ability. After the dance was over she winced, gave his hand a squeeze and put hers to her stomach.

"Are you sure you shouldn't have that checked?" Peter asked. He'd asked her before, but she'd dismissed it.

After a moment, she set down her glass, untouched, and signed to him, "It's just a cramp. If it still bothers me tomorrow, I'll ask my mother. I keep thinking it will go away."

"Maybe you're getting an ulcer." He wondered if his absence had upset her that much, or if this was some kind of sublimated resentment about Gabriel. But he'd have expected symptoms to show earlier rather than now. "Where does it hurt?" He was leaning in attentively when Gabriel walked up and patted him on the shoulder.

Gabriel asked, "Hey, something wrong? You guys aren't dancing. You're being wallflowers."

Emma smiled politely and shook her head. Peter pointed out, "It's not easy to dance when you can't hear the music." More quietly he said, "She's still got that stomach bug I mentioned to you. Do you hear anything?"

Gabriel looked at her intently, cocking his head slightly. At his prolonged silence, Emma's brow furrowed. She asked out loud, "What is he doing?"

Peter said, "He's _listening_ to you. He can hear auras and tell a lot about someone's health. He'd probably make a wonderful doctor if I could get him to take medical classes."

"That's something… I've heard that before," Gabriel said softly. "I know what that means." He began to smile and it spread across his entire face, lighting it up from within. He glanced at Peter and jogged his shoulder.

Peter looked up at him, perplexed. "What is it?"

Gabriel jerked his head slightly at Emma, who asked, "Is it good? Am I okay?"

Peter looked at her, wondering what Gabriel had noticed. While he was looking at her and Emma was looking at Gabriel, Gabriel mouthed two words to her. She lip-read them and her eyes widened. She made an involuntary squeak.

"What? What is it?" Peter looked between the two of them and Gabriel jogged his shoulder again, still grinning madly.

"Good on you, Pete. Good on you," Gabriel told him, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned, walking away shaking his head, still grinning.

Peter turned to Emma and signed, "Did he do something to you?"

"No," she shook her head emphatically and signed, "You did!"

"I… what?" Peter looked at her. She put a hand on her stomach, but actually it was a bit low for her stomach this time. Peter blinked as things clicked into place. _Really, for a paramedic, I'm such a blockhead sometimes. It's not like I haven't had it drilled into my head to ask virtually every time I have a female patient with a stomach complaint._ "Ah… erm… you're _pregnant?_"

She laughed and hugged him. He hugged her back, looking around in wonder and joy and surprise. When they parted, he signed, "I thought you were on the pill?" He didn't feel betrayed, just deeply surprised.

She took a deep, sighing breath. "I **was**, but then we broke up and I quit and when you came back I didn't think and we… I guess… twice… I started taking them again after. I guess I should stop."

Peter caught her face in his hands and kissed her. When they broke, he said excitedly, "We're going to have three kids."

She looked confused. "We are?"

"Yep. I love you."

XXX

A little while later, when Heidi threw the bouquet, it seemed to Peter that Gabriel's fingers twitched and the flowers got a bit of a telekinetic nudge into Emma's hands. It wasn't tough though - she might not have joined in the dancing, but she was there for the bouquet. Peter watched her sudden enthusiasm, his mind on how he'd asked her to marry him and she had put off answering him. It looked like fate had some other ideas in store for them.

She walked over to Peter, carrying the red and white roses bundled with calia lilies, inhaling their fragrance. She looked up at him and said carefully, verbally, "You asked me a question I never answered. The answer is yes."


	176. Reception

The reception was winding down. People were mingling, having finally gotten comfortable with one another. The dancing had ended and the staff was putting away the audio equipment. For only the second time, Gabriel walked over to Peter. He was smiling, but Peter could tell it was false - just a little too cheery for Nathan's face.

"Pete, I got a favor to ask of you."

"Sure," Peter answered.

Gabriel put his hand on Peter's shoulder and leaned in. "You see that man over there with Heidi?" Peter glanced over Gabriel's shoulder at where he'd come from. There was a tall man standing next to Heidi, his hand on the small of her back. It was her brother-in-law. Peter nodded, wondering if Gabriel was as possessive of Heidi as he was of Peter and that just touching her might be enough to set Gabriel off. He hoped not. Gabriel told him, "That's Danny. I want you to get rid of him for me."

Peter looked back at Gabriel and raised a brow. Gabriel's voice was tense. He was seething inside, under his happy countenance. _Surely,_ Peter thought, _this isn't because he put his hand on her back._ "What'd he do?"

Whispering harshly, Gabriel's hand tightened slightly on Peter's shoulder and he leaned in closer. "He _fucked_ her."

Peter jerked. _What the hell?_ "What? When?"

Gabriel swallowed. "After Nathan's funeral and before I came back. Heidi doesn't know I know. I want to keep it that way. But he's thinking about it and I… You have to get rid of him, Pete. Just make him leave. Please. I need him _gone_." The look he gave Peter conveyed just how much his control was slipping on this issue. He couldn't do it himself not because he lacked the ability, but because his temper would almost certainly get the better of him.

"Okay, sure," Peter said, nodding quickly. He turned to Emma and said for the benefit of both Emma and Gabriel, "I'll be right back." She nodded, uncertain, because she hadn't been able to see Gabriel's lips and didn't know what he'd asked. She was still a bit intimidated by the man.

Gabriel asked her lightly, "So, how's medical school going?" as Peter walked off.

Peter approached the small group. He circled the man's left side, opposite Heidi. When he was noticed, he smiled a little and said, "Hey. Danny, is it?"

"Little brother Peter! Yep. How are you doing? We haven't seen much of your side of the family in the last few years." He smiled at Peter, almost but not quite a smirk and Peter sensed the man's hostility immediately. He could also sense his thoughts, louder than most people's, clear and forceful almost like he meant for others to hear them. He thought, _Haven't seen anyone at all since Nathan's funeral. I'm still waiting on an answer for that._

Peter's smile retreated a little. "Yeah, we've been pretty busy. Hey, can I talk to you?"

"Sure." The man stepped away from Heidi, giving her a pat before he went that was a little too low to be the small of her back; too high to be quite her ass. Danny didn't see the displeased look she shot him, but Peter did and he was gratified that the man's attentions were not well received.

Danny considered clapping his arm across Peter's shoulders, but something about the younger Petrelli put him off from it - some slight intimidation that Peter had discovered he emoted almost constantly, most pointedly when he was angry, but even now enough to discourage the other man. Instead, Danny shoved his hands into his pockets and said bitingly, "So, are you still driving ambulances for that hospital?" He meant it as every bit the insult that was. The worst thing you could call a paramedic was an ambulance driver, reducing everything they did for people to being no more than a chauffeur.

Peter let his smile go completely. "Yeah. Yeah, I am." It wasn't true. He'd put off making any attempt to get his job back and been working for the Company instead, as a contractor. But he didn't feel bad about lying, any more than he felt bad about what he was about to do. He was pretty sure he was saving Danny's life, especially if this was the sort of dominance-based, one-up-man-ship conversation he'd been having with Gabriel while thinking about the last time he had sex with Heidi. It was a marvel he was alive now. Every now and then Gabriel's self-control impressed Peter.

"Things went pretty good here today," Peter said. "I want them to end that way. You should take your family and leave. Don't make a scene - just go."

Danny stopped and blinked at Peter, confused. He looked around the place and then back at Peter, his face clearing as his mind worked out how to react to the command. "Well, it's getting kind of late. I don't want to miss the ball game. Been good talking to you, Petey." He reached out and gave Peter a swat on the arm, still feeling intimidated by Peter and still also feeling he needed to do something about that. He felt a visceral need to show Peter who was higher on the food chain - himself, as a vice president at a good-sized corporation, as opposed to Peter, an hourly grunt doing a plebian job.

Danny wasn't comfortable not being the top dog and from his point of view, nearly all the men here today were serious assholes who needed to be taken down a peg or two (how Nathan had ended up friends with that 'paper salesman' was a mystery). He was at a loss as to how to do it though. It didn't matter. There was a game to be watched and he'd wasted enough time here with these losers. He nodded to Peter and walked off, smiling to himself, secure about his place in life.

Peter watched the other man's back as he went and considered how much the power differential changed things. Danny had no idea what he was dealing with. What to him was normal social jockeying between men could turn lethal faster than he imagined. It brought to Peter's mind his own overstepping of bounds with Maury only a few weeks before. It was tough to calibrate an appropriate level of force when the range was so wide. They were eggs wielding sledgehammers; fragile, fallible humans with the ability to level cities.

He looked around for the man in question and saw Maury at the end of the buffet table. Angela was hand-feeding him a bit of cake. It was so sickeningly sweet that Peter grinned broadly and shook his head as a feeling of warmth suffused him and drove away the anger he'd felt about Danny. He walked back over to where Emma was signing enthusiastically at Gabriel, who was watching her attentively.

He stood to the side and cocked his head. When Emma got to the end of discussing her frustration with being turned down for her residency a few years ago, Peter said to Gabriel, "I didn't know you knew sign language."

"Um. Yeah." He was lying. "I picked it up a while back, from Matt." He was still lying, but Peter went very still, trying to work that out. _Did he gain a skill from Matt Parkman because he had absorbed his essence or something? Did Matt know sign language? Does it matter, if that was a lie? Why would Gabriel lie about where he'd learned sign? But wait… he didn't know sign, because that was a lie too. So if he didn't know sign… and was mentioning Matt…_

"Oh! Yeah." Peter nodded. "Got it." He was pretending to watch her hands while he read her mind. Invasive, and not cool, but it worked. Somewhere along the line, Peter seriously needed to talk to Gabriel about boundaries.

Gabriel smiled at him and reached over to grab his neck, then give him something of a noogie. "Took you long enough."

"Hey! My hair…"

"_Your hair?_ You cut it all off!" Gabriel said in what sounded like mock outrage. Peter had a strong suspicion it wasn't mock. Gabriel turned to Emma for support on the issue. "Didn't you like him better with longer hair?" He was still holding Peter by the scruff of the neck, gently, but unnecessarily. One finger stroked restlessly up and down his neck. Peter noted Emma's eyes tracking that motion before going back to Gabriel's face.

"I think he looks more masculine with short hair," she said a bit stiffly. "Perhaps he should even grow a beard." Peter could see exactly where this was going and why. He shrugged off Gabriel's hand and took Emma's, twining their fingers together. He watched her silently and pointedly excluded Gabriel from his interest by turning three-quarters of the way away from him, towards Emma. Gabriel took the hint, which was more like an obvious statement, by saying, "I need to get back to Heidi," and walking away.

Peter glanced back over his shoulder after a moment, then turned his eyes back to Emma, who was watching him. "Do you want me to grow a beard?" He didn't want to at all. From the hair growth pattern on his cheeks, it would be patchy unless he only did a goatee and he hated goatees. But he thought the fastest way to kill Emma's interest in it would be to offer to do it.

She looked at him for a while and then smiled. She put her finger across his upper lip and leaned back, surveying him, obviously imagining what he'd look like with a moustache. She puckered her lips and shook her head. Then she used both hands to outline his mouth, as if with a goatee. She tilted her head a few times, then shook it too. She rubbed his cheeks and pinched them lightly. He smiled warmly back at her. His lips moved, but no sound came out. She understood him to say, "You're going to be the mother of my children."

She took a step back and signed, "You keep saying more than one. I'm only carrying one, right? How do you know how many I will have?"

Peter laughed. He still felt giddy about the whole development. He signed back, "You just had your pregnancy confirmed by a guy who is in the shape of my brother and noticed your condition by _listening_ to you." He put a special emphasis on 'listening', exaggerating the sign. "You can see sounds." He sighed.

"But how do you know?" she repeated.

"It was written by a person who could see the future." There was a whole lot more to it than that, but he'd tell her the story later. They had so many other things to settle between them first. He added, "It said that you were going to have three children. I don't know if they're triplets or twins and a single, or all separate." He closed the distance between them and extended his hand slowly to her belly. He looked up at her to see her face. She smiled and looked up at him. He touched her and rubbed a small circle. "Our baby," he lip synched, and then kissed her.

Behind him he heard Claire say, "Oh… um…sorry. I thought… yeah."

He looked back. Claire was walking away. "Claire!"

She turned and paused. "Um… I can wait?"

He looked back to Emma, who smiled past him at Claire. He stepped apart from her and said to his niece, "No, come on back. I think we're done for now."

She looked between Peter and Emma, then looked over her shoulder a bit too pointedly at Gabriel, who was standing some distance away, his back to them, talking to Noah and Bridget with Heidi. Claire said, "You never told me you had a girlfriend."

Peter's eyes narrowed. He didn't like Claire's tone. And apparently Emma wasn't too wild about her body language either, or maybe it was the plain fact of the question implied in what she'd said. Emma offered, "I need to go to the bathroom before we leave, Peter." He nodded to her, understanding her hint that she wanted to get out of there when she got back.

After Emma was safely headed the other way, Peter turned back to Claire, intending to say something unpleasant. He hadn't settled on what yet. Claire walked closer, asking, "How does that work, exactly?"

"What?"

"You, her, Heidi and… him? Are all _four_ of you…?" She rotated her index finger, pointed down.

"No," Peter said firmly, but he caught himself before saying anything else. It wasn't that unreasonable an assumption, under the circumstances, though it was highly impolite to have asked. He glanced around uneasily. No one was nearby. All of Heidi's relatives had left or were leaving and none were nearby. "It's just me and him. He has Heidi and I have Emma. That's it." He pursed his lips and added, "We don't do threesomes either."

"I wasn't asking. Sorry."

"Well, it's a very personal question," he remonstrated stiffly.

"You're right. It is," she said, her voice hardening as well. "I'm sorry I thought we had a very personal relationship."

He jerked and clenched his jaw for a moment, stepping closer to her. "Claire! That's… not… I'm sorry, okay?" He shook his head and she looked away from him, towards Gabriel. Peter followed her eyes and asked, "What was that hug about earlier?"

She looked back to him. "I told him it was okay between us. I was… trying to make peace." She reached out slowly and poked him in the arm, smiling a little. "On _**your**_ account, bozo."

"Oh," he said faintly. "I'm sorry."

"We seem to be apologizing to each other a lot here," she observed.

Peter opened his mouth to apologize for that too, then shut it without a word. She smiled. "So where are they going on honeymoon?"

"Hawaii."

"Really? That's neat. How long?"

"Just three days. I'm taking them."

"Oh. You're… taking them there?"

"Yeah. Teleporting." He sighed. "The whole family. Then I've got to stay there on babysitter duty."

She blinked. "What?"

Peter looked at her, realizing it sounded like he was going with Gabriel and Heidi on their honeymoon and he's just earlier said they weren't a threesome. "Well, Emma's going too," he blurted out, and realized that did **not** help how things looked.

"Oh… kay," she said as Emma walked up. "So… um… enjoy Hawaii," Claire told her. "It was nice meeting you." She flashed a grin to a flustered Peter, who was still struggling with how to explain the tangled situation he was in, and then Claire walked off with a little bounce in her step.

"What was that about?" Emma signed to him.

He shrugged helplessly and signed, "I didn't get to tell her about the separate rooms or the suite or the things we have scheduled with my nephews or Heidi's problems with leaving little Noah with anyone but me or Gabriel, or…" He shook his head. "I think she thinks all four of us are _together_."

Emma shrugged and signed back, "Why would that be such a bad thing for her to think?"

Peter could not, for the life of him, figure out how to respond to that, so he stood there dumbfounded.

Emma signed to him, "It's not her business anyway. Come on. We need to go get our luggage."

Peter let himself be led away, still trying to kick his brain back into gear.


	177. Domestic Bliss

**A/N: Warning: Mentions of domestic violence. This takes place on April 18, the day after the wedding.**

"Ohhh…" he groaned when he got his voice back. "_**This**_ is what I have a wife for." Gabriel buried his face against her back, kissing it in post-coital bliss. They lay next to each other on the hotel bed in Hawaii, spooning. So far, it had been a nice honeymoon and they were taking full advantage of the opportunity to sleep in and have time to themselves while Peter watched the kids.

She snorted and shifted, disengaging them. She spoke with mock-outrage. "I hope you realize I have other uses than this."

"Mm. 'Course I do," he said with a growl, biting her shoulder lightly. "You take care of my children. You fix me dinner. You wash my clo- Ow!" She had elbowed him in the ribs. He followed his exclamation with an appreciative growl. "_And_ you keep me in line. I like that. I need that."

She squirmed around in the bed, rolling in place to face him. She looked at him intently, hands on his chest. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. "You need that?"

"Yeah, I need that." He gave her a peck back.

They embraced, platonically this time, but with the intimacy of lovers well accustomed to one another. Heidi let her thoughts wander back to when she'd spent almost entire days, in a literal fashion, in this man's arms. It seemed impossible that it was only a few short months ago.

It hadn't started off well. Or rather, it seemed like it did, but then he left and stayed gone and he remained away while she needed him. She was hysterical before she'd finally been able to tell him, when it was finally made clear to him that she needed him, but she still didn't think it was her fault. He should have _known_.

That first night after they got back from France, everyone left together and it was just herself, little Noah, and the man she'd thought was Nathan. It was a cruel way to leave her, but it had been proven many times before that they were willing to abandon her to the unknown. None of them had ever cared about _her_, not even the famously empathetic Peter.

Only a few days before, she'd been abducted, vivisected and murdered, miraculously restored and told that her husband had died for her, but he wasn't really her husband. She'd clung to her infant and let Nathan's brother Peter and the adoptive father of Nathan's daughter drag her around in a foreign country. Everything had fallen into place for them, like they'd planned it. She'd said nothing. She just held herself together for as long as possible.

They'd seen her to her house and introduced her to the man pretending to be Nathan, who'd never been Nathan at all. He'd looked like him. And he said he loved her, but he wasn't the father of her other two children. By extension, it meant little Noah wasn't a full brother to Simon and Monty. The blood relation didn't bother her - what bothered her was that she'd been with this man intimately for so long and never knew who his identity. He'd lied to her about everything - his name, his face, his past… everything. She'd had this man's baby, for Christ's sake!

And now, after a bare hour back home, Peter, Angela and Noah Bennet, made polite and somewhat awkward smiles (or in Peter's case, a scowl) and left, leaving her alone with this person. Something in the back of her mind confirmed, without a doubt, that this was the same person she'd known for months and that he was not the same person she'd known before she'd separated from Nathan.

She'd known this too the first time he'd come back to her, a year before, but she hadn't believed it. Because at that point she didn't believe in "abilities" and if he looked like Nathan, sounded like him, knew the things Nathan did, then he was Nathan. She'd ignored her often vague and nebulous instincts. They weren't warning her of danger, after all. They were just announcing to her a difference. She'd passed it off as the effect of time, or whatever adventures and disasters he'd been involved with. Lord knew he'd had a lot of those.

That man came to the door of the study after seeing the others out. He stood at the threshold and didn't enter. She held little Noah to herself and felt trapped. This was the man who had died for her. This was the man who had come for her, to save her. He dropped his eyes and bowed his head for a moment. She breathed a little easier. He came in and collected the dishes, taking them to the kitchen. When he returned, she was still there.

He sat down on the couch next to her - right next to her. It was a bold move, but had he made any other choice, she might have bolted. If he'd acted tentative or uncertain, it would have frightened her. Instead, he sat next to her like someone who had a right to be there. He touched her knee without asking permission, even though the touch itself was a request. He still had the face of a stranger, but she had to go to someone and this was the person she'd been put with. She'd learned to love Nathan. She clutched Noah to her and lowered her head, leaning into him. He put his arms around her, his cheek against the top of her head. Silent tears ran down her face.

She cried until the baby began to fuss and then she dutifully produced a breast for him. She'd been blessed with being basically functional in that respect. Not all women were, especially after a c-section. Nathan leaned close, his eyes on his baby, his lips parted in awe. He hadn't been given the chance, before now, to look at his son.

It was _his_ son. She was sure of that - it was this man, this false-Nathan and not the one she'd married years ago. He scooted over the half inch or so that was left between them, putting his arm over her shoulder and leaning over to watch the babe suckle. He seemed entranced. She relaxed against his warmth and let her head fall to the crook of his neck.

When Noah was done, she burped him, cleaned him and checked his diaper mechanically. She was exhausted and the feeling of Nathan pressed against her was seductive in an entirely nonsexual manner. He was here. He was with her. Maybe she could relax. Maybe she would be _safe_.

Instead of calming her, that thought seemed to galvanize her. She stood and went out into the entry. She didn't know what she wanted. Her mind was largely blank. Nathan followed her wordlessly as she roamed the house restlessly, going into every room, even the walk-in closets. She was looking for somewhere she felt safe, but she wasn't able to really think about it in words. It was just an instinct - an impulse. She paused at the doorway to their bedroom, the room she'd been in when Arthur had blinked into being and then out, taking her with him. It was the one room she didn't go into.

She went back downstairs and milled around in the foyer. There was a little sitting area next to the stairs, at a dog-leg from the front door. They tended to call it the parlor. It was open and she could see for a long way around her. She sat on the love seat there, then jumped up uneasily. She circled the room and came back to the love seat, shoving it back against the built-in, under-stair cabinets so no one could get behind it. All the while, Nathan had paced after her silently, like a shadow. He didn't ask and he didn't interfere. It was as if he knew better than she did what she was looking for and that this was a thing she had to find for herself.

Finally she sat back down and after a moment he sat next to her, putting his arm behind her. She cried on him again and he held her. They repeated the pattern of the study, with her sobbing until the baby broke the cycle and his needs trumped hers. Afterwards she folded herself into the arms of this stranger who still didn't look like Nathan, and holding her baby tightly in her arms, she managed to doze. They spent the night like that, woken every hour or so by little Noah.

Nathan hardly said a word to her, except to nuzzle her a few times and offer that he loved her. She nodded and said nothing in reply. When she needed diapers and burp cloths and other things, he fetched them. She didn't know how much she'd miss him being there with her, a warm, solid presence she could cry on or sleep against or twist her hands into his shirt or pummel a fist uselessly against his chest… she didn't know how much she'd miss him until the morning came and he left.

She remembered they'd interviewed doulas and birth coaches early on and settled on a very nice, experienced doula named Katarina. She showed up promptly at 8 am, which as it turned out was when Nathan had told her to be there. Nathan left almost immediately, saying he had business to get to. Not looking like himself probably had a lot to do with making himself scarce, but Heidi didn't think about that at the time, even with the confused expression on Katarina's face.

Heidi was so shocked by his sudden departure that it took Katarina trying to lift the baby from her arms to bring her back to reality. The reality was that she was alone again, even more alone, and now there was no one to protect her or her little baby.

She wanted to scream and hide. Instead she held her baby tightly and rocked back and forth. Katarina had seen post-partum depression before and she didn't over-react or call paramedics. She soothed. She found soup and warmed it. She touched. She calmed. Heidi finally relaxed enough to reassure the woman that Heidi's hysteria wasn't a danger to the baby.

She wasn't sure of everything that happened that day. At some point the boys returned from Angela's, with the nanny. They saw their new brother, but Heidi wouldn't let them hold him. Other than Peter and the brief moments while she had hugged her husband in the hall after their return, she hadn't let _anyone_ hold the baby. When she'd come back into the study the night before and seen Angela Petrelli holding little Noah, she'd nearly snatched him from her. Angela seemed to understand and handed the baby over so quickly that no one noticed. Since then Heidi had held him constantly, even when she went to the bathroom or ate.

Mandy arrived and left. The nanny bustled. For Heidi the day passed in a whirl of feeding and changing diapers and outfits and sitting on the love seat exhausted and apprehensive. Around dinner it was too much - too much noise and confusion and people rushing around. She retreated upstairs, finally going in their bedroom, where she laid on the bed, hopeless, depressed and drained. She had a thousand-yard stare of shock, but she still held little Noah to her.

Nathan came home looking like himself, like Nathan Petrelli. He seemed to notice she was upset, but no more than that. He told her she should have called him, like it was somehow her fault that all this had happened to her, like it was her responsibility to let him know she needed him, needed someone. She'd wanted him to come back on his own. It didn't mean anything if he didn't. She felt a slow, confusing rage build in her. _**He**_ didn't mean anything if he didn't come back to her and she made everything around her mean nothing at all. It was a strange sensation of blankness, like the thousand yard stare she'd had earlier.

He struggled away from her and fell. She left the baby on the bed and went to him, but he told her to leave. Even though she was feeling herself doing it, she wasn't linking cause and effect. He was bleeding and suffering and that wasn't really what she had wanted, even though she felt a terrifying thrill of satisfaction at seeing it. It frightened her, that feeling of power over another. She ran out of the room and swayed at the top of the stairs. If she went down them she'd fall. She knew it for sure. There was some reason why she shouldn't just fall down the stairs. She tried to think of it. All she could think was that she deserved to fall because of whatever she'd just done to him.

Nathan called out to her and she went back to the bedroom, feeling like she was sleepwalking. He had little Noah in his arms. She went to take him back, feeling so numb. She knew… she thought she should be ripping the baby away from him and holding him protectively, but she just took him back normally, even letting him take the baby from her a second time. He talked to her about her ability. She answered dully and they slept together again. This time it was on the bed, with him spooning behind her and her holding Noah. She slept a little better, despite the interruptions every hour or two for feeding and changing.

She didn't cry. She just did what she could mechanically. In the morning, the nanny took care of the boys and Mandy helped out. Katarina came back by and Nathan left immediately thereafter. Maybe he'd thought she was in good hands. Certainly she had a lot of help. At one point she let Katarina hold the baby and Heidi walked away. She locked herself in her bedroom and wouldn't come out until nearly two hours later. She'd felt insane and she was certainly hallucinating. Between the hormones, sleep deprivation and emotional trauma, she was a wreck.

Nathan came back in the late afternoon and Katarina took him aside immediately. It was the last time he went out for the next week. After whatever talking-to the doula gave him, he was with Heidi twenty-four hours a day. That night when they were alone she'd attacked him for leaving her, using her fists and her fingernails and then the alarm clock and finally the metal lioness statuette Bridget had given her. It was a display of physical abusiveness she would have never thought was in her. It shocked her, but it didn't stop her. She hit him and he didn't heal so she hit him again and again. He buckled before her, not even putting up a token defense.

When she collapsed sobbing on the bed, he crawled up behind her, still bloody from where the sharp edge of the broken plastic of the clock had cut his scalp, his face still broken from where she'd hit him with the statue. He spooned behind her and curled an arm protectively around her despite what she'd done. That was when she found out how to turn off her ability and let him have his. He didn't ask her to, but he breathed unevenly and she thought he must be crying. She focused on stopping whatever it was she was doing. She focused on being in the now and the right here and feeling reality, instead of the numbing unreality of her ability. After a while his breathing steadied and he curled around her, holding her tightly. She had become his security blanket as much as he was hers.

From then on they fell asleep that way, though they rarely stayed twined together so closely through the night. Nathan only slept four hours a night and she was up and down anyway feeding the baby. It took most of a month before she could bear to have Noah spend the night in the crib instead of holding him.

It wasn't the only time she turned on Nathan, but it was by far the worst. She remembered snapping at him and being vicious. She threw a lamp at him once for having the gall to suggest using a bottle. She remembered his caution, but also his patience and steadiness. He rarely spoke to her, but he usually seemed to know what she needed. In retrospect she thought it was possible he'd been reading her mind, but apparently not all the time because she was still able to surprise him from time to time. He touched her constantly. He reassured her. She let him hold the baby. He was gentle and careful and probably did a better job than she did, because she was recovering so slowly.

He didn't ask her to be any other way. He didn't tell her she was overreacting or that she needed to pull herself together or that he'd had enough and was going to put a stop to this nonsense. He took any blow she dished out with equanimity and a calm that defused her after those first frenzied attacks. Something terrible had happened to her and she hardly knew who she was anymore. If it made her prone to violence, that was certainly something he seemed to understand. He empathized.

She stopped caring what face he wore. He was the father of her baby and he was the one with her, holding her, comforting her and loving her. That was all she wanted. He took care of the boys, their house, their baby and he took care of her. She leaned on him and he supported her.

And now the platonic embrace in the hotel bed had gone on for long enough. He was stirring again, with the near-perpetual readiness that came with his regeneration. She smiled. Somehow she'd ended up with a man who had the sex drive of a twenty year old and could take the face of any lover she wanted. _Well, they say men hit their sexual peak at 21 and women not until their late 30s. I suppose we're pretty well matched then after all. _She shifted her leg over his and lifted it along his thigh, curling her arms around his shoulders.

He growled again and smiled at her, accepting her invitation. They kissed. They loved. The shared each other.


	178. Faulty Logic

Noah watched as Maury glad-handed the new directors of the Company as they headed out, the day's conference at an end. He looked very sincere. Noah observed his technique with professional detachment. Once they were gone and the door was shut, Maury let the smile fall off his face abruptly enough that Noah risked picking it up himself. He didn't though. Instead he exhaled and rubbed his forehead, looking back at his notes and thinking, _I wish I hadn't forgotten my laptop. Then I could have typed these notes in as they happened, instead of trying to decipher my scribbling tonight. And why do I have this terrible headache?_

"It's the caffeine," Maury supplied.

Noah looked at him blankly, having no idea what he was talking about. It was just a spontaneous utterance. Noah glanced at the door, wondering if he was talking about the number of sodas Micah had downed. He'd been kind of hopped up, which had been plenty annoying. It bothered Noah a great deal that he was now working for someone the same age as his son Lyle.

"No. Your headache. You had those two overpriced grande double-shot-whatevers yesterday and couldn't get to sleep last night. Then you overslept this morning, got in a rush, forgot your laptop and didn't have time to stop and get more of that liquid crack. Since you're so hooked on the stuff, you turned up your nose at black," Maury thumped his empty coffee cup to punctuate his comment, "and now you're having withdrawal. It's the caffeine."

_Smart-ass,_ Noah's mind offered disrespectfully before he clamped down on his thoughts. Not only was he tired and had a headache, but he'd become so run-down that his defenses had faltered. He fixed that. Maury smirked and started clearing off the table. The three of the Halo four were tidy. Al-Walid and Rebel were not. Belatedly, Noah realized he shouldn't be letting a director clean up after him. He hurried to stand and help.

"I've got it," Maury said mildly. Noah was undeterred. The conference room was soon back to near-pristine condition. They were meeting in the Company's brand-spanking-new Pinehearst facility in Fort Lee, New Jersey, built across the lot from the ruins of the previous location. It had been bull-dozed and paved over for the parking lot, or at least that was how it looked. Most of the underground had been preserved and refurbished, or even expanded on. Rene had had done a lot of work afterwards erasing the memories of contractors.

As they packed up, Noah realized that a moment alone with Maury was something he'd been waiting for. "Oh! I… had a question for you." Maury set his battered briefcase back down. "Or, a situation, perhaps." Noah concluded.

"Go on."

"A while ago, I talked to Gabriel about getting some self defense training and last week we finally had a chance to get together. Michael reserved a gym and Peter came along." Actually, Peter's participation had been the goal, but Noah didn't slant it that way. "Gabriel had a few problems in the boxing ring and I'd like to see if you have any comment. When he fought Peter and I – separately – he had a lot of trouble bringing himself to hit either of us and when he did, he misbehaved. He did fine against Michael though."

"What do you mean – misbehaved?"

"Well, for Peter he sucker punched him in one bout and tripped him in the next. There for a moment I thought he was going to do something a lot more serious. Against me, I'm pretty sure he was using telekinesis to back up his punches. He cracked my ribs and he's just not that strong. The rules were no abilities. But against Michael, he acted fine and kept his temper more than most people would. He got beat to the mat time after time and he handled it fairly well, even with Peter laughing at him."

Maury chortled. "Peter was laughing at him?"

"Yeah."

"Boy, that's dumb. Someone needs to bring that man up on charges for reckless endangerment, even if it's usually himself he's endangering."

"Tell me about it. So what's your take on this?"

Maury rubbed his chin, then his cheeks. "You think someone got to him?"

Noah gave Maury a sour look. He knew who had done it. Gabriel had told him Maury had given him commands. But it was always interesting to see what Maury would confirm or deny. Noah simply didn't answer.

Maury sat down. "How sure are you that he was using TK on you?"

"Do you think he could crack my ribs without it, while wearing boxing gloves?"

"You're right. Watchmakers and desk jockeys aren't known for their muscle tone." He drummed his fingers on the table. "How did you get him to stop?"

Noah put one leg up on the table, sitting on it sideways. "Against me, I popped him in the nose and bloodied it. He stopped it himself. Against Peter, he put him down and that was it."

"You said it looked like it was going to get serious. When was that?"

"The second time he put Peter down. The first time, Peter got back up normally, but Gabriel was all over him, concerned, had his guard down, trying to help – things you don't do to someone you just knocked out. Of course Peter was a good sport about it. The second time he stood over him and Peter just laid there. He was conscious, but he didn't move."

"He surrendered."

"Yes, I suppose so." Noah was silent for a moment, thinking about that. He added a little more quietly, "Do you think Peter's been hurt by him before? You said, in your report, that Peter had…" He tried to remember exactly what it had said. What had stuck in his memory was violent sex, but that wasn't what was worrying him. "You said he wasn't abusive, but is he hitting him?"

"Oh, sure." Maury said it so casually that Noah stood up in outrage. Maury sighed at the reaction. "Noah, Gabriel is an ultraviolent. You read the psych profile. Anyone who stands up to him is going to get it and Peter's prone to doing just that. Next thing you know, they'll start in on the furniture. What you need to do is have him spar against his clear subordinates. He won't hurt them. At least, not on purpose, not bad. But you put him up against people he might see as rivals for dominance, like yourself or Peter, and he's going to have a lot of trouble reining himself in. There's a lot of buttons getting pushed in that situation. Remember to submit and you'll be safe, but you have to survive long enough to do that. I've provoked the hell out of him and gotten by with it a few times."

The old man laughed and stood up. "He even knows what I'm doing and it makes him pissy, but that's all. A few other times though, he hit me so hard and fast I didn't have a chance. You put yourself in that position and you're taking your life into your hands there, buddy. Don't forget how he killed Nathan – one quick slice and that's that."

Noah noticed Maury had never said anything about preventing Gabriel from hurting Peter. His lack of concern over the commands probably indicated Maury had done it. It was possible it meant Maury hadn't and he was going to investigate discreetly. In that case, Gabriel had either lied to him (which seemed very unlikely) or misidentified who gave him the command. He tapped his upper lip. "Is there any benefit to having him and Peter spar together?"

"I can think of a lot of downsides. What benefits are you thinking of?"

Noah exhaled sharply. "If he… learns to fight within rules and structure, it might bleed over into other parts of his life."

"Got your logic backwards."

Noah pursed his lips and waited for Maury to explain.

He did, saying, "You're thinking that if he obeys the rules publicly, then maybe he will privately. What you've already seen though is the flip side of that – he's behaving publicly like he does privately, because you haven't yet hammered into him that he has to act a different way. You beat that lesson into him and he'll learn it." Maury shook his finger at Noah with a very serious expression. "It won't make a damn bit of difference in how he treats Peter or anyone else in private. Well… it might. Might frustrate him and make him take it out on them when they're alone."

Noah crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

Maury leaned on the table. "Here's your downsides: One – you get Gabriel comfortable with hurting Peter. That's not good. You've already got him hitting him and I'm not happy about that. Two – you get Peter comfortable with being hurt by him. Not good either. He's already had that experience. Notice he's figured out how to defuse Gabe. I didn't tell him that and he's no dummy. Three – you're creating a situation in their lives where they're antagonists, where one wins by making the other lose. That's the worst. If Peter does beat him, Gabriel's not going to be able to drop it. His ego's too big. If he has to lie, cheat or steal to win, he'll do it. You've already seen that. Learn from it, Noah. You're smarter than this."

Maury looked over Noah's closed body language. "If you want to keep Peter safe, get them to work together. Make it so that in order for Gabriel to win and get that ego-stroke he so desperately wants, he has to help Peter win. What Gabriel needs is some experience being a team player and being valued for it. Wouldn't hurt Peter either. He has a tendency to run off and do things himself when the group isn't going the direction he wants."

Noah nodded. "I've noticed."

Maury chuckled. As Peter's work partner, Noah had had lots of opportunity to notice. Peter had been written up a number of times for abandoning his partner or refusing to follow the senior agent's orders. Him rushing off to join Rebel was just the latest in a long string of proofs of his inability to work well in a partnership. Maury had no clue if Peter would be able to pull it together for Gabriel, but personally his money was on Peter for screwing things up between them, if that happened. "So, uh… tell me, did Peter have any trouble hitting Gabriel?"

"No."

"Huh. You might want to think about that." Maury picked up his briefcase and headed out, leaving Noah to ponder what exactly he meant with that parting comment.


	179. Needs

The look Heidi gave Peter told him this wasn't a conversation he was supposed to be part of. It wasn't like breastfeeding was something he knew much about, anyway. He stood, saying, "I'm going to go see what Nathan is up to," and excused himself. From Heidi's expression, he was doing the right thing. Heidi was telling Emma the mechanics of 'latching on' as he walked up the stairs.

After their bridge game had broken up for the evening, Gabriel, looking like Nathan tonight as he usually did when he was at his house, had gone upstairs to make sure the boys were in bed and check on little Noah. He hadn't come back down, but no one was worried. Peter found him on the balcony, a black silhouette against the dark sky. The younger man walked out, shutting the glass door behind him. Gabriel turned his head for a moment, then went back to staring off into the night, leaning on the railing.

Peter walked next to him, then turned and leaned against the balcony, facing the house. He put his hands on the rail on either side of himself. A moment passed in comfortable silence. Nathan shifted his weight and when his hands came down again one of them rested lightly atop Peter's. Just like that, they were touching.

It was nice. It was comforting. There was a bond between them that the touch affirmed and signaled. It warmed him. Peter had doubted Gabriel would be able to get through the evening without making some display of affection that wasn't entirely fraternal. Gabriel had mostly behaved himself on the honeymoon, but even then he had a few slips. It was as if most people had an internal censor or sense of appropriateness that Gabriel simply lacked and he struggled to act right, doing it by observing and copying rather than innately _knowing_. They were missteps Nathan would have never made, but this wasn't Nathan making them.

Peter was pretty sure both women would be mightily upset if their men did anything, but the simple contact was hardly objectionable. It could almost be passed off as accidental. In the dimness, it was unlikely anyone could even tell.

Gabriel said nothing. Peter smiled and shut his eyes, just feeling the moment and hearing the city humming along behind him. He thought about how different Gabriel was from Nathan - one of those differences being that he constantly checked and rechecked with Peter to see if everything was okay between them. Peter could hardly be with him without Gabriel touching him to see if he was still welcome, still accepted.

Gabriel loved him _**desperately**_. It was something that had given Peter pause more than once in dealing with him. It was flattering, but it was also _weird_. He had to resist the very human urge to be disrespectful of someone who needed him so acutely. Fortunately, Peter liked it when people needed him. Most of the time, it pushed all the right buttons for him, but it still made it hard to treat him as an equal.

Gabriel didn't act needy with Heidi, though he was clearly just as in love with her. This evening had been illustrative of that. With her, he was content. He was satisfied. He was secure. With Peter he was always afraid. It made Peter wonder if he was doing something wrong in the relationship, or if there was something Gabriel needed from him he just wasn't getting enough of.

"Do you remember," Peter inquired, "a few weeks ago when I asked you why you needed me so much?"

Gabriel shifted his weight again, lifting his hand away. Just like that, they weren't touching anymore. Peter glanced sideways at him, but all he could see was the other man's profile. As Peter recalled, Gabriel had withdrawn from him before when he asked that question. Peter, more than most, noticed the myriad emotional plays and nuances other people made. He didn't ask them for an explanation for every curious action any more than he demanded they always tell him the truth. He'd thought about Gabriel's withdrawal then and just as now, he didn't know quite what to make of it.

Gabriel said, "I remember." His tone was clipped.

"You said it was because of Nathan." Gabriel didn't respond. He just looked up into the sky. Peter filled the silence, asking, "What does that mean?"

Gabriel shifted his weight again. Peter turned towards him, peering at him in the dark. The other man kept glancing over at him. Gabriel offered, "I love you, Pete."

"I know. That's not in doubt and it's not what I'm asking. I know you love me. I love you. But…"

Gabriel cut in, his tone vicious, "But I'm **pathetic**, is that what you're getting at?" When Peter said nothing and just stood there blinking in hurt surprise, he went on, "I follow you around like a whipped dog, always looking for-" He cut himself off, shook his head, exhaled forcefully and looked out at the night.

_Is that how he really feels? No, there's something else there, making him scared and angry._ "Always looking for what?"

He saw a flash of white, teeth bared at him in the dark. Gabriel put his head down and shook it again. Peter asked, "Is this something you _can't_ talk about?" There were hang-ups that Gabriel couldn't bring himself to discuss, things that were too painful and Peter generally left those sore spots be. They weren't done healing.

"No," Gabriel said sullenly.

He waited. For a long while, there was no other answer. Peter turned back to face the house, leaving it alone, but the silence now was no longer comfortable.

Gabriel straightened finally and said, "Do you want an analytical answer, or an emotional one?"

Peter tilted his head, looking over at him. "Give me both."

"Fine. Analytical. Nathan always wanted his father's approval. Gabriel always wanted his mother's. Gabriel hated your father, so that puts him out. Nathan didn't even know Gabriel's mother, so that puts _her_ out. Noah was shooting me all the time last summer, Angela was trying to talk me into being a monster and Heidi was having trouble coping with the pregnancy. That left you.

"I was falling apart inside. I went to you for help because…" He coughed, clearing his throat. "Because you were the only one who would. I thought you might, if I acted like Nathan enough." He finished softly, almost too quietly for Peter to hear, "And you did."

Gabriel cleared his throat again and stared down. "You… you came on to me. I thought…" He was silent so long Peter believed the explanation had ended, but then Gabriel finished, "I thought that was a condition of being… being… of having your friendship."

_You thought you had to have sex with me for me to help you? _Peter's mouth opened and shut. He was glad the darkness cloaked his reaction, but at Gabriel's appraising glance his way, he realized the man was hearing every physical response he was having. Peter took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. _You thought the only way you could be my friend was to let me fuck you?_ The distressing part was it was very likely true. Peter hadn't cared, **at all**, about Gabriel's problems until after they became involved. He recalled thinking that explicitly when Gabriel had shown up after Heidi threw him out the first time: '_Why is Sylar's marriage my problem?_'

Peter remembered that first time and how insensitive he'd been. In retrospect it wasn't so much of a surprise that the second time went so badly. Peter had made so many wrong assumptions. It wasn't like his recent behavior had been sterling either, what with dumping Gabriel so abruptly. He rubbed at his chest. It was tight with emotion. He didn't interrupt. He listened intently because this was _important_ and getting Gabriel to open up like this was rare.

Gabriel shrugged. "So that's the analytical explanation: I have a personality that is predisposed to sucking up to authority figures, reinforced by Maury Parkman's obnoxious commands, and you made yourself available, setting the initial pattern with sex." His voice shook, but he gritted his teeth and said it anyway. "I took what I could get."

Peter turned and reached for him, but there was a wall of unseen force between them. He blinked at it, then leaned back to where he had been before. Gabriel didn't want pity. His anger earlier made perfect sense now. He thought his feelings made him pathetic and weak. Peter thought it made him human and was a sign of his strength that he would speak of it. After a beat Peter prompted, "What's the emotional answer?"

"I love you. I need you. I could give a shit about why as long as you'll have me. I'm glad things worked out as they did. Don't think the sex was a one-way street. Nathan made me gay, not you." Peter swallowed his objections about the difference between being gay and bisexual, as well as his comments on the fluidity of sexual expression and attraction. Gabriel was continuing anyway, "I would have never been this close to you without it. **I like it. I **_**want**_** it**." He turned to Peter with the sudden emphasis, then his voice grew fearful and small. "Please don't let this come between us, in bed or anywhere else, Peter."

He nodded and blinked, his eyes wet.

"Nathan's _always_ been attracted to you, from as soon as you were old enough. It came through just like all his other preferences. Having you with me gives me peace. It makes me happy with myself. I can list off reasons, but I don't really know _why_. I need you so bad it tears me apart not to have you. When you hated me, it was a wound that wouldn't heal. I felt like I was drowning." Gabriel added in a whisper, "I'm grateful someone loves me after everything I've done. I don't deserve it."

"Heidi loves you too," Peter offered.

"I know. But Heidi doesn't know everything I've done. Not even most of it." He shrugged. "On the plus side, I don't think she cares. I've finally figured that out. I don't need to hide from her."

"You don't need to hide from **me**, either." At Gabriel's look, Peter elaborated, "Gabriel, I spent last summer reading your file, researching Sylar, learning everything I could. I know what he's done. I know what Nathan's done. Neither one of you were saints." He looked away from the shadowed eyes that bored into him with an almost unnatural intensity, glinting in the dim light. "I know about Matt." He looked back. He wished he could see Gabriel's expression, but it was lost to him in the dark. "I know, I knew, Sylar had more to him than being a villain. I saw you in the future, being a good father, loving a little boy named Noah." He smiled at the memory. "You had Mr. Muggles."

"Mr. Muggles?"

"Claire mother's dog."

"Why would I have their dog?" Gabriel mused.

Peter shrugged. "That's… not a future that's going to come to pass, so I don't think you need to worry about it. My point is that you were a good person. I know you can be." He looked away again briefly. "And I know you're not perfect." He looked back, taking a half step closer. This time there was no barrier between them, but Peter stopped a little short anyway. "Gabriel, I'm okay with that. I accept that – just the way you are is fine. You don't have to change." More softly he added, "It hurts to see you flinch away from me."

Gabriel snorted softly and turned to look back out at the city. "You're a pretty scary man, Peter. And that's coming from _**me**_."

Peter laughed and turned back to face the house. That was hard to believe, but apparently a lot of people thought that lately. Peter wondered if he should be worried about it. For the moment, he dismissed it, noticing he and Gabriel were back to their original positions. He reached out to the side and put his hand on top of Gabriel's, curling his fingers around it. Even in the dark, he could see the set of the other man's shoulders shift as he relaxed. Gabriel gave him a squeeze and just like that, everything was good between them.


	180. Bowling

"This is not fair," Gabriel sulked as Peter sat down next to him. He picked up his soda and finished it off.

"It's completely fair," Peter said as they sat in the bowling alley, watching Emma line up for her shot. "What, are you mad I wouldn't let you keep using telekinesis?"

Gabriel reached out and made a characteristic gesture with his index finger. "One good swipe and all those pins would go down. In pieces, even. I don't need a _ball!_"

Peter ignored the wet blanket for a moment to grin and cheer at Emma's strike. He high-fived her as she came back. Heidi lined up for her turn. They'd divided into teams of girls and boys, which seemed fairest based on experience. Gabriel had none at all. Heidi had played a grand total of twice. Peter had played a score of times in college and nursing school, but he was no expert. Emma, on the other hand, was really good. If Peter and Emma had been on the same team, it would have been embarrassingly one-sided. Emma and Gabriel on a team hadn't even been brought up. Peter hoped at least that Gabriel would pick it up soon. He'd spurned Peter's attempt to give him advice, so for now Peter was leaving him to figure it out on his own.

Peter turned back to Gabriel. "It's a complex system. I'd think intuitive aptitude would help you out here."

"It might, but you turned it off!" Gabriel continued to pout about Peter having nullified his abilities. He had not, as of yet, returned the favor, which he thought was very generous of himself. Of course, Peter hadn't been using them to better their score.

"It didn't seem to be helping you much before, either," Peter observed.

Gabriel shook his head, standing. It would be his turn next. "Just because I understand it doesn't mean I can translate that into how my body moves. Now if I had muscle memory too… There are a lot of abilities I'd still like to have."

Peter frowned at him, not sure how worried he should be about such an admission. Was it just a casual observation, or was Gabriel trying to tell him something about how the Hunger preyed on him? Peter knew it did.

Heidi came back from her set, asking over the loud music of the place, "What are you two arguing about?"

Peter shrugged off his speculation about the Hunger and rolled his eyes. "He keeps trying to cheat."

She laughed easily. "Oh, he's always been prone to cheating on me." Gabriel turned with his mouth open to object, but she slapped him on the ass and said something to him Peter couldn't hear. Whatever it was, Gabriel was mollified and he picked up his ball.

Watching across the space between the seats, Emma signed to him, "Is everything okay?"

Peter responded in kind, "Yeah, he's just making a show. He's not really angry." And he wasn't. Peter knew Gabriel well enough now to know his moods. He turned to watch Gabriel line up his shot carefully, then watch another bowler two lanes over. He shook his head, took two steps forward, swung his arm, turned his wrist slightly and released his ball so it could explore the gutter before getting half-way down the lane. He stared after the traitorous bowling ball. _**Now**__ he's getting angry,_ Peter thought, reading the tension in his posture and his tighter, more limited movements.

Peter stood up and walked over to him as Gabriel came back and got another ball. Peter didn't say anything. He just held up a hand, dipped his head a little and looked upwards at him. Gabriel glared at him and then rolled his eyes and looked away. It was too loud to have a verbal conversation unless they were right next to each other. Peter nodded once and stepped closer now that permission had been given. He leaned in to be heard. "You need to keep your arm straight. You're turning your wrist. Keep it straight."

"You said earlier not to be too stiff," Gabriel snapped.

"I know." Peter glanced back at Heidi and Emma, concerned they might misread what he was about to do. He'd been very careful, almost hypervigilent, really, not to touch Gabriel while in their presence. He hadn't noticed how much they _did_ touch until he'd tried to stop. He wanted, very much, for the four of them to be able to get together as double couples, but that was only going to happen if no one felt their claim on their lover was threatened. Peter hadn't discussed it with Gabriel, but it seemed both men had reached the same conclusion.

Now he took Gabriel's arm as they turned to the lane and positioned him. "Like this." Gabriel cooperated with it, but Peter heard him make a frustrated noise. This time instead of giving up and leaving Gabriel to it, Peter leaned in and said, "Listen, we're on a team together here. If you lose, I lose. You can be good at this. I know you can."

"I'm going to get a cramp without regeneration."

Peter looked at him, knowing Gabriel was testing the waters for Peter to let him use his abilities again. Peter declined to recognize the insinuation, saying instead, "That's why you shouldn't tense up too much. Line it up dots to arrows," he pointed at the range finders on the lane, "and keep it straight. It doesn't matter fast or slow - as long as it gets to the end. I don't know very much, but that seems to work for me. Okay?" He dipped his head again, looking up into Gabriel's face, and clapped him on the shoulder. Gabriel nodded and Peter walked back to the ball caddy.

After a moment, Gabriel tried again, this time getting four pins down. He seemed happier with himself and wandered off to order a drink – alcoholic this time and strong, because Peter was right and he needed to relax. Peter picked out his ball and glanced over at Emma, who signed to him, "Good luck." He smiled at her and went to his lane. He got a 7-10 split right off the bat, followed by a simple miss as he opted for pin on the right. He grunted and went back to his seat.

Gabriel was in the middle of the bench with his arms flung out to either side, unconsciously staking his claim and making it impossible for Peter to sit down without Gabriel's arm behind his back. Normally he wouldn't care, but they were in public, right in front of significant others. Peter stared at him for a moment until Gabriel got the hint and put his arms down. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, watching Emma's turn.

Emma's first throw left a single lonely pin on the left. Gabriel made a scoffing noise at how easy she made it look. He stood up and paced restlessly for the moment. Emma knocked out that last pin on the second ball and walked back, smiling. Peter had eyes only for her at that moment. She was beautiful and happy and he felt happy just looking at her. She stopped to return his gaze, turning her back to Gabriel, and signed to Peter, "He likes you touching him."

Peter stiffened and barely caught himself from shooting a look past her at Gabriel. He didn't know how to respond so he didn't.

She signed, "It's okay. It's funny. Your body language to each other is as clear as sign. Earlier you went up to him and asked, 'can I talk to you?' and he answered, 'yeah, but I'm frustrated and angry, so make it quick.'"

Peter grinned and chuckled. That had been the exchange all right.

Emma turned to watch Heidi's second throw, which was a gutter ball. Heidi looked miffed. Gabriel walked back to stand next to his seat. Heidi came to stand by Emma and told the men, "If I keep playing like that, you guys are going to catch up!"

Gabriel downed half his drink, stood up and eyed the scoreboard. He looked back at Peter, who was still looking at Emma, mooning at her. Gabriel snorted and picked up a ball. Heidi came over beside him and spoke into his ear before he straightened. "Are you jealous?"

He looked back again and shook his head. "No. It's just I-" _want to use my abilities. I'm losing and I don't know how to hold up my end_. "…I'm not very good at this."

"Neither am I, sport. What did Peter tell you?"

He repeated the advice and she said, "That's close to what Emma told me. Let's see." They walked to the start of the lane, discussed the position of the range finders and Gabriel played with different grips on the ball. Heidi gave him a peck on the cheek and he smiled warmly at her. He turned back to the lane, took one long step forward and released the ball in a straight, natural movement. It went right down the middle and struck down every pin there. He stared after it in wonder. Heidi gave him another peck. "Now I've done it. We're gonna lose for sure." She shook her head and walked back.

Peter cheered him enthusiastically when he came back and Emma was clapping happily for him. Gabriel had a huge, silly grin on his face. "Dumb luck," he muttered. "I don't know what I did." He sat down, but only for a moment before what he had at first interpreted as Peter clapping him on the back clearly became him being urged back up. He looked at Peter questioningly.

"You have another ball!" Peter said, shouting over the music. He pointed at the ball caddy.

"Oh!" Gabriel fetched ball number two. This time, he only managed to take out the three pins on the left, but he was still very pleased it hadn't gone in the gutter.

At the end of the game, Peter and Gabriel ceded to their rivals. The ladies had narrowly beaten them, with Gabriel getting better at first, then consistently worse at the end as he seemed to not care about the game anymore. He'd also become a little louder and more touchy to everyone.

Emma signed to Peter, who translated to the rest of them, "How about we get something to eat at the restaurant here before we go home?"

"Sure," Heidi said.

Gabriel nodded cheerfully, scooping up his latest drink. He'd been knocking them back faster as the evening had worn on. Peter's brows drew together. There was something off there, but he was distracted from contemplating it by their arrival at a table. He settled into the seat next to Emma. Gabriel sat opposite and Heidi next to Gabriel, opposite Emma. The menu was short.

Heidi said of the food selection, "Well… I don't think there's anything on here that's not fried."

"We could go somewhere else," Peter offered.

"No, it's okay," she said. "Maybe some of their mushrooms? You don't eat meat, do you?"

"I try not to," Peter said.

"Mushrooms sound great," Gabriel said, smiling contentedly. He looked to Emma and said, "Would you split some fries with me?"

Emma nodded, while Peter said to Heidi, "It's not a big deal. Order what you want."

"No, mushrooms are good. We'll get mushrooms and fries."

The decision made and order placed, Gabriel leaned back in his chair and slid the toe of his foot up the back of Peter's calf, making him jump and give Gabriel a dirty look. When that only made Gabriel waggle his eyebrows and try to do it again, Peter pulled his chair back a little and tucked his feet under it. Emma glanced over at that. Rebuffed, Gabriel sighed and put his arm around his wife, pulling her in and whispering in her ear. Her eyes tracked to Peter and she pulled away from Gabriel.

"Oh, come on!" he said complainingly. "I love you both. You know that! We're just one great big, happy, weird Petrelli family!"

Peter sat up tensely, wondering why this was coming out at the moment.

Heidi patted Gabriel indulgently and pushed him away. She looked at Peter. "Would you stop blocking his abilities? He's drunk."

"What? Oh!" He ended the nullification immediately. _Well, that explains why he's acting like he's three sheets to the wind – it might be because he is._

"What?" Gabriel echoed, looking perplexed as regeneration eliminated most of the effects of the alcohol in his system, cancelling it like a toxin. "Oh." He looked around the table, then sat up from the relaxed slouch he'd been in before. He pulled back from Peter. "Um… sorry."

"No, I…" Peter said, "…should have remembered." He looked away too. Quite a bit of tense silence settled around the table.

"I don't see what's wrong," Emma said, looking at the reactions of the two men. "Peter and I talked about it. It's okay that he's with you. What's weird is that you both act like guilty children. I wasn't okay with it at first, but if this is how it is, then that's how it is. Why are you acting like this now?" She gestured at the exaggerated distance between them, now that Gabriel didn't have his judgment impaired and inhibitions loosened.

Peter's eyes went back and forth between Heidi and Gabriel. Gabriel was watching Emma intently, and probably using telepathy on her. Peter scooted his chair back to the table, reached out and gave Gabriel's shin a firm nudge. At his look, Peter said, "Don't read her mind." Gabriel looked down and adjusted the location of his glass on the coaster. He didn't deny it.

Emma signed to Peter, "He's reading my mind?"

Peter swallowed, concerned that all manner of things were hitting the fan tonight. But he was tired of Gabriel taking liberties he wasn't entitled to, and he was much more sensitive about it when it concerned Emma than himself. If she gave permission, as she had for certain situations with Peter, that was one thing. But Gabriel did not have that permission.

Peter spoke his answer, facing her. "Gabriel doesn't know sign language. When you sign to him, he reads your surface thoughts to see what you're trying to say. And… I think that because he's done that, sometimes when he doesn't understand what you're getting at, he looks deeper."

She looked at Gabriel, who looked off to the side.

Heidi said, "I feel it when he tries to do that to me. If I don't want him to, I just end his ability. I don't think he's tried in a month or two."

"I'm sitting right here," Gabriel grumbled, still looking down.

"I want you to apologize," Emma said firmly and loudly.

"I'm sorry," he said immediately, tucking his face down further.

Emma looked between Peter and Heidi, then said, "I can't see what you said."

He sighed, lifted his face, looked her in the eye and said, "I'm sorry." He looked down again after, hunching his shoulders.

The waiter came by and delivered drinks, telling them their order would be right out. Emma sipped her soda, watching Gabriel, who continued to look contrite and uncomfortable. She looked to Peter and signed, "He doesn't know sign language?"

"No."

"So every time I've signed to him he's been reading my mind?"

"I guess so."

"And you knew?"

Peter sighed. Of course he was in trouble too. "The first time I realized it was at the wedding and you'd already had a conversation with him that way. I… didn't want to cause a scene." _So instead, I've made one now, because I got ticked at myself for forgetting that blocking his abilities blocked regeneration too. What I really want to know is if he knew that and got drunk on purpose. Or if just nullifying his abilities makes him so nervous that he starts drinking. To hell with it – there's an easy way to find out. _He looked at Gabriel and said, "Why did you switch from soda to liquor?"

Gabriel made a dismissive gesture. "You blocked my abilities. We were losing. The game was hard. I don't fucking know." Gabriel glanced over at Heidi, then Peter, then away, huffing.

Heidi said, "I've told him he can drink as long as he doesn't get drunk."

Gabriel steamed, "Do we really need to have a fight right now about stupid stuff?"

"Invading people's privacy is **not** 'stupid stuff'!" Peter said, sitting up tensely, teeth bared.

Emma put one hand on Peter's forearm and extended the other to Gabriel in a 'stop' gesture. He fell silent, swallowing the retort he had been about to issue. She said, "I accept your apology. You can use your ability on me only so much as you need to understand what I'm signing, when I'm signing to _you_, or to a group you're part of. Is that okay?"

He blinked at her, and nodded. "Thank you. That's… more than I expected."

She looked at Peter. "You don't need to defend me. He was just trying to talk to me."

Peter calmed down. In retrospect, he figured Gabriel was classifying getting drunk as 'stupid stuff', not the use of telepathy. The waiter came out with their orders and for a while they ate quietly, negotiating who got which plastic cup of dressing for dipping the mushrooms and passing the ketchup for the fries. After a while Emma said, "I still think we should talk, the four of us, about you two. When the four of us are out together, you don't have to act…"

She shrugged and Heidi finished, "Straight?"

Emma smiled. "I was thinking more like 'awkward.'"

Gabriel extended a hand partly across the table to Peter, who eyed it and put his hand on the table about an inch away, but didn't take it. He was looking where Gabriel was, which was at Heidi. Gabriel said to her quietly, "You said for me to never embarrass you and to keep it discreet. Will this embarrass you?"

She looked from him to Peter, who was sitting still and waiting. She looked worried. Gabriel pulled his hand back and put his other on the top of her thigh. "Heidi, I love you. You're very important to me."

"It's okay." She sounded uncertain. Peter tilted his head. More clearly she said, "It's okay." Then she spoiled it by adding, "I guess."

Emma shrugged. "At least we're talking and it's out in the open." She snagged the last of the fries.

They sat quietly for a bit, relaxing. After a while Heidi said, "I feel like such a spoilsport, and all I want is to keep my husband."

"You're not losing me. Anymore than you lose me to the Company or the law firm or to Angela." He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Listen… Peter and I… we don't sleep as much as normal people do. What about if we get nights – just the late at night part, after you've gone to bed, just like when you were pregnant and I'd go out after you were settled in?"

She looked cautiously at Peter. "Would that be enough?"

Peter smiled. "I have a crazy schedule. But maybe I want custody of him one day every other week too. Is that okay?"

Gabriel blinked at him in surprise that Peter would ask for him. A lot of the time he worried Peter just put up with him out of some kind of misplaced martyr complex.

"One day every two weeks?" Heidi asked. "That's not much. Sure."

"I'll take more if I can have it," he said, grinning and leaning forward, after a quick glance at Emma to make sure she wasn't upset.

"How much time are you spending with Emma?" Gabriel asked. "I don't want you things to be unfair…"

"I'm moving in with her," Peter said.

Gabriel jerked a little. "What? When?"

"I'm already spending a lot of time over there. Just seems easier, and she said yes."

"What are you going to do with your apartment?"

"I don't know. Let it go, I guess."

"No, I'll pay for it."

"Really? Why?"

"So… you know, we need someplace." Gabriel glanced over at Emma and Heidi. He doubted that him being intimate with Peter at either of their places would go over well and there was no way he was going to frequent hotels or the beach house all the time.

Peter's brows rose, then he smiled. "Okay. I… uh, hadn't really thought about that." He turned back to Heidi. "So can I push it to one day a week too?"

"Well… um…" She looked uncomfortable. "Let's see how this works out. You see him when you work for the Company already."

"Not very often," Peter said. Gabriel nodded in agreement. Heidi had this idea that they both went and worked in the same place, doing more or less the same thing. When Peter accepted an assignment, he spent 90% of his time in the field. Gabriel's ratio was flipped. They rarely saw each other in the course of their work.

"All four of us see each other two nights a week too," Heidi said, speaking of their agreement to go out as couples one night a week and have a game or movie night another. "And you two are planning to work out together two other nights."

Gabriel leaned back. "Okay, okay, you have a point. So apart from that, one day every other week with Peter and; anytime you're asleep and he's free, assuming that doesn't mean I'm catching up on sleep when I would have otherwise been with you or the kids."

Heidi looked at him through narrowed eyes, then she smiled. "I hear some lawyer-ese creeping in there."

"Mm, maybe you do," he said, rubbing her leg. "But if anyone loses out here, it will be the Company or the law firm, not my family."

She nodded, assured by that. Peter had a silent conversation with Emma that Gabriel refrained from eavesdropping on. At the end of it, Peter leaned across the table and put his hand on top of Gabriel's, smiling to him. Gabriel's stomach flipped at that smile and touch. He wished he still had that feeling with Heidi. He had the year before, but it had faded. Maybe it was because he had so many memories of marriage with her that the 'new' had worn off long before. He didn't know, but he cherished what he felt now and he was very glad they had something worked out and accepted between them.

XXXX

"I really appreciated it when you asked to see me more often," Gabriel purred against Peter's cheek, much later, after shared hand jobs on the couch of Peter's apartment. "That made me feel so good."

"Mm." Peter turned and kissed him lazily but deeply.

Gabriel gave a little whine towards the end and when they separated, he buried his face in the side of Peter's head, nose to Peter's ear.

Peter adjusted so Gabriel wasn't breathing into his ear. He said, "Don't move around there. My ears are sensitive."

"I know."

Peter reached over and stroked Gabriel's shoulder. "I _**do**_ love you. I want to spend time with you. I don't know where you got the idea I didn't, but just overwrite that or something."

"Mm?" Gabriel snaked his arm around Peter's waist.

Peter smiled. "It's not like I picked Emma over you at some point. It was almost the opposite. I almost lost her because I wouldn't give you up."

Gabriel pulled his head back and tightened his grip on Peter's waist. "Really? You picked me over her?"

"No, I wouldn't pick _her_ over _you_. That's what she wanted me to do. You never asked me to choose one of you over the other. If you had, I would have told you the same thing."

"Hm. Is she really okay with this? With us?"

"I think so. I think she likes you."

"What?"

"No, really, I think she does."

"Huh." Gabriel shifted uncomfortably. "I think we should probably talk about something else."

"Hm, yeah, probably. I'm not sure what I'm comfortable with on that front. So, what do you think of the Halo agents that came in last week? I heard they were going to get six weeks training and a mentor, then be paired out. Is that true?"

For the rest of the evening, they talked of business and baseball and transferring the lease for the apartment, relishing the time they had together.


	181. Gutter Brain Drabble

The two men were sharing stories of their adventures over the last few years. Gabriel offered, "Did I ever tell you about the time I was almost sucked into Noah's black hole?"

Peter burst out laughing almost immediately.

"What?"

"Noah's... black hole... sucked..." Peter struggled with himself, but couldn't get much else out. His eyes were tearing up. He put his fist in his mouth and bit it, trying to stop laughing, but it didn't do any good.

"Gutter-brain," Gabriel grumbled. He added, "Just for that I won't tell you about the time in the hotel with the paralytics."


	182. Out of Sync

When they got back from working out the next time, Peter asked Gabriel up. They'd missed each other in the showers as Peter wouldn't end his set and Gabriel felt disinclined to start a new one. They came into the apartment and Peter tossed his gym bag on the couch. Gabriel put his arms around the smaller man and pushed him the two steps he needed to be next to the arm of the couch. He nuzzled the top and side of Peter's head, pressing his face into the damp hair.

"Mm. You've changed shampoo."

Peter laughed a little. "Yeah, just yesterday." He'd changed to what he'd hoped was an unscented brand, hoping Gabriel would like it better, but he didn't really get a chance to ask. His lover was doing an admirable job of distracting him, having now moved to nipping at the side of his neck and stroking his hands up and down Peter's chest, bunching the thin fabric of his t-shirt.

"Oooh," Peter moaned, shoving himself back against Gabriel. The taller man took that as more of a signal than it was and started to unfasten the other's slacks. Peter started to turn around only to be blocked. He subsided and let Gabriel finish and push his underwear and pants down. This done, he returned his attention to the back of Peter's neck, pressing his teeth firmly into the other man's flesh but without breaking the skin.

Peter found that oddly arousing, more so than he usually did bites. He made an encouraging whine and tried to reach back to open Gabriel's pants. The taller man grunted without letting go and shifted his hips away. He brought his hands up under Peter's shirt and caressed his chest, moving back against him and finally releasing his neck. Peter panted and took one hand to himself, stroking slowly as he braced himself with the other.

"Wait. I'll be back," Gabriel murmured into his ear and then stepped away. He returned with lube, applied it to himself and to Peter, working him insufficiently for penetration. The smaller man yelped a little when Gabriel tried to enter him.

"I'm not ready!"

Gabriel froze for a moment, trying to work out a disjunction in his mind. He kept forgetting this step. He knew why, but he still forgot it. He changed his aim slightly and pressed his erection into the cleft of Peter's ass, working it up and down. Peter relaxed again and moved against him cooperatively. Gabriel slid one hand up under his shirt to tease his nipple while the other slipped between them and between Peter's legs, stroking his perineum. He shifted back so his hand could have more play, putting his middle finger over Peter's anus. He rubbed across it back and forth as he kissed his shoulder.

When Peter began pressing back into him more aggressively, he pushed the digit into him, gaining a keening cry of appreciation. He worked it in and out, hooking it slightly to stretch him, then rotating it through the bottom half of the opening.

"You'll need more lube," Peter said, breathing harder.

Gabriel paused to apply some and took Peter's comment as direction that he was ready for him. He wasn't quite, but it was close enough that he didn't complain. Instead he just said, "Don't go too fast at first, please."

His lover aimed himself and took hold of Peter's hips, pulling him back onto himself. He pushed him away a little and then repeated the motion, bringing him further onto himself. Peter crooned. It burned, but in a good way, a promise of better things to come. Gabriel worked him with a slowness that was excruciating.

Peter whimpered, wanting to urge him on, but he'd asked for it slow. It was a tease. Gabriel kept moving him slowly far past when he was fully open and he slid in and nearly all the way out easily in long, steady strokes. Peter panted and finally took the initiative, shoving back onto Gabriel's cock hard enough to make the other man take a half step back.

"Oh, so that's how it is?" Peter could hear the smirk in Gabriel's voice. He shoved into him so hard it knocked Peter forward onto the arm of the couch. He grunted as the air was driven out of him. Instead of giving him a chance to catch his breath, Gabriel began to pound into him relentlessly, leaving him gasping and unable to get enough air. After over a minute of such treatment, he felt light-headed and intensely aroused.

Gabriel put a hand to his back and pushed him down and forward, leaning him over the arm of the furniture while he continued to thrust into him hard and fast. Peter tried to spread his legs, but they were still encumbered by his trousers. Gabriel growled when he tried to get his feet loose and jerked upwards on his hips, lifting him into his thrusts until Peter stopped trying and let himself be fucked without complicating it.

Gabriel pushed him down again, being as dominant as possible. Peter very much wanted to give him a dirty look, but restrained himself and merely gave a dissatisfied grunt. The other man was doing an excellent job of reaming him out. Peter reached down to service himself, moaning under the pressure and energy Gabriel was delivering to him. The taller man shifted speed a little, giving him long, hard strokes, regular as clockwork. Peter could hear Gabriel's breath starting to catch and with the last thrust he buried himself into Peter, shoving him forward roughly onto the couch again as he came.

Peter's hand was trapped between the couch and his body, Gabriel still pressing into him as he panted over him, running his fingers up and down Peter's sides in a gentle caress. He leaned forward and pushed up Peter's shirt to kiss his back thankfully, resting his forehead against him for a long moment. Peter withdrew his hand as he couldn't move it anyway. He felt rather frustrated and uncomfortably aroused without release. At his motion, Gabriel pulled out and pulled up his pants, fastening them. He walked over to the couch and flopped on it, satisfied with himself.

Peter looked up at him, feeling used and done with. He gave his lover that dirty look he'd earned, but Gabriel wasn't looking at him to notice it. Peter bent to pull up his own slacks. He wasn't really sure how to approach this, so he decided to try putting a good face on it. He sat as well, a smile slowly spreading across his face as he chuckled and shook his head at how full of himself Gabriel was. With a laugh, he told the other man, "You know, you're becoming a really insensitive and selfish lover."

The taller man looked at Peter's expression and after a beat he smiled in response. "That's not usually a good thing."

"No, it's not. I mean, I suppose you're comfortable with me and that's good, but you're taking it too far."

"Am I? I didn't hear you complaining earlier." Gabriel smirked.

"I am now." That got Gabriel's attention and sobered him. He gazed intently at Peter, but said nothing. The younger man went on, "You do care about my feelings, right?"

Gabriel looked away and sighed, preparing himself for a lecture or some manner of passive-aggressive attack. "Yes," he answered in a tired tone of voice. It ticked Peter off more than a little.

Peter let the silence hang between them for a moment then stood up. He said, "Good. Now scoot forward. You're going to give me head."

Gabriel blinked at him in surprise as Peter moved in front of him. That was a lot more aggressive than passive. "What?"

Peter opened his pants again and pushed them down. "You didn't finish me, you didn't touch me or even try. I don't have any lube on me because you didn't give me any. I'm clean. I want you to suck me off." He hesitated, searching Gabriel's face carefully.

The other man looked reluctantly at Peter's groin and blinked, looking down. "Okay." He sounded resigned to his punishment. He scooted forward to the edge of the couch.

Peter had second thoughts. This suddenly didn't seem like a good idea. Maybe they should try talking instead of doing for once? He reached out and took Gabriel's face, cupping it between his hands as he bent over slightly. "Gabriel, you don't _have_ to do this." He looked back and forth between his eyes and added softly, "Not if you don't want to."

His lover gave him a guarded expression and said simply, "I know." Of course he didn't _want_ to. Why did Peter imagine he wanted to do this? He _would_ do it, but that was because Peter wanted it, not him and he _did_ care about Peter's feelings. He reached out and tugged Peter's pants down further around his thighs. They fell the rest of the way to his ankles on their own.

"Hey," Peter said. "Do you want to see how this feels to me?" He stroked the side of Gabriel's face. The sitting man found the touch annoying already, but he'd noticed that the last time he'd done this. Peter obviously wanted to touch him during this. He was getting too hypersensitive about it. Maybe telepathy would help.

He nodded. "Yeah." He stared at the narrow triangle of Peter's stomach that peeked through his shirt and tried to clear his mind. He felt Peter's brush his own after a moment. He gave his head a slow jerk to the side and said, "No, let me start it. Give me a minute."

Peter waited patiently and as an extra blessing he stopped touching Gabriel's face and hair. He wasn't sure how much that was bothering the other man, but he could tell he wasn't getting a positive response. Peter's thoughts were on how Gabriel had fought him after the last (and first) blow job, not giving up and hitting him in the face. He was thinking that posing this as punitive was probably not one of his better ideas. His arousal was fleeing by the second.

Gabriel finally nodded slightly and Peter felt his mind touch his own, then slide into a dual awareness. They both shut their eyes in an unspoken, unthought agreement and simply felt one another for a moment, feeling their existence, breathing, the air on the other person's skin and the weight of clothing and fabric. Gabriel inhaled slightly and Peter could smell himself strongly.

That got his attention. _I shouldn't smell __**that**__ much - I just showered!_ He'd noticed this before with Gabriel, that his sense of smell seemed absurdly heightened. Peter supposed Gabriel's nose wasn't any better than a sophisticated oenophile, but that still made it unusually good. His hearing and vision were more precise and sharp than one would expect too, though his sense of temperature was almost nonexistent.

_Is that… an ability? _Peter asked. It seemed unlikely. Abilities were clearly super-human and this wasn't. He wasn't worried about when Gabriel might have picked this one up - he could have had something so minor and difficult to demonstrate for years as Sylar.

_No,_ Gabriel thought with chagrin.

When he didn't go on, Peter reached into him very cautiously, mindful of Gabriel's issues with mental contact. Peter was picking at Gabriel's senses, trying to experience them more directly. Gabriel let him. He focused on sensing what Gabriel did, bringing it into his mind and his mind to it. He inhaled and it was Gabriel inhaling. He could smell himself: Peter. First and foremost he could smell the unique aroma that was tagged as Peter Petrelli in Gabriel's head. Next was a strong alkaline, chemical odor. It took him a moment to place it as his shampoo and deodorant. _ No wonder you aren't that wild about me cleaning up! My scent doesn't bother you, but the detergent does?_

_Yeah,_ Gabriel thought grudgingly. _I know it's not supposed to be that way though._ He was unhappy that most cleaning products and perfumes didn't strike him as pleasant odors, as they clearly did with most people.

_I thought you were just being…_ Peter trailed off.

_Nasty? Filthy? Unclean? _Gabriel supplied.

Peter avoided confirming that since he'd never had any problems with Gabriel's personal hygiene and thought, _If it's not an ability, then what is it?_

Gabriel took control of his body enough to give a small shrug. It wasn't until that moment that Peter realized he'd possessed Gabriel. He left that portion of his mind immediately. _Are… are you okay?_ Peter thought to him. Gabriel's aversion to mental control was large in his mind.

_Yes, I'm fine. I've had experience sharing a body with someone, but for months instead of a minute or two. It's not a big deal._ Gabriel turned his thoughts away from his time spent cohabitating with Matt Parkman and onto the subject of rats. Or at least, that's what Peter could make of his thoughts now, until he brought them together enough to project them coherently.

Gabriel thought, _You know about Samson Grey's ability? _Peter gave a mental confirmation. _Early on, after I took his ability, I tried to get away from everything and more importantly every__**one**__, because I couldn't control myself. As it turns out, it's really hard to avoid all life. There were these rats. I… I used his ability on them. Since then my sense of smell has been stronger._

_What about all this other stuff? _ Peter poked mentally at the numbness that was where should have been a sense of the coolness of the room.

_That's… I was trying to kill myself. I thought, if I couldn't feel how cold it was, I could tolerate… I wouldn't react to freezing to death. It didn't work._

_Ah._ Peter recalled Gabriel mentioning once that he'd tried to commit suicide that way and it hadn't worked out. It was a disturbing thought. _Causing the death of a couple rats is not a good reason to kill yourself, Gabriel._

_It wasn't the rats._ Gabriel brought his mind back to the matter at hand. He reached out to touch Peter's hip, running his fingers up and down the bare skin, experiencing the sensation of being touched and touching at the same time. Peter noticed Gabriel partitioned his mind, walling off everything but his immediate sensations and surface thoughts. He pulled Peter to him and lifted his shirt to nuzzle his stomach, chewing slightly at the soft flesh over hard muscle, kissing and licking. He gave his belly button a special treatment. _I love you,_ Gabriel thought. _I don't deserve you._

_Maybe not, but you've got me._

Gabriel looked up Peter's body at him, grinning, then went back to work. Peter moved his thoughts to the present and let the feelings wash over him. He smiled and crooned, "Mmm," almost under his breath. Gabriel eyed his organ. It was partly erect so far. He felt uneasy about it. Peter could feel his reluctance and said, "It's okay. Just kiss it."

Gabriel's face hardened and he jerked backwards, snapping his teeth together. In his mind was an inexplicable urge to bite. Peter froze, suddenly tense all over at the unexpected reaction. He barely suppressed his desire to cover himself. In that flash of reaction Peter had seen the edges of a memory, kneeling in front of a young teen male, angry and humiliated. There were others nearby, watching, taunting.

Now he sensed nothing from Gabriel except a feeling of distance and calm as the man ran through Angela's meditation technique and blanked his mind of distractions. _Peter, this is Peter,_ he thought quietly, just a whisper in his mind. He reached out to take his lover's hips.

Peter remained perfectly still, tense, wondering if he was about to be hurt. Gabriel was blocking him out of nearly everything in his mind. _No_, the smaller man thought as Gabriel leaned in.

_Let me,_ Gabriel thought back, hesitating a moment in case Peter refused him again. _I won't hurt you. I can hear you're afraid. I need to do this. I need to show you I won't hurt you._

_Okay…_

Gabriel kissed him lightly and nuzzled his organ, but there was no way Peter was in the mood anymore. The exchange about Gabriel's attempted suicide had been off-putting by itself. This was a total downer. Peter shuffled backwards after, putting a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "Let's stop."

Gabriel looked up at him and narrowed his eyes. "What did you see?" He tried to pull the memory from Peter's mind, but the other man blocked him successfully (for once!) and Gabriel desisted.

"Not much, but enough to make me…" he stopped talking, even though his mind finished the thought involuntarily with _lose interest. What the hell happened to you?_

Gabriel snorted and cut the mental contact. "Not what you probably think. It's not a big deal."

"You almost bit me! That's not a big deal?" He bent down and snagged his pants, pulling them up. Gabriel reached out and gave him a hand for balance.

"I would never do that to you, Peter." Gabriel sighed and looked aside. He couldn't say he was exactly disappointed that they'd stopped, but he didn't like the reason for it.

Peter buttoned his fly and sat down, leaning back. He bit the inside of his cheek and said, "I want to know."

Gabriel was still sitting forward, facing away. He looked at the ceiling and said, "It's not a big deal. It's just a phrase. It's not like I'm damaged goods or anything."

"I didn't say you were," Peter said softly, alarmed that Gabriel would imply that. He wondered how far the scene he'd caught had gone. "If it's not a big deal and you think I have the wrong idea, then tell me."

Gabriel leaned back too, looking at Peter and rolling his eyes. "Fine. When I was… When Gabriel was a kid, my mom would volunteer a lot at church. The kids were separated, girls in the nursery with the babies and the older boys in the playroom. The priest's nephew was a few years older than I was and he was in charge of watching the boys. He was a…" He shook his head and then smiled humorlessly at Peter. "Not the good little boy he acted like when in front of adults.

"The…" Gabriel looked away for a long moment, thinking. He glanced upwards again and then back to Peter, who was listening and watching him attentively. "Anyway, they had a game that involved beating me up and hitting me in the balls since I was the smallest in the group. That got old so they changed the game and said they'd quit hitting me in the nuts if I'd give them each a blow job. They didn't know what that was and neither did I, but we thought it involved kissing a dick… so, 'kiss it, just kiss it' was something I heard a few times."

Gabriel sighed. "That's all. It never went further than that. I told my mother. She beat the crap out of me," the taller man looked away and let a wave of conflicted emotions about that pass over him. "She said I was lying and evil to even _think_ something like that about such a _nice_ boy." He pressed his lips together, eyes hooded. "Anyway, I refused to go back and it got worse, but then my fath-… that man I thought was my father stepped in and had me come with him to the watch shop and work while she was out." He exhaled. "Neither of them believed me." After a moment he said, "Like I said, it's not a big deal. Stupid kid games."

_Not a big deal?_ "Your mother beat you?"

"Yeah. So?"

Peter blinked. He was trying to decide how bad a beating would have to be for the highly violence-tolerant Gabriel to refer to it as 'beat the crap out of me' and then say 'it got worse,' bad enough that his male guardian, who clearly hadn't been a strong protector in Gabriel's life, felt moved to stop it. Peter had seen some pretty awful things in the course of his work as a paramedic. It never ceased to amaze him how much people hurt the ones they loved and put up with being hurt by them. It also underscored that Gabriel's idea of normal behavior was not Peter's and they really, really needed to set some ground rules before Gabriel took things too far without knowing Peter's limits.

Gabriel shrugged, unaware of Peter's thoughts. "I know Nathan never got anything worse than backhanded and roughed up a little, but not everyone lives that kind of life, Peter. She stopped once I had some size on me." He looked significantly at Peter's groin. "So I guess this was sort of a turn-off, right?"

Peter snorted. "Uh, yeah, very much so." He slid over and extended a hand towards Gabriel's face, who leaned away, face blank. Peter let his hand drop, suspecting the man would read any attempt at sympathy or comfort as pity. "I believe you," he said simply.

"Of course you do, Peter. You can hear if I'm lying." He chewed on his lip for a moment, then stood. "Let's go get cleaned up. I'll use a washcloth and then I'm going to get out of here. I'm sorry for the lousy evening. I'll try to do better. No, next time, I _**will**_ do better."

Peter nodded, glad to hear that his complaint had been heard and remembered. Surprisingly, Gabriel had a good track record for following directions when Peter laid down the law. He also had a track record for disliking it. So for now, Peter let Gabriel have his distance, but that wasn't something he was going to let last. He needed to get them back in sync with one another. They needed to talk and he needed to figure out a way to do it that didn't end up with Gabriel resentful and angry like the last time Peter tried to take control of the relationship. He pondered.


	183. Negotiations

Peter stewed over things the next day. Around six he had a break from his newly-regained paramedic job. He called Gabriel, and asked him to come over that night after he was off work. "Meet me on the roof," he told him.

For once, Peter got off work on time. He brought up a blanket, a couple pillows and two bottles of water. Gabriel flew in not much later. Peter was sitting on the edge, looking out at the bustle of the city, mind blank at the moment. Earlier he'd been replaying his calls from work of that day. Before that he'd been trying to make sense of his love life. It had been nice, then disastrous, then hot and heavy, but the last couple times had been less than entertaining for him. He was worrying about how much of it was about the hot sex and how little about genuinely understanding the other person's needs.

Now he turned to Gabriel, who'd walked up next to him. Peter slid an easy arm around the other man and felt him relax next to him.

"You want to do it on the roof, Peter?" Gabriel asked. "Kinky."

Peter patted Gabriel's side. "No, we're not doing that tonight. We need to talk."

Gabriel grunted in displeasure. "We're talking."

"No, I mean really talk." He dropped his arm away and Gabriel took a half step from him, watching Peter warily. Peter went over to the blanket and lowered himself to it. "Join me?"

Gabriel did, lying on his back and staring up at the clouds, watching the play of illumination on their mottled surfaces. Somewhere nearby there was a searchlight panning back and forth in mechanized regularity. Peter crossed his legs and remained sitting.

"There are some things I want to get out in the open, clear the air," Peter said. "I've tried a couple times in the past, but I never got very far. We've always been busy, moved on to sex, or something else instead of talking about where we stand with each other." Peter stopped there, because Gabriel had tensed and drawn into himself. He was back to watching Peter warily, eyes slightly narrowed.

When Gabriel didn't say anything, Peter went on, "I don't want to have sex tonight. What I'm going to say is really important to me. What I want to know from you is really important to me. I'm in love with you. You seem to be in love with me. We really need to know how to please each other, where the landmines are, and what's a deal-breaker and what's negotiable." Gabriel relaxed a little. Peter was tempted, very tempted, to each out and touch him to see where he was emotionally, but he held off. Boundaries were one of the things he wanted to talk about, though he didn't know if they'd get to that part tonight.

When his partner said nothing, Peter said, "Okay, I'll start. I like touching you. I like you touching me. I like having sex with you, giving and receiving. I prefer receiving anal, but every now and then I want to top. I like giving oral and I like getting it. I like other forms of sex, like playing with my ass or my nipples or jerking me off. I always want it to be mutual. The idea of having sex and my partner not getting off on it is a complete turn off. You don't have to be getting off on it right that second, but by the time things end, I want both of us to be satisfied.

"I love it when you tell me how much you like me and describe what you're doing. I like it when you say my name and when you're really focused on me. If you're just getting off and I'm kind of incidental… that's frustrating to me. I'm with you… I _**love**_ you, because you're so into me. That's a big turn on. Some of the things I'm mentioning here aren't things you've been doing or not doing - they're just things about me that I want you to know.

"For specific 'don'ts', don't pull my hair, don't draw blood, don't touch my eyes or my ears, don't tickle me. I'm okay with a little emotion-play if you get me a little scared or mad, but if I say anything, anything at all that makes you… no, do it this way: check in with me every now and then and make sure I'm okay. If I tell you to stop, or not to do something, you **have** to honor that. That's a deal-breaker with me. It should be with everyone, but it's not."

The look Gabriel was giving him gave him pause. "What's wrong?"

Gabriel pursed his lips for a moment, frowning and looking very intent. "That's very broad, Peter. If you tell me not to do something, and I forget and do it anyway… I don't have a perfect memory."

"I have lie detection. If you tell me it was an honest mistake, I'll know it was. Things happen."

Peter waited a beat, but Gabriel just nodded and watched him silently, so he continued from before, "I'm not real comfortable using powers with you or having you use them on me, but I'm getting into it. Lie detection, regeneration, anything you're only using on yourself is fine. It isn't the powers themselves, because I've been using them with Emma and it's okay. So… it's dealing with you, and I'm sorry for that, but I'm getting over it and if you can just be patient with me and give me a chance, I'll come around.

"I don't mind bondage (in fact I kind of like it), but I don't want to be insulted, humiliated or degraded. Those are big turn offs for me. Also, nothing public or dangerous. No scat. No urination. No age play. No animals or mentions of bestiality. No snowballing. I'm fine with swallowing. I'm not really into role playing or costuming, but I'm fine with playing along. I want to be clean and I want you to be clean, but those aren't absolutes. Especially after last time when I realized how much smell matters to you… well, I can be flexible on that."

Gabriel had relaxed and loosened his posture during the talk, rolling over to watch him.

"Now. Your turn."

Gabriel grunted and physically withdrew. Both of the times Peter had tried to address this before with Gabriel, it had been the other man who backed off.

"I _will_ play twenty questions with you if I have to," Peter said, adopting a teasing tone.

"I don't like it when you give me orders or tell me what to do," Gabriel grouched sullenly, and Peter wasn't sure if that was him listing one of his preferences, or objecting to Peter asking him what his preferences were in the first place.

"Go on," Peter said in an encouraging voice, deciding to assume it was the former.

Gabriel shot him a look, then looked away, confirming that Peter was making the wrong assumption. "I don't like having to answer this."

"Why?"

Gabriel seemed to resist the urge to get up, instead shifting uneasily like the position was suddenly uncomfortable. He sighed and rolled over, facing away. Peter waited instead of pushing him, because he'd noticed Gabriel often took a while to process things that were emotionally charged. As he'd expected, Gabriel answered him after a few minutes. Very quietly he said, "Peter, if you knew what I wanted you'd leave me. It's easier this way. I do what you want and you'll have me. That's all that matters." His voice wavered at the end and Peter forced himself to stay calm and where he was, but he wanted to give comfort very badly.

"That's **not** all that matters," Peter said. "And please don't assume what I might and might not do as I learn more about you. You said you wanted me to get to know you. That's what I'm trying to do. Listen… there's a lot we can talk about…" Peter floundered for a moment, still looking at Gabriel's back and the very clear sign that Gabriel was upset. "Think about what I said. Tell me how you feel about those things. Prioritize positions, tell me if I tend to go too fast or slow or just right for you, things like that. Can you tell me those things?"

Gabriel relaxed. After a moment he rolled over again, curling up a little, but facing Peter. "Yes." He swallowed and seemed to think back to what Peter had said. "I like… I like topping, I guess. I'm not all that turned on by you fucking me, but it's okay." Peter nodded supportively, so after a pause, Gabriel was emboldened to go on with, "I like oral, or at least I want it, but I can't get it without popping off right away and that bothers me a lot. It bothers me so much that I'd just rather go without I think. I can't wrap my head around it." He shifted his upper leg forward, unconsciously dropping it across himself.

Gabriel shut his eyes for a long moment before continuing, "Anyway, I can have sex with you. I'm okay with bottoming for you and it's nice that you'll stroke me when you do. Peter… I don't know how I feel about some of this stuff. I'm like a fucking teenager here! _I don't know what I want_. I don't… everything I thought I knew about my preferences is wrong, or fucked up." He sat up suddenly, looking skyward, looking for an escape route.

"Please stay," Peter said softly.

"I don't even know if I like _men_!" he said, exasperated, gesturing widely. "I mean, I have a whole lifetime of 'no' and a whole lifetime of 'yes', and they're in here together. I know I like _you_. I'm comfortable with you. And I'm comfortable with women. I know what I want there. Heidi's great, but if she were out of the picture, then I'd probably still be chasing skirts. With guys I get all hot and cold and it doesn't make sense. I want to go jump Abbas' bones and then it's like it hits me all of a sudden that he's male and I get this feeling like I suddenly found out I was turned on by a pile of dog doo and I hate myself."

Now he finally did get to his feet, pacing and angry. Peter kept a neutral expression, but he was very pleased to have gotten this out in the open. He'd seen hints over and over, heard the mixed messages and noticed that Gabriel was fundamentally unhappy with himself sometimes.

Gabriel paced and seemed to let off a little steam. Peter tried to bring things back to a less emotionally charged subject, thinking they could get back to the other later, "Tell me what you want me to do more of when we're together."

"Kiss me. Let me kiss you. Hold me. Touch me. Let me touch you. I don't know! Just sex, really. I'm real happy with what I'm getting."

"You want more. I can tell that. You've said as much."

Gabriel gave him an upset look and went back to pacing like an agitated, caged animal.

"Calm down."

"Don't tell me what to do!" he snapped, pointing suddenly at Peter. He shook his finger to emphasize his words, "I don't like you doing it in bed and I don't like you doing it now!" Gabriel jerked his hand back, curling it into a fist and hiding it behind himself. He shot Peter a frightened look, but Peter didn't react, as he hadn't to the anger. He let it flow past him without effect.

Gabriel ran a hand through his hair, breathing hard. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Peter. I'm getting… I'm too upset. Please…" He walked off to the side of the building and leaned forward on it, trying to get control of himself again.

_Well. Now I see why he kept dodging the issue when I tried to bring it up before._ Peter waited.

After a minute or two, Gabriel walked back diffidently and knelt right next to Peter. "Please hold me. Tell me it's alright. Tell me this isn't a prelude to you leaving me because I'm fucked up. Because I really can't figure out what to do about that."

Peter opened his arms and let Gabriel hug him awkwardly but firmly, pulling him forward and off balance. Peter tugged him over and they lay down face to face on their sides. _Don't you dare use this as an excuse to try to sex me up, _Peter thought as Gabriel slowly nuzzled his neck. But the other man didn't so much as kiss him. He just rubbed his face against Peter and embraced.

When he was content that Gabriel was behaving himself, Peter stroked his head and said soothingly, "I'm not leaving you. It's okay. Everything's alright."

"But I have to tell you this or you'll leave? You said it was important."

"It _is_ important. I'm not leaving. You're telling me a lot and I can see this is hard for you, way harder than I'd expected. Keep trying. This is just like that argument we were having my mom's house the other day. Give me some credit here. I'm trying to be a good guy. And for me to be a good guy when we're together, for sex, I need to know what you'll put up with from me and what you won't."

"I'll put up with anything from you, Peter." His voice was muffled, spoken against Peter's neck. "Anything."

Peter's jaw worked for a moment and Gabriel lifted his head, kissing Peter's face, feeling his tension and trying to sooth it. Peter pulled his head aside and said, "Don't. Okay? I'm trying to comfort you here and I'm not going to let it turn into anything else." His voice held a warning. Gabriel put his head back down and relaxed.

"Thank you for holding me. Thank you for… everything." Gabriel tightened his arms a little and let one leg hook over Peter's. He pulled it back when Peter tensed. For one thing, Peter was getting an erection. He knew Gabriel had noticed when he froze. He patted Peter on the back and extricated himself politely.

Peter sat up, sighed in relief and ran a hand over his face. He inwardly told his nether regions to cut it out and go back to sleep.

Gabriel sat up himself and copied Peter's cross-legged pose. He cleared his throat. "Well. I like that I turn you on."

Peter laughed. "Sorry. But I **am** serious about not doing anything tonight. No matter what."

"Okay. I got that. Let's see…" Gabriel exhaled and relaxed, as if having turned Peter on had been enough of an ego boost that he was willing to talk more. "I like it a lot rougher than you want to do, but I'm not so caught up in dishing that out as I am in receiving it. I'd like to try out power play, but I have a really hard time sometimes with telepathy. I've been killed a lot of times and that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is rejection. I don't want you leaving. I want you… accepting. I don't know… putting up with me. I love you."

He was quiet for a moment before going on, "I'm not real wild about being tied up, but the idea of tying you up makes me all kinds of hot. I would love to have you helpless and begging. Not for real, so I'm fine with whatever… checking in? Yeah, I mean, I know it's a fantasy. I'm not trying to delude myself into thinking it's real. I don't have to hurt you, but I'd like you to hurt me. I don't want you to call me names, but you can be as rough as you want. Don't laugh at me.

"About the blow job - oral, me giving it - um… just… you know, I think I can do that okay, but you need to… don't take this wrong, but you need to lay back and let me do it all alone. Don't touch me or even… well, if you could not move that would be good?" He looked questioningly at the other man.

Peter nodded adamantly. "This is great, Gabriel. This is exactly what I need to know, exactly what I want to hear from you - what you want to do, how you want to do it, and what I can do to please you more." He nodded again. Even though Gabriel's statements were all over the board, unorganized, tentative and sometimes confusing, he was making them, he was saying something and trying to open up. Peter let him talk, even though the urge to judge someone who implied he wouldn't mind being killed during sex was pretty strong. It had never occurred to Peter that 'don't kill me' needed to be in his own list somewhere.

Gabriel nodded back slowly. "I think I can give head. I just need to… get used to it. I like… dominating you. I want you to… I don't know, let me."

"You want me to be submissive?" Peter had already figured out the answer to that, but this night was about being explicit.

"Yes. If you… you know?"

"That's no problem."

"Oh." Gabriel actually sounded surprised, which Peter thought was kind of dense of him if he hadn't noticed already Peter was okay with playing that role.

Peter said, "Make sure I'm okay with it every now and then. Once or twice a session."

"I'd like to choke you." Gabriel eyed him warily.

Peter glanced off to the side for a moment. Gabriel had been working up to that one for a long time, what with all the touching and stroking his throat, but never quite putting any pressure on it. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay. We'll do it once and if I'm okay with it, then you can do it again when you like. Don't choke me out. If I start losing consciousness, you **stop**."

"Okay! Of course. Yes." The expression on Gabriel's face - surprised and pleased like he'd been given a present - made Peter chuckle. "Can I kiss you?"

Now Peter laughed. "Yes. You mmrh…" Gabriel didn't wait for him to finish his sentence, but he kept the kiss to lips alone and then leaned back. Peter smiled again and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Thanks. See? You can get what you want this way. There's a reason why people talk to each other about these things."

"Don't patronize me. There's reasons why they don't, too, Peter," Gabriel said, a little irritated.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm afraid that…" Gabriel sighed and backed off. "Okay, thanks for the suffocation thing. I wouldn't mind if you wanted to do it to me too, but pretty much anything you want to do is fine with me as long as you're with me. I feel like I'm just pathetic for feeling that way and I want to hurt you to prove that I'm not."

_Ah. So that's where it's coming from._

"Anyway," Gabriel went on, "Yeah, you know, nothing public is fine, but I don't want to hide what we are. Nothing dangerous - that's fine too, I suppose. I'm not sure what you mean though, really. I don't want to do anything that involves other people. I don't want to get in trouble with Heidi or complicate things. What else did you talk about that I haven't mentioned? Um… I really like the massages. Those are good. I like switching up positions. I'd like to be able to surprise you, and I don't mean jump out of the closet surprise you, but I don't want to have to check with you before doing every little thing. If I'm having to get permission all the time, that really bothers me. Can't I just…" His lips moved for a bit but he said nothing. "Don't you trust me?"

"Yes, I trust you. But you're not omniscient and the last couple times you did things - accidentally, I think - that set me off a little. I'd been thinking about what I could do to make sure we were both happy when we got together, so I wanted to keep coming back to you, and it occurred to me that I hadn't talked to you about how to make me happy and about what I wanted when we were together. I didn't know much specific about how to make you happy either. You've talked about taking it slow, going in stages, and how I wasn't ready for some of the stuff you wanted to do. This will help me get ready.

"And now that we've talked about it… I'd like to go get something to eat. And I'd like to talk like this again sometime, maybe in a week. There's other stuff I want to go over, like privacy and primacy and stuff. Is that okay?"

"Primacy? What's that mean?"

"It means… how we prioritize between _us_ and our spouses."

"Oh." Gabriel nodded and Peter stood up. "That's all? We're done?"

"Yeah. Are you hungry?" Peter had planned to talk about a lot more, but he hadn't expected how strongly Gabriel would react. It seemed best to end on a high note and keep it short. He was thinking it might make Gabriel more receptive to talking in future if he didn't push too much on him at once.

Gabriel rose. Peter collected the blanket while Gabriel picked up the waters they'd never gotten around to opening, much less drinking. Gabriel stepped up behind him and wrapped his arms around him, holding the bottles in one hand. Peter relaxed into the warm, simple embrace.

Gabriel kissed the side of his head. "I don't know what I want, Peter. I want to hold you down and fuck you violently… and darker things than that, things I shouldn't even tell you." He paused, as if waiting for a reaction.

Peter said, "Hm," in a positive tone.

Gabriel kissed him again gently and twisted them back and forth slightly. "But I love you and I want to be with you and I want you to love me. And to get that I know I have to act right, I have to be the man you want me to be, I have to be a good person – as much as I can. I want to be that person for you. It's… it's not easy. I can't always do it. But I don't want to be Sylar anymore. Or Nathan. I just want to be Gabriel. I want to be yours."

Peter could feel the intensity of emotion as Gabriel pressed his face to the side of Peter's head and breathed slowly. Peter said, "You are mine. I just don't always know what to do with you." He chuckled, lightening the mood, and pulled away a little to finish shaking out the blanket. He turned and gave Gabriel a quick smooch. "So where do you want to eat?"


	184. Boundary Edge

Peter eyed the contents of the pastry case. He didn't want a day-old donut or a scone. Or a muffin. He was pretty hungry though. Gabriel had had dinner; Peter had not. Still, when Gabriel had just suggested a coffee shop, Peter had agreed without reservation, so here they were. He hadn't expected the selection to be as limited as it was, though. He asked, "When did you make the rice krispy treats?"

"This morning. They're still pretty good. We'll be selling the same ones tomorrow. I like them, especially the first day."

He considered that the clerk thought this was the truth. "Okay. I'll take one." He snagged a banana as well and set it next to his orange juice at the counter. Gabriel scooted aside. He'd bought a decaf coffee and was currently pouring cream in it. Peter paid for their purchases and they moved off to a table.

He unwrapped his rice krispy treat. "Do you think we can get fat?"

"Hm. I dunno." Gabriel sipped at his drink. "You mean, because of the regeneration?"

"Yeah. I was just wondering." He touched the treat tentatively. It was squishy and a bit gummy, which, while far better than stiff and stale, meant it was messy. He rubbed his fingertips together and grimaced, then sucked on them for a moment.

"Well, if we can," Gabriel said, "I suppose there's no chance we'd die from liposuction."

Peter looked up at him. "Wouldn't that just regenerate too?" Peter pulled at the corner of his treat, trying to pinch it off without squashing the rest of it.

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Huh. Yeah, it would." He reached out and took Peter's food out of his hand, leaving Peter blinking at him.

_Boundaries,_ Peter thought, but he didn't say anything. He just watched as Gabriel glanced around, then carefully drew his finger across the corner of the rice krispy treat, slicing a piece from it as if with the sharpest knife. He took up the bit between thumb and forefinger and looked at it briefly, then at Peter, as if searching for some sign of how he should give it to him. Peter leaned forward and parted his lips. Gabriel hand-fed him, curling his knuckles after Peter took it and brushing his cheek.

"Mm," Peter said approvingly.

Gabriel smiled and cut off another piece. Peter smiled too, remembering how sickeningly sweet he had thought it was when he saw his mother feeding Maury wedding cake. It was still very, very sweet. Gabriel's uncertainty at how he would be received, following by his softening, warming expression, really sold it though. Peter took the next bite and let his tongue give Gabriel's finger a quick lick. The one after that he sucked on Gabriel's thumb for a moment.

"Mm-mm," Gabriel responded.

"Get a room," said a stranger's voice from off to the left. Peter glanced over, but he couldn't tell which of the four or five people over there had said it. None of them were looking their direction at the moment. He laughed and sat back. Gabriel popped the next small piece into his own mouth, then handed over the last morsel.

Peter tossed it in his mouth. "Thanks." He smiled and shook his head, opening his orange juice and taking a deep drink. The flavors didn't mesh real well. He grimaced, put it down and looked at the banana. He picked at the peel, thinking about Gabriel just reaching over and taking his stuff in such a proprietary manner. It was just like how he grabbed Peter and hauled him around in bed whenever he wanted him to be somewhere else. Or how he had him investigated or read people's minds or did any number of other intrusive things. He chewed his lip speculatively.

It wasn't that he really minded on a lot of this stuff, but it wasn't normal and it was indicative of a pattern of thinking that Peter didn't think was very healthy, even if most of his family seemed to have it in spades. He remembered how fascinated Gabriel had been with the bruises on his neck months back, how Peter had hotly told him he didn't like being marked up and he didn't belong to him. He looked at the watch on his wrist and peeled the banana, sighing. He supposed he _did_ belong to Gabriel now and the way he acted wasn't outside the pale for a long-established couple. It was just that they weren't a long-established couple - not yet.

"What are you thinking about?" Gabriel asked.

Peter looked up at him, expression guarded. He looked away. It probably wasn't wise to talk about something he was so conflicted about anyway. But Gabriel had asked… After a moment he looked back and said, "There's this thing that you do… and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I kind of like it, kind of don't like it. I'm not sure if I should even mention it to you because I like you being comfortable with me and you've said how much you… how much you like doing this."

"But… you don't like it? This thing that I do that you're not mentioning?"

Peter looked around uneasily and shrugged. "I… It's okay. It doesn't bother me much, really. But I think I should be bothered and that bothers me."

Gabriel studied the table for a while before asking, "Can you tell me what it is?"

Peter huffed and shifted in his seat. "You're… you're presumptuous. You treat me and my stuff like it's yours. Like with the food just now. I didn't ask you to cut it up and you didn't ask if I minded. You just took it." Gabriel's expression darkened, then retreated into blankness. Peter sighed. _Yeah, I'm pissing him off._ He forged ahead. "I don't mind, really, but it's like I said earlier that we needed to discuss boundaries at some point. You don't draw the line where most people do and when I see you doing that with other people, it makes me really uncomfortable. You…" He stopped. He was getting away from 'I' statement and too much into 'you' territory.

Gabriel stood up stiffly.

"Where are you going?" Peter asked, alarmed.

"To the bathroom. Don't follow me. I'll be back." He gave Peter's shoulder a single pat and stalked off to cool down.

Peter exhaled again and ate his banana mechanically. He was done with it and nearly all his juice by the time Gabriel came back. Peter didn't face the bathrooms, so he didn't see him approach. His warning was a hand on his shoulder and after he looked up, it slid up under his jaw to cup his chin. Gabriel bent without speaking, turning Peter's face to his own. Peter let him and Gabriel kissed him deeply.

"Ewww!" Once again they heard commentary from the peanut gallery and Peter sensed a spike of white hot rage run through Gabriel at that. The other man tensed and started to pull back, clearly intent on doing something to silence their hecklers. Peter reached up, grabbed the back of Gabriel's neck and pulled him back in. He stared into Gabriel's eyes and kissed him harder until Gabriel shut his eyes and let the homicidal emotion pass. Peter let go then, breathing faster. Gabriel stood and turned to glare at the other table. No one confessed.

He turned back to Peter and crouched next to him, speaking quietly. "This is very, very important to me, Peter. If I have to beg permission for everything I do with you…" He took a deep breath. "I don't think I can do it. Peter…" His fingers tugged and toyed nervously with Peter's sleeve. "I _want you_. I _want_ to take liberties with you. I want to be free to do that. I want you to _let me_… That's what being together means to me."

Peter glanced down. Gabriel's hand was shaking. Peter shelved the rest of the issue for sometime when Gabriel wasn't as fragile and they weren't having such a distracting background. For one thing, he wasn't even sure they were having the same conversation with each other. "It's okay. Easy." He leaned forward and gave Gabriel a peck on the forehead. "It's okay. I said I didn't mind. It's about other people anyway, mostly. What you do with me is okay. We're together. If I don't like something, there's nothing keeping me from saying so, and I haven't said anything because I'm okay with it."

Peter looked past Gabriel to see they were getting some looks and he wished he could just teleport them back to the roof, or to his apartment, or somewhere else. Instead he gave Gabriel's hand a firm squeeze and was gratified that the other man took the hint, stood and went to sit at his side of the table. Peter looked at the people at the other table again, this time wishing _them_ gone, instead of himself and Gabriel. He let his anger infuse his expression. Two of them packed up suddenly and left without explanation. The other three became nervous and followed shortly thereafter. _Sometimes it's useful being scary after all_, Peter thought grimly.

After they left, Gabriel said, "Did you do that?"

"Yeah," Peter said, caught between feeling glad they were gone and bad that he'd misbehaved.

Gabriel laughed. "Good." He drank his coffee and then fiddled restlessly with his swizzle stick.

Peter leaned forward, elbow on the table and his hand under his chin. He reached out with his other hand and put it casually in the middle of the table. Gabriel covered it with his own immediately. Peter smiled gradually and let his eyes wander over to Gabriel's. "This is me checking in with you, making sure everything is okay."

"Huh. It's not, but I'll get over it." He gave Peter's hand a squeeze and pulled his back, but not before Peter had a good sense of how much anger was brewing there.

Peter nodded. "Anything I can do?"

Gabriel looked at him for a long moment. "I said I'd get over it."

"That's not what I asked."

Peter saw Gabriel's lips tighten and his jaw flex before he took a slow breath and relaxed, letting his eyes lose focus. After a few moments he exhaled and looked around the place blankly, then back at Peter. "Are we done here?"

"Yes. Will you walk me home?"

"Sure."

It wasn't far. As they left, Peter slid his hand into Gabriel's and was relieved the other man didn't pull away. He could still feel the anger and frustration thrumming along under the surface. When they got to the apartment, Peter opened the door and Gabriel made to leave. Peter grabbed his hand and said, "Come inside, please." At the continued resistance, Peter said, "I don't want to leave things like this between us."

Gabriel came inside, wary and hopeful and guarded.

"Have a seat," Peter offered.

Apparently it wasn't the right thing to say, because all of Gabriel's defenses went back up in an instant. He walked to the far end of the couch, as far away as he could get, and sat stiffly. He stared off into space.

Peter looked at that. _I have so seriously put my foot in it and something about what I'm doing now is only making it worse. _"What do you want, Gabriel?"

"I don't think that matters right now. What do you want to talk about?" His voice was relaxed and calm, as devoid of expression as it always was when he was upset and controlling it.

Peter sat down on the other end of the couch. He rubbed his forehead. "Why do you think that what you want doesn't matter to me?"

"You say you want to find out what I like and…" Gabriel shook his head, his composure cracking a little. "You didn't ask me if I was okay with talking about this tonight, you just _**told**_ me when I showed up that was what we were going to do. I don't want to be here talking to you about this right now."

"Why did you come in then? I didn't _**make**_ you come in here."

Gabriel's façade went down entirely. He spoke through clenched teeth, saying, "Because I had this stupid idea I was going to get to fuck you, Peter! I know you said I couldn't, but I guess I was thinking with the wrong head. Can I go now?"

Peter stared at him slightly open-mouthed for a moment and Gabriel got to his feet. Peter bolted up too. "Please! No, please don't leave. Please."

Gabriel hesitated halfway to the door and looked back. Peter hadn't closed the distance. He had his hands up like he wanted to draw Gabriel back to him, but he wasn't actually stopping him. Peter said, "I'm asking you to stay. I'm not telling you. If you need to leave you can. It's okay. I want you. I want you to stay here with me. I'm sorry. I pushed it too far. I'm still learning your limits."

Peter paused, but Gabriel was still watching him attentively, blinking and listening. Peter went on, "You're right. Of all things, I should have had the decision to talk this out tonight be mutual. I should have found out where your head was first, if you'd had a bad day and were just looking to unwind, or if you were ready to discuss something heavy like this. You showed me, over and over, that this was really uncomfortable for you and I kept pushing. I'm sorry. That was my fault."

Gabriel looked at the floor for a while, then at the door. Peter felt his stomach knot with nerves as he thought of all the other things he perhaps should have said, perhaps still should say, but he needed to give Gabriel space and time to respond. Gabriel glanced over at him and then back at the door. He said, "You know, it's dawn in London."

Peter blinked at that. He nodded slowly, having no idea where that was coming from. "Okay… yeah."

Gabriel glanced at him again. "Well… I was saying that because you could teleport us there, and it wouldn't technically be 'tonight.' Because, you know, you said we wouldn't do anything tonight."

"I was wrong about that too." Peter took a step forward and saw from Gabriel's slight lean backwards that that wasn't the right thing to do, so he stopped. "I want you. Please take me. Let me know I haven't screwed things up. I want you to fuck me so hard I can't talk and keep complicating things."

Gabriel wasn't leaning away anymore. His breath was coming a little faster. "Peter, this isn't a condition for keeping me. Or even for keeping me here to talk to you more. You don't have to give yourself to me."

"I'm not _giving_. I'm telling you that you can _**take**_." Gabriel swallowed and shifted, facing him directly now. Peter said, "You gave me what I wanted tonight and you did it even though it was really hard for you. It's pretty hypocritical of me to put you through that to find out what you want and then refuse to let you have it. If you want me, please take me. I don't give a damn about what I said earlier about not doing it tonight."

Peter _did_ want him. It wasn't a pity fuck. The idea that Gabriel might want him and walk out anyway was wrenching. The whole point of the discussion was to work out what would make each other happy and then put that information to use.

Gabriel stepped closer. Peter tilted up his head receptively, opening his lips and waiting. Gabriel looked at that and let his lips brush Peter's. Peter could feel his heart pounding in his chest with excitement. He was sure Gabriel could hear it too. He kissed him again with another short, teasing touch, as if he was trying to see if Peter would take the initiative and control the pacing of the encounter. Peter swallowed and waited. He let Gabriel lead.

Gabriel reached up, knotted his hand into Peter's hair (but he didn't pull on it) and kissed him deeply, savagely and hard.


	185. Long and Hard

"Fuck you, Peter." Gabriel pulled back and looked at Peter's face, searching. Peter wasn't sure how to respond. The words themselves usually meant something insulting, but Gabriel's tone clearly made it a promise. He still had a hold of the back of Peter's head with one hand. With the other he jerked Peter's shirt out of his pants and yanked it up, finally letting him go to pull it off.

Gabriel bent to bite Peter on the neck, holding his shoulders and turning it into a sucking, hickey-raising kiss almost immediately. Between kisses, he watched the marks fade and panted, "I'm going to fuck you as long as you'll let me, until you're begging me to stop, however long that takes." He worked over Peter's collarbone and across to the other side of his neck.

"That's going to be a while," Peter whispered.

Gabriel grinned at him and bit him on the point of the chin. Peter sunk his fingers into Gabriel's waistband, pushing it down a little before curling them into his shirt. Gabriel growled and pushed him backwards to the couch, pushing him down on his back and climbing over him. He yanked at the front of Peter's pants for a moment, opening them, then got distracted biting his chest. Peter knotted his hands into Gabriel's hair, shifting so he could wrap his legs around him. He started rubbing their groins together and pulled Gabriel up to be in a better position for it.

"Take your… please take your shirt off," Peter asked.

Gabriel stopped his frantic pace to kiss Peter very, very gently in thanks and then complied. He held himself above Peter for a long moment, looking down at him, smiling softly. Peter smiled back up at him and a moment later blushed from the scrutiny. Peter looked down and let his fingers travel up Gabriel's sides, almost tickling. The other man arched.

"You said you liked me touching you," Peter said. "Anything special, or just my hands on you?"

Gabriel moved his hips in a slow surge against him. "Just anywhere, touching me. I love that you want to touch me. You're so gentle. It re- I don't deserve it. That you do it reminds me of how special this is - what we have, what you're giving me. It makes me sane, Peter. It makes me sane." Gabriel's eyes became wet suddenly and he lowered himself, hugging Peter, breathing hard.

Peter stroked his back. "I love you just as you are." He kissed Gabriel's cheek where he could get to it, and said, "Are your ears off-limits?"

"Ha. No, totally on-limits." He turned his head and lifted it a little so Peter could bite the lobe and suck at it.

"Oh!" Gabriel sighed and started moving his hips against him again. He reached down and shoved at Peter's waistband, getting his clothes down past his butt.

Peter shifted. "You're… They won't go lower unless you get off me for a moment."

"Hrrm," Gabriel hummed, kissing down the side of Peter's neck. He shifted back and sat up on his knees between Peter's legs, taking one leg in his hand and pulling Peter's shoe to his face.

Peter's brows drew together as Gabriel bit the laces and began to tug them loose with his teeth. Peter laughed and rubbed his other foot along Gabriel's shoulder. "No one's ever done that before."

Gabriel bit him on the ankle and slid the shoe off, dropping it to the side. He repeated the process on Peter's other shoe as Peter used his sock-clad foot to rub at the other man's chest.

"I like your hair," Peter said, pushing his foot up and down in the middle of Gabriel's chest. "Very manly." He chuckled.

"I like yours too," Gabriel said, sliding off the other shoe and tossing it behind him. "I should have said something earlier… I liked it longer, you know? It's your body, you can do what you want with it, but…" He rubbed Peter's foot, stopping immediately when Peter jerked and stiffened.

"No, no, please!" Peter said suddenly.

"Sorry, sorry." Gabriel kissed the side of Peter's foot, watching him carefully. Peter was excruciatingly ticklish there. "No foot massages for you," he murmured as Peter relaxed and went back to rubbing with his free foot.

"Nice thought, but no, I can't."

Gabriel nodded and pulled off Peter's socks, throwing them aside. He leaned over him again.

"My pants?" Peter questioned. He swallowed anything else he was going to say as Gabriel's hand found his shaft and stroked it gently.

"I like them where they're at." He kissed Peter's mouth, tongue working him relentlessly until Peter was moaning and shifting under him, pushing into his hand and against his body. Gabriel finally broke from him, smiling in satisfaction at Peter's wanton display. His hand disengaged and drifted to the side, wrapping around Peter to cup his butt cheek. "You want me?"

"Yes!" Peter said breathily.

"Good. A lot?" Gabriel started working down his chest, detouring to give Peter's nipples the treatment they deserved for adorning such a handsome chest.

"Yes." Peter ran one hand restlessly through Gabriel's hair and stroked his shoulder with the other.

"Mm," Gabriel hummed, squeezing Peter's ass and pulling them together rhythmically. He drifted down further, letting that free hand come around to Peter's front and wriggling it between Peter's balls and his pants, hooking it underneath him. His fingertips massaged the perineum as his tongue probed at Peter's naval.

Peter squirmed. "Oh, that's good!"

"Your skin is so soft down here. From here… down. All silky smooth and soft." He moved further down and Peter stilled, not sure what Gabriel intended, given his track record with oral. Peter hooked his hands under his head to prop it up and keep himself from doing anything else with them, but he couldn't suppress a twitch when Gabriel's lips kissed his tip. He wished he knew what was in the other man's head, how bad, or not, the demons were he had to fight for that.

Gabriel's mouth moved down the bottom of his shaft, kissing lightly and tasting him - exploring. He was finding out his own limits, Peter realized, and felt very special to be the one Gabriel could do this with. It was a direct result of their talk. If they hadn't had it, Peter's hands would be in Gabriel's hair even now and Gabriel wouldn't be doing the careful nosing around of his balls that he had moved on to. Peter had run into people who'd been ruined for whole sex acts by insensitive or just ignorant lovers. That Gabriel had every intention of delivering on his promise to do this for Peter, because Peter liked it, was clear. Peter whimpered.

"I love you," Gabriel whispered to him and Peter looked down over his body to see his partner looking up at him. Peter smiled warmly at him. Gabriel kissed his thigh and begin working his fingers against Peter again, spitting on them and going a little lower, probing at him.

"We're going to need lube," Peter said. Enough spit would work if Gabriel was reasonably quick, but a prolonged fuck, like he'd promised, called for a more long-lasting lubricant.

"Mm." Gabriel moved his head to Peter's shaft and licked it, causing another involuntary twitch. He blew on the wet skin, making Peter shiver and make a small croon of need. "Yeah, we will. We should stash some out here where it's easier to get to. But since it's not here…" He pushed a finger into Peter, making him open his mouth to breathe. "…I guess you'll just have to teleport us to the bedroom."

"I'm… what?"

Gabriel worked a second finger at the opening. "Yeah. You know, if you can concentrate enough to do it. If not, I guess I'll just have to do this dry." Gabriel leaned forward, kissing up Peter's stomach, pausing here and there to bite and suck, making Peter arch off the couch into his face.

"Oh God no, I can't."

Gabriel paused. "You sure?"

"Could you? Uh!" Gabriel pushed the second finger into him.

"Yeah, I could. I was looking at your file the other day, the Company one, and you know Peter, your control index really sucks. It's about a third of mine."

Peter burst out laughing. "That has got to be the weirdest sex talk anyone has ever made to me!"

Gabriel paused, eyes narrowing a little and Peter stopped laughing, saying, "Thank you, Gabriel. You're wonderful. You're sexy. I love you. Thank you." He remembered quite clearly Gabriel telling him not to laugh at him. When the other man resumed his slow crawl up Peter's chest, Peter said with a shake of his head and a stifled moan at Gabriel's steady tugging at his anus, "There's just no way. I can't focus like this."

"Why not?"

Peter panted, having no idea what the right answer was for that. Gabriel said, moving his fingers slowly, "Think of us. Think of the bedroom. Think of us _in_ the bedroom." Gabriel sucked at Peter's left nipple.

Peter tried - he really did, but he couldn't get past the sensations being inflicted on him. "I can't, I can't. Oh God."

Gabriel stopped, holding in place, fingers still inserted but not moving. "Can you now?"

Peter took a deep breath, then another. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, blinked, and they were on the bed. Gabriel chuckled. "That's my boy." He went back to Peter's chest and wiggled his fingers inside of him before pulling them out in a slow draw that made Peter moan again. Gabriel summoned the lube to that hand, but didn't catch it. Without looking at it, and while still sucking and chewing at Peter's nipple, the bottle upended, opened and dispensed onto his hand.

Peter watched that display of finesse and shook his head. "Show off," he muttered.

"Oh, the show's only just getting started." He moved up to kiss Peter again, passionately and thoroughly, before moving back on his knees between Peter's legs. He used his clean hand to bunch together the crotch of Peter's pants and pull them up his thighs a bit, drawing his legs up before him, knees together. He reached his other hand down to Peter's bare bottom and slicked it, running his fingers up and down the cleft, finding his opening and fingering it. He arranged Peter's feet over his right shoulder and hugged his legs with one arm while the other probed him relentlessly.

Peter reached down and started stroking himself. When he was good and open, Gabriel sat up on his knees and let telekinesis remove his own pants, then lifted out of them one knee at a time. They disappeared off the bed. Gabriel licked his lips and brought Peter's rear end into his lap. Peter reached back and snagged a pillow to prop up his head and shifted his butt against Gabriel's body. The other man came up off his knees and leaned forward into him, the head of penis sliding against the lubed crack of Peter's ass.

He reached down and aimed, watching Peter's face, locking gazes with him. Gabriel moved more and more slowly, watching Peter's every reaction: his breathing sped up, his brows twitched slightly and his eyes tightened briefly as Gabriel pressed into him so, so gradually. The head of his cock was welcomed by Peter's body, enveloped by warmth and tight slickness.

Gabriel pulled back and forth by tiny fractions of an inch, pushing in deeper than he pulled out. As the progress added up to inches, Peter's lips parted and he breathed harder, the tightness disappearing from the corners of his eyes, his pupils dilating. Peter reached down to put his hands on Gabriel's hips, urging him on.

Gabriel leaned forward, sinking in deeper. He reached down to part Peter's cheeks further so there was no obstacle to entering him completely. Peter bit his lower lip and finally shut his eyes, flexing his back to get more motion. Gabriel pushed in the final step, his loins pressing against Peter's ass. The penetration was complete.

Gabriel held his position, letting Peter fuck himself on him while he hugged his legs and breathed, feeling the other man around his shaft, feeling Peter's fingers on his hips, feeling his ass shifting against him. He watched him until Peter opened his eyes again, his expression aroused and shameless about it.

Peter grinned to see Gabriel just looking at him. "Are you going to fuck me, or are you just going to watch?"

Gabriel gave him one hard thrust and then let his cheek rest on Peter's still-clothed shins. "I dunno. The view's really nice. I like looking at you." He let one hand drop to Peter's penis, ghosting his fingers up and down it.

Peter pushed against him greedily. "I want more."

"Uh-huh. Like this?" Gabriel pushed into him hard and thrust back and forth a dozen times, making Peter cry out with the sudden change in tempo. Just as suddenly, Gabriel stopped.

"Oh please, don't stop," Peter begged. "God, don't stop."

"Oh? You liked that?"

"Yes, please. Please. Ride me. Please. Fuck me. Fuck me, Gabriel. Please fuck me."

"Since you asked nicely…" He pulled back most of his length and shoved it back inside, repeating it over and over, letting Peter feel the pace and match him. When they were working together steadily, he put his hand back to Peter's shaft and pulled along with it. A moment later the bottle of lube made a reappearance and Peter chuckled as Gabriel smeared it across his organ and began working him faster, in double-time compared to his hips.

"Oh, God, Gabriel. I'm not going to last." He breathed irregularly. "This is… too much."

"Well, if you don't mind, I was going to keep fucking you. I'm only getting started here."

Peter looked up at him and started to laugh, then crooned suddenly, his hips hitching. Gabriel's hand sped up, moving to the tip and giving rapid-fire, short jerks. Peter yelled out, his toes curling and his knees drawing back as he came. Gabriel slowed, then stopped, enjoying the feel of Peter's asshole clenching around him. He watched the flush of the orgasm fade slowly, a faint skein of sweat having appeared on Peter's upper chest and forehead. His lips were redder and fuller. Peter licked them slowly and it was one of the more sensuous things Gabriel had ever seen.

Peter's breathing came down and his eyes focused on Gabriel's face. "You're just…" he panted, "just really being a voyeur tonight, aren't you?"

"Yes," Gabriel affirmed. "Is that okay?" He started shimmying Peter's pants off, without pulling out.

"Yeah, it's fine," Peter answered lazily, feeling spent and relaxed.

Gabriel tossed the clothing away and carefully spread Peter's legs to either side. He rocked forward between them, making Peter's breath catch and the shorter man brought his knees back, angling his hips. Gabriel settled into missionary position with him, kissing those passion-swollen lips gently, feeling their warmth and fullness. He tasted them, pushing into Peter's body with short strokes, listening as Peter breathed "Oh, oh, oh," around every thrust, his body still sensitive and aroused.

"Let me know if this is too much," Gabriel whispered to him, kissing up his cheek.

"Oh Gabriel, you're so damn good. This is delicious." He reached down with one hand and grabbed his ass as much as he could, kneading the muscle and slipping it down Gabriel's thigh. With the other hand he cradled Gabriel's head, pulling him against himself, slowly rocking his body with Gabriel's motions. "Oh, this is so good, so good. So gentle… so careful… you're so careful with me."

"Only with you, Peter. You're everything to me. I need you so much. I love you. I love that you're here for me. I love that you care about me. I love that you'll let me do kinky things with you." He worked a hand under Peter's head and lifted it to kiss his forehead, then rested his own against him. "You're a good lover, a good man, you show me what it is to be a good person, to be moral, to be giving, to be generous with yourself. To forgive me. Because there's no way I can forgive myself until someone else forgives me first."

Peter blinked at him in surprise, having not expected that sort of revelation during sex. Gabriel smothered his lips with his own, fucking him harder. Peter so badly wanted to stop and talk about that, or at least have a moment to process it, but Gabriel was surging into him, bracing himself on the bed with one hand and pumping hard at him. His mouth moved down Peter's jaw to his neck, biting and sucking and marking him.

Peter held him shoulder and thigh, pulling into the thrusts, meeting him. Gabriel came back to his face suddenly, mouth needy and hungry for him. His tongue stroked Peter's lips and the front of his teeth, then he just pressed harder on him with a guttural moan. Peter felt him release within him in a last spasmodic push. Gabriel relaxed slowly, not moving from his position. He sagged against Peter, then lifted enough to get his weight off of him. He peppered Peter's face with grateful kisses, then nuzzled his neck and snuggled his face against him.

Peter hugged him. "You're so affectionate," he sighed.

"Especially after I come," Gabriel murmured.

"Not just now. All the time. You show me you love me in all kinds of little ways. I don't always comment on it, but I'm saying now that I notice and I appreciate it."

"Tell me what I do."

"You touch me. You hold my hand. You touch my hair. You brush it out of my eyes. Or at least, you did when it was longer. Now you pretend to do it, which is really weird, but whatever. Sometimes you straighten my clothes or you get things for me. You're solicitous. You watch me. You don't watch other people like you watch me. You're watching my face, trying to read how I feel and what I mean, I think. If I'm in the room, you're next to me, you're with me, you're supporting me. You kiss me. You let me kiss you. You're available to me. You look out for me. You defend me… to almost ridiculous degrees, but I know you wouldn't be doing it if the emotion wasn't there."

Peter stroked up and down Gabriel's back. "You let me do things my way, even when you don't agree with them. You don't tell me how to live my life, which for someone as… don't take this wrong, but as possessive and as much of a control freak as you are, I think that it must take a lot of maturity for you to do that."

"I'd lose you if I tried it, Peter."

"I know. But knowing that isn't enough for most people. They'd do it anyway, because they couldn't stop themselves." He kissed Gabriel's cheek. "They'd ruin a good thing… a wonderful thing, because they'd hold on too tight. You've been faced with that… and you let me go. And here I am in your arms because of it… because I know if I need to leave, I can." He kissed him again, feeling Gabriel tense against him a little at the mention of Peter leaving him. "It makes me want to stay with you forever." Gabriel relaxed again, kissing Peter's neck.

Gabriel gave him a little thrust with his hips and chewed on the underside of Peter's jaw.

"You're not ready again, already, are you?" Gabriel had softened a lot, but it was tough to tell his exact state at the moment.

"No, but I'm not done with you yet. I'm just recharging a little."


	186. And Again And Again

"You know something else I love about you?" Gabriel asked, turning to his side and rearranging Peter so they were spooning.

"What's that?" Peter let himself be shifted languidly.

Gabriel settled in behind him. "It's that when I tell you something, something personal, you don't use it against me."

"How… what do you mean?"

"Like if I say I'm not sure how I feel about being attracted to men, you didn't tell me to go take some time alone and figure myself out, and not to come back until I was sure. When I told you I had sex with you because…" He hesitated and nosed along the back of Peter's neck, wrapping his arm around him and hugging him closer, "Because I wanted to be with you, and at least initially it wasn't something I was expecting to get into, I asked you not to back off from me because of that, not to take _this_ away from me," he hugged him firmly again, "and you didn't. I think most people would run screaming from someone as uncertain and messed up as I am. You don't. You don't hold it against me."

Peter stroked Gabriel's forearm where it crossed his chest. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I didn't expect it. I mean, yeah, I know it's _you_ and you're that way… if anyone was that willing to give like that, it would be you, but… I don't think most people would. I think most people wouldn't want to waste their time with someone like me."

"I'm not most people. And this is some of the best spent time I've ever had."

"Yeah… thank you. You're nice." He smiled and kissed Peter's shoulder affectionately. "I'm not in love with most people. They're kind of sorry excuses for humanity anyway. Not like you." He hugged him tightly, then gave Peter a little push with his hips and bit him lightly. "You ready to give me more?"

"Always."

"Hrm."

"You sound disappointed?"

Gabriel took the arm from around Peter's chest and snaked it down to his rear end, sliding the fingers up and down, making Peter arch and inhale sharply. "Not disappointed, no. Just realizing how much of my work here remains undone. It's a labor of love." He chuckled a little, then bit Peter on the back of the neck and rolled him over suddenly, covering his body with his own. Peter tensed up and almost resisted the sudden shift, then relaxed. Gabriel's fingers worked him roughly but thoroughly, keeping at it until Peter opened before him and was starting to moan in the back of his throat.

Gabriel lifted himself a little and shoved inside, not taking his time like he had before. He put one hand on the bed to brace himself and the other on Peter's hip. He began to hammer into him hard and relentlessly. Peter turned a little to look back at him. Gabriel smirked at him, then moved his hand up from his hip to turn Peter's head and shove it into the pillow. He held his face to it, smothering him, but only for a few handsful of seconds – enough to give Peter the idea of it, without much of the reality. Gabriel released him, then stroked his shoulder soothingly as Peter sucked in breath.

"You okay?" Gabriel asked, slowing his pace a little.

Peter nodded. "Yes, yes, I'm fine." A moment later he said, "Thank you for asking." _I'd kind of rather have a warning for that…_

Gabriel dropped his hand back to Peter's hip and sped up again, plowing into him until Peter felt like he was going to break apart at the seams. He rode up a bit higher, angling more directly downward on each thrust, hitting Peter's prostate.

"Oh God," Peter groaned.

"That the spot?"

"Yes! Yes! God, please… Please…"

"Please what?"

"I don't know… oh… oh… oh…"

Gabriel laughed and kept at it. Peter tensed and stiffened not long after, then started to relax. He jerked with each thrust. "No, please stop. Please stop."

Gabriel slowed and sunk into him deeply, eliciting a final whimper before Peter sagged again, catching his breath. Gabriel leaned over him slowly and kissed his back lightly, giving him delicate kisses up his spine and the back of his head.

"Mrf," Peter said. "You're not done."

"No," Gabriel replied, kissing across one shoulder, then the other. Peter brought a hand up, reaching back with the intention of stroking Gabriel's face, but instead the other man kissed it too and Peter held still while Gabriel kissed each fingertip. When he was done he moved his face forward so Peter could touch him.

"Mm. I'm pretty… wow," Peter said. "I'm ready now. Just don't start at full speed."

"Had something else in mind anyway," Gabriel said. "Come up for doggy style." He pulled out and they changed position slightly. Gabriel curled around him, kissing and licking Peter's shoulders, arms around him, caressing his chest. He rubbed through the wet stain on Peter's stomach. "Ha."

"Ha?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, I turn you on. I get you off. I like the proof."

Peter chuckled.

Gabriel lined himself up and slid inside Peter's well-lubed orifice. "Now," Gabriel said, "it's okay if I use powers on myself?"

"Ye… what are you going to do?" Peter looked back over his shoulder, wondering what Gabriel had in mind.

"I'm going to be Nathan."

"Oh… kay."

Gabriel nodded and started thrusting lightly. It was only then that Peter figured out he meant to change while he was buried inside of him. He couldn't decide how he felt about that, so he just tried to relax and take it. Gabriel shape shifted a few moments later, his skin rippling slightly where they touched, but the important thing was his member was a lot, lot bigger around and Peter felt himself stretched immediately. He gasped.

Gabriel had stopped moving to change and he didn't start back up right away. He touched Peter's back with Nathan's slightly rougher hands. It was _his _voice he heard asking, "You alright, Pete?"

Peter nodded and spread his legs a little more, settling into a better position for the new height. Gabriel put his hands on both of Peter's hips and began to sway into him, pushing him and opening his body, getting him used to the new dimensions. Peter groaned and lowered his upper body to the bed. Gabriel asked, "All good?"

"Good," Peter responded, panting. He'd felt like he was being split before, but it was nothing like this. Gabriel picked up the pace in a steady progression, increasing his pressure, gripping him harder until he was yanking Peter into him and Peter was mewling and struggling against him, trying to find a way to take the fucking that wasn't unbearably stimulating. He didn't think he could come again, but by the end of it his body found a way. He cried out and curled his fists into his pillow. "Please Gabriel… don't… stop… no."

His partner stopped immediately and made a growling noise of frustration. "You want me to stop, or not?" The pauses and inflection in Peter's voice sounded a lot more like 'stop' than 'don't stop.' He could have kept going and claimed the technicality, but that would be wrong, until he was sure.

"Stop, please," Peter clarified.

Gabriel growled again, but he didn't move. "I was almost there… Peter…" The temptation to keep going was strong – every instinct called out for it. Trusting your instincts was overrated. He held himself motionless instead.

Peter pulled off and turned to face him. "Come here. Lay down. Please?" He tugged at Gabriel's hip and the other man went where directed, rolling over on his back. Peter took him in his hand and started to work him. Gabriel almost immediately grabbed Peter's wrist, stopping him. Peter blinked up at him.

"So does this mean I fucked you until you begged me to stop?"

Peter laughed. "Yes, you win. Totally." He leaned up to kiss him and Gabriel moved his hand back to himself, holding it still for a moment, then controlling the motion so he wouldn't go immediately like he did when others touched him themselves. They continued, kissing the whole while as Gabriel rolled over partway to face Peter. He came quickly anyway, falling onto his back again and laying there exhausted.

Peter propped himself up on his elbow and said, "What would you have done if I hadn't 'begged you to stop'?"

"Mm. I would have had to think of something more inventive for round three. I'm feeling a little sleepy right now though. You still want more?"

Peter snorted. "If you tried to have sex with me again, I don't I'd feel a thing. My hips feel sprung or something." He pulled the blankets back to get under them and Gabriel wriggled around so he didn't have to actually get up to accomplish it. He changed shape too, taking his usual form because it was easier to spoon up behind Peter when he was that much taller. They pulled up the blanket and sheet. Gabriel pulled the smaller man over to him and wrapped his arms around him.

"I guess I'd have to find some other way to sex you up then." Gabriel let his hand drift teasingly down over Peter's stomach.

To his surprise, instead of pushing him off, Peter bowed his back against him and reached behind to hook his hand behind Gabriel's neck. "Very gentle, very slow," Peter whispered and Gabriel complied. It took a long time for him to get hard again, but it was comfortable and loving and by the end of it they were face-to-face, kissing passionately and fondling one another. Peter's hand brought Gabriel off as quickly and surely as it always did. Peter followed him soon thereafter.

They snuggled into each other's arms – warm, contented, affectionate… a bit sticky, and completely spent.


	187. Morning After

Peter was a presence in the Grey and Sons watch and clock repair shop. He was surprised to be there and more surprised by his state. He seemed to be some kind of disembodied awareness, like a camera on the wall. Gabriel was working on an enormous watch laid out across the counter, but somehow it was also a mechanical version of himself. The back of the skull was laid open, but inside was gears and complex mechanisms instead of brain and tissue.

He was in a dream again. Peter didn't think he was dream-walking… he was just… in one of Gabriel's dreams, like he was reading his mind. An older man walked into the shop and demanded that Gabriel give back his daughter. Gabriel pointed out a cloth laid to the side, on another counter, that was strewn with parts. Many were beautiful and jeweled, or inlaid with precious metals, but they were just parts. One had the name "Dale Smither" inscribed across it and somehow Peter knew that was the man's daughter.

Gabriel and the man argued over the piece of machinery, with the man insisting Gabriel had murdered her and Gabriel insisting that he might need that part and wouldn't give it back. He said that even if he couldn't use it now, he would probably need it in future. He tried to explain to the man how the watch he was fixing (which was the mechanical version of himself) didn't have enough parts. The man wouldn't listen to him and talked of how much he missed his daughter and how Gabriel had no right to take her. Gabriel became frustrated.

Arthur and the Haitian walked into the shop. Arthur told Gabriel he'd had enough time to finish the job, and since he hadn't, he was going to take back what he'd given him. He reached out his hand over the mechanical form and his hand glowed. As it shone, one of the mechanisms inside the construct glowed and vanished. Gabriel seized his own head with both hands and screamed in agony as one of his abilities was burned out.

Peter felt the keening run all through him, but the sound was off. Gabriel couldn't get the sound out and he seemed to think his inability to be heard had something to do with the Haitian. Peter could hear it as a strangled wheeze, but it sounded… real. With an effort, he focused on the sound and followed it back to the source, suddenly blinking awake. Gabriel lay before him, still making that odd noise, his fingers twitching and head jerking.

Peter reached out groggily and shook Gabriel's shoulder. "Gabr… Gabriel? Wake up." He could still sense the dream, because the other man was projecting it clearly and Peter hadn't pulled it together enough to block him out. In the nightmare, the Haitian was shaking him while Arthur continued 'reclaiming' Gabriel's powers. Gabriel flinched and brought his fists up defensively. One of his legs kicked, barely missing Peter's shin.

Peter leaned forward and did something none of the characters in the dream would do. He kissed him, pressing his lips firmly to Gabriel's. The other man jerked a couple of times and inhaled sharply. Peter felt the dream dissolve immediately, spinning off into half-remembered fragments.

Peter pulled back and Gabriel shifted, trying and failing to wake up. "Err…" His eyelids fluttered, but he couldn't seem to get them open. "Pete…" He leaned forward and put his forehead against Peter's shoulder. "Hum. Here." His breathing deepened and he sagged, relaxing into deeper, dreamless sleep.

Peter sighed and looked down at the man. Here was the feared serial killer, every defense down, trusting him completely. He smiled as he listened to the regular breaths and let the sound pull him back into his own slumber.

XXXX

"Peter? Peter?"

"Wha?" He just wanted to go back to sleep. If Gabriel was trying to wake him up for sex, he had another thing coming. Besides the fact Peter wasn't even sure his legs still worked after last night's pounding.

"I'm pretty sure you work second shift today."

"Tour."

"What?"

"It's called a tour," Peter mumbled sleepily. "I work tour two." He pulled the pillow over his head. "It's not until eight."

"Well, it's 7:46 right now."

"What!" Adrenalin flushed through him and he whipped the pillow off. He struggled up and tried to get out of bed to find that his legs **did** work, but his ass still felt loose. He had been well and thoroughly fucked like nobody's business. He grabbed the end of the bed and waited while his body adjusted to the idea of being upright. "I'm supposed to be there fifteen minutes early to help restock the rig. Christ!"

"Hm. Sorry, I slept in too."

"Do you remember that dream?"

"No." He was lying. Peter's head snapped around at that, but Gabriel's expression didn't change.

"The dream you had last night? The one I woke you up from?"

"Thirteen minutes now, Peter."

"Okay, fine." Peter shook his head. The dream wasn't that important anyway. He went in the bathroom and used the toilet, then washed his hands, brushed his teeth and ran a comb through his hair. "How much time now?"

"Ten minutes."

"Crap. I was supposed to be there five minutes ago." He took a step and grimaced, glancing at the shower.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. My butt's still greasy."

Gabriel grinned and laughed. "Might not be lube, you know."

"Don't remind me. Jesus Christ!"

"You're going to smell like me, and sex with me, all day long." He grinned at the ceiling. "God, I want to be there when you get off work!" Peter scowled. Gabriel looked over at him. "You need to get dressed, Peter."

Peter shook his head, aware that Gabriel was trying to subtly encourage him not to clean up. Well… he could do that. "I don't have time to take a shower," he muttered to himself, trying to rationalize indulging his lover's kink. He rifled through his dresser for new underwear and a t-shirt. He put on clean socks and grabbed his pants, pulling them on. His work clothes were in the locker room at the hospital - changing into them was another thing he had to arrive early to do. "Where the hell are my shoes?" He searched the bedroom for them.

"Living room, next to the couch."

"Okay. Thanks." Peter found them and yanked them on. Gabriel finally climbed out of bed and walked over to him just as he finished with the second shoe. Gabriel put his hand on the back of Peter's neck as he straightened, gripping him slightly. "What are you…? What?" Peter shifted under the hand, but didn't pull away. _Please don't make me late for work, Gabriel. I've been there less than a week. I'm trying to make a good impression._ He didn't say it out loud though.

"Eight minutes." Gabriel turned Peter to him and kissed him deeply. Peter shut his eyes and let him, letting the memory of the previous night's many, many pleasures wash over him. He shivered and Gabriel broke away for a moment.

Peter took the opportunity to say, "Gabe, I'm _already_ late. Eight minutes until eight just means I'm already seven minutes _late_." Peter caught himself a little. He'd never used a nickname or even so much as an endearment with Gabriel. He wasn't sure why he had now. Perhaps it was that the intimacy and trust between them had skyrocketed lately.

Gabriel's brows shot up at the moniker, but he didn't comment on it. Instead, he said, "You wouldn't be awake at all if I hadn't woke you. Spare a minute for me." Gabriel brought him back to his lips and kissed him again and again. Peter sagged against him and returned it, even knowing he was getting more and more in trouble as every second passed and he wasn't where he was supposed to be.

Gabriel released him and said, "Go." Peter strongly suspected it was exactly one minute of delay. He gave Gabriel a smile, happy that the man didn't want to see him go, happy that he _had_ let him go, happy that he'd have the taste of his lips on his for a little while more. He teleported to work.

XXXXX

An hour and a half later, Peter and his work partner Paula had finished their first two calls of the day and then hit a dead zone. They were parked in a quiet alley, reading the newspaper in the passenger seat as his partner read a different section from the driver's side. He looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps to see Gabriel, in Nathan's guise, coming to him.

Gabriel hefted a bag. "Hey, I found you. Got you breakfast." He handed the bag through the open window.

"Oh… thanks," Peter said, looking inside. It held a half dozen fresh bagels, a small container of cream cheese and a pair of prepackaged napkins with plastic cutlery. "Wow, really, thanks."

"I know you didn't have much time this morning to get something to eat." He leaned against the side of the rig, looking in at Peter with a dreamy, absorbed expression on his face. He was staring at Peter like he worshipped him and all Peter could do was stare back in like kind, a beatific smile of utter joy on his face. Nothing else existed in the world right then. He'd loved Gabriel before, but he hadn't been as thoroughly _**in love**_ with him as he was now.

He looked at Nathan's face and saw very thoroughly that it wasn't Nathan. It looked like him, but it wasn't him and Peter was sure of it. Nathan had never looked at him like this. His eyes had never scanned over Peter's face like he wanted to etch it into his memory, like he was constantly looking for signs of how Peter felt and what he was thinking. Nathan hadn't cared - it wasn't that he hadn't cared about Peter, but they were brothers, they'd grown up together, they had a history, and there was no need to be so vigilant in maintaining their relationship. If Peter and Nathan fought, they were still brothers and they'd still love each other. Gabriel was so very painfully clear that he didn't have that safety net.

Clearly he wasn't pondering that right now. If anything, he seemed so radiantly happy and pleased with himself, with the both of them, that perhaps the opposite was true and he felt he now **had** something of a safety net. Maybe, if they fought, they'd be able to make up afterwards and it could all be okay. Gabriel absorbed every detail of Peter's face even as Peter marveled at how he looked standing there, leaning against the ambulance in his tailored suit, the sun on his shoulders picking up the blond highlights in his hair, his eyes shadowed enough to be dark, but not forbidding - never forbidding with that content, engaging expression on his face.

Paula, from the driver's side, cleared her throat and Peter realized, a bit awkwardly, that this man he was having blatant eyesex with was fairly well known to be his brother. He blushed furiously. Gabriel straightened a little, his grin taking on a mischievous cast as Peter's skin reddened. Without looking at her, Peter handed over the bag. "Do you want some bagels? He brought enough for both of us." He hoped like hell that was Gabriel's intent and from his expression, it was.

Paula took the bag after a beat and said, "Sure. Thanks." She didn't ask the obvious question of who this guy was. She was fairly new, so she didn't automatically know Nathan like Hesam would have. Peter hoped to be partnered with Hesam again in future, but he sort of doubted that would happen. Hesam had a new rookie to ride herd on and Peter was already clearly the senior partner, having several years experience on Paula even if his current tenure was less than a week.

Peter said, "Yeah… um… I'll see you later then?"

Gabriel nodded, getting the message. "Right. After work, _please?_" he asked with a tilt of his head. "But I forgot to ask you something yesterday. Heidi wanted to know if you and Emma would like to join us at the beach house this Saturday, instead of going out."

"Oh." Peter's brows furrowed as he thought about his schedule.

Gabriel supplied helpfully, "You have Saturday off. And Emma only works Monday through Friday right now."

Peter's brows drew together as he scrutinized Gabriel. The man knew his work schedule better than he did. He huffed and shook his head. He wasn't sure if he should complain about that or blow it off. He decided to go with 'blow it off.' Paula handed him the bag of bagels, having made her selection. Peter pulled one out at random. It was cinnamon raisin.

Gabriel shrugged. "I didn't know if you might have had anything else going on though. And… you know… didn't know if you'd want to go. It'd be nice if you were there."

"Yeah, no, sure, I'd love to go. Let me call Emma and I'll tell you tonight, okay?"

"Sure." Gabriel patted the door. "I'll catch you later." He turned and walked away.

"Hey, um," Peter called out and Gabriel turned. "I only work one shift today. I'll get off at 4, maybe 5."

Gabriel grinned. "Me too," he said with a smirk, savoring the double entendre.

"How did he even know where to find us?" Paula asked after Gabriel was out of earshot. Peter took a bite of his bagel and began to try to think of a good answer that didn't involve Molly Walker, tracing his cell phone, or any other stalker-esque aspects of his boyfriend.


	188. A Day In The Life

Peter was fairly happy as he arrived at his apartment. He was looking forward to the meeting, even if perforce it was going to be a quickie. He could hear Nathan's voice murmuring through the door before he opened it. His brother's form was on the couch, sitting properly and business-like as Nathan was wont to do. He had a phone to his ear.

Gabriel was saying, "Yes, yes he will. He has a lot of experience handling this kind of case." He smiled warmly at Peter, cocking his head a little and lifting his brows. His eyes roamed up and down Peter's body. Gabriel said, "Right. Mr. Bielli, I need to let you g-… Yes. … Yes."

Peter began tugging his shirt out of his pants and toying with the lower edge of it. Gabriel smiled a little wider. Into the phone he said, "Yes, of course. I'll call you tomorrow in the afternoon." Peter rolled his shirt up around his forearms, teasing it upward, giving Gabriel increasing views of his abdomen. Gabriel sighed and sagged a little, appreciating the show, but still on the phone. "Yes, certainly. Then I'll call you at two." A moment later he rolled his eyes and said, "Yes, okay, I understand. I'm sure we'll be done by three."

Peter grinned and pulled the shirt up over his head, stretching and flexing the whole way. Gabriel shifted his feet impatiently, nervously. "Then- … Yes, we'll be done by a quarter to three, I'm sure. It's just a review." Peter whipped off the shirt and spun it lazily. "Yes… no. … No, of course not. … Mr. Bielli, Cecil will take good care of you. _**I**_ will take good care of you. I know how sensitive this is. … Of course." Peter tossed the shirt on him. Gabriel made no attempt to get it off his face. Instead he reached up and pressed it to him, rubbing his face with it.

"Right. I've already called Cecil and as I said, he's cleared his morning for you, then all three of us can teleconference at two to review. … Yes." He grinned at Peter as the shirt slipped off. He caught it, fondling it and mouthing the wadded cloth. "Yes. … I'll talk to you then. You're in good hands here, Mr. Bielli. We'll make sure this is taken care of." Peter unfastened his slacks and played at opening them further. "Thank you. Good-bye."

"God!" Gabriel moaned once he was off the phone. "Come here!"

Peter grinned and sauntered closer, settling on Gabriel's lap, his knees on either side of the other man's legs, facing him directly. "Councilman Bielli?" Peter questioned. The Bielli's were related to the Petrelli's. Arthur's brother Tim had married one, but Peter wasn't sure if the councilman was his cousin, second cousin, once or twice removed, or what.

"Yeah." Gabriel made a vague gesture. "His daughter-in-law… drugs…" He shook his head. "I figure she's guilty as hell, but intervention might be better than locking her up. It's not like she's hurt anyone. Maybe neglected her kid a little, but I'll make sure Bielli takes care of that."

"Hm," Peter said. He leaned forward and kissed Gabriel deeply as the other man ran his hands up and down Peter's ribs, curling them just a little around his back. Peter leaned away. "Tell me about your day."

Gabriel pulled himself out of contemplating Peter's body to blink at his face. "My day?"

"Yeah." Peter shifted on Gabriel's knees. "Tell me what you did today."

"Oh… um…" Gabriel looked away, blowing out air. He let his hands fall to Peter's legs. "Well, after you left, I got cleaned up and made the bed. Then I went home. Apologized to Heidi. She seemed okay with it." At Peter's look, he added, "I should have been there by six or seven, you know. You weren't the only one late." He chuckled. "But my boss was nice about it."

Peter laughed a little at that.

Gabriel said, "She wanted to know what you'd said about this weekend and I realized I hadn't asked you. I picked up my briefcase and had Chuck do a trace on your phone. Then I caught a taxi, got you breakfast and had the taxi drop me off. I didn't see you right away, but I figured an ambulance wouldn't be too hard to find. I just hoped you weren't on a call, and you weren't." He leaned forward, inviting a kiss, and got one.

"Then I went to Angela's and we went over some of the concerns with the new Thompson series. There was one there and we discussed performance with him and gathered his thoughts on the issues."

"What's… the Thompson series?" He suspected he knew.

"Clones."

"Clones?" Peter blinked. Okay, so it wasn't the new gun design. That explained the 'him' and 'his thoughts', which Peter had assumed was the weapons manufacturer rep.

"Yes. Eric Thompson, Jr. They're all clones. There's… I don't know, seven or eight of them left. I don't remember hearing if that one made it through surgery. Probably eight."

"Uh…" Peter collected his jaw. "Wait, the Company has made clones of Eric Thompson Jr.?"

"No, they made clones of Eric Thompson. That's who Eric Thompson Jr. _is_. There are only two unaltered ones. The rest have been changed a little in appearance so they aren't recognizable as copies."

"Oh," Peter said faintly. That explained a certain similarity in mindset, height, weight and general features of some of the people he'd worked with. Eric Thompson was not just comfortable with morally grey, he was happy with morally black if he could get away with it. And according to the Company rumor mill, he _had_ gotten away with it on many occasions. "How… how did you… is that someone's ability, to make clones of people?"

"No, Peter. It's mostly mundane technology from twenty years ago or so, tweaked with some bio-enhancement power and a serum made from Adam's blood that increased the survival rate. That's how they made Tracy, Barbara and Jessica. There were a few others – early experiments with power replication and inheritability. Eric's batch was just a test to see if they could mass produce mundanes. He didn't have any abilities. That line of experimentation was shuttered in the mid-90s."

"What's the _new _Thompson series?"

Gabriel sighed and frowned, looking off to the side. "I'm not supposed to be telling you that."

Peter pulled Gabriel's face around. "I want to know."

Gabriel looked at him directly, locking eyes for a long moment. Finally he nodded slowly, without looking away. "It is considered that the existing run, currently adults and all field-tested, was a success. So we're considering a second one. Which wouldn't bother me – they're just people, normal people like anyone else, even if they're all the same DNA and I think we'd be better off working with a donor like Noah or someone else than Eric – but they're thinking about having the new series be artificially aged and implanted with memories and skills so they'll be usable faster. The emotional maturity is never good for that."

Peter scooted off backwards and began to pace, running a hand through his hair. "This… this… this is what the Company's doing?"

"One of many projects, yes. It's just in the feasibility stage, Peter. That's why there are concerns and issues. We're trying to hash those out before we commit much to it."

"And for what? What happens when you work out how to make a little army of obedient, amoral super-soldiers?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Then I suppose we make one."

Peter stared at him. "This… I… You can't be serious."

"Peter, how is this different from _hiring_ a bunch of obedient, amoral super-soldiers?"

That stumped Peter for a moment. "These… you're _making_ them…"

"Yes. People are born every day. Most people kind of enjoy the 'making them' part of the process. A lot even do it on purpose."

"No, but these are people made deliberately to further the Company's mission."

"Yes," Gabriel said, inclining his head. "As were you, as was I. Probably as both Nathan and Sylar. I've often wished I could go back in time and read my mother's mind. She always talked about me being special and destined for big things." Gabriel's voice softened and became distant. His eyes slid out of focus. "She even mentioned me becoming the president." He rubbed his fingers together and they crackled briefly with static electricity. "She _had_ to have known something."

They were silent for a while, then Peter asked, "What about your uncle, Martin? You could ask him."

Gabriel focused on Peter. "I already have. He's been emptied - someone took his memories. I can see the holes. I can't tell when or what they removed. It could have been things that had nothing to do with me – just with Samson."

"You went back and read your uncle's mind?"

"Yes. Brooklyn's just down the street, Peter. He doesn't have any defenses."

Peter blinked and looked away. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, but it was done and no one was hurt, presumably. "But these people you're talking about, these clones, they need to have families, parents, childhoods. They need to be normal people."

Gabriel nodded enthusiastically. "I agree with you! I agree. And under the old system, they had that, as much as you or I did. The board's talking about it – or at least the subcommittee is. Not everyone considers family life critical and unfortunately the Thompsons don't. Their input carries a lot of weight in this, since it's their psychological profile we're working with. But anyway, we're not going to put guns in the hands of people with the emotional maturity and attention spans of toddlers, so there's nothing to worry about right now."

"How would you know that without having already made some of these people and tested this on them? They'd be children!"

"We haven't done that. Accelerated and reversed aging has been used before and we've seen the effects. So have you. Rebel brought in that woman who has the ability, remember? So we're discussing it. Peter, I'm _not_ supposed to be talking about this with you."

"I can see why," he said icily. He wondered what other ethically compromising experiments the Company was up to. But he could see Gabriel's point… people went to sperm banks and egg donors _now_ and picked their baby's parentage. That was moral. Or they saved their own embryos for implantation and _that_ was moral. Should one of those embryos develop into identical twins, then they'd be the same thing as clones. And if they were raised by a normal family and recruited into the Company later on… Presumably they could turn it down, but if the Company had picked someone like Thompson who would be thrilled to have a job like that, then they _wouldn't_ turn it down.

Peter shook his head. Somewhere there was a problem with the morality of engineering people's lives like this. It was clear-cut when you shoved age-manipulation and false memories into the equation. But if the genetically identical clones were uniformly in support of it, then yes, that had a certain air of legitimacy to it. It made him queasy to know they were even discussing it.

Gabriel changed the subject. "So, after we had lunch, I went by the office and got my notes together, then went downtown to facilitate a conference between the firm's largest corporate client and a rep from the patent office on intellectual property rights. Then I went back to the office, wrote up everything that needed to be recorded, returned some calls, sent some emails, and then came here. Where when you came in, I was taking another call from the good councilman."

Peter nodded, still lost in the moral morass of cloning people. Now that it was confirmed, he was pretty sure he'd met more than one of the Erics, though the ones he suspected were named Brian and Daren. He didn't like them, but that didn't mean they weren't _people_. Same with Jessica, Tracy and Barbara. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with intentionally making a duplicate of someone who already existed. Everyone needed to be unique, but it wasn't like Tracy was the same person as Barbara. They _were_ unique, even though they were, he supposed, genetically identical.

"Earth to Peter, Earth to Peter, come in, Peter."

"What?"

"You asked about my day. Tell me about yours. And please get your mind off of things I shouldn't have been telling you in the first place. Your mother and Maury Parkman will censor what they tell me if they find out I pass it along to you. Not to mention that I _can_ get kicked off the board of directors or worse for this sort of disclosure, especially if it leads to you thwarting something important."

Peter gave Gabriel a long look, then walked over and put his hand on his shoulder. He bent and kissed him. When they parted, Gabriel looked surprised and said, "What was that for? Not that I mind."

"You told me the truth. You told me what I asked. You even explained it. You weren't supposed to. It puts your job, and maybe even you, in jeopardy." He paused, licking his lips. "You trust me. I should… I'll try to be worthy of that and not get you into trouble about this." It wouldn't be the first time he'd deliberately ignored something his conscience thought he should investigate. It probably wouldn't be the last.

Gabriel stood, sliding his hand along Peter's forearm and up to his shoulder. "Peter… come here." He slipped his hand behind Peter's neck and pulled him in for a hug. Peter returned it firmly. A few moments later, Gabriel kissed his neck, then began nibbling on his collarbone, and things developed quickly after that.


	189. Off Work

"I want you to change," Peter murmured into Gabriel's ear, licking inside the delicate shell and making his lover shiver and squirm from the sensation. He got started unbuttoning Gabriel's shirt.

"Huh? Out of my clothes?"

Peter chuckled and put his forehead down on Gabriel's shoulder. "No, silly. Into Gabriel. Or Sylar. Whatever. How do you want me to refer to your shapes?"

Gabriel hooked his fingers under Peter's chin and turned it so he could kiss him between each sentence as he said, "Gabriel's form. Nathan's form. Sylar… is a part of me I'm not comfortable showing you."

Peter pulled back a little, letting his eyes roam over Gabriel's face as he considered that. He knew Sylar's characteristics were in there, a more active and forceful part of Gabriel's personality than Nathan's traits. He felt Gabriel's fear climb rapidly under his hands where he was touching him. He stopped messing with the shirt and laid his palms on the upper part of Gabriel's chest. He was getting more and more sensitive to the man's mood changes, almost like he was getting attuned to him. He nodded to reassure him and leaned in for a kiss, gratified to feel the fear ebb again. "I love you," he whispered.

"Why…. Why do you want me to look like Gabriel?"

"I'm not sure. Nathan comes with a lot of baggage for me. It's not like Sylar doesn't, but when you look like Nathan I have trouble separating what you look like from… the brother I used to have. And… I know you think you **are** Nathan sometimes, but I hope you can understand that you've changed. I want to… if you look different, it's easier for me to honor that change." Peter swallowed, thinking that had come out a lot better than it had been in his head, which was a rare accomplishment.

Gabriel leaned back from him a little, minimizing their skin contact, and shape shifted. "Good?"

"Perfect." Peter leaned back in for a kiss, but Gabriel started to maneuver him to the couch instead. Peter didn't let him and Gabriel desisted. "No, no," Peter said. "You're getting your clothes off first, buster." Gabriel nodded and undressed quickly. Peter shimmied out of his pants and kicked them to the side. He turned and looked at the couch, considering positions. Gabriel stepped up behind him, wrapping his arms around Peter's front and sliding his hands down Peter's chest to his hips. They circled to the small of his back and came up, giving continuous contact, curling them over Peter's shoulders. He began to rub gently.

Peter raised one leg and put his foot on the couch to brace himself, letting Gabriel apply a little more pressure as he worked out to the outside of his shoulders, then came back to his neck, went up to the base of his skull, then down his spine to the small of his back. He worked back up both sides of his spine and Peter moaned softly in appreciation. "This is so, so good. Thank you."

"Mm." He leaned in again and moved his hands to Peter's front again, sliding them along his ribs. "It's weird that your short ribs aren't ticklish."

"They are a little. As much as anyone else's, I suppose."

"Hm." Gabriel kissed the back of Peter's neck, working his chest slowly. When he was done, he dropped to his knees behind him, caressing the leg that was mainly supporting Peter's weight. Peter put the other down. Gabriel moved his hands up, stroking his hips, then his buttocks. He kissed them and fondled them.

Peter widened his stance and glanced back, his left eyebrow up. He hadn't showered since the day before, but as that was basically at Gabriel's request, he didn't see a need to point it out. He didn't expect anything, but Gabriel's face was inches from his crack. Peter thought back to their discussion of likes and dislikes. Neither of them had mentioned rimming, but Peter had liked it a lot the few times he'd had it.

Peter wanted to reach back and touch Gabriel's head, his hair, or his face to encourage him, but he suspected this fell into the same category as giving him head. He kept his hands to himself and let Gabriel nose closer on his own. Gabriel went so far as to spread him, but a moment later he let go and his hands stroked down the outside of Peter's thighs. He bit him on the ass, sucked and chewed. Peter smiled to himself. _Oh yeah, he's working himself up to it. Maybe not today, but someday. I am so fucking lucky._

Gabriel ran his hands down Peter's legs and then back up, rising to his feet as he did. He slid up against Peter from behind, his penis falling into the seam of Peter's rear, pointed down, jogging his balls lightly. Peter put one leg up on the couch again as Gabriel hugged him, then let one hand fall downward to caress Peter's organ directly. "I love you. I love your body." He started stroking, bunching up the skin carefully and adjusting his grip a few times until he got it just right.

Peter groaned and leaned back into him.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," Gabriel whispered. He hugged Peter to him firmly with one arm while the other pumped him. Peter twisted, hooking one hand behind Gabriel's neck and pulling him into a passionate kiss while his other hand helped Gabriel, rubbing the tip as Gabriel moved his grip downward a bit to accommodate him. Peter made a growling noise deep in his throat.

When they parted, Gabriel continued his whispered endearments, "I love you so much, Peter. I love to touch you. I love to pleasure you. I love to make you come. I love to be with you. I love having you, spending time with you, sleeping with you, fucking you… I especially like that last part. I love your mouth. I love your ass. I love every part of you. I love you. I want you. I need you. I want your love. I need your love."

Peter kissed him again, hard and desperate, his motions on himself needy and immediate. Gabriel matched him and a few moments later, Peter's hips bucked and he came on his hand. He sagged backward, letting Gabriel hold him up as he relaxed. After his breathing calmed, he lifted his cupped hand and glanced around to see if there was something in range he could summon to him with telekinesis to wipe it off.

Gabriel took Peter's hand and drew it to his face. Peter blinked at him as he very deliberately tasted Peter's ejaculate. He seemed to mull over the flavor and frowned. Peter said, "I love you so much."

Gabriel looked at him with a half smile on his face. "Because of this?"

"Because you're willing to _try_."

"Hm." He tasted it again, a quick dart of his tongue, hot against Peter's palm. He sucked at his teeth, then glanced around with the same intent as Peter. He went to the kitchen and came back with a dish towel. Peter cleaned his hand, deciding it was best not to comment on how far (or not) Gabriel was willing to go. They embraced and kissed.

"Do you want a blow job?" Peter asked.

"Hm. Yes, I would." He caught Peter as he started to go down and kissed him thoroughly. When they parted he said, "I need more of that, since I won't be wanting it afterwards."

Peter chuckled and wrapped his arms around Gabriel's neck, kissing him again and again. "Don't worry. I'm not much into that either."

"I had to go look that up, you know. I didn't even know what it _was_."

Peter cocked his head. "What what was?"

"Snow-balling."

Peter chuckled. "I tend to swallow. And I don't snowball at all." He thought for a moment. "But, if you didn't know what that was, you could have asked me when I mentioned it, instead of having to look it up later."

"What, and looked like an idiot?"

"You wouldn't have looked like an idiot."

"Yes, I would have. Ignorant. Nathan probably knew. Sometimes I wonder if Matt was just being malicious with what memories he left out, but other than some of the sex, it seems sort of random." He kissed Peter again. "I've enjoyed relearning."

Peter sunk to his knees. Gabriel's erection had flagged a bit, due to the conversation. Peter didn't bother with taking him in hand. "Ready?"

"Yes… is it okay if I touch you?"

"Oh yeah. Not touching is just clinical. Professional even. I don't like-" Peter shut his mouth abruptly, realizing that sounded like a criticism of Gabriel's request of him.

Gabriel heard it the same way. He ran his hand through the other man's hair idly. "You don't like not being able to touch me when I go down on you? Strikes you as professional and clinical?"

Peter looked up at him carefully. He ran his hand up and down Gabriel's thigh. Gabriel caressed his face. "I'll get over it eventually."

Peter just nodded and moved his hands up to Gabriel's cheeks as he leaned in and mouthed him. Gabriel twisted away almost immediately. Peter blinked at him.

"I have to sit. I have to sit. I'm sorry." He sat on the couch and Peter turned and continued. Gabriel was as fast as always, his fist buried in Peter's hair and his other hand tight on his shoulder. He pulled him into a hug afterward. They stayed like that for a while, before finally parting.

Gabriel collected up his clothes and shook them out. Peter leaned against the arm of the couch and watched. Gabriel asked, "You getting dressed?"

"Nah. I'll take a shower and get cleaned up before going over to Emma's for dinner. She's going to try to make some baked ziti for me. What every good Italian boy needs."

"Vegetarian?"

"Yeah."

"I wouldn't want it anyway."

Peter shrugged. "She's a good cook."

"Didn't say she wasn't. It's not like I can talk. Heidi's pretty lousy. Part of why we have a maid." He finished pulling on his clothes and shape shifted casually to fasten everything at once – buttons, zippers and laces. Even the wrinkles were gone.

Peter snorted just to see that. "You are so lazy."

"Hey, what are abilities for, if not making your life more comfortable?"

Peter shrugged again. "Point, I guess."

"Well, I've got to get going. Come here." Gabriel stepped over to him and put a hand to Peter's cheek and jaw, guiding him. He kissed him directly on the lips. Peter's eyes widened, but he didn't open his mouth. They parted and Gabriel patted his cheek. "Will I see you this Saturday?"

"Yeah, definitely. Emma said yes."

Gabriel smiled. He looked at Peter's hair, brows slightly furrowed as his smile faded. He reached up and mimed brushing non-existent bangs out of Peter's eyes. Peter resisted the urge to react to it. Eventually Gabriel would quit, or his hair would grow out enough that it wasn't a bizarre gesture.

Gabriel said, "I'll see you at the gym tonight, at ten?" Peter nodded. Gabriel gave him another pat on the cheek and left.

Peter wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, thinking he probably should have done that earlier.


	190. Oceans Apart

**A/N: Saturday, April 30, 2011.**

Peter kicked through the sand in his water shoes, watching as Gabriel headed off into the ocean. The kids had set off through the dunes on their own mysterious mission. They could be trusted to keep to the section of beachfront that belonged to the Petrellis and didn't need to be watched closely. Peter eyed the waterline. The beach wasn't the cleanest, that was for sure. He suspected the water wasn't any better.

Gabriel turned, walking backwards into the surf, about calf-deep at the moment. "Hey, come on. You're not going to freeze to death." Heidi had warned them both it was too cold to go in the ocean, but they were men and they had powers. A little cold water wasn't going to stop Gabriel and he'd chivvied Peter into joining him. The women had stayed in the house with the baby.

"I know. Water's dirty." Peter was having second thoughts about it.

"It's okay. We'll shower later. You're not going to get an infection either." He stopped, knee-deep now.

Clearly, Gabriel wasn't going to swim alone, so Peter started forward. Looking down, the water wasn't as bad as he'd feared. It was a little murky, but that was normal. What it was, though, was _cold_. For late April, it was uncommonly chilly. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't overcast, with a choppy wind to boot. He toughed it out though, striking off on his own as soon as he was waist deep.

Peter had always been a good swimmer. He'd been top of his class on the diving team for a little while. Even though the water was far from smooth, he made it okay. It helped a lot that he could hold his breath a really long time now with regeneration. He supposed he would die eventually if he didn't breathe, but there was no reason to put it to the test.

His powers also removed any reason to be cautious about how far he got from shore. He was quite a ways out before he heard Gabriel calling to him. He stopped, treaded water and looked back. He could see the other man as a black dot bobbing about halfway between himself and the shore, or at least that was how it looked. Peter headed back.

They met somewhere in the middle, swimming a circle around each other. Gabriel tried to catch him and Peter laughed, kicking back out of his reach. He reached for him again and then they were playing. He juked and dodged, managing to slide out of Gabriel's grip twice, fingertips scrabbling against him fruitlessly. "You think you can catch me?" Peter called out, laughing and managing to evade Gabriel's latest lunge by the skin of his teeth - again. He knew his luck wouldn't keep holding, so Peter turned and swam in earnest for a bit to get some distance.

He looked back, but saw nothing. Peter cut to the right abruptly, swam fifty feet or so, then stopped again. He still didn't see Gabriel. He was puzzling over this, when suddenly Gabriel erupted from beneath him, grabbing him around the waist and scaring the crap out of him.

"God! Gabriel!"

"Gotcha!" He laughed.

"You cheated!"

"Going under the water isn't cheating." He was still grinning.

Peter pushed away from him a little, annoyed. "There is no way you managed to follow me that far, that fast, without using flight underwater, or telekinesis or something."

Gabriel's face fell a little. "You said I could use abilities on _myself_."

"This isn't about sex. It's about _**cheating**_," Peter said firmly, still angry at being surprised like that. He'd been enjoying the pursuit (and Gabriel's failure to capture him). "Don't you have _any_ idea of fair play?" He thought back to Gabriel's complaints at the bowling game, his behavior in the boxing ring and when they'd wrestled.

Gabriel looked like a kid who had been told Santa died. He muttered something Peter didn't catch.

"What?" Peter said, realizing he'd hit a nerve.

Gabriel ignored him. He looked around, getting his bearings towards the shore, and started to head back.

"Gabriel! _Gabriel!_"

He didn't stop. Peter swam after him, catching him easily. He pulled him to a halt, but Gabriel wouldn't look at him. Peter started to bring his face around, then thought of something else. He wrapped himself around him, legs around Gabriel's waist, hands on his shoulders. He told him, "Hold me up."

"What? How?" Gabriel was struggling with the awkward weight, flailing and kicking, but not trying to push Peter away.

"Fly, levitate, I don't-" They went under. Peter got a mouth full of seawater and a moment later they were riding higher in the water as Gabriel stopped swimming and used his abilities. A moment after that they started bobbing along with the waves as he adjusted for the motion of the surrounding ocean.

"There," Peter said, coughing. "That's good. Thank you."

Gabriel was looking at him now, with a deliberately blank expression.

"I'm sorry I got onto you," Peter said.

Gabriel shook his head and looked away. He brought his hands around to Peter's sides and brushed him, glancing back cautiously and swallowing.

"Please," Peter said, and Gabriel smiled faintly at how Peter had understood the question in his gesture. He wrapped his hands around Peter's back to support him. Peter pulled himself forward against the other man, getting more contact. The warmth was nice too. Peter was very cold. Gabriel's skin was as cool too, but it was better than the surrounding water. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Gabriel said glumly. "You're right. I cheat all the time. I did as Nathan for all kinds of crap, lied about everything, most of my resume was fake, I went out on my wife… Everything Sylar _did_ was to cheat the system… All those powers are just another way to pull one over on anyone who gets in my way. I never had a fair fight in my life, not if I could help it. Games… they're just there to be rigged. _I'm_ the one who should be sorry."

_The serial killer does not play well with others. Why am I not surprised?_ "Come here," Peter said, pulling Gabriel in for a kiss. As he expected, Gabriel allowed it, but he didn't kiss back. Peter opened himself to feel the other's emotions and was nearly overwhelmed with the self-loathing, regret and shame. It made him feel sick. He swallowed roughly and dialed back how receptive he was. He kissed Gabriel again and again, a little desperately, wishing he could quell those feelings. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

Gabriel shook his head and turned his face from Peter, tightening his arms and pressing them together in embrace so Peter couldn't kiss him anymore. _Okay, so that's not working_. Peter breathed hard against him, trying to fight off the emotions. It was harder when they were in full contact like this.

Peter said, "Don't obsess over what you've done wrong. Obsess over being b-better. Work with me here, ok-kay?" He suppressed a shiver. Now that he wasn't swimming, even with Gabriel pressed against him, he was feeling the cold more acutely. He wanted to bury himself against the other man for warmth.

Peter curled his hand up into Gabriel's hair, fisting it loosely and squeezing himself against him. He could feel the edge coming off Gabriel's emotions, his mood softening as he held him. Since Gabriel still wasn't talking, Peter said, "I'm _sorry_. I really am."

"Peter, there's nothing for you to apologize for. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Yes, I did. I hurt you. I was t-tactless. I was startled that you c-caught me and I was mad about it." _I'm supposed to be the freaking empath here and I thoughtlessly cut you to the quick. I need to think before I open my mouth._

"Are you okay?" Gabriel pushed Peter back a little to look at him, inadvertently letting a fresh wash of cold water flow between them.

Peter winced. "I'm fine."

Gabriel pulled him close again, hugging him and pressing his cheek to Peter's. "You're lying," he observed softly. "And you're shaking."

Annoyed again, Peter tensed and started to snap, "Don't you-", because it was obvious it was cold and Gabriel was the one who'd wanted to come out here to start with. He shut his mouth simultaneously with Gabriel's flinch from his tone. Gabriel didn't feel temperature unless he concentrated on it and Peter hadn't thought about that until he started to speak. For a moment, they were both silent and still, each holding their breath. Peter let his out slowly and took a moment to compose himself. Gabriel shifted just slightly against him, lowering his head a little and moving his hands down an inch or two - a slightly more subordinate position. Peter felt a twist in his gut.

Peter said much more calmly, "I'm just c-cold. It's not a b-big deal. I can regennrat." He was, however, having trouble getting his words out without slurring.

"Regeneration does not stop the discomfort or even shock, Peter, as I can tell you from personal experience. It just prevents cell damage and death. Let's go in."

Peter wondered why Gabriel wasn't showing any ill effects and how much of his own shivers were psychological. He didn't have a chance to think about it though, because Gabriel began to take them through the water towards the shore. The increased flow of the cold liquid around him robbed his skin of sensation. He latched numbing fingers onto Gabriel's arms and turned him so that Gabriel's back was to the shore. Peter curled in against him, but it wasn't really enough. Gabriel's body was as cold as Peter's.

Gabriel said, "You know, if I lift us out of the water, it will be better."

Peter shook his head. "The k-kids are on the sore. They'll s-see."

"Can you teleport?"

"Inna water?"

"Yes." Gabriel tilted his head and kissed Peter hard and long. Surprisingly, it did actually warm his mouth up a bit. "It's just thick air. Try not to take too much of it with us." Gabriel had stopped moving them and lifted them higher out of the water.

Peter tried to focus, thinking of the shower in the beach house, so any water they brought with them wouldn't make a mess. He couldn't get a lock on their form. He shook his head. "Not workin."

"Okay. Then I'll lift us and you can do it right away. They won't see much, even assuming they're looking this way." They floated up out of the water and Peter teleported them immediately.

"Whoa!" Peter said as Gabriel shifted suddenly, adjusting for the new location. Peter put his feet down immediately. "C-cold. Water must ha been fordy."

Gabriel turned on the shower and Peter yelped again as equally icy water hit him. Gabriel interposed himself immediately in the spray, an expression of slight distress crossing his face. "You'll have to tell me when the temperature is right."

"Arnt you c-cold at all?"

Gabriel held up a hand and looked at it, rubbing his fingers together awkwardly. "I suppose so. I'm getting numb. My fingers aren't working right. But I don't shiver. Or slur, until my face begins to freeze - which won't happen at forty Fahrenheit."

They heard the door to the bathroom open. Heidi's voice came in, "Hello?"

Gabriel said, "It's us. We teleported in. Peter was getting hypothermia. You were right. It was too cold to be out in the ocean."

"Yur gettin it doo," Peter protested.

"Yes, I was getting hypothermia too," he said patiently in his damnably perfect pronunciation.

Peter put a hand in the water coming from around Gabriel. It was warmer now, feeling almost too warm. It felt good, leaving a sensation of pins and needles biting into his skin. He ran his hand in and out of it. "Dis is good. Dont make it doo hot." Gabriel adjusted the shower settings to keep the current level.

Heidi said, "Oh." There was a bit of silence. "Do you need anything?"

"Don't think so," Gabriel answered. Peter clued to what was going on. He and Gabriel had not been together so clearly right in front of her (or in front of Emma, but she couldn't have heard their arrival). He looked up at Gabriel's face and saw that he realized this also. Gabriel said, "Do you want me to come out? The shower will warm him up in a little bit. I don't need to be in here."

There was a longer than necessary pause before she said, "No. Go ahead and make sure he's okay." She turned on the noisy bathroom fan and shut the door.

Gabriel looked back at Peter and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Do you think I should go out to her anyway?"

Peter thought about that and brought Gabriel's lips to his for a chaste kiss. "No. She turn the fan on to c-cover our noiss."

Gabriel nodded. "Either that, or she doesn't like the way the ocean smells." He maneuvered Peter into the warmer water, then hooked his thumbs into Peter's shorts and pulled them down a few inches before looking up. "Out of the wet clothes?"

Peter nodded. Gabriel pulled them off, followed by his own. He dispensed some shower gel into his hand rather clumsily and hesitated. There was no sponge or loufa, so after a moment he stuck his head out and called a washcloth to himself with telekinesis. He soaped, lathered and started matter-of-factly to clean Peter.

"What… what are you doing?"

"Washing you?"

"Yeah… okay." Peter's shower was tiny. They'd never been in it together. The closest they'd had to cleaning one another had been handing each other a towel, or passing on the way in or out of the shower. Even though they'd shared a communal shower at the gym, they'd each kept to their own area.

Peter was still pretty cold and not feeling sexy at all, but Gabriel didn't move things in that direction. Other than a single peck on his shoulder, he scrubbed Peter's back and arms and legs in a straight-forward manner. Peter turned around and took the cloth from him to do his front.

Gabriel took the opportunity to shampoo his own hair. When he was done, Peter started on Gabriel's back, which earned him a pleased noise. Gabriel did his hair too, kissing his shoulder and the back of his neck a few times, but otherwise keeping it platonic. By the end, they were both clean and warm. Peter hugged Gabriel, strangely pleased to have had such an intimacy without sex. He liked sex, a lot, but somehow it would have spoiled the scene.

Peter said, "You and I… we need to both be playing by the same rules."

"No abilities then," Gabriel responded.

"No, that's not what I mean. If we're both using them, and we both know that's how we're playing, then it's okay."

"You didn't say…" Gabriel trailed off to silence.

"I know," Peter said. "I started the game and I didn't say what the rules were. So you made up your own and that's not wrong. We… we need to communicate a lot more than most people do, I think. We don't do it enough. There are too many things that can go wrong. And what we each consider 'normal' is way too different for us to get away with assuming."

Gabriel ran a hand up and down Peter's back restlessly. "Don't like talking."

"Yeah, I've figured that out. I'm not exactly Mr. Mouthy myself, but we need to work on it if we want to make this work between us. Can you help me?"

Gabriel kissed him, a hard pressing of lips. "Yes."

"Then let's get out of here." Peter climbed out while Gabriel turned off the shower, then collected up the wet swim trunks and hung them to drip. Peter tossed him a towel and they set about to getting dry.


	191. Permission Granted

Gabriel was spooned up behind Peter, propped on one elbow while his other hand carded gently through Peter's hair. The sex had been great. The aftercare was nice. The cuddling had wound down from actively touching and stroking to this steady, rhythmic, soothing petting. If Peter had been more tired, he certainly could have gone to sleep to it. He could feel Gabriel's pinky, ring and middle fingers thread through his hair, while the index and thumb very softly, very carefully… rolled a tiny fragment of hair between the pads with each pass.

It had taken Peter quite a while to notice, as Gabriel was being exceptionally stealthy about it. Was it against the rules they'd laid out? Peter wasn't sure (was it an ability being used on him, or was it Gabriel using an ability on himself, like something sensory?), but what he did know was that Gabriel knew Peter didn't want him using it - otherwise he wouldn't be being so sneaky about it.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked shortly after he realized what was going on.

Gabriel's hand paused, then continued. "No… thing." He sounded so transparent. It was like a five year old trying to lie about having eaten a cookie while still sporting crumbs around his mouth.

Peter shook his head and began to laugh. Gabriel dropped his hand away. He curled around him, burying his face against Peter's back, as if that would help hide his guilt. Peter reached back and stroked the other man's hip and thigh. "Gabriel, I know what you're doing. Please stop it."

"Of course. Yes." He nodded and wrapped an arm around Peter, snugging them together. His other hand went up to stroke Peter's hair much as before.

Peter couldn't tell if he were still using the power or not. He considered that he could nullify Gabriel's abilities to make sure, but that was stepping over a line he didn't want to draw. Right now they were handling disagreements by talking it out. Actually thwarting one another was an overtly hostile act. He didn't want to start that. "Are you still doing it?"

Gabriel paused for a moment and dropped his hand away from Peter's hair. "No." That made it unclear whether he'd been doing it again and stopped long enough to clear lie detection, or he hadn't been doing it at all and was upset at Peter for implying he had been.

Peter sighed. "I don't want you using clairsentience on me without my permission."

Gabriel rubbed the rounded curve of Peter's shoulder. He shifted his hips, finding some quarter inch of space between them to squeeze shut. After a very long pause, he asked, "May I?"

"No. Please. No. I'm asking you not to."

Peter felt Gabriel tense all over… and then a moment later exhale and relax just a little. He kissed Peter's neck again, but it wasn't as soft and lingering as before. It was more anxious and abrupt. His rubbing of Peter's shoulder became a little harder, the motions not as fluid. Finally he said, "Okay. I won't." It wasn't true.

Peter sighed again and let his head loll over. Gabriel pressed his face to the back of Peter's head, murmuring, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over, because he knew why Peter had sighed. It was such a sad and heartfelt plea that Peter rolled over to face him and took Gabriel's face in his hands. He quieted. Peter gave him a long, lingering kiss.

When they parted, Gabriel said in a small voice, "We're together… aren't we?"

"That's not the point. The parts of my life that I spend away from you are **private** unless I choose to share them with you."

"But…" and Peter could feel fear rise in Gabriel's heart, closely shadowed by the anger, "We're _**together**_." He kissed Peter, nibbling down the line of his neck. Peter resisted the urge to pull away. It was tough to have a rational conversation with that going on. Gabriel said, "You love me. I love you."

"Yes, I love you. That's why I'm here _right now_, spending time with you, sharing myself with you. I wouldn't do that if I didn't love you. I've chosen to be here _right now_. But sometimes I'm other places and what I do then isn't your business."

Gabriel shifted uneasily, exhaling hard. The anger was spiraling up. Peter reached up and caught the other man's hand, twining their fingers together. "Gabriel…" he said, trying to think of what he could do to fix this, because they were fighting, even if it was a very quiet, restrained sort of conflict. "It's private. Even between lovers, there has to be some privacy. I'm yours, yes, but I'm not your possession - not outside of the bedroom, not outside of play."

Now there was betrayal in there with the other emotions. Gabriel growled and shifted again, still breathing hard, still struggling to control his emotions. He was getting mad and trying to hold it down. Peter twitched as electricity snapped hotly against his palm. Gabriel looked at his hand and it didn't recur, so Peter said nothing. The cigarette-burn shaped mark the discharge had left healed over.

Peter deliberately wrapped his hand into Gabriel's, squeezing firmly, and looked into his eyes. He didn't say anything, because he didn't need to. Gabriel's eyes locked with his and he felt the anger slowly dim and fade, as if just looking on Peter's face directly was helping him calm. Gabriel started kissing him again, light, solicitous pecks on his face.

Peter thought about some of the things Gabriel had said months ago about Peter being his moral compass. He said, "It's _wrong_. Do you see that?"

"No," Gabriel said sullenly. He nuzzled the side of Peter's face and again Peter resisted the urge to back off and deny his lover intimacy until they had this sorted out. He suspected that denying him would not help. The last time he'd tried to talk to Gabriel about boundaries, Gabriel had freaked out almost immediately. At the moment, he was relatively calm precisely because he was getting the emotional support he needed, even if it made it difficult for Peter to focus.

"Okay," Peter said, speaking slowly and looking for a solution to the dilemma. "Will you stop doing it if I ask you to?"

"For ri- Yes."

"For right now? Is that what you were about to say?" Peter tilted his head and his lips tightened disapprovingly.

Gabriel pulled him into a hug and said nothing. He tucked his face against Peter's neck. Peter reached up and stroked him silently. Something about this made Gabriel very, very insecure. The more Peter threatened him on it, the more he acted like he wanted to climb inside Peter's skin. Even now, he could feel the stifling fear rolling off him in waves.

Very calmly, Peter said, "If I ask you not to use clairsentience on me or my things, without my permission, ever again, will you do it?"

Gabriel hugged him more tightly. "Peter…" It was a whine. "I'll try, okay? I'll try. I'm sorry. I'll be more careful. I can be more careful. Is that okay?"

Peter opened his mouth to tell him it definitely wasn't okay, especially to imply that maybe it would be alright if he was just sneakier, but he didn't say it. Instead he asked, "You're… you're trying to negotiate, right? This is important to you?"

"Yes, yes." Gabriel stopped clinging to him so desperately and pushed back to see his face. He grabbed onto the tool Peter was offering, some method to meet his needs other than plaintive begging with his body language. "Yes. I want to negotiate. I want to… I want to… I want to be able to do this. Please?" His eyes unfocused and he brushed his fingertips along Peter's skin like he was using the ability at that moment. His gaze snapped back to Peter's face, not sure how serious Peter was in letting 'talking' settle anything meaningful.

Peter really, really wanted to tell Gabriel to cut it out and act right sometimes and the extra demonstration of the ability right in front of him ticked him off. He clenched his teeth and his jaw worked. "Why? Why do you want to do this? What is it you need to see?"

Gabriel scooted closer again, seeing the tension. "I need _you_, Peter." His hands moved restlessly on him, eyes darting across his face, trying to figure out what he should do next.

Peter considered his options. He could accept it, give up some of his privacy and win Gabriel's trust. He could deny permission and live in suspicion that Gabriel was doing it anyway, perhaps relying on lie detection and demanding Gabriel incriminate himself, because Peter would never detect him doing it to his clothing or things. Or he could make it a deal-breaker and have to face the possibility this might be important enough that Gabriel wouldn't stop doing it even when the relationship was on the line. Was this really something he wanted to push that far?

"Okay." Peter looked away, exhaling. That was probably the best answer he was going to get, even if he didn't understand it. "Alright." It galled him and stung to concede on this, but it just didn't seem worth it. Gabriel was clearly worked up to an absurd degree to have it challenged.

"Alright?" Gabriel questioned.

"Yeah, it's alright."

"But… what do I give up for this?" Gabriel remained wary.

Peter looked back at him, brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"It's a negotiation. I get something I want, you get something _you_ want. What do you want in exchange?"

Peter pulled him back into that hug, which ended up more as Peter being snuggled up against a very hairy chest while Gabriel wrapped his arms around him. "I already have what I want: you, happy. That's good enough."

Gabriel drew his brows together in confusion and held Peter tightly, brooding on what this meant, exactly.


	192. Fantasies Discussion

Peter put on a pot of coffee to perk. "Tell me about your fantasies."

"My fantasies?" Gabriel answered.

Peter nodded, still working with the machine.

Gabriel thought about it for a long moment, staring off into space. "Why?"

"I wanna know."

Gabriel made a faint growling noise. "You don't have to meet them, Peter." After a beat he added, "You can't."

"I didn't say I was going to," he said, getting out two cups. His plan was to find out more about his oh-so-very-defensive partner's kinks by listening to what turned him on - not that he wouldn't offer to play something out if it was doable, but he wasn't mining for scenarios, just for general trends. He let the silence stretch on. Like most people, Gabriel would eventually get uncomfortable and offer conversation. And unlike most people, Gabriel would spend the intervening time thinking carefully about the last thing said.

As expected, a few moments after Peter sat down across from him at the table, Gabriel offered, "Here's one that I've had a lot for the last year or two: I'm in the White House, either as Nathan or Sylar - doesn't matter. I'm the president, in the Oval Office… I'll spare you the details of my wardrobe, but that's always something I think about. A lot."

_A-ha_, Peter thought. _I really need to have sex with him wearing something nice one of these days. He's mentioned the clothes thing several times before._

"I'm there, being all presidential, when Matt Parkman comes in - it's always Matt, I don't know why - and he's bringing with him a prisoner. If I'm Nathan, it's Sylar and if I'm Sylar, it's Nathan. He's always restrained in some way - tied, cuffed, straight-jacket, drugged – something like that. I thank Matt and he gets the hell out because it was creepy enough helping him jack off when we were sharing a body."

_Um, what?_ Peter thought, but said nothing. He supposed that sharing a body with someone, as Sylar's consciousness had with Matt's, would introduce you to all manner of intimate details of their life. That Matt would even _try_ to masturbate knowing Sylar was aware of it… that was odd. And Sylar _helped_ him? He nodded, listening.

Sylar leaned back. "Then I fuck myself. One way or the other." He watched Peter's face, but there was no judgment there, just a normal level of interest. Sylar shrugged and elaborated a little. "Sometimes I do him, or maybe I make him do me as a condition of freedom or protecting someone or something he wants protected. It doesn't matter much. Once I have the setting in mind and I get him there, the plot doesn't matter too much. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?"

Peter shrugged once himself. "Yeah, I guess so." He smiled a little. "That's pretty weird. Got any others you'd share?" As fantasies went, Peter thought it was fairly tame. He got up to pour the coffee.

Gabriel leaned back forward, grinning. "There's only one other that gets more screen time than that one. I'm really partial to it."

Peter's left eyebrow rose a bit as he walked back with the cups. "Will you tell me about it?"

Gabriel took the offered cup. "Sure. There's you… and me… and Nathan. And we're both inside you."

Peter swallowed and reddened. "Oh. Huh," he said, because he was pretty sure he needed to say something. _Variations of self-cest. Huh. Narcissist. He'd go wild if he ever got that doppelganger ability. I'd never pry him out of the bedroom. Or, possibly, out of __**me**__._ That thought held a lot of appeal.

Gabriel kept grinning at him. "Yeah… I really like that one." He sipped his coffee.

Peter said, "That's… yeah, dp is another thing I've never done. At least, you know, not in the same end." It occurred to him that regeneration would allay any concerns he had about being hurt.

Gabriel shrugged. "It's not doable. Like I said." At Peter's speculative expression, Gabriel added, "Peter, don't you dare suggest anyone because I'll… not act right about it."

Peter eyed him. He hadn't been thinking about anyone _else_. "What would you do if I was with someone else? Other than Emma?"

"Without my permission?"

"Yeah."

Gabriel drew in on himself and looked around uneasily. "First I'd make sure it was really you. That you had your free will, made the decision yourself." He blinked and shook his head. "I don't want to think about it. I'd kill someone… someone. I don't want to think about it." He got up abruptly and took his coffee over to the counter, adding a tiny bit of sugar. He was perfectly happy with how Peter had prepared it, but he couldn't sit still.

"I'm not going to. I was just asking," Peter said. Gabriel remained facing away. Very clearly, for the benefit of lie detection, Peter said, "I will not cheat on you."

Gabriel turned and walked over, stooping to kiss Peter on the side of the neck, then up to his cheek. "Thank you. I have every intention of being faithful to you until the end of time."

Peter sat up straighter, feeling the emotion strongly. He turned and hooked his hand around the back of Gabriel's neck, pulling him in to his mouth. After a long kiss, they parted.

Gabriel looked pleased as he went back to his seat. "So. That's two of mine. Got any of yours?"

"Uh…"

Gabriel laughed. "Don't tell me you sprung this on me without thinking I'd ask you the same thing."

"Uh… yeah." Peter floundered a bit, his mind suddenly and strangely blank of everything he might think of in a private moment. He took too big a drink of coffee, burned his mouth, and put the cup down too fast, sloshing it.

Gabriel snickered at his discomfiture and telekinesed a paper towel to him.

"Thanks," Peter said, catching the paper towel and wiping up the spill. He sighed. _Yeah, I need to tell him __**something**__._ "I don't know. Most of them aren't real specific. I just… think of hands on me. All over me. And what people might do for me, make sacrifices, want to be with me, give things up, that sort of thing."

"Hm. You ever been in an orgy?"

"Ah… no."

"Do you want to be?"

Peter blinked, not sure where that was going. "I like the fantasy. I don't think I want the reality." _Especially given that you might get jealous and hurt someone,_ but he didn't say that out loud.

Gabriel shrugged.

"Have _you?_"

He grinned.

Peter frowned. He'd read Sylar's file. "When did Sylar get in on an orgy? Or are we talking Gabriel?"

Gabriel laughed and gave the table a light slap. "You're so blind, Peter!"

Peter got it then. "Nathan?"

Gabriel nodded.

Peter waited, but Gabriel just went back to drinking his coffee. "Details?"

"Nope."

"You don't have them, or you aren't going to tell me?"

"Not telling."

"Gee, thanks for the teaser." Peter chuckled. He wasn't sure he wanted them anyway. His imagination was doing a fine job of providing everything he needed. "Taboos."

"Yeah?"

"I like to fantasize about breaking taboos."

"Like with your brother?"

Peter chuckled and nodded, his brows moving expressively. "Oh yeah." He took a drink.

"You ever think about Claire?"

Peter choked, spewing some of his coffee. Gabriel summoned him another paper towel and covered his grin with his other hand. He hadn't expected quite so strong a reaction. He filed that away as future blackmail material. Peter hacked, coughed, and wiped up the mess. When he was breathing normally again, he said, "What were we talking about again?"

Gabriel decided to let Peter avoid the topic if he wanted. "Um… breaking taboos."

Peter nodded enthusiastically, obviously pleased to dodge it. "Yeah, like having sex in public, taking risks, that sort of thing." Realizing that his fantasies were imminently 'doable', Peter quickly added, "I'm saying, I like that as a _fantasy_. I don't want to actually do it. Doing it is dangerous and I'm not stupid."

"I get you. It's okay." They sat quietly for a few minutes, finishing their drinks, before Gabriel changed the subject to work and they talked about that until it was time to go.


	193. Office Work

**A/N: Sunday, May 1, 2011. Anthony Benecia is made up. Patek Phillipe and the Supercomplication is not.**

"Hey," Peter said into the phone. "Whatcha doing?" He knew Heidi and the boys were off visiting her parents - they'd mentioned it the day before, at the beach house. After a wonderful morning, Emma had left after lunch to run errands with her mother. Peter was alone, bored, and he had in mind a cure for boredom.

Gabriel answered in Nathan's voice, "Not much. Researching precedents to see if our client's liability claim will hold up."

"On a Sunday?"

"I take the time where I can find it. Nothing urgent's going on with the Company right now, so it seemed like a good time to get caught up."

"Oh." Peter didn't say anything else.

Gabriel correctly understood what he meant with that moment of silence. "But I'd love to have a break. The quiet is killing me. Have you ever seen my office?"

"No." Not the one at the law firm, at least. Gabriel had only started it last year.

"Do you want to drop by?"

"Sure. I'll be right over. Is anyone else there?"

"No," Gabriel replied.

Peter teleported in, finding himself squarely in front of the receptionist's desk. It made him appreciative that he hadn't tried to teleport into Nathan's office before, or he'd have ended up having to make awkward explanations. Apparently Gabriel hadn't realized what he'd done, because Peter could hear him still speaking into his phone in one of the offices, saying, "Peter? Peter?"

"I'm out here," Peter answered.

Gabriel came out. He looked like Nathan, which made sense - it was his office after all. He changed shape almost immediately though, to Gabriel's form. "Ah. Well, that answers the question I was going to ask you on the phone - what manner of arrival I should look for. Want a tour?" Peter nodded, so Gabriel showed him around the offices, giving a brief description of each partner and employee along with what they did for the firm. They ended in Nathan's office. Peter smiled warmly at his brother's name on the door. _It's a funny sort of legacy,_ he thought, reaching up and running his fingers over the brass plate.

Peter looked around the room, recognizing a few of the knick-knacks from Nathan's senatorial office. He turned and saw the ornate skeleton clock on the wall. "Wow. That's new. I like it."

"You do?" He sounded guarded.

"Yeah. It's beautiful."

"Really?" Gabriel perked up. "It's an authorized replica of a watch design by Patek Phillipe. They're one of the big three in chronographs." Peter turned back to behold the clock as the gearing moved in perfect twitches and rotations.

Gabriel went on, perching on the edge of his desk and warming to the subject suddenly. "I've been following their work forever. Did I ever tell you I actually _saw_ the Supercomplication once?" Peter looked back to blink at him, having no idea what he was talking about, but clearly seeing his enthusiasm. He shook his head and looked at the clock again.

Gabriel said, "They have an outlet over at Tiffany's. They showcase some really great junior designers there, like Anthony Benicia - he was the one who did this adaptation. He usually does mantel and pendulum clocks and while I like pendulum mechanisms a lot, I didn't want something that would hit people in the head if they leaned back, and anyway I thought this one looked more moder-." He snapped his mouth shut on the last word, not quite finishing it.

Peter turned to face him again. He could practically see Gabriel putting his defenses up, as though he thought Peter would take advantage of his interest in timepieces, or perhaps hold it against him that he had pastimes that didn't match up with Nathan's.

At his long look, Gabriel said, "I shouldn't bore you with my clock hobby."

Peter tilted his head. "Hey, I _like_ your clock hobby."

"You do?" This time he sounded surprised.

"Yeah," Peter said firmly. "It's _**normal!**_ It's **you**. I like finding out what you're into. That's a beautiful clock. You have good taste." He sat down in the guest chair directly under it, slouching and leaning back.

Gabriel looked between Peter and the clock. He preened a little and Peter forced down a smile at seeing Gabriel straighten, puff his chest out and raise his chin. Gabriel walked over to his mini-fridge with the slightest swagger and got out two waters, tossing one to Peter. He opened his and took a drink, then took up his seat on the desk again. Peter just held the bottle, watching the other man.

He was thinking about how special Gabriel made him feel, yet how wounded and cautious the man was a lot of the time with him. _Maybe I need to compliment him more, and his interests, when he shows them to me_. It reminded him of how closed off Emma had been at first and it had taken months for her to warm to him. Peter supposed he had a thing for people who needed to heal.

Gabriel took a second drink and said, "Much as I like having you here, why did you come?"

Peter set his water aside, unopened, and stood up. "Well, I was having a really great day…" He sauntered over to Gabriel. The other man raised a brow, noticing his seductive manner. "And I thought to myself: what would make this even better?" He touched Gabriel's knee and the other man shifted to sit fully on the desk. Peter slid between Gabriel's legs. "And I thought of you."

"Mm-hm?" Gabriel murmured appreciatively, leaning forward to kiss him. Peter pulled Gabriel's shirt out and ran his hands up under it, across the other man's bare back. He felt his breathing speeding up. Gabriel purred, "Mmmmm."

After a very long, sensuous kiss, Peter said, "Do you want to keep researching precedents, or take the time where you find it?"

Gabriel smiled slowly and nuzzled the side of Peter's face. "Oh, I'm all about time, Peter. Time is all we have, the journey we all take."

Peter leaned back from him for a moment, brows furrowed.

"What?" Gabriel asked defensively.

Peter's face smoothed and he reached up to caress the side of Gabriel's face. "Don't be defensive." He grimaced and corrected himself immediately, "_Please_ don't be defensive. Please."

Gabriel looked Peter over and kissed him lightly, relaxing. "I know you've been working on how you talk to me. You keep catching yourself giving me orders." He smiled and shrugged with one shoulder. "If you can stand me saying it, it's kind of cute to see you correcting yourself all the time."

Peter gave a single laugh. "I can stand it. What I was looking at you for was that sometimes you're almost poetic with how you talk." He curled his fingers under Gabriel's jaw, making him lift it slightly as Peter scratched a little at his ever-present stubble. "I know you wear this mask all the time with me. I want you to know… that every now and then I catch a glimpse underneath and I _like_ what I see." He let his hand drift down to Gabriel's chest, resting it over the other man's heart.

Gabriel swallowed and said nothing. Peter angled his body to lean in, hugging him with one arm while the other kept his hand where it was on his chest. He rested his head on Gabriel's shoulder, but it only stayed there a moment before Gabriel turned his head and nudged Peter's forehead with his chin. Peter rolled his eyes up to look.

Gabriel pulled him up further and kissed his mouth, then trailed across his cheek and back along his jaw. He made a brief lick at the corner of Peter's mouth that caused Peter to turn responsively to kiss him back, immediately. Gabriel curled a hand behind Peter's head and tangled it in his hair, holding him to him. He made a pleased noise deep in the back of his throat.

Peter grinned against him, feeling Gabriel hardening where they were pressed together. "You want me?"

"Oh yeah, I want you. I want to be inside you. I want to fuck you right in front of my chair, so that every time I sit there I can pull that memory out of the desk." He smiled lecherously and Peter chuckled at the thought of Gabriel entertaining himself while sitting with boring clients. Gabriel kissed him again and nuzzled him. "Be vocal. Let me know you like it."

"I like it," Peter affirmed. "You're really great in bed. And I suppose… in the office too." He grinned, leaned forward and kissed Gabriel's neck, pushing into him and forcing him back. Peter had to go up on his tip-toes to do it. Gabriel purred in appreciation and leaned, almost laying back.

Gabriel's hands were curled under Peter's arms and around his back, but he wasn't supporting himself that way. Peter glanced around and under him. There was nothing visible holding the other man up. His lips came together in a thin line, but before he could say anything, Gabriel put a hand to the back of Peter's neck and pulled him back on top of himself, pressing their lips together. Peter resisted it for a moment, then it was like something clicked in the back of his head: _this is Gabriel, I love him, he loves me, he's not hurting me, go with it you idiot and don't cause a scene over something stupid._ Peter deepened the kiss.

Gabriel still had his fingers wrapped tightly around the back of Peter's neck. He pulled him back a little and Peter relaxed into it. "I'm not using the ability on _you_," Gabriel said. "Is this okay?"

Peter nodded. His eyes dropped to Gabriel's shirt and he moved to start working on its buttons. Gabriel released his grip.

"Mm," Gabriel said and returned the favor after Peter was done.

"I'm getting more comfortable with it." Peter pushed Gabriel's shirt off and wrapped his fingers into Gabriel's waistband. "You ready?"

"Yeah… except for one thing."

"What's that?"

"I don't have any lubricant here. I think Madge has some hand lotion…"

Peter laughed once. "Don't worry. I'll be right back." He stepped away and vanished, getting what he needed from his apartment and flashing back. He held up his prize. Gabriel took the lube from him and steered Peter to where he wanted him.

"I want you to fuck me hard," Peter said, as Gabriel reached around to unfasten Peter's trousers. His hands took the scenic route during the task as he rubbed himself against Peter's ass.

"I don't think that will be a problem," Gabriel murmured, finally pushing down Peter's pants and underwear. Peter stepped out of them, leaving his shoes on. He needed the extra height. Gabriel undressed, including his shoes, then stepped up behind Peter to wrap his arms around him and stroke his chest. He hunched behind him slowly and began to bite the back of his neck, then across his shoulder. Peter crooned in pleasure. They weren't hard bites, but enough to let him feel it. Gabriel worked a nipple while Peter slowly stroked himself.

"I love you," Gabriel paused to say.

"I love you too. I want you to take me. I came here to get pounded." Peter leaned forward and offered himself. Gabriel played with his buttocks briefly, then applied lube and used his fingers. He teased around the opening while Peter made approving sounds.

He spread Peter's cheeks and pressed himself against the opening, without any other prep. Peter clenched his teeth and grunted in complaint. "Don't, don't. Please," he said. "I'm not ready."

Gabriel stopped pushing and shifted his hips to the side so he could work Peter more completely with his fingers. He leaned his body over Peter's, pressing across him. "Did that hurt?"

_As if there were any doubt?_ "Yes," Peter puffed out.

"Heidi doesn't have any problem with me," Gabriel mused, pleased at the implication that he was too big to take easily. Peter filed that away for later use.

_I'm sure if I passed a couple infants through my anus, I wouldn't have any problems taking you either. Or anyone else, for that matter._ He didn't say that though. Instead he said, "Do you ever do anal with her?" He moaned as Gabriel upped it to two fingers.

Gabriel straightened and spanked Peter once with his free hand. "Don't you be thinking about my wife while you're having sex!"

Peter knew Gabriel was joking, so he retorted, "You're the one who brought her up!"

"Details!" He added a third finger and Peter squirmed against the desk, mewling. Whatever they'd been talking about was driven out of his head as Gabriel stroked him inside, where it really counted. He whimpered when Gabriel removed his fingers, but it was quickly replaced with his member, pushing in with short strokes. He leaned over Peter's back, putting his hands on his shoulders and rubbing them gently. "Does it hurt now?"

"No," Peter panted, spreading his legs to take him. It still burned a little, but his body was adjusting to the idea. Some days it was easy, some days it wasn't, and Peter really didn't know why how much prep he needed varied. Gabriel pulled out for a moment and applied more lube, unsolicited, and then pushed in again, once more reaching up to Peter's shoulders. "Oh God!" Peter exclaimed. "You feel so good." After a long period of small motions, letting Peter get accustomed to him, Gabriel moved his hands to his hips and started thrusting in harder, stronger. A pounding he delivered.

Peter reached an arm down to himself, but Gabriel redirected his hand to the calendar blotter on the desk and said, "I'll take care of you later. Promise."

"Huh," was all Peter said. He couldn't say much else under the circumstances. He wanted to talk dirty as requested, but with the pace Gabriel was keeping up, he couldn't get much out. _You'd better_, ran through his mind, though it seemed entirely possible he'd come just from the reaming. Gabriel had him bent submissively over the desk and was ramming into him energetically, hard and fast as he could.

The water bottle Gabriel had set on the table earlier fell over, spilled and rolled off the desk to finish emptying it's contents into the carpet. A business card holder followed it moments later. "Damnit!" Gabriel said. He gripped Peter's shoulders again to keep them from rocking the desk itself as much. After they lost a paperweight, Gabriel made another exasperated sound. Peter laughed and said, "Oh Gabriel, I love this. This is awesome, this is great! Fuck me!"

Gabriel slowed down. He changed his angle, since Peter was fully opened by now and taking his thrusts more easily.

Gabriel slipped his hands to the back of Peter's neck, pushing him down so his face rested on the desk. One hand curled around the side of his neck and Peter knew what he was getting at. He'd had a partner once who explored breath control play with him, but although it was arousing, Peter hadn't been able to get into it. Too much fear had been in his mind. It seemed too easily botched up, too stupid to put his life in someone else's hands like that. He'd since discovered safer ways to play and he fully intended to explore those at some point with Gabriel.

They'd discussed choking. He'd agreed, so he didn't react negatively this time. He arched his back and lifted his head to give Gabriel easier access. For a moment both the man's hands caressed his throat, putting no pressure at all on him, but then they went abruptly back to his shoulders.

"It's okay," Peter got out. Gabriel was increasing his tempo again. He dropped his hands to Peter's hips.

"Not this time," was all the man replied with. He jockeyed around with his position until he was hitting Peter's prostate, which made Peter gasp each time he did it. "Be loud," Gabriel directed. "Please." Peter obliged. It was actually more of an effort to keep his mouth shut. He couldn't articulate much of anything, but he could sure make noise, so he did.

"Oh! Oh! Owh! Ohh God!" he said as Gabriel shoved into him hard and fast once more. It seemed that everything likely to fall off the desk already had. He could tell Gabriel was nearing his end. He gripped Peter's hips hard and lost his rhythm, grunting and panting. With several final jerks, he came. Peter was so close… but not quite there.

He started to reach for himself, but again, Gabriel stopped him. "No." Taking Peter's wrists, he leaned over him, holding Peter's hands to either side. He kissed his back, licked him and nibbled on him. "Oh, Peter. How I love thee so."

Peter chuckled at the odd endearment. It took away his irritation at being unsatisfied.

"I love how you taste," Gabriel murmured. Peter shifted his hips against the other man, who was softening and sliding out. "Now I'm going to taste other parts of you."

"Hm?"

Gabriel backed up and fished his boxers off the floor. He tossed them on his chair and sat down. He gave Peter's rump a light swat. "Turn around and sit. Don't ask me questions and don't touch my face. Shoulders are fine, but don't rub. Just hold."

Peter turned and sat, opening his mouth for a question: _What are you doing?_ Then he shut it without speaking. He was getting better at that. He put his hands on Gabriel's shoulders as the other man wheeled his chair in and put himself between Peter's knees. Gabriel didn't hesitate, didn't give himself or Peter any time to think about it. He began by licking the head of Peter's penis and then sucking it into his mouth. One hand wrapped around his shaft. The other touched Peter's elbow and arm. Peter moved and they twined together their fingers.

Peter gripped him hard, until he felt, rather than heard, a creak in Gabriel's hand. The man groaned and took Peter deeper, sucking harder, but Peter relaxed his grip. He didn't want to hurt him. "I'm not going to last. Oh God, I'm not going to last." He'd been so close already. "Oh! Oh… awgh… Ah! Ah! Ha!" He felt himself come and belatedly realized Gabriel had not understood his words as a warning and had not pulled off in time.

Gabriel tensed, made a choking noise, and retched. He pulled away, scrambled for the trash can under the desk and spat into it, retching again.

"Gabriel?" Peter put his hand on his shoulder only to have it knocked away violently. Gabriel snarled up at him, then put his head down as he struggled to suppress another heave. After several tense moments, Peter said softly, "I am so-" but Gabriel grabbed his knee in a sudden grip and shook his head. Peter held his tongue.

He waited while Gabriel's breathing evened out and the muscles in his back stopped bunching. Gabriel put his forehead down on Peter's thigh and breathed. He let go of his knee and gave him short strokes on the top of his leg. In an even, uninflected voice, he said, "I'll do better next time."

"Oh, fuck, no!" Peter exclaimed. When Gabriel looked up at him, blinking, Peter added vehemently, "There is no fucking way. You cut that passive aggressive bullshit out right fucking now."

To hear such vulgarity come flowing out of Peter's mouth seemed to shock the other man into insensibility. Gabriel's eyes darted to Peter's groin, then back to his face. He paled. "No. Peter… I didn't… I mean, I wanted to... Don't…" His lips moved, but he couldn't string together a sentence. "I'm so sor-"

Peter put his hand over Gabriel's mouth, startling him into silence. "No, please. Listen to me. Will you listen to me?"

Gabriel looked at the hand on his mouth uneasily. Peter pulled it away. Gabriel nodded.

Peter spoke, "You do **not** have to do that for me. That is so, _**so**_ not a condition of being with me, making me happy in bed, whatever. Yeah, I've heard it said by some idiots that's the best way, the only way, or some kind of proof of love, but it's **not**. It doesn't prove anything and even if it did, you don't have to prove you love me, not with a sex act and not by swallowing. I **know** you love me."

Peter waited a beat, but Gabriel was just staring at him in surprise. "We can use a condom, for God's sake, or next time I'll warn you better, or you don't have to do it at all if you don't want to. If anyone deserves to get beat up over this, _**I**_ do. This was not your fault, you didn't ask for me to do that and you've made it really, really clear that you weren't ready for that. I got carried away, I forgot, I should have been paying better attention to you, I was wrong." He leaned in a little, making direct, intent eye contact. "You did **nothing** wrong."

Gabriel looked down, relaxing slowly. He grimaced. "I have to go…" He pushed away and walked off down the hall to the office bathroom. Peter scrubbed at his own face vigorously. Gabriel came back a minute later to sheepishly retrieve a toothbrush and toothpaste from one of his desk drawers.

"What do you want me to do?" Peter asked simply.

Gabriel seemed to regain a little of himself at being asked. He patted Peter's shoulder. "Get dressed. Wait for me. I don't want it to end like this."

By the time Gabriel returned from the bathroom, Peter was dressed and sitting on the desk again. Gabriel came straight to him, nudged his legs apart with his hip and pulled Peter forward into a hug. He bent his head and kissed him on the neck and shoulder. They embraced. After a minute, Peter slid his hand slowly up and down Gabriel's bare back, then down over the swell of his ass.

"You seem to be at a disadvantage here," Peter murmured.

Gabriel chuckled and Peter was relieved to hear he still had humor. "No, Peter, I have you right where I want you."

Peter looked up at him, cocking his head. Not only did Gabriel still have a sense of humor about the evening, but he was still being assertive. That made Peter happy.

Gabriel stepped back and said, "Stay there." He opened a drawer and dug through hanging files for one at the back. He retrieved a rather dog-eared men's fashion magazine. Peter stared at that. It had little plastic tabs marking certain pages. "I figured," Gabriel said, "that if you're feeling like you did something wrong and need to make it up to me… that maybe…" He opened it to one of the tabbed pages. "Shape shift into this suit."

He showed him. Peter reached out and took the magazine from him, looking carefully at the picture_. Clothes are this important to him? I know he's mentioned it time after time, but I always thought… I don't know what I thought. I hardly thought about it at all. He even mentioned it just a couple nights ago, about his fantasies._ "Um… sure, I can do this."

"There's a description of the fabric right there," Gabriel pointed out helpfully. "You might want to read that."

Skimming over it, Peter said, "I remember you tried to get me to dress a certain way before and we sort of had a fight over it. You never asked me again. I'm sorry. I didn't understand how important it was." _Of course, I thought you were obsessing and interfering with my life, trying to dress me and treat me like… like… oh. Like you've said you want to treat me. __**Oh**__._

"I'm not going to bother you with things like that, Peter."

Peter tensed all over. With an effort, he kept his eyes on the paper. There were a whole lot of things he wanted to say to that and he suspected that not a one of them would make things better at the moment. He thought them though: _You're not going to "bother me" with what's important to you? What the hell? You didn't mention this when we were talking about preferences? Because you wouldn't want to "bother me" with your __**real**__ preferences? How much of what you were saying was just misdirection? Because I know it wasn't an outright lie. I'm trying to work with you here and I can't do that unless you tell me the freaking truth!_

But Gabriel had told him the truth, now, and so Peter shape shifted and kept his temper tantrum purely internal. It was unjust anyway, because Gabriel _had_ mentioned it a lot - and it linked in with everything else - Peter just hadn't clued to it. He turned into Gabriel briefly, then back into himself, but with different clothing, matching the picture as closely as he could. He could revisit the other matter another time. Jumping down Gabriel's throat at the moment would only serve to scare him off from sharing in future.

"You really like me in brown, don't you?" Peter said.

"It softens you," Gabriel said, running his fingers along the edge of the chocolate brown suit and over the crisp, cream-colored dress shirt underneath. "It brings out your eyes and the highlights in your hair. Black and white work for you too, but they make you severe. I don't like it as much, but it's striking and it looks good on you. Bright colors just make you look silly, I think, unless it's just a little, used as an accent." He leaned in and kissed Peter passionately, moving his hands up to cradle his face. "Thank you for doing this for me."

"Gabriel, this doesn't bother me _at all_. If you want me to do this, anytime, all you have to do is ask. Anytime." _Of all the kinks you might have that I don't have a problem meeting, this has _**got**_ to be easiest. And to think, this is one of those things you've been hiding behind that mask of yours. You are __**so**__ weird. You want to dress me up and own me. You really, really do. …I think I can live with that._

Gabriel took his time molesting Peter and his new outfit, but that was all it seemed to be, from Peter's point of view: a lot of cloth-fondling and stroking and tugging and rearranging and looking at him and touching and rubbing. Gabriel stayed naked the whole time. Peter felt a little silly, but really… this was harmless. Gabriel eventually made a mess on his clothes and Peter pulled him to him, a little turned on by how into it Gabriel was, but that was all. It wasn't really a shared pleasure and Peter was still trying to process what all of this meant.

They embraced like that for some minutes, each alone in their thoughts, together with each other. Finally Gabriel separated, saying, "I guess I really do need to get dressed now."

Peter shape shifted again, getting rid of the stain, though still feeling his outfit definitely needed a wash. He was smiling and touching the desk as Gabriel put his clothes on. Peter watched the scene play out using clairsentience. It was bizarre to see it from another perspective rather than his own – bizarre and sexy, complicated and loving. He looked up at Gabriel, who was watching him. Peter smiled at him. "I think that should make the idea of office work more attractive, at least."


	194. Data Points

**A/N: May 2, Monday, the day after "Office Work."**

Peter tapped the computer keyboard, enlarging the search area and trying to map out more data points. Gabriel said, "Right there, left of center."

"What? Should I zoom in?"

"No, I'm saying that's our epicenter. That's where we need to look. Click on that incident marker."

"Which one?" Peter asked.

Gabriel put his hand on Peter's shoulder and leaned in, pointing over Peter's other shoulder. "Right there."

Peter moved the mouse. "That one?"

"No, over a little. Yeah, that one. Click on that one." He started to straighten, but then inhaled sharply, as if suddenly realizing his head was right next to Peter's. Peter hadn't really thought about the proximity either, as they were working. Thoughts of work seemed to have been purged from Gabriel's head upon catching Peter's scent so warm and close. He buried his nose against the side of Peter's head with a small, embarrassingly needy whimper. He kissed him and worked his way back to the nape of Peter's neck.

"Ohhh…" Peter bent his head a little as Gabriel mouthed him, biting lightly. Gooseflesh erupted all over Peter's skin as he felt the wave of emotion, affection and desire. "Oh wow," he said so quietly it was only a breath.

"Mmrmm." Gabriel proceeded down to the knob of bone at the base of Peter's shoulders.

Noah walked up next to them and cleared his throat noisily. "So, how's the location coming along?"

Gabriel glared daggers up at Noah, who conspicuously refused to look at him for just that reason.

Peter coughed a little and jiggled the mouse, trying to pull himself back together. "Here. Um… This one." He straightened his neck and leaned back, dislodging Gabriel for the time being. The taller man stood up, still eyeing Noah, and now with both hands resting possessively on Peter's shoulders. His thumbs stroked slowly on Peter's neck, smearing the moisture he'd left there. Peter clicked on the point Gabriel had selected earlier.

Noah covered his mouth with one hand, elbow cupped in the other, as he looked at the screen speculatively. "Are you sure?"

Peter glanced up at Gabriel. He honestly had no idea why Gabriel had picked that particular incident marker. Gabriel shrugged and said, "You asked me to look at it because I'm good with complex systems. That's the epicenter. I know it." He began to gently knead Peter's shoulders.

Noah nodded. "Micah's analysis couldn't make sense of it."

"That's because Micah has no intuition. It's not about the data. It's about what the data _means_."

Peter gave a small moan at having his shoulders rubbed. Noah looked at him askance. It was bad enough to have Gabriel acting like a hormonally intoxicated teenager, but to have the normally well-behaved Peter playing along was disconcerting. Gabriel redoubled his efforts. Peter said apologetically to Noah, "He's become really good at giving massages."

"I'll take your word for it," Noah said dryly. "Anyway, that's really all we needed. I'll go relay that to the team in the field and have them check it out. Don't get carried away with each other." He shook his head as he walked away, pulling out a phone.

Peter tilted his head back and Gabriel bent to kiss him lingeringly.

Gabriel said quietly, "Am I getting carried away with you?"

Peter snorted just as softly. "I should have never told you I had fantasies about doing it in public."

Gabriel's hands stopped instantly and he looked over at Noah's back with uncertainty. "Peter… I don't… I wasn't using that. I was just... You were there and I wanted to…" He shrugged helplessly. "I just wanted to. So I did."

Peter nodded reassuringly. "It's okay. I understand. But you need to stop touching me. Later, when we're alone. Not now. I can't think when you do that and neither can you."

Gabriel smiled and leaned down to give Peter a peck on the temple. "Can I hold you to that 'later' part?"

Peter grinned at him as Gabriel stepped away and sat down. "Definitely."


	195. Contemplations and Compliments

**A/N: May 2, at night. Same day as "Data Points." The scene in this first part is directly stolen (::cough:: borrowed ::cough::) from Laurazel's fantastic Petlar art. For those who want to share in the glory of really great Petlar art, open Google, type "laurazelart" and follow the first entry (NSFW).**

Peter stared vacantly at an old issue of 9th Wonders, sitting in bed with Gabriel, who was reading some heavy alternative history novel by Turtledove, a rarely glimpsed set of thick rimmed glasses on his face. The glasses were all kinds of sexy, but Gabriel hadn't produced them until they were settling in to read, so Peter had kept his mouth shut. They'd both professed to not be in the mood for sex - at least, not in the mood right at that moment - so they were reading together. Supposedly. Peter was thinking.

The perverse thing about giving in to the clairsentience was how much Gabriel quit doing it, by and large. Insecurities resolved; he became more secure and didn't do it as much. Now that Peter thought about it, they'd been together for months and Gabriel had had the ability the whole time. He'd probably been using it the entire time too. The very first time he'd been in Peter's apartment, the previous September, he'd run his hands all over the furniture and the walls. Anytime they were in bed that they weren't actively engaged or asleep, Gabriel would touch him at least once with that far-away look.

But he'd never mentioned it. As far as Peter knew, he'd never acted on anything he saw there. Of course, there was nothing much to see, unless he wanted to be upset about Emma and apparently, genuinely, for all his possessiveness, Gabriel wasn't threatened by her. He thought about what Gabriel had said about Peter's reluctance for him to use clairsentience on him: _It's like asking me not to look at you._

It took Peter a few days to shake the resentment of having to agree to give up the illusion of privacy, but he'd never been good at holding grudges. He'd expected Gabriel to hold him down and get carried away with some kind of full body scan, but he didn't. Which, again, now that Peter thought about it, was the same pattern Gabriel had shown in the past. Peter gave him permission to do things (hurt him, push a little even if Peter said no, be more assertive, be rough, choke him) and Gabriel backed off and didn't do it. It didn't mean he didn't do it at all, but he wouldn't do it right away and he'd come back to it slowly later, introducing it a bit at a time as if to make sure Peter was serious.

Gabriel wasn't stupid. He'd said, more than once, that he wanted to be with Peter for the long haul. That meant he wasn't going to take shortcuts with Peter and he wasn't going to overwhelm him with too much at once. He seemed to have some idea of stages or baby steps in developing the relationship. Peter wished Gabriel would **tell** him what he had in mind, where he was going with things. Peter trusted him enough to let it go. Other than the occasional question, and Gabriel's typically evasive answer, Peter didn't bring it up.

Gabriel didn't seem of a mindset to reveal himself quite yet. Maybe he wasn't secure enough with Peter to do it. Peter worried about that possibility. _How much more accepting can I be? Or maybe a better question is how can I more clearly show him that I'll take him as he really is? _ He sighed. It was frustrating, but he was beginning to think it wasn't about _him_, Peter, but about Gabriel. Maybe Gabriel couldn't accept himself. Maybe he wasn't any more sure of who he wanted to be than he was about what he wanted. Maury had said Gabriel was sure of who he was, but what did Maury know? In that same conversation he'd questioned Gabriel's sanity and said he didn't know who Peter was – what did any of that _mean?_

Peter wondered what he'd done to so solidly set Gabriel back from him. Yes, they had a turbulent past. Yes, there had been the colossal screw-up with his identity and memories. Yes, he'd been an asshole more than once in dealing with Gabriel since, but the other man had kept coming back and he rarely complained, so it was tough to pinpoint exactly what the problem was. Or maybe untrusting was just how Gabriel was.

Peter frowned. That didn't fit. Gabriel trusted Angela. He trusted Maury. He trusted Noah. And while yes, he trusted Peter a lot, it was clear there were still issues with Peter that Gabriel was trying to resolve. There were wounds there and when Peter tried to deal with them, Gabriel flinched away. He didn't do that with the other people he trusted. He'd healed the hurts from others. Perhaps the ones with Peter just ran deeper.

Peter was stirred from his contemplation by Gabriel reaching around his shoulder and snagging the comic book, pulling it gently out of his hands. "Hey," Peter said, looking back at him.

"You weren't reading it anyway," Gabriel said.

"How do you know?" He noticed Gabriel had shut his book and set his glasses on top of it in his lap.

"Because you kept sighing and squirming, Peter. You're uncomfortable. Thinking heavy thoughts. Anything you want to share?" He rested his cheek on Peter's tousled hair.

"No. Not really. Thinking about you, mostly." He turned to face Gabriel, wondering if it would be useful to bring any of his ponderings to light. He didn't think so.

"Hm." Gabriel set aside his book and glasses.

Peter reached out and made a gesture with his hand, calling the glasses to him. Gabriel's brows drew together slightly. Peter smiled softly and leaned in, unfolding them and sliding them onto Gabriel's face. He remembered doing that in a dream once, and then as now, Gabriel had blinked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Peter closed the short distance to his face and kissed him. When they parted, Peter breathed, "Wear them for me. They make you look sexy."

"They make me look like a dork, Peter."

"Such a sexy dork! _**My**_ sexy, sexy dork. I love you." Peter swung a leg over Gabriel's lap and settled in where he had a good view. He grinned. He was going to enjoy this.

XXXXX

Peter woke up first, the fog of sleep clearing quickly as it usually did when he'd had enough. Regeneration didn't help him pull it together if he was woken unexpectedly, but it did mean that when he woke naturally, he was awake. Gabriel was still sleeping, lying on his side facing Peter, slightly curled around his book. They'd gone back to reading after the sex and this time Peter actually read his comic book, not that it mattered since it was an old issue. Gabriel's glasses were on the bed near one outstretched hand. Peter resisted the desire to lean over and kiss him. That he looked so relaxed, defenseless and eminently kissable made it a struggle.

"Are you awake?" he asked softly. Gabriel made no answer, except to continue breathing deeply as he had before. Very gently, Peter laid his fingertips on the other man's forearm. He felt nothing emotionally, just a void. He supposed that meant he was truly asleep and not even dreaming.

Peter wadded up his pillow and propped himself up with it, watching his lover. He smiled a little and let his eyes feast on him. After several minutes, as he was wont to do with Emma, he began talking in a low, quiet voice.

"Hey, baby," he crooned. "I love you _so much_. I hope you know that. You are _so_ handsome. I don't think I've ever told you that – not even once. I should. I just… can't always find the words. When you're awake and looking at me… I can't say it. You're so wonderful to look at. I love your eyes. They're black or gold depending on the light and all the shades of brown in between. I don't know how to say how great you look. I don't know… exquisite? Fascinating? Fabulous? And all mine.

"You make me horny. I want to fuck you. Even after fucking you time after time, I want to fuck you _more_. It's like I can't get enough. You're a like a drug and I keep wanting bigger and bigger doses of you. It scares me a little - more than a little.

"You're such an armful. I kind of wish you were a little shorter. I wish you trusted me more. I wish you'd open up. I know all this Gabriel stuff is just you playing at being who you think I want you to be, just like when you were playing at being Nathan. I figured that out at Christmas, that I have to watch what you _do_, not so much what you say or even how you say it. You tried to sacrifice yourself so I could help people. You tried to die for Heidi. You've talked about suicide a lot. That scares me too - the idea that you're just looking for a big enough blaze of glory to go out in. I don't want you to leave me. That's selfish of me, but it's true.

"You're a good man. I don't think you see that, but you really are. Sometimes I feel like… like God, I'm falling down at my job as a hero, because you're outdoing me. That's funny." Peter grinned and rubbed at the sheets, watching Gabriel's slumber. "I like being with you. I like spending time with you. I like the sound of your laugh, when it's unguarded. It's kind of goofy and I've only heard you laugh like that a few times, when you were with the boys. I think you share yourself more with Heidi than you do with me and it makes me jealous. Of all things - you're the one who's possessive to the point of neurosis, but I'm the one who's jealous.

"Maybe that's because your possessiveness is coming from somewhere else. Maybe it's insecurity. You're scared to death inside and hurting. I can feel it. I want to help you. I want to heal you. I want to make you whole. I cherish those moments when I see you put yourself back together a little bit, or stand up and start acting a little stronger, a little less afraid. It's almost like you're afraid of _**me**_." Peter was quiet for a while. Finally he said, "I know I'm a little afraid of you." He was silent again for a moment, then said, "More than a little."

He put his head down and sighed. "I love you. I love you desperately and stupidly and hopelessly and all those other things. You are so considerate, so thoughtful, so gentle and caring. I know you're trying so hard for me and God, do I ever appreciate it! You said you couldn't really change who you were, but you _have _changed. Maybe not who you are, but what you do and how you do it. Maybe you can't _be_ changed, but you can learn to do things differently and you're doing it. I think you're doing it for me.

"You're a better lover than you were when we started - a way, way better lover - and you're even more a better partner. You seem to know what that means - to be a partner. I don't think you did at first. Sometimes I wonder if you ever had a long-term relationship before Heidi and before me. And I mean Heidi after you were Gabriel, because Nathan never really worked out with Heidi. I don't think you did.

"You make me feel so special. You make me feel so sexy and so loved. You adore me and that just goes all through me. I wish I was as good a man as you think I am. It's a funny reversal – I always looked up to Nathan, now you're looking up to me. Nathan talked a little about how he was all the things people expected him to be because of those expectations. I didn't know what he meant then. I have a better idea now.

"I love how you treat me, how you touch me, how you look at me. I love how you go out of your way for me. I think you're funny and smart, but you don't let either one of those show as much as you should. I think you're really weird… and sweet. So sweet. You're _so_ dear to me." He paused. Gabriel was still lying there, but it almost looked like his face wasn't quite as relaxed as before, his breathing not quite as deep. Peter rested his fingertips lightly on his forearm again and this time he got an emotional read - a deep sense of pleasure and affection.

Peter pulled his hand away and blushed crimson. He ducked his head. When he raised it, Gabriel's eyes were slightly open. Peter asked, "How long have you been awake?"

Gabriel smiled lazily. "Long enough to realize you were complimenting the hell out of me."

"What's the first thing you heard?"

"Hm?" Gabriel seemed to be having a little trouble rousing. "Something about Heidi… me being with Heidi. I don't know. Nathan didn't like her or something. Then how much you loved me."

Peter relaxed a little. Gabriel had only heard the last part, but it was embarrassing enough. He didn't have to deal with this with Emma – he could rattle on as long or as loudly as he liked without risking waking her. Gabriel moved his book behind him and carefully put his glasses with it. He scooted closer to Peter and hugged him, putting his head on Peter's chest. He sounded still more than half asleep. "Thank you for saying nice things about me, Peter. Mm. I _do_ adore you."

Gabriel drowsed again and Peter shifted a little so he could pet his head. Peter sighed and said nothing - knowing he should, knowing everything he had said into the air should probably be said to Gabriel directly, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead he caressed him and loved him and lay next to him. He hoped it conveyed his affection enough.

XXXXX

Gabriel let himself into the apartment around noon. He called out to be absolutely sure the place was empty. He _listened._ It was. He went to the bedroom and sat down on Peter's side of the bed. He smiled to himself that there even was a "Peter's side" to the bed.

He reached out and ran his hand over the sheets. He found a good spot and he paused there for some minutes, listening to everything Peter had said. At the end, he sighed, grinning like an idiot, and lay where Peter had rested, inhaling his scent through the bedding, imagining his warmth, still hearing echoes of his kind, loving words.

After many minutes, he stirred and rose, sweeping his hand across that spot again. He thought about it for a moment, and stripped the bed, taking the bottom sheet. He folded it neatly and set it apart. He made the bed again. He often did, as he was a bit more scrupulous about that sort of thing than Peter was. He hoped Peter wouldn't notice the new sheets. Gabriel would have, in an instant, but Peter...

Well, Gabriel loved him dearly, but Peter just wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He thought to himself, _If I didn't know you so well, I'd think you'd said all that intending for me to overhear it. But it's __**you**__, Peter. It's __**you**__. _He found a plastic bag to wrap his new prize in and headed back out to work. He was in a fantastic mood. What made it even more fantastic was that Peter had even given him _permission_ to use his ability like this.


	196. Fetishes part 1

**A/N: This happens May 3, the day after Data Points, and probably the day of Contemplations and Compliments (which was set in the AM hours of May 3).**

Peter and Gabriel walked out of the board of directors meeting and into the entry. Gabriel put a hand briefly on Peter's arm. "Hang on a moment. I need to do something. I almost forgot." He walked over to Michael Fitzgerald, who was watching the attendees filter out with a blank expression, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. He brought his attention to the man walking towards him with a hand extended.

Gabriel smiled at him. "Hey. I wanted to shake your hand and thank you for doing such a good job here." They shook. Michael looked slightly bewildered. "Good job." Gabriel patted his arm and released him, heading out with Peter.

Peter waited until they were outside to say, "That was nice of you."

Gabriel shrugged. "Seemed like the best cover for it."

"Cover for what?" They walked towards Gabriel's car.

"I needed to touch him, that was all." Gabriel circled to the driver's side as Peter paused at the passenger door.

"Oh." Peter looked across the car at him, over the top. "Why did you need to touch him?"

"Present for Heidi." Gabriel got in and put the keys in the ignition. Peter got in as well, settled himself and put on his seatbelt.

"Seatbelt."

"What?" Gabriel started the car.

"Wear your seatbelt."

"Peter, we _regenerate_."

Peter gave a long-suffering sigh. "Just put it on, okay? Make me happy. It's the illusion of being a normal person. You don't need to wear clothes either and yet you do."

Gabriel put on his seatbelt and laughed. "Would you rather I didn't?"

Peter sniggered at the thought of Gabriel going around naked, using the limited illusory powers that came with shape shifting to make everyone think he was clothed. "Um… no." He blushed despite himself, thinking less than pure thoughts.

"How do you know I really have clothes on now?" He was grinning as he pulled away from the curb, heading back to Peter's apartment.

"Because you hadn't thought about it before now!"

"You know next time we're in the bedroom I'm going to be in a suit that's not there, right?"

Peter buried his face in his hands. He'd given Gabriel a way to fulfill his clothes fetish without endangering any actual clothing. _I'll never see the man naked again!_ Trying to think of something to bring the conversation back to a serious topic, he asked, "So why did you need to touch him again?"

"I told you - for Heidi." Gabriel gave him an odd expression, something like a leer. Peter decided it must have been a holdover from the earlier clothes topic.

"I don't get it."

Gabriel took a deep breath and said, "Now… don't you go getting any ideas. I do this for **her**. I'm not… I'm not ready to do this with you yet. You've still got that Nathan thing going on in your head. I can see it."

Peter frowned and said nothing, trying to piece together the logic. He was missing something. He ignored the barb about Nathan.

The other man went on. "Michael's really well-endowed."

Peter barely caught his jaw from dropping open as it all fit together, including Gabriel's unexpected detour earlier into dirty thoughts. "You… ah… how do you know that?"

Gabriel gave him a level look. He looked back at the road for a while and when Peter didn't say anything, he answered, "I only have to shift into someone for a few seconds, Peter. I just kept going through all the men I'd touched until I found what I wanted. There was another guy about the same, looked Arabic. I guess I met him at Halo, but he's worn off already. I have to have touched them within the last few weeks, maybe a month."

"You…" Peter looked at his own groin and then back to Gabriel. "You… you shape shift into different men to… to…?"

"It was her idea, Peter. Not mine. You know how I am about my face."

Peter was silent, trying to tell himself that Heidi was a normal woman with normal desires and this sort of experimentation was also safe and normal. It was like dress-up, or role play. He was having trouble convincing himself of that, because appearances made a big difference for Peter. "But… she knows Michael. How can she… Aren't you afraid she'll…" He shook his head, failing to wrap it around the idea.

Gabriel laughed. "Am I afraid she'll dump me for him?" He laughed again. "Why would she? I've got everything he has. It's not like she's running off to Saudi to find that other guy. She knows it's me no matter what form I'm in. I don't know how she knows, but she does. That's the only reason I do it." He paused for a long moment. "Well, that and the sounds she makes." He smiled softly to himself.

"Shut up, please Gabriel. I don't want to know."

The other man smiled smugly at Peter, who had put his palm over his face and was shaking his head. Peter finally put his hand down and said, "Isn't that… an invasion of people's privacy?"

"Who's?"

"The people you touch? You really went through all the men you knew and checked them out in front of the mirror?"

"Sure." He was shameless. "Well… I left a few out, ones I wouldn't have turned into anyway, no matter what. Arthur, Maury, you, her family, a few really ugly guys, the neighbors, kids and the elderly and stuff. You know."

"You already know what I look like."

He shrugged. "Yeah, and she's not getting you in bed even if it's me."

Peter frowned slowly. "So you're jealous of her being with me, but not Michael."

Gabriel pulled into the parking garage next to Peter's apartment building, which was what he usually did if he was coming up. If he was just dropping Peter off, there was no need. He'd always asked before, but a lot of things had changed between them lately and not asking permission for some things was one of them. He put the car in park and leaned over towards Peter, tilting his head and approaching his lips. "How do you know I'm not jealous of you being with her, hm?"

Peter kissed him, smiling now. When they broke apart, he chuckled and said, "Come on, tiger, let's go get that clothes thing out of your system. I know you're thinking about it."

Gabriel grinned, getting out of the car. "Oh, my thoughts aren't nearly as naked as I'm going to be!"


	197. Fetishes part 2

Peter shut the apartment door and met Gabriel in the middle of the room. The taller man began unbuttoning Peter's shirt without preamble. Peter smirked at him. "You're really getting comfortable with me."

"Yes, I am." He paused to nuzzle Peter's now exposed neck, then returned to the shirt. "Isn't that a good thing?" Gabriel finished with the buttons.

"Yeah, it is. It's just… I have to remember how different things are." Peter shrugged out of his shirt on his own and tossed it aside.

"Oh, they're different all right." Gabriel looked annoyed at being denied the opportunity to undress him. To Peter's surprise, he reached out and shoved him hard, making him fall back two steps and stumble.

A flash of anger went across Peter's face followed quickly by confusion. "Wait, what was that?"

Gabriel took a step closer to him, cautiously, tilting his head to watch Peter's body language, to see his uncertainty. "I'm playing with you, Peter. I won't hurt you. Let me play." He hesitated. Peter nodded. Gabriel then went on, "You've given me more slack, let me do more, do things I wanted but I was afraid to do before." He reached out and put a hand on Peter's bare shoulder.

Peter turned his head slightly, trying to read what Gabriel was getting on about. He didn't like being shoved around, playing or not, but the pause to check in with him made him go along with it more than he would have otherwise. The taller man pushed his shoulder less violently than before. Peter braced and refused to be moved. Gabriel grinned and stepped against him in a flash, kissing him before Peter realized that by cementing himself in place he'd made it impossible to get away quickly. Not that he'd really wanted to… he returned the kiss with interest, but remained wary.

Gabriel raised one hand to Peter's chest, stroking him while the other went to the small of his back, holding him close. He pressed into the kiss enough to lean Peter back. For a moment the smaller man tensed instinctively, then he went with it, trusting Gabriel to hold him. He didn't disappoint.

"There are a lot of things I'd like to do… want to do… that we haven't done because I didn't think you'd do them or let me do them." Gabriel spoke between nuzzles and kisses, gently showered on Peter's neck and shoulders.

"Like the clothes?" Peter asked.

"No." Gabriel bit him, hard, lifting the skin away from his collarbone and sinking his teeth into it.

"OW! Stop!" Peter jerked away from him, giving him a look like Gabriel was insane. The other man smiled and stepped towards him. Peter stepped away, keeping an arm's length between them and holding up a hand to fend Gabriel off.

Gabriel stopped. "Oh, come on. It's healed already."

"It still hurt! I've told you…" Peter trailed off as he recalled what he'd said only a couple weeks ago.

Gabriel cocked his head. "Yeah, you did. You said I could hurt you if I didn't get carried away and I let you heal."

Peter calmed down and looked off to the side, swallowing. He let his hand fall to his side. "Okay." He blinked and moved his head stiffly. "You're right. I said that."

He didn't move away this time as Gabriel came to him, wrapping his arms around him and stroking, massaging, caressing. "Thank you… for not taking it back."

Peter sighed and relaxed fractionally. "You know, if you do that without warning me, then I'm… I can't relax around you. I won't be able to let my guard down."

"Then in future I'll warn you." He ran his lips back and forth over the now-flawless spot where he'd bitten him. "Not very sexy to have to warn you though."

"It's… It's not very sexy to me to get _hurt_."

Gabriel nodded. "Yeah… which is why this is all foreplay to me asking for the main attraction." He mouthed the spot he'd bitten, pulling the skin into his mouth and sucking at it, giving Peter a hickey that would last even less time than the bite. Peter groaned and ground himself against Gabriel, almost losing track of what he'd been saying. He'd always liked that feeling, even if he hated the consequences. Now he could have it without them.

"What… main attraction?"

Gabriel moved his mouth to Peter's ear, breathing into it, "I want you to hurt _me_." Peter stilled. Gabriel went on, "Take me. Make it rough."

"Gabriel… I don't think that's in me."

The other man chuckled and lipped along the line of Peter's jaw. "Oh, it is. I know it; you know it. You've hit me before." He straightened a little and gave Peter a sly look. "I think you kind of liked it. I know I did. Haven't you ever wondered why I'd smile when you'd hit me?"

Peter started to struggle away, but Gabriel's arms were around him and he tightened his embrace, saying, "No, you don't."

"Gabriel, let me go." Peter's voice sounded low and dangerous.

The other man purred to him, "You are so tightly wound, Peter. I don't think you've ever really relaxed in your life. Let it out. You can let it out with me. I want it." He nipped Peter's ear, putting enough pressure into the quick bite that it stung.

Peter jerked his head aside and lashed out at him, finally provoked to tap into his enhanced strength. He threw Gabriel onto the couch, on his back. After a second of hesitation, Peter leaped on top of him, his right knee coming down on the other man's hip instead of on the outside of it. Although he shifted to straddle him properly, Gabriel still winced. So did Peter.

"Is this what you want?" Peter put his hands on Gabriel's shoulders and shoved him into the cushions. "A little dominance play?"

Gabriel nodded quickly, smiling. "Hurt me." His eyes were bright.

Peter ground himself against Gabriel, noting the other man had the beginnings of an erection already. He twined his fingers into his short hair, getting a grip and pulling his head back so Peter could bring his face to Gabriel's exposed neck. He opened his mouth and ran his teeth across the sensitive skin. Gabriel moaned and pressed his hips upwards into Peter, rocking them together.

Peter released his hair with one hand, still pulling back hard with the other and sent his free hand down Gabriel's body to unfasten his pants. He continued working his neck with his mouth, biting and sucking. When his slacks were open, Peter slipped his hand inside and straightened Gabriel's cock. His touch was met by a surge upwards from the other man. Peter lost his grip on his hair and had to grab him again, putting his own head down under his chin to shove him down.

"Ah!" Gabriel's head fell back, yanked back roughly. "Oh, Peter. Peter… _yes!_"

Peter worked up the side of Gabriel's neck and over his jaw, kissing his cheek and his cheekbone. Gabriel tried to turn to meet his lips and had his head jerked back even harder. He made a small cry and Peter felt his grip in the short hair loosen again. "You don't get to kiss me." Gabriel keened with pleasure anyway. Peter reached down to shift off Gabriel's pants, shuffling backwards. He needed both hands for it, but stopped cold as he brought his left from behind Gabriel's head. He hadn't been losing his grip - he'd been pulling Gabriel's hair out. He looked at the fistful of hair in horror.

Gabriel saw his expression and quickly said, "Peter, I want it. I want this. Don't stop. Please don't stop. It's just hair. I've probably already grown it back. I loved it when you did that." He rocked his hips upwards into Peter slowly, watching his face. "This is what I want. …I want it…"

Peter shook the loose hair off his hand and onto the floor with an expression of revulsion. He stood up off of him.

Gabriel's voice became higher pitched, carrying a note of begging, "Please, Peter. No…"

The smaller man didn't say anything at first, just unfastening his pants and sliding them off. Gabriel took the hint and finished getting his own off. "Shirt too," Peter said to him, then walked into the bedroom. He came back a moment later as Gabriel was tossing the last of his clothes aside. Peter had a bottle of lubricant. He set it on the back of the couch and climbed on top of Gabriel. He lay on the other man, resting his head on his chest. Gabriel frowned. A snugglefest was not what he wanted, but he put his arms around him anyway. He knew he was pushing Peter to his limits with this.

After at least a minute of lying on him, breathing and sharing warmth, Peter shifted and ran his left hand behind Gabriel's head again. Instead of gripping, he just combed his fingers through it, verifying it was all there - there was no bald spot or lasting effect. He swallowed and finally wound his fingers into the hair again. Gabriel made a soft sound of approval, but Peter didn't pull on him. Instead he moved his head to the man's left nipple and licked it, making the taller man tighten his arms around him.

Peter jerked back on his head and raised his upper body away from Gabriel. He knocked one of his arms off him with his right. "Don't touch me." He began to grind his lower body into Gabriel, feeling his hardened organ between them. Peter's cock was still soft, but as he rubbed himself against the other man it was stiffening. He bent his head back to Gabriel's chest, licking and biting around his nipples, putting as much pressure into the bites as he was willing to do. The marks faded almost instantly, but the other man's croons of joy lasted longer.

"I want you, Peter. I need you. I want you to do this to me. Bite me, hurt me, take me roughly, be violent, let go. Force me, use me, take me. I want you to. You're the only one I'd ever let do this to me, the only one who can, the only one strong enough to take me." Peter slowed his pace somewhat so Gabriel changed tacks, "You're the only one I love like this, the only one I can trust this much. I trust you. I love you. I love you, Peter Petrelli. I love you. I want you to do this to me."

Peter put his forehead on Gabriel's chest for a moment, exhaling. He was finally hard enough to continue. This was the most difficult sex act he'd ever agreed to. He put his knees together and slipped them between the other man's. Gabriel's right leg hung off the couch. The left he lifted and hooked his heel over the back of the furniture. Peter leaned back on his knees and pushed Gabriel's legs back so he had better access to him. He took the bottle of lube and squirted some onto his hand.

"Don't get me too ready, Peter." At the smaller man's doubtful expression, Gabriel said, "Please. Please. I want it to hurt. I do, I really do." He took his left foot and ran it up Peter's right arm. Peter knocked it aside again as he had his arm earlier, but this time Gabriel smiled a little and brought his foot back to rub him again. Peter grabbed his ankle and put him back where he wanted him, saying, "Stop it."

"Am I making you mad?" he teased. He didn't move though, not wanting to push it too far.

"Yeah." Peter coated his cock with the lube, then Gabriel's opening.

"Oh!" He jumped at the contact. "If you're mad, then take it out on me. I'm asking you to, Peter. Take me now. Stop- Oh!" Peter slipped a finger inside of him. "Stop working me and just take me." An edge of frustration leaked into his voice.

Peter shook his head but took his hand away, wiping it on Gabriel's thigh. He hooked his hands under the other man's knees and pushed him up as he moved himself in to enter him. Gabriel began panting as Peter pressed himself against the tight, lubed pucker.

"Yes! Yes, Peter. More pressure. Push it. Force me. Harder, rougher, faster. Please!" He scooted down and lifted his hips, bucking into Peter and providing at least as much pressure as Peter was putting on him. Peter took a shuddering breath and started thrusting harder against him, feeling him open slightly around the head of his cock. Gabriel cried out at that opening, a sound of mingled pleasure and pain. Peter shook his head and blinked away tears. That had to hurt, but it very much seemed to be what the other man wanted. He gritted his teeth and grabbed Gabriel's hips, suddenly forcing himself into the other man. Gabriel screamed and writhed and for a moment Peter froze.

"No! NO! Don't stop God-dammit Peter don't stop!" Gabriel surged against him, breath catching and straining.

Peter resumed thrusting into him. Gabriel's body resisted him, resisted his invasion of the unprepared flesh, but Peter gripped his hips and pulled them back and forth, tearing his way into him, forcing his hardness into the other man's body. Gabriel seemed wild at the violation, heaving under him, moaning with each thrust and shoving to meet his lover's organ. His hands stroked at Peter's sides despite his earlier order. Peter didn't care now. He needed every reassurance he was doing what his partner desired, though honestly he couldn't imagine what Gabriel could possibly do to indicate more strongly that he wanted this.

Gabriel's cock was fully engorged, swollen and on the edge of orgasm, a level of arousal he'd never had from being fucked. The only way Peter had ever been able to excite him when Peter topped was by stroking him off and so far he'd barely touched him at all.

"Oh God, fuck me Peter. Fuck me. Rape me, force me. If I'm going to be taken by a man I want it to **hurt**. God this hurts! Oh my God, keep going... what are you…?" He looked up because Peter had paused again, looking down at him with a distressed expression. Gabriel thought about what he'd said and put it in his mind next to Peter's personality. He realized he'd slipped again, saying what he wanted instead of what Peter needed to hear. "I love you. This is a game, this is playing. It's a fantasy. We're enjoying each other. God I want this Peter. Please, please keep going. Please." He shifted his hips against the other man.

Peter started for a third time, pounding him harder and faster. "Shut up," he said through gritted teeth. "I don't want to hear you anymore unless you're calling my name or just making sounds." He was entirely clear this was consensual - Gabriel had virtually begged him for it. He didn't want to hear 'rape' or "this hurts" coming out of anyone's mouth though while he was sexing them. He channeled his frustration by slamming into Gabriel's body with all his strength, letting some of his enhanced strength bleed into the speed and force he was using.

Gabriel hung onto the couch for dear life, mewling and whimpering, whispering Peter's name between pleasured sounds. Peter didn't realize the other man had even come until he felt himself becoming undone. He looked down to check his partner before letting loose and was at first alarmed to see Gabriel had lost his erection. Then he saw the sticky fluid splattered across his chest and the sated, slack expression on his face. With three final, shuddering thrusts, Peter spent himself inside him, teeth bared. He panted, holding perfectly still as he softened within the other man.

He lifted his hands from Gabriel's hips, seeing purple, almost black bruises left behind. Gabriel whimpered again as his fingers pulled away and the sensation, numbed somewhat by the intense pressure of Peter's grip, came back in a wash of pain. The bruises greened, then yellowed, browned and finally faded entirely as Peter watched. He took a deep breath. No one was complaining. He looked at Gabriel's face. The other man looked not merely blown as he usually did after sex, but entirely satisfied, flying high on endorphins.

Peter swallowed and scooted back. He inhaled sharply and paled. "Oh God…"

"What is it?" Gabriel leaned up on his elbows.

"There's blood. I…"

Gabriel sat up suddenly and put his arms around Peter, making it impossible for him to look. "I wanted it. It's okay. I'm healing already. That was fantastic. Hey… look at me, Peter." He caught the smaller man's eyes. "I wanted this. I _**thank**_ you for this." He kissed him, running his tongue back and forth insistently against Peter's lips until the other man finally opened his mouth for him. Gabriel plundered it, kissing him forcefully, passionately, trying to put into the kiss all of his feeling and desire for the act they'd just shared.

When they parted, Peter shook his head, body slumping. "You're breaking me. You're breaking me, Gabriel."

The taller man cocked his head slightly and asked, "Was there any part of you that enjoyed that? Because if there wasn't, then I'll never ask for it again."

Peter deflated even more. It had felt great, that was the problem. He'd been fascinated and aroused to see there was a way to top Gabriel that turned him on, where Peter didn't have to force enjoyment out of him and manipulate him to orgasm. He'd made his partner scream with pleasure, something Gabriel had never done before when Peter was in him.

He sighed and leaned against Gabriel, thinking. They'd discussed their preferences, but hadn't actually gotten to the part where they agreed on what they would and wouldn't do for each other. Even if they had, Peter didn't think he could have answered for this sort of thing honestly - not without having done it.

Gabriel tried to turn his face up so he could see him, but Peter resisted and with his strength, he won. "Don't. I don't want you looking at me right now." His voice was even and low, tense like his teeth were nearly clenched. He felt like he was guilty of a great wrong, but all he'd done was pleasure his partner in a manner requested and obviously greatly enjoyed. "I liked it."

Gabriel smiled lazily and hugged Peter softly, then harder. "Good."


	198. Health Code Violation

Peter woke up achingly hard. He grunted and then groaned. Gabriel's shoulder was warm against him. He reached over and touched the other man's chest, fingertips brushing the wiry hair. Gabriel's face twitched and he breathed in sharply, then relaxed again.

_He smelled me. That is so strange. He's awake at least. I might as well ask._ "Hey, I wanna have sex with you."

A long moment passed where Peter wondered if he'd been wrong and Gabriel wasn't awake at all. Then he said, "Mmrm. Go ahead." Gabriel rolled over on his back. "Don't touch me though."

Peter sat up, preparing to get between the other man's legs and said, "What? What am I not supposed to touch?"

"My dick."

"Oh." Peter hesitated. "How are you going to get off?" Gabriel still hadn't opened his eyes. The idea that he might remain half-asleep through it was not entertaining to Peter. Some people got off on sleep-sex, or having sex with a partner who wasn't awake for it. Peter wasn't one of those people.

Gabriel swung his leg awkwardly around Peter, making him dodge it. He nudged him into the right angle, showing that he was at least awake enough to think. "I'll figure something out." He took a deep breath when Peter didn't do anything. More deep breaths followed, like he really was falling back asleep.

_What the hell did I think was going to happen?_ Peter thought._ He was asleep. I should have just jerked off._ Peter looked in the direction of the shower. He supposed he still could.

Gabriel nudged him with his knee. "Come on."

_Damn it. How likely is it that he'll get upset and get up if I go off in the shower now?_ He summoned the lube from the nightstand (they weren't bothering to conceal it in the drawer anymore) and opened it. To Gabriel he said, "I want you to get yourself ready."

"What?"

"Get yourself ready. Open yourself." Peter wanted to get some manner of participation.

"Oh. Um… okay." He put his hand out for the lube, but instead of giving him the tube, Peter squirted it on his fingers. Gabriel grunted. He tried to reach himself from in front, but while lying flat on his back, his arm wasn't quite long enough. He maneuvered his leg around Peter again (Peter dodged it again) and rolled on his side, reaching around a bit like he wasn't familiar with the geography.

"You've never done this before," Peter observed. He hadn't had it hammered home quite that Gabriel's only meaningful anal experience was with Peter.

"Not recently, no."

"When have you ever pleasured yourself anally?" He watched as Gabriel's fingers probed and stretched himself inexpertly.

Gabriel's voice started and stopped as he worked himself. "I… I don't think I ever did, but I got myself ready for sex a few times. After I… figured out it hurt a lot if I didn't. Partners… random guys… didn't always help me out, but a few did. I healed. Not a big deal. There, I think." He swung his leg back over, but Peter caught it and kissed the sole of his foot. Gabriel smiled. He still hadn't opened his eyes.

"You don't remember ever having anal sex as Nathan?" All those times with his brother, forgotten. Even more odd, in Peter's mind, was the illusion he'd harbored for so long that Gabriel _knew_. It flew in the face of Gabriel telling him otherwise right up front, the very first time, that he didn't have those memories, but Peter had clung to the idea that Gabriel had more experience than he did. He set Gabriel's foot down.

"I remember I _had _it. Just don't remember _having_ it."

"And Sylar?"

"Little better recall." That was a lie. Gabriel shifted into position and scooted in a little. "Lot better recall." That wasn't a lie. "Probably less experience though. Fuck me, Peter. I don't want to talk."

Peter aimed and leaned into him, pushing back Gabriel's legs. He entered easily, with a little pop of pressure disappearing as he slid inside. "What was that?"

"Telekinesis, keeping me open."

Peter stopped moving and thought about that. He would have never used an ability that intimately. But Peter didn't have the degree of fine control that Gabriel did, even while sleepy. He shook his head and started moving again. Gabriel reached down to himself with his slicked hand and started stroking. A few moments later, Peter began to match his rhythm, thinking that might help. He was glad at least of the motion, because otherwise Gabriel was lying there with his eyes shut, face relaxed, looking out of it.

Gabriel grunted and stopped moving his hand. "Peter… just fuck me." He moved both hands back to Peter's hips, touching him lightly. "Here, I'll help. Here, I'm in a diner."

Peter got a confused expression, but he was still going.

"I'm eating breakfast. You're the cook. And the owner."

_Is he having a dream? What the hell is this?_

"And I can't pay for my meal. You come out to chew me out about it, because this isn't the first time and I've always begged off before. I tell you I'll make it up to you. I'll let you fuck me."

_Oh…?_

"And I take off my grimy sweat pants, right there in your diner, in front of everyone, and you say 'fine', because you've had enough of me ripping you off, and you fuck me."

_Oh!_

"I lay back in the booth and put my legs up and you slide in between, pushing your apron off to the side and opening your pants. You're greasy, and I'm open, and that's all we really need, because it doesn't matter if it's tight or it hurts because you like it that way and so do I. And everyone… all of your customers… they can see what you're doing, it's clear as day."

Peter was thrusting harder, letting his own eyes shut and just listening to the words, letting his mind fill in the details - the shocked faces of the patrons, the smell of coffee and bacon and toast, the sound of dishes and startled whispers, the feel of a stranger's body under his own, someone he was taking advantage of, or at least who he shouldn't be doing this to. He would have never imagined a fantasy like this for himself. It was bizarre, but sexy. He supposed Gabriel had been listening about the public thing and taboos.

"There might even be some kids in there. Oh! Oh, God, Peter! And that's what I'd be saying, so that even covering their eyes wouldn't save them. They'd hear us, you grunting and huffing like you're doing now, me moaning and calling out, the booth rocking, the stuff on the table rattling, you fucking my sorry, deadbeat ass like there's no tomorrow! Oh!"

"Oh!" Peter came with an abbreviated shout. He leaned forward, sagging, putting his hands on either side of Gabriel.

"I think that must be some kind of health code violation." He moved his hand up and captured one of Peter's, leading it to his penis. He straightened a little, inhaling as he wrapped Peter's fingers around himself. Peter let Gabriel control the movements. He'd last longer that way. "It certainly would be a violation, health code at least, when you reached over afterwards to stroke me off." He started moving Peter's hand up and down himself, Gabriel's hand wrapped around Peter's. His whole body shook briefly.

"Easy, easy," Peter whispered.

"And I'd say that you didn't have to do that, didn't have to finish me, but it's _you_, Peter, and you'd say, 'I just want to make sure you leave a tip for the service,' and I'd come. Stroke me, Peter." Peter nodded, gripped him and stroked fast. It only took a few motions to finish him. Gabriel arched off the bed into his hand, then removed Peter's hand immediately and panted hard. He finally opened his eyes, just narrowed slits, but Peter could see he was looking at him. He smiled. "Come on, snuggle up behind me. I want to go back to sleep."

Peter smiled softly and did as directed. He didn't go to sleep, but he enjoyed every minute of lying next to his lover, feeling his warmth and affection. He kissed the middle of Gabriel's back several times and repositioned himself to kiss his neck. He did what Gabriel did so often and stuck his nose to the back of his head and breathed him in. He supposed it smelled like Gabriel, but really it did nothing for him. Peter shrugged and settled in, happy and content.

XXXXX

An hour later, Peter got out of the shower as Gabriel was brushing his teeth. Peter stepped over next to the toilet to towel off his hair. Gabriel stepped away from him a little, then a little more. Peter's brows furrowed until he noticed Gabriel was watching his reflection in the mirror. He laughed.

"You know," Peter said, drying his body slowly for effect, "if we do that again, me waking up and you letting me have you, I'd like it if you'd actually look a little more engaged, like you're enjoying it."

Gabriel quit brushing his teeth and eyeing him in the mirror. Toothbrush still in his mouth, he turned to look right at Peter, narrowing his eyes and giving him a long, calculating look that almost seemed threatening. Peter blinked and for some deep instinctive reason flashed on how he was in the corner of the bathroom and there was no way out. Gabriel began brushing his teeth again and turned to spit. He glanced aside at Peter with the same expression though, and filled the glass next to the sink, rinsing his mouth out.

He finished and straightened, staring forward into the mirror. "Peter. You know I'll do anything you ask of me. Anything. And if you wake me up from a sound sleep so you can get off, that's okay with me. I'm fine with it. You know I'm telling you the truth when I say that. And because you're hung up on having it be mutual, I'll get myself off too. I'll even help you out with a fantasy or whatever you need." He looked to the side at Peter. "But if you require me to put on an act like I'm enjoying it, like I was just lying there waiting for the chance to serve your needs… then you're pushing me to deceive you. You're ruining a moment where I was happy to pleasure you by not being satisfied with me. I can't _make_ myself enjoy things." His voice shook slightly as he added, "And I can't satisfy unrealistic demands."

He paused, because Peter had a hand up and was shaking his head. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I overstepped. You're right. You did me a favor. I'm being ungrateful. I had no right to ask… for more… for anything."

Gabriel stepped over and hugged Peter, going a bit slow because Peter was jumpy. Gabriel was still emoting threat, but when he touched him that impression was dispelled. "Peter, you had every right to ask. It's just… you can ask me to do specific things, but you can't ask me to enjoy or not enjoy things. It's like telling me I need to love you more right now. I don't get to decide that. At least, not my brain. My heart makes those decisions and it doesn't tend to let my brain have a say in them."

Gabriel gave Peter a peck on the forehead. "Next time I'll look more engaged for you."

"No! Please no. I… I won't even ask anymore." He was sullen and put out, angry that now anything Gabriel did would seem calculated and disingenuous.

Gabriel went very still and the emotions that ran through him were so strong and complex that Peter jerked his hands off of him. "Peter…" Now his voice was as terrified as Peter had ever heard it. Gabriel glanced down at where Peter wasn't touching him anymore. He backed up a step. "You won't ask anything of me? You don't want…"

"Wait!" Peter followed him. Gabriel stumbled against the doorframe and stopped there with it to his back. Peter hugged him tentatively at first because Gabriel wasn't returning it. He could feel Gabriel was shaken and frightened. Peter said, "No. No. I want you. I love you. I love you. I want you. It'll be okay. I want it to be okay. I'm sorry I fucked things up. I'll take you as you are. I accept you. I love what you give me. I want it. I'll ask."

Gabriel put his arms around Peter and relaxed a little. Peter went on, "You make me feel wonderful. I love being with you. I love that if I want to roll over and have sex with you, you're there. I love that you're cooperative. I'm an idiot and an ass sometimes. Please put up with me. Please."

Peter kissed Gabriel's shoulder and the taller man pressed the side of his head to Peter's. He sighed. Gabriel adjusted himself in the embrace, enfolding him more securely. Peter wanted to keep apologizing, but he shut his mouth and just touched. After a while, Gabriel nuzzled his head affectionately and Peter felt a thrill go through him at that. He shivered a little from it. Gabriel made a satisfied noise at his reaction and nuzzled him again. Peter grinned and hugged him more firmly. It was a better apology than any words would have managed anyway.

Gabriel spoke slowly. "You… have to be able to tell me when you want something - even if, sometimes, it's not fair or I can't do it. You don't know that unless you ask. I… have to be able to tell you no, and that it's not fair or I can't do it, without… retaliation." He paused for a while, but Peter sensed he wasn't done. He added finally, "You'll ask again, won't you?"

"Yes," Peter said immediately. "You're right. We just got a little emotional there. But see? We can be emotional and get over it. You didn't flip out. I didn't either. It just got a little tense. It's okay."

"It's okay?"

"Yes," Peter said firmly.

"Hm." Gabriel nuzzled him again. "Then let me put you on the bed and make out with you until I feel better, alright?" Peter nodded. "You don't even have to enjoy it," Gabriel said in a teasing tone.

Peter laughed a little. "I think it will be hard not to."

"Mm. I certainly intend to make it that way, yes."


	199. A Fight Defused

**A/N: Why yes, that **_**is**_** a Wall reference you'll see later on. This is the first part of a three or four chapter sequence that makes up a single protracted scene, with each chapter taking up immediately where the former left off.**

They stood and kissed in the middle of the living room. Gabriel ran his hands up and down Peter's sides, fingers digging into the cloth and bunching it irregularly in his hands. Peter's hands were on his partner's shoulder and face. Gabriel pulled Peter's shirt out of his pants and touched his bare skin. Peter made a pleased noise, their mouths still locked together.

Gabriel finally broke away and pushed him. Peter narrowed his eyes, but Gabriel came back close to him, kissing his face and jaw for a moment, then bringing his hands up to Peter's shoulders again and pushing him. Peter fell back a step, but when Gabriel pushed him a third time, he put his foot behind himself and anchored, calling on his enhanced strength to resist. Gabriel grinned and pushed harder, turning it into a contest.

Peter gripped his biceps, turning his head. He wasn't quite sure what was going on here, but it was annoying. Gabriel had done it before, but fighting and sex didn't go together for Peter. It didn't for Gabriel either, but he liked being dominant and that was a definite way to express it. Peter wasn't quite to the point of telling him to cut it out.

A moment later, he felt his foot began to slip, somehow losing traction. He suspected Gabriel was using telekinesis to shift him. _This isn't what I want to do… and I've told him not to use that on me._ He gave up resisting, trying to do it slowly so he didn't get slammed back into the wall. He was still shoved back hard enough to knock some of the air out of him, but it didn't damage the wall. Gabriel was on him immediately. Peter dropped his hands to his sides and waited passively, partly because he couldn't quite think of what to say and partly to deny Gabriel any feedback. It was petty. He was usually better than that. He let Gabriel kiss him savagely, but he didn't return it.

Gabriel slowed, biting Peter's lip harder than he would have liked. Peter's eyes tightened at that, but he gave no other reaction. For a moment Gabriel pressed into him, grinding his hips against him, biting and kissing Peter's neck, then the join of his neck and shoulder, where he could get to bare skin. Peter stared off at the ceiling and thought about that dream where Gabriel had nearly raped him. _How far will he go if I'm not responding to him?_

Gabriel stepped back, tilting his head and looking up and down Peter's body. He looked between Peter's hands, then to his face. He swallowed and came back, their bodies touching but not pressing. _Apparently not far,_ Peter thought approvingly. With one hand Gabriel stroked Peter's cheek gently with the characteristic short, brief motions he used when he was unsure or supplicating. He kissed him delicately, tentatively. Peter turned back to him and rewarded the behavior. He returned the kiss, bringing his hands up to rest on Gabriel's hips.

The other man went into overdrive again, pushing forward and kissing him much harder, rough enough that it hurt. Peter turned his face aside and said, "Would you _stop it?_" Gabriel backed off immediately. He put his forehead down on Peter's shoulder and growled in frustration. Peter put his hands on his sides again. He could feel the man's tension. He was breathing hard and it wasn't with arousal. He was mad.

_If he'd just tell me what he wants, he'd have a better chance of getting it,_ Peter thought peevishly. Then he thought, _That's a two way street. No reason why I can't just ask._

"Tell me what you need. I'll give it to you," Peter said softly. "I'm sorry if I'm being mean."

"You're toying with me," Gabriel snarled. He shook his head, then said, "I want you to fight me." He punctuated it by shoving Peter hard against the wall again, but kept his head down, where Peter couldn't see his face. Peter tensed all over and felt an edge of panic shoot through him. He'd had a really bad experience shoved against a wall by this man. Memories of that incident fluttered in the back of his mind like a tattered curtain stirred by a fitful breeze.

"Whoa," Peter said cautiously. "Be easy with me." His voice shook a little as he tried to stay in the here and now.

Gabriel looked up at him, then away in shame and frustration. He got his hands off Peter immediately. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry."

Gabriel started to pull away, but Peter tightened his grip for a moment and said, "Wait, please?" Then he let go, but Gabriel stayed. He put his arms around Peter gently and pulled him into a simple embrace, taking a step back from the wall. Peter hugged him back. He could feel Gabriel relaxing a little. Peter relaxed with him.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said again, when he was breathing more normally. "I'm going too fast. I'm not doing right. Whatever the hell that is."

"It might work a little better if you say what you want."

"I _**did**_," Gabriel snapped, tense again. He pulled away and this time ignored Peter's gentle attempt to keep him close. He paced, agitated, and finally walked over to the couch and flopped down on the left end. Peter took a deep breath and hugged himself for a moment. His lips were set together and his head down. He glowered at Gabriel, his emotions mixed, but his display was ignored.

Gabriel was staring off out the window, saying nothing, withdrawing emotionally from the scene. Peter watched him. He didn't want Gabriel checking out on him. He wouldn't allow it and he was manipulative enough to know how to get to him. Peter joined him on the couch, but he immediately turned onto his back, putting his feet over the right arm of the couch and his head into Gabriel's lap. It was a completely submissive position and Peter invoked it deliberately, taking control of the situation. Submissiveness did not equate to powerlessness, as he well knew.

The other man looked surprised, but then his expression softened, warmed and he smiled. He touched Peter's hair with his left hand and then after a moment of hesitation, stroked Peter's forehead and let his fingers play down his nose and across his cheeks.

"That's nice," Peter said, gratified that he could pull Gabriel out of his remoteness.

"I wanted to hurt you," Gabriel said distantly. He looked off out the window again, but his fingers continued to wander across Peter's jaw and down to his throat. Peter stretched his neck slightly under the touch. Gabriel stroked him lightly, his touch contradicting his words. "I wanted you to hurt me."

"We shouldn't hurt each other. We're lovers."

Gabriel gave a faint, wry smile. His right hand touched the top of Peter's head, toying with his hair as his left traced his collarbone. "Sylar killed his last lover."

Peter twitched to hear it. It was a more-than-disturbing conversational topic. Gabriel sighed and looked away. "At least, the last person he loved, if not the last person he had sex with. I love you. I don't…" He blinked and moved his left hand to rest it lightly on Peter's chest. "You're safe." Peter hadn't realized his heart rate had sped up. He made an effort to relax. He had to believe that Gabriel wouldn't hurt him. Maury Parkman's words on denial chose that moment to ring in his ears again. He ignored them. It helped that he was certain Gabriel was telling the truth that he was safe. But on the other hand, he'd been telling the truth about wanting to hurt him too.

Gabriel went on, "She wasn't his first. There were two girls in high school. One was on the rebound from her boyfriend and the other… well, I kind of paid her for it. I did her homework for her."

Peter put aside his worry as his brow furrowed slightly. "She wasn't your first… what?" _Lover? Victim? Lover who was a victim?_

"First person he had sex with."

"Oh." _Good._ Peter didn't like the idea of Gabriel being a killer before he got Intuitive Aptitude. There wasn't any indication of such activity in his file, but the files weren't always right. He noticed too that Gabriel's pronouns were inconsistent.

"The first one dumped me as soon as she had something better. The second as soon as she didn't need my homework anymore. I wasn't with anyone for a long time after that. I tried a hooker once, but I couldn't get it up. She touched me, but it made me feel… I left. She didn't even make me pay, so I suppose she was being nice. Pity-fuck, without the fuck. I was a nobody."

Peter watched as Gabriel stared off out the window, his right hand still moving gently across Peter's head, playing with his hair, as his left rested warmly over his heart.

"There were others, after I became special, but they were just an outlet. And then… there was _her_."

He fell silent for so long that Peter prompted him, "Elle?" Peter's own memories of Elle didn't paint a charming picture of her. She was damaged. Ultimately, he'd felt sorry for her - so very sorry.

Gabriel looked at Peter steadily for a long moment. "Yes. Peach pie and ozone. They were talking about Bishop's estate today and I couldn't get her out of my mind." He looked away again with a sullen mien.

"Why did you kill her?"

Gabriel shrugged hopelessly. "It had all turned bad. When you left me a few weeks ago I wanted to track you down and kill you, too." He sighed and his hand rubbed Peter's chest restlessly. "There was no one there to stop me with Elle. Just me and her and… everything I was feeling. She didn't fight me either."

Peter wondered just how safe he was in this relationship and how much he was playing with fire and didn't know it. He was maintaining a relationship with someone who was very seriously telling him how he'd contemplated murdering him only a few weeks before. _'I wanted to…' _But he hadn't. At what point did wanting something come close to acting on it? "Who stopped you with me?"

"Oh, everyone. And you were gone, which didn't make it as easy as it had been with her. But everyone. Everyone I wanted to…" He shook his head and focused on Peter. "I like this life. Even if I didn't have you in it, I wanted to keep it. And I kept hoping… part of me kept hoping… that you'd come back. I didn't really have anything as Sylar. Not like this. I want you, Peter. For more than just the sex."

Peter smiled at him, feeling the tension ease in his chest. Gabriel had changed. "Yeah. I'd kind of gathered that." He reached up and put his hand over Gabriel's on his chest, making the other man smile and calm his restlessness.

"But the sex is nice," Gabriel added warmly.

"I'm sorry I don't always give you what you want."

Gabriel shrugged. "It's not a big deal." And it wasn't. There was no lie in that. "As long as you're still with me. As long as I don't run you off. As long as you can put up with me. I don't want to be alone anymore. I want to have a life, have friends, have family, have people who care. You care a lot, Peter." He rubbed Peter's chest, making the younger man smile. "I think that's my new worst nightmare - being alone, everyone leaves me, they don't even exist for me. Just me and no one else."

"If that ever happened, I'd come find you."

"Even if you were mad at me?"

"Even if I was mad at you," Peter said very seriously.

Gabriel smiled at Peter and rubbed his chest again, this time curling his fingers and scratching lightly. "Now how about you?"

"How about me what?" Peter asked.

"Who've you been with that Nathan didn't know about?"

Peter smiled slowly, then laughed. "You want me to list off my partners?"

"No, you don't have to. It's not like I'm listing mine as Nathan's, or all those people Sylar fucked, but I don't want to be here all night." He smirked. "Was there anyone you were really serious about though? Other than Emma."

Peter's smile fell away. "I've kind of had bad luck with women before her. I guess it's why I'm so determined to…" _keep Emma safe, keep her away from people with abilities, why I kept her from getting involved in the rest of my life for as long as I could_. Peter shrugged. Instead he said, "Before her was Caitlin, but…" Peter tensed.

Gabriel rubbed a small circle on his chest and reached up with his right to stroke Peter's forehead. Peter glanced up at him, understanding that he was being petted and soothed. It was patronizing in a way and thereby irritating, but at the same time he realized Gabriel was trying to show him compassion. No, he wasn't trying, he was. He could feel the emotion through his hands.

Peter swallowed and went on. "I lost Caitlin in an alternate future. The timeline's collapsed. I don't know how to get her back. I lost Simone because I was an asshole to Isaac and fucked with him so much he tried to shoot me and hit her instead." Peter's lip curled in disgust at himself, his language coarsening as an indication of his anger. He shook his head, fighting the urge to get up and pace. "I can't afford to be irresponsible with my abilities. Everyone around me gets hurt when that happens."

Gabriel brought his left hand up to stroke the side of Peter's face as his right moved to the opposite side. He leaned over him, his face concerned and intent. Peter almost pulled away from the touch, but forced himself still. After a moment, the relaxation was more genuine. "Before that I didn't know I had abilities. I dated around, but I saw Nathan a lot so you know about anyone I was with for any length of time."

Gabriel nodded. He looked at Peter so fixedly that Peter said, "What?"

Gabriel shrugged and pulled back. "You hardly ever tell me your problems, Peter. Thank you." His hands drifted back to their previously positions touching his hair and resting on his chest. He changed the subject. "Are things okay with Emma?"

Peter regarded Gabriel steadily and said, "Yeah. Why?"

Gabriel looked away at the defensive tone and pulled his hands back entirely. Peter missed the touch immediately. He regretted his tone of voice. Gabriel was being open with him. There was no reason for Peter to be sharp with him. Gabriel said, "Heidi got hard to deal with later on in the pregnancy."

Peter rolled his head on Gabriel's thigh, trying to get his attention again. "She's not as sick anymore. Mom gave me the same miscarriage talk she gave you last year." Peter kept watching Gabriel's face, looking for an opportunity to draw him back in. "It's, uh, kind of off-putting."

Gabriel smiled a little and brushed the top of Peter's head, re-initiating a little contact. "Yeah." He met Peter's eyes and read his open expression. His smile broadened. "You know, if you get lonely, I'm here."

Peter chuckled and slid his right hand up under Gabriel's knee. "Yeah, I know."


	200. A Matter of Trust

**A/N: This is a direct continuation of the preceding chapter.**

Peter chuckled and slid his right hand up under Gabriel's knee. He was lying on the couch with his head in the other man's lap, looking up at him. "I think I've had more sex in the last week than any whole month before in my entire life. How about you?"

"Hm?"

"You ever been laid as much as you have in the last week or so? Because I figure you're getting it from Heidi too."

Gabriel chuckled. "Ah… yes."

Peter twisted his head back a little to look at him intently. "'Yes' you're getting it from Heidi, or 'yes' you've had more sex than this?"

"Both."

"When have you had this much action? We've been going at it like freaking bunnies."

Gabriel grinned and actually blushed a little, mussing Peter's hair affectionately. After a moment, he sighed and looked embarrassed. "Sylar… after he got shape shifting… he had sort of an experimental phase."

Peter blinked at him, waiting for elaboration that didn't come. _Just when I think he hasn't been around much, he throws me a curve ball. Kind of like that orgy thing with Nathan. Huh._ After a bit, he squeezed the underside of Gabriel's leg and said, "I'd really like to suck your cock and be able to take my time about it." He reached up to capture Gabriel's hand before he pulled away. Caught before he could do it, Gabriel relaxed instead of fighting it.

"Peter… I… as much as I want that too, I don't like the mind control."

"I get the impression that 'don't like' is an understatement. I'd come to realize you've been avoiding this intentionally. You know I can fix it, but you keep putting it off."

"Yeah." Gabriel looked away, eyes darting around the room uneasily. "You could say that. I don't want you in my head anymore. Please. Just… talking mentally is okay. But you push… you've pushed me a few times and…" He blinked and looked away, tugging once against Peter holding his hand. Peter loosened his grip, but Gabriel didn't try again.

Peter shut his eyes for a moment. He hadn't realized he'd lost Gabriel's trust on this. He hadn't lost his _cooperation_ and that had made Peter deaf to his partner's complaints. It was tough to gauge what a person really _meant_, even if they said the words. _'I don't like the mind control'_ sounded mild, like a preference, but not a strong one. Peter was figuring out it wasn't mild at all. Gabriel would rather have his sex life crippled for the foreseeable future than submit to it again. He opened his eyes. "I don't have to use mind control. Or telepathy at all."

That got Gabriel's attention immediately. "How?"

"Healing. The commands form rifts, just like erased memories. It can be healed. I was able to restore my memories after they'd been erased once by focusing my regeneration on it. You might be able to do the same thing." He paused for a moment. He had Gabriel's complete attention. He could almost hear the clockwork gears turning. "Or I can heal you. It should be similar to how I healed Bandar of Lilith's presence."

Gabriel pulled Peter forward across his lap by hooking his hands under his armpits and then shifted a hand behind his neck, the other guiding his shoulder. Peter stiffened, but it was hardly the first time Gabriel had moved him without consulting him. Gabriel raised him to his lips and kissed him, slowly at first, then passionately when Peter settled into it. Gabriel sucked at his lower lip, releasing it with a slight pop.

"Guess you like the idea?" Peter hazarded.

"Yes," Gabriel answered crisply. "If regeneration can thwart commands, and I've come across some references indicating it can, I haven't figured out how to do it myself. I'm not about to ask the bastard either."

"I thought you were getting along with Maury these days."

"I am. I'm still not going to ask him and he's still a bastard. He'd be the first to agree with that. Now tell me how this healing would work."

Peter sat up and turned on the couch to face him, reaching out for his face. That put him leaning forward awkwardly, so he climbed on Gabriel's lap, facing him. "I figure I could do this just by touching your arm, but it seemed to work better with Bandar when I had his face." Peter put his hands on either side of Gabriel's head, not quite touching him. Gabriel looked at him steadily, trusting and open, despite Peter having failed to explain what he was going to do. It reminded Peter of the last time he'd put his hands like this on Gabriel and what he'd been thinking at the time - about how it was possible that he could "heal" Gabriel in a manner that kept his identity as Nathan and purged the other elements of his personality. He felt guilty for even entertaining those thoughts. His hands lowered a little as he reconsidered.

"What is it?" Gabriel asked.

"I… When I healed Bandar, it destroyed Lilith. It… eliminated her. What if… what will it do to you?" He swallowed roughly, hands resting on Gabriel's shoulders now. "I don't want to lose you."

Gabriel's face hardened as anger coursed through him. "We don't have to do this, Peter." He looked off to the side, holding himself very still.

"Wh-" Peter's mind jumped ahead to the answer to his own question. "You think I'm afraid this will get rid of Nathan?" Gabriel exhaled slightly, but didn't answer. Peter didn't need him to. "No. I'm afraid it will change who you are _right now_ - whatever components those are, whatever the balance is, I don't know! I don't know and I don't care! I don't want to lose **you**, this person _right here_." Peter gripped his shoulders firmly.

Gabriel looked back at him. "You're not going to lose me, Peter. Bandar still has Lilith's memories after you healed him. I'll still have Nathan's. That's all it is, anyway - just memories." He paused to study Peter's face, but Peter's expression didn't change, like he'd already known that, or guessed it. "I've been putting myself together a bit at a time since it happened. Maybe this will accelerate that a little, but I'll still love you. You don't have to do this anyway. We were managing just fine without it." He put his hands on Peter's thighs and pushed him a little, urging him to get off of him. "I really haven't researched the regeneration angle much. Maybe I'll find something there."

Peter stayed where he was at. "I want you fixed. I don't want you going around changed or limited because of Maury Parkman. It's not just _your_ sex life he's interfering with here."

Gabriel raised a brow. "Is your healing so fine-tuned that it will only eliminate the one command?"

"There are others?"

Gabriel gave him a sad smile. "Yes, Peter, there are others. I don't want to tell you about them. I want you to trust me. Because that's what it would come down to anyway even if you knew what they were - did you trust me to love you and treat you well under any and all circumstances." He hesitated for a long moment and added, "Has everything I've done for you meant anything?" Peter's brows drew together at that. Gabriel looked away. "You asked me once to let you go. Will you do the same for me?"

Peter's blood ran cold. "What are you saying that command _is?_"

"I'm _not_ saying. Will you trust me and heal me? I'll tell you if you have to know. But that will be my answer by itself. I haven't been looking for a way to fix myself. But… you offered."

"Is it something you can't…" _You can't ask for it to be fixed? You can't try to fix yourself? Can someone give mental commands like that, prohibiting someone from asking for help? Well… one of the standard ones for agents prevents them from discussing the loyalty oaths with anyone but authorized personnel. This would be the same thing. But then why does he need me to trust him? He's hiding something. He's hiding something from me. Do I trust him that much?_ When he thought of it that way, the decision was easy.

Peter asked, "Do you want this?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it will help you?"

"Yes."

"Okay. That's all I need to know." Peter nodded shakily and raised his hands back to either side of Gabriel's head. Gabriel shut his eyes. Peter touched him, pressing his palms to him. He pushed the power and for a moment there was resistance as there had been continually with Lilith, then the resistance vanished as Gabriel figured out how to lower his defenses. A second later it was done. Peter let his hands drift back to Gabriel's shoulders.

The other man's eyes were still shut. Peter could feel a wash of different emotions flowing through his partner, mostly relief, satisfaction and anticipation. His eyes snapped open. They met Peter's immediately. They were bright, almost predatory, and there was something in that gaze that hadn't been in it before. Peter felt a surge of apprehension.

Gabriel raised one hand in a steady, proprietary gesture and wrapped it behind Peter's head. Peter's brows went up slightly. Gabriel's other hand progressed along his side and around to his back, about where his kidneys were. He applied a firm and immediate pressure to both, drawing Peter forward against his resistance. Just as Peter stiffened to fight this more, Gabriel leaned forward himself, closing the distance suddenly and kissing him, open-mouthed. His eyes were still open and they locked instantly with Peter's as Peter looked at him, blinking.

For a few very long seconds, neither of them moved. Peter thought, _This is stupid. All he's doing is kissing me. Relax, idiot._ He turned his head a little for a better angle and opened his mouth slightly. Gabriel pressed their heads together, parting Peter's mouth more unless he fought it. He didn't. He tried to loosen the rest of his body, starting with the death grip he had on Gabriel's shoulders. He moved his hands behind the other man's head, resting in and on his hair.

Gabriel's tongue touched his lips with a single flick. Peter moved his forward and for a moment, they touched, tip to tip. Gabriel made a pleased sound in his throat and the skin around his eyes wrinkled with a smile. He withdrew his tongue to work his mouth against Peter's. Peter eased more and went with it. He touched Gabriel's lips with his tongue, then touched his teeth, and Gabriel's tongue swirled around his for a moment. Peter shifted his hips forward on the other man's lap, bringing them together.

They kissed for some time, slowly getting comfortable with each other, but Peter was certain there was something different about him. They finally parted what seemed like minutes later. "I trust you," Peter said.

"_I know_," Gabriel purred. He ran his hands up and down Peter's back briskly and shivered, hugging him firmly afterwards. "_Thank you_."

"Can you tell me what I just did? Because… something's different."

"Oh, yes. Yes. I could kill you now if I wanted to."

Peter tensed up all over and very nearly jumped backwards off of him. He didn't quite. Gabriel was looking at him mischievously. Peter hoped that was a good thing. He wiped his mouth abruptly with the back of his hand. Gabriel frowned at that, reached out and drew Peter back to him, kissing him sloppily. Peter let him, on edge though he was.

Gabriel let him go. "Don't wipe me off this time. I'm not a stranger."

Peter blinked at him and looked down at his hand. He didn't say anything, because that had been exactly his instinct.

"One of the commands was that I was unable to hurt you. At least, not badly. The actual command was something about not 'endangering' you, which left a bit up to my interpretation. That's gone now."

"You said earlier you wanted to hurt me."

"I want to hurt a lot of people, but I don't. I'm certainly not going to do anything to you that's going to screw up our relationship. At least, not intentionally." Gabriel drew him forward for another kiss as if to prove he could do it whenever he wanted. Peter pulled away and didn't let him, more than half expecting Gabriel not to allow it, but Gabriel let him refuse. "I'm going too fast, aren't I?"

"I'm… I'm adjusting. You're acting different."

Gabriel shrugged. "Something about being emasculated makes a man timid. Would loving on you a bit help? Would you let me? I'm feeling awfully grateful." He dipped his head and looked up under those heavy brows, smiling. It was a stunning look on him – friendly and open yet somehow naughty and full of mischief at the same time.

Peter smiled. He couldn't resist that. "Yeah. Love on me a lot."

"I like loving on you." He pulled Peter back to him and kissed along his cheek. He wrapped his arms around Peter and turned him suddenly, rolling him on his back and laying him down on the couch.

Peter clung to him tightly out of nerves. He was still jumpy and the shift unsettled him again. "You don't warn me."

"Do I need to?" Gabriel asked, working his lips down his lover's jaw. Peter hesitated. Gabriel settled between his legs, adjusting his weight. "You can tell me no. I'm not a maniac, Peter. Maybe I'm feeling my oats a little right now and I am **so** happy with you, but…" He put his head down on Peter's chest and lay still. "I love you. I won't hurt you. At least, not without your permission. Maury didn't give me any commands to prevent me from hurting other people and I think I've behaved myself well enough with them - even the ones who deserved it."

_Why would Maury bother to protect me, but not anyone else? Sick sense of priorities._ A minute ticked by. He petted Gabriel's hair as the taller man remained unmoving, seemingly waiting for something. Peter asked, "You still have Nathan's memories?"

"Yes."

"Were there other commands?"

"Yes."

"What were they?"

"Embarrassing. I'd prefer not to talk about them."

Peter snorted, then laughed. He suspected that 'prefer not to talk about them' fell into the same category of deceptively mild statements as 'I don't like the mind control.' Gabriel propped himself up to look at him, perplexed. Peter shook his head. "Fine. You can have your secrets. I don't need to know everything. Come here." He pulled him into a kiss, which Gabriel delivered passionately.


	201. Sudden Reversals

**A/N: This chapter is a direct continuation of the preceding one.**

Gabriel moved against Peter's body, grinding him into the cushions and trapping him beneath him. He kissed the underside of Peter's jaw, chewing his way downward as he pushed into him rhythmically. Peter could feel Gabriel rising to the occasion. Peter was tense. Things were different and he was still trying to figure out _how_ different, and what he needed to be doing. For now his hands rested lightly on Gabriel's back, not fully embracing him. He was simply lying there accepting the attention without returning it.

Gabriel was no idiot, nor was he so self-absorbed that he didn't notice. He backed off, studying Peter with eyes that saw him just a little too clearly for Peter's liking. Peter swallowed, but didn't say anything. He pressed his fingertips into Gabriel a little for a moment, letting him know he was still there with him, even if he couldn't find the right words to bring order to his inchoate thoughts.

"You're nervous," Gabriel observed, rubbing himself idly against Peter, noticing the arousal was one-sided, "almost like it's our first time."

Peter smiled a little and let it fade. He **was** nervous. This aggressive, very-sure-of-himself Gabriel was reminding him very, very strongly of Sylar and setting off all kinds of warning bells for him. "What would you do if it was?"

"Our first time?" Gabriel stopped moving against him.

"Yeah." Peter shifted, awkwardly providing the motion, not wanting to let it become still between them. Peter smiled a little again and stroked Gabriel's side uncertainly, wanting to keep his attention and approval, unsure as to how to do that. It had been so long since he'd had to. Had he _ever _needed to before now?

Gabriel gave him a long stare, then said, "For one thing, I wouldn't be on top of you already." He lifted himself off and backed up, but his expression was neutral enough that it didn't worry Peter to have him withdraw. Gabriel reached out a hand and Peter took it, letting himself be pulled up. Gabriel scooted down to the end of the couch, putting a little space between them. Peter followed his lead and backed up an equal distance. Now it was Peter watching Gabriel attentively for cues.

Gabriel said smoothly, with a smile, "And then, since you've taught me this marvelous thing called 'talking', I think I'd try that. I'd ask you what you wanted to do, and… most likely that's what we _would_ do."

Peter took a deep breath and let it out, letting a lot of his tensions drain away with it. That was simple; it was familiar. "Okay… yeah. Let's do that."

Gabriel looked at him searchingly for a moment, then said totally straight-faced, "What would you like to do, Peter?"

His perfect seriousness made Peter laugh. "Thank you. You're…" He shook his head. "You're something else. I'd still like to do what I mentioned earlier." Peter ducked his head, feeling a little shy about it suddenly. "I want to blow you… since, you know, I can take my time about it now."

Gabriel smiled. "I'm not going to turn that down. Will you let me do the same to you?"

"Do you want to?"

"Peter," Gabriel's voice took on a slight edge, "don't start that."

Peter looked up at the tone. "Don't start what?"

"I don't have to prove or justify what I want. I want to do it or I wouldn't be asking. You mentioned deal-breakers before. One of them is that I have to be able to make you happy. Or rather, you have to let me try."

Peter looked down for a moment, then back up. The degree of eye contact he was getting from Gabriel was a little unnerving. "Okay. I… um… I bought some condoms."

"You did?" Gabriel was pleased at the confirmation that Peter hadn't crossed the act off his list entirely after the last time. Peter had been serious about alternatives.

"Yeah… um… let me go get them." Peter hurried off to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and paused in front of the mirror. _Do you know what you're doing?_ After a moment, he answered himself, _Not really_. He grinned and laughed at himself. He felt like a teenager - afraid, uncertain, and exhilarated. Everything was upside down in the relationship all of a sudden, but it didn't bother him. He felt strangely relieved, like a pressure had been taken off of him.

He walked out with a pleased expression on his face and two condom packets in his hand. Gabriel brightened to see his grin. Peter handed him a foil packet. Gabriel looked from the one still in Peter's hand to Peter's face and back again, then shrugged and examined the one he'd been handed.

Peter said, "I got the thinnest they had. There's no spermicide or anything else on it. If you can tolerate it, we could try it like that."

"Yeah." Gabriel was simply looking at him now.

"Open it. Taste it. Try it out." Peter made encouraging motions.

"Okay." Gabriel did, rolling it out a little and licking it experimentally. He looked it over and turned it to the other side. "Which way does it… ah, this way. Hm. Tastes fine."

"Okay." Peter put the other packet on top of the couch. Gabriel looked at it again and Peter said, "I got two brands, in case you didn't like one, we could try the other."

"Ah."

"Now what?" Peter asked.

Gabriel settled back against the couch. "Now I'm going to wait for you to come on to me. Because if it was our first time, I don't think I'd be pushy. I wouldn't want to risk running you off."

Peter scooted closer to him, kneeling on the couch. "Don't you think you'd be risking me thinking you're not interested?" He poked Gabriel in the thigh experimentally with one finger.

Gabriel looked at that playful poke and lofted a single eyebrow in response, with a warm smile. "I'm not worried." He leaned forward, lips pursed, eyes dancing between Peter's eyes and lips in obvious invitation. Peter met him and turned his head, coming in closer and deepening the kiss.

He came closer still and swung one leg over one of Gabriel's, reaching down with his hand to indicate more clearly that he wanted Gabriel to spread his legs. He got the message and did. Peter straddled one thigh, still kissing, as Gabriel's hands slid up to cradle his face and hold him close. Peter let loose the last of his nervousness. He didn't need it anymore. He ground himself slowly against Gabriel's leg, pulling away to trail kisses down his lover's face as his fingers pulled Gabriel's shirt out and tickled along the skin of his stomach.

Gabriel grinned and giggled and leaned back, deliberately exposing himself to Peter's digits. "Ha!" Peter said, biting his lip and tickling Gabriel's short ribs. It was a challenge if Peter had ever seen one. The taller man withstood the torture as long as he could before busting out laughing. He grabbed Peter and pulled him firmly against him, trapping his hands. He kissed him again, gently and persistently. Peter melted against him.

Peter tried to wriggle a hand free, but Gabriel didn't let him. He tried a second time, to find himself thwarted once more. He stopped to exchange a particularly passionate kiss before pulling his head back and saying, "Let me go." He wiggled a bit to emphasize his point.

"Ask me nicely," Gabriel said, teasing.

Peter sunk his mouth over Gabriel's, suctioning the other man's tongue into his own mouth and pulling at it, sucking it and stroking it between his own tongue and pallet. Gabriel groaned at the unexpected pleasure and released Peter immediately. Peter kept it up for a handful of seconds more before leaning back, a strand of saliva hanging between them. "That nice enough?"

"_**Oh…**_ **yeah**. Oh, yeah."

Peter grinned. He set his now-free hands to opening Gabriel's jeans. Gabriel put his hands to either side and watched him. His member strained against the clothes in a way that looked uncomfortable. Peter slipped his hand into Gabriel's briefs and Gabriel gave a subdued jump. Peter was strangely gratified to see the other man's self-assurance slip a little, then a lot. Gabriel blinked and looked vulnerable again, eyes a little unfocused, then darting between Peter's, then unfocused once more. Gabriel reached down and shucked off his pants, pushing Peter off to the side as he disrobed.

Peter waited a beat, looking at that face as Gabriel, breathing hard, regained his confidence. He snaked a hand behind Peter's head and pulled him back to him, running the other across Peter's neck and down his shirt, rubbing his chest through the fabric.

"I love you," Peter said as Gabriel's mouth moved on to the Italian's neck. Peter reached down and ran unseeing fingers across Gabriel's hard length, feeling the silky-soft skin radiating heat as he stiffened even further. Gabriel moaned against him, seeming to lose himself in the sensation of simple touch. Gabriel was wildly turned on, but he wasn't struggling, laboring or going through the compulsive arousal this sort of contact would have caused him before the healing. Peter whispered, "I've never been able to simply touch you like this. We've been robbed of it for so long."

"'We?' Ha." Gabriel pressed his forehead to Peter's chest, just letting himself be stimulated. His hands had fallen away to his sides and he was just sitting there boneless, experiencing Peter's caress as though he were helpless to do anything else. "Peter, I haven't been touched like this in more than a year and half. Not by any hand but my own."

Peter hesitated. "Is fellatio going to be overkill?"

"I suspect it will be heaven."

Peter began giving him short strokes up and down, his hand really just gliding lightly along that velvety skin, brushing it more than anything else. Gabriel whimpered and shuddered, eyes shut. His hips were beginning to move with Peter's motions as he crooned, "Please, please, please… thank you, thank you, thank you, Peter. Thank you." Peter kissed the top of his head briefly, smirking. He liked the new Gabriel - dominant and a little scary, but still brought to begging by a mere hand job.

A hand job wasn't what Peter was here for, though. "Are you ready for my mouth?" he asked, taunting Gabriel by lipping across his ear as he scooted down a little.

"Yes, please," he said, voice thick with desire.

Peter smirked again and sucked Gabriel's earlobe into his mouth, nibbling on it. Gabriel mewled.

When he had his voice back, Gabriel added, panting a little, "But it had better be just you for now, because I will give you the lousiest blow job in the history of blow jobs if I have to do it while you have my dick in your mouth."

Peter laughed once and went down in front of the couch. He maneuvered between Gabriel's knees and reached to run his hand up the other man's stomach, under his shirt, to the center of his chest. He scratched at the thick, wiry hair. Gabriel groaned loudly, arching up off the furniture a little, his penis demanding attention. It was fully engorged, the head shiny and glossy and leaking precome.

Peter bent his head to survey the rounded knob of the glans, while his other hand wrapped around the shaft and held it steady. He rubbed his lips across the flaring ridge of the head. His tongue swiped at the precome, lapping if off of the sensitive flesh.

Gabriel groaned again and stiffened. "Oh Peter… Peter…." His cock throbbed. He looked like he was coming undone. It was fascinating. Peter licked his lips, wetting them, and retraced his path, sucking just slightly at the edge as he followed it through half of the circumference. Gabriel said, "Christ! I'm… fuck." He came, spurting onto his own shirt as Peter aimed him.

_I guess that's kind of common of first times, too,_ Peter thought.


	202. Proofs

**A/N: This is a continuation of the scene in the preceding chapter.**

Gabriel bared his teeth, tense all over, frustrated by his premature ejaculation. Peter could feel the rage radiating from him. He had not left his position, still holding the other man's organ. He waited until Gabriel was breathing heavily out his nose, staring off across the room, probably considering how many ways he could murder Maury Parkman. Peter strongly suspected this had nothing to do with the telepath and everything to do with Gabriel being about as wildly turned on as Peter had ever seen him. The only match was when Peter had topped him violently.

Peter said, "I take it as a compliment that I turn you on so much."

"What?" Gabriel snapped irritably.

Peter leaned to the side against Gabriel's leg, putting his elbow down on top of his thigh. He smiled warmly and continued buttering him up. He wanted Gabriel to calm down. There was no reason to be angry. "I like to see you fall apart. I like to know you like being with me so much you can hardly contain it – all I have to do is touch you…" He moved his hand slightly, watching carefully as Gabriel reacted to it by blinking, shifting and breathing deeper. He looked vulnerable again and Peter adored that expression; Gabriel looked so aware of his own fragility in that moment. Peter didn't move further and Gabriel calmed, his defenses coming back up. He looked down at Peter's hand, but didn't say anything.

Peter said, "Would it be okay with you if I just went ahead?"

"What?" Gabriel said again, but in a more normal tone now.

"If I go ahead and suck you like this? Is that okay?"

"Peter, I… I'm going to go down. I'm quick, but I'm not that quick."

"I know. I said I wanted to take my time. Some men don't like to be touched at all for a while after coming. I've never noticed you have that though, but I want to ask: is it okay if I go ahead?"

"Yeah." He relaxed and reached out to tousle Peter's hair. "I wish your hair was longer."

"Huh. Well, I'm letting it grow out for you. Just for you, too. Emma liked it short." Peter felt more tension drain away from his lover and Gabriel ran his hand more energetically through his hair, pleased by the news. Peter bent and took up Gabriel's flagging member in his hand, then licked the tip carefully, tasting him. He looked up. Gabriel watched him eat his come with fascination, one hand still tangled in his hair. Peter smiled at him. Gabriel moved his legs in a happy restlessness.

Peter bent back to his task, enveloping his head and sucking lightly. Gabriel almost came up off the couch. He eased back down slowly.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Let me know if I'm… whatever."

"You're fine," Peter said calmly. "I'm going to assume you're sensitive because it's been a long time. If you think it's something else, like the healing didn't take, tell me."

Gabriel shook his head firmly. "No, it took. It's fine. It worked. I'm just… what you said. I think."

Peter nodded and took him into his mouth again, sliding his lips over his head and down his shaft about halfway before coming back up. He repeated a few times, getting more and more in his mouth as Gabriel softened. The other man tightened his hand to a fist in Peter's hair. It was starting to pull at the roots, but he didn't think Gabriel realized this. He was tense. Peter suspected the action so soon after ejaculation was too much for Gabriel to really relax and enjoy it, but he _had_ asked. Peter reached up with his free hand and disentangled Gabriel's, twining their fingers together. He rolled his eyes up to see Gabriel nod agreeably to the redirect.

He sucked and slurped, using a light, consistent touch and a leisurely pace, rolling his tongue across him and giving his full attention to the process. Gabriel calmed down after a few minutes and relaxed a little so he wasn't squeezing Peter's hand as much. He took his shirt off, wadded it up and threw it aside. A few minutes after that, he started to come back up. He tugged Peter away. "Come on. Get on the couch here. With me."

Peter nodded and undressed. Gabriel searched around for the condom and made an exasperated noise when he couldn't find it. He grabbed the other brand from the top of the couch and opened it. He gave it a quick taste and looked at Peter. He smiled at him and extended an arm in invitation. Peter stepped to him. Gabriel pulled him in for a hug, just holding him for a long moment. Peter ran his fingers through Gabriel's hair, nails scratching against his scalp.

Gabriel purred, "Oooooh…" Peter ran his fingers down the other man's upper back, then to his shoulders, but Gabriel was quiet for that. He straightened and urged Peter onto the couch, on the inside, while he took the outer position, arranged for sixty-nine. It was barely wide enough for them and it only worked because they were both on their sides.

Peter said, "From what you said earlier, are you okay with me having you in my mouth while you do this? Or would you rather I waited?"

Gabriel kissed his thigh and then bit it lightly, chewing his way to his hip. Peter waited for an answer. His partner said, "Go ahead."

"Okay. Tell me if you need me to stop."

"Mm," was all Gabriel said.

Peter still decided to wait until Gabriel was settled. He reached down and stroked himself. He was already mostly hard. Gabriel kissed his hand and his arm, since they were in front of his face, and repositioned himself a bit. When Peter was ready, Gabriel applied the condom and looked at the arrangement for a moment. He licked Peter's shaft thoroughly. "How's that feel?"

"It feels awesome."

Gabriel looked up at him.

"I'm not lying!"

"I know you're not." Gabriel smiled and took him in one swallow. Peter felt him gag a little. He pulled off and worked him more gradually. Peter hugged Gabriel's hips, thankful he had somewhere to put his hands without causing a problem. He shifted a little and returned the favor, copying his partner. He loved the feel of Gabriel's hard length in his mouth, on top of his tongue, pressing against his throat. He loved the immediate and intense arousal he provoked this way, the twitches and moans and struggles of pleasure.

Peter did his best to keep his own motions to a minimum. His hips jerked a little at the end when he came, despite his attempt to suppress it. He panted as he came down off his high. Gabriel didn't complain while he waited. He just stroked his thigh and buttock and ran his hand up Peter's side.

When he was done with his breather, Peter went back to work, sucking harder and abandoning the light touch he'd been using. Gabriel was already close. He groaned against him, clinging to Peter's body. Peter worked his fingers around to tease at his asshole and he came moments later.

They rested against each other for a while, not moving. Gabriel grumbled, "I wish I had a blanket." He bit Peter's leg kind of hard for no obvious reason. Peter grunted sharply and twitched. Gabriel asked sleepily, "Can you teleport us into the bedroom?"

"You going to keep biting me?"

"Only if you don't." He kissed the spot tenderly as if to make up for it.

Peter lifted his head and looked down at him. "So is this the real you, finally?"

"Mostly." Gabriel looked back at him and smirked lazily.

"Mostly?"

Gabriel turned and bit him again, very deliberately.

"Ow! Dammit. Stop that."

"Bedroom, Pete." He snapped his teeth together in mock threat, holding onto Peter's leg firmly. "If we get up and walk there, then I'm not going to be able to hug you the whole time."

Peter relaxed. Well… he wasn't going to argue with that. He gave a long-suffering, "Oh, all right," and teleported them in.

They ended up in the bed such that Peter was oriented correctly and Gabriel was upside down. Gabriel wriggled around, turning himself and pulling down the covers. Peter lifted his hips and they both scooted under. Gabriel ended up facing him. After a beat he leaned over and gave Peter's forehead a peck. Peter smiled and pulled a pillow under his head, relaxing into it a little, looking at his partner.

Gabriel slid his knee forward against Peter's legs, then lifted it over him and hooked it behind his calves. Peter sighed. He looked relaxed. Gabriel knew he wasn't – at least, not as much as he usually was after sex. His heart rate remained elevated, his blood pressure high, his core muscles tense even though he made a good show at being unaffected.

Gabriel reached out to touch his shoulder. Peter's eyes darted at the hand for a moment, then went back to Gabriel's face. "Peter?" Peter met his eyes. "I want you to know something." He dropped his hand to take one of Peter's and drew it to his head, touching behind his left ear. "Here. This is where my kill spot is. I moved it months ago, after everyone found out about it. This is where I moved it to. As long as no one else knows but you, that's where I'll leave it."

Peter blinked at him uncertainly. "Why… why are you telling me this?"

Gabriel brought his hands in front of him. Peter let his stroke softly down Gabriel's neck and join Gabriel's between them. "Because you-" _said you were afraid of me. I don't think I should tell you I heard you say that._ "-seem a little nervous. I shouldn't have said what I did earlier. I want you to know that my life is in your hands as much as yours is in mine." He smiled and took both of Peter's hands in his. "Anytime you get done with me, you know where my off switch is."

Peter pulled one hand out so he was clasping one of Gabriel's between his, just as Gabriel had one of Peter's hands between his own. "That's… that's a… well. Thank you."

"What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say it's a nice thought, but it isn't, really. I suppose it _is_, sort of, but I'm not going to do that to you."

"What would you do if you _were_ done with me?"

Peter looked at him blankly, at a loss for a moment. Then he snuggled forward and kissed the other man. "I'm not. I'm not going to be. I refuse to think about it and plan for it. I love you."

"Mm." Gabriel raised his leg over Peter' thighs. He gathered Peter up against him. "Well, just so you know." He kissed the top of his head. "I love you too."

After a few moments, Peter asked, "What is that spot, anyway?"

"It's a bundle of dedicated nerves, as far as I can tell."

"Why does it make a difference if you get stabbed there or somewhere else?"

"I have no idea."

That was a lie. Rather than get upset about it, Peter just said, "Tell me."

Gabriel hesitated, then answered, "I… I don't have your medical background. But there are nerves in the heart that tell it to keep beating even if the brain stops functioning. Hell, even if it's removed entirely." Peter grunted, realizing that Gabriel would have a certain uncomfortably obtained familiarity with that. "There are nerves… other nerves, that regeneration sets up to tell the body to repair itself. They'll keep functioning under just about any conditions, but if they take direct trauma, they have to repair themselves before anything else can heal. If it's a bullet, like for Arthur, maybe it just takes a few minutes. If it's something stuck in there… then the system misfires until the something is pulled out. They start at the brain stem, but you can migrate them with a little work. Takes a few weeks to grow it somewhere else."

Peter reached up and touched him behind the left ear. "How deep is it?"

"A little more than an inch."

"Hm." They were already mere inches from one another, so Peter let his hand slide behind Gabriel's head and drew him forward for a kiss. He was starting to relax, really and truly relax, and the feel of Gabriel's lips against his, gentle and warm and familiar, was just what he needed.


	203. Coping Mechanism

**A/N: This would be May 6, the day after the 4 part sequence, around 5 am. Psychometry = clairsentience.**

Peter wondered just how long this was going to go on. He'd went ahead with eating his cereal, but it hadn't dissuaded Gabriel. The other man had taken the milk back to the fridge and on his return, become completely distracted by Peter's body. He had first ran his hands through Peter's hair, down the sides of his face, across his neck and his shoulders, then back up the side of his head, sliding past his ears before jerking away - an accidental touch that afterward said more to Peter about where Gabriel's mind was than anything else he'd done - and then he settled into a serious, fugue-state contemplation of Peter's hair via psychometry.

At first Peter had made appreciative noises. Then after Gabriel began his lock-by-lock examination, he'd fallen silent. Eventually he'd straightened and started eating, thinking Gabriel would get the hint. He didn't. He just adjusted to Peter's movements and continued. His own cereal was getting soggy across the table, in front of his empty seat. He still wasn't done when Peter scraped up the last of his breakfast. He waited for a minute or two, then pushed his bowl away. He waited a minute or two more.

Peter shook his head firmly and ducked away. "Enough already! Go eat your cereal. Please." He felt Gabriel's hands on him again and he jerked to the side, twisting to look back. "Gabriel?"

Gabriel stared at him blankly, clearly not in the moment. His eyes looked glassy and they cleared only slowly. He gave himself a little shake and looked Peter up and down. His lips parted, his teeth together, his expression hungry.

"Gabriel?" Peter's tone was seriously questioning now.

The other man gave himself another shake and moved hurriedly to his side of the table. He sat and pulled his bowl in close, hunching over it and eating quickly, furtively, like he thought someone might steal his food. Peter watched him carefully. _What the hell set him off? Was it the healing?_

Gabriel finished in record speed. He stared at his empty bowl blankly. Peter rose and gathered his own, then reached carefully for his partner's. Gabriel straightened and handed it to him in a normal manner, a carefully neutral mask on his face. "I need to leave," he said. He stood. Peter put the bowls back down.

"No, wait a second. We need to talk."

"No. I need to leave." Gabriel headed for the door and Peter followed him.

"I said wait!" Peter called out, but Gabriel opened the door anyway. Peter lifted a hand, angry, and used telekinesis to slam the door shut. It happened fast after that. Gabriel spun and nullified Peter's abilities, closing towards him in long, rapid strides. Peter sagged, feeling all the accumulated overexertion of the past few days at once, surprised and confused as to why Gabriel would do that.

And so he didn't try to stop Gabriel when he grabbed a handful of his shirt and shoved him against the nearest wall and he was still trying to get his bearings when Gabriel crushed himself against Peter, breathing hard and shaking.

"No!" Peter said, starting to panic. He tried to shove Gabriel off, but he had no enhanced strength, no telekinesis, no teleportation, no regeneration. He felt absurdly weaker than he should have felt.

"Don't fight me, Peter," Gabriel said, his voice low. His hands were on Peter's shoulders, pinning him.

"Don't don't don't…" _have sex with me_, Peter thought, but all he could get out was the first word. It would be too much of a violation. He was only now really getting to where he could put that behind him. He bit his lip and held still. Later he'd think he was just waiting to see what would happen. But really he was just too frightened and shocked. This was his _lover_, who was _assaulting_ him. He froze up.

Gabriel did nothing except press his body to him and breath against his neck. The tension was palpable, but nothing else happened for what seemed like a very long time. Peter noticed the other man didn't have an erection. He relaxed a little. Now that he had a shred more rationality, he realized nothing Gabriel had done this morning had been sexual. This was something else, something very different.

"Gab-" he began, but Gabriel jerked his hand up to Peter's mouth and covered it firmly, then he backed off a little and made the touch lighter.

"Let me. I need… let me." Gabriel turned his head and mouthed Peter's neck, making him tense all over again. He licked him. He breathed him in. He started running his hand over Peter's chest and then his arm and then his face and into his hair. He wasn't focusing on erogenous zones. Peter tried to relax again. Something very weird was going on and it wasn't the sort of attack he'd thought was happening. Gabriel said, "I'm fixing it. I'm fixing me. Just wait. Please."

Now Peter was certain. He brought up a hand to rest on Gabriel's hip. Gabriel kept fondling Peter for another minute before stopping. His breathing had slowed back to normal. He put his hand over Peter's mouth again very lightly. "I need to go, now, while I'm calm. We'll talk about this later. I'm… thank you."

He withdrew and Peter raised his hand, index finger up. Gabriel looked at it reproachfully and backed up to the door. Peter emphasized it a few times with a pleading expression. His abilities came back and Peter shook his head. That wasn't what he was trying to get across. He wanted permission to speak.

"What?" Gabriel said, his voice tight.

"Are you a danger to anyone? Like this? Right now?"

"No." _Lie_. At Peter's widening eyes, Gabriel looked to the side and said, "Only you." He opened the door and left.

That one had been the truth.


	204. Mother Hen

**A/N: May 6, the same day as Coping Mechanism, late afternoon, after Peter got off work.**

Noah helped Peter clear off the dining room table, which had become unaccountably cluttered, considering Peter had moved out to live with Emma a few weeks before. Peter's apartment had stuff in it now, more than it had ever had while he'd lived there. Noah paused, looking at the short stack of Company files in his hands that he'd picked up from the corner of the table. They were restricted files. Peter wasn't even a full employee of the Company anymore, having opted to go the route of being an independent contractor. "Peter? Where did you get these?"

Peter glanced over. "I dunno. Maybe Gabriel left them here. He's been working here sometimes, now that I'm at Emma's." In truth, Gabriel had taken over rent payments on the apartment and moved in the bookshelves and other furniture. He'd made threatening noises about replacing the scruffy yellow couch, but desisted, saying it had too many good memories.

"Huh." Noah stacked the files neatly on an empty shelf and sat down. It wasn't his place to tell Gabriel where he could leave his files. Doubly so since Gabriel was aware Noah kept an unauthorized copy of the ones Noah had access to. Noah knew that Gabriel knew. Gabriel had told no one. That limited what Noah could really say about it. "Speaking of Gabriel, I was talking to Maury the other day about our sparring match."

Peter sat down. He didn't seem to be paying attention. "Uh-huh."

"He doesn't think we should continue that. At least not with Gabriel sparring against you. He's dangerous enough as it is without getting him into the habit of hitting you."

Now he had Peter's attention. The younger man eyed Noah, thinking about the events of the morning, about Gabriel's refusal to take his calls all day. "Dangerous. How?"

"Well… you know how he is," Noah said with admirable vagueness.

Peter asked slowly, "What do you think he might do to me, if he didn't have any commands keeping me safe anymore, keeping him from endangering me?" Peter watched Noah carefully, but the older man didn't react with guilt.

"Commands?"

"We both know he had some."

Noah nodded and looked away. "Yes. I know. He… it would be against those commands if he sparred with you. We should avoid that."

"Why?" Noah looked guilty now, so Peter pressed, "He got rid of _your_ commands. Why do you think he needs this one? Why shouldn't I just wipe it out so he's as free as you are?"

"Peter…" Noah shrugged helplessly. Peter stared at him accusingly, angry that Noah might have known something vital and kept that secret from Peter, leaving him to ignorantly unleash something in Gabriel that he might not be able to handle. Noah didn't know Peter had already done away with those commands just the night before, already discovered that Gabriel had been prevented from hurting him, and already discovered that Gabriel was having a bad reaction to his freedom. Peter waited. Noah caved first. "_**I**_ do not have a compulsion to look at people's brains and skin them alive. _**He**_ does."

Peter's fingers tapped restlessly on his arm. Was Noah saying he was in danger of that with Gabriel? Gabriel had asked about taking Peter's ability before… back when he couldn't bring himself to do it unless Peter consented. Now he _could_ do it, even without Peter's consent. _Was that what all of that was about this morning?_ He wasn't sure he was done getting information out of Bennet though. Peter asked, "What does it have to do with me? He sparred fine with Michael. There weren't commands keeping him from hurting anyone else. Hell, there weren't commands keeping him from hurting _Maury_. He nearly killed him more than once! Why me?"

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. "I don't know, Peter. I only know what Maury told me. He said you shouldn't get him into the habit of hitting you. And that _you_ shouldn't get into the habit of hitting him, either."

Peter was quiet for a moment, thinking about how the previous evening had begun, with Gabriel trying to provoke Peter into fighting him. "You think… that if he gets into a fight with me, he won't stop?"

"I don't know. He's unstable. It's a risk. You shouldn't be with him, Peter."

Anger ran through Peter. Noah did _**not**_ get to tell him who he could be with. "He's unstable because people have been trying to yank him off-balance for so long!" Peter leaned forward, glancing briefly to either side. "He needs something solid in his life. Someone he can depend on. He can control this. He _is_ controlling it."

"And that someone is you, is it?"

"Yeah," Peter nodded. "That's me."

"He has a wife, Peter."

"And she's really good for him. I know."

Noah sighed, looking exasperated. In that moment, Peter understood Claire a little better. If she'd had to deal with this sort of protective mothering all her life, he could see why she'd feel stifled and smothered by it. That it was coming from one of the Company's top assassins would have been funny in other circumstances. On the other hand, it was perhaps Noah's protectiveness that had motivated his career choice.

Peter said, "Listen, I know you're trying to look out for me and I appreciate that. I really do. If you know anything, it might help if you'd _**tell me**_ instead of giving me vague statements that don't really mean anything." He paused, but Noah didn't speak. "I'm thirty-one years old and I know-" He held up a hand to stall Noah from interrupting. "I _know_ Gabriel is dangerous." Peter tilted his head. "We're working it out. Together. If you want to help, tell me what we should be doing to straighten him out."

"Let him work out his issues alone. You have other options, Peter. Of all the people you could choose to be with…!"

Peter clenched his teeth, angry that Noah didn't seem to get it. "I don't _want_ other options. I'm happy with what I've got. He doesn't want to be alone; he wants to be with me. He's trying really hard."

"That's… not sane. He's been deeply traumatized. You don't know what's motivating him or why he wants to be with you. He has drives. I've seen them consume people before. I've seen it consume _him_ before and more than once. You can never know when someone like that might snap."

"And so what?" Peter spread his arms in a mock-invitation for response. "Because he _might_ snap, you're going to condemn him already? Because someone _could_ be dangerous they need to be confined and controlled? **I believe in him**, Noah. I'm going to give him a chance. And a second chance. And a third, and more if I have to, if he's still trying, as long as he doesn't give up on himself. I _like_ helping people and you're right. He has been traumatized. You don't just reject someone like that."

Noah made a frustrated noise and Peter rejoined, "You don't think I've had my doubts? That he and I aren't struggling through things? I'm not going to walk away from him, no matter what this time. I love him, he loves me and we're going to get through this. That's it. End of story."

Noah leaned back and exhaled heavily. He cast a disapproving glare at Peter. Peter ignored him initially, but when it didn't end in a polite timeframe, he locked his eyes with the other man. Noah looked down and shook his head. He said, "Fine. Maury said you should get him involved in… in something that involves teams. Where he's working _with_ you instead of against you."

Peter raised his brows, noting both that Maury had given supportive advice, and that Noah hadn't intended to pass that along unless he failed to talk Peter out of the relationship. He was beginning to see why Gabriel trusted Maury more than Noah, something that had confused and perplexed him for a while. He nodded and accepted the change gracefully. "Yeah. I thought the same. We have a night each week set aside for bridge – him and Heidi; me and Emma. And another night for movies or going out. We've been doing it since the weekend after the wedding."

"Oh." Noah blinked. "Oh. Well… that's probably better than what I had planned."

"What was that?"

"Sports."

Peter shrugged. "Still might be a good idea. For now, I really like the workouts though. All my weights are here, so I'm not getting as much exercise as I used to. I'm not having nearly as much free time." Of course he'd been getting plenty of horizontal exercise, but he didn't count that.

Noah laughed ruefully. "I think, Peter, that you will find living with a woman will take up _all_ your free time. Just wait until the baby comes along."

Peter smiled. "There's worse ways to spend my time than with family and loved ones."

"True." Noah put his briefcase on the table and they got to work, saying no more about contested matters.


	205. Giving In And Going With It

**A/N: This is still May 6, the same day as "Coping Mechanism" and "Mother Hen."**

Peter stood next to the door after Noah left, thinking. His fingers drummed restlessly on the frame. He pulled out his phone and idly scrolled through his recent calls with his other hand. _Seven. Called him seven times, no answer. He's probably not going to answer if I make it eight. What was it Noah said? 'He has a wife.' If it's me that's the problem… there's still her._

He started dialing.

xxxx

Gabriel pulled out his phone. He'd expected it to be Peter again. No, it was Heidi, and so he answered. "Hello, love."

"Hi there back. Are you really working late or are you just avoiding seeing Peter?"

He groaned inwardly. _How did she know? They must have talked._ "Both. Why?" An edge crept into his voice. It hadn't occurred to him that Peter might use Heidi against him. It really should have, because it was obvious. _Manipulative little brat_.

"Because I'm concerned about you and so is he."

_Of course he is. And this isn't going to end until he gets what he wants._ He sighed.

When he didn't speak, Heidi went on into the silence. "If you're not going to see him tonight, then come home and see me. He doesn't think you should be alone tonight and neither do I."

"Fine. I'll go see him." _Might as well get it over with. Doesn't seem as bad as it was this morning, anyway. Although it might be a little different when we're face to face…_

"Good," she said, like that was settled. "And when you come by in the morning, swing by the store and get some milk. I used up the last of it making that pudding I mentioned earlier."

"Oh? Did the kids like it?"

"Yeah, Monty said butterscotch was his new favorite flavor…" They talked for a bit more about mundane family topics. It calmed Gabriel that whatever Peter had told her, she was taking it in stride and wasn't hysterical or worried. It also meant that whatever Peter had told her, it hadn't been alarmist, so maybe _Peter_ was taking it in stride. Of course there were seven unreturned calls and four voice messages he hadn't listened to that contradicted that. Heidi at least was confident and rock-steady in her belief that he could be normal. He felt quite normal after ringing off. He made a note to himself about the milk and began to pack up his things to leave the Company's Philadelphia office, where he'd been working.

XXXX

He supposed he should have called. There was no guarantee Peter would be where he expected him to be, in the apartment. It seemed likely that Heidi would call Peter and tell him he was going to see him. That was virtually confirmed when Gabriel opened the door to the apartment to find Peter sitting on the couch, obviously waiting for him. He stood up. Gabriel shut the door behind him.

"Hey," Gabriel said, not sounding at all like he'd been avoiding contact with the other man all day. "Good to see you."

"Yeah," Peter replied. "I was worried."

Peter stayed where he was, so Gabriel went to him in measured, steady strides. Peter didn't back up. He tensed, he raised his chin and he set himself a little, but he didn't retreat. _I love that about him. So brave. Not fearless - just brave._ "No need to worry," he said softly, slipping a finger under Peter's chin to turn it for a kiss. Peter let him, and a moment later he put his hands on Gabriel's hips.

"What sort of danger am I in?" Peter said when their lips parted.

Gabriel stepped that final distance closer, putting their bodies together. "You are in danger of being loved on until I've had enough, which might take quite a while." Although in fact, he was feeling the Hunger building again - the desire to have this song, this ability, this entity and make it his. He hugged Peter to him, smelling him and touching him. He pulled apart moments later, stroking Peter's face and then his neck. He could see from Peter's expression that he knew it wasn't a casual touch.

_Here,_ he thought, touching Peter's neck. _I kissed him here last night. Mmm, to have this spot be mine, layers upon layers of my lips here. _He bent and provided a new layer. Peter tilted his head cooperatively. Peter said calmly, "You said not to fight you. What would happen if I did?"

"I would leave. And if you want me to leave, tell me. At any time." _I can't be here and be rejected. Maybe in a few days. But right now all I have to do is reach out and take… and if you try to keep yourself from me, I… will… have to leave._ He hoped that was what he would do. He was a lot unsure though. _I'll just walk away_, he tried to convince himself. _Of course I tried that this morning and Peter wouldn't let me and I almost lost it…_

"You'd stop if I asked you to?"

Gabriel growled, feeling agitation and anger beginning to boil in the back of his mind. "Peter, please don't complicate things. I said I'd leave if you asked me to. Those are the only choices right now. If you want me to stop, tell me to leave." _And the sooner the better, because once I get going, it will be harder to stop._

Peter was silent, pressing his hands wordlessly to Gabriel's sides. Gabriel suspected, again, that Peter had his own little version of clairsentience or psychometry and was reading his emotions that way. Funny that Peter did that without asking, without permission, yet he'd been so sensitive about Gabriel's ability, making such a big deal about privacy. Gabriel's ability was saving Peter's life right now. _And maybe Peter's is helping too. He's at least keeping his mouth shut._

He mimed pushing Peter's hair out of his eyes and combed his hand through Peter's hair, stepping back a little. Peter gave him a warm, tolerant smile. Gabriel ran his hands down Peter's face and across his shirt, seeing glimpses of what Peter had done today. Or at least, what his shirt had done. It had spent a lot of time in his locker at work. Then Peter was arguing with Noah and explaining things to Heidi… Gabriel made a note to take a closer look at those memories later. Right now he wanted another kiss and so he got one.

"We need to talk," Peter said.

"We need to make love. We can talk later."

"Is that really a 'need?'" Peter asked with a doubting laugh.

"Yes, Peter," Gabriel answered seriously in a tone that sobered his lover. "That's a need." _I need to have you. I need to take you. I need to own you, one way or another._ He lifted Peter's arm and touched his lips to the watch he wore. _You've been away from me all day._

Then he stepped back closer and kissed the side of Peter's face, beginning to talk to him, trying to seduce him, speaking between kisses and nuzzles and lipping his skin. "I love you, Peter. I want you. I've thought about you all day. I've thought about how much I want to have you, how much I want to touch you, how much I want to know every part of your body. I've thought about how I want to be inside of you, how I want to see that wonderful body of yours beneath me, how I want to hear you call out my name." All true, even if his current slant to it was far, far less dark than the fantasies he'd been fighting off all day.

Gabriel breathed against his neck, "I'm going to be gentle with you." That had not been part of the fantasies, but it would be part of the reality as long as he had any shred of self-control. "I'm only going to do what you let me do. I'm going to ask you what you want and you'll tell me and I'll do that." Peter was starting to respond physically, blood flow was changing, respiration shifting, muscles relaxing and others engorging, priming. Gabriel guided him to the bedroom and Peter went happily.

He pulled up Peter's t-shirt, pausing with Peter's arms above his head, the shirt over his face. He tugged it up a bit more and bent to kiss Peter's chin. Another tug, and he kissed his mouth. Peter was smiling and made an appreciative noise. Gabriel felt his cock twitch at that noise. He really liked making Peter happy. That was something that… really, he hadn't expected how good it would make him feel to please another.

He pulled the shirt off eventually, wadded it and tossed it towards the dresser. It landed on the floor in front of it. He hugged Peter and made a gesture behind his back, using telekinesis to drive the shirt under the dresser where it was unseen. He'd retrieve it later. If Peter found it and washed it, the memories would be gone. Besides, he needed a few of Peter's shirts to go with his collection of Heidi's underwear.

Peter was unfastening Gabriel's slacks and pushing them down. He returned the favor and they were both soon naked. Peter surprised him by coming to him and caressing his chest, licking one nipple and working it. His hand ghosted over Gabriel's semi-erect organ and then settled there. Gabriel groaned. "God, Peter. That feels good."

"It's nice to be able to do this. I've wanted to for a long time. You don't know how tough it is to have something you want right in front of you and have to keep your hands to yourself."

_I think I know about that a lot more than you believe._ But he didn't say that. Instead he said, "I want to push you down on the bed. I want to lube you up and stroke you until you're hard. I want to open you. I want to watch while my fingers move in and out of you." Peter shivered. "Oh yeah, in and out, slow and fast. You'll tell me what sort of pace you want, won't you?"

Peter nodded, getting on the bed already. Gabriel grinned at that and climbed in between his legs as if for missionary. _Okay, maybe there's something to this 'talking' thing after all. He really got off on that diner thing I spun for him too. _He got the lubricant and slicked Peter up, admiring the way Peter just threw himself back and arched into it, 100% into it despite their problems earlier. "I love you. Is this good?" Peter nodded rapidly. Gabriel stroked just the tip, harder and faster. "Is this better?"

"Yes, but… too much. Later."

"Hm. Nice to know." He switched to an all over up and down motion.

"That's great for now. It gets me started. Later you can go faster, rougher."

"I thought you didn't like it rough," Gabriel murmured, dipping his head to bite at Peter's hip.

"Your rough and my rough are different. Don't do anything to me that draws blood. Ever, please." Gabriel tightened his fist a little and pumped harder, making Peter squirm and mewl. _You __**say**__ you don't like it, but you sure react to it. Oh well._ He stuck with what Peter said for now. It wasn't like he was having any trouble getting him off anyway. He went back to gentler stroking, letting Peter get his breath back. He crawled up his lover's body, kissing him while his hand worked him. Peter tangled his fingers in Gabriel's hair and seemed as aroused by his mouth and the slide of his skin against him as he was by the hand job.

Gabriel kissed him possessively, tongue plumbing Peter's mouth, reveling in how pliant Peter was to him, how giving. He didn't have to be. He was because he loved him. He was because he wanted him. He was because when he committed to something, it was complete. There was nothing halfway about Peter.

Gabriel sunk back to his knees, letting his hand go lower as Peter raised his legs immediately for him. "Oh, Peter. You are amazing. I love you. You know what I'm going to do to you here?" He fondled Peter's testicles, pressing lightly with his thumb as the orbs within rolled back and forth. "I'm going to fuck you after I have you ready. I love fucking you. It feels fantastic. It makes me come. **You** make me come. I love seeing you, all blown out and turned on, feeling my dick moving in and out of you, feeling you all hot around me, sweating under me, or over me." He grinned. "Or in front of me. Or behind me. Hell. Wherever."

He squirted more lube on his hand and smoothed it around Peter's anus. He pushed at the orifice, finding the center of it. He tilted his head to watch, glancing up every now and then to see Peter with one hand behind his head, propping himself up to watch Gabriel in turn. The other hand was holding up one of his legs. Gabriel's own mouth opened as he worked a finger in. He liked seeing it vanish and reappear. Peter moaned and Gabriel answered him.

"Oh yeah, you're so hot. And soft here. So soft and slick and hot. You feel me?" He hooked his finger and Peter moaned again, nodding enthusiastically. Gabriel worked him with one finger while his other hand ran tickling fingers up the exposed undersides of Peter's thighs. It made him clench. "Do you want me to stop that?"

"I don't know…" Peter panted, bit his lip and put his head back, now using both hands to hold his legs up. Since the gesture made them more accessible and looked like an invitation, Gabriel kept doing it as he worked a second finger into him. Peter jerked suddenly only a few motions into the new hand position and said, "Oh God. Fuck me. Get inside of me. I want you. I want you closer to me."

"There's no way to be closer than in you," Gabriel murmured, lubing his cock quickly and moving to do as asked. Peter was tight at first as he pressed in, then opened suddenly before him. Peter pushed up against him wantonly, begging for it, giving it up to him. Gabriel pressed all the way inside, thrilled by the expressions on Peter's face. The other man was close. He waited motionless until Peter began making frustrated pushes against him and reached back to urge him to continue. "You want me?"

"Oh yes. Yes!" Peter tried to fuck himself on Gabriel's dick, which was tremendously complimentary. Gabriel grinned and began to give Peter what he wanted, if perhaps a little slower than what Peter was asking for. He gave him a steady, gentle sexing, finding Peter's struggles to get more and faster and harder wonderful to watch. He saw the flush of impending orgasm and faint sweat starting to spread across him as Peter's writhing stopped and he settled rather suddenly into matching Gabriel exactly, in perfect rhythm. His mouth fell open and his eyes rolled back. His toes curled. Gabriel reached between them and worked Peter's tip fast and hard. Peter's mouth opened wider and he came hard with a little squeak of noise. He shuddered as Gabriel shifted his hand away and wiped it off on the sheet.

"Oh Gabriel. Oh God. Oh wow. You are… Oh my God."

"I love you. You know that?" He watched Peter's face carefully.

"Yes. God, yes."

"Alright. I'm going to fuck you and it might be a little weird. If you can't take it, tell me and I'll stop." Gabriel pulled out and rolled Peter over, despite Peter's semi-questioning look. Peter didn't resist when Gabriel spread the other man's legs and gathered up his hands to hold his wrists in one long-fingered grip. He positioned himself and slid inside. He reached up with his free hand to grip the back of Peter's neck. "Turn your head so you can breathe," he directed. Peter did, tensing, but not fighting it.

Gabriel used a little flight to make it easier to hold the position, so he wasn't supporting his full weight on Peter's neck. He tightened his grip on Peter's wrists and neck to bruising and started thrusting into him hard and fast. He knew his grip had to hurt, but Peter didn't complain. Gabriel worried. It would be clear to Peter that he was playing through a rape fantasy. After the first handful of hard thrusts, Gabriel settled into a pattern. Peter relaxed under him and he stopped worrying. He'd tried to prep Peter for this. Apparently it had been enough.

"Should I struggle?" Peter asked, sounding uncertain. Gabriel suppressed a grin. Peter was so fucking cooperative sometimes it was mind-blowing.

"No." Attractive as the idea was, he didn't need Peter pushing him over the edge. Gabriel grunted with every stroke, slamming into him. Peter spread his legs to let him go deeper and that earned a brief, happy noise. Gabriel came a few moments later. He let him go and settled his weight over Peter, holding his shoulders. He buried his nose in the back of Peter's neck, then licked down to his shoulders and bit him hard, not letting go for some time. Peter whined a little in response. He let go a second or two after Peter made the sound, since he'd been looking for a reaction. Gabriel kissed him. "Mine."

"Mmm," Peter said, rolling over after a bit to dislodge him. They settled into spooning, which was their most common after-sex position. Five or ten minutes passed while Gabriel hugged him close and Peter held the arms holding him. Peter said, "You said we could talk afterward."

Gabriel sighed and tightened his grip. "Yes. I said that."

Peter smiled a little. "Can you tell me what happened this morning?"

He sighed again. He'd known he'd have to explain himself. He'd put a lot of thought into what to say. But he'd never been satisfied with the explanations, which was part of why he had declined to take Peter's calls. What the hell would he say to him, after all? _Hi Peter, um… yeah, I just got carried away thinking about killing you, so much so that I almost did. Sorry about that. Won't happen again. _Or _Hi Peter, yeah, I've been dreaming about vivisecting you for over a year now and since there was nothing really stopping me, it was sort of like a kid at Christmas, time to unwrap my gift!_ Or _Yeah, I love you so much I just can't stop thinking of cutting you open and seeing what makes you tick!_

They all left him sounding like he wasn't in control of himself, like he was weak, like Peter was in danger, like Maury's command had been justified. And it wasn't, damn it. Or maybe it was. That was the real reason why he'd never bothered to get rid of it - fear that he needed it. But he couldn't admit to Peter that he might have needed it. Because that meant that maybe he _still _needed it. Or maybe he needed other commands. And he wouldn't submit to those. He just wouldn't.

He swallowed and shifted uneasily. Peter remained quiet. _I have to answer for myself eventually_. "You… took out the commands… last night. And I was… really happy about that. I couldn't stop touching you. You're… I guess it's an obsession. But… once I had enough, this morning, it fixed it. Because, you see, I'm acting fine now… I'm over it. It's okay."

_I sound like an idiot. Some of that has to be lies._

Peter mulled that over for a bit and asked, "Am I in danger now?"

"I'm not going to hurt you, Peter."

"That isn't the same thing."

"I know," Gabriel said, frustration leaking into his voice. Unconsciously, he held Peter even tighter, pulling his legs up to increase their skin contact. "I can't predict the future. I don't want to hurt you. I love you. I don't want to hurt you." _Which isn't the same thing as 'I'm not _going_ to hurt you', but please don't notice that or if you do, don't mention it._

"Is anyone else in danger?"

"I'm not going to hurt anyone else." _God-dammit! 'Anyone else' - as if I couldn't make it any clearer._

"Do you intend to hurt me?"

"No." _I need to stop answering him so fast. I need to think about what I'm saying first._

"I love you, Gabriel. Can you tell me what you're struggling with?"

This time Gabriel waited a bit, but it didn't help order his thoughts. "I love you, too, Peter. I'm… I'm doing everything I can to keep you safe." _From me. Which is sick. I really ought to just stay away. But I don't think that will help. Long term, I'd just… no, I wouldn't lose control. I wouldn't. But it would be harder if I ran into him after a long time. Harder because he'd be distant and he wouldn't let me do this. _He hugged Peter, then relaxed a little and ran his hands up and down him, nuzzling him. "I need to do this," he murmured, not entirely intentionally.

"You said we needed to make love. You need to do this." Gabriel pressed his face against the pillow, shamed by his 'needs.' They made him weak. Or rather, they were proof that he was weak. And he didn't need to be weak anymore. Peter had fixed that. He'd healed it. He wasn't weak now. He could take what he wanted. And he had, more or less. He'd talked Peter right into bed and had his way with him, so why was he mad now? Rage simmered in his blood anyway. When it cooled, he realized Peter had stopped talking. He lifted his head.

Peter rolled to face him and then to his surprise cuddled up to him. "I need you. I need to do this too."

Gabriel blinked at him, but Peter couldn't see his face. He settled his arms around Peter and pulled him in closer, wondering what was in Peter's mind that led him to be so trusting.


	206. Power Struggles

**A/N: May 7, early morning.**

Peter woke when Gabriel got up. He watched him go into the bathroom with hooded eyes, then rolled over into the warm spot to go back to sleep. Sleep was elusive, though. _I suppose I should be worried. My boyfriend is a serial killer. Who is, apparently, on the loose. Safety off. Slipped his leash. AWOL. Unregulated. Uncaged. Un… a lot of things. Free._ Peter smiled into the pillow. _I set him__** free**__. After all this time. I didn't even know he was… caged. Or whatever. I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be happy about this. Or should I? …last night was nice. Most nights with him are really nice. Hmmm._

Gabriel came out of the bathroom, duties completed, and passed through the bedroom to the rest of the apartment. He shut the bedroom door softly, although he probably knew perfectly well Peter was lying there awake. It was the illusion that mattered, sort of how they both put up with the other saying untruths from time to time. Both having lie detection didn't mean they didn't still have things they wanted to keep from one another. It just made it more transparent what those things were - not that they didn't want to keep them private.

Peter rolled over and looked at the ceiling. He summoned over his watch from the nightstand and looked at it. He ran his fingertips across the face of it and sighed. He could hear Gabriel tinkering around in the kitchen. _I'm not getting back to sleep. I don't think I'm worried though. How would I tell if I were worried? I don't feel worried. I feel happy. I wonder if _**he's**_ happy and maybe his emotions are contagious to me. _Peter got up and went to the bathroom, taking a shower after using the other facilities.

When he got out, he could smell something cooking. He grinned. _Maybe I should be worried he's going to spoil me_. He walked out to find Gabriel cooking pancakes on the stove. "What, no waffles?" he joked, in a very good mood.

"No waffle iron. Did you take it over to Emma's, or just put it somewhere strange?"

"Oh. Damn. Yes, I took it to Emma's. She didn't have one." He huffed. "Well, I like pancakes too."

Gabriel paused in watching the latest pancake cook to lean over and offer a kiss. Peter provided it warmly, slipping his hand around Gabriel's waist and melting against him. Gabriel observed, "You seem happy."

"I survived the night. I think I should be. You're wonderful," he added at the end to allay Gabriel's suddenly disturbed expression. It didn't dispel it entirely, but it helped.

"That's not something to be flippant about," Gabriel muttered. He withdrew, giving Peter a quick peck and going back to cooking. He put the latest pancake on a short stack, poured a new one, then applied butter to the top of the stack. He went back to watching the one in the skillet.

Gabriel stared at it fixedly, so Peter went about clearing the table of papers left from working there the night before with Noah. He set out syrup and jelly, plates and silverware. Gabriel silently made several more pancakes. Peter poured their coffee. Gabriel had already set out the cups and added sugar (for himself) and sugar and creamer (for Peter). He took the cups to the table and came back to swat Gabriel on the rear.

Gabriel glanced back and gave him a wry smile. "Thanks."

Peter turned backwards against the counter, watching as the last pancake cooked. Gabriel said, "Peter… thank you."

Peter waited a beat, then said, "For anything in particular?"

Gabriel put the last pancake on the serving plate and added butter on the top. "For all kinds of things. Would you like me to list them?"

"No," Peter said, blushing a little. _He would, if I asked._ He carried the plate over to the table and served himself. He handed it over to Gabriel when he was done. Peter applied jelly and a little syrup. Gabriel used syrup only.

"You don't need to worry about me," Gabriel told him. "I have it under control."

Peter took a bite. The food was good. "Just so that we're both sure we're talking about the same thing… you're saying that after I got rid of your commands, the Hunger hit you really hard and you… um… wanted to take my ability. But you got over it. And for some reason, that involved using a lot of clairsentience on me."

Gabriel coughed unnecessarily and fiddled with his pancake for a while, sopping at the syrup with it. "Yeah."

"And so… what? It's over?"

"Yes."

"Forever?" He doubted that.

Gabriel glared at him. He stabbed his pancake a lot harder than necessary.

"Sorry," Peter apologized, looking away. "I… shouldn't have said that. Not that way."

"No, you shouldn't have. I didn't deserve that."

Peter nodded silently.

Gabriel said firmly, "I have it under control. That's what matters."

Peter sighed and ate quietly for a while, until he was nearly done. "How close did you come to not getting it under control?"

"Too close. When I'm trying to leave, Peter, please let me. Physical proximity is a big factor. Sometimes, maybe, I just need to stay away from you."

Peter's brows drew together. "It seemed like the opposite. Like you needed to be all over me."

Gabriel shut his eyes for a moment. "That was… me coping." He opened them. "I don't suppose you'd let me?"

"Let you…?" When Gabriel just kept eating, Peter said, "Let you take my ability?"

"You'd still have it…"

Peter stifled a nervous laugh. "Um… no. No, I won't let you do that."

"Why not?"

Peter gaped at him. _I can't believe we're having this discussion._ "Because it would hurt!"

"I can make it so it doesn't."

Peter's mouth was still hanging open. His voice was raised when he said, "What? How? Would you knock me out first? And what would you do about the regeneration? Once I'm unconscious, I can't suppress that."

Gabriel stayed calm. "I could nullify it until I was done. And if you don't want standard anesthetics, I can modify your perception of pain. I've done it before. I can reverse it when I'm finished."

_To Claire. You did it to Claire. Did you do that to make the process less painful to her? He's really thought this out._ "I… No. No. I don't want you to do this."

Gabriel shrugged, pretending to be unaffected by Peter's refusal. "Okay." He finished his food and took his plate to the sink. He came back and stood behind his chair, looking at Peter. "Just… theoretically…"

_No_, Peter thought. _The answer is no._

"Since the pain isn't the issue, what is?"

Peter took his last bite and didn't answer. He didn't… really have an answer. He just had a deep-seated aversion to being one of Sylar's victims. Again.

"I think you trust me. I don't think you're afraid I wouldn't restore you afterward. All I can imagine is that you don't want me to have any more abilities."

_You don't need any more abilities!_ "That's not it."

Gabriel cocked his head and Peter grimaced. That must not have come out as true, so he amended, "That's not all it is. There are other reasons. I don't want to talk about it." _Your powers come at the cost of blood. I don't want that on my conscience - even if it's __**my**__ blood. And why do you need more abilities anyway?_

Gabriel put a hand over his mouth and studied Peter. Peter scraped up the leftover jelly from his plate and tried to ignore the scrutiny. He felt guilty and he wasn't sure why. It wasn't like Gabriel had a right to Peter's powers. Gabriel said questioningly, "You don't want to talk about it?"

Peter got up and took his plate to the sink. He started running water to rinse it and Gabriel's. Gabriel said, "I can understand why you wouldn't want to talk about things that made you feel uncomfortable."

Peter shot him a short glare and then went back to rinsing. "It's _**my**_ ability. I get to say what happens to it."

There was a long, tense silence. Gabriel stepped closer to him and Peter felt a sudden chill pass through him. He reached forward and snapped off the water. "Of course you do," Gabriel whispered, putting his hands lightly on Peter's arm and the small of his back. He gave the smaller man a slight tug, enough to make his desire clear, but there was no force to it. Peter turned to him anyway and leaned against him, laying his head on Gabriel's shoulder. They embraced.

Gabriel kissed the top of Peter's head and murmured, "You're in no danger. None at all." There was no tremor of a lie. Peter nodded.


	207. Showered With Affection

**A/N: Still May 7. This begins only about five minutes after the last chapter ended.**

Peter followed Gabriel to the bedroom and watched as he undressed. Peter didn't have to work until tour three today, so he was in no rush to leave. Gabriel's question about why Peter wouldn't let him take his ability was still agitating him. He didn't think he'd done a very good job of explaining why he wasn't going to allow it. He was struggling to think of new reasons, since Gabriel had so reasonably dismissed the issue of pain. Abruptly Peter said, "It's unhygienic."

"Peter, you regenerate. And I'd use telekinesis. I don't even have to touch you."

"It's still unhygienic. You're opening the freaking brain case, and that doesn't even count whatever else you have to do."

Gabriel sighed. "We could do a full surgical prep if you like. I'm sure between the two of us, we could find an operating theatre we could borrow for an hour." He went in the bathroom and laid out his shaving supplies.

Objection addressed, Peter fell silent while he thought up a new one. Gabriel turned to see to his face, using a straight razor. It looked dangerous, but so was Gabriel. Peter watched him shave himself for a while before blurting out, "I have reason to believe that being dead causes brain damage."

It was a stupid statement out of context. Even with it, Gabriel didn't dignify it with a response. He looked at Peter out of the corner of his eye and went back to shaving.

"Even in people who regenerate." Peter thought about that and clarified, "Well… obviously anyone else too, but I mean the brain doesn't heal itself back quite right."

Gabriel said nothing, having decided that Peter's objections had little to do with rationality. Thus, there was no point to trying to refute them. He finished, turned on the shower, and got in. Peter leaned against the sink counter and watched the semi-opaque shower curtain. After a while he said, "How do you even know it would work, anyway?"

There was no answer except the sound of the water running. Peter huffed and waited a minute. Then he said, "My ability has a couple of different forms. Do you know what you'd get? It might not be worth it."

He received more stony silence. Peter reached out with his foot and kicked the shower curtain irritably. He wanted a response. "Hey, I've read up on Intuitive Aptitude. Does your version work every time? Because from what I read, sometimes it doesn't."

Gabriel jerked the curtain back and glared at him. "No, it doesn't always work. Do you want me to find out if it would on you?"

"Uh," Peter quailed back, unconsciously trying to be further away from the menace. "No."

"Then _shut up_ about it. You're pissing me off and making it impossible for me to think about anything _else!_"

Peter swallowed and stood there wordlessly. Gabriel stared at Peter's frightened face for a long moment, while he dripped on the floor. Finally he rolled his eyes in exasperation and extended his hand. "Oh, come here."

Peter felt telekinesis give him a push from behind, between his shoulder blades. He tensed against it, eyes wide. Gabriel sighed, looked upwards and muttered, "Sorry, habit." He leaned out further and grabbed Peter's shoulder, fingers tugging at him with a clear intention of pulling him closer. Peter leaned forward and let himself be pulled in. Gabriel kissed him wetly and wrapped his hand around the back of Peter's head.

Peter grunted and shifted uncomfortably. He'd been as cooperative as possible with Gabriel, sexually, because Peter was trying to pay attention to exactly what Gabriel said. Gabriel had said he needed the sex and separately, that Peter shouldn't fight him. Noah had reiterated that Gabriel might have problems stopping being violent if he got started. So Peter had resolved that for a few days, as long as Gabriel was reasonable, he'd give him exactly what he wanted. It wasn't all that hard, after all, and Gabriel was playing nice with him.

But this ability thing was bothering Peter. He still felt guilty, but he couldn't figure out what he was doing wrong. Gabriel turned his head and growled, kissing him more forcefully, pulling Peter forward to him and partly into the shower. Peter caught his hand on the wall, resisting it. He was starting to catch some of the spray on the side of his face and in his hair. "Mmrhm!" was all he managed to get out as Gabriel kept one hand at the back of his head, wrapped the other around his torso, and hauled him unceremoniously into the shower.

Lukewarm water hit him all over, drenching his clothes and spraying in his face. He finally put some strength into resisting and managed to wrench his head out of Gabriel's grip. "Would you… what?" Peter sputtered as he got his feet under him. He turned and tried to get back out of the shower, but Gabriel seized him from behind and pulled him back against his chest, Peter facing away from him.

Peter stopped, because it was rapidly turning into a very physical struggle. Gabriel took the opportunity to wrap his arms more firmly around him. After another beat, Peter raised one hand and moved his fingers, angling the shower head down telekinetically. Gabriel put his face to the back of Peter's head. He nuzzled him and kissed him. Peter relaxed a little. It felt kind of nice. It felt a lot nice. He sighed and looked over at the controls for the shower. Another few hand motions adjusted the temperature up to something more comfortable. He reached back and hooked a hand behind Gabriel's neck, twisting to kiss him.

"Is this what you need?" Peter asked. He was going to be annoyed if he was being coerced into consenting to sex all the time because of Gabriel's problem.

"No. This is what I _want_." Gabriel kissed him again and began to rub against him.

_Oh. Well… that's different then._ Peter smiled. "So you're saying that if I tell you 'no, definitely not, not interested in sex right now,' and I try to leave the shower, you'll let me?"

Gabriel chuckled. "Of course. I won't believe you. But I'll let you go." He waited a beat and when Peter didn't do anything, Gabriel began to run his hands up and down his chest, over the wet, grey cotton t-shirt that clung to Peter's muscular frame in all the right places. He bent his head to kiss his shoulder and then suck the moisture from the fabric.

Peter's clothes clung to him like a second skin, giving everything a new sensation. It was muffled in a way, but every tug on the cloth rubbed it across a larger swath of skin than a simple touch would have. The fabric trapped the warm water against him and felt heavy on him.

"Oh boy…" Peter leaned back against him harder. He'd been thinking that, you know, he needed to get out of the shower just to prove to Gabriel he couldn't pull him in here and sex him up whenever he wanted to… teach him a lesson or something… wait, hadn't they been fighting about something important? Gabriel's erection felt really good up against his backside. He raised up on his toes a little and bounced slowly up and down against it. Gabriel growled low in his throat, bit him lightly and leaned him forward, turning Peter towards the back wall. Gabriel bent his knees a little to better rub up and down in the crevice of his ass.

The shower was a tiny little cube. Peter rested his forehead and arms, hands to elbows, against the far side and Gabriel just barely had enough room to maneuver behind him. He was playing with Peter's clothes while he humped him, and Peter could feel the obsession and arousal burning through the other man's emotions. Peter reached down and opened his pants, stroking himself to hardness. He turned his head to rest his cheek against the cool tile as Gabriel kept moving against him.

By now, Peter was sopping wet, head to toe. He was glad he hadn't had shoes on yet. Gabriel pulled him sideways a little and tugged on his pants, skewing them on his hips. He managed to fuck Peter's pocket, wrapping the wet cloth around his shaft like a sleeve, the silken inner lining of the higher-end slacks slick around him. Later Peter would find that funny, or at least really weird. At the moment, he was busy pumping at himself and intentionally concentrating on feeling every erg of his partner's excitement. The heel of his hand bumped against the head of Gabriel's cock with each stroke.

Gabriel wrapped his arm around Peter's waist to steady him and slowed his own motions. He transferred his other hand from his own penis to Peter's, supplanting the Italian's. "Here," he said, and started jerking him instead. Peter moaned and put his hand over his pocket, grasping Gabriel's member and rubbing it through the cloth. He could feel its heat against his leg. He wasn't going to last much longer and Gabriel knew it. He shifted his grip to the tip and jacked him fast and hard, leaning down to bite Peter's shoulder and tug at the flesh. Peter called out, his come spurting against the wall of the shower.

After Peter calmed a little, Gabriel pulled himself out of Peter's clothes and ran his hand up and down his length. "Will you suck me?"

Peter nodded and went to his knees in the cramped compartment. He mouthed the tip for a moment, sucking at it lightly, rubbing his tongue back and forth over the slit. Water sprayed against the side of his head and face, running down his cheek and following the curve of his jaw in rivulets. He could feel it in his ear, making the world sound strange and lop-sided. He tasted Gabriel's cock and tilted it down to drink the water that ran off of it from Gabriel's naked body.

Gabriel worked his hands into Peter's wet hair, bunching it erratically. He began to fuck Peter's mouth in small motions. Peter brought his other hand up to fondle his balls, weighing them and tugging. He didn't get much of a response, so he pushed his fingers further back and Gabriel spread his legs to allow it. He groaned softly when Peter's fingers began stroking his asshole. He even put one hand behind him to spread a cheek to the side. With the other he was propping himself against the wall. He was breathing hard, nearly there. Gabriel asked, "Deeper? Can I go deeper? I'm about to…"

Peter tilted him down once more and deep-throated him. He couldn't do it for very long, but he didn't need to. He felt Gabriel's cock pulse against his tongue and it was over. He pulled out a moment later. Peter panted, leaning his forehead against Gabriel's hip while the taller man disentangled his fingers from Peter's hair and stood up straighter.

Gabriel said, "That was great. Very, _very_ distracting. Peter… I love you. You know that, right?" He petted his head with affection.

"Gathered. Yeah." Peter returned the gesture, stroking Gabriel's thigh. He was still breathing a little hard. He pressed his lips to his hip and looked up at him, smiling lazily. "How am I going to get dry now?"

Gabriel fiddled with the angle of water spray. "Try shape shifting successively. Or, of course, the normal way." Peter looked up at him again, questioningly, and Gabriel laughed a little. "Take your clothes off and use a towel, my love."

Peter got to his feet and out of the shower, since they could barely stand together in there and Gabriel was getting out the shampoo. He didn't need to be wet and soapy both – he was making a huge puddle on the floor as it was. He pulled shut the shower curtain behind him, but then turned and said to it, "Hey, did you just call me your love?"

Gabriel just laughed.


	208. Tensions Dispelled

Gabriel got out of the shower to find Peter in the bedroom, finishing getting dressed. From what he could tell, Peter had opted for successive shape-shifting, but then changed clothes anyway. _Weirdo_. Also, a laughing weirdo. Something was very funny to Peter at the moment, because he was chortling, trying to suppress his laughter.

"What is it?" Gabriel asked, toweling off his hair.

"You fucked my _pocket_. Of all things… my _**pocket**_." He shook his head, laughing openly now.

"I seem to recall I fucked your mouth, too." Gabriel walked over to him and extended his index and forefinger to Peter's cheek. He stroked it and Peter sobered, mostly, to look up at him serenely, sighing. Gabriel stroked the underside of Peter's jaw, then over his chin to his lips. Peter opened his mouth and Gabriel dipped his fingers inside briefly, then pulled them out. Peter sucked at them as they withdrew. Now Gabriel sighed. He rubbed his fingers across Peter's lips, circling. "It was good. Even better than your pocket."

Peter snorted.

Gabriel brushed Peter's imaginary hair out of his face. By now, Peter didn't have to make an effort to ignore it. Gabriel said, "No one else gets to do to me what you do, Peter."

Peter's brows drew together. "Like what?"

Gabriel stepped back and finished drying his hair. "Well, for starters, no one else gets to fuck me. Or… well, top me. I don't suck anyone else's dick. Not like this. Not as me."

Peter tilted his head slightly, not sure what that meant.

"I haven't… only you, Peter. Only you. I'll abase myself for you. Or at least I have. I've tossed my dignity to the wind for you. I've given up… what I was, for you." He shrugged and tossed the towel over the shower bar. He padded back in to collect his clothes from the top of the dresser, where he'd left them neatly stacked.

"Are you…" Peter hesitated. "Is this about the abilities?"

"No. I'm not with you because of your abilities or mine. I'm with you because I love you. I'd want to be with you even if neither of us had them."

XXXXXX

Gabriel's tone was at once exasperated and compelling. "I've been trying to calm you down since night before last. I shouldn't have said what I did. It was a mistake. I won't make it again."

Peter didn't saying. He was thinking about how Gabriel was telling the truth – he wouldn't make that mistake again. His attempt to gain Peter's trust was calculated and measured. He'd had a misstep. He would learn from that. Next time he'd guard his words more carefully. He was so much more Sylar than he'd been before, to the extent that Peter had caught himself more than once calling him Sylar in his head.

"Peter… nothing has changed." Gabriel stated it as an incontrovertible fact, looking directly at Peter with one long look focused on one eye, then the other.

Peter shook his head. "Even the way you say that has changed. You don't look at me like you used to. It's all new."

Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out. He walked to Peter and went to his knees abruptly right in front of him. Something Gabriel _had_ accomplished in his attempts to calm Peter was that Peter didn't flinch or pull away from him – neither his rapid approach nor his proximity. Making love to someone over and over usually did that to a person. Gabriel took up Peter's hands and pressed them, palm inward, to his cheeks. "Here's something that's not new." He leaned into Peter's hands, still looking straight at him, but letting his eyes wander over Peter's features.

Peter swallowed and blinked, feeling love and affection and worry and warmth flowing into him, through the other man's hands. "Y-You're doing that on purpose."

"_Yes_. I want you to_ feel_ it. Feel what I feel for you. Don't stop loving me because you think I've changed."

Peter felt the fear behind that last statement. It edged into terror and then faded. He bent forward and drew Gabriel's face to his own, kissing him gently. Gabriel kissed him twice more, different even in this – he took what Peter gave him and then took more as he wanted it. He sucked Peter's lower lip into his mouth and worked it gently between his lips before letting it go. The corner of Peter's mouth quirked up. It wasn't a difference he minded – that was certain.

Gabriel shuffled forward a little and rubbed his nose on Peter's cheek. "I love you," he whispered.

Peter nodded. "I know."

"Love me," Gabriel said. It wasn't a question or even quite a plea. It was almost a command and more a statement of desire.

Peter smoothed his hands down the back of Gabriel's neck and over his shoulders. Gabriel shivered and shut his eyes. Peter began to massage him. "I do."

Gabriel sighed and let his head fall forward. Peter kissed the top of his head and said, "Get up on the bed and let me give you a backrub."

Gabriel nodded silently, not risking speaking. He sprawled out. Peter straddled his hips and got to work.


	209. Hallway Hijinks

**A/N: This chapter is set on May 9, 2011, a Monday. Last chapter was set on Saturday. On Sunday the gang (Peter, Emma, Heidi and Gabriel) had a movie matinee where they watched National Treasure (much to Gabriel's disgust). There wasn't much to say about it except Gabriel discovering that Peter talks to Emma telepathically quite a bit, and not to him. Little, tiny, teensy bit jealous there. I fiddled with it a while and decided it didn't warrant its own chapter.**

Peter was just walking down the hallway, no big deal, a bundle of slacks in his hands. Gabriel was coming the other way, empty-handed. They were in Angela's house, clearing out Nathan's old bedroom for conversion to a guest room. Peter wondered at his mother's sense of timing. She'd kept it mostly untouched for years now. Even when Peter trashed it just a few months prior, she'd had it set back up much as it was before. He assumed the timing had to do with Gabriel.

He hadn't said anything to anyone about healing Gabriel, or how it had driven the final nail into Nathan's coffin. Peter supposed, really, that he ought to be morose, but instead he was at peace with it. When he was younger, he would have dismissed his mother's call as coincidence. That was before he knew about her ability. Now… apparently she knew he was ready to move on. He hadn't realized it himself.

"Hey, uh…" he said to Gabriel, who turned and looked at him expectantly.

Peter glanced up and down the hall. They were alone. He remembered his mother's reaction the last time he'd kissed Gabriel in this house. She'd slapped him. Perhaps his sudden desire was defiance against that - some manner of rebellion. Or maybe it was something else. Anyway, he tilted his head a little and stepped closer, looking between Gabriel's eyes and lips. He made his body language an invitation.

He didn't really need to ask. He wasn't sure why he did. He could have just kissed him himself instead of asking for it and making Gabriel come to him. Was it because he was still a little cautious about Gabriel's new Sylar-esque self confidence? Was it because he wanted the plausible deniability that he hadn't started anything in his mother's house? Or was it simply because he had his hands full at the moment and it was easier to make the taller man bend to him than drop the slacks and seize him?

Gabriel stepped over, leaned in and gave him a slow, warm, entrancing kiss. Peter had had in mind just a quick smooch, some reaffirmation of their bond even though they were somewhere where they shouldn't express it. But with those lips soft against his, pressing him gradually so he backed up until he was trapped against the wall… he couldn't part from them on his own and Gabriel was no help at all. He felt a pang of fear, but it blended seamlessly into his growing excitement.

Gabriel took the clothes from his hands and dropped them on the floor to the side. Peter made a small sound in his throat, but they were still joined at the mouth. His lover brought his hands up to caress his face as his tongue slid across the seam of lips. Peter opened for him with another mewl.

This was… wildly inappropriate - which was exactly why he kept doing it. If Gabriel cared, it didn't show. He was making out with Peter more passionately and intensely than they usually did in private. Of course in private, their activities while clothed were just a prelude, setting the stage and stoking their interest. Where they were now, there was no way to go further. Or so he thought.

Gabriel pressed into him, chest to chest, crushing him against the wall. Peter returned it, bringing up his hips to grind against his lover. Gabriel side stepped smoothly, cocking his hips to the side and reaching down a hand to cup Peter's groin. Peter groaned against him. Gabriel finally (finally!) stopping kissing him to whisper, "A little public, don't ya think, Pete? God, you're so hot! You're hard already."

Peter kissed along Gabriel's jaw and down his neck, nibbling at the thinner skin. Gabriel kept him pinned against the wall while his hand began to stroke Peter's length through his slacks. His fingers traced its shape, rubbing back and forth across the tip before going back to stroking. Gabriel whispered, "I think I felt something a bit wet there." He kissed Peter again, deep and invasive. Peter's mouth worked against his, moving himself against the hard edge of Gabriel hipbone.

Gabriel started rubbing him harder, almost gripping him through the pants. He broke away to whisper, "Anyone could see us here, Peter… Cassie, Michael, Taylor… even your _mother_. Anyone could come up the stairs… right now, even. And they'd see us here, like this, and you with a precome stain on your pants and both of us all flushed and red-lipped." His words were breathed into Peter's ear and it was a pure rapture. Peter looked at the ceiling, swallowing, letting the fantasy (and the reality) take him.

"It's almost like you _want _to be caught," Gabriel purred. "Do you _like_ getting in trouble, Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes? Is that your fantasy? Is that what makes you hot? Being the good boy to the world and dabbling on the dark side in private?"

Peter jerked his head down and stared at Gabriel. That was way, way too close for comfort and probably said a lot about his attraction to this man. Gabriel didn't seem to mind. His hand didn't falter. He bent to bite and chew at Peter's neck, sucking on the skin and worrying it with his teeth. Peter moaned softly and gave in to it. The moment of surprise only served to heighten his arousal.

Gabriel's other hand began to caress Peter's face. Peter whimpered against him and Gabriel covered his mouth, looking up at him. Peter's eyes widened, but he didn't resist. Gabriel pushed his head back against the wall, applying more pressure. Gabriel's gaze on him was cautious and assessing.

Peter let his eyes roll back and steered his thoughts away from why Gabriel was being careful with him. He was very sure he didn't want to think about it. It wasn't the bondage – or at least, the ridiculously light bondage – but the hand on his mouth was turning him on. It gave him the illusion this was being done _to_ him and he could experience it guiltlessly. Not that he really needed anything more, but it pushed him to the edge. Gabriel's words finished him. "Someone's coming," he hissed, looking down the hall towards the stairs.

Peter jerked against the hand that held him mute and made a stifled sob against it. He couldn't do anything else while his hips bucked involuntarily with his orgasm. He really, _really_ hadn't intended to get caught. The moment he could, his eyes darted desperately down the hall. He knew Gabriel had been telling the truth, but he didn't see anyone yet. He had no idea what he was going to say to defend himself.

Gabriel glanced down, smirking. "Oh. It's you."

"What?" Peter stared at him for a moment, then back down the hall, but there was still no one there. _What the hell does he mean, 'me'? Future me? Wait… _ Finally he got it and when he did, he started laughing. He reached out and grabbed Gabriel's shirt, pulling him close to bury his face against him, muffling himself. They were still disheveled and he didn't want anyone to see him. His mirth edged into hysteria before he got himself under control, gasping and gripping Gabriel's shirt like he might fall if he didn't. Gabriel was stroking his back, holding him gently, making him think that he'd lost it even more than he'd thought. His face was wet. He wiped at it, looking uncertainly at his hand. He suspected that wasn't just the edge of hysteria, but firmly into it. He wiped at his face harder.

Gabriel stepped back and said, "Use shape-shifting, Peter. It'll clean you up." He glanced down significantly.

Peter sniffed and nodded. Gabriel was giving him a graceful way to avoid admitting he'd nearly broken down. He shifted into Gabriel, then himself, but with his clothes sorted out and his face dry. He sniffed again.

"Need to blow your nose?"

"No, I'm fine." It came out a little harsher than Peter had intended. He sighed. "Sorry. Thank you though." He walked closer. "Thank you. I think I should return the favor." He wasn't feeling it, but he felt he _should_. He let one hand go behind Gabriel's neck to pull him to him as the other groped for him in front.

Gabriel stiffened and it wasn't his member. It was everything but. He gave Peter a chaste kiss and pulled away. "Please no, Peter," he whispered.

Peter's brows drew together. He wasn't feeling arousal or excitement from his partner – it was a distant sort of concern and fear that didn't seem to have anything to do with the situation at first glance. Peter considered. The whole time, he hadn't felt an erection on Gabriel's part. In fact, he'd turned his body so Peter was humping his hip, not his groin. He'd been watching him carefully several times, attentively in a way you didn't do if you were, yourself, in the throes of lust.

Gabriel walked over and picked up the slacks, offering them to Peter. Peter took him, putting one hand over Gabriel's and leaving it there so they stood with the stack between them, one hand on the other. The taller man watched him calmly. His emotions matched his expression. Peter leaned forward over the bundle. "Kiss me, please, and you don't have to do anything else."

Gabriel met him. They parted after a moment. His emotions did not waver except to feel a thrill of affection and interest at the kiss, as he usually did.

Peter asked, "Can you tell me… what was wrong here? There's something the matter."

Gabriel sighed. "As much as I think Angela can stick her opinions of us up her ass..."

Peter pulled his free hand away to cover his mouth. Yes, he'd gathered Gabriel didn't appreciate her disapproval of them. It made him happy, but he didn't think it was appropriate to be grinning about it like he was.

Gabriel went on, "…I'm not interested in getting caught by her or anyone else. I used to gloat and show back up at the scene of crimes to see what they made of it, but I… kind of had a bad experience at that. Or a couple of them, really." He swallowed.

"Oh." Peter suspected he meant getting captured by the Company or by himself. "Yeah. Okay. But you… that was okay for you? Doing me?"

"That was me doing you. Doesn't count."

_Because you're not vulnerable when you're sexing_ me, _only when you're receiving. Got it._ Peter nodded.

Gabriel went on, "But that was okay with you?" He gestured at where Peter had stood during it. Peter looked at the spot uncertainly, then back at Gabriel. The other man clarified so softly Peter had to strain to hear, "I had you pressed against a wall, Peter."

Peter had a sudden, uncomfortable jolt. He took a moment to examine his feelings. He remembered cluing to it early on with that bit of fear, but he hadn't dwelled on it. That by itself was telling. He nodded firmly. "It was okay." He sniffled again and let out a deep breath. He hefted the slacks. "I need to run these downstairs for the charity box. I still owe you one."

Gabriel smiled and started on down the hall, back towards the room for the next load. "Don't worry. I know you're good for it."


	210. Working Out

**A/N: Tuesday, May 10, evening, at the gym.**

Peter glanced back as Gabriel walked up behind him. Peter was sitting on a padded bench, curling free weights repetitively to build tone. He wasn't sure how enhanced strength interacted with working out, but he liked looking muscular and strong. It had taken him until his late twenties to grow out of being lean and lanky and he'd never liked looking that way. So he worked out.

Initially he'd needed the muscle, not just the appearance. It had helped working as a paramedic for him to be able to lift more. It had made him more comfortable with positioning patients and carrying equipment. The need for physical prowess had expanded when he'd started working for the Company, with Noah giving him pointers and teaching him hand-to-hand combat skills. He'd been glad of the opportunity to get back into a routine after all the chaos of the winter and spring.

He glanced back again, because Gabriel was still there. He was stroking the front of his shorts, an erection straining at the thin fabric. Peter smiled with one side of his mouth and kept doing reps. "What are you going to do with that?"

Gabriel said, "I was going to collect on a debt, since last night was both of us and you still owe me from yesterday."

Peter complained, "Right now? I'm in the middle of a set here!"

Gabriel didn't say anything to that. He just touched Peter's back with his other hand and then leaned down to lick sweat from the nape of his neck. Peter tilted his head forward to make it easier, wondering if he'd ever get used to some of his lover's peculiarities. Gabriel's fingers stroked over Peter's back, tracing the play of muscles as Peter continued to pump the free weights. Maybe if he didn't stop, Gabriel would wait until later. Apparently it worked, because Gabriel walked off.

It occurred to Peter that Gabriel had almost certainly not been walking down his mother's hall the day before thinking anything sexy at the time. And in fact the whole scenario was not his cup of tea, but he'd done it anyway and been giving and enthusiastic while he did. Peter wouldn't have even realized how not-Gabriel's-speed that was if it weren't for his abilities. Whining about Gabriel's timing now was pretty small of him, he realized.

He put the weight down and stood, resolved to find Gabriel, apologize if necessary, and deliver on his promise, but he saw the man coming back and still quite turned on. Gabriel told him, "Sit down and go back to it. I think it would be sexy if you'd do me like it was just part of your routine." He'd reached Peter and nuzzled him. Peter was glad Gabriel hadn't taken his bitching too seriously.

Peter sat back down. He retrieved the small barbell with his left hand and started. It seemed Gabriel had left to get a bottle of lube they'd taken to bringing with them since Michael gave them the key to the gym. They'd wrapped up more than one workout with sex in the showers. Apparently Gabriel wasn't going to make it that long. He touched the top of Peter's head and shoulders, then shoved his own shorts down and stepped out of them.

Gabriel held himself, stroking slowly. He shuffled a little closer and Peter glanced up at him a couple times to make sure he understood (not that the message was that hard to get). He took Gabriel's cock head into his mouth and sucked at it, bobbing shallowly. Gabriel ran his free hand across Peter's head and down his neck, then rubbed the collected sweat across his own chest.

_Weirdo_, Peter thought absently, but he didn't mind. He pulled off to breathe and get his rhythm back on his set. He glanced up again to touch base, then switched sides to his right arm. Gabriel moved around to his left, stroking himself and waiting patiently for Peter to pleasure him. Peter liked watching him jack himself just inches away. After he got up to a dozen reps, Peter took him into his mouth again, sucking him again for most of a minute. He pulled off at the end of it and went back to his workout matter-of-factly.

Gabriel was fully hard, but he wanted more. He circled behind Peter and ran his hand down his back, into his shorts. Peter leaned over a little more, letting questing fingers find what they wanted and probe into him. He made an inarticulate noise and put down his weights. There was just no way he was going to be able to work out like this and he hoped Gabriel was okay with that. He didn't object, so Peter turned to face the end of the bench. It had an elevated extension with roller pads on it. He leaned over it and lifted his rear in invitation.

Gabriel pushed down his shorts during the shift in position, folding them down just enough so he could finger Peter's asshole more thoroughly. He straddled the bench behind him, applying lube and positioning himself. Within a minute, he moved in, working himself inside as Peter settled onto his lap.

Gabriel nodded. "God, you're so good, Peter. If I just want to come over here and have you I _can_. That's so hot. I like having you. I like making you mine. I like knowing you're mine to take, to have." He thrust into him shallowly and relatively slowly, only about half of his dick engaged due to the position, but it was enough. He leaned over Peter and kissed his back, licking it and tasting his sweat. He wrapped his arms around Peter at the hips and stomach, pulling him back into him in steady tugs.

Peter leaned over the roller bars and enjoyed it. It was surprisingly relaxing to just lie there and be fucked, knowing he didn't need to perform or do anything special for his partner besides be who he was. He recalled his insistence on sex always being mutual. The hallway had not been. That had bothered him, but he hadn't seen what he could do about it, since he hadn't known Gabriel wouldn't let him do him in turn until it was over. Peter didn't think he was going to get off this time, but it sure as hell felt good.

He might care about that later, but right now he let Gabriel's pumping movements distract him. _It's a good idea to take short breaks during reps anyway,_ he thought to himself and smiled - _like that has anything to do with it_. "Oooh," he said as Gabriel's thrusts got a little faster. "Oooh. Ahhh. Yeah, that's good," he panted.

Gabriel hooked his hand over one of Peter's shoulders and held his hip with the other for more leverage. He'd managed to get most of himself into Peter and was fucking him now with quick jerks and with gasping breaths. He started grunting through clenched teeth and came a few minutes later, burying himself inside. After a moment of trembling aftershocks, he breathed deeply and bowed over Peter's back to kiss him again. He pulled out slowly. Peter's shorts had ridden up, trapping Gabriel's balls in the elastic band and interfering with his motions, but it hadn't quite been annoying enough to the other man to stop and do something about it.

Gabriel snaked his hand around Peter's waist, but Peter caught him before he touched anything more sensitive than his hip. "No," Peter said. "You don't have to. I'll let you if you want to, but I'm fine without."

Gabriel held still for a long moment, indecisive and uncertain.

"It's okay," Peter repeated, letting go. He snagged a sweat rag and handed it back. Gabriel took it slowly. "Wipe me clean. I don't want to have wet underwear for the rest of the set." Sweat was one thing; come was another. Gabriel pulled Peter's waistband back and rubbed all the lube off, then wiped up and down Peter's crack.

"All clean I think." He hesitated, then asked, "But what about you? You said you always wanted it to be reciprocal - both of us. I didn't let you do that yesterday."

Peter swung his leg back over the bench and turned to kiss Gabriel. He tilted his head and made it deeper, pushing back until Gabriel reached up and caught his fingers in Peter's hair as if for balance. Peter bit his lip as he pulled away, then bit his cheek and jaw. Gabriel made a high-pitched, happy moan. Peter almost never did that sort of thing to him.

Peter grinned and pulled back. He said, "Fuck mutual. I'm fine." He reached up and ran his fingers through Gabriel's hair, starting at his temple and running to the back of his head. "You're teaching me a lot about me. Some of the things I thought I knew… they're wrong." He leaned in and gave the astonished Gabriel a peck. "Now go on. I need to finish my routine."

He picked up his weight again, trying to remember if he'd last done his right or his left. He couldn't recall, so he started with the left. It was his non-dominant side anyway and needed the work.

Gabriel got to his feet and stood there looking at Peter for a few moments. Finally he ran his hand through Peter's hair and then bent to kiss his head, then his temple. "I am so happy with you," he murmured.

Peter smiled up at him warmly. "Yeah? Me with you, too… Gabe." He watched to see how the name was received. It seemed silly that they'd been fucking for months and were only now comfortable enough to give each other endearments. Gabriel bent again and kissed his temple. Peter laughed a little, happy with that response. "Now go get me a new sweat rag and then leave me alone," he teased. "I'm trying to do something here."

Gabriel smiled and sauntered off.


	211. Good In Bed

**A/N: Peter has been back to work as a paramedic for a little over two weeks here.**

Gabriel very nearly bounced into bed that evening, having finished whatever it was he was so absorbed by on his laptop. He had stripped before getting in bed; Peter still had a t-shirt on because the room was a little cool and he'd been reading. Gabriel scooched up behind him and immediately hitched up that shirt to run his hands under it. He kissed Peter's shoulder on the cloth and then his upper arm on the skin below the sleeve. Peter shivered as the rapidly-moving digits roamed up his spine. He smiled and put his head down, relaxing.

Gabriel kept it up, letting his hands wander to Peter's front, covering him with a multitude of small touches and strokes and caresses. He moved his body up closer, kissing along Peter's shoulder towards his neck now, showering him with tiny pecks and smooches.

Peter sighed and used telekinesis to get his book off the bed and onto the nightstand. "You really were listening when I said what I liked, weren't you?"

Gabriel's lips moved up to his ear to whisper in it, "You didn't think you could give me an instruction manual and not have me actually read it, now did you?" He laid a slow, tiny kiss on Peter's earlobe, provoking another shiver and an eruption of gooseflesh.

"Oh…" Peter groaned and Gabriel moved on to his neck. "I told you not to touch my ears," Peter said, but he didn't sound bothered in the least. It was more a question.

"Mm. Yes. And you told me some time ago that I could take 'no' from you under advisement, that you trusted me to use my judgment, and the other night you said that you're sometimes wrong about what you think you like and don't like. I'm not pushing the boundaries here. I'm just nudging them." He sucked at Peter's neck enough to get another groan, as his hand swept across Peter's chest. "That didn't sound like an unhappy noise from you either. Just because no one's ever been careful enough with you to do it doesn't mean I can't be."

Peter considered that. He supposed it might be true. He wasn't ready to admit it yet though. He turned in place to face Gabriel and pushed him over onto his back. "You know something else I said I like occasionally?"

Gabriel raised his brows in invitation but didn't answer. He found that his newly freed hand, the one that had been under his body as he'd been on his side, was now against Peter's groin. He moved it, rubbing the back of his hand against Peter. The Italian shifted back a little, then back forward as he changed his mind. Gabriel smiled and kept doing it.

Peter said, "Can I top you?"

"Of course. You don't need to ask."

"I… I know. You've just been pretty dominant lately. I didn't know if that changed things."

"No, it hasn't. And I'm still going to be 'dominant' with your dick in my ass."

Peter laughed. _Yeah, you will be. But not with your dick in my hand. Because that's when your defenses go down. Somehow that makes it even sexier. _He rolled over on top of Gabriel, kissing his mouth now. They jockeyed for a moment on leg position as Gabriel tried to spread his and Peter defaulted to straddling him, having not thought it out. He settled between Gabriel's limbs as the other man ran his hands up and down Peter's sides, then up across his back. He pushed the t-shirt up and Peter raised himself to get it off. Gabriel eyed him with an unusually critical eye. Peter ignored the look and tossed his shirt aside. He leaned back in for another round of caresses.

"Are you losing weight?" Gabriel asked abruptly. Peter hesitated and looked at him with a furrowed brow. Gabriel added, "Not that, you know, that's a big deal, but you seem lighter. Not as… we've been working out pretty regularly, I would have thought…"

Peter kissed him again, slowly, steadily working his mouth, rocking his hips against Gabriel's until they were both hard. They parted and Peter said, "I healed a few people today. The regeneration must not be keeping pace. I'll eat more."

Gabriel nodded and dropped the subject. This wasn't exactly the best time to discuss it and Peter was glad he didn't pursue it. The gnawing appetite was getting harder to ignore and he didn't want to be reminded of it. He had an excellent distraction here. He reached down between them and wrapped his hand around their erections, sliding it up and down. Gabriel got some lube, applied it to both of his hands and urged Peter's hand away. He took their members between his palms and gripped with both. He pulled up and down gently.

Peter held himself up, an expression of bliss on his face. After a while he leaned back in, letting Gabriel handle the motions, and kissed him deeply. "This is so awesome. I love you. You're so good in bed. I've never had a lover so relentlessly attentive to me."

Gabriel laughed a little and tilted his head up to run his nose along Peter's cheek. "Why, thank you. You're not bad yourself. I want you to be happy, after all."

Peter giggled – not a chuckle, just an undignified sound of merriment. _ If I can't be undignified in bed, then when can I?_ He kissed Gabriel again until they were both pushing against one another, getting close to coming undone. Peter backed off before it was too late and took a moment to compose himself. Gabriel looked a little disappointed. Peter hooked his hands behind Gabe's knees and cocked him up. He summoned a pillow over and they maneuvered it under his hips. Gabriel handed down the lube and Peter applied some to himself.

Peter asked, "You don't want me to get you ready?"

Gabriel's brows rose. "No? I mean, if you're willing to, I'd rather you skipped it."

"Okay." _Whatever you say._ Peter lined himself up and shoved inside. Gabriel threw his head back and made a choking, gasping sound. Peter plunged in and out, his lips set in a line. Gabriel came less than a minute later, giving himself short, hard tugs. It was just as his body was beginning to adjust to Peter's presence and loosen around him. Peter had kind of wanted to be the one working him with his hand when that happened, to see Gabriel's face go slack because of his touch, but it wasn't like he wasn't the cause of it either way. Peter slowed afterward, shifting to a steady pace that worked better for him.

Gabriel said simply, "Peter!" in breathless adoration. He ran his hands over his lover's chest, down his sides, and cupped his ass briefly, tugging him against him with each thrust. After a lovely interval of gentle fucking, he said, "I love you, Pete." Peter smiled in response, noting Gabriel was apparently copying the shortening of his name. Previously Gabriel had only called him Pete while he was Nathan, that Peter had noticed. Gabriel's hands came back up to his nipples, rubbing over them, then tweaking when Peter bit his own lip and started rocking into him harder.

Gabriel kept working a nipple with one hand while the other roamed restlessly, trying to figure out what he needed to do to put Peter over the edge. Peter solved the mystery for him by closing to kiss him passionately, still humping into him. Gabriel put his hands around Peter's butt cheeks and kneaded firmly, spreading and opening him. Peter moaned into his mouth and came with a shuddering jerk. Gabriel slid his hands up to Peter's back to hold him firmly against him. Peter put his head to one side, cheek to cheek, and just breathed, relaxing into the loving embrace.

After a few minutes, Peter asked, "You need me off?"

"No. It's nice holding you like this. But…"

Peter turned his head slightly for the continuation and finally Gabriel said, "You really are lighter, Peter."

Peter grumbled inarticulately and said, "I don't know where the weight _goes_."

"Hm. Probably the same place it comes from if you cut something off of Claire. Conservation of mass doesn't apply to abilities."

"That doesn't make sense." He tried not to think about how Gabriel would know anything about cutting parts off Peter's niece.

"Yes, well, we're talking about super-powers here, Peter. They don't have to make sense."

Peter huffed. Gabriel kissed his cheek and gave him something else to think about – something much more pleasant.


	212. Surrender

**A/N: Next evening, which makes it May 12, 2011, on a Thursday. **

Peter opened the door to find his apartment was unlocked. Actually it wasn't really _his_ apartment anymore, since he'd moved in full time with Emma a couple weeks before. Gabriel had apparently arrived early and as if to underscore that he'd taken over rent payments on the place, he'd also moved in an end table and a lamp. He put down the book he'd been reading on the former piece of furniture and smiled warmly to see Peter.

Peter smiled back. Gabriel had added a set of bookshelves last week or so, but now it featured an old mantel clock on top. From where he was, the clock looked a bit beat up, but it was ticking. Peter chuckled and shut the door behind him, then roamed the apartment to see what else was new. He stopped at the door to his bedroom. On the bed was a small bundle of cloth and a set of handcuffs. That was all he saw before Gabriel stepped up behind him and put his hands over Peter's eyes. Peter tensed, then relaxed.

Gabriel leaned in, his breath tickling Peter's neck. "Can I play with you tonight?"

Peter thought of the many ways he could, perhaps even should, qualify his answer to that, but he dismissed them. He had come to trust Gabriel completely, even if, as Gabriel had said, he was dealing with him now with the 'safety off'. "Yes."

"Good." There was a rustle of cloth. "Shut your eyes." Peter did and Gabriel wrapped a soft, silken blindfold over his eyes and tied it behind his head firmly enough to keep there. He opened his eyes after it was in place. He could still see a little straight down, along the sides of his nose, but this was mainly symbolic anyway. He wondered if Gabriel knew how much a hood would have bothered him, reminded him of being betrayed by his brother, neutralized and abducted by the government. He had Nathan's memories, after all. Peter doubted that was it. Most likely the blindfold was merely convenient, as it left the rest of his face bare.

Gabriel guided him forward with a steady pressure between the shoulder blades; his left hand rested on Peter's left shoulder. He came around the front and kissed him. The sudden touch of lips on his own made Peter jump. The unexpected intimacy was surprising and left him more aware of his vulnerability like this. Gabriel hesitated and Peter kissed him back, signaling it was okay and he wasn't having second thoughts. His partner lifted off Peter's t-shirt, bringing it up over his head, careful not to disturb the blindfold.

Hands raised above his head, t-shirt not quite off, Peter felt Gabriel lean against him, touching him with his body. Peter felt his breath against his face and a moment later the teasing touch of his lips. Peter smiled, realizing Gabriel was giving him warning now rather than just ambushing him. He met the other man's mouth and gave a low moan of appreciation as their tongues slid across one another.

Peter pulled his hands out of the shirt and let them fall to Gabriel's shoulders. Gabriel broke the kiss and went down, apparently sitting on the bed for a moment. Peter's hands went to his sides. He guessed he wasn't supposed to be initiating contact. He heard the clink of the handcuffs and then felt the cool metal against his shoulder. Gabriel stood and murmured, "Now, where should I put these? Hands in front, or hands behind?" The chill material slid down his arm and then clicked over his left wrist.

Peter brought his right hand in front of him, hoping it didn't give offense to demonstrate a preference. Gabriel **had** asked, after all. Gabriel reached over and took his right, giving him a tug. Peter turned to face him. "Is there a safe word?" he asked as Gabriel fastened the other cuff over his right wrist.

"Yes. 'Stop'."

"That's a really common word." _I wonder if you have any idea what you're doing?_

He felt Gabriel's breath on his face again. "Then you won't have any trouble remembering it." His lips caressed Peter's for a moment. "You're with me?"

"Yes."

"You're okay with this?" Gabriel breathed the question to him, kissing his cheek and tugging on the short chain between the cuffs.

"Yes."

"You said I could choke you." He nipped Peter's jaw. "Does that still stand?"

Peter hesitated, then said, "Yes."

"One last thing then… may I use telekinesis on you?"

Peter sucked in a slow breath and thought about that. Handcuffed, blind-folded and being sexed up wasn't really a fair time to be asking someone their preferences. Should he object on that basis alone, get his head clear and make the decision then? That would be smarter. Gabriel nuzzled his cheek very slowly, which was distracting as hell. He was asking for a lot all at once. What if he didn't know what he was doing? Peter had taken stupider plunges. _He'll stop if I tell him to_. "I trust you."

"I'm going to take that as a yes. Correct me if I'm wrong. Or if you change your mind. And if I hear you getting too worked up, I'm going to stop no matter what you say. Okay?"

Peter nodded, reassured by that.

Gabriel unfastened his pants and pushed them to the floor. Peter started to step out of them, but Gabriel said, "No. Leave them," and Peter did, feeling glad he had his hands in front of himself for balance.

The other man stepped away and presumably undressed. There was the rustle of clothing and when he moved back Peter could feel the slight heat from his bare body. Again, Gabriel telegraphed his presence before touching him, putting his hand to Peter's shoulder and sliding it down his bicep and then onto his back. He blew air against Peter's chest and then kissed him there, his right hand drifting down Peter's back to his buttocks, which he rubbed and grasped. He chewed at Peter's nipple, making him gasp and arch his back.

Peter felt his bunched-up pants shift a little and Gabriel brought his right hand back up to the middle of his back. He straightened, pushing Peter back. Peter tried to move his feet and keep his balance, only to find Gabriel had stepped between them, holding his pants to the floor. His ankles jerked on the fabric and he went over, yanking against the handcuffs in an instinctive attempt to catch himself. He didn't fall far before he was caught. Ostensibly it was by Gabriel's hand, but the pressure was too diffuse across his back. _There's the telekinesis._ Peter took a deep breath and relaxed.

After a long pause, Gabriel took his hand away, removing even the semblance that he was supported by anything else. Peter could imagine the other man looking at him, watching for his reaction. Once upon a time Peter had forbidden Gabriel from using this particular ability on him because he'd had so many bad experiences with it. Now he nodded. His body wasn't locked up or prevented from moving, only supported and kept from falling.

Gabriel moved in front of him and leaned over him to kiss his face. His hands moved restlessly over Peter's body, tweaking and fondling. Peter moaned, feeling a wave of sensation pass through him at his helpless state. It was an illusion – he wasn't helpless and he knew that – but he was surrendering and that was what he felt. He relaxed. He gave up to it. He trusted Gabriel to hold him securely and keep him safe.

Gabriel bit the underside of his chin, pulling at the skin. He put his hands on Peter's shoulders and pulled him upright again, then urged him to turn with pressure from his hands and a nudge on the side of his leg from Gabriel's knee. Peter obediently shuffled to the side. Gabriel nudged him again and his shuffling brought him to the edge of the bed. He was steered onto it, sitting and then being pushed flat. Gabriel moved him further onto the bed and climbed next to him.

He bent over him and sucked one nipple and then the other. Peter crooned and brought his hands up to touch Gabriel's head lovingly, running his fingers through his hair as much as he could while limited by the cuffs. Gabriel sent a hand to join with his for a moment, then to trace the metal links holding him. A moment after, he sent it lower to caress Peter's organ. Peter breathed harder, through his mouth. He was stiffening.

Gabriel raised himself up and brought his hands back to himself. His right went to Peter's face. Peter felt fingertips slide along the blindfold, a light pressure on his lids. Peter made a small, helpless sound and the fingers traced down his nose to his lips. He parted them slightly and Gabriel slowly slid two digits inside. "Suck them," Gabriel whispered and Peter did, feeling the long fingers begin to move rhythmically over his tongue.

With his left hand, Gabriel urged Peter to raise his knees and part them, which he did. "Spit for me." He pulled his fingers from Peter's mouth and guided his head to the side. Apparently he transferred the expectorate because his hand came back to Peter's mouth and he continued, but this time with only his index finger. The other went to his anus, rubbing the wetness on him, preparing him. Peter tilted his head back, slackening his mouth and relaxing his muscles. Gabriel hooked his finger and ringed his mouth while he probed at his ass.

"Oh God, Peter. You are so beautiful right now." His voice sounded reverent. "_**So**_ beautiful."

Gabriel settled into a rhythm, moving both fingers simultaneously. Peter sucked at him and he worked a second into the mix. He wiggled his fingertips on both hands and Peter laughed, then grinned and went back to sucking. Gabriel began to work a third finger into him and he keened, arching his back and for a moment biting down – firmly, but not hard. He repeated the bite a second time, whining.

He wasn't open enough for it - he wasn't really ready. A trained partner would have recognized his signal and let him speak, or better yet understood what he was asking for and done it. Gabriel had no clue – they hadn't gone over the details of the scene or reviewed proper safety. Instead he curled his fingers in Peter's mouth and pulled his jaw open. It was gentle, but the wrong response. Peter kicked himself mentally, but left it alone. He focused on dealing with his problem in other ways. He didn't want to stop.

"Open for me, Peter," Gabriel crooned. "Open for me." He worked at his anus, rotating and pushing. It burned. Had his eyes been visible, the other man would have seen them glazed, but tight. He began to pant around the fingers in his mouth, slack-jawed, when all three of Gabriel's questing digits were fully inside him. His hips moved with the thrusts of the hand. Peter reached down for himself, but felt his hands guided away. At the time he didn't realize how impossible that was. "No," Gabriel said. "I'm the only one who gets to pleasure you tonight, Peter. Just me."

A strange pulse of pressure moved down the shaft of his cock and Peter arched again, moaning. He finally registered that Gabriel hadn't grown a third hand. The idea of having telekinesis used on him _this_ intimately was frightening. He knew Gabriel had done similar things to himself, so he was sure of the man's control, but still.

Gabriel spoke in a low, level tone, "It's okay, Pete. I've got you. I'm not going to hurt you. We can stop if you need it."

Peter shook his head slightly. He whimpered and felt a second wave of submission pass through him as he allowed the treatment. His ass was being plunged regularly, his cock was throbbing like it was inside a pulsating sleeve of gentle force and Gabriel's fingers continued to fill his mouth.

His breathing changed to a rough gasping as he felt his peak approaching. Gabriel pushed into him harder, jerking his hand against Peter's opening and making him cry out around the fingers in his mouth. His eyes tried to roll back in his head and he came powerfully in a series of hard spurts that faded to a dribble.

Gabriel didn't stop working him, though the intensity stepped back several notches. With the hand that had been in Peter's mouth, Gabriel cupped the side of his face and stroked his cheek with his thumb. He bent to kiss him. Peter opened his mouth compliantly, mewling in the back of his throat as Gabriel continued to gently massage his anus.

"You belong to me," Gabriel leaned further, whispering in his ear. "Say it."

Peter felt a third wave of surrender go through him at the command and he answered immediately, slurring slightly, "I belong to you." His brain was fogged; his higher functions suspended. Gabriel told him to say it. He said it. That was all that mattered.

Gabriel growled deep in his chest and put his forehead down on Peter's shoulder as his own passion moved strongly through him. He'd wanted to hear Peter say that forever. He _needed_ it. He lifted his head and said roughly, commanding, "You're mine. Say it."

"I'm yours."

Gabriel panted and finally removed his fingers from Peter's ass. He hesitated for a long moment, looking down at Peter's body. He wanted him. He _**had**_ him. Peter was his in oh so many ways, something he'd been trying to get and trying to gain within his grasp. Here was Peter, helpless before him, his mind too addled with sex to resist anything he might want to do to him. Gabriel shivered involuntarily as he felt the Hunger that was always there wrap more firmly around the edges of his consciousness.

He could add Peter to his collection. In his current state it would be simple to roll his mind and take him; open him, flay him and absorb his essence and then no matter what happened, a part of Peter would always be with him. He'd know him even more intimately than Nathan had. He'd have everything about Peter: his memories, a construct of his personality, his ability and his likeness (though he wasn't stupid enough to think he'd be allowed to keep such a monstrosity). And yet, he would have lost something precious. He would have lost Peter's trust.

As forgiving as the younger Petrelli was (and he might well forgive even that gross a violation), it would change things between them. A distant but rational part of Gabriel's mind reminded him that despite all Peter's promises of staying with him through thick and thin, he'd left him abruptly over the deaths of a few people Gabriel hadn't even killed personally, and some light, well-intended emotional manipulation. If he left again, he might not come back.

All those promises had been no more than empty words, bitter dregs that Gabriel had supped on night after lonely night while Peter was away. But he'd learned so much from Peter and one of those things was forgiveness. He forgave Peter for what he'd done and he forgave him for his words not always matching to his actions.

Maybe Peter would forgive him even this trespass, if he did it. But even if he did, Gabriel would know that he'd betrayed a trust deeper than any he'd ever been gifted with. He would have done _wrong_ and done it to the person who loved him when he shouldn't have. He would have proven right all those who tried to tell Peter that Sylar couldn't be redeemed, who continued to treat him like he was a dangerous psychopath. The person who would be broken would be Gabriel, not Peter.

He bent and kissed him softly, tenderly, on the forehead and then the nose, briefly on the lips, then the chin and finally the sternum and over Peter's heart. He already had Peter in his collection. There was no need to take him in any material way, not as long as he had him like this – this completely and totally his. The Hunger faded, and for this person, for Peter, it vanished. The whole internal debate had taken merely forty-three seconds, as his ever-reliable time-sense informed him. It had seemed like so much longer. Peter whined softly, uncomfortable about Gabriel's prolonged pause, oblivious to the dark thoughts of his lover and to how important a change his cooperation had wrought.

Peter felt his pants come off his ankles and Gabriel moved between his legs, lifting him and holding him in position with telekinesis. Peter was too far gone to care about the TK. Gabriel's swollen penis was in the cleft of Peter's buttocks. He reached down and hugged Peter's lower body to him, his hands massaging his rear and the small of his back. He hunched against him, whispering Peter's name.

"Peter, Peter, Peter. I love you, Peter Petrelli. Pete. I love you. I want you. I need you. I have you. You belong to me. You're mine. I love you. I want you to love me. I need you to love me… someone who knows what I am and what I've done and still thinks I'm worth loving, I'm worth something… who doesn't want to kill me or fuck with me or torture me or hurt me. You love me. That's… that's…" He bowed his head against Peter's abdomen and sighed against him, still humping him slowly. Peter whimpered. He was hard again. Endearments tended to do that to him.

Gabriel straightened. He scooped up Peter's cum and spat copiously, then slicked his organ with the mixture and positioned himself. He pushed into the man and Peter whined in response, his head lolling back as his body enveloped Gabriel's organ. It didn't burn this time – he was still relaxed and receptive. Without a normal lubricant though, there was a lot of friction. Gabriel held his hips for leverage and slowly increased his tempo, watching Peter's face. A fine sheen of sweat covered him.

Peter felt his airway restricting as Gabriel thrust faster and harder. At first his breathing merely labored, but then it became actually difficult to breathe. He knew this was Gabriel's doing and under other circumstances he might have objected strongly. He didn't now. His body struggled weakly, but his mind made one last submission to Gabriel's dominance, giving himself over entirely. _Anything, anything you want._

Gabriel moved Peter's hips up a little more until his penis was directly prodding his prostate. Given that he'd just climaxed, it almost hurt. With the repeated hard thrusts against it, it was soon aching. He didn't resist the pain any more than the asphyxiation. He just let it flow through him, grunting and mewling each time Gabriel rammed into him. His brows drew together from the overwhelming sensation and he made inarticulate begging sounds with what air he could get.

Peter could feel, distantly, that Gabriel had invaded his mind as well. He had no defenses to speak of, having opened himself in every way. This last transgression didn't matter any more than the others. He couldn't speak or even formulate a coherent thought to tell him to stop, which was exactly why Gabriel was in his head. Had Peter been able, he wouldn't have. His own desires were so detached as to be impossible for him to understand at the moment.

He had gone entirely into subspace, experiencing a sympathetic nervous system response to being dominated. His bloodstream was flooded with endorphins. He trembled with the force of it.

The pressure on his throat ratcheted up another notch. As Peter strangled, Gabriel reached down to stroke Peter's organ. Tears flowed out of his eyes, dampening the silk of the blindfold. His sobs of pleasure were choking gasps. His skin flushed as Gabriel continuing to hammer against his prostate relentlessly until Peter shook with the agony of it. He came so hard he lost touch with everything except the blinding white light of the orgasm. It was like the top of his head was blown off. He came back to himself dimly, the world fading out when, in a blessed release, Gabriel came as well. Peter took in a long, ragged breath as the pressure on his throat was finally relieved.

Gabriel pulled out of him and rolled Peter onto his side. He was limp and shaking, uncoordinated and incoherent. Gabriel lifted him gently with telekinesis and put them both under the sheets, spooning behind him. He hooked his thumb under the blindfold and tugged it off, but Peter's eyes were glassy and unseeing. His brain was still essentially disconnected. Gabriel hugged him, kissing his neck and shoulder over and over again, murmuring endearments and compliments and loving words. Peter finally blinked, feeling a wave of exhaustion pass through him.

The handcuffs released of their own accord and were whisked off to the nightstand. With one last peck, Gabriel projected into his mind, "_Rest_." He rested. He might have even slept.

An undefined amount of time later, Peter felt Gabriel jerk behind him and the man clutched him tightly, pulling him abruptly out of his slumber. Gabriel scrabbled at him with almost convulsive motions and then made a sound like a hoarse, gasping sob. Gabriel whined, "Nnnoo!" and his arms moved again blindly. Peter could feel a deep ache of isolation and desolation pouring out of the other man. He put up his mental barriers and tried to block out the glimpses of nightmare that came through to him – something about an empty city and the passage of years alone and abandoned.

Peter rolled to face him, to comfort him, as Gabriel began to sob again in his sleep. The motion startled him though and he grabbed Peter forcefully, his fingers clamping down with dangerous purpose as his eyes flew open.

Gabriel stared at him and blinked several times. "Peter? You're not… you're not here. You're not real."

"I'm here. I'm real," he said softly, holding in place while Gabriel processed that he wasn't part of the nightmare he'd just been having. "You're not alone."

"Oh God." He looked between his hands, relaxing his grip to a normal level. "Don't leave me!" He rubbed Peter slightly, feeling the solidity of his flesh and the reality of his presence.

"I won't."

Gabriel's head snapped back up and he searched Peter's face. "Was that okay? Is it okay - what happened, what I did to you? Are you…" _still mine?_ He couldn't articulate that last part though. It would sound weird. Peter wouldn't understand.

"It's fine. You were good. It wasn't too much." It had been a lot. Much, much further than any partner had gone with Peter before, further than he would have imagined going even with Gabriel. But it hadn't been too much. He'd trusted Gabriel and Gabriel had been gentle and careful with him. He'd expected to be sore after having been used so hard, but regeneration had taken care of that.

Gabriel put his head down on Peter's shoulder and took deep, heaving breaths. Peter could feel his eyelashes flutter against his skin. He reached over with his right hand and stroked Gabriel's side. He craned his neck a little and kissed the top of his head. "It's okay," he soothed. "Bad dream?"

"Yeah." Gabriel swallowed and lifted his head. He finally let go of Peter and rolled away, but kept one hand on Peter as if to reassure himself of his presence. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. "The sex was fantastic, by the way. Thank you so much."

Peter smiled lazily and put his hand on top of Gabriel's to give comfort. "I think I should be thanking you. I don't think I've come that hard ever. Either time. Now I understand what they mean about coming so hard you pass out. I didn't think that was possible for someone who was basically healthy. I do now."

"You didn't pass out." Gabriel reached out to brush his fingertips along Peter's skin. "I was watching you. You didn't lose consciousness. You weren't feeling anything else, but you didn't lose consciousness."

Peter nodded. "Thank you for taking care of me. I used to be afraid of letting you be in total control."

"Are you now?"

Peter laughed. "Would I have done what we just did if I were? God, Gabriel, I let you strangle me and I wasn't even fighting it." He looked at Gabriel, who seemed to be weighing his words. Just in case he wanted to be sure with lie detection, Peter added, "No, I'm not afraid of letting you be in complete control. Now I might get tired of it if that's all we do from now on because that's a little further than I think I want to go normally, but I'm not afraid of what you'll do to me."

As an afterthought Peter tacked on, "Oh, don't open my brain or anything like that. Don't make me bleed." He shivered. He knew that in that state, he wouldn't stop Gabriel. He'd let him and it wasn't what he wanted to wake up and remember experiencing. Or have to clean up. He had no idea that what they had done had removed the need entirely.

"I won't," was all Gabriel said.

Peter nodded, his mind shying away from the fact that with his regeneration, all sorts of sick things were possible and he'd be good as new within minutes. Instead he brought up, "You know when I bit you, twice?" Gabriel nodded. "If we're having sex like this and I do something like that twice - bite you, squeeze your hand, make two short loud sounds, anything like that - it means slow down, you're going too fast, let me catch up. Okay?" He looked back and forth between Gabriel's eyes, hoping he took the criticism as constructive. Gabriel nodded, so Peter went on, "Three times means stop. There's a color system too – red means stop, green means keep going, yellow means-"

Gabriel interrupted with, "Go very fast."

Peter stared at him blankly. That was vaguely familiar, but the wrong answer.

"Starman?" Gabriel supplied.

"Yes!" Peter said brightly as it clicked.

"You've seen it?"

"Yeah, long time ago. We ought to put that on the movie schedule."

Gabriel said, "Something to balance out that Disney dreck the ladies put on it."

Peter shrugged. He didn't mind the current list, but he didn't want to derail the conversation further by revisiting the group's choices for movie night. "Well… yeah. But yellow means slow down."

"Of course." Gabriel turned his hand to twine his fingers with Peter's. "I'll watch for that in future. I really enjoy it when you're rough with me, you know? I don't mind if you make me bleed. I want you to hurt me sometime, make it hurt."

Peter snorted softly. "I… Listen, I'll do my best to give you what you want, but I don't know if I'm up for some of that. I just don't think I can bring myself to go as far as you want. Is that all right?"

"I'm happy with whatever I get."

Peter sighed a little. That sounded patronizing. Or pathetic, which Gabriel hadn't been, recently. Gabriel rolled over on his side and kissed Peter's shoulder, elaborating, "I'm happy with what I'm getting now, every night with you, even when we don't do anything."

Peter grinned suddenly. "That hasn't happened in a while." They'd been ridiculously active lately. Wasn't it a couple months ago Noah Bennet had told them they were in a 'honeymoon phase' and it would fade soon? It looked like he might have been wrong. Or at least that phase wasn't showing any signs of slowing down yet.

Gabriel chuckled. "No, it hasn't, and I'm thrilled. But anyway, I want you to know I'm satisfied and anything extra is just extra. If you can't do something, that's fine." He kissed Peter again. "I have limits too. You accommodate me. Let me do the same for you."

Peter nodded. "Can we still have normal sex sometimes though?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good. Because don't think I haven't noticed you're working on me. This is some kind of twelve step program to modify Peter Petrelli's limits on sex." He looked at Gabriel, who gave him a knowing, mischievous smile. Peter returned it. "It's working. I really understand what you meant, early on, when you said I wasn't ready. If you'd tried this on me then…" He shook his head and chuckled. "You've been really patient with me. I'll do my best for you."

Gabriel rolled towards him and kissed him on the lips. "You always do, Peter. You always do."


	213. Losing Your Religion

Peter came in to find Gabriel kicked back on the sofa with his laptop hanging in mid air in front of him. He closed it. Next to him on the floor was a glass of water and a package of Oreos. Peter grinned. He walked over and pulled a chair out of the dining room. He swung it around backwards and straddled it, resting his arms on the top and looking at Gabe.

The former serial killer was still lying as he had before, but he'd crossed his arms. After a moment, he said, "I was talking to someone today and they said that I needed to 'accept that I'm not entitled to forgiveness.'"

Peter reacted immediately, feeling protective of his lover. "Who said that? They're wrong. Everyone deserves to be forgiven. If we don't forgive people, then the whole world would be at war."

Gabriel pondered that, looking off into the middle distance. He pointed out, "'Deserved' is not the same thing as 'entitled.'"

"No, of course not," Peter snapped. "But the meaning's the same."

"Is it?" Gabriel gave him such a piercing look that Peter finally paused and looked past his desire to defend Gabriel, to think about what he was saying.

More slowly, Peter answered, "You're right. They're not the same." He thought about it some more and said, "Okay." He sighed. "Yes, technically, with the very literal way you tend to look at what people say, you're right. You're not _entitled_ to forgiveness. No one is. The world doesn't owe you or anyone else an apology. Or an acceptance of yours." He pursed his lips and forged on, "But forgiveness is _accessible_ to everyone. It's available, even if it might be tough to find a mortal agency to give it. That's the nature of Grace."

"Grace as in God's Grace?"

Peter nodded.

Gabriel frowned. "But I don't believe. Can you explain why people deserve forgiveness in a context that doesn't reference religion?"

_You're not asking for much, are you?_ Peter thought sardonically. He sighed, blinked several times and looked away. He'd wanted to have a conversation instead of sex, but he'd been planning on talking about their relationship and laying out the groundwork a little better on what they would and wouldn't do or put up with from each other. He hadn't expected a weighty philosophical discussion instead. He thought about it a bit.

"Okay," Peter began, "if you rule out divinity, then I guess I'd say we deserve to be treated with respect. Not because someone is strong enough to force others to grant it, but because it's the decent thing to do. It's the right thing to do."

Gabriel drummed his fingers on his arm, obviously suppressing a smirk. "We deserve it because we deserve it, is that it?"

Peter huffed. "I'm not a priest or a philosopher, Gabriel. I'm just a guy who tries to do the right thing."

"Why?"

"Why?" Peter said in disbelief.

"Yes, why do you try to do the right thing? Why forgive someone?"

"Someone like you?"

"Yes, but it could be anyone. I can imagine a lot of self-serving reasons for why you've forgiven me. They make more sense than a circular argument inspired by an imaginary figure."

Peter glared at him, then rose and paced a bit. "Don't mock my faith, Gabriel," he said quietly, when he had his temper under control again.

"Okay," the other man said simply and immediately. Peter peered at him uncertainly, but finally decided he wasn't being sarcastic.

"What are these self-serving reasons?" Peter asked, his tone still challenging and dark.

"You haven't answered my question," Gabriel pointed out.

Peter exhaled and tried to remember what it even was. "Why… do I try to do the right thing?" Gabriel nodded. Peter sat back down and popped his neck once. The conversation made him tense. He'd rather be talking about sex. He was more in control then. Right now he felt like he was stumbling through dimly lit, unfamiliar terrain, trying to discuss morality with a partly reformed serial killer. "Because it makes me feel good about myself. Is that self-serving enough for you?"

Gabriel cocked his head like Peter had said something interesting. He sat up and leaned forward. "Do you know _why_ it makes you feel good about yourself?"

Peter shrugged. "I've never really thought about it, but I'd guess for the same reason we love each other. People, that is. Anyone who loves someone else - a parent for their child, a neighbor, a co-worker, a lover. You like that person and you want them to be happy. So you try to do the right thing by them."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed to slits. Peter's started to narrow as well, but he caught himself and stopped it. He glanced away and to the side. Gabriel said, "And you think everyone deserves to be loved?"

"Yes."

"Huh." Gabriel's fingers drummed again, this time against his knee as he leaned forward. "So you think that people deserve to be forgiven because they deserve to be loved. They _should_ be forgiven, but they're not entitled to it. So a person can't expect it, or ask for it, even though if everyone else was as decent as you think they are… or should be," he amended at an abortive motion from Peter, "then they'd grant it."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"That pre-supposes a level of decency in people that puts them above being just a sack of meat with a collection of instincts and hormones directing them."

Peter frowned, then laughed. "Yeah, you know, it does. You're totally right."

Gabriel adopted a tight grin. "And you, of course, believe everyone has that level of decency?"

"Yes, I think they do. That doesn't mean they can't willfully ignore it. Like whoever said that to you." Peter shook his head. "I think they had to be saying that to be mean, to hurt you. Probably because you hurt them. Who said that to you anyway?" It seemed like a stupid thing to say to Gabriel's face. He wondered what, if anything, had happened to whoever had said it. He was pretty sure the answer was 'nothing,' but not certain. He didn't want to ask that, for fear of appearing to doubt Gabriel's ability to control his temper.

"It doesn't matter," Gabriel muttered, looking away.

"It matters to **me**."

"Peter, I killed nearly a hundred people. Every one of them had family, friends and loved ones, not to mention complete strangers who might merely be offended by what I did and that I'm still alive and relatively free. There is no shortage of people who might say vicious, or perhaps fitting, things to me."

Peter looked away for a long beat, then back. Sylar's past was something they'd never talked about, but… maybe this was a good time to tackle something he'd been wondering about for a while now. "Yeah. You're right. Every person you killed, deserved to live. Their lives… had a basic value… as human beings. They were valuable. You _**do**_ see that, don't you?"

Gabriel gave him a withering look and didn't answer.

_Is it possible he doesn't?_ "Gabe?" Peter let a note of hurt and concern creep into his voice.

"If I did not have _some_ regard for the value of human life, there would be a lot less of it around, Peter."

Peter snorted. _You arrogant bastard_, he thought, simultaneously angry and amused at Gabriel's presumption that he'd get away with mass murder. "People would stop you, because it's the right thing to do."

"Please. They would not. They'd stop me out of fear that they, or someone they loved, might be next."

"That too," Peter said, nodding. "You're human too. No matter what you've done or what you do, your life has that same basic value. You don't lose it because you do bad things. You deserve to live. And if you ask for forgiveness, and you're sincere, you're repentant… you deserve the opportunity to get it." He swallowed and looked away, blinking again for a different reason. "Not forgiving someone who has hurt you is like not removing a thorn from your foot because you didn't put it there. The thorn hurts regardless of how it got there, and if you don't remove it, it just keeps hurting. The one to grant forgiveness does it for themselves, not their transgressor."

"Selfish reasons again," Gabriel said dismissively.

Peter shrugged slightly. "I never said they weren't."

"And, I'm not human," Gabriel said. Peter stared at him blankly, taking a moment to realize he meant the whole 'evolved' angle. "Neither are you," Gabriel pointed out.

Peter scoffed. "Are you going to tell me that makes us superior?"

"No." Gabriel laughed hollowly. "We're different. Useless mutants. Freaks of nature. If the herd had any sense, if they recognized us for what we were, they'd hunt us down and get rid of us. We're threats. Dangers."

Peter blinked at him, startled. He'd been expecting Sylar's very well documented mantra about the superiority of specials, not Nathan's diatribe about being a freak. "You… you believe that?"

"I believe that by and large, people are too stupid to know or do the right thing. They deserve what they get."

"And what do you deserve?"

"I don't deserve what I've got, that's for damn sure. Anymore than I deserved my ability. Good things happen randomly. So do a lot of the bad ones. That's why I'm so thankful for what I have. I…" He fell silent.

"_You_ don't think you deserve to be forgiven."

Gabriel looked away and said nothing, but it was obvious.

"That's why that comment bothered you? That's why you want to find a selfish reason for me loving you? Because you don't think you deserve forgiveness or love… or your ability, and because you don't have any faith in yourself, you can't have faith in anything else."

Gabriel stared at the floor, seeing something far removed from the room they were in, in both space and time. Peter waited quietly. After a while, Gabriel looked up and focused on Peter, but didn't speak. Peter said, "There's a quote from Mother Teresa that Emma has on her wall at work. It's kind of long, but essentially it says that even though the world is evil, it doesn't mean a person shouldn't still strive to be good. Because it's not about the world. It's about _you_. You're _trying_ to be good."

"Yeah, right." The sarcasm was plain.

Peter's brows drew together. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing I can explain."

"I want to know," Peter pressed.

"Then get comfortable with not knowing, because I don't know either. I'm still trying to figure it out."

"Figure what out?"

Gabriel gave him a brief glare. Peter knew he was pushing too much, or at least further than Gabriel wanted. But Gabriel did answer him: "I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life - a mission, a purpose. Or if I don't have one at all and just live my life like everyone else, one day after another, doing what I can, whatever seems like a good idea at the time."

Peter considered that. "That's all anyone does."

"You used to think you were destined for something greater, something noble, because of your abilities. They made you special, set you apart, meant it was your job to save people. You were a hero."

Peter gave him a lop-sided smile. Gabriel was getting good at dredging out what he wanted from Nathan's memories. He said flippantly, "Yeah? Maybe I still am." Gabriel narrowed his eyes at Peter briefly, then looked away, shaking his head.

Peter went on more seriously, "And what did I manage with that anyway? I nearly blew up New York. Then, because apparently that wasn't bad enough, I nearly released a virus that would have killed… I don't know, 99% of the population or something like that. Some destiny. It's more like I'm destined to screw things up. Then I lost my powers and I realized I could still save people, just like anyone else. And I was good at it. So that's what I do now. It's _still_ my job to save people, but it doesn't have anything to do with abilities. It was _always_ my job to save people. The abilities just complicate things."

"What if you had? Done one of those things, like blow up New York or release a terrible disease. Would you still think you were a good person?"

"I never said I was a good person. I hope I am, but that's not really for me to judge."

Gabriel pressed his lips together in a thin line. "Okay, then to rephrase. If you did something with your abilities that hurt a lot of people, would you still think you deserved forgiveness?"

Now Peter saw where he was going with it. He shut his eyes for a moment and exhaled slowly. When he opened them he said, "Honestly? Yes. It might take me a little while to forgive myself, but I'd move on. I know that… me stranding Caitlin in the future isn't the same as what you've done, been driven to do-"

Peter hesitated, because Gabriel looked like he was going to interrupt, but then the other man shook his head and gestured for Peter to go on. "But I've tried to make my peace with what happened. It's like making a bad call in medicine. You do the best job you can, but you have to be able to accept that you'll make mistakes. And sometimes people will die or have their lives ruined because of those mistakes. If you can't accept that, then you won't last as a paramedic, or a doctor, or a lot of things."

Gabriel touched his index finger to his upper lip briefly, studying Peter. Finally he said, "I never thought of your… forgiveness in relation to your work."

"I was a hospice nurse before that, you know. Sometimes you have to watch people die and accept that that's the way it is. It's your role to help them pass with as much dignity as possible."

Gabriel pondered that, then began to struggle with his expression. He covered his mouth and looked down, but was clearly suppressing laughter.

"What is so funny?"

"I am so awful, Peter." He was still chortling. Peter huffed, but Gabriel had a strange sense of humor, he knew. Finally Gabriel said, "That hasn't exactly been my role. I was, ah, a little more actively involved."

Peter stood up and Gabriel's eyes snapped to him, his expression freezing, afraid he'd gone too far, revealed something of himself that Peter would find offensive. Peter did find it offensive, but a lot of humor was. Leave it to Sylar to have a black sense of it. He shrugged it off and headed to the kitchen. "Want something to drink?"

"Sure," Gabriel said, all traces of levity gone.

Peter poked his head out of the kitchen and said, "Hey, it's okay."

"Sure," Gabriel said again, in the same tone.

Peter sighed, but got out two bottles of water. "Water okay?"

"Of course."

_Well, at least he didn't say 'sure' again, _Peter thought. He walked back out and handed off the extra bottle to a man wearing a distant, politely blank expression. Peter did not like that. The emotional withdrawal was unnecessary and annoying. He'd gotten tired of it months ago and he wasn't about to let Gabriel pull that crap again now that they were so much closer.

Peter stepped up next to him and ran his hand through Gabriel's hair, intentionally making a mess of it. Gabriel held still and let him, but there was the very slightest narrowing of his eyes as he looked up at Peter. Peter smirked at him. "I'm going to make you look silly," he threatened, trying to make spikes of Gabriel's hair.

Gabriel yanked his head away from him. "Stop it," he said, teeth together.

Peter reached over and ran his fingers under Gabriel's jaw. In his most seductive voice, he said, "Make me."

Gabriel's eyes flashed at him and for a moment Peter thought he'd triggered much, much more than he could handle. Gabriel stood slowly, a world of threat rising with him. With an effort, Peter stood his ground, even though they were only inches apart. Very quietly (though he could have whispered and Peter would have heard him perfectly), Gabriel asked, "Is this a game?"

Peter swallowed. There seemed to be a lot of static electricity in the air. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck felt like they were standing straight up. Nevertheless, he got out, "I was trying to flirt with you - lighten the mood."

The pressure Peter had felt hammering against his chest relented suddenly. "Ah," Gabriel said, visibly relaxing. He shifted his stance somewhat, which Peter hadn't even noticed when the other man had stood. Gabriel reached out slowly towards Peter's face, his expression softening. The taller man leaned in, lips pursing for a kiss, when an arc of electricity snapped between his hand and Peter's chin.

"Ow!" Peter jerked back, remembering how often Elle had pulled that stunt on him. He'd put up with it from her mainly because he'd been trapped. He looked at Gabriel, who was already apologizing.

"Sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that. I just got upset and it hadn't grounded out yet. I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

Peter laughed a little and rubbed his chin. "Yes, I'm fine. It's okay." He leaned back towards his lover. It was one way to lighten the mood, all right. "Now, it looked like you were going to kiss me?"

Gabriel relaxed more and put a hand to Peter's shoulder. "Yes, please." He leaned in and completed the act, this time with sparks of an entirely metaphorical kind.


	214. Losing Your Cool

They shared slow, gentle kisses as Peter felt Gabriel relax under his hands. He curled them around the taller man's back and shoulders, drawing him against him. Gabriel bent to him and seemed to lose himself in the moment. Finally Peter pulled away and tugged the other man along with him. "Come on. Bedroom. I want to give you a blow job."

Gabriel followed him without any other reaction, which Peter would remember later. At the moment he was too busy anticipating Gabriel's so-strong response to him. He undressed; Gabriel followed suit. Peter had him sit on the bed, which Gabriel went to obediently. That too was odd, but again he didn't click to it. Peter tossed a pillow in front of him for padding and to give him a precious extra inch of height. He knelt on it between Gabriel's knees.

Gabriel wound his hand into Peter's hair immediately and tightened, stopping him from going at it. With his free hand he stroked the side of Peter's face, softening what would have otherwise been a harsh act. He rubbed his thumb down Peter's forehead, over his nose and across his lips. Peter shivered and shut his eyes, letting Gabriel hold him in place. He realized he was rushing things a little. He took a deep breath and slowed down. The hand in his hair loosened at that and began to thread through his hair, smoothing it back out.

Peter glanced up at Gabe's hair, which was still in disarray from earlier. He smiled a little. Gabriel _did_ look silly. He probably didn't want to know that though. The other man's expression was thoughtful as he continued to caress Peter's face and head. Gabriel nodded finally and said, "Okay." He moved his hands to Peter's shoulders, obviously signaling he could continue now.

Peter kissed along the top of his thigh and over his hip, one hand cupping and fondling his organ. Gabriel wasn't hard in the least, but they'd been arguing earlier and they hadn't done so much kissing as to ensure a response. He worked over the soft, warm skin of Gabriel's stomach until he came to the line of fuzzy hair leading down from his navel. Peter let his mouth follow that down as his hands shifted to the man's legs and massaged lightly.

"You're very good at this," Gabriel murmured.

"Mm," Peter replied. Gabriel petted his head, then moved his hands away when Peter licked his organ. Gabriel made a noise that might have been a grunt. Peter took him into his mouth, rolling him with his tongue and sucking. Now the sound was definitely a groan. He hardened fast under Peter's ministrations. Peter brought one hand in to grip the base while he bobbed and hollowed his cheeks. Gabriel groaned again and moved his hands fitfully across Peter's shoulders. It was almost like he was trying to stop him.

Peter tilted down a little so he could roll his eyes up and see the man's expression. Gabriel was his. He was totally Peter's at that moment. He wasn't the scary killer who had stood up to Peter with frightening intent only minutes before. He was a man who loved him and was entirely at Peter's mercy. Peter pulled off and licked the tip, watching Gabriel's slight twitches and starts with each swipe of his tongue. He also looked vaguely uncomfortable, like it was too much.

"Peter, I can't- Uh, here. Stand up, turn around." Gabriel swallowed roughly. "I'm ready for you."

"Huh?"

Gabriel urged him up and turned him, summoning over the lube. He slicked himself and Peter, quickly enough that it seemed eager. He started to pull Peter back into his lap, but this time Peter stopped it and said, "Wait. That's too abrupt. Let me do it." He shifted back, feeling Gabriel's blunt cockhead slide between his cheeks and nudge at him. He reached back and aimed him a little better, then gasped as he felt him enter him. Gabriel ran his fingers up and down Peter's back, making him arch and push back harder than he'd intended. The pressure shot through him. After a moment to adjust, he pushed back again, taking as much as Gabriel could get in him in the position.

Gabe kissed his shoulder and wrapped his arms around Peter's front, finding his hard length and beginning to stroke with the hand that was still slippery with lubricant. His other hand roamed Peter's body, rubbing, caressing, fondling, tweaking and tugging, playing Peter like an instrument. With cock in his ass, his shaft being worked steadily and a hand pushing all of his buttons, Peter could feel he wouldn't last long.

Peter leaned back firmly against Gabriel, trying to sink down on him more, but he couldn't for some reason. He could feel Gabriel's chest hair scratching against his back though, and his lips on his shoulder and neck. As his peak approached, Gabriel bit him, then sucked, giving him love bite after love bite and one fast-fading hickey after another. He held Peter to him tightly, lovingly, possessively, working his organ like it was his own. Peter moaned and came with a hard jerk of his hips. Gabriel fell out of him, limp.

Peter froze. At that moment, his brain chose to finally put together all the slightly 'off' behaviors of the past few minutes. Gabriel hadn't been into it whatsoever. He'd become hard only due to the stimulation. His head, or rather his heart, wasn't in it. It was a double blow to Peter - first that he hadn't noticed and second that it was one-sided.

Gabriel pulled him back against him, switching his sucking and biting to nuzzling and small pecks, like nothing important had happened. Peter breathed and put his hand over Gabriel's, focusing on the man's emotions. There was affection and a variety of more distant feelings. He seemed content. Clearly absent was any arousal.

Peter twisted his upper body to look back at Gabriel, who took the opportunity to kiss his mouth. Peter pulled back after allowing a brief kiss. "No, wait. What's going on?"

Gabriel kissed him again, then his cheek. "Hm. Did you enjoy that?" he said, stubbornly pretending he didn't know what Peter was talking about.

Peter bristled a little. "Yes. I didn't realize I was alone in that until the end."

Gabriel nuzzled him more determinedly, holding him tighter, reacting to his partner's emotion even if he didn't feel such things through empathy like Peter did. "We were arguing. I was angry. It… wasn't the sort of thing that turns me on. I'll be okay later and I promise you I'll let you finish me then."

Peter relaxed and turned back, still sitting in his lap because Gabriel was holding him too firmly to let him be anywhere else without a fuss. "Okay." He lay back against him again, enjoying what aftermath of the orgasm that he still had. Gabriel stroked the skin of his stomach slowly and nibbled on his shoulder and showered him with a score of small affections. Peter let go of his disappointment. The bigger a deal he made out of it, the bigger an ass he was being about it.

Gabriel murmured, "Stress-induced performance issues."

Peter patted him. "It's okay, really."

"It better be," Gabriel said with half a laugh. "There's not much I can do about it."

"Oh, it's probably a good thing," Peter said. "My motives weren't exactly pure either."

"Mm. Tell me about your dark motives, Peter Petrelli." Gabriel nipped him hard enough to get a flinch.

"Ow. Stop that."

"Hrm." He pressed his teeth against Peter's skin, but Peter didn't try to escape it, so Gabriel didn't carry through. He kissed him instead. "You were saying?"

"You were angry at me, so I wanted to… I don't know, make you love me instead."

"Hm. Which would explain why you're particularly upset that I didn't respond as desired."

"I'm not upset!" Peter said in such a patently upset tone of voice that _both _of them laughed at it.

"Uh-huh. Got it."

Peter snorted. "Okay, okay. So yeah, it upset me a little. Surprised me, more like. You said _**I**_ was good. You _do_ realize you're good enough to fool an empath, right?"

Gabriel made a happy sound and kissed Peter again. "You weren't fooled for very long."

"It was long enough. Are you going to hold me here on your lap for much longer?" Peter wiggled in his grip.

"I like you like this," Gabriel said smugly. "You can't touch me very well and I can touch as much of you as I want. The only downside is that I can't kiss your face very well."

Peter twisted in his arms again and kissed him. He felt Gabriel's penis twitch under his buttocks and smiled slyly.

Gabriel's brows rose. "Hm. Maybe not so much later as I thought. You're very sexy." He kissed Peter's face several more times on the cheek and the point of his nose.

Peter kissed his mouth again, deeper and more passionate. He felt, because he was paying close attention, when he'd pushed too far. He backed off and hesitated. Gabriel moved forward again to rejoin him, warming again. When they parted, Gabriel said, "Don't be too aggressive. Let me carry that part. I am ridiculously attracted to you, Peter. All you have to do right now is make yourself available to me."

Peter's eyes were locked on Gabriel's lips. "I'm available." He brushed Gabriel's lips teasingly with his own. "To you." He did it again and Gabriel growled. "Right now." He repeated and this time Gabriel bit his lower lip as he pulled away, letting it go with a pop. "And forever."

Gabriel pulled Peter's face back to his and kissed him hard, then rolled him over on the bed and got behind him. Gabriel wasn't ready, but he was getting there. He leaned over Peter and ran his hands up and down his back. He curled them into claws on the way down and left red furrows in Peter's skin. Peter grunted and spread his legs a little more. He looked back over his shoulder, not very happy about the fingernails. Gabriel bent and kissed where the marks had been, then leaned forward and kissed Peter's mouth, cheek, side of his head, and then buried his face against the back of Peter's head. Mollified, Peter put his head back down.

Gabriel reached down and worked himself inside, just hard enough to do it. He grabbed Peter's hips and a few thrusts later he was stiff enough to do anything he needed. He leaned forward and took Peter's hands, holding his wrists against the bed on either side. Peter thought about that – probably another rape fantasy. He shook his ass a little and Gabriel shoved into him harder, pressing him to the bed. That confirmed it. Peter grinned against the bedspread and pushed back on his hands, making Gabriel put some effort into keeping him pinned. He struggled enough to keep the man occupied until he spent himself inside Peter.

Afterwards, they both climbed on the bed, facing each other, touching lightly with fingertips, their legs tangled together. Their breathing slowed and bodies calmed. Minutes passed where they did nothing but stare at each other. Peter admired Gabriel's eyes. The upper one (his right, because Gabe was lying on his left side) caught the light from the living room a little and was a rich golden brown. The lower was in more shadow and was a dark chocolate color. Peter smiled and touched his lover's jaw, following it to his pointy chin. He sighed happily.

"When I came here," Peter said finally, "I had intended to talk about our sex life, our limits, what we'd put up with from each other. Are you okay with talking about that now?"

"Mm. Sure." Gabriel's hand smoothed down the rounded curve of Peter's shoulder.

"Like… what you just did, the rape fantasy," Peter noted Gabriel's hand stopped moving entirely, like he'd been frozen in time, "that was okay. I'm fine with that. You've handled that really well with me. Thank you."

Gabriel blinked a couple times and started breathing again. He pulled his hand back though. Peter let his fall to Gabe's chest and scratched at his wiry chest hair. Gabriel relaxed a little more and stuck his chest out a bit.

Peter smiled and kept at it. He said, "I don't want you to go much further though. Don't talk to me about it. I don't think I'll be able to handle hearing what you're thinking is going on, or rather, what you're fantasizing about."

Gabriel tensed again and this time he pulled back his right leg. He stayed silent. Peter looked up at his hair. It was a mess. He still looked silly.

Abruptly Gabriel said with great sincerity, "Peter, for what happened last October, you have my most abject apologies. I am so sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I know that now. At the time I was… confused."

Peter stroked up and down his sternum, trying to soothe. He thought about what he wanted to say to that, and said, "I forgive you. I know you didn't mean to."

Gabriel shook his head, pulling back every part from touching Peter, but not quite pulling away from Peter's hand on his chest. He spoke firmly. "Peter, I don't do things like that by accident. I'm in control of myself. I'm responsible."

If Peter hadn't still been touching him, he'd of thought Gabriel was angry. As it was, he knew he was afraid. "It's okay. The Hunger was driving you-"

Gabriel scooted back and sat up, tense and wound up suddenly, breathing hard. "I'm in control of the Hunger!" he insisted. "What happened then was _**my**_ fault!" He bared his teeth and gathered himself.

"Okay, I accept that, I forgive you. It's over. It's past." Peter paused for a breath and forged on quickly, grasping for a way to calm Gabriel down, "Come here. I want to comb your hair."

Gabriel's head snapped up. "What?"

Peter touched his shoulder with a brief contact, ending it before Gabriel could pull away from him. He confirmed though that the man was still feeling more fear than anger. That kept Peter from responding in kind. "I want to comb your hair. Will you let me? I messed it up earlier, remember?"

Gabriel searched his face for a long moment, then touched his own hair uncertainly. He relaxed a little, looking confused. "I… yes?"

"Good." Peter moved around behind Gabriel slowly, not wanting to spook him. He summoned the brush they'd both been using from the dresser. He put his hand carefully on Gabriel's shoulder and settled in place, putting his knees on either side of Gabriel's hips. He paused to kiss the back of Gabriel's head and felt his tenseness ease a bit more. Peter began combing his hair out, doing it very slowly and very thoroughly. Gabriel sagged into it after a while, making subtle, but appreciative rumblings.

At the end, Gabriel twisted and hugged him. "I guess I'm… I don't know, excitable? Something," he muttered. He was calmer now, but Peter didn't want to go anywhere near the former subject. Gabriel had been bothered by his many sins all day. Reminding him of another had not been wise.

Sometimes Peter forgot that Gabriel had been as upset about the encounter as Peter – perhaps more so. On the one hand, Peter had been assaulted, but on the other, Gabriel had been having sex with someone he felt very strongly about, someone who he was desperate for approval from, and he'd lost control of himself - control that was so important to him he couldn't admit he didn't have it - and raped and nearly killed Peter. Peter thought he was mostly blameless for the episode, but Gabriel still carried his guilt with him.

Peter hugged him back, then changed the subject. It seemed safer. "So, tell me about your plans for the weekend." They spent the rest of the night on lighter subjects, talking and eventually sleeping.


	215. Martyr Syndrome

Gabriel stood in the archway that led to the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest, leaning on the counter. He was watching as Peter sat at the table with a five pound bag of apples in front of him and a dozen eggs. Peter was eating the apples, one after another. It was remarkable to watch, really. He'd put the fruit to his mouth, open wide, and push. The apples tended to be larger than his mouth, but it didn't seem to matter. They disappeared into his maw without a problem. His throat didn't move except for the occasional reflexive action. He wasn't actually swallowing anything. The apple was just _gone_.

Gabriel supposed it wasn't the strangest manifestation of an ability he'd ever heard of.

The taller man hugged himself a little tighter, dropping his chin and regarding Peter steadily. There was something off-key about his song – that music of life Gabriel could hear, a sort of aural aura he picked up as a side effect of Samson Grey's version of Intuitive Aptitude. Peter didn't sound quite right. He wasn't as loud as he usually was. He'd been off for the last week or so. It was getting worse.

Sometimes Peter's song was so distracting Gabriel couldn't help but want to make him his. Originally he'd held the Hunger at bay with Nathan's memories of his brother. After those began to fail him and Nathan's identity had fractured in his mind, he'd fallen back on Maury Parkman's command not to endanger Peter. When Peter removed that obstacle, he'd dealt with the desire by touching and owning and pulling memories out of Peter's hair and skin. It was a pale imitation of the depth of information he'd get if he ever used Samson's ability on the man, but it was enough.

If he hadn't been able to be so close to Peter, frankly, he suspected his Hunger would have driven him to gain that knowledge in a more gruesome manner, but that wasn't the case. For the moment, the urge seemed dispelled. Peter was his and that was that. It lurked in the back of his mind though that this was not necessarily a permanent condition. He avoided letting his thoughts wander too far down that road. He didn't know what he'd do if it came to that. He hoped he'd do the right thing. He wasn't sure what that was, though.

Back to the matter at hand... he looked at Peter with a critical eye. Peter looked fine. _But on the other hand, _Gabriel reflected,_ I looked fine back before Christmas when I'd let him draw off so much life energy._ _He didn't seem to notice anything wrong with me and I'm pretty sure he was looking. I felt awful though. The regeneration masks it. _

He thought about the time when Heidi had cut off his powers in January. It had been a particularly grueling week and without the regeneration propping him up, he'd staggered and fallen, weak and bleeding and dizzy. Peter had been very thrown, just a week before, when he'd nullified him then. He wondered what would happen to Peter right now if he cut him off from regeneration. _How bad off is he?_

He looked fine on the outside, but from time to time his song was dissonant. It missed beats and skipped or seemed to slur before going back to normal. When it happened, Peter seemed to get distracted, like his brain was missing a beat too. Gabriel wasn't sure Peter was even aware of it.

He moved a hand to his chin, stroking the corner of his mouth with his index finger as his other hand cupped his elbow. He watched as Peter hesitated, three apples left. He moved the next one to his mouth more slowly. There was something vaguely sexual to the whole process, seeing Peter's lovely mouth stretch wide to accommodate such a dauntingly large object, then see the object taken in… _The part about it disappearing is a little off-putting, I have to admit. I wonder what would happen to a continuous object, like a… person's arm? This is going to be tough not to think about next time he gives me head._

Gabriel's finger stroked over his own lips speculatively as he watched Peter deal with the second to last fruit. It was fascinating, in a way. It brought to mind issues of capacity, being filled and stretched. It was amazing what the body could manage. He would have never thought a person could fit a bowling ball into a rectum, after all, if he hadn't done all that 'research' after Peter mentioned snowballing. It was amazing too, what sort of information was out there just lying around the internet. It gave him an interesting insight into Micah's too-mature-for-his-age personality.

The same thread of not-safe-for-work photographs where he'd found the bowling ball had featured a number of other graphic and unusual pictures, shocking to the average sensibility. Many of them involved death and dismemberment. He'd flipped past them with disinterest. He'd seen people die. He'd killed them with his own hands. He'd seen dozens of human beings go from being persons, unique and lively, to collections of bloody, meaty parts. The pictures of it held no attraction for him.

Peter balled up the plastic bag the apples had come in and threw it at the trash bin with a disgusted huff. It unfurled partway there and missed. Gabriel moved his fingers from his lips to flick the wrap into the bin with telekinesis. Peter didn't seem to notice. He was already staring at the eggs with an expression of revulsion, like he was having trouble bringing himself to eat them. It wasn't that he minded philosophically, so it had to be that he was getting 'full.' _Maybe there's a limit to how much he can consume?_

_That must be the case. Because otherwise, why is Fatima thin? Wouldn't she just eat a daily allotment of whatever live stuff she prefers and eat a regular diet as well? She pushes herself, which makes sense. Abilities nearly always come with a compulsion to use them._

Even now Intuitive Aptitude itched at the back of his head, like a constant irritating tickle he couldn't scratch. The small intellectual challenges from day to day weren't much of a balm. They were nothing like the satisfaction he wanted from taking a new ability, anymore than a single chaste kiss gave the pleasure of a protracted orgasm. _Nothing since Matt. That's five months. The Company files said the max was usually six. I went twelve last year. But they have no records of layered versions of the ability either._

He sighed in tandem with Peter, as Peter finally worked himself up to eating an egg. Afterwards, Peter looked off to the side, his song skipping a beat. He grimaced and reached for a second egg. He held it for a long moment and then put it back. He closed the carton quietly. Gabriel pushed off the counter and walked over to his lover. "Peter? What's wrong?"

"What does the Hunger feel like for you?"

"What? Why?" When Peter didn't answer right away, Gabriel evaded the question by saying, "I'd think you'd be feeling full, not hungry."

"It's not _enough_. It's not," he reached out and shoved the egg carton away with a sharp jab, "what I want." He glanced up several times at Gabriel and then away. Finally he said, "You're probably the only person in the world I could discuss this with who could really relate. Funny that we're together." He didn't sound amused. "What does it feel like, for you?"

Gabriel opened the carton and pulled out an egg. He regarded it, bringing his ability to bear on it. It was a living thing, after all, and held a certain unique pattern: DNA, enzymes, a dance of chemical reactions, the secret of life itself. It was a being, whole and entire, needing only warmth, humidity, motion and twenty-one days to produce a fully formed chick. He could tell it was a fertilized egg, with its own tiny, tinny song of life discernible if he really concentrated on it, as he did now. He put it back in the carton. "You want something more – something more _alive_."

Peter looked away, guilt and desire marking his features.

Gabriel went on, guessing, "Something complex, with red blood and a beating heart, something with thoughts and self-awareness."

Peter shifted uncomfortably. "I don't think… it… I don't think it has to be a person for me. But for you… it does?"

"My original ability was mostly specific to people with abilities. I took a few who didn't, but after the first, there wasn't anything new there for me to see. It was like reading the same page of a book over and over. You might pick up a little more nuance, but it was the same basic information. Samson's power broadened it a lot."

Peter looked up at him with slightly narrowed eyes. "Have you been… killing animals?" He added quickly, "Not that I'd object to that. It's… I mean, it's not okay, but animals aren't people and if you _have_ to…"

Gabriel shook his head. "The rats were a lesson. I don't want my head littered with a bunch of instincts and bizarre drives. I'm above that."

Peter nodded, shoulders slumping a little. "So you can control it. It doesn't bother you anymore." They were almost questions, but not quite.

Gabriel stepped over and rubbed one of Peter's shoulders. "It doesn't go away." He stood next to him quietly for a while, hand resting on Peter's shoulder. "Do you want to try rats?"

"No!" Peter snapped irritably. "I'm not going to kill things. I'm just not."

Gabriel smiled slightly, recalling a time a few years before when he'd said Peter wasn't a killer, as well as Peter's sober confession only months ago that he considered himself to bear a full share of the responsibility for killing Arthur, just because he'd intended, and tried, to do it. Gabriel looked off at a corner of the room and patted Peter's shoulder. The shocked look on his face after Arthur fell had been priceless. Gabriel supposed he'd been that innocent once. It was hard to remember.

Peter looked up at him sharply. "What's so funny?"

Gabriel fixed his face instantly. "What?"

"You're not fooling me. Something's funny. You're amused. What is it?"

Gabriel blinked at him. He'd suspected for a while that Peter detected emotions through physical contact. He thought about how Peter often reached out to him when he was upset or distant, when Peter would do no more than rest his hand on him and then he seemed to understand. Gabriel had thought of it as 'Peter understands, so he touches,' but a few weeks ago he'd realized it was the other way around. He looked down at his own hand resting on Peter's shoulder. He lifted it casually and walked around the table, sitting down.

He needed to tell Peter something, though, and it needed to be something that avoided triggering lie detection. "You're the kind of person, Peter, who would avoid killing even a rat, if he could."

"I'm not a vampire. I'm not going to live off others. I'll just… I'll just have to make it."

_That's ridiculous,_ Gabriel thought. _Abilities do not bow to one's stubbornness. I should know._ Gabriel cocked his head. "It was my understanding that your healing ability didn't function const- ah. Yes. Your job."

Peter shot him an angry look. He knew Gabriel disapproved of him working as a paramedic. "My _**job**_ has nothing to do with this!"

It was a lie. Gabriel let his finger trace out a circle on the tabletop. "Of course," he said with biting sarcasm. "Your _job_, that puts you in constant contact with people who could benefit from healing, has nothing to do with why you've overtaxed yourself to the point where I fear I might _kill_ you if I had reason to nullify your abilities."

"There's no reason for you to nullify my abilities."

"Not right now, no. But there have been reasons in the past and there may yet be reasons in the future, especially if you're experiencing a hunger that might induce you to behave… badly."

"I'm behaving fine!" Peter snapped, getting to his feet as if to contradict his own words. "People need help. I can help them. There's no reason why I shouldn't." He leaned over the table, knuckles white where he rested his fists against it.

"I suppose the fact that you might die trying isn't going to deter you?"

"_**No.**_" Peter began to pace. "Why would you even think it would? It didn't with Heidi and her baby."

"You knew them," Gabriel said dismissively.

"That doesn't make a difference."

Gabriel stood too now. "Are you saying you'll lay down your life for _strangers?_" It was obvious and perfectly in line with Peter's character, but Gabriel hadn't really thought about it because it was so far from his own manner of thinking. Fear shot through him.

"**Yes, I **_**am**_."

"Peter, the people in your life should matter a lot more than people you've never met!"

"Of course they do. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't make sacrifices for people I haven't met."

"You… What? That's… Peter, that's _exactly_ the reason why you shouldn't make sacrifices for them!" Gabriel was exasperated.

"What? Do you just want me to let people suffer?" He was yelling now, not as loud as he could, but his voice was raised in anger.

Gabriel matched him in volume, pointing aggressively to punctuate his speech. "If you didn't have that fucking job, you wouldn't be exposed all day to people who needed your help!"

"Yeah? You think it's about the job? It's not about the '_fucking job_' as you put it. If I didn't have that job, I'd find another, where I could do at least as much good!"

Gabriel clenched his fists and walked quickly to Peter, who stiffened and drew himself up, raising his chin. But Gabriel didn't swing at him. He had no intention of it. He sounded angry, but he was afraid. He reached out and grabbed Peter's shoulders, giving him a small shake. "Peter! You have a child on the way. You have Emma. You have _me_. And if you don't stop this martyr bullshit, you're going to lose something."

"Are you threatening me?" Peter's voice was low and dangerous.

"No. I am absolutely not threatening you. I'm _trying_ to make you see reason."

"**Get your hands off me**."

Gabriel let him go without issue, which seemed to defuse Peter more than anything else. _He's mine,_ a voice whispered in Gabriel's head. _I can touch him if I want to._ He ignored it. Peter stepped away, glancing at him a few times as if aware of the internal dissension. Peter said through clenched teeth, "We need to calm down. Or we're going to be fighting."

"In case you hadn't noticed, we're _already_ fighting, Peter." He sighed, stepping closer again, holding out a hand like he was offering something. "All I'm saying... is think about it. Please. Please, Peter. For your own sake. Is this really what you want to do? You're letting an ability eat you alive." _Strange choice of words._ He pondered it briefly, but Peter was talking again.

"Stop it, Gabriel. Drop it. We'll talk about it later."

"You're the one who's always wanting to talk about things," Gabriel said snidely, but quietly.

It was enough though. "I said _**stop it!**_" Peter yelled, swinging and hitting him in the face. Gabriel staggered, surprised, and caught himself against the wall. Peter looked at his fist in horror, like it had made the attack of its own volition. Gabriel smiled at him and straightened, wiping his split lip with the back of his hand. It left a smear of crimson, even though the cut itself healed a second later. He tongued it languidly and closed the two steps to Peter. _He hit me. He finally hit me._ Being punched in the boxing ring didn't count. It was expected; there were spectators.

Peter opened his mouth to apologize, but Gabriel was towering over him. The emotions surging through Gabriel's body were indecipherable even to him. His blood was pumping fast, his breathing had quickened, he felt incredibly alive. He kissed Peter full on the mouth and pushed those feelings as much as he could. Peter's eyes flew wide and for a moment he stood there in shock. Peter's body began to respond for him and he jerked away like he'd been scalded. "No! NO. Get away from me."

Gabriel eyed him, glancing at Peter's groin, fully aware of the reaction. He wanted to do more. He wanted to take what was his. He wanted to shove Peter against the wall and… Peter had said no, unequivocally. He licked off whatever remaining traces of blood were on his lip and retired to a chair at the table. He stared at the table as several long minutes ticked by while Peter remained standing where he'd left him. Eventually Peter joined him at the table, sitting across from him. "I'm sorry," Peter said faintly. "That was… unforgiveable."

Gabriel burst out laughing after a second of disbelief. Peter stared at him, mystified and offended. Gabriel said, "You hit me, once mind you, and that's 'unforgiveable'? Peter, I…" _killed your brother,_ "I've murdered scores of people! And I regenerate anyway. It's not like hitting me is a big deal. You hit Nathan a dozen times or more and you knocked the crap out of me back… before… three times at least. You're under a lot of stress right now. Don't worry about it."

"'_Don't worry about it?'_" Peter's mouth hung open slightly. When Gabriel didn't say anything, Peter put his elbows on the table, leaning forward and putting the heels of his hands against his eyes. "My Hunger is not the same as yours. It doesn't make me violent."

"Exhibit A," Gabriel said, lifting his hand and turning it to display the smear of blood. Virginia Gray's voice rang in his mind: _'You? You could never hurt anyone.'_

"There's… there's no reason… I mean, I'm _hungry_. I want to _eat_ things. I don't want to kill…I mean, I don't want to hurt people."

"Obviously," Gabriel drawled, turning his hand to face himself. He licked the blood off. Peter watched the action with way too much interest. Gabriel's brows drew together as he put his hand down. "You know… you might have a point." Peter looked at him hopefully. "I wouldn't mind fighting with you, but I sure as hell don't want to be _eaten_."

Peter snorted. "I wouldn't do that."

Gabriel gave him another dose of sarcasm. "Yes, just like a mild-mannered watchmaker would never blossom into a rampaging serial killer." _ I didn't __**have**__ to. I just __**did**__, because I wasn't strong enough, or smart enough, especially at first, when I didn't know what was going on. But is Peter strong enough?_

Peter bit his lip and looked away.

"Would you…" Gabriel's tone was tentative now, "consider taking a vacation, just for a few days? Maybe call in sick?"

"I can't. You can't do that with my kind of job."

Gabriel tapped his fingers, all together, softly and repeatedly against the table. He worried about his lover. "Could you at least tone down what you're doing – the healing?"

Peter answered immediately. "Yes. I will."

"Thank you," Gabriel said softly.


	216. Withdrawal Syndrome

**A/N: This continues immediately after last chapter, "Martyr Syndrome."**

After a few moments of silence, Gabriel shifted a little and said, "Peter? You know if you have any… complications, you can come to me?"

Peter looked away and up with a scornful expression. "I'm not going to have that kind of complication, Gabe. This isn't the same as yours."

Gabriel stood and circled to Peter's side of the table. He hitched up a leg on it. "This healing - it's like that ability you had over Christmas?"

"Yeah." Peter didn't look at him.

Gabriel put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Do what you did then. Take the power from me."

"No!" Peter pulled away and stood up. He grabbed the egg carton and carried it back to the refrigerator.

Gabriel stayed where he was. "Why not?"

Peter put away the remaining eggs. "Because I messed you up when I did that. You got drunk, broke into my apartment, and got in two fights - one of them with me!"

Now Gabriel stood, glowering at Peter. He walked closer to him. "I didn't fight with you. I only went to see who was at the door and you attacked me like some kind of maniac."

Peter laughed suddenly. "Oh? Is that how you remember it?"

"Yes." Gabriel reached out and caught Peter's hand. "Take from _me_, Peter."

"It doesn't work that way, anyway." Peter yanked his hand from Gabriel's and turned away. He missed the expression of murderous rage that graced Gabriel's features for several seconds. Peter had turned him away time after time this evening. Gabriel's self-control was starting to labor in the face of the repeated refusals. He exhaled slowly and carefully while Peter just stared off at the opposite wall of the kitchen, the Italian scratching lightly at his forehead and trying to pull together his thoughts.

"I need to leave," Peter moved towards the door, but Gabriel stepped into his path immediately.

"Wait. Where are you going?"

"Home," Peter said.

"No." Gabriel said, "Peter, I can't let you go home to Emma like this."

Peter's eyes narrowed as he tried to stare Gabriel down. "I'm no danger to her. It's insulting that you'd even imply I was."

Gabriel didn't look away from him. "You hit me, Peter. And while that didn't bother me, it's not like you."

That gave Peter pause and he stood there undecided for a moment. He looked down, which was finally a gesture that looked a little like letting Gabriel be in charge, like admitting he had some say in how things were going to happen. Peter said, "All I need is the passage of time and to stop putting out the energy faster than I take it in. And to absorb…" he made a gesture at the fridge, trying to indicate the eggs, "as much as I can until I build back up."

Gabriel shook his head. "There's no reason to go back to Emma's until morning, except that you're trying to get away from me because you don't like what I'm saying. You're already misremembering things and you're not acting like you usually do." He stepped up next to Peter, reaching out to touch the back of his arm with one hand while the other was raising towards Peter's face.

Peter scowled and stepped back. "Would you- Stop being so clingy!" He knocked Gabriel's hands away and that was just the last straw.

Gabriel grabbed Peter's shoulder and spun him into the counter, stepping behind him to crush him against it as he hooked his forearm under Peter's chin. "Use an ability and I'll cancel all of them!" he hissed and followed with, "Then we'll see how well you do without the regen keeping you on your feet. I **am** threatening you now."

For a moment they were both still, Peter breathing hard, Gabriel less so, bodies pressed together. Peter's scent filled Gabriel's nostrils; his song filled his ears. Entirely without intending to, Gabriel bent. His mouth fell open and he kissed the back of Peter's neck sloppily, tasting him. He moaned and a moment later, Peter wasn't the only one breathing hard.

"You're mine!" Gabriel growled at him. Peter didn't respond except to swallow, so Gabriel bit him hard on the shoulder. Peter grunted. "Mine!" Gabriel repeated, and again Peter didn't give him any confirmation. He ground his hips into Peter, who grunted once more as the edge of the counter bit into his middle. Peter put his hands on the countertop to brace himself against the pressure.

Gabriel hooked a thumb into Peter's waistband and jerked down, but the pants stayed where they were. A moment later his telekinesis made short work of the button and zipper. He jerked again and this time the clothing fell. "Mine," he murmured as he kissed and licked the base of Peter's neck so repeatedly that it was wet from his attentions. "Fuck you… Fuck…" He opened his own pants, finally taking his forearm from Peter's throat. Peter glanced back at him and then cast a quick view around the kitchen. A moment later he had the olive oil and handed it back to Gabriel.

Gabriel took it dumbly and just stood there for a moment, his brain obviously not firing right. Neither was Peter's, really. Peter could have handed him a can of tuna fish and Gabriel would have reacted the same. Gabriel finally seemed to figure out what it was for and splashed some on his hand and thence onto his now-exposed dick. Peter took the opportunity to step out of one leg of his pants and spread his stance. Gabriel found his opening and ran an oily finger into him immediately. Peter arched a little, panting. Gabe gave him a second finger too quickly, making Peter cry out a little. Gabriel hooked his fingers and twisted down, finding what he wanted and stroking, probing. Peter gasped now, jerking with each motion.

Gabriel didn't have the patience to do a good job. He pulled his fingers out and replaced them almost immediately with his cock, ramming the whole length home hard enough to rip another ragged cry from his partner. He grabbed Peter's hips and began fucking him hard. After enough time to adjust, albeit belatedly, Peter began shoving back to meet him. Peter felt so good, so hot, surrounding him tightly, enough oil to make it easy, enough friction to make it feel wonderful. Gabriel surged against his lover's body, claiming him, proving that all the pushing away was futile. Peter belonged to him, he really did, he wasn't pushing him away now…

Some higher function of Gabriel's brain began to come back online as the Hunger receded. He struggled to process what was going on. He was having sex in the kitchen… with Peter… wait, hadn't they been arguing...? He slowed down, although Peter kept rutting back against him wantonly. That was a good sign. "Pete?" He tried to remember what exactly had happened. They'd been arguing, then he'd thrown Peter against the counter and started fucking him. That was all that was really clear at the moment. "Are… did you consent to this?"

Peter made a choked noise and looked back over his shoulder. "What the hell? You're asking that _now?_" He stopped moving.

_Oops. Um… yeah, stupid time to ask. Better late than never though? The answer is yes, right? Sure hope so._ Gabriel coughed slightly and started thrusting again, leaning forward to reach around with the hand that was covered with oil. He wasn't sure where that had come from either. It seemed unlikely that he would have had the presence of mind to use lube, but there it was on his hand. He slid it up and down Peter's shaft and whatever doubts Peter was entertaining due to his bizarre question were dispelled for the moment. Peter started swaying with him once more, panting.

He worked Peter until he came, spurting against his own kitchen cabinets (or rather, Gabriel's cabinets - that was going to be fun to clean up later) and then finished on his own a few minutes later, buried inside him. He leaned over Peter's back and started to nuzzle the back of his neck. It was cold and wet and a little slimy. "Ew," Gabriel said.

Peter started laughing, which felt really bizarre as his asshole clutched around Gabriel's softening member. Gabriel made another discomfited sound and pulled out, prompting Peter to cross his arms on the counter and put his forehead down on them, still chuckling. Gabriel got a paper towel and wiped off the back of Peter's neck. He stood there without moving afterward, debating whether to ask if the wetness was his fault. It had to be, but confessing he didn't know how it had gotten there would require admitting he hadn't been in his right mind. He'd fugued out. Thank God no one had gotten hurt. _And here I am trying to upbraid Peter about _his_ conduct._

Peter rolled his head, still leaning over, and looked up at him with a lazy, fulfilled smile. Still, there was something calculating in that gaze. Peter looked down for a little bit. Gabriel just watched him, not sure what he should do. Apologizing seemed inappropriate, but so did acting normal. His relationship with Peter had progressed past where he would hide his feelings intentionally - at least, not unless Peter disapproved of them. He couldn't fathom how Peter could approve of this.

Peter straightened, pushed off the counter and shuffled his pants out of the way. They were still hanging around one leg. He hugged Gabriel, who returned it uneasily, knowing Peter was probably doing this to feel his emotions. He sighed. He didn't try to conceal anything. He kissed the side of Peter's head with a solicitous peck. He felt Peter's face tighten in a smile and the shorter man gave him a firmer squeeze.

After a long moment, Peter said, "Tell me what you thought was happening."

A surge of unexpected anger ran through Gabriel. He felt Peter flinch. He stared off at the wall and tried to calm down. "Please _**ask**_. Don't_ tell_ me what to do, Peter. It sets me off." _And I've already had enough trouble with that this evening._

After a beat Peter nodded. "Please, can you tell me what you thought was happening?"

Gabriel sagged. He didn't want to answer that. Maybe he'd gotten pissy about the manner of asking because of what Peter wanted to know, not the words he was using. He shifted his weight. Peter loosened his hold in case Gabriel tried to move away. Paradoxically, that release made him stay. He gave the side of Peter's head another peck. "I… I don't know. I just lost it. I don't remember. I'm sorry." _Well, the cat's out of the bag now. He knows I freaked out._ "I didn't… Did I hurt you?"

"No. You didn't. Everything was consensual." He stroked up and down Gabriel's back. "Why did you think it wasn't? Did I do something?" When Gabriel didn't answer, Peter said, "I handed you the oil, I helped take my clothes off, I… We've been together a lot. Unless I'm saying 'no' or 'stop', or there's some reason why I can't, you can assume I'm willing. Do I need to agree explicitly? I can, if you want that."

"No, Peter, that's not-" He shook his head. "I… I… I don't know what happened." He seemed to remember issuing some threat to Peter's life, maybe telling him he'd kill him or something? He'd told him something, and then the sex had started. He worried that he'd coerced him.

Peter leaned back. He looked up and opened his mouth to speak, to ask another question, and Gabriel felt his stomach knot in dread of what he'd want to know. He tensed, bracing himself for it. Peter's eyes dropped to his shoulder and he shut his mouth. He gave Gabriel another squeeze, which was gratefully returned.

Gabriel shifted and reached up to stroke Peter's hair with his clean hand. A moment later, he put that hand instead on the counter next to them and sifted back through the last quarter hour. When he came back to the now, Peter was regarding him steadily and said, "You were serious - you literally don't remember what happened."

Gabriel pulled away from him, looking chastised. He tucked himself away and fastened his pants, giving an unhappy look to the hand with the oil on it. Water-based lubricants didn't stick around this long. He shape-shifted successively and got rid of the residue. Peter pulled up his pants and followed suit.

Gabriel sighed. "Peter, this is… sort of what I'm worried about with you. You might… you might get into a position where you… if you aren't careful… you have to think ahead, think about what might set you off, and avoid…" He looked pained.

Peter picked up the olive oil and washed the front of the bottle off in the sink. Gabriel had been sloppy. Gabriel stammered a few other partial sentences and disconnected phrases as Peter finished and put the bottle up. He turned to Gabe and said, "Come on. Let's go sit- Will you join me on the couch? I'd like to talk."

Gabriel smiled a little, both at Peter catching himself and asking instead of telling, and at the reminder of him telling Peter earlier that he was always wanting to talk about things. They left the kitchen. Peter sat down about two-thirds of the way down the couch, on the left side. Gabriel pondered that. He (Gabriel) usually retreated to the far right end when he was upset. Peter typically sat on the left. He sat down next to Peter and immediately slung his arm around him, drawing him against him. Peter slumped into it with a noise that sounded content.

Minutes passed. Peter snuggled against him and said nothing. _So much for talking. Or maybe he's waiting for me to talk? I was the one talking in the kitchen, after all. Or maybe he's just thinking about what to say. No, I don't think that's it. He's too relaxed. _He gave Peter a squeeze, which earned him another contented sound, but nothing more. "I like you," Gabriel murmured. "I love you." He gave him another squeeze. Peter tilted his head up to smile at him.

"I'm sorry I was a dick earlier," Gabriel told him. "I'm worried about you. You tried to kill your mother when you had my ability a couple years ago. You were… really hateful to me earlier this year when you'd healed people too much. You kept pushing me away earlier tonight. I'd touch you and you'd pull away. I'd look at you and you'd stare back at me, or if you looked away, it was with this really disdainful expression. It pissed me off. I wanted to knock that look right off your face."

Peter rolled and slid down, putting his head in Gabriel's lap, looking up at him. He hung his feet over the end of the couch. Gabriel put a hand on his chest and the other to Peter's hair, stroking it. Peter's lids got heavy and he blinked slowly a couple times. He looked up trustingly and adoringly at Gabriel. The taller man smiled, strongly suspecting Peter was doing this on purpose. Peter knew the effect he had on people and he could be as manipulative as hell when he wanted to be. Right now, obviously, he wanted to be.

_Oh well._ Gabriel let himself be manipulated into saying more. It was Peter, after all, and he'd fucked him really hard just a little while ago. Post-orgasmic, Gabriel was feeling more warm towards Peter than he had earlier. Peter was cooperative, he was sexy, he was loving and Gabriel was really smitten by him. So he said, "I have to have you, Peter - one way or another. It's an obsession. I can't… really get my emotions separated right. Everything's tangled up and if you're rejecting me, it makes me see red. I try to control it… I really, really do, Peter." He pressed on Peter's chest briefly. The empath watched him with attentive eyes.

"But now that I _can_ do something about it when you slap me across the face - metaphorically, usually," Gabriel laughed once and the skin at the corners of Peter's eyes wrinkled, "now that I _can_ do something about it, it's a lot harder not to. Before… I knew I couldn't carry through. Now… I can, and it's tougher to put that behind me."

He ran his hand under Peter's head and lifted him for a kiss that turned lingering. Peter raised his hand and ran it behind Gabriel's head, prolonging it. He lay back down, still without a word. He watched Gabriel with an open, accepting expression.

"Are you going to put up with me?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes." It was immediate, firm and true.

Gabriel nodded. He rubbed Peter's chest a little more through the shirt. Gabriel tensed as his thoughts turned to the incident in the kitchen. "Peter… I…" He sighed and swallowed. "What happened earlier… I lost control. If you want to talk about things that are unforgivable that's…" He shook his head and looked away. "I'm so glad you… didn't fight me. You could have. It would have… I think I would have gotten ugly. I'm sorry." He sighed and looked away. "That was too close."

Peter wiggled a little against him and drew his eyes back. Peter said, "Because you've told me this… if I feel what I felt from you earlier, again, it won't get ugly. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't understand it - but I could feel it."

"What do you mean, 'it won't get ugly'?"

"I mean I'll let you do what you need to do. The sex is it, isn't it?"

"Rape, more like."

"It's only rape if I'm refusing it."

"Peter, that's-" _coercion, blackmail, duress._ He shook his head.

"You're really gentle with me, Gabriel," Peter said very softly. Gabriel stopped to listen. "Very tender. Very loving. I need that. You give me what I need. All I'm saying is that if you lose control like that again, I know how to manage it because you've told me." Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out. He supposed he could live with that. He'd just have to make sure he didn't lose control again. Peter said, "This is what happened last October, isn't it?"

Gabriel tensed all over, pulled in his feet tight against the couch and jerked his hands away from Peter. His eyes darted around the room and settled on the far end of the couch. He looked back at Peter, clearly intending to get the hell away from him.

"Easy! Easy! Gabe, please. Please. It's okay." Peter's voice was high-pitched and pleading. When Gabriel paused, Peter said, "I shouldn't have brought that up. I'm an idiot. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut. I'm so sorry. I knew better than that. Please. It's okay. Just pretend I didn't say anything? Please?" His eyes beseeched Gabriel until Gabe closed his own so he wouldn't see them. He eased back down in his seat. He looked away, trying to calm down, and reached over to pet Peter's hair over and over. Peter said nothing now.

"Yes, that's what happened in October," Gabriel bit out. "I should have known better. I should have controlled it. I should have…" He shook his head.

Peter nodded and again, said nothing. Minutes passed. Gabriel put his hand back on Peter's chest and rubbed slowly. "I'm tired," he said. "I can't let you leave tonight. Maybe in the morning, you can finish off those eggs and then… if you sound okay…" He shrugged.

Peter nodded cooperatively. "Hey? You want to come in to work with me tomorrow, tour two?"

Gabriel blinked at him. "What?"

Peter shrugged. "You're worried about me healing people. Come with me. Make sure I don't."

"Aren't there rules about that?" Gabriel asked.

"Sure. You have the power to sway men's minds, right?" Gabriel nodded. Peter went on, "So we tell them you're an intern. You don't even have to look like yourself if you don't want to."

"Hmp," Gabriel grunted. "Okay."


	217. Wherein Peter Is A Dick

**A/N: This will be the first of a several part arc where Gabriel tags along with Peter for a day of his work as a paramedic. Inspiration for specific events comes from Peter Canning, author of the paramedic blog Street Watch (as well as a couple books on the subject of paramedic adventures). And in one case in this chapter (the part about EMS routine), I put Canning's words in Peter's mouth. Thanks also to johncorn for suggesting the topic!**

Peter woke up in an empty bed. He reached out automatically, not expecting to find anyone, but checking anyway. Gabriel was always right up next to him when they slept, usually touching with a knee or a hand and nearly always facing him. If Peter turned away, Gabe would, more often than not, spoon up behind him.

He wasn't surprised to find the bed empty. Gabriel had gone to sleep almost immediately after the events of the previous night. Peter wasn't sure what to make of that, aside from the obvious emotional exhaustion of arguing. He'd finally decided, as he stood in the bedroom door and watched his partner snoring, that Gabriel trusted that Peter wouldn't leave. Peter had sort of expected an order or at least an ultimatum, since he had been trying to leave before the sex. But other than Gabe saying he 'couldn't' and 'wouldn't' let Peter leave, it had been left at that. There really wasn't much he could do to stop him anyway except disapprove, since Peter could teleport to wherever he wanted. Of course, Peter had stayed.

He could hear Gabriel knocking about in the kitchen, probably fixing breakfast. Peter rousted himself out of bed. If he hurried in the shower, he could at least set the table or do something helpful. It left him feeling uncomfortable to have Gabriel serve him.

When he walked in, he frowned to see the table was already set. Gabriel was at the stove, monitoring the progress of their meal. "Hey there, sleepyhead," Gabriel said with good cheer. "I did everything other than cook until I heard you stir, so things would still be hot. Is French toast good?"

"Yeah, guess so," Peter grumped.

Gabriel shot him a brief look at his tone. "I hope you don't mind, but I had to steal one of your eggs."

Peter shrugged noncommittally. "That's okay." He stared blankly at the skillet.

"I cleaned up." Gabriel made a vague gesture behind him, still trying to get some sign of appreciation for his efforts.

Peter looked at the other counter. "There was a mess?"

"From last night." Gabriel smiled at him conspiratorially and Peter knew what he was talking about.

"Oh! Y… yeah." Another thing Gabriel had cleaned up after him that Peter really should have taken care of himself. He scowled at the cabinets. He should have taken care of that after Gabriel went to bed, but he'd forgotten.

There was a brief silence before Gabriel said, "I was in a good mood. You keep this up and I won't be."

Peter blinked at him, thought about how he was acting, and hugged Gabriel abruptly. "I love you. I'm sorry. I'm being a dick."

"Yes, you are. At least give me a kiss, love. If you've changed your mind, that's fine. I can go to work like normal."

Peter leaned back a little, brows together. He was trying to figure out what the other man was talking about. Gabriel started forward to kiss him, then stopped when Peter didn't move to meet him. After a beat his expression chilled and he left the embrace. He turned to flip the toast. "It'll be done in a moment. How about you have a seat?"

Peter blinked rapidly and reached up to catch Gabriel's chin. "Come here. Please. I guess I'm still half asleep. I'm sor-" He cut off, pressing his lips to Gabriel's in a long, slow, loving kiss that deepened as he melted against the taller man. "Mmmm." They parted. "You are so good to me." He put his forehead against Gabriel's chest. "I'm sorry."

Gabriel sighed and wrapped one arm around him. "You don't have to keep saying that." He bent his head to nudge Peter's with his nose, then gave him a peck on the temple. "Go eat your eggs. They're on the table. Maybe you'll be better after. Just remember this when you want to heal someone today. You're really a jerk when you overextend yourself."

Peter went to the table and sat. Next to his seat was the carton of eggs, now containing ten. He got through six of them before Gabriel put his breakfast in front of him. He still felt peculiar about letting Gabriel, of all people, serve him. It felt wrong. But then again, it felt wrong to him when Cassie, his mother's maid, served him. Gabriel sat down across from him and began to eat quietly.

Peter glanced at him a few times, but Gabriel's food was taking all of his attention. Peter sighed and thought back over their conversation. He'd missed something important there, he knew, and that, in addition to his ungracious behavior, was why Gabriel was ignoring him now. _'Go to work like normal' and 'if you've changed your mind'… changed my mind about what?_ Peter chewed on his lip. _ 'Go to work'…?_

"Oh!" Peter perked up. "You're going to work with me!"

Gabriel looked up cautiously. "You offered that, yes."

"Please. Do you want to?"

"Very much." Gabriel's guarded, almost expressionless tone made Peter smile, because the man wouldn't be hiding his feelings if he didn't care. It said more about his enthusiasm than if he'd open about it.

"Yes. Yes, I haven't changed my mind." Peter dug into his breakfast aggressively, feeling like a dolt for having taken so long to remember.

Gabriel put his fork down. "Good. I cancelled three appointments to free up my day."

Peter smiled nervously and ate. Gabriel rose and went over to the coffee pot, pouring up cups for both of them. Peter winced and rubbed his forehead. Gabriel brought over his cup and asked, "Headache?"

"No." Peter reached out to catch Gabriel's hand. "Thank you. Thank you, really." Gabriel smiled softly at him and went back to his seat. He picked up his fork and went back to eating. Peter took another bite, chewed and swallowed. He said, "I was looking around earlier for something I could do to help and I didn't…" He shook his head and waved at the coffee machine. "I'm sure I could use your help today. I'm surprised I even managed to find my toothbrush."

"Mm," Gabriel said. "So, tell me what we're going to do."

"Do you… have any medical background at all?"

Gabriel tilted his head slightly. "Well, I've dissected human corpses."

Peter's mouth hung open for a moment at the bluntness of that, then he shut it. "Yeah. Okay. Anything… um… else?"

"Not really. I've done some reading on inheritance: genetics, alleles, phenotypes, that sort of thing; and virology, but I don't think that's what you're looking for. Nathan had some basic first aid training."

"Virology?"

"Yes. They can be used to insert and replace sections of DNA. Viruses, that is."

"Yeah…" Peter ate a little more. "I really don't know much about your hobbies."

"That's because I haven't told you what they are."

Peter stared at him, a trace of outrage in his tone. "Why not?"

"You've never asked."

Peter snorted. "It's not like you've ever asked me what mine were!"

"That's because I have Nathan's memories, I have a full investigative report on you, and I check what you've been up to regularly with clairsentience. I know what your hobbies are."

Peter opened his mouth to argue, then shut it. He went back to eating. _You're obsessive. That's just __**wrong**__. You know too much about me. There's something wrong with that. I have absolutely no privacy with you. It's like I'm fucking naked all the time and that irritates the hell out of me._ He finished his French toast and managed to sip his coffee slowly enough that he didn't burn himself.

Gabriel said, "I don't have what I would consider to be a medical background. Is that going to be a problem?"

"No," Peter said sullenly. Gabriel raised a brow at him and Peter took a deep breath, bringing his thoughts back to business and away from pointless fuming. "Most of EMS is routine. You punch in. You check your vehicle and equipment. You respond to calls. You drive cautiously, look both ways at the intersections. When you get to your patient, you ask the same questions. How are you feeling? When did it start? Have you ever felt this way before? What kind of medical problems do you have? You take vitals. You do your head to toe. Your IV, 02, monitor. At the hospital you give your report. Write your paperwork, and get ready to do it all again. That's the day." He resisted the urge to point that Gabriel already knew most of this, at a high level at least, due to knowing so damn much about him and how he spent his time.

Gabriel finished his breakfast. "Will I have to give injections or know anything about medications?"

"No, and… well, it would help, but you won't need to know much. You're supposed to be an intern. They don't have to know a lot. If you get any tough questions, talk to me mentally and I'll feed you the answers."

"Okay." Gabriel drank his coffee faster than he probably should have, given its temperature.

Peter frowned at his plate, finding it difficult to put aside his irritation. Everything was making him irritable today and he was missing basic things, like pouring up the coffee. He took another sip and straightened in his seat. He was taking it out on Gabriel and he had been since he'd walked in. To be chewing on the guy who made you breakfast, served you coffee and cleaned up your spunk was pretty execrable behavior.

Just the night before, Gabe had talked to him about how he had to struggle with his temper when Peter was sniping at him like this. Now the other man was staring off into the middle distance, a tension evident in the set of his shoulders and the way his face didn't betray any emotion. _I've got to get myself under control. For him, if no one else. I'm sure my patients will thank me too. _Peter reached out and started on the last four eggs. It was going to be a long day.


	218. Hope And Circumstance

**A/N: This is the second of a several part arc while Gabriel tags along with Peter for a day of his work as a paramedic. For those unfamiliar, Joe Macon appeared in the graphic novels as one of Sylar's incidental victims. The extent of his ability was never shown, other than allowing him to pass his hand over a stack of paper and have his signature simultaneously appear on all of them.**

Peter related some basic terminology as they got dressed. He also gave Gabriel names and places and coursework he'd need to be able to mention to give his intern story credibility. Fortunately, Gabriel was a quick study. Peter was confident he could pull it off and they'd need only a little mental coercion on his supervisor (it wouldn't be the first time) so he'd back up the story. As they talked, Gabriel's enthusiasm warmed again.

They finished getting ready a bit early, as Peter had planned. Before they went though, Gabriel reached out and unclipped Peter's personalized badge. It included his picture, first initial and last name, ID number and an electronic tracking chip. Gabriel studied it intently. He asked, "Would I have a badge like this?"

"Yeah, you should," Peter answered, "even as an intern. No one goes out in the vans without hospital ID. But no one would notice that except other staff, so we'll just whammy anyone we can't talk past until we're in the rig. After that it won't matter."

Gabriel shook his head slowly. He fingered the badge speculatively. "Hm. Do you still have your university badge around here?"

"I think so." Peter didn't know why he wanted it, but he dug it out anyway and handed it over. "You can't look like me," Peter said. "I think they'll notice that."

Gabriel grinned, but said nothing. He compared the two identification cards, then handed Peter's hospital badge back to him and hung onto the one from the university. He shifted into a different person, someone Peter had never seen. He was a younger man, white, with floppy russet hair, the beginnings of a goatee, and a lanky build. He was a match for Gabriel in height. He stretched a little in the new body and looked at the university badge. It had changed in shape, now conforming to the hospital badge, but still had Peter's picture on it along with the college logo.

Gabriel waggled his eyebrows at Peter. "I so rarely get to use this one. Watch." The badge glowed gold, then blue, then looked normal. Except that now, it had the picture of the man whose form Gabriel had assumed, the hospital's artwork and all the other identifying features from Peter's ID, except personalized to someone other than Petrelli.

"What?" Peter resisted the urge to snatch the badge out of Gabriel's hands and instead just extended his, waiting for the other man to hand it over. He did. Peter stared at it. "That wasn't shape-shifting you used…" Now truly alarmed, he looked rapidly from the badge to the man in front of him. He read the name on the badge aloud: "G. Sylar?"

"Well… you associate that name with me, don't you? It would be embarrassing if you slipped and called me the wrong name. I thought you could remember that one."

Peter's eyes widened as he realized he'd have to call the other man 'Sylar' all day. He also saw Gabriel's expression close off suddenly as he took in Peter's reaction. The process was the same even when he wore a different face. Peter jumped to head that off before it went anywhere. "No! No, it's fine. It's fine. …Sylar. Yeah."

Peter handed the badge back and then slid his hand over Gabriel's wrist and arm after he took it, trying to think of how to get Gabriel to open up again. He rubbed the other man's forearm apprehensively, but Gabriel looked like a stranger. It felt very weird to be doing this. Peter looked down at the arm that didn't look like Gabriel's, and up into a face that wasn't either. Peter's face twisted in distress and confusion.

"Can you handle it? I can be someone else," Gabriel said softly, looking at Peter. He hadn't shut down completely, which relieved the empath.

Peter shook his head. "It's… I don't think I can handle you looking like this. Can you just look like yourself? No one there has ever seen you except when you looked like Nathan. It shouldn't be a big deal." It would also kill two birds with one stone: Peter really didn't think he could handle Gabriel looking like a stranger, now that he was faced with it; and it let him put forward the pretense that it wasn't the name that had upset him, but the face. It didn't hurt to toss in the ego stroke that he preferred Gabriel's face.

As expected, his partner shape shifted immediately. Gabriel looked at the badge. Peter put his hand over it. "Leave the name."

"Really?"

"Yes." Now Peter leaned in and kissed Gabriel, who stood stock still for it, staring at Peter with wonder. His face lit up from within and Peter was so, so glad he'd fought back his own uneasiness and allowed the name. Peter kissed him again, but Gabriel was grinning now and pulled his head back so he could watch the badge as he altered the picture to be his normal face. He clipped the new ID to his shirt.

Peter could feel his pride. There was still a nagging suspicion in Peter's mind, though. "So… um… where did you get that ability?"

"It's called imprinting. I think of it more as the 'human copy machine' ability. I've had it for a long time. Joe Macon."

The name was vaguely familiar to Peter, but he couldn't connect it to anything. "So, what, years ago?" He caught the flash of hurt from the other man, who only nodded. Obviously Gabriel realized Peter was probing to find out if he'd killed someone lately and taken their ability, but by being vague and using a gesture to answer, he was making it impossible for Peter to be sure through lie detection. Quite possibly, he was doing it because he didn't appreciate Peter's suspicion. In fact, that was almost certainly why he was doing it, because if he'd really offed someone, then Peter was sure he knew Gabe well enough to know the other man would be guilty, not hurt.

Peter stifled his frustration at not getting a straight answer. He'd just have to look up 'Joe Macon' later though even that wasn't a big help, since Gabriel hadn't said he got the ability from Macon, he'd just mentioned the name. Peter worked hard at keeping his mouth shut. There was a part of his brain today that was just ceaseless with pointing out a negative spin on everything Gabriel did or said. It had been doing the same thing last night, until Gabriel had gotten fed up with it and taken him against the counter. The act hadn't sated Peter's hunger or whatever it was it had done for Gabriel, but it had pretty thoroughly distracted him. It was tough to think badly of Gabe whilst basking in the afterglow of really intense sex.

Gabriel pulled him out of his thoughts by saying, "Like I said," his expression guarded now, "I don't get to use it that often. So, are we ready to go?"

Peter missed the moment of joy Gabriel had shown at Peter's approval of his name. He wanted to get that back. They were out of sync again. Peter was trying to make a connection and keep it. It usually was ridiculously easy with Gabe and he could tell the other man was trying. Resigned, he said, "Yeah, I'm ready. Are you?"

Gabriel said simply, "Yes."

Peter took his hand and tried to calm himself. There was a constant restlessness inside of him: burning, itching, easily provoked and distracted. It was a gnawing appetite. The emotions he felt from Gabriel weren't much better; reluctance, frustration, tendrils of anger and sullenness, and despite that, there was still a strong affection and worry. Peter couldn't think of what he could do for himself, but he knew there were things he might be able to do for his lover.

Gabriel's responses to Peter stressing him tended to fall into two categories: remote and angry, like now; or insecure and clingy, like last night. They both served their purpose, Peter supposed, and circumstances could flip Gabriel from one to the other. Regardless of how he was emoting, he'd been consistent lately in using the same thing to calm down - physical touch and intimacy. They didn't have time for sex, but it didn't need to be that involved.

Peter stepped closer and slowly leaned in, putting his forehead on Gabriel's chest. He took the hand he was holding and put it on his hip, then reached for Gabriel's other hand and put it on the opposite side. They had a little time. They had enough for this. "Does this help you?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

Peter sighed, letting the tension drain away. "How? I'm just curious. You don't have to answer."

Gabriel kissed the top of his head. "It relaxes me. It comforts me. Makes me feel better, to have you under my hands, in my arms." His hands crept around to the small of Peter's back. "Being nice to me. Makes me feel like all is… right with the world, that you let me be this close without hurting me, without pushing me away. You're giving me a chance to be better, to do something for you other than bring you pain." He kissed the top of Peter's head again and the empath could feel Gabriel's negative emotions fading, the warmer ones strengthening. Gabriel started stroking his back with one hand, fingertips pressing more firmly than the rest of his hand. "Does it help _you?_"

"I don't know. I like it. I enjoy it. I don't think it has the same deep effect on me as it has on you." Peter turned his head to the side and laid it on Gabriel's chest, bringing their bodies together that last little bit.

Gabriel rested his cheek on the top of Peter's head and murmured, "The song of your life, so close to mine; when we're together, they seem entwined."

Peter pulled back and looked up, blinking in surprise. The part of his mind that kept putting a negative cast on everything Gabe said stumbled and failed to find anything bad to say. Peter smiled. "That was poetic." He leaned in for a soft kiss.

Gabriel sucked at his lips gently and then hugged him more firmly. "Around you, I feel like a hopeless romantic." He stilled for a moment, then gave Peter a sharp squeeze. "It's time."

"Okay." Peter stepped back. "You know something? I _do_ feel better. Maybe it's that I finally got to do something nice for you. I've been trying all morning, but I couldn't get it right and it kept pissing me off."

"Really?" Gabriel's brows lifted expressively. "Is that what it is?"

Peter gave a wry smile. "Why do I get the feeling I've somehow shouldered the lion's share of the chores around here?"

"Don't worry. You haven't. But you can be sure I'll leave something for you to do next time."

Peter nodded, gave his hand a squeeze, and a moment later they were at the hidden nook he usually used when going to the hospital.


	219. MY patient  MINE!

**A/N: This is the third of a several part arc while Gabriel tags along with Peter for a day of his work as a paramedic. Inspiration for specific events comes from Peter Canning, author of the paramedic blog Street Watch (as well as a couple books on the subject of paramedic adventures). I would be remiss if I did not also credit the wonderful fanfic author GoldSeven, who got me started on Canning's work and introduced me to the whole idea of paramedfic, as well as providing me with dozens of great Heroes-related paramedfic stories to read.**

Peter went inside to work things out with his supervisor, leaving Gabriel at the van. When he came back out, Gabe was animatedly chatting up Peter's partner, Paula Manning.

"So," Gabriel said to Paula, "You really think I could get those records from this Emma gal?"

_What?_ Peter thought.

"Oh sure. Peter knows her really well. He's engaged to her." Paula turned to him. "Hey Petrelli, Sylar here is doing a dissertation on the flu epidemic we had a few months back and he wanted our statistics on intakes. Don't you think Emma could help him out?"

"Uh…" Peter swallowed, trying to get past the fact Paula called him 'Sylar' instead of 'Gabriel' or whatever he was telling people the 'G.' stood for. Once he absorbed that, there was the next troubling fact that Sy-, er, Gabriel was asking for information about the disease outbreak that had been caused by a special Peter had rather inadvertently killed. And… he'd never told anyone about that other than _Emma_.

If Gabriel talked to her about it, then it seemed pretty likely she'd mention that… unless Peter got to her first and told her not to. But if he did, then she'd want to know why he didn't want her to and the truth was… well, he just didn't want Gabriel to know he'd killed someone. It looked bad. Plus, he'd killed him by taking his ability, which had a lot of unsettling parallels with Intuitive Aptitude - parallels Peter would prefer to pretend didn't exist.

"Peter?" Gabriel said with a note of concern.

"Um, what?" Peter played dumb, his brain still working furiously to figure out what to do. Now he was second guessing himself, worrying that his reluctance was due to him overusing healing recently. But he hadn't been telling anyone about it before, either, so didn't that count for something?

Paula said, "You need to ask Emma if she can help Sylar get his hands on the disease records. You know, maybe just give him the CDC contact. I'm sure she's got one. They get their information somewhere."

"Yeah," Peter said. "Yeah, I'll talk to her." He had yet to decide what he'd talk to her about, exactly. But maybe he could just put it off for a while. _Yeah, like that's going to work. Gabriel will ask her tomorrow night, I'm sure, when we're all together for cards._ He changed the subject before it could trouble him too much. "So, you're going by your last name, …Sylar?"

"Yep." Gabriel smiled and Peter could have sworn it was smug.

And just for that… "Alright. Well, interns get to ride on the bench in the back, so hop in." He opened the door at the back and gestured inside.

As Gabriel climbed inside and went to his narrow, uncomfortable seat, Paula volunteered, "I did inventory already."

Peter asked, "We missing anything?"

She shook her head. Peter pulled himself up and did a quick double-check of a few supplies. Gabriel sat quietly and for his benefit, Peter talked through what he was doing. He said, "You're going to see us double-checking each other a lot. It's not an insult. I trust Paula completely and I think she trusts me. But sometimes we're tired or distracted or we just expect something other than how things really are, so we do things like this."

Peter sorted through the bags of saline solution. "You see, I got a different rig the other day and the two bags on top were saline, then the rest were lactated Ringer's. That makes a difference as they have different applications. It's not going to kill anyone, but still. I caught it before I hung the bag, but it meant I didn't have enough saline and had to restock in the middle of a tour. You're also going to hear us repeating the name of the medication. Ideally, each person that handles it reads it out loud twice. If we get rushed, it doesn't always go that way, if she's already read it twice and hands it to me maybe I'll just read it once to confirm, but I _should_ read it twice."

"Do mistakes happen very often?"

"No, not really. I'm really glad they've finally switched to these epi-pens." He showed off the instrument in question. "They're a little more expensive, but if you get it mixed up with the other epinephrine, and give 1:1000 by IV instead of 1:10,000, then you've probably got a fatality on your hands." Peter looked at Gabriel, who blinked at him and looked between the various devices and medications with a blank look that had nothing to do with emotional repression. Peter grinned. "You look like your eyes are glazing over. They haven't covered that stuff in school yet, right?"

"Nope. But that's why I'm here."

Peter kept smiling and went on talking about things until dispatch called. Paula cleared her throat noisily. Peter scrambled through the access way and leaned into the cab. Paula shut the back doors of the van and headed around to the driver's side. Peter toggled the radio and said, "Ah, dispatch, Tom-Tom here. Sorry, we were doing inventory. We're clear." He gritted his teeth as he felt Gabriel's hand start at the back of his knee and progress up the inside of his leg towards his crotch. Paula climbed in next to him, but she couldn't see his lower body.

Dispatch responded, "Do you need more time, Two Tom?"

"No," Peter said in a slightly strangled voice. "Thanks." He kicked Gabriel, connecting more firmly than he'd intended with the other man's shin. It did not dissuade Gabe from fondling his balls though. And neither did Peter move, which was his own fault - and his own kink interfering with his good sense. Gabriel's fingers pressed more firmly, massaging him and moving forward from his testicles. Peter caught the look Paula gave him, a 'what are you waiting for?' look and uncharitably kicked Gabriel a second time before finishing climbing through the access way. He maneuvered himself into his seat, strategically settling in his lap the rolled up newspaper Paula had brought.

He'd barely sat down before two things happened: dispatch was giving them their first call of the day and Gabriel gave him a mental nudge, signaling he wanted to talk. Peter picked up the notepad from between the seats and glanced back at his lover, glad to see merriment on his face instead of pique. Peter mouthed 'no' to him quickly and turned back to jot down their assignment. Paula already had the rig in motion, heading out to the address. Peter toggled the radio and confirmed the particulars of address and incident (a patient in a senior nursing facility had fallen the night before and was reporting persistent pain this morning).

After a few minutes, Gabriel poked his head up and said, "No sirens?"

"No," Paula answered. "This is a three. No lights, no sirens. If the patient made it all night, they aren't going to die if we're five or fifteen minutes late. If we have an accident because we're pedal to the metal though, someone else might."

Peter added, "We get a lot of calls to nursing facilities like this. I don't know the percentage, but it's probably twenty or thirty percent of our work."

Paula said, "I don't know, I think it's less than that. Because we get more transfers than we get SNF calls and together they're not half."

"I'm not sure about that," Peter replied. "I think half sounds about right." They debated good-naturedly about it the rest of the way to the facility. Gabriel listened to the banter.

They brought the stretcher with them right away, with neither Peter nor Paula being specific about why. They were sure to need it. An elderly fall victim would need to be secured and taken in for evaluation almost no matter what else was going on with them. By unspoken agreement, they let the intern push it while they piled their gear on it.

The moment they walked in the door, though, Gabriel stopped, stiffened and covered his mouth. Peter glanced back. Gabriel's eyes were bugged and his throat worked convulsively. Peter asked, "Are you alright?"

Gabriel swallowed several more times and touched his nose repeatedly, pinching it and trying to breathe out of his mouth to get some relief from the olfactory assault of the place. He looked around at the people wandering around the doors, fresh from breakfast. They were old and infirm and in some cases slightly (or not so slightly) demented. One snow-capped older man came rolling up in his wheelchair and asked him, "Hey! Is someone going for a ride? It's not my turn yet! Ha ha ha ha!" Gabriel recoiled slightly.

Paula said, "I'll go find out where our patient is," and headed to the desk.

Peter walked back to the stretcher and dug around in his bag. He handed Gabe a mask. "Here. This should help with the smell." Then he turned to the gentleman in the wheelchair and said cheerily, "Yeah, someone might be going for a ride, but we'll be bringing her back, I'm sure. How are you doing this morning?"

"Oh, I'm doing great! It's not my turn yet!" He laughed again and rolled away, telling two other ladies who were looking out the glass doors that it wasn't his turn today.

Peter turned back to see Gabriel, mask in place, staring after the old fellow. Peter said, "He seems like a nice guy. Are you going to be okay?" Gabriel looked at Pete, nodded, and straightened, pulling himself together. Peter thought, _Fearsome serial killer, unnerved by an old man in a wheelchair_. Peter turned away and snorted softly to himself. What Sylar needed was a good dose of humanity and seeing people at their most helpless might be exactly the prescription. He called back, "Come on," and followed Paula, who was headed down the second corridor on the left. He heard the stretcher rolling along behind him.

Their patient was a morbidly obese woman who had been admitted only the week before. She said her hip, leg and lower back hurt, but she was nonspecific about where, exactly. She lay on her bed, which she'd refused to get out of for breakfast, saying she hurt. She also said she needed to relieve herself, but cursed the staff for declining to do so and telling her that she could wait until the ambulance service got there and have them help her. Looking at her size, Peter understood their motives, even if he also silently agreed with her opinion of them because of it. None of the staff had accompanied them to the room, merely giving directions and staying at the central desk.

Peter glanced over at Gabriel, who was watching from the door. At least he no longer looked like he was about to puke. Peter admitted these places all had a characteristic smell to them of disinfectant, sterilizing agents and chemicals, with a disturbing undertone of human waste and misery. If it was a bad place, that latter smell would overpower the former, but this place didn't seem all that objectionable. He suspected it was the chemical odor rather than the waste that was bothering Gabriel.

After doing their assessment, the woman agreed to try to get on her feet. Paula turned to Gabriel and said, "Come on, Sylar. Get over here and help me lift. Petrelli, can you get the other side?"

Paula had already noticed that Peter was a lot stronger than he looked, and he didn't look like a wimp. Peter nodded to her. Gabriel came over and touched the woman only tentatively. Clearly, he'd rather not touch her at all and that reluctance was communicated to the woman. Their patient looked up at him and scowled. "What do you got that mask on for? Are you sick? I don't need a sick person touching me! I'll get sick myself."

"I'm not sick," Gabriel said, jaw working.

Paula interjected, "It's just a precaution, ma'am."

"A precaution? Well why aren't you two wearing them? Why's he the only one wearing one? I don't need to be getting sick!"

Gabriel stood there very tensely, clearly unhappy about being there. Peter leaned over and whispered something in the woman's ear. She shot Gabe a suspicious look, then laughed. "Okay! Okay! Fine." She lifted her arms cooperatively for them to assist her into a sitting position. From there they lowered the mechanical bed so her feet were on the floor, but she winced and said she couldn't stand.

Peter said, "Ma'am, if you've broken something, we can't have you putting weight on it, so we'll need to transfer you to the stretcher and take you to a hospital for evaluation. Can you help us by standing on the other leg?"

"Well, I can try, but I've got to go to the bathroom. How am I going to do that if I can't get up? Serve these folks right if I just pissed right on their floor, but they'd probably just leave it there and tell me the janitors would get it next week!"

Paula said, "I'll get a bedpan." Peter nodded.

Gabriel asked, "She's going to…? Should I leave?"

Peter said, "Just wait." When Paula came back, he waved Gabriel out of the room and shut it behind them. To Gabriel he said, "This is one of the advantages of mixed sex teams, but they don't pair us up like that on purpose. When it was me and Hesam, we'd both stay in so there wasn't any possibility of an abuse claim."

"Does that happen often?"

"Abuse claims or needing to help a patient like this?"

"Um… either?"

"I've never had a sexual abuse claim filed against me," he said, still angry that William Hooper's spurious charge of excessive force had marred his record and reputation.

What an asshole Samuel Sullivan was to have casually put a black mark on Peter's employment record, forever, just because he wanted to talk with him. Because in the EMS field, like many other workplaces, an unsubstantiated claim was still on your record, and was generally treated as valid, because the workplace had no resources to investigate it and no authority to judge. However, should the employer be found to have known there were claims against someone and not to have treated them as serious and true, then the employer was at fault. Thus, even ridiculous cases like Sullivan's would stain someone forever.

Peter went on, "As for helping patients like this, that's routine. We carry supplies for it in the van. Not everyone has the forethought to empty their bladder before they have a heart attack or an accident."

Gabriel chuckled slightly. "I suppose if it's a bad enough accident, they don't need to afterwards either."

Peter gave him a wry smile. "No. I suppose not. All that stuff about your mother telling you to wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident… yeah, right."

Paula opened the door. "Okay, we're all set. Now you two big, strong guys can help me get our lady on the stretcher and we'll be on our way." That was easier said than done, but it was accomplished. Peter started to take the place at the head of the stretcher to push it, but Gabriel shooed him off.

Peter said, "It's harder to push when it's loaded."

"I'm not a weakling, Peter."

"I know that. It's just that you're not as familiar with steering one of these."

"I pushed it in; I'll push it out," the taller man huffed, gripping the stretcher possessively.

Peter knew better than to challenge him about something trivial. "Okay, fine." Peter shouldered his gear and headed out with Paula. Even if Gabe had trouble with steering, Peter figured he could correct with telekinesis, so she wasn't in any danger of being bounced off walls or tipped over.

As they left, the man in the wheelchair who had spoken to them before, crowed loudly again about how it wasn't his turn. Gabriel glared at him this time, apparently having taken a firm dislike to him. Peter elbowed Gabriel for the unwarranted stare and then turned to give pleasant good-byes to the fellow.

After the doors shut behind them, Gabriel steamed, "That was in poor taste of him. It could have just as easily been him who had a problem. He didn't have to say it that loud and announce it to everyone."

The lady on the stretcher said, "Oh, honey, you don't have to be defending me."

Gabriel cocked his head and said to her, "Then who else is going to?"

Peter actually stumbled in surprise and shock.


	220. Dormant Issues

**A/N: This is the fourth of a several part arc while Gabriel tags along with Peter for a day of his work as a paramedic.**

Peter teched on the way back to the hospital. He made enough small talk with their patient that Gabriel said nothing. The other man seemed content with that, however, sitting on the bench seat, toying with the mask and listening while Peter and the lady discussed the pros and cons of institutional food. They off-loaded her and Peter went in to turn in the report, since he'd done most of the talking.

He came out to find Gabriel once again plying Paula for information, this time about how much flexibility a paramedic had to call in sick, given that they spent a lot of time around immuno-compromised individuals, like the facility they'd just visited. To Paula, his questions were a natural extension of the work they'd done. To Peter, it was finding out how much leeway Peter had in declining to come in to work.

As soon as he heard what they were talking about, Peter butted in abruptly with, "Yes, fine! I **can** call in sick. But if I call in sick, they have to call in someone else off shift, or make someone already here pull an extra shift. They're going to have someone that's sleepy, tired and cranky doing the work and if that's the case, it might as well be me."

"Cranky, huh?" Gabriel said to Peter's mini-rant. Paula laughed. Peter literally bit his tongue to keep from making a retort to that. Instead he turned in his seat and stared out the window, trying to calm down. Paula and Gabriel shared a smile behind Peter's back and she picked up the radio to clear them. A few minutes later they had their next dispatch, for a non-responsive in an alley. This time they ran lights and sirens because that was protocol, even though Paula and Peter both figured they were dealing with an unconscious drunk whose condition would get no worse if they were a few minutes later.

They arrived at the address to find no one, not even the caller. After driving around several blocks and some back and forth with dispatch, they parked at the mouth of the alley they assumed the caller had been talking about. They did a search on foot. Gabriel went left, Peter went down the alley and Paula went right. They circled the block, meeting on the opposite side, none of them having found anyone who needed attention. They walked back through the alley. Gabriel walked slowly along one wall, fingers trailing the brick.

Peter and Paula got to the van before realizing how far Gabriel had fallen behind. Peter also realized what he was doing and kicked himself for not having thought of that… ever. He'd thought of using telepathy and empathy to understand his patient's conditions, but it had never occurred to him to use psychometry to see, for example, the onset of symptoms. Gabriel stopped about twenty feet from the entrance and squatted down. He touched the ground.

Paula asked, "What's he doing?"

Peter didn't know how to answer that so he just shrugged and said, "Go ahead and tell dispatch we couldn't find him." He walked back to Gabriel and squatted next to him. "There was someone here?"

"Yes. Right here. A woman tried to wake him and he ignored her, or he was unconscious - I can't tell. She left. Maybe ten minutes later he got up and walked off. Just a little bit before we got here. We might have even driven past him."

"Was he okay?" The weather was warm; it was the middle of May and even though it had been a cool spring, it was safe to sleep out of doors if you had decent clothing.

Gabriel ran his hands over the brick at the base of the wall, then the ground. He shook his head. "I don't know. He was limping, but not very badly. Maybe he was just stiff from sleeping. Black male, late 20s, 150 pounds maybe."

Peter nodded. "Was he drunk?"

"I don't smell alcohol, but he smokes."

"Cigarettes?"

"A lot of things."

Peter grunted. "Well, if he was well enough to leave, then that argues he didn't need our help. It happens." Peter stood. "It's better to have a few false alarms than to miss an actual emergency."

Gabriel stood too and said, "Why don't you look for yourself?"

Peter hesitated and looked at his hand, rubbing his fingers together. He reached out and touched the wall. His brow furrowed, but it was as he'd expected. He shook his head. "It's not working."

"Really?" Gabriel said as they started back. "I would have thought that was one you'd keep active."

"I don't get to pick," Peter said grumpily.

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

Gabriel stopped and gave Peter an incredulous look. "You_ don't?_"

"No, _**I don't**_." He squared off with him and gestured down the alley. "If we spend like half an hour there, then yeah, I'll probably be able to do it, but I believe you, so there's no reason to. I'll work on getting it active some other time. I can't always switch out powers. It's like I forget them."

Paula was coming out to where they'd stopped, which ended the conversation. "Find anything?" she asked.

Peter said, "It looks like he found where someone was lying down, but he's gone."

Paula nodded. "Well, dispatch says to sit tight for the next call. If you'll baby-sit the truck, I'll pop into that convenience store on the corner and get us drinks. What do you want?"

"Orange juice," Peter said.

Gabriel got out his wallet. "A Slush-o if they have them. Water if they don't." He tried to offer her a five but she turned it away.

"No way. Starving college students and all that, you know?" She walked off and the men went on to the van. Gabriel went around to get in the driver's seat.

"Starving college student," Gabriel chuckled. "If she only knew… Speaking of things to know…" He turned to Peter. "You _forget_ your powers? How does that happen?"

Peter spoke defensively, "Not… I don't really forget them, it just takes me a while to access them if I haven't used them in a while."

"That's because you're not keeping them active."

Peter opened his mouth to say something sharp and then shut it. Gabriel probably knew a lot more about abilities than he did and they'd never had a conversation about it. He thought for a moment, then asked, "Okay. How do I keep an ability active?"

"Maybe we need to back up a little here. Didn't you almost blow up New York because you couldn't activate and deactivate your powers intentionally?" Peter frowned at him and didn't answer. Gabriel sighed. "I thought you'd figured that out."

"Just… explain it, please?" Peter said, suppressing the urge, again, to say something biting in response to what sounded to his ears like an insult.

"Okay. You have a certain number of abilities you can use at any given time. Those are the active ones. You can either pick them intentionally by focus and conscious decision, or they'll default to whatever you use most frequently. Some abilities run constantly, like regeneration or lie detection. Unless you make a deliberate choice to drive those dormant, they'll be some of your active choices because your body will default to them. Technically, you use them constantly, you see?"

Peter nodded.

"Everything else stays dormant, like an ability you've never accessed before. Like Intuitive Aptitude is for you right now. If you want to use a dormant ability on the fly, you basically can't. Like you said in the alley, it would take you a half hour or so to get it working and to do that, you'll have to deactivate something else. If you want to use an ability you've never activated, at all, it takes even longer."

"How many abilities do I have running at any one time? You say there's a certain number. What is that number?"

Gabriel blinked at him. "You… don't know?"

This time Peter didn't hold it in. "No, Gabriel, _I fucking don't know!_ Would you just can it with treating me like I'm a moron here? Maybe it's not so easy for everyone else as it is for you."

"I'm… okay. I'm sorry. Um… the other empaths the Company had records on… did… you did read their records, right?" Gabriel ducked his head a little like Peter might lash out at him again.

"No, _I didn't_," he said, teeth clenched. "I read the first one, some teenage boy they killed by overexposing him to abilities and I couldn't get past that. I just quit."

"Oh. Yeah, I remember that one. Well, the other empaths they had could hold two to six abilities active at any given time. And yes, overexposure can shock the system. You absorbed mine when you'd been drained of life energy. I can only assume you survived that without much incident because your body couldn't power the abilities enough for them to tear you apart." He shrugged. "It's not a test they ever ran on anyone."

Peter exhaled, thinking about how the Company would have if they'd thought of it back then, with a very different leadership than it had today. He at least hoped they weren't still doing that kind of crap.

Gabriel said, "You have at least six and probably at least eight, that I've seen you use within a short period."

"How many do you have?" Peter asked.

Gabriel swallowed and hesitated, then said, "Ten. At any one time."

Peter was silent, mentally counting the abilities he thought he had easy access to. _Nine. No, wait, my native ability, if that counts. So ten. I wonder if that means anything that we have the same number? They bred me. And him. My dad said they'd gone to a lot of effort to get me. Claude said I was the… I don't recall, but something about maximum potential._

Gabriel said, "And of course any abilities you have that are dormant you can switch to. For example, I never carry imprinting, but I thought about it last night and switched to it when I woke up in case I needed to forge identification or paperwork."

"How do you switch? You say you just choose to, you just decide. How do you do that?"

"Um. I just decide to do it? It's like using an ability. I just do it." He paused to study Peter. "You know, maybe your ability doesn't work the same way as mine. As I recall, you said you weren't able to assimilate all of Arthur's abilities. That could have been that you died afterwards, or maybe that he blocked them off somehow or dumped them."

"You can dump abilities? So you don't have them anymore?"

"I'm pretty sure it can be done. I don't know how to do it. It requires ability draining." He gave Peter a level look. "I don't have that one. I'm sure I could answer your questions a lot better if I did."

Peter snorted. _And you're not getting it. It's not like I really need to know this stuff, after all._ One thing Peter did not have was any sort of burning curiosity about abilities, even his own.

Gabriel tried to tempt him anyway, saying, "I'm sure Arthur knows how to do it."

"You ought to go pick _his_ brain for it."

"I'll keep that in mind," Gabriel mused.

Peter shot him a look, but went on to a different subject than encouraging Gabriel to go kill Peter's parents. "What if I _was_ able to assimilate all his abilities, but they're just dormant? How would I know the difference?"

Gabriel looked at him and then down, thinking. "I… Peter, I don't mean to be insulting, but… don't you know how many abilities you have?"

Peter huffed. "No." Gabriel said nothing. In his mind, Peter imagined that Gabriel's mouth was hanging open. He was pretty sure that was the probable expression Gabe would have if he wasn't being so guarded at the moment. "I mean, listen, I know all the ones I've used. But the rest… I don't know! If… if you killed this Joe Macon guy a long time ago, years ago, then I should have imprinting, shouldn't I?" This was why he'd changed the subject - not that he wanted to know about dormant abilities, but he wanted to know why imprinting wasn't there in his own brain, because knowing that affected his relationship with Gabriel.

Gabriel's face froze. Peter went on, "Unless you killed him recently, between March and now, you know, in the last two or three months..." Peter looked at him, but Gabriel was giving away nothing. "So that means I should have that one in my head, right? I would have gotten it from you. Can you show me how to access it?"

"How do you know there's even a point to trying to access it?" Gabriel's voice would have chilled an Eskimo. "If I got it recently, you wouldn't have it."

Peter reached out slowly and put his hand on Gabriel's. The other man looked down at it, but didn't pull back. Peter said, "Because I trust you. And I don't think you'd betray my trust like that."

A long beat passed before Gabriel said, "Open your mind to me. I'll show you how to find it. It's probably just buried because I almost never used it and you didn't even know to look for it."

Peter relaxed as his tension drained away.


	221. Mental Issues

**A/N: Part five of seven or maybe eight part arc.**

"Crap," Gabriel said. Peter had felt the other man's mind brush his own, but then the contact ceased. He followed Gabriel's sight line, seeing that Paula was returning with their drinks. "I'll make this quick," he said out loud and Peter heard in his head as the contact renewed, _It might hurt._

The next moment Peter tensed all over as something twisted in his head like a two-second migraine. Peter clenched his teeth and reached up to the back of his head. He didn't know why he touched that part - the pain had been in the front.

_Yeah, here it is,_ Gabriel thought to him, pointing something out inside his head. Something else tugged and he felt, no, saw, the ability of imprinting in his mind, like a concept he understood in full, familiar to him suddenly like a person he knew well. Nothing hurt. It all made sense. Gabriel added, _Oh, and I dumped light generation. It's dormant now._ Then Gabe cut the connection and with it went the understanding of Peter's abilities, vanished. It hadn't been his at all, Peter realized. It was Gabriel's. But he still had imprinting.

"What?" Peter said, trying to make sense of what exactly Gabriel had done to him. He wasn't objecting; he was just confused. However, Gabriel was already out of the driver's side and taking his Slush-O from Paula, who then climbed in and offered Peter a bottle of juice. "Uh, thanks." He rubbed the back of his head again, hearing Gabriel climb in the back of the van and shut the doors behind him.

"Any calls?" Paula asked.

"No, nothing," Peter answered. "We heard a little chatter earlier, but dispatch hasn't raised us."

"Okay. Well, I'll make sure they know we're still here." Paula called in, confirmed that they were awaiting orders, and then asked Peter for the newspaper. He divided it, offered the business section to Gabriel who declined, then saw the section and accepted. Peter snorted softly. He set up the paper so it looked like he was reading, then poked at Gabriel's mental barriers.

_Yes?_ Gabriel replied.

_What did you just do? Can you show me that in slow motion replay or something?_

He felt the amusement in Gabriel's mind. _Yes, I can. Look here…_ Peter tensed as he felt that twinge again, not nearly as painfully though.

_That hurts. What are you doing?_

_I'm trying to get to your abilities._

Peter's thoughts were an immediate welter of confusion and fear about why Gabriel would need that, even though the reason was patently obvious. He'd asked for it, after all.

Seeing the thoughts, Gabriel tried to reassure him, _I'm trying to be careful, love. I love you. Don't be afraid._

_Just… just stop. It's… upsetting me. I don't want to know that bad._ He struggled to block, not sure how much Gabriel had sensed.

_You mean you don't want me seeing what abilities you have, now that I'll be able to take the time to do it and you've thought it through that far. I'm reading your mind here, you know. Your motivations are pretty clear._

Peter's motivations embarrassed him, but that didn't make them stop being his motivations. _No. Yes. I mean… Christ, I wish I could filter like you do. How the hell do you block so I only hear what you want me to hear instead of everything I think?_

_I could show you that instead, but it's more a matter of discipline and focus than it is some quick trick you can learn and do. We've gone over blocking before. Also, it works better when you're not emotionally compromised, like you are now._

_I'm not emotionally compromised!_

… (or at least, that was how Peter read Gabriel's non-response)

_Okay, fine. Maybe I am_, Peter conceded.

_Peter, you know I love you. Do I need to get you some ice cream or something here? I still have some Slush-O left. Would that count?_ Gabriel flashed briefly to Peter telling him what to do to address Heidi's pregnancy-induced mood swings, and then later to Gabriel trying to handle Peter's healing-induced crankiness by bringing him frozen yogurt.

_Wait! __**That**__ was what the frozen yogurt was for?_

…_yes. You didn't…?_

_No, I didn't! How the hell was I supposed to know? All sorts of crap was happening then, and you showed up with yogurt and sandwiches and telling me I… telling me I looked good. I thought you were making a pass at me._ Peter recalled telling Gabriel to compliment Heidi a lot. _Crap._

Gabriel gave the mental equivalent of a smug grin. _I love you._

_Yeah._ Peter sulked quietly.

_I loved you then too._ Gabriel projected an image of him holding Peter's face and kissing it softly.

_Yeah, okay, okay. Sorry. Okay, so I'm moody as a pregnant woman and you're treating me like one. That's not very flattering, you know?_

_Sure. I can treat you some other way if you prefer_, Gabriel thought in an amused tone.

Peter felt a surge of irrational anger at being patronized. He tried not to voice the snippy comeback that came to mind, but he couldn't stop himself from oversharing: _That's pathetic._ Joined mentally, Peter could sense those words wounded Gabriel like he'd hit him with a whip. On some level, he knew he'd picked them because he was aware they would do just that. It was what Gabriel said about himself when he was at his most self-loathing, especially when he felt his attraction to Peter made him weak, like he was pathetic for loving him. Peter had known how deep that would cut. _I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I tried not to think that. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, please?_

Paula looked over. Peter's hands were shaking. "Peter, you okay?"

"What?" he said, his voice tremulous.

_It's okay, Pete. It's okay,_ Gabriel soothed in the back of his head. It was colored heavily with emotion, but his intent was clear. Peter blinked, surprised and ashamed that Gabriel would take his abuse and then try to comfort _**him**_. He felt very small.

Paula said, "You just looked like you read about your best friend's funeral."

Peter shrugged and shook his head. "It's… I don't know." He took a deep breath. "I think I'll stop reading." He folded the paper and put it down, looking pointedly away out the window. He didn't know what to say to her. He was too shaken inside by what he'd done. Paula glanced back at Gabriel, who was studying the stocks in the limited light. Then she went back to her own paper.

_I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said that. That of all things. You're __**not **__pathetic. You're __**not**__ pathetic at all._

Gabriel winced again and this time didn't succeed in blocking out a memory of Martin Grey berating him that he was "just pathetic." It had been the man's favorite insult for the boy who had grown up to be Sylar. Gabriel barricaded that off quickly, peeved that it had bled through at all, and thought, _Peter, I want to pick you up and __**shake you!**_ For a moment, both of them were silent - Gabriel trying to master his temper and Peter trying to figure out how to apologize without provoking him.

Gabriel spoke first, projecting in a calmer tone, _Please stop saying that word. I'm trying to take everything you say with as much… patience as I can. _There was a moment for another internal struggle before Gabriel went on, _You aren't yourself right now. Well, you are, but you're off. You're nice one moment, then you're cranky and on edge, then you're nice again._

_I'm trying…_ Peter pushed a little, trying to get past the mental barriers because he knew he'd hurt Gabriel and the other man was hiding it.

The radio crackled with sudden static and Peter heard the snap of a discharge behind him as well, from Gabriel, who thought to him in a very threatening tone, _Don't__** push**__ me, Peter._ Peter winced from the feedback as Gabriel narrowed down what he was allowing Peter to sense to no more than his mental voice.

Paula watched the radio for a moment, but it fell silent again. "Huh," she said, glancing over at Peter, who rubbed his temple and looked back out the window.

Peter mentally sat on his hands. He was embarrassed and pissed that he'd hurt him and couldn't make up for it and that all of this was clear as day to Gabriel because Peter couldn't control himself enough to keep his mind any more shut than his mouth. It was his own fault and he felt guilty and he hated feeling that way. He fumed at himself and at telepathy for making it easier for him to slip and express thoughtless things. After a minute or two of that, he felt Gabriel reverse his blocks, easing back into a closer contact, so he could feel emotions and catch glimpses of images and sensations as well.

Gabriel seemed to have calmed down. He thought to Peter, _I know you're trying. But you're treating this symptomatically. Your fixes only last as long as your concentration, so every time you get distracted by something, BANG!, another mood swing. It isn't the telepathy making you snippy, Peter. It's the healing. You keep seeing the trees and not the forest._

Peter succeeded in not responding this time, though mostly that was due to not knowing what to say. It was true. He didn't want it to be true. This made it impossible for him to accept it as true, so his mind hung up in a loop on it.

Gabriel went on, _Healing doesn't __**have**__ to make you this way. It only does this to you when you get carried away. If you'd observe a balance… _He paused, because Peter's mind had derailed off the loop and was instead simmering again with objections and defensiveness. When Peter succeeded in not projecting anything specific, Gabriel continued, _then you could still heal people. You just can't be overdrawing your account and not expect to get hit with penalties._

_But… people __**need**__ healing._

_Yes, _Gabriel answered with irritation in his tone, _and somewhere out there is a young man who slept in this alley last night. He needs help too, but we aren't out there tracking him down because there are better uses of our resources, even if that's just sitting in the truck waiting so we can respond quickly to the next call. I'd think you'd be more familiar with the idea of triage, Peter._

Peter grumped at him angrily, but his emotion didn't find expression in words - even mental ones. He was putting an extra effort into filtering since making that hurtful comment.

Gabriel gave him an impression of soothing - like a brief, exasperated shoulder rub. Peter relaxed and asked for more, begging for assurance that he hadn't hacked Gabriel off too badly. When the other man turned his attention back to him, Peter surrendered his worries and let Gabe head him, rolling over mentally. The submission seemed to defuse Gabriel even further, prompting him to go beyond an impression and give Peter something more specific. He thought of holding Peter in bed and how that made him feel, the comfort of having another body next to his; the security that Peter's scent gave him, the feeling of rightness and fitting and having a place and a friend; the warmth of his smooth skin and even the rasp of his stubble, the ticklish brush of his silky, fine hair; it gave Gabriel a constant, low level endorphin rush, a contact high, just from being with him. He shared this with Peter, who let that remembered moment fill his mind and bring him peace.

Peter let his forehead rest against the window and smiled contentedly, grateful that his lover was generous and supportive and forgiving. _That's wonderful. I wish I got that much out of just laying in bed with someone._

_Mm. I learned forgiveness from __**you**__, Peter. Every time you jab at me, I try to think of something to calm me down. I try to remember you're not always like this - it's just the healing. _He brought back up the image of them together._ Sometimes you're with me and loving me and letting me love you and it helps me feel good about myself. You don't really mean all the things you're saying today. You're not fighting with __**me**__ - you're fighting with your condition._ Gabriel folded up the newspaper. _Help me hang onto that impression, Peter._

Peter sighed. He wanted to promise that he wouldn't overuse the ability anymore. He couldn't. Instead he asked, _What do I need to be doing to help you deal with me?_

_Among other things, don't make it physical. And-_

The radio came to life with another crackle of static, but this time it had nothing to do with Gabriel. Dispatch was giving them their next assignment. A moment later it was lights and sirens and they were on their way.


	222. Different Strokes

**A/N: Part six. I think this one and one or two more chapters and then I'll be done with this arc.**

**My thanks, again, to GoldSeven for the creation of her original characters, Karen O'Neill and Nicholas Greentree. I have borrowed them briefly here.**

**Underlined**** statements are enforced with mental compulsion (telepathy, "push a thought", etc.)**

Peter pulled out of the telepathic conversation and grabbed the radio. The call was for a stroke, a woman with right-sided weakness. The first question Peter asked after clearing his throat was when it had happened. They didn't know, except that she'd woke up like that several hours prior.

Peter hung the radio back on the cradle. "Dial it back a notch," he muttered to Paula. "No need to hurry."

"Why's that?"

"If you can catch a stroke within three hours or so of onset, they can give thrombolytics to bust up the clot." He shrugged. "After that, generally not. We'll take her in for treatment and eval, but I doubt they can do much." Peter twisted in his seat to look back at Gabriel, thinking about how a small bit of healing would fix her, even if it had been more than three hours. He didn't bother to ask. He just gave the other man a small smile that was half a grimace and turned back to watch the road.

They arrived to find the woman sitting in a chair leaning against the wall. She had clear right-sided facial droop, but her speech was still understandable. She told them she had a bad headache the night before and woke up weak this morning, and the weakness had been getting worse. She'd used her husband's walker to get to the bathroom.

Paula did the hands-on examination while Peter took notes and observed. She had the woman squeeze her hands and reported, "Grip strengths are fine. No pronator drift."

They went through the usual gathering of data - blood pressure, heart rate, no prior history of strokes, but she reported hypertension and had a cardiac stent placed in the past. It was at this point that Gabriel bumped Peter's mind again, as Peter was trying to jot down her medical history. He glanced back at him and Gabe gave him a look that was a bit more insistent than a casual comment.

_What is it?_ Peter thought.

_Listen._ Gabriel projected a musical rhythm. _Wait, let me cull out you and Paula_. The sound altered. _There. That's her. Do you hear it?_

_I hear it, but it doesn't mean anything to me. What am I listening for?  
_

_I don't know. She's not right._

_Well…_ Peter gritted his teeth and avoided thinking something along the lines of 'No duh, that's why we're here.' Instead he just thought, _Yeah?_

_Well… it's not __**right**__._ Gabriel physically shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to communicate something and not knowing how to do it. There were also things about his past and his ability he was reluctant to share with Peter, and certainly thought it would be a bad idea to share _right now_, in the middle of things. Maybe he'd explain later, in a more controlled environment.

Peter looked at the other man shifting back and forth. He wasn't sure what to make of Gabe's reaction. He stuck the clipboard in his bag and said, "Uh, Paula? Here, help me with the stretcher." Mentally, to Gabriel, he said, _Take a look at her then. Don't do anything weird._

Gabriel knelt in front of her, giving her an intent look that bothered Peter for a moment. He'd seen that look before. It usually ended in blood. He tore his eyes away and went back to setting up the stretcher.

Gabriel asked, "Are you in any pain?"

"No, like I told them," the elderly lady answered.

"What about chest pain?"

"Well… a little, but it's not too bad."

"May I?" Peter missed Gabriel's gesture at the woman and her nod, but when he looked back Gabriel had his ear near her chest and was listening. He shook his head. "There's something wrong with her heart, Peter."

Peter looked at Paula, who said, "She sounded normal on the stethoscope - a little irregular, but that's not strange."

Peter said, "She said she had a stent. Maybe that's what you're hearing."

Paula said, "How are you hearing her heartbeat at all? Much less that she has a stent?" She looked perplexed.

Gabriel looked at her and said, "What I'm doing is completely normal. You're not surprised or upset by it."

"Oh. Of course," she said.

Now the elderly woman looked confused, but she said nothing. Peter huffed, annoyed that Gabriel was using abilities on his partner, but it was probably better to head that one off at the pass anyway. It was a pretty innocuous command. Peter said, "Okay. Let's get her in the van and we'll get a 12 lead on her. We were going to do that anyway."

They loaded her up and Peter applied the leads. He hit the button on the machine. Paula blinked at it. Peter adjusted the leads and hit the button again. Then he said, "Yep, that's a STEMI." To Paula he said, "On a one. I'll call it in."

To the patient he said, "Ma'am, it looks like you're having some heart irregularities. We're going to get you to the hospital as soon as possible." Then he turned and nudged Gabriel out of the way in the narrow confines of the van and leaned through the access way to get on the radio. Gabriel put a hand on his hip to steady him as Paula got the vehicle in motion, turning on the lights and sirens.

They arrived to find the ED prepped for them. They delivered the patient and repeated the report, leaving out the part about how they initially detected the heart problem. Hooking her up in the van was part of the routine.

Gabriel craned his neck a little, trying to see into the room through the narrow glass on the door. "Now what?" he asked.

"Now we go," Peter said.

"We don't know what happens to her?"

"We can find out later. We've got at least four more hours on-shift though."

Gabriel looked annoyed. Peter smiled and said, "You get attached to them, don't you?"

"What?"

"Our patients."

"They're _my_ patients."

Peter snorted and choked. _Possessive much?_ "Yeah, okay."

"I just want to know what happens to her."

"We can ask later. Now come on before someone asks who you are and what you're doing here." Peter had wanted to leave Gabriel in the van to minimize his contact with the staff, but that wasn't working out. He tugged at Gabe's sleeve and the other man came with him reluctantly.

XXXX

They had another period of downtime between calls, but this time they spent it in the garage. Karen O'Neill and Nick Greentree were also on hand. Nick and Paula began a rousing game of 'frighten the intern.' Peter hung back with Karen and listened as they exaggerated stories of horror, suspense, heroism and gore. Gabriel lapped it up with a lot of exclamations of "No! Really?" and "What happened next?"

Karen grumped quietly at the embellishments, "I'd think what they're telling him would scare him off, but to look at him it's not. Does he have as cast-iron a stomach as he's pretending to have?"

_Yep_, Peter thought. Out loud he said, "The nursing home smell bothered him a lot. Otherwise, we haven't really seen anything today that would let me judge."

Soon enough, they had a call that sounded exciting. Karen and Nick declined it in favor of Tom-Tom so the intern could see some action. It was reported initially as aspiration and suffocation on a man who was in home hospice care with terminal cancer. They arrived to find it was arrest. Peter and Paula got to it immediately, working the man on the bed where they found him, shown in by his son-in-law.

Gabriel found an unoccupied corner of the room to stand in for the moment. He looked bored already. "He's dead," he offered.

"We might be able to bring him back," Peter said. Giving Gabriel a mental nudge. When he got reception, he added mentally, _You don't say that sort of thing in front of the relatives, like I didn't tell our last patient she was having a heart attack._

_Why not? He killed him._ He mentally indicated the son-in-law.

_What?_

_Read his mind. It wasn't on purpose at first. He was giving him water and he choked. Then he left him, not caring if he lived or not. And he didn't, the son-in-law's happy, and once he was sure he was dead, __**then**__ he called 911 to cover his ass. He's projecting so loud you almost can't __**not**__ hear him. Guilty as sin._

Peter stared up at the son-in-law, who was standing uneasily in the door, eyes shifting rapidly across the scene. Paula distracted Peter, needing his help as they continued the required and futile effort to restore life to the man. Peter had noticed the younger man's fear and guilt, but those weren't uncommon feelings. People often felt they'd failed when a loved one suffered, regardless of their role in it.

The man at the door asked, "Is he… can you bring him back?"

Peter kept his head down. "We're going to try."

They tried. After the mandatory twenty minutes, they called it. By then, Peter had picked up enough snatches from the younger man's thoughts to verify Gabriel's information. He wrote up exactly what he knew for a provable fact in his report. The man had terminal cancer, he aspirated water, then went into arrest and could not be revived. Gabriel watched over his shoulder as he finished writing.

_No misplaced sense of justice or heroism going to make you turn him in to the authorities?_ Gabriel taunted.

_That's kind of rich for __**you**__ to be saying,_ Peter thought back grudgingly. Gabriel stiffened and cut the mental contact. For once, Peter didn't feel bad about it. If trying to kill a loved one was something he should turn people in for, the whole Petrelli family would be in jail, Peter included. Peter gave the son-in-law a hug and encouraged him to see a therapist to talk about the death. If he let a little (or a lot of) ability-inspired persuasion bleed into his voice, no one was going to blame him. They let themselves out, a pall hanging over all three of them, for very different reasons.


	223. Drug Seeker

**A/N: Part seven.**

They picked up lunch at a fast food shop nearby, but were called in to do a routine transfer before they got to eat. Since they weren't driving hell for leather, Peter and Gabriel chowed on the go. Gabriel wasn't talking to Peter, mentally or otherwise. Peter didn't push it. He'd probably say something he'd regret, anyway (that is, Peter would say something regrettable, not Gabriel). When they got to the doctor's office and picked up the patient, Peter took over driving and Paula ate, letting Gabriel entertain their passengers, a toddler and his young mother. He had a lot to say to them, Peter noticed.

After they dropped them off, they had another transfer, this time of the same woman they'd brought in earlier in the morning, being taken back out to the nursing facility. She was pleased to see familiar faces.

Paula asked, "So what was your diagnosis?"

"Oh, they say I have lumbago and a bunch of other things that just mean I sprained my back really bad and have some bone bruises. They gave me a bunch of pills and told me to stay out of bed as much as possible, but there's just nowhere to go in that nursing home, nothing to do and I don't know anyone. They think I was lying in bed too much. I hate that place!"

Paula said gently, "Maybe if you're up and around more, you'll get to know more people and then you won't dislike it so much."

Their patient was not optimistic, but it was probably the best she could hope for.

Gabriel nudged Peter mentally, the first communication that wasn't strictly necessary that he'd made since the death a few hours earlier.

_Yeah?_ Peter answered.

_Your work is really depressing sometimes._

_Yeah._ He thought about saying something else, and didn't. He worked on keeping his mental mouth shut.

Gabriel was silent for a moment, then added, _You do this every day?_

_Yeah._ It was easier this time.

The other man was silent a bit more. _That must be tough._

Peter sighed. _I love you._ It warmed him that Gabriel understood (and, not to mention, was talking to him again). The nature of his work was not a burden he'd meant to share with him or that he'd intended for Gabriel to recognize, but he was happy he did regardless. Sometimes at the end of a day, Peter felt defeated by what he did for a living. Having the healing ability let him wrest victories from the jaws of death and human misery. Maybe if Gabriel had a little more empathy for the people Peter was helping, if they weren't strangers to him, then… Peter didn't know. He still didn't have enough energy to help everyone and Gabe was right. He needed to conserve and set limits.

Peter offered, _I checked in on our previous patient earlier, while you were in the bathroom. The lady who had the stroke?_

_Yes?_

_She __**did**__ have a stroke and they can't do much about that, but since we caught the arrest early, we saved her some heart muscle - assuming, of course, she didn't die from it first, which, again, since we caught it early, didn't happen._ Peter was quiet after that, contemplating how healing would have saved her both problems. If Gabriel hadn't been there, he would have done it. But as it was, she'd live the rest of her life recovering from the stroke. She was 75, which made a difference, but still. If Gabriel was aware of his thoughts (and Peter wasn't trying to block him from it), he said nothing of them. Peter hoped he wasn't back to not talking to him.

They dropped off their patient and loaded back up. Paula got in the driver's seat this time.

"How do you decide who drives?" Gabriel asked, proving that his uncommunicative period was over.

Peter forced a laugh. "I don't drive well under pressure. Never have."

Paula nodded. "Yeah, we tried that once on our first day together. Caused a three car pile up."

Peter sighed and covered his face. "Yeah. So. She drives, I tech, and no one makes any chauffeur comments or else the pile up gets mentioned. Again. And again."

"And again!" Paula grinned and teased, "You were **so** embarrassed."

"I'm **still **embarrassed," Peter said, laughing more genuinely and shaking his head. "I thought I'd get fired, first day."

"Oh, Peter. You know they love you up in administration. There's got to be **some** reason why they keep hiring you back, and why they always give us tour two. That's the best tour there is, unless you want all those exciting late night calls."

Gabriel snorted. Peter felt angry and ashamed, because Gabriel knew exactly why they kept hiring Peter back and why he got the shifts he wanted. It dovetailed nicely with Emma's work schedule, after all. Peter tried to never use his abilities for his own benefit and more than once he'd looked down his nose at those who did, like they were cheating the system somehow. Tinkering with his schedule was hypocritical of him, but he'd done it anyway.

Peter said, "Let's change the subject. Hey, Sylar." He even managed to say the name without hesitation. Peter was proud of himself.

"Yes?"

"What are your hobbies?"

Gabriel blinked at him, then grinned and laughed. "You're going to ask that _**now,**_ huh?"

"Yep." Peter looked back at him cheekily. "I'm sure you've got some."

"Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I used to collect clocks, but now that I have kids underfoot, I've scaled down to only tinkering with watches. I run a little ad in the classifieds and buy broken ones, then when I have time I fix them."

"I didn't know you did that!" Peter said.

Paula scoffed. "How would you?"

Peter recalled he wasn't supposed to know Gabriel all that well. He mumbled something about not having mentioned it before.

Gabriel said, "I only finish one or two a month. I _should_ be able to do that much in a day, but… I have other obligations." He exhaled. "I like astronomy. You can't believe how clear the stars are if you get high enough."

Peter smiled, remembering Gabriel telling him about how he flew at night to help clear his mind.

Gabriel went on, "And I think I've already told you about my interest in genetics and virology."

Paula said, "Yeah, that dissertation you were thinking of doing."

Gabriel nodded. "I like reading history books, or fiction set in real historical locations. Kind of like working on the watches, I'd love to have the chance to read more, but I work a lot and I have people I need to spend time with." His voice had gone soft and mellow at the end. Peter resisted the urge to look back at him because if he did, he knew he'd be making calf eyes at him and that would be hard to explain to Paula. Instead he looked forward out the windshield and sent Gabriel an impression of holding his hand and kissing his lips.

Gabriel answered, his tone tinged with sadness, _I wish I could see you more. I'm sorry but Heidi-_

Knowing nothing of their exchange, Paula interrupted their moment by asking, "So, you say you have kids?"

"Yes, three of them. All boys." They talked about families for the next half hour. Peter wondered what Gabriel had been going to say about Heidi, but it never came up again. Eventually, they got their next call, which was the last of the day. The call was for 'crippling pain, migraine, can't walk.'

Peter frowned. "That sounds… familiar. Can't quite place it though." When they arrived on scene and he saw the patient sitting on the curb, he groaned. "Oh, no. Him again."

Paula parked the vehicle. "Him? Who is he?"

"Sam. He's a drug seeker. Or near enough. I know I shouldn't call him that, but that's what he is."

"Ah," she said.

"What's a drug seeker?" Gabriel asked, leaning up through the access way, trying to see the man. "Is he going to try to rob us?"

Peter chuckled as he thought he heard anticipation in Gabriel's voice. _Trying to rob us - now that would be funny._

Paula answered, "A drug seeker is someone who feigns pain and misery, trying to get painkillers and drugs."

"He gets high," Peter said.

Gabriel nodded. "You're sure he doesn't have a problem? Like, a real problem, causing him real pain?"

Peter looked back at him, meeting his eyes. "I'm sure." He'd had, and used, telepathy during his work as a paramedic for about a month earlier in the year. He'd run across this man three or four times during that period. They all climbed out of the vehicle. Peter went directly for the stretcher, leaving Paula to get their initial contact.

Since they were alone for the moment, Gabriel said, "Have you ever considered straightening out someone like him?"

"Straightening out? How?"

"Tell him not to use drugs."

Peter rolled his eyes dismissively and shook his head, adjusting the wheels on the stretcher. "I might as well use mind control on _**you**_ again to make sure you never kill anyone else."

Gabriel inhaled and stiffened, taking a half step back like Peter might attack him. Peter blinked and raised a hand. "Hey?"

Gabriel continued to watch Peter with wide eyes and uneven breaths, deeply unsettled. "You wouldn't…"

"I wouldn't what?" He stared at Gabriel, wondering why he was acting terrified. "If I was going to do that to you, I would have done it before _now_," he said, exasperated.

Gabriel fell back another step and went pale. "But you have…" he said in a weak voice.

Peter shook his head. What Gabriel was saying didn't make any sense, but then again, fear wasn't rational. "It's not my place to decide if Sam does drugs or not." Peter waited a moment, but the equipment was ready. Gabriel was still freaking out, so Peter wheeled the stretcher over to their patient. Gabriel edged around the ambulance eventually and watched him. Peter didn't see the calculating look he was getting.

"Hi, Sam," Peter said, addressing their patient. "How you doing today?"

"Oh, terrible. Pain at a nine, man. Pain at a nine. I can't walk. It's all over."

"Right. Come on. We'll get you on the stretcher. Where do you want to go today?"

Sam gave his hospital of choice as Peter helped him onto the stretcher. Paula objected, "That's all the way across town! Mercy Heights is right down the road."

Like someone had flipped a switch, Sam became vicious, waving his arms and yelling at her about how he knew his rights, he could go wherever he wanted, she had to drive him, he was suffering and no one was going to keep him from getting help because he knew how the system worked. Peter sighed, backing away and waiting to see if the tantrum included anything that would allow them to refuse service. Paula was taken aback at the reaction and clearly frightened to be the target of it. She cringed from the man's aggressive gestures, which only seemed to embolden him.

Gabriel walked over, put his hand on the man's chest, and shoved him down on the stretcher. "Shut it." He glared at him menacingly. Sam made not a peep. Paula smiled in relief, then turned away to cover her laughter when it was clear Gabriel's command had taken.

Peter said, "Well, that's that. Let's load him up and go." Mentally he said, _You really shouldn't do that to them._

_**You**__ shut up too! I'm not going to stand here and do __**nothing**__ while your partner is assaulted._

Peter stared at Gabriel for a moment. The other man turned his entire scrutiny on him, his gaze white hot with rage. Remembering what Gabriel had said about eye contact, Peter looked down immediately. _Um… I was hoping he'd say something actionable. He's done that before. He called me an asshole once and took a swing at me for asking him what happened to the month's supply of medication he'd gotten only five days before._

Gabriel snarled wordlessly and cut the mental contact, giving Peter a flash of feedback before he too dialed it back. They loaded the stretcher. Gabriel and Peter both climbed in the back, with Peter giving Gabriel more of a berth than normal. Gabe took the bench seat and Peter went about the routine examination. Their patient remained silent. The tension was palpable.

Paula, however, was out of the loop. She called back, "So, did he say he wanted to go to Mercy Heights?"

Peter hesitated. He knew what he _ought _to do. Sam had a right to designate the hospital he was taken to. He was correct in that. And it was the ambulance's job to take him there, even if there were other medical services closer.

Gabriel prevented that, saying, "Yep, that's what he said. Changed his mind. Wants to go to Mercy Heights." He glared at Peter so hotly that the empath didn't dare to contradict him. Neither did Sam.

"Alright!" Paula said cheerfully. "We're rolling."


	224. Torn Asunder

Peter clocked out of work and walked outside. Gabriel fell in step with him as they headed for the nook. Peter was happy to see that. Apparently he'd calmed down a bit while Peter had changed in the locker room.

Gabriel initiated mental contact, asking, _Take me back to the apartment?_

_Sure_, Peter replied. _You left your car there?_

_Yes. And I want to kiss you good-bye._

Peter smiled and felt warmth suffuse him. Apparently Gabriel had calmed down a lot. He blushed and looked away.

_Don't look away from me. I like to see you blush._

Peter looked back and sighed happily. He hadn't been sure how badly he'd put his foot in it, there at the end. Gabriel had been about as mad as he'd ever seen him and he still didn't understand what that was all about, exactly. Sure, there were reasons, but Peter wasn't taking them seriously. They reached their destination and took a careful look around. Content they were unseen, Peter teleported them home.

Gabriel hesitated for a moment. Peter lifted his chin slightly and it was enough of an invitation. Gabriel put his arms around him and kissed him passionately, slowly pressing more and more against him, enveloping Peter and drawing him against himself. Peter opened his mouth, curled his arms around Gabriel's shoulders and enjoyed the hell out of it. They parted an eternity later.

"I went all day without using it," Peter said of the healing.

Gabriel leaned back in to nuzzle him, running his nose and lips across Peter's cheek and neck. "Mm." Peter was unsurprised when he nipped him at the join of his shoulder and neck. He was getting accustomed enough to Gabriel's way of showing affection that he'd miss it if the other man changed. Months ago, he'd been opposed to any biting at all.

Peter basked in the unexpected affection. Lazily, he asked, "You _are_ going home tonight, aren't you?" They'd been together rather a lot lately. If Gabriel didn't go home tonight, Peter could imagine the trouble he'd get into with his wife.

Gabriel spoke between kisses and little bites. "Oh yes. I don't think I can take much more of you, love. I talked to Heidi this morning, while you were asleep. She didn't appreciate me waking her." He nibbled up the side of Peter's neck, making Peter hold him tighter and breathe faster. Honestly, Peter wasn't paying as much attention as he should have been to what Gabriel was saying. "She also let me know she didn't appreciate me spending so much time away from her, as I have for the last few weeks."

Peter grunted.

Gabriel said, "Yes, that's what I thought. But it's for the best." He bit him hard again, hard, then let it fade into a hickey-raising suction.

"Ah!" Peter was hardly paying any attention at all to Gabe's words. He began to grind against him.

"Mm." Gabriel lifted away to watch the mark fade. He kissed the spot tenderly after it vanished. "So, I told her that I would spend the next week with her, and none at all with you."

Peter stiffened and stopped moving his hips, finally catching the meaning of what was being said. To his own surprise, that ran through him like a hot raging fire. For a moment, he wanted to _hurt_ Heidi and he wanted to lash out at Gabriel for making that bargain. He could see himself doing it very clearly, too. He bit his lip, trying to hold in his reaction and the angry words that threatened to spill forth.

Gabriel drifted up to cover those lips with his own. He sucked gently, but persistently, pulling Peter's lower lip out and working it between his own. He watched Peter's hurt expression with a slight smile. Peter shut his eyes, finally started breathing again, and tried to relax. _Maybe I misunderstood. I've been misunderstanding a lot lately._

"A week… apart, not seeing each other?" he said in a small voice when Gabriel released his lip. They'd been together every night… He remembered that warm, loving impression Gabriel had sent him mentally of holding him in bed, lying next to him…

The other man kissed Peter's cheek and then his temple, laying sweet impressions of his lips all over Peter's face. "I've since changed my mind," Gabriel purred. "I think it should be longer. Now I'd say indefinite. But a week is what I told her this morning." His actions were so at odds with his words that Peter couldn't really process them. The emotions he was feeling from him were layered and dissonant - love and grief, anger and sorrow.

Peter's throat began to choke up. He pushed away. "Okay, okay. Stop it."

"Stop?" Gabriel asked, with a tilt of his head. "You don't like the hot and cold act either, hm?"

"Wait, what? Yes, I mean stop! Like safeword stop. Stop!" Anger bled into his voice.

Gabriel took a deep breath and let his hands fall to his sides. He stood a little straighter and fixed his expression to neutral.

"What the hell did you just say to me?" Peter stared at him. He was so messed up he wasn't even certain if he'd heard that about the 'hot and cold act' or imagined it. And the rest… His emotions were running away with him. He couldn't believe what he thought he'd heard. The dampness of a dozen kisses was still cool upon his face, but he felt like he'd just been dumped. No, wait, he was pretty sure he _was_ being dumped. Wasn't he? Nothing made any sense, but his outrage was boiling up. "Indefinite? How dare you…"

Gabriel had been at his beck and call for months. At any time he'd have dropped everything and anything for Peter; he would have endured any degree of abuse, even changed his identity to better suit Peter's whim. He'd said as much. He'd never… said anything to Peter like this. He'd never been snide or mean or threatened to leave... The room seemed to be spinning.

Gabriel exhaled slowly, his expression still very calm. His words were glacial. "I have put up with you all day, Peter. You have been cruel to me, you have been uncaring, you have been inconsistent when I needed you to be my rock. You have threatened me with what I most fear; you have provoked me until I _lost_ myself. You have doubted me, used me and treated me with less regard than you have for inveterate drug abusers and people who deliberately leave to die the feeble and defenseless who are their charge to protect! And it's not just me, but your partner even - in the face of a man you knew to be unstable and violent, you stood aside and did nothing, then had the gall to criticize _**me**_ for protecting her.

"I have asked you, I have reasoned with you, I have begged you not to overuse this healing ability. You have refused time after time. It is clear that if I had not been there today, _in person_, you would have used it again, despite everything that happened last night and this morning. I am not in control of _you_, but I **am** in control of myself. I am going home to where people love me," his voice cracked and then steadied, "and where they treat me with _respect_. _**You**_ have proven yourself not to be one of those people."

Gabriel turned and stalked towards the door.

Peter leaped at him, "No!" He grabbed Gabriel's arm and spun him around. He wasn't quite sure what happened next. Yes, in retrospect it was obvious that Gabriel used a combination of powers to blast him through the interior wall of the apartment that separated the living room from the bedroom, but at the time all he sensed was a deafening noise, a feeling of falling, and a flash of heat all over his body. After that he had no awareness at all, because he was dead.

He woke where he'd caught up against the bed, which was now slammed against the far wall of the bedroom. His clothes were on fire, there were chunks of plaster and splinters of wood everywhere, he'd been knocked clear out of his shoes and was bleeding from every orifice. The air was full of dust and the smell of burnt hair. He began to choke on a combination of it and his own blood immediately. He was sure he had severe internal damage and an equally serious concussion, but regeneration was knitting him up in record time.

He was alone. He stood woozily and batted at the fire ineffectively. Belatedly, he recalled Gabriel telling him not to make it physical.


	225. Fallout

**A/N: Something I wanted to point out: the current date is Thursday, May 13, 2011. Peter got healing back on March 28. He started work as a paramedic again on April 25. He didn't use healing much between getting it and going back to work as a paramedic. But **_**since**_** going back to work as a paramedic, after about the first week, he's been using healing a lot, and he began getting a little erratic. The second week that he worked as a paramedic, Gabriel noticed Peter was losing weight, and then this last week's behavior… well, I've gone over that a lot in the chapters, so you've seen it.**

**I want to make a clear connection between the opportunities Peter has had to use healing (because he has been healing people - a lot, and a lot more than he should, but it's been happening off-screen at his work) and the deterioration of his behavior. So, that said, on with the story!**

Gabriel changed shape into Sam, the drug seeker, as he walked out of the apartment. He was leaving immediately. Other tenants would have heard the noise and would soon be looking out. He shut the door and acted surprised, looking around the hall like he'd heard it too and wasn't sure where it came from. As he left, virtually everyone in the building, on the floor above and below, came out to look. The sonic blast he'd incorporated along with lightning and telekinesis had made quite a racket.

XXXXXX

Peter staggered to the hole in the wall. His legs felt like Jell-O and his joints protested having to support him. His hearing was coming back and with it, his ears stopped bleeding. A distant part of his mind registered that the part of the wall that had been destroyed was the same one Gabriel, in Nathan's guise, had raped him against last October. He looked around through the ragged gap.

The living room was strangely untouched, other than the hole in the wall. The front door was shut. Gabriel was gone. Peter wiped the blood from his nose and put his hand to the wall to support himself. The dust was starting to settle. He hadn't been dead for long. He turned and looked back at the path of devastation. Really, it had looked worse on first blush. He didn't even think the bed was busted, but the dresser was a goner. He touched the back of his head. The hair was singed and burned. He wrinkled his nose. The whole apartment had a kind of burned smell.

The sprinkler system agreed with him and chose that moment to deploy, along with the deafening beeping of the fire alarm. Everything in the apartment got drenched with dirty, lukewarm water - except the kitchen (the room in a home most likely to have a fire), where the piping malfunctioned.

XXXXXX

Gabriel slipped out easily in the crowd. It would be a while before the landlord started knocking on doors, assuming emergency services didn't get summoned for some reason. His car was where he'd left it. He swapped forms again, needing his keys. He unclipped the badge that said 'G. Sylar.' He looked it for a moment, then sighed and set it aside, blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. This wasn't the time for emotion. He'd made his decision.

He'd had plenty of time, waiting while Peter got off shift, to consider what he wanted to do. Now he drove home calmly enough, unruffled by the traffic.

XXXXXXX

_Coincidence._ Peter sat on his soggy couch, looking at the watch in his hand, unable to process what had happened. Instead, his brain had hung up on this one thing. Once he'd known about Lilith, he'd begun to think that a lot of the things he'd previously dismissed as coincidence were engineered by her or some other agency. It was like the mysterious things his mother often said - they made sense once you knew about her ability. And so people had found each other; the Company maybe built stations in Odessa, Ukraine and Odessa, Texas; Emma worked at the same hospital he did - all coincidences that made sense when you thought there was someone out there arranging things.

The watch was broken, face shattered and who knew what sort of damage on the inside. It had stopped at 5:23 and it looked like the hour hand had been knocked askew a little, because it pointed nearly to six. He rotated it 180 degrees. If you disregarded the numbers, it was the same 'seven minutes to midnight' that had been on one of Isaac Mendez's paintings. The second hand was even in the same place. _Coincidence._

His brain refused to process anything else. Everything else was too big, too consuming. When it finally hit him, he wouldn't be able to cope. So he just sat there, turning the watch this way and that, turning over the coincidence in his mind, searching for meaning where there was none.

XXXXX

It was past six when Gabriel got home. Heidi came out of the kitchen to meet him. Beyond her, he could see Monty was sitting at the bar studying for a one of his final exams. Some of the end of school year pressures were behind Heidi's insistence that he spend more time at home, he knew.

"Hey," she said. "How'd everything go?"

"Fine." He smiled a little and bent to kiss the cheek she offered him. Nothing about his appearance or demeanor indicated what had happened.

"Did you tell him?"

"Yes. I also told him it was over between us, indefinitely." To answer Heidi's widening eyes, he said, "He hasn't been treating me right."

She blinked at him and whispered so Monty wouldn't hear, "I know what you're willing to put up with from _**me**_. What has he been doing to you?"

He shook his head, feeling his eyes sting again. "It's just emotional. I'd rather he was hitting me. I could heal _that_." His voice broke and he struggled with himself for a moment. He regained his perfect composure and shook his head again. "I need to be alone… for a little while. Fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour."

She nodded.

XXXXX

The door opened as Peter reached it, startled out of his mindless absorption with the watch by the pounding, yelling and then immediate jingle of keys. The landlord looked irate, then shocked at the gaping hole in the wall and the gallons of water everywhere.

"There's a fire?" the man asked.

Peter shook his head and said the first things that came to mind, too off-center to think of anything better. "No, not anymore. I put it out. There was an accident."

The man pushed past him. "What the hell happened?"

_I don't know. Gabriel… What the hell happened?_ Grief chose that moment to hit Peter squarely between the eyes, so hard he could barely see.

Gabriel's words and variations of them, rang in his mind: _You have doubted me, you have been cruel to me, you have refused me, you have been inconsistent, I needed you and you weren't there, I have lost myself for you, you don't love me, you don't respect me, you use me, you don't care about me, you have threatened and provoked me…_

Tears began to run down Peter's face. Someone was shaking him. Time must have skipped forward a little. The landlord was yelling in his face, saying, "No! No, really? What the hell happened here? Where's Gabriel Grey? It's his name on the lease. He's responsible for this!"

_He's not responsible - I am._ Peter pushed him away, too hard, and the man stumbled and went down. As he did, the landlord threw his hand out to catch himself and landed on some of the debris. He cried out in pain as he accidentally drove a shard of wood into his hand. Two firemen came through the open door and saw Peter push the man down.

One of them said, "Hey! What's going on here?"

_I hurt him. I'm hurting everyone close to me…_ It was just too much. One of the firemen came towards him. The other bent to help the landlord. Flashes of persecution and capture ran through Peter's mind. He teleported out, right in front of them.

XXXXXX

Gabriel walked down the hall to the study. He sat in his chair for a very long time, arms extended ahead of him, not moving. Between them lay a single object - a watch. He didn't need it - hadn't since the beginning of the year when he'd regained his time sense. He'd worn it for other reasons. Most recently he'd worn it for Peter.

Twenty-four minutes after he'd come to the room, Heidi peeked around the doorframe. He hadn't shut it. He didn't want her to think he was in here crying or being weak. He was upset and he didn't mind if she knew that (in fact, he thought she needed to know), but he wouldn't cry. Not in front of her. Not over this.

He gave her a thin smile. She walked in, carrying a glass of amber liquid. She set the tumbler down on the desk and pushed it towards him. She glanced at the watch and sat down. She knew what it meant, between himself and Peter. He picked up the drink and turned it, admiring the play of light through the strong liquor. She hated him drinking. That she'd brought this to him was a sign of many things, many things he wished he'd gotten from Peter. She knew what he reached for when he was stressed, as he was now. And she'd grown to trust him; she trusted him to know his limits.

He sighed and downed it in a single long pull, feeling it burn all the way down. He liked that. He liked that it hurt. He set the empty glass down. Then he took the watch and tossed it in the bottom drawer on the left, where it landed on top of his bundle of watch repair tools. He shut the drawer.

XXXXXX

Peter braced himself against the edge of the Deveaux rooftop and stared off across the city. Gabriel's words repeated over and over in his head, having mutated and shifted, but still retaining their meaning: _don't love me, cruel to me, don't respect me, use me, don't care about me, I've needed you, you've threatened me, I've done everything for you, you've slapped me in the face, rejected me…_

Peter sank down on the hard, barren rooftop and sobbed. _I didn't mean to hurt him…_ Thoughts of the landlord immediately morphed into Gabriel and the words began again in his head: _Indefinite, none at all, should be longer than a week, changed my mind, I can't take much more of you, put up with you all day, think more of drug abusers than me, doubt me, mistrust me, your motivations are pretty clear, stand there and do nothing while your partner is assaulted, you knew he was violent, you knew he was dangerous, have the gall to criticize me for protecting her, that's pretty rich of you, that's pathetic, You wouldn't… but you __**have**__._

He cried harder. He had. He **had** done it. He'd used mind control, of a sort, trying to eliminate Sylar and save Nathan and Gabriel hadn't forgotten that. It wasn't that Peter had forgotten, but he just hadn't been thinking about anyone's feelings but his own at that moment. Hell, the whole day, just about. Peter had inadvertently triggered him off, brought up one of the most traumatic moments in his life with a roll of his eyes and a dismissive shrug. Gabriel had freaked out, Peter knew it, he saw it, and he'd walked away. Maybe Gabriel's reaction was out of proportion to what was said, maybe it had little to do with what Peter had _meant_, but his lover had needed a little compassion and solace and reassurance in that moment and Peter had ignored him.

_Don't push me, another mood swing, BANG!, you jab at me, triage, penalties, I want to pick you up and shake you, I'm trying, treating this symptomatically, where'd you get that ability, I was in a good mood - you keep this up and I won't be, you've never asked what my hobbies are, you hit me Peter, you're misremembering things, stop being so clingy, don't tell me what to do, I'm worried about you, really hateful, disdainful expression, you'd pull away, knock that look right off of your face, I lost control - that's unforgivable, I lost myself, rape, did you consent?, I don't remember, your fucking job, behave badly, die trying…_

…_if you don't stop this martyr bullshit, you're going to lose something._

He grimaced as tears streamed down. He knew what he'd lost.

XXXXX

"So," Heidi said. "This time _you_ left _him_." He nodded. "How do you feel?"

"Angry."

"Do you think he got the point? Most Petrellis are a bit stubborn."

"I think he figured it out after I killed him, but I didn't stick around to ask."

"You…?"

He shrugged. "He healed. Or at least, I assume he did." If he didn't for some bizarre reason, Gabriel would know in enough time to arrange for his resurrection. And he would. Yes, he was angry, but he didn't want to end Peter. He just wanted to end things with him. A relationship that should have been a source of comfort to him had been a source of pain and distress for some time now.

He'd struggled to cope with Peter's moodiness; he'd put up with emotional abuse and poor treatment for many reasons. He still felt he owed Peter for killing Nathan. He still drew a lot of value and feeling of self worth from the fact that Peter would have him. He was still afraid, deep inside, that if he wasn't making Peter happy, then everything that had happened to him, especially losing his identity, would repeat. Then Peter had mentioned that event again, so casually, like it meant nothing to him, like it was so unimportant that it would be routine to do it again… Gabriel shuddered. "I'd rather not think about it. Have you eaten dinner?"

"No. I was wondering what you planned to do. Since… I wasn't sure you'd go through with it… just the week, was what I was thinking… I kept the night free."

He tilted his head. "Do you think we can have Mandy stay a little late to watch Monty?"

"I think so."

"Would dinner and a movie suit you?"

She smiled. "Sounds good to me."

XXXXX

"Peter!"

Peter winced at the alarm in Emma's voice. He hadn't intended anyone to see him like this. Too late, he realized he could have fixed his appearance with shape-shifting. Instead, he'd teleported directly into the bathroom of his and Emma's apartment. His face was a mess of tears and snot, his hair was sticking up oddly, he was dirty, and his clothes were still wet.

"Peter? What happened?" Emma fussed over him.

_Gabriel killed me. Gabriel left me…_

"Gabriel and I had a fight."

"A fight?" She looked him up and down with a trained medical eye. "Where are your shoes?"

He didn't know. Somewhere in his apartment, he assumed. He shook his head.

"Are you okay?"

"No," he croaked. He shook his head and turned away. He turned on the shower. He looked back to her and said, "Go on. I need to clean up."

Emma's eyes took him in again. She knew it was unlikely he had any physical wounds. His clothes were barely hanging on him, tattered and stained (with dirt and blood), with a scattering of holes burned into them. She leaned in and hugged him. She wondered what Gabriel looked like.

When he got out of the shower, he saw that a new set of clothes were sitting out on the counter for him. His old ones had been taken away. He looked in the mirror and fussed with his hair. At some point, it had regenerated just like everything else, but it still had a faint burnt smell clinging to it, even after shampooing twice.

He got dressed and walked into the living room. Emma was sitting on the sofa. She looked up at him with sad, but watchful eyes. He sagged and curled up on the couch next to her, head in her lap. He didn't want to talk and he'd picked a position where he wasn't looking at her. After a minute or two, she pulled down the blanket from the back of the furniture and covered him with it. She turned on the TV. He shut his eyes. There was no sound except the voices in his head, condemning him over and over.

XXXXXX

"Tell him that if he tries to talk to me while he's under the effects of that healing drain, I'll kill him again. And tell him that this time I won't leave him alone while he's helpless. Use that word to him too: helpless. He'll know what I mean. Remind him that I can hear the effects of that ability when he's used it too much."

Emma nodded. She looked between Gabriel and Heidi. Gabriel seemed calm. What he had said wasn't, which was far more frightening than if he'd been more demonstrative. He was deadly serious in every way. Heidi looked nervous. Emma nodded again and left.


	226. A Week Apart part 1

_Monday, May 16, 2011_

Gabriel walked into Nathan Petrelli's law office at 1:03 PM. He dropped the day's mail on his desk and shrugged out of his jacket. He looked out the window over the city, remembering when Heidi had sidled up to him here and told him she was pregnant with their son, almost exactly a year previously. He smiled. It was a happy memory.

He loosened his tie and sat down, swiveling the chair to face the desk. He touched the wood there, his expression falling, the corners of his mouth pulling down and his eyes narrowing. He'd fucked Peter here. It made him want to get rid of the thing. He fended off his reaction. It was early yet. He knew his anger would continue fading for a while. It had taken him quite a while to get mad enough to leave him. It would take a while to get back to equilibrium after. He was as patient with himself as he had been with Peter.

He'd had no contact with Peter since Thursday last, the day he'd spent at Peter's work. Emma had stopped by late that night, asking what happened, because Peter would barely talk to her and was snappish when he did. It seemed that his treatment of her for the last few weeks had been no better than that of Gabriel and her sympathy for him was surprisingly limited. After having to put up with Peter non-stop for the next day and half, without the escape of him leaving to see Gabriel, Emma had kicked him out over the weekend. They assumed he was now living in what was left of the old apartment.

Gabriel hoped they could still remain friends with Emma. Heidi was very fond of her. As Heidi pointed out, no matter what happened between him and Peter, Peter would still be his sons' uncle, as well as the father of Emma's child. In the past, when Peter's illusions about reality were finally smashed down, he tended to go off alone, be uncommunicative and sulk for a while. Peter wouldn't characterize it that way, but that was how Gabriel saw it. It would be easier for everyone involved if Peter did that again.

He took his mind off it, sorting quickly through the letters, trashing the things he didn't need and sorting the rest into 'open now' and 'open later' piles. There was a brown paper wrapped parcel, probably a book. It had no return address, but his office address was written in a familiar hand. He sighed as he recognized it. It was from Peter. Okay, maybe he wasn't going to be uncommunicative after all.

He tore the paper off. It was a book and a folded piece of parchment. He inhaled as the smell of oranges, or maybe earl grey tea, rose to meet him. His brows drew together. He turned the book, looking at the spine. It was blue, clothbound: _Pillars of the Earth_ was picked out in gold letters. He'd read it before; it was one of his favorites, but like everything he'd owned _before_ - right down to his underwear - he'd lost it. He'd lost everything. It was part of why he was so possessive. It was nice to get another copy. It was one of those books he didn't think he'd mind reading over and over again.

He unfolded the letter, which was hand-written on expensive parchment. The orange smell was a little stronger. He paused to track it to a single corner of the letter, where a triangular section was more transparent than the rest, having been dipped in an essential oil. He smiled, intrigued that Peter had gone to the effort to include an olfactory element to his missive. He shut his eyes and shook his head, touched despite himself. He read what Peter had to say.

There was no address, no 'Dear Gabriel', no date and nor was it signed. The body of the letter started immediately. There were two short paragraphs:

_I'm sorry. I know that doesn't make up for anything. Everything you said was true. I wish I'd paid more attention to what you liked. I wish I'd asked. What I'm asking now is for another chance. Please let me show you that I won't be like that again. I'll get better. You've changed so much for me. I want to change for you._

_I don't know if you like oranges or not. I hope so. All I can remember is that you don't like a chemical smell, or anything soapy. The guy at the shop told me this is food grade oil of bergamot, so I figure if a person can eat it, it can't be that bad. And I remember you saying you liked to read historical fiction. I never paid attention to what the titles were, or the authors (because I've been a thoughtless heel), so I don't know if you've already read this one. It wasn't on the shelves in the apartment. Thank you for reading my letter._

Gabriel sighed. He refolded the letter, smelled of it again, and tucked it inside the book. He set it off to the side and looked at it for a long moment. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

XXXX

_Tuesday, May 17, 2011_

The day had been long and tedious. Gabriel hung up his jacket at home, not very happy about the sweaty way it smelled even after shape-shifting in it a few times. He'd had to spend too much time roaming around outside, trying to find the address of his damned client. It was enough to make him want to call Molly and have her locate the bastard.

"Oh, you have a letter," Heidi said.

"Who from?"

"I don't know. Company stuff, maybe. No return address."

_Oh._ He sighed. _Peter again_. "Where is it?"

"On the desk in the study."

He hesitated for a moment. Was he curious? Yes, he was. Was he resentful of his own curiosity? Yes, that too. _Hell with it._ He went to the study, flipped on the light and picked it up. He'd expected another package, but this was just a letter. He opened it.

This time it smelled of mint. Again, despite himself, he smiled. They were nice scents - not really his favorites, but Peter was trying. He really was. Gabriel wasn't really in the mood to read another emotional entreaty, but he felt obligated to read it anyway. The last one had at least been simple and straightforward, which appealed to him much more than a lot of wordy sniveling. He pulled out several pages of hand-written stuff. He sighed, fortified himself against the inevitable sentimentality and looked at the first one. His brow furrowed. This wasn't a letter. It was a list. He straightened from where he'd been leaning against the desk. He flipped quickly through the three pages, eyes scanning rapidly. There were a dozen or so entries a page.

He went back to the first sheet. Riveted now, he read through carefully. Peter had listed every ability he had, where, when and from whom he'd gotten each one, and what they did, to the best of his knowledge. He had checked and he could hold twelve in usable complement at any given time. He was not sure if this was the extent of his powers, but it was what he knew of. Gabriel swallowed and read through the list again. Peter's descriptions were terse but thorough. Even for those abilities that Peter didn't know the Company's name for them, Gabriel was able to identify them from the information provided.

Half of the last page was taken up with a description of the ability he had gained from Phillip Gerber, how he could generate diseases and poisons. Phillip had said he could understand viruses of all kinds and manipulate them to do what he wanted. Peter had never accessed the ability, concerned about what he might do with it even inadvertently. He identified Phillip as the Patient Zero who began the influenza outbreak in March, the one Gabriel had been asking questions about. He admitted to killing him accidentally and confessed he'd never told Gabriel about it because he didn't want Gabriel to think less of him.

Gabriel held the list quietly after he was done reading it for the fourth time, committing it to memory. Peter didn't want this information in anyone's hands, he knew. He was shocked that it was in his. He recalled telling Peter where his kill spot was. Maybe this was Peter's way of doing the same thing. He pulled over the trash can and used enough electrokinesis to catch the letter on fire. He held it while it turned to ash, unbothered by the heat. He stared down at the sooty, unrecognizable remains. He wasn't sure what to think about that - he wasn't sure at all.

XXXXX

_Wednesday, May 18, 2011_

On Wednesday, Gabriel found himself easily distracted. He called home shortly after the mail arrived there - nothing. He received nothing unusual at his Company office, nor at his law office. Before he drove home, he checked the anonymous drop box he used sometimes. He doubted Peter knew of it, because he kept it separate from the rest of his life. But there, he found a small box addressed in Peter's handwriting.

He put it on the seat next to him and drove home. As the sun warmed it, he could smell the sandalwood. Now that - that scent was one of his favorites. _I'll have to remember to tell Peter._ He caught himself. _Was_ he going to tell Peter? Was he going to forgive Peter? Was it over between them?

He didn't know. He hadn't said it was, but he'd assumed it was. He hadn't thought Peter would try to get him back. Peter wasn't the apologetic sort. When he did something, he was all in, and he carried through no matter what. Gabriel had made it pretty clear - the healing or me - and Peter's answer, the one he'd given with his actions, had been to pick healing. Of course, that was before he'd known, definitively, that it was a choice. Maybe he was reconsidering. Gabriel looked over at the little package. No, _**clearly**_, he was reconsidering. Was he really contrite, or did he just not like living alone, abandoned and spurned by everyone who had loved him?

Gabriel carried the box to the study, turned the light on and shut the door. He sat down and opened it carefully. The scent of sandalwood flowed out with the packing material. Inside of it was an object that turned his heart to ice. It was a watch - a Sylar. He bared his teeth. That was low, especially for Peter, who wasn't prone to that sort of posturing. It was even smashed, the face cracked, the watch stopped at 5:23. This was Peter telling him his opinion of the relationship, through their symbol of it. It was vicious. The former watchmaker felt like there were knives inside of him, cutting their way out.

A rough sob tore itself from Gabriel's throat and he put his hand over the wounded device so he wouldn't have to see it. He was breathing hard now, trying to control himself. He had never wanted to kill Peter so badly in his life and he'd really had some moments. He shook. Sandalwood. He'd never be able to smell that again without thinking of this moment. Had Peter known that too? Were the two previous gestures of reconciliation just teases? Was the list of his abilities just made up?

He moved his other hand to the little box and crumpled it in his fist, slowly watching it deform. He wouldn't injure the watch further, but the box it came in was fair game. … He froze. There was something else in the box. There was a letter. He sucked in a long, deep breath. He didn't think he'd be able to stand it if that was some gloating testament to how Peter had cut him to the quick more deeply than he suspected he'd hurt Peter with the 'hot and cold good-bye kiss.'

He released the box. He stared at the letter. It was in the same nice parchment as the others, folded tightly to fit in the package. That didn't really mean anything though. For the second time, he considered that this whole 'gotcha' stunt with the broken watch really wasn't Peter's speed. He took his hand off the watch and looked at it again. The damage was not consistent with being hit with a hammer, a boot heel or other implement. He narrowed his eyes and gave the folded parchment a suspicious glare. He needed more information and he still didn't want to read the letter. He took up the watch and smoothed his thumb across the face of it. He closed his eyes and let the memories of the item wash over him.

He blinked his eyes open and inhaled sharply, grabbing for the letter. He'd misread Peter's intentions entirely. He tugged the parchment out of the crumpled box and unfolded it carefully, all the hurt and wrath gone in an instant. He read.

_Dear Sir,_

_I found your ad in the classifieds. I have this watch that was given to me by someone very dear to me. It has great value to me, immense, it is like my heart itself. And yet it is broken. It was broken in an accident that was of my own doing. I hurt my love and I broke his heart, so he broke mine. I want to end the cycle of hurt. And although I can heal many, many injuries, I do not know how to heal this one. I have sworn off all healing until this damage is repaired and even after that, I will only heal with my love's permission._

_Please, sir, I beg of you to look at this watch and give it your careful attention. If it can be fixed, if it is your will that it be mended, please see it done. And if you can, please find a way in your heart to return it, if you feel I deserve such a thing. It would mean everything to me._

It was unsigned, again. Gabriel ran his finger across the place where a signature should be. The parchment was slightly wavy there, like it had been exposed to moisture. He cocked his head and tapped into psychometry. Peter had kissed it. He smiled, his eyes watering until he had to put the letter aside. Peter was acknowledging Gabriel's routine use of his abilities. He was relying on it, even. Gabriel would have to check the letter that came with the book to see if Peter had 'signed' that one the same way.

There was a knock at the door. He sniffed and reached for a tissue. "Yes?"

Heidi opened the door saying, "Dinner…" She looked at him wiping his eyes.

_It's not weak to cry over happy things, is it? This i__**s**__ a happy thing, right?_ "It's okay," he said.

She walked over, a concerned expression on her face. She looked at the broken watch on the desk before him. "Is that his watch? Or did you break yours?"

"No, it's his. I broke it, it seems. When I killed him. He was wearing it." He handed her the sheet of parchment.

She took it, but was staring at him. "What did you do to him? Smash his arms?"

He gave one laugh. "No. His whole body. It was quick."

She gave him a long look, then read the letter. She snorted. "So he's writing you sappy love letters now? I'm not sure if I should find that disturbing or heart-warming." She grinned.

He smiled back, blushing a little. "Yeah, it's probably both. We're different." He reached out and took the paper from her, smoothing it out a bit on the desk.

She watched the care he took with it and smirked. "You're going to take him back, aren't you?"

He looked up at her, then away, sighing. "I… Should I? Would it hurt you if I did? I know you don't like him."

"He's grown on me a lot." She shook her head. "But in any case, it doesn't matter what I want. I know he's been good for you sometimes, and in ways I don't think I am, just like I think I do things for you he can't."

Gabriel smiled slowly.

"And that's not just have kids!" She laughed, guessing his thoughts. Gabriel snickered. "But… whatever you decide is fine with me. If you get back with him, just know that I'm going to sit him down and have a very long talk with him about a lot of things. He has to treat you right."

Gabriel snorted. "He'd like that - the talk. He's always wanting to talk about things."

"And you won't let him?"

"What is there to talk about? He never wants to talk about any of the things I want to talk about!"

Now _she_ snorted. "Yes, a very, very long talk. It's no wonder you two are dumping each other all the time if he's trying to talk to you and you won't listen!"

"I never said I didn't listen!" Gabriel said, starting to waver on the edge of being actually angry. "I listen to _everything_ he says! He doesn't hear a word I say!"

She sensed she'd touched a sore spot and backed off. "Well, dinner's ready." She came around the desk and kissed him, caressing his face, soothing him. "Come eat. Your sappy love letter will still be here when we're done."


	227. A Week Apart part 2

_Thursday, May 19, 2011_

Gabriel was called to the front desk of the new Pinehearst facility to receive a large package delivered to him. He looked at the label, smiled softly and nodded to the receptionist. "Thank you." He carried it back to his office. It was light for its size.

He'd talked to Emma. She'd come over for dinner the night before. Peter was sending her gifts as well, though they were different, tailored to her. She and Peter were seeing each other at breakfast now, at a little diner they used to eat at regularly. It was a ritual of theirs that had been discarded in the last few weeks, when Peter and Gabriel had gotten into the habit of staying together until late in the morning. It was the thing she'd been most upset about. Discovering this left Gabriel feeling more than a bit guilty.

Peter had sent her an engagement ring the same day he sent the broken watch to Gabriel. Gabriel was shocked Peter hadn't given her one already, since they'd been engaged for over a month now. Heidi had noticed that lapse on Peter's part immediately. Heidi asked her if she was going to accept it. Emma said it didn't matter, they were still engaged, that she'd kicked him out, not called it off and there was a difference.

Also, she felt trapped, given that she was pregnant. Heidi told her she'd be there for her no matter what - mothers of Petrelli boys had to stick together, given the track record of the men in the family. And then she'd glared at Gabriel, who was wearing Nathan's guise at the time. Gabriel felt a lot guilty about _that_ and annoyed, as he felt he was catching flak for Peter's behavior. And Nathan's. And, now that he thought about it, Arthur. Uncle Tim wasn't such a saint either. Fuck.

Well, he thought to himself as he went down the Pinehearst hall, reflecting on the conversation of the night before, at least none of them were insane serial killers hiding in the woods, skinning and preserving small animals while they died slowly of lung cancer. The Petrellis were at least socially functional. Even at his _worst_, while so screwed up by the healing drain that he couldn't always think straight, Peter was able to hold down a job and mingle properly in polite society. Gabriel considered that he himself hadn't managed that when he was new to the burdens of intuitive aptitude, or later, trying to cope with Samson's version of it.

He sighed and wondered again if he hadn't been patient enough with Peter, as so much of Peter's recent misbehavior was induced by the ability. It was another reason why he'd put up with the mistreatment. Under normal circumstances, Peter was large of character, selfless in his willingness to sacrifice for others and generous in giving his time (and his body) to those he loved. Yes, he was thoughtless at some moments and self-absorbed at others, but he was free with expressing his love and unconditional at giving support once it penetrated his brain that it was needed. Dealing with Peter was frustrating, but wasn't all love, after you got past the initial flush of desire and fulfillment?

At least Peter was trying to fix his problems. Arthur, to take a look at a different Petrelli, was currently being a bastard over in Arabia. Gabriel had spent most of his morning trying to sort that out over the phone and by email. The elder Petrelli had gotten into it with Fuad. It had been revealed that Arthur now had some manner of mental domination ability. This was no surprise - Angela had informed the board of directors that she'd sabotaged two different locations where Arthur had secreted a dose of the activated formula and it seemed unlikely to her those were the only two. Arthur's antics were troubling, but Gabriel was trying to leave dealing with him as an exercise for Halo and limit his own involvement to giving advice and staying informed. He had his own Petrelli to deal with.

He shut the door to his office and opened the package carefully, running his nose back and forth along the seam before opening it fully. _Frankincense. Getting traditional, aren't we, Peter?_ He folded back the lid and looked inside. It was clothing, wrapped in expensive tissue. _Hm._

He paused before sliding it out. He was trying to think of when Peter had ever gotten him anything - any gift, of any sort. Not that Gabriel had gotten Peter anything… no, wait, he'd gotten him both birthday and Christmas gifts. He'd bought him free weights and… something. And he'd picked up coffee for him when he went to Arabia, which had been an ordeal of a trip for him. For Peter, such a trip would take a fraction of a second there and back. Peter had never reciprocated - not even a casual 'thanks.' Gabriel swallowed. _Maybe I need to dump him more often._ He smiled suddenly at the naughty thought. _He's always been the baby in the family._

He pulled out the garment, finding a full Brooks Brothers ensemble, with a dark grey, pinstriped wool blazer with matching slacks, a silver-grey dress shirt, and a black and grey-green skinny tie. Something in the box rattled. He tipped it and out tumbled his reading glasses, with a piece of parchment taped around them. He slid them out and set them aside. He unfolded the letter.

_I found the glasses in the apartment. I thought you might need them, since you haven't been by to get them. They're the 'sexy dork' glasses. I hope I get to see you in them sometime. I hope I'm not out of line with the underwear. I know you usually wear black briefs as Gabriel and colored boxers as Nathan (see, something I've paid attention to!), so these are kind of both. I'd like to see you in that too._

_Underwear?_ He sorted through the clothing again to find, tucked inside the slacks, a set of black, silken briefs. They were fitted in the crotch and had with a little bit of loose material down the leg. They also had lace up sides with red ribbon holding them together. He grinned. _ I definitely need to dump him more often. _He was starting to really appreciate the treatment.

XXXX

_Friday, May 20, 2011_

On Friday, he got an email from Peter, with several zip file attachments. The email itself read:

_I renovated the apartment and took care of things with the landlord. I thought you might like to see. I decorated, and I can too buy furniture. I saved as many things as I could because of the memories and your ability, because you told me once not to replace the couch for that reason. I've done everything I could think of to get rid of the smell. I didn't like that part of the wall either though, to tell you the truth. If you want to see it in person, I won't be there any time this weekend._

He opened the attachments to find pictures of the apartment, an easy chair, a new dresser and a framed painting of an eclipse. Some of the images were of work in progress, date stamped earlier in the week. Others, stamped with Thursday's date, were complete. He looked at each one, studying them carefully. The painting appeared to be an original. It looked a lot like the one Arthur had done at Pinehearst. He'd assumed those had been destroyed with the building. His hand clenched and unclenched loosely. He wanted to touch it and know its history. Of course Peter would know that.

He leaned back and reined in his curiosity. Did he want to share an apartment with Peter again? Did he want to share _that_ apartment with Peter again? It was in an unfashionable district, in a run-down dump, with a tiny shower and bad water. He'd had his first conscious reversion from Nathan to Gabriel there; he'd tried to kill Angela in that horrid Thanksgiving debacle; he'd forced Peter and nearly succumbed to the Hunger. But it was also where they had made love so many, many times; held one another; given and received comfort; showered and fussed and worked things out. His face softened and he looked away. No other place would have those memories - and at the bottom of it, Gabriel wasn't trying to start a new life. He was trying to come to terms with the old one. He couldn't move on until he'd worked that out, and that apartment was part of it.

XXXX

_Saturday, May 21, 2011_

He waited until Saturday to drop by the apartment, just in case Peter didn't consider Friday evening to be part of the 'weekend.' So far, Gabriel had made no communication in return to any of Peter's efforts. As if Peter had known, no reply had ever been requested, unless you counted the watch. It was currently sitting in Gabe's desk drawer alongside his own Sylar. It would take only a moment of shape-shifting to fix it, but it wasn't an issue he wanted to solve like that. It symbolized something deeper. He'd wait until he was ready and when he was, he'd use his tools. It had taken years to mend the first one. He worried the internals of this one might be as badly contused.

Today marked the first time he was responding in any outward way to Peter, reacting to his gifts and letters. He could have pretended he was there because the place belonged to him, but he didn't. He was here because he was curious. Peter had managed to worm his way back into his heart with his little presents, assuming he'd ever left his heart at all. Gabriel walked in. He could smell the new plaster and paint, and under that the faint odor of damp. He could also smell incense matching the scents of the letters he'd received. Each smell reminded him of a gift. The place had been staged for his perusal.

He snorted at the setup and went to the painting immediately. It was what had drawn him here, after all. He was pleased to see it **was **an original. He touched the frame. That was new though. Peter had bought it a few days ago. He could see snippets of Peter framing and hanging it. He put his fingertips lightly to the work itself and his eyes went grey. Everything swirled in front of him. He saw the sun in the sky, blotted out by what appeared to be the moon; he felt the tremendous portent of the event and the certainty that everything was going to change. "_It is coming_," rang in his mind. It was threatening and joyous at the same time. With a great effort, he jerked his hand back and blinked. He'd never tried to use psychometry on a work of foresight. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. That had been… very strange. So once he'd gathered himself, he did it again.

He found he could see the exact vision the artist had when he rendered this, but luckily he felt no great urge himself to replicate it. He couldn't tell if Peter had seen the same thing or even tried to use his ability on it. He couldn't see the artist or the history of the piece. Everything was overwritten by the evocative power of the precognitive image that saturated the canvas. _Fascinating._ He grinned. _That's really cool._

He found, on the bed, a note that said, "In the refrigerator." He couldn't miss it. He sighed and smiled. Of course Peter had something else, some manner of message. He went to the fridge. Taped on the door was a note that said, "Inside." He opened it. There was a wine and cheese basket, with a letter attached. He pulled it out and set it on the counter.

He removed the letter. The corners of it were odd. He looked at them more closely. Each had been dipped in a different scent: bergamot, mint, sandalwood and frankincense. They didn't go together all that well, but it was the thought that counted, he supposed. It was another thick letter, several pages. He poured himself some wine, picked out a chunk of blue Stilton and settled himself on the couch to read it.

_Gabriel,_

_I hope you like the basket. The wine should go well with my cheesy letter and the cheese will go well with my whining. Now to get to it:_

_I am so sorry for the way I've treated you. I've been everything you said about me - mean, cruel, uncaring, inattentive, threatening, provocative, heartless, unyielding, uncooperative, an ass, a dick, and whatever other things you've thought about me in anger and been too polite to say. I know that words are cheap. I keep saying that: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know it's not going to bring my lover back. It doesn't change anything. _

_So before I wrote you a letter like this, I wanted to __**show**__ you that I'm changing. I'm trying to __**do**__ things instead of just say them. You communicate to me so much with actions and you say so much with them, so much that I haven't acknowledged and usually didn't recognize at the time. I run my mouth and even then I don't say what I should be saying._

_You show me you love me - while I just say it. You make me breakfast. You make the bed. I don't even say thanks. You love me the way I've asked you to love you. I'm such a cad. You've told me what you want and I only give it to you rarely, and grudgingly. You never question my motives or my morals. I question yours a lot. I say I trust you, but my actions don't show it. You say you trust me and you give yourself to me whole-heartedly. You submit yourself to your worst fears and reopen old wounds just because I ask. I haven't done the same. I force you to play inside my comfort zone. I use my fears as excuses._

_I miss you so bad. I miss our nights together. I miss being fucked hard and relentlessly. I miss your kisses and gratitude after. I think I miss that the most. You were always so thankful to be with me and I treated you like dirt. I miss you smelling me and rubbing me with your nose and giving me little kisses and telling me how much you love me and being poetic at weird moments. I miss you touching me all over (yes, even my hair) and being so into me, so taken with me. I love that. I miss your innocence (yes, you have some and with everything that has happened to you it was always so, so sweet to find there were still parts of you unstained by events). I miss your callousness and realism and how it would pull me back to Earth. I miss that I don't get to see your sense of humor, black and dry though it often was. You had just recently started to show it to me. I'm so sorry I shut you down the other day. You've taken yourself away from me and that's your right, especially as I was so nasty to you, but I hope I can convince you to come back. I'll be better._

_I love you. I have such a problem with saying the things to you that I need to say to tell you I love you, because just those three words aren't enough. I can say 'I love you,' but I don't tell you how handsome you are or how much I appreciate you, how good you are in bed, how willing, how thoughtful, how giving and how attentive (you are all of those things and more). I've pushed you away at times and I've hurt you. I've hurt you with words and with silence both._

_You guard yourself from me and I see why. I used to wonder, like an idiot, why you didn't trust me. It's because I've been untrustworthy. There are things between us you can't bring yourself to speak of and I feature large in those events. __**Those things will never, ever happen again**__._

_That you were with me anyway says a lot about how big your heart is, how brave you are, and how you won't let fear get in the way of letting yourself love and live life. Really, it's a wonder you haven't killed me over and over for what I did. I know you want to - I feel it sometimes. We all have a box marked 'Fragile: Handle with Care' and I keep shaking yours, or pretending it doesn't even exist. Of course you hide yourself from me._

_I wish I'd paid more attention to what you like. I hope I get a chance to learn. I know I'm not entitled to forgiveness, but I want it, and I'll do whatever it takes to get it. If you need what I have in my head, it's yours. Tell me where to be and I'll be there for you. (I'm not joking. That's not some over-dramatic romantic rambling. I'm serious.)_

_I want to let you love me. I want to let you. I'm so sorry I've stopped you, prevented you, shut you down and turned you away. I want to let you make love to me. I'm so sorry I've put so many limits on it. I've limited our play and you've shown me how wrong I am about what I actually want in bed. When you took me in the kitchen it was the most intense emotion I'd ever felt during sex. I'm sorry I'm so afraid of you being rough. After all this time, and you've always been so gentle and thoughtful with me, I need to work harder on getting over it. Please let me try again._

_Thank you for reading my long, whiny, cheesy letter. If there's anything I can do to win your heart back, please let me know._

_With my eternal love,_

_Your penitent servant,_

_Peter P._

_P.S. - I haven't healed anyone and I've been eating like crazy to refill. I visited Fatima and talked to her more about her ability, so I understood better what was going on. I think I'm full. At least, when I turn off regeneration, nothing bad happens and I don't have that appetite anymore. If you're willing to see me, I'd be happy to be somewhere that you could check me first and if you didn't like what you heard, you could leave and I wouldn't know you'd ever been there. You know where I work. You could show up as anyone and I wouldn't know. Or I'll just take my chances and I don't blame you for whatever you do to me if I'm wrong (helpless or not), because I ought to know myself enough to judge it._

Gabriel folded up the letter and put it back in the envelope. He hadn't liked it much, though the postscript was okay. He'd preferred the sappy and more light-hearted letter he'd gotten earlier in the week to this piteous pleading and begging. Peter had promised whiny and cheesy. He'd delivered. Gabriel thought of the times when he'd been reduced to plaintive begging for Peter's approval, affection and attention. He'd been pathetic, but Peter had usually given it to him.

He tossed the letter on the couch and went to get some more wine. This time he tried some aged cheddar. What the basket needed was some good wheat crackers. It didn't have any.


	228. Sunday At Church

_Sunday morning, May 22, 2011_

Gabriel spent Sunday with the family. Ostensibly, they were celebrating Simon and Monty's graduation from school. It would be Simon's last year at the current institution. In future, he would be at a private boy's academy. More truthfully though, the day was just an excuse to get everyone together. In this case, "everyone" consisted of Heidi and the boys (of course), Emma (but not Peter), and Angela (and if you got her, these days you usually got Maury too and today was no exception). They met that morning outside the cathedral.

"Hello, Nathan," Angela said, greeting Gabriel on the steps of the church. There was just enough hesitation between 'hello' and 'Nathan' to make sure he knew that she knew who she was talking to.

Hearing that tiny pause, he smiled broadly and gave her a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, as any good Italian son would do. "Hello, Ma." He so loved these bits of acting, always taking a tiny joy in seeing her pay a little for what she'd done to him.

She smiled in return, but it didn't seem to reach her eyes as much as it should have.

He decided to rub it in a bit, saying, "Why does it seem like you're warmer to Peter than me these days?"

"Oh, you're just being insecure. You need to get over that, Nathan. You know you've always been my favorite, don't you?" This time there was actual warmth in her face.

The shift in expression gave him pause, but then he forged on, "You tell Peter the same thing, which makes it meaningless."

"No, it doesn't!" she snapped and asserted, "All of my children are my favorites. Even you." She reached out and put her hand on his cheek. His lips thinned and he looked at her with a steady, expressionless gaze that was foreign to Nathan's face. _Not 'both_,' he thought. '_All.' I wonder… It's like I'm adopted or something_. Still touching him, she asked, "Is there any one of your three children whom you prize above the others?"

His eyes betrayed emotion then. Noah was his own flesh and blood. Monty and Simon were Nathan's. He refused to make a distinction between them. "Of course not," he said softly, threateningly.

She smiled. "And that is my point." Then she slapped him just hard enough to sting, before walking past him to greet Heidi, who was adjusting Monty's clip-on tie, and to smile at Emma, who was standing with Simon next to Noah's infant carrier. Simon picked up the carrier as the group, now assembled, headed in.

Gabriel's jaw worked, not so much in anger, but in frustration. Somehow Angela always seemed to win these little contests. He had yet to learn to quit starting them. Maury, who had been standing quietly behind her, witnessing the whole thing, gave him a sympathetic look and shrugged, as if guessing his thoughts.

Gabriel sighed, not bothering to keep up his act around the older man. He muttered, "Well, let's go inside and worship the great telepath in the sky."

"Might be, you know."

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"I said it might be. You say that like it's a joke, but really, what would it hurt if someone like one of us, born thousands of years ago, figured out how to project feelings of peace and satisfaction on those who appealed to them? It's all anyone really wants in life, after all - to be loved, to feel like there's someone out there listening, caring, and paying attention, that there's a greater meaning."

"Oh, shut it. You don't believe that crap."

Maury shrugged. "You can't disprove it." One corner of his mouth quirked up as they started to walk in, following the ladies.

"Logically, the burden of proof is on _you_," Gabriel said quietly as they walked in. Whether he dropped his voice out of respect for the cathedral, or the nature of their conversation was unclear.

Maury made no such attempt. "Only if I'm trying to convince you of what I believe. Otherwise, it's a personal choice. You say you like chocolate, I say I like strawberry, and there's no reason why one of us has to persuade the other to our preference. I'm just saying it's possible there's something out there." They went through the appropriate motions at the holy font - an unrepentant, disbelieving serial killer and a cheerfully lapsed Jew with an even darker past. It was amazing they didn't burst into flames or get struck down by blue bolts from heaven.

"Religion is not a preference, like a flavor of ice cream," Gabriel said with a hint of disgust as they walked down the aisle to their seats. He smiled and waved at a few other families he recognized, putting on his Nathan act again.

"Oh? You think it's like sexual orientation or a fear of spiders - inborn?"

Gabriel blinked at him. "A fear of spiders is inborn?"

"I read a study last year that said so."

Gabriel considered that. "Huh. Oh, hang on. I need to go say hello to the Spotas." He went off and fulfilled some more of Nathan's social obligations while Maury found their seats.

Gabriel returned and sat down in the space left for him between Heidi and Angela. He put his left arm on the top of the pew behind Angela and kept talking to Maury. He was relaxed and even though he looked like Nathan, he acted nothing like him to someone who had known the former senator on a personal level. "So, you think it's innate just because some study said so? How do you even test for that, anyway?"

"What else would it be? Do you think some people just get exposed as children and it changes them forever?"

"Maybe. Isn't that how most emotional trauma works?" Gabriel inquired.

"Yes, for emotional trauma, but we're not talking about emotional trauma here. It's something a person would feel on first encounter."

Angela interjected, "What _are_ we talking about here? I feel like the net at a tennis match!"

"Fear of spiders," Gabriel said.

"Oh," she said, rolling her eyes. "Of course. What else would we be discussing in church! As the Mass is about to begin, please take your riveting conversation to a quieter level." She and Heidi exchanged exasperated looks.

Gabriel turned to face the pulpit and settled himself, his right hand on his wife's knee. He twitched as Maury poked at his mental defenses. He lowered them cooperatively.

Maury thought to him, _Actually, we were discussing why you think religion isn't a preference._

_Okay, but I want to go back to the spider thing later._

_No, let's get that out of the way now_, Maury thought._ You see, the spider thing is like a fear of heights. They can put a little baby on a glass sheet that's only half supported - no danger to the baby, really, the glass is fixed and thick - but the child has the illusion that it's a long way down if they get off of the area that looks supported. They tend to stay away from that edge, even if they have no experience of falling. It's instinctive. They've found out babies react the same way to the profiles of snakes and spiders. Or at least, some of them do, which is fascinating._

_You've always been into child experimentation, haven't you?_

_Oh yeah. It's an incredible field for someone like me. I was never sharp enough to do much with the genetics. How is your work coming along with that anyway?_

_Mohinder's engaged. He's still setting up his lab and interviewing assistants. He gave me his budget estimate. It's enormous._ Gabriel carefully walled up Peter's revelation about his ability that dealt with viruses and diseases. It had the potential to shorten their work by years, perhaps a decade, if Peter would cooperate. Gabriel doubted he would and he doubted it to such an extent he wasn't even going to bother to ask. Telling Maury about it would be tempting fate.

The older man projected to him, _Tell him to pare the budget down. No use tossing money at him until we know if he's going to play ball. Didn't he accomplish all that stuff after his dad died with just a laptop and some stuff he got from lab surplus?_

_Yeah, but he… It's a long story. I'll look at his requests again tomorrow. I don't want to take up all his time having him write expenditure justifications, but like Al-Walid said, we need to be careful with how much money we dump on the market._

_True, and I'm glad you understand that - that we aren't the only people playing in the sandbox. And that you're paying attention to the advice of the other directors._

_Stop complimenting me_, Gabriel thought with annoyance.

_Of course, you fatuous dickhead_, Maury responded immediately, amused.

Gabriel snorted and choked a little. Heidi put her hand over his on her knee. The priest droned on.

_So_, Maury resumed, _About religion - why do you think that's inborn?_

_I don't, and you know that. It's not what I said._

_I know, but you said it wasn't a choice. Just how far to the other extreme are you going with that thought?_

_There's a level at which it's a choice, yes, but the choices are always limited by what you know about. Like Nathan didn't choose to grow up in a Catholic household and you didn't get to pick that your parents were Jewish. You have the illusion of choice, but to go back to your example, it's like choosing between chocolate and strawberry and never even knowing that vanilla is out there, much less orange sherbet or tapioca pudding._

_Like developing intuitive aptitude gives you the illusion of choosing to not be a killer?_

Gabriel tolerated the rough segue. _That's not an illusion. I made a choice to kill originally and I've recently made different choices, not to kill._

_Uh-huh_, Maury said dubiously. _I think that says more about your environment than your choices._

Gabriel ignored that. _And anyway, what does my ability have to do with religion?_

_Just elaborating on your premise, that people's choices are framed by the conditions they find themselves in. Oh, and your ability makes you god, after all._

_Stop it. That's ridiculous. Arthur said the same thing._

_Mm. Yeah. Guy behind me is thinking about whether he should change the oil on his car this afternoon or watch the ball game._

Gabriel gave an internal sigh at yet another of Maury's unexplained mental leaps. _What does __**that**__ have to do with anything?_

_Our abilities give us access to things men were not meant to know, powers we're not supposed to have. Maybe not in a universal sense, but definitely insofar as the average mundane sees it. Our society isn't shaped to handle people like us in it. It's like putting an elephant in a lifeboat. One wrong move and everyone's in the drink._

Gabriel gave an inarticulate impression of dissatisfaction to that, but didn't argue.

Maury switched topics again with, _So where's your favorite elephant at, anyway? Will Peter be joining us later, after he gets off work?_

_No, Peter…_ Gabriel reinforced his mental blocks.

A thread of panic shot through Maury's mind at that. _You __**do**__ know where he is, right?_

_Yes, of course_, Gabriel snapped mentally. There was a pause. _As much as I __**could**__ know where someone is who has teleportation and isn't right in front of me._ It occurred to him he _**didn't**_ know where Peter was, since he wasn't at the apartment and he wasn't working this weekend. He could be anywhere. He could even be here in church, passing himself off as someone else with shape-shifting. Not that it mattered too much. He hoped. He worried a little and surreptitiously scanned the people sitting near them.

Maury was silent for a bit. _What's going on?_

_What do you mean?_

_Well… we're sitting here talking, having a nice, relaxed conversation, I mention the love of your life, and your defenses go up. Then you're dodgy on your answer, you don't say anything for a while and you start looking around for an enemy. So I ask again: What's going on?_

Gabriel sighed. Maury would get the information from Emma's mind if no one else's. (Heidi's ability nullification seemed to trigger automatically when she was the target of an ability, an aspect of her power Gabriel and Peter didn't seem to have acquired.) _I dumped him. He was pissing me off and I wanted to hurt him. Not just kill him, but hurt him._

…

Gabriel considered what he'd said._ I didn't dump him to hurt him. I was… losing control. Of myself. Around him. It just seemed… wise… to get away from him. Emma dumped him too._

_Why did Emma dump him too?_

_Because Peter was pissing her off too. He's got Fatima's healing and he's been using it on that job of his, healing people. It drained him down to where I guess he feels lousy all the time and he takes it out on whoever's close to him._

_So… he's alone… and compromised… and has no support network. Is that what I'm hearing?_

_Yes._ Gabriel worried some more. Peter's judgment was probably pretty poor at the moment. Come to think of it, it was kind of amazing he hadn't done anything really stupid.

_When did this happen?_ Maury asked.

_Last week. Thursday. Not this last Thursday, but the 13__th__._

_Have you seen him since then?_

_No, but Emma's seen him most mornings._

_So you're sure he's still around?_

_Yes. I'd have said something to the board if he disappeared entirely. I know the protocols. _Gabriel decided he didn't like the direction Maury's questions were going in. This was not a problem the old telepath needed to get involved in. Peter belonged to Gabriel, and like hell was he going to let Maury interfere with him, break-up or no break-up. _Listen, this is just a lover's spat. We'll work it out. Don't get involved or I will uninvolve you._

_You going to get back together with him?_

_What if I don't?_ Gabriel felt suddenly defiant, refusing to let Maury's interest pressure him into reconciling any earlier than he might otherwise.

…

_No, really, do I have to?_ Gabriel demanded._ Is that some Maury Parkman dictate, that Gabriel Grey must date Peter Petrelli, so you can play us off one another and thereby control both of us?_

_Heh. No. If that was my goal, I'd split you guys up. When you're together, it's way too likely that you'll join up and turn on me._

_Hm._ Gabriel thought about that. It sounded true, but lie detection didn't work on telepathic communications. Most telepaths couldn't conceal their motives mentally anyway, but Gabriel could manage it okay by restricting what he said. He couldn't actually deceive, but he could simply not reveal. Maury was outstanding. He had the highest control index of anyone in the Assignment Tracker, at 97%. His level of mastery of his ability was incredible.

_So, are you done with him?_

_I don't know,_ Gabriel thought sulkily._ He's pushed me pretty far. He wants to get back together._

_What is it you want from him that you're not getting?_

_[Sex, submission, blood, violence, fun…]_ Gabriel didn't bother to try to squash his somewhat formless thoughts, letting Maury see. But he projected more clearly, _I'd like to be able to talk with him like I'm talking with you - freely. Just… have a friendly conversation. Heidi said something the other day, about how we're dumping each other because we're not talking… right… not talking right to each other, I guess. He says he wants to talk, but then he tries to talk about the relationship and I shut him down. Well, actually I have sex with him and that's great. The best conversations we have tend to be afterward, when I've gotten what I want and I'm relaxed and more in the mood._

_You do know why you're talking to __**me**__ like this, right?_

Gabriel let through some of his exasperation. _Just tell me the answer. You obviously know what you want to say._

_True. You nearly killed me a couple times and beat the crap out of me. You're real careful of Peter because you're not able to confront him. You're afraid of him and you need to get past that-_

Gabriel interrupted with, _I did it last week. I killed him. He healed._

…

When Maury said nothing, Gabriel added, _Yeah, Peter got rid of those commands you left me. I can do anything I want to him._

…

Gabriel went on, _That's not why I dumped him. And I wouldn't have hurt him if he hadn't popped off to me that I wouldn't dare leave him. And then he tried to grab me as I went for the door._

_Okay,_ Maury said slowly to him._ I'll agree, knowing how your mind works, that's pretty much asking for it. He's okay though? Still wants to be with you?_

_Yes._

_You're sure? _Maury pressed.

_He keeps sending me love letters and presents and begging me to take him back. Yes, I'm sure._

_Okay. Have you tried to have a conversation with him since then?_

_No,_ Gabriel projected._ Haven't talked to him at all._

_Give it a try. If you're not afraid of him anymore, then maybe you'll find it a little easier to open up._

Gabriel wanted to object that he hadn't been afraid of Peter, but he knew that wouldn't fly. Instead, he objected to something else. _That sounds mushy: opening up._

Maury snorted mentally, knowing perfectly well what the other man was doing, and intentionally pushed one of Gabriel's buttons. _Would you rather be a coward and go around afraid of talking to him? You never know - maybe all Peter wants out of you is a bunch of inarticulate grunting, fucking him senseless and beating the crap out of him. That's probably why he keeps trying to talk to you about the relationship. He's just trying to tell you how much he likes it. How about you just continue as you have and see how that works out for you, eh caveman?_

_Fine_, Gabriel said dismissively. Agreement was the quickest way out of the argument._ I'll talk to him._

_Oh no, don't do it on my account_, Maury said, pushing another because he wasn't sure Gabriel would carry through._ I'm sure that's a good idea, let him humiliate himself begging you to take him back. Even Peter will eventually get the message when you reject him time after time._

_I said fine!_ Gabriel's jaw worked._ Now stop it._ He was getting angry rapidly.

_Okay._ Maury clammed up for a while. He'd gotten what he wanted. Silence fell between them as both listened to the liturgy. Since Gabriel hadn't cut the connection, after a suitable amount of time had passed, Maury offered, _So, what do you think of the Yankees tonight? I put $50 on them._ They spent the rest of their time discussing sports wagering strategies, bookies and the role of organized crime.


	229. Star Light Date Night

There's no postal delivery on Sunday. I stayed away from email as well. I know I'd told Maury I'd talk to Peter, but I wanted a little more time to figure out what I was going to say. The day went well. The weather was warm but not hot and the boys behaved themselves. Maury and Emma made pleasant conversation and pretty soon, Peter wasn't the only one who talked to her mentally. I got kind of a kick out of that.

I hadn't forgotten what had happened every day for the last week. I'd just assumed that even God took a day off. That was sort of what I was thinking when the doorbell rang. It was evening anyway and dinner was over. Our guests had left. I assumed it was one of the neighbor boys come looking for Simon or Monty now that school was out.

I opened the door. It was a stranger. With a letter. I knew immediately what this was. I really should have known - Peter had picked a different delivery method for each communication he'd sent. What was next, dream-walking? (Now that I knew Peter had that one, that is.)

The stranger said, "Sir. Personal delivery for Gabriel Sylar Grey. Would you be him, sir?"

I was looking like Nathan at the time. I usually do at home. For a brief moment I entertained the thought of telling the man he had the wrong house. But no. Gabriel _Sylar_ Grey - what an odd choice of name for Peter to use. I accepted the letter and the man headed off.

I lifted it to my nose. It smelled of… nothing. I sniffed again. It smelled like a person, which was probably the messenger. But nothing else. Shrugging, I tore it open. Inside was a formal invitation with silver foil wrapping and a sprinkling of silver stars on the front of creamy, heavy paper. I unfolded it and read:

_Star light, star bright,_

_Brightest star you'll see tonight,_

_I wish I may, I wish you might,_

_Come to meet me in the sky tonight._

I stepped out and looked up. The sun had set, but the sky wasn't dark yet. At the moment, it was a deep, rich blue. I didn't see anything. Or rather, anyone. I walked inside, still looking at the letter. There was no time or location. The sky was a pretty big place.

I walked over to Heidi, but she was talking on the phone at the moment. I leaned on the counter and looked at the letter, stroking my fingers over it. Yes, Peter had written that, using imprinting, in fact. And then he'd held up his hand and light had flared from it - brilliant light. He'd kissed the letter, closed it, and slipped it in the envelope. Peter was telling me something there with that light thing. Heidi hung up the phone.

"What's that?" she asked.

I handed it to her. "Just delivered to me, by hand courier."

"Is this from Peter?"

"Yes."

She read it. "Looks like he's asking you out on a date."

"That's what I thought."

She smiled. "Smart of him. It would be hard to kill him again up in the sky, wouldn't it?"

I smiled slightly. All I needed to do was hit Peter hard enough to knock him out, which wasn't easy, but it was doable. If I didn't know how tough Peter was, then it would be a real challenge because I'd be likely to underestimate him. But since I did, it was simple (assuming I was close, Peter wasn't alert for an attack, Peter didn't dodge, wasn't nullifying, etc.) - one focused blast and he'd be out. Once he was out, cancel his powers and he'd stay out. Then do whatever I wanted with the body. I suppose no one would believe me if I claimed I hadn't thought this out.

I reached over and grabbed a grape out of the fruit bowl. "Do you mind if I take him up on it?" I didn't mention that Maury had told me to talk to him. His opinion wouldn't pull much weight with her anyway.

She sighed. "This… killing thing. Is that something… you do with Peter a lot when you're angry?"

I laughed silently. "No."

"Are you _going_ to kill him? Because really, Nathan, you shouldn't date people you're planning on doing that to." She said this perfectly seriously, which I supposed was only fair since I'd been perfectly serious in confessing that I'd killed Peter just last week.

Now I grinned and laughed audibly. "No, I'm not going to."

She studied me. "What you did to him… Did he really deserve that?"

I didn't say anything for a while. How do you tell with something like that? When someone hurts you, do they deserve to be hurt back? I'd like to think so, but if I've learned anything from Peter, it's that it's possible to put the past aside and turn the other cheek. You live a lot happier life when you do, or at least _**I**_ do, when he loves me instead of holding me accountable for all the things I've done wrong in my life. It's not as easy as he makes it look though, when I'm so angry that all I want to see is someone else's blood on my hands. So I shrugged.

"Okay." She accepted my answer as it was, without pressing me to give her anything more concrete. She gave me a kiss on the forehead. "_Play__** nice**_. What you did isn't how you should treat people you love."

XXXX

It was easier to find him than I'd expected. I went out on the balcony and watched. It was as nice a night as it had been a day. The sky was clear. Every now and then there was a brighter flicker from almost directly above. It didn't look like it was very far up - maybe a thousand feet or a quarter mile. I looked back, but Heidi wasn't where I could see her. She knew what I was up to. She was being very patient with all this. She'd reminded me that the week I'd promised to spend away from Peter was up already.

Promises mean a lot to me. Nathan mouthed on about them a lot and rarely kept them. I hated that. It was one of the things I tried really hard to fix. Being in relationships with two people who could detect lies will do a lot to keep you on the straight and narrow in regards to what you say you're going to do. I'd never said I was done with Peter, that I didn't love him, or that I never wanted to see him again. Even at my most angry, I knew that wasn't true. So I'd hedged.

If I'd been stupid enough to say absolutist things like I never wanted to see him again, then I'd have had more trouble accepting his invitation. It was one of the things that really troubled me with Peter. He said things and they were true when he said them ('I'll never leave you' big among them), but then later on he'd change his mind and do something else. That kind of inconstancy bothers the hell out of me. Well, maybe I've told him I'd never hurt him (I don't recall, but it sounds like something I'd say), and I hurt him pretty bad last week and not just physically. I suppose I need to make allowances for people changing. It was what Peter was asking for of me, anyway - to give him a chance to change.

I launched upwards at a reasonable speed, then shifted my clothes to something more form-fitting and less flappy. I sped up at first, then slowed down when I reached my target altitude. I looked around a bit. I'd tried to guess low, so I came in under him. As fun as it would be to drop on him from above (and yes, that's a little continuing resentment of him at work), I wasn't sure he was shining the light in all directions. He could target it like a beam and since he knows where I live, that might have been what he was doing. A few minutes later, he 'flickered' again.

I was within a few hundred feet now. The moon hadn't risen yet, but as I approached I could see his pale skin against the star field. He was watching downward and noticed the motion of my flight as I got to about fifty feet. I stopped when he reacted.

"Hey!" He sounded so happy and relieved to see me. I wondered how long he'd been up here waiting. He halved the distance between us. I drifted back a little. He stopped. I stopped. We were maybe thirty feet apart now. I don't know why I didn't want to be close. I didn't want to smell him. I didn't want to touch him. I didn't want to hear his aura so overpoweringly loud. I wasn't ready for that yet. It was enough to see him and hear him. I could still hear his aura drumming along (and it sounded perfectly normal, not strained, not attenuated), but it was over there and I was over here, so I was okay with that.

I was feeling a lot of anger, now that I was here. I hadn't expected that. It wasn't so much that 'fight-or-flight' was kicking in as simply 'fight.' I wanted to kick his ass and _hard_ and _now_. Everything he'd done to hack me off was struggling to the top of my consciousness. I hung onto that promise I'd made Heidi - that I wouldn't try to kill him. It didn't hurt that I'd promised Maury I'd try talking with Peter. Talking was more than I was able to do at the moment, at least without saying challenging things I didn't want to say. So for now, I just watched him.

He was simultaneously watching and not watching me. He wouldn't look me in the eye, but that was fine and it was a big help. He looked everywhere but at my face. He blinked, he ducked his head repeatedly, he drew in his shoulders, he kept shooting me sidelong glances, checking me. He was acting contrite. Good. I needed that behavior to keep me calm. I really wanted to kill him again.

For a little while, I distracted myself with the idea of forcing the issue, finding out just how bad he wanted to be with me. Was he telling the truth about letting me have his ability? I wanted it, oh God how I wanted it. But that wasn't like taking someone's virginity. It was more like taking their left kidney - a little more visceral. And yeah, he'd grow back good as new on the outside, but what I was so worried about wasn't his body.

I suspected it would break him to have to give himself up that completely. I'd been broken. Even with a year and a half, a good job, a loving family, Peter's forgiveness and acceptance, and all kinds of good things, I was _still_ broken - not just cracked around the edges - no, broken. I didn't want that for him. Thinking about it calmed me down a little. Peter was also just hanging there in the air, giving me the time I needed.

On the other hand, I could always threaten him a bit, play with him, slice him up a little, nullify his powers, maybe cut his forehead and let the blood get in his eyes. That was usually when they started screaming - when they got the blood in their eyes. It was like until then it wasn't real. I wouldn't mind hearing him scream again. I considered that, not sure whether I was fantasizing or planning. He interrupted, which was probably a good thing.

"I'm really glad you came." His voice was soft, but it carried.

No. I wouldn't hurt him like that. Maybe if he'd still been affronted, if he'd smarted off to me ("How dare you…"), hell, if he'd even looked me dead on in the face. But he hadn't.

I didn't have to fuck this man at all. Or let him fuck me. We could have a totally different relationship. But I kind of liked touching him… having him touch me. It's something to think about. No reason why we had to do what we were doing before. I felt pretty free at that moment.

"Do you want to go higher?" he asked, voice still soft, manner still subordinate. It wasn't natural to him. It wouldn't stick. But oh how I loved seeing it while it lasted. It might have been just what I needed at the moment.

I looked up. "What for?" I was pretty sure I knew the answer to this, but it never hurts to ask.

"I was thinking maybe you could show me the stars."

Yeah, that's what I thought. He'd given me a book, a broken watch and admitted to having a virologist's wet dream of an ability. All he had left to do to hit each of the hobbies I'd listed was work in astronomy somehow. At least he'd been listening. It really warmed my heart to know he'd been listening. Only in the last few weeks has it seemed that he's done that, and then he got that fucking healing power and became a little turd.

"Yeah, I can do that," I was saying, and up we went. He drifted a lot closer on the way. I'd say I hit him with a bolt of lightning, but that's more impressive than it was. It was more like a huge static charge. It wouldn't have killed a child. It probably didn't even give him a cigarette burn. It's funny that electrokinesis works fine on a person flying through the air, but not on a car.

Still, he yelped and got the hell away from me. Good. Maybe he'd internalize that he got to be near me when I decided he could be near me. I wasn't keeping him away because I thought I might fugue out because his aura was so damn loud (though it was, and that wasn't interacting well with my temper, at all). I just wanted to hurt him. Besides, I liked him watching me so close for cues and not taking me for granted.

Oh yeah, I was being a bit of an asshole. I kept going until we got to an altitude I liked. The sky was clearer. The air was cold. Peter kept his distance, which was about fifty feet now. He held himself tensely, arms hugging himself across his chest, head down. I'd say he was glowering at me, but whenever I looked at him he'd drop his eyes respectfully and his face would relax. I thought about what Maury had said. If I kept kicking him, he would eventually stop trying to approach me. That wasn't what I really wanted.

"You can come closer. I won't hurt you if you don't get closer than fifteen feet." He drifted in slowly. "I'm in kind of a bad mood," I explained, though I would have thought he'd have figured that out what with the knocking him through a wall and not talking to him.

He stopped about twenty feet away. His caution made me feel a wild desire to go hug him, but that was stupid. I looked up at the stars and thought about the meandering conversation I'd had with Maury, feeling comfortable with him to yak about anything and everything. Yeah, part of that comfort came from not giving a shit what he thought. If I offended him, so be it. It wasn't like I would lose a friend I really cared about. With Peter… I cared. I didn't want to say anything that would make him think less of me. What Angela had said to me came to mind too - that I was being insecure.

Maury had implied I was being cowardly for not talking. Peter… what he'd said in his whiny letter had kind of implied the same. Not that Peter was saying I was a coward, but you don't tell someone they're being really brave unless you think they're afraid inside. And hell, if Peter was saying that, it's probably because he'd felt fear from me with his ability. I wasn't going to let fear be between us.

I knew he knew the basics of constellations and stuff, so I stiffened up my spine, opened my mouth and started talking about more in-depth things. I didn't want him to say anything. I just needed to get started. I pointed out some satellites to him and talked about what the Hubble telescope had seen lately and the pictures the Mars rover had taken. I talked about how far out Voyager was and the latest theories about the position of the solar system relative to the galactic arm, dark matter, ice clouds and what that meant for periodic massive meteor strikes on Earth and the survival of life as we knew it. I gathered up my courage and gave my opinions of NASA's budget and how the president wasn't really prioritizing space exploration.

At first he didn't say much, other than a few leading questions and noises to make it clear he was paying attention. I relaxed a little. I stopped talking as fast. I looked at him more than the sky. We'd shifted to be parallel to the Earth, lying back, it would seem, so we could see more of the heavens. He relaxed too and quit hugging himself (I still wanted to go hug him myself - his upset was pretty clear but I didn't think I'd make it over to him without planting my fist in his nose, so I just stayed where I was). When I didn't bite his head off or anything for making a few comments, he warmed up and we started having an actual conversation. He'd seen the stuff that made it to the major media outlets and he had his own opinions on things. We talked.

The conversation didn't wander like it had with Maury, but it was a friendly discussion nonetheless. It was what I was wanting. We didn't talk about the relationship or boundaries or negotiation. We didn't talk about Nathan (other than as his military experience pertained to satellites and remote reconnaissance; or how his senate experience gave him information on NASA's budget - not that this last wasn't also available to the persistent citizen, but they stuck that sort of information in the mailbox of senators). We didn't talk about abilities (other than speculating on how long Peter would last if he tried teleporting to the moon). We didn't talk about the _past_. We just talked.

I began to think about what Heidi had said and that maybe I carried part of the blame for not putting conversational topics out there that I wanted. I went straight to sex too often. Yeah, I wanted the sex and I enjoyed it, probably more than I'd enjoy talking about the stars, but if I was the one pushing things that way then it was pretty dumb of me to turn around and complain that he didn't talk about things I wanted to talk about.

He tried pointing at things with his light generation power, but it didn't work well this high up. The air was too thin. We talked about that for a bit. I thanked him for the letter about his abilities and told him I'd burned it. He didn't say anything to that, just nodded and looked away. We were both quiet for a while after that, but I didn't mind it. I looked up at the stars and watched the very slow motion as our planet turned beneath us, revolving to show off the whole of the universe to us, spinning like the gearing of a perfect timepiece, the ultimate complication.

After a while, I adjusted to perpendicular and said, "This was nice. Thank you."

He got the message. I was done. "Yeah?" he said. "That's good. Another time, maybe?" He was cautious and hopeful, like he was well aware of how pissed I still was. It wasn't like I was making a secret of that, I suppose.

I thought about the offer to do this again though. I was still pretty ambivalent about things between us. Being reached out to, in a genuine and true fashion, was completely new for me. When Elle had done it, she'd had ulterior motives. I'd been so taken with her at first thinking it was real, so pissed later to find out it wasn't. I'd killed for her, but I'll do a lot of stupid things for love.

I guess Peter had reached out to Emma too, originally, last year. She wasn't the type to chase after someone anymore than I was. The more I'd talked to her, and I know this sounds weird, but the more I could see the personality similarities. Peter has a type. He'd been persistent with her - as I've observed, Peter isn't one for giving up on things. Off and on, he'd made some comments that things between him and her weren't always roses. I'd overheard Emma telling Heidi she hadn't even been sure she'd marry him. Even after finding out she was pregnant, she'd had to think about it.

Relationships are hard work. "Yeah," I told him. His smile lit up his face. He looked so boyish. I had so many memories of him as a kid. They made me feel warm inside towards him. I drifted closer. His smile faltered and he looked from himself to me, a little apprehensive about the proximity. I'd shocked him for getting too close, after all. "I'd like to kiss you."

His face lit up again, but with hope rather than joy. He nodded and stayed right where he was. I came to him. I fidgeted a little, which is an odd thing to do when you're flying. I was trying to make sure I behaved myself. I looked down at his hands. I guess I wasn't looking happy about them, because he put them behind his back. That made me a little calmer. I wasn't going to hit him if he was looking completely defenseless.

I put one of my hands on his shoulder and leaned in, keeping my body well back from his. Our lips touched briefly and I hesitated, because that contact gave me such a rush of emotion. He watched me, breathing faster against my face, but he didn't move. I pressed my lips to his and turned my head. God, his lips felt good. Everything else I wanted to do with him went flashing through my head (at least, the sexual things). I wanted him so bad. I was rock hard. It felt like my skin was flushed and burning hot. But I'd be damned if I was going to do anything more. He pressed back and shut his eyes. His brows drew together with passion. I could feel his shoulder strain forward against my hand, like he wanted to be closer to me, but he was trying to hold himself back.

I didn't open my mouth. He didn't ask me to. I didn't come any closer or make it more. I finished and then gave him a quick peck again before backing off. _I love you,_ rang in my mind, but I didn't say it. He might have heard it - picked it up mentally if he was open to me - I'm sure I projected it clear enough. I knew he'd felt all of my emotions, through the kiss if nothing else. But there's a world of difference between feeling something and being willing to act on it and he knew that better than most.

I missed him terribly all of a sudden and I could see from his face he felt the same way. I wasn't ready though. There were too many other feelings still brewing under the surface for me. It wouldn't be fair to either of us to get back together yet. We'd be fighting again in no time. Even now it was hard for me to look at him without feeling hurt, and without wanting to lash out because of it. Once I get started, it's tough not to follow through.

"I'll see you around," I said roughly, and took off, slowly at first, then picking up speed. I didn't want to go home right away. I'd heard there was an active volcano over in Greenland, where you could see the lava. That sounded interesting. It shouldn't be hard to find. It might take me most of the night to get there and back, but that would give me a lot of time to think.

Like I usually do, when I get going in the air, my body tried to shift to Nathan. It's an ability thing. I get vibes off a lot of people when I actively tap their power, but Nathan is the only one I have enough affinity with to shape shift to automatically. It was only then I realized I was in that form already. I'd looked like Nathan the whole time. Huh. He'd treated me normally, far as I could tell, and I was usually pretty sensitive to that sort of thing from him. Interesting.


	230. False Alarm

**A/N: Godiva sells the chocolates I describe for Monday. The dream for Tuesday will be published as the next chapter. I couldn't figure out how to put it in there chronologically without having a very short chapter for Monday. **

_Monday, May 23, 2011_

On Monday, Gabriel got a box of star-shaped chocolates with a note that said '_Thank you so much_.' He liked that. It was a nice gesture. For some reason he'd assumed the gifts would stop after he accepted the date. Well, it wasn't 'for some reason.' He'd assumed that going out with him would signal Peter that he'd done enough. Whether Peter _had_, was anyone's guess. Gabriel couldn't really tell - he wanted him back, but he was still very angry. Apparently Peter didn't think he'd done enough, as he was still getting him things.

On closer inspection, Gabriel decided the candies were starfish, not stars. _Ah, well, it's the thought that counts_. He bit into one to discover it had raspberry filling, almost like blood. That made him laugh out loud, appealing strongly to his sense of humor, changing a near-miss on gift-giving into a direct hit. He savored the candy. After three pieces, he handed out the rest around the office, telling them it was from a happy client. Sort of true.

XXX

_Tuesday, May 24, 2011_

On Tuesday, he woke up feeling very warm and contented, in a really good mood towards Peter. It was like all the fighting was over and everything was okay now. He rolled over and snuggled with Heidi and basked in the feeling that all was right with the world. Snatches of a half-remembered dream drifted through his semi-conscious mind: Peter looking up at him, sucking his cock; Peter straddling him, jerking him off; Peter sitting on a park bench, Gabriel touching his cheek lovingly; Peter explaining about how Gabriel wouldn't remember this in the morning, because that was how dream-walking worked. Gabriel tensed suddenly.

He sat up, alarmed. His mind grabbed for the shreds of the dream, but they slipped through his fingers. The more awake he became (and he was waking up quickly now), the less he recalled. _Damn it! What the hell did he do to me? I'll kill him again! _He jumped out of bed, electricity crackling between his fingers. Heidi rolled over and looked at him, blinking away sleep. Her eyes darted around the room suddenly, looking for an intruder. She came awake even faster than he had.

"What?" she asked. "What is it?"

"Nothing!" he snapped. "Go back to sleep."

"The hell I will!" she said, her voice raised, hurrying out of bed and over to the crib. "What is it?"

He banished the troublesome electrical discharge. There was no reason to have it right now. It was only alarming his wife. "It's nothing. Peter… I just had a bad dream."

She gave him a briefly cocked eyebrow that said, _You're lying_, and lifted little Noah up, holding him in her arms protectively.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. She'd woke the baby. Or rather, _he'd_ woke the baby with his overreaction. There was no getting out of this without an explanation. "Alright. It wasn't a _bad_ dream, per se. It was just a dream though." She gave him that look again and patted the baby, who was fussing now. Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed, rubbed his forehead, and tried to pull his thoughts together for a _good_ explanation, one that would pass muster by her ability, when he wasn't even sure himself what had happened.

Peter had dream-walking. His notes on it were sketchy. He'd only used it twice. He'd written that the user remained aware of the dream, but had no control of it, while the other party to the power didn't remember it once they woke, but maintained control of the dream world while Peter was in it.

_And so… I made Peter suck me off?_ _Okay… Alright. Maybe there's nothing to be upset about here after all._ He didn't remember Peter mentioning anything about the ability having mind control attributes. Actually, Peter hadn't said anything about what the point was to the power, which was probably because he didn't know. Many of the descriptions of his abilities were like that.

Gabriel sighed. Heidi was watching him, patting Noah, waiting for him to explain why he'd jumped out of bed combat-ready. When he was having a nightmare, he stayed in the bed and was usually pretty clearly still asleep. She was familiar with those - that wasn't what this was. He told her, "Peter has an ability to project himself into other people's dreams. He must have done that last night, to me. I thought… I woke up and I thought he might have been trying to control me, or influence me."

"And did he? Influence you?"

"I don't know. Maybe." He'd certainly woke up feeling good about the empath. He needed to read up on dream-walking and see what exactly Peter was able to accomplish with that. Until he knew, he couldn't judge if this was an assault, a friendly gesture, or a bumbling but well-intentioned happenstance.

Heidi walked over to him, peering at him intently. "Can I try something? Cancel everything that's at work right now?"

"Sure."

She did. He considered his thoughts, motivations and feelings, especially towards Peter. He shook his head. "Nothing's changed."

She stopped using her power. "It was worth a try."

He nodded. "That might have been what Peter was doing - just trying it out. That feels right, in my head, but I can't really put my finger on why. Maybe he told me. I'll do some research today.

"Let me know what you find out," Heidi said. "I could have done without the wake-up call." She settled in to breast-feed Noah.

"Me too," Gabriel muttered, heading off for a shower. He would have preferred to have just lain in bed for a while longer and drifted in the pleasant, dreamy haze. He had a spot on his stomach that was crusty and he had a pretty good idea now of how that had happened. His disgruntlement didn't keep him, however, from trying to relive what snatches he could remember once he was alone under the warm pouring water of the shower.

XXX

His research turned out to be profoundly unhelpful. There were dozens of dream-related powers. Some let you predict the future, others let you reveal past events, several let you project your consciousness in a astral form to other locations, and a few let the dreamers join their consciousness and enter a surreal dreamscape reality. Any of these had the potential to allow the user to bring another person into the dream. It was a common variation.

Peter's description of the ability was vague probably because he didn't understand it. He'd been explicit enough on other abilities that he _did_ understand that Gabriel trusted Peter not to be trying to mislead him. He pondered the possible explanations for what Peter had done.

**Assault: **If he was trying to control him or coerce him, then why would he also pleasure him? Unless he was particularly twisted, which Peter simply wasn't, this didn't make any sense. Also, despite Gabriel's occasional paranoia and irrational fears, if Peter wanted to mind control him, he had more direct and efficient means at his disposal.

**Friendly Gesture:** If he was trying to pleasure him, then why would he choose a method he didn't think Gabriel would remember later? That was like getting a gift and putting it somewhere you didn't think the recipient would find it. If Peter was trying to seduce him so directly, there were, again, more efficient ways. Even though those ways were much more dangerous, appearing in one of Gabriel's dreams without warning was pretty damn dangerous too. After all, it was leading to this sort of examination, which wasn't a good thing if you wanted to stay in someone's good graces.

**Mistake:** Peter made a lot of mistakes with his abilities. He'd lost one of his lovers in an alternate timeline, after all; nearly blew up New York; unleashed Adam Monroe on the world; killed Phillip Gerber a few months ago; gotten out of hand with healing (of all things! How the hell do you screw up _healing_ people? Well, Peter had found a way); and so on. It seemed the most likely.

There was just no good answer, so after thinking about it for a while, Gabriel set it aside. No harm had been done, as far as he could tell. He'd wait until he had more information. Peter had earned that much, at least.

XXX

That afternoon, he received a tin of nuts. He froze up for a moment, eyes widening. He threw it in the trash immediately. Had Peter known? Heidi did. Surely Peter did. It was a weird time to be deliberately insulting to him. He relaxed. Peter had been very hit or miss with his efforts - the previous night being an excellent example. He _was_ making an effort though and the nuts were probably just part of that. _Nuts…_

He dug them out of the trash and obsessed over them in a berserk fashion for a few moments, acting like an idiot - or an animal. With a sudden cry he caught himself and threw them in the trash again, where they scattered, because the lid was off. Now he had to pick them all up. _God-damnit. Someone might see me!_ This time he gave into it, gathering them all up into the tin… whereupon he solved the problem by disintegrated the whole thing.

With a sigh of relief, he sat back in his chair and took several deep breaths. He thought dark thoughts about Samson Grey. He really should have killed that bastard more slowly. Or better yet, not killed him at all. He tensed as it took hold of him again. He looked back in the trash can, eyes alight and furtive. No more. They were gone. _Good._ He relaxed once more. _God-damn rats. God-damn Samson Grey._

No, he didn't think he'd ever told Peter. It was too fucking embarrassing. Peter tolerated his smell thing. At least he'd never woke him up _licking_ him, like he'd done to Heidi more than once, and not in a spot where she might really appreciate a little licking. It had just been her shoulder. Honestly, he figured Peter wouldn't really care. It wasn't the sort of thing Peter couldn't handle. But Gabriel wasn't sure he could handle telling him. Maybe he could tell Heidi to tell Peter, if she was serious about having that really long conversation with him.

He sighed. He really ought to tell Peter _himself_, because this wasn't Peter's fault. How was he to know his triggers if he didn't tell him? _I'm being cowardly again. I'm not a coward._ He turned to his computer and turned it on, summoning up the email Peter had sent him last week. He hit Reply.

_Peter -_

_Don't get me nuts or seeds again. I can't handle them because of the rats. I freak out._

He paused for a moment and considered. Was that all he wanted to say?

_Thank you for the gifts. I really like them. I liked the scents too. That was very thoughtful._

Anything else? Should he say something about the dream? He wasn't sure _what _to say about it and he was pretty sure Peter didn't think he knew about it. No, that was enough. He hit Send.


	231. Dream Lover

**A/N: The initial setting here is from the Season 3 episode, I Am Sylar.**

_Tuesday morning, 3 AM, May 25, 2011_

Peter was in a park. He didn't recognize it. The sun was shining; it looked like it was noon. He walked along a sidewalk, trying to get a feel for the place. There was an impression of waiting, of anticipation. Up ahead, there was a man sitting on a bench, a white man. As he came closer, he saw the man was in his 40s, clean-shaven, with brown hair and dressed business casual. He didn't recognize him, but he had a strange sense of déjà vu. On the other hand, it was clear that this man was the controller of the dream world. He was the center of its existence. Peter was getting better at sensing these things.

He walked up to him and said, "Hi."

The man looked surprised to see him. "Hi? I wasn't expecting _you_. You being here is wrong somehow." He furrowed his brow and then looked around as if for someone else. "I was expecting Bennet, or maybe Danko."

_Ah, someone in the Company._ Peter still couldn't place the man, but he seemed really familiar. He assumed it was just someone he'd met once or twice. Peter said, "I'm sorry, but I don't get to control where I end up."

"What?"

Peter elaborated, "Whose dream I end up in. This is a dream. _Your_ dream. I have an ability, called dream-walking. I'm trying to figure out how to use it. I've been trying to figure out how to use all my abilities better." The man on the bench gave him a suspicious look. Peter shrugged. "You're not going to remember this when you wake up anyway." The man kept giving him the hairy eyeball. "Okay," Peter said. "Well then. I'll just start figuring out how to get out of here. It's something I needed to know anyway."

He turned to leave, only to find his exit barred by a high, rough brick wall. Peter blinked at it. "And… that's the way out," he murmured.

"Please don't leave," the man said softly behind him.

Peter looked back at him. There was another flash of familiarity. _There's something I'm missing here_. He walked back and sat down on the other end of the bench. He shot the brick wall another look, but it appeared as solid as before.

The other man continued, in the same soft tone that Peter was sure he knew, but couldn't quite place, "Tell me how this power works, since you say I'm not going to remember it later anyway. You might as well talk it through. Maybe I can help."

"I'm pretty sure you can, because that's what the ability does. I used it twice before, but that was when I thought it was for communicating with people. I thought it was like telepathy or clairvoyance. I was wrong. I've been thinking about it recently and doing some reading. There's a family of abilities related to empathic predictions and this must be part of that group.

"What it does is take me into the dream of someone close to me, whom I need to learn something from for the next part of my journey, or my life. Just like Fuad or Abbas or Lydia - their abilities all predict the next emotional event that's important to a person. _This_ ability, the dream-walking, takes me into someone's dreams and keeps me there until I learn something important to me, something I need to know."

The other man cocked his head. "So… **you** remember this when you wake up then, right?"

Peter nodded. "Yes. I think I will. You won't. You might remember it a little, but it will just be another dream. You won't think it's real."

The other man pondered that and finally said, "I think I know what you're here to learn."

"Really? What's that?"

"That I love you. Be with me."

Peter blinked, astonished at the boldness of the invitation, from a near-stranger. "Ah… no."

"It's a dream. You said I won't remember it."

"It doesn't… no. I don't know you."

The man's brow furrowed at Peter as he regarded him intently. Then he looked at his hands as if realizing something.

Peter didn't wait for the discovery. "I have lovers. I wouldn't betray either of them like this."

The other man smiled, suddenly warm and mischievous, "How would they ever know? Are you telling me you don't even _dream_ of other people?"

Peter blushed a little. "No, I'm not saying that. But this is different. I'm aware of this. I'll remember it. I'm making a conscious choice right now. One of them has lie detection. He'd find out eventually." Peter shook his head. "I know this is _your_ dream and I don't have much control here, but I am **not** going to participate." He sighed and scratched at his forehead, recalling how he'd almost been cornered into undesired sex before, too. _My subconscious is trying to tell me something here._

"You are such a wonderful person, Peter."

Peter's head snapped up at the different voice. It wasn't a stranger's anymore. "Gabriel?" Everything made sense suddenly.

The other man, now in the form of his estranged lover, shrugged. "Sylar, actually. But it doesn't matter. It's me either way." He hesitated for a moment, then extended his hand along the bench towards Peter. Peter saw that 'I AM SYLAR' was carved into his flesh for some reason. It healed and vanished even as Peter watched. It didn't seem to discomfit the other man, who asked, "Would you be with me _now?_ I know what it is you're here for."

"Why am I here?" Peter asked, putting his own hand out in the same direction, but they were too far apart to touch. The automatic, welcoming gesture went a long way though. Peter went on without waiting for an answer. "Are you sure you want to be with me? You were _so_ angry when I saw you Sunday night. You could hardly stand me. I've been terrible to you."

Sylar shrugged. "I suppose my subconscious is very trusting. You're here to learn that I still want to be with you. Don't give up on me. Don't let me push you too far away. When I'm awake, I'm not going to tell you these things."

"Why are you telling me now?"

"Because in the morning, you'll remember it. I won't. I can be with you without consequences, without feeling like I've betrayed my principles or anything else, because it's not really a conscious choice. See?" He smiled suddenly. He exhaled and stood, walking in front of Peter. Their knees touched and he sent out a hand to caress Peter's jaw. Peter leaned into the gesture, feeling a sudden, deep thrill at the gentle contact. Sylar said quietly, "It's a dream, right? If you want to go, you can."

Just like that, there was a ragged hole in the brick wall, with light shining through it. Peter gave it a long look. If he walked through there, he knew he'd wake up. Sylar went on, "Or you can stay here for a little while more. I won't make you do anything you don't want to. I promise." His fingertips moved slowly around to Peter's chin. Peter dipped his head slightly and nipped at them, catching the middle one between his teeth. Sylar smiled and pulled in a deep breath at Peter's answer.

Peter let his tongue swirl around the tip of the finger, as he sucked it lightly. Sylar said, "You know, that letter you sent me, where you said you didn't give me what I want in sex?"

"Mm," Peter said, sucking the whole finger inside, making the other man curl the adjoining digits to allow it.

"That's not true. I don't want you thinking it is. You are _fantastic_ in bed. One thing I've asked for that you've given me as much as I wanted was head. I love that."

Peter smiled around the finger. He raised one hand to Sylar's hip and let the other one tease over the front of his pants. The dress slacks were thin enough that he could feel the other man's heat beneath them. He traced the firm outline, up and down, watching as Sylar's lips parted slightly and his eyes glazed.

_Oh yeah, that's what he wants,_ Peter thought. He pulled off from the finger and said, "That's convenient. Because I love doing it. You have a great cock." Not to mention Peter absolutely adored watching how Gabriel came apart for that act.

He leaned forward, simultaneously urging Sylar closer. He put his mouth to the other man's groin as he wrapped his hands around his glorious ass and kneaded the muscle there. He chewed and gnawed at him, letting the cloth muffle his bites and protect the other man.

Not that Sylar minded it a little rough. "Oh, Peter! Wow…" Sylar put his hands on his shoulders and ran them back and forth, up the back of Peter's neck and into his hair, mussing it.

Peter worked the button with telekinesis, then used his teeth to pull down the zipper. He brought his hands forward to pull open the clothing. Sylar wasn't wearing anything underneath, but that wasn't what provoked Peter's stare. _Whoa. _Sylar was… bigger. A lot bigger - longer, thicker and beautiful in that way that only penises really were. _Well… it __**is**__ his dream._ "That's… amazing." He took up the length of it (suddenly rather glad he was doing fellatio instead of anal, dream or no dream) and stroked it slowly.

Sylar groaned softly, his hips flexing slightly with the motion. "You are such an ego stroke, Peter."

"Oh, is that what you call it?" Peter snarked and raised the head of the organ level with his eyes, and spoke directly to it. "Hello, Mr. Big Ego. Do you mind if I kiss you? No? Mm." Sylar's laugh was choked off as Peter moistened his lips and slid them over the head, resting them on the gentle curve of the corona. His tongue rubbed back and forth on the frenulum beneath.

He sucked at the bulging head like it was an enormous nipple, rolling his eyes upwards to lock gazes with his lover. Sex, and after sex, were some of the few times when Gabriel would look straight in Peter's eyes without getting defensive. Right now he was taken with lust. He looked back, eyes wide, lips parted as he gave an almost inaudible moan of ecstasy.

Sylar kept running his hands through Peter's hair, his butt cheeks alternately tensing and relaxing. He desperately wanted to thrust. Finally he could take it no longer and began pushing in and out. Peter's lips popped over the flare of the glans and he sucked harder for a moment. Sylar pulled back, his brows coming together and eyes shutting. Peter released the suction and let him draw away, then repeated the cycle. He did it over and over, while Sylar whined and squirmed, repeating, "Ah! Ah! Ah!" on every stroke. Finally he tightened his hand into a fist in Peter's hair and said, "I wanted to last longer…"

Peter pulled off immediately, tightening the ring of his fingers around the base, finding the right pressure points. "Hey, hey. Look at me. Look at me."

Sylar was breathing hard and trembling. His knees shook like they were weak. "Oh God… oh God… Baby…"

Peter smiled and began to slowly, ever so slowly, stroke upwards and back down with his hands, one above the other. "How long do you want to last then, big boy?"

Sylar's lids fluttered like his eyes were trying to roll back in his head. His hips began moving forward and back, fucking himself in Peter's hands. "Oh," he groaned gutturally, well past the point where he could answer complicated questions like that.

Peter watched the other man's expression - a transport of pleasure. He licked the slit on Sylar's next grind forward, making the man's face twitch and dick throb under his hands. He did it twice more. Sylar was almost there. Peter tipped that spear of flesh down and took it into his mouth, moving himself forward so it pressed over his tongue, across his palate and into his throat. The desire to gag was only a momentary thought before he was swallowing around the oscillating bulge of his lover's cockhead. Sylar's fingernails bit into his scalp as he jerked back and forth, then stopped suddenly, muscles quivering as his shaft pulsed against Peter's tongue. A moment later he drew back unevenly, staggered and would have fallen if not for Peter catching him with telekinesis.

Peter lowered him to the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He grinned. The other man was breathing hard, giving the occasional shudder as an aftershock passed through him. When the last of them seemed to have gone, Sylar extended a hand at Peter and gestured feebly for him to join him on the ground. "Come here."

Peter glanced at the concrete sidewalk and shrugged, sliding from the bench to his knees. His knees came down on a surface that was far too soft. Suddenly they were both on a king size bed, lying atop a white comforter. Sylar leaned back against a small mountain of pillows, raising his arm, inviting Peter to snuggle under it. He did, pressing his body to that of the other man, feeling Sylar's heart still beating frantically in his chest, slowing gradually along with his breath.

They might have lain there for minutes, or even hours. Time passed oddly. Nothing was real but them. Eventually Sylar shifted his arm so he could toy with Peter's hair. He said, "Did you just name my dick Mr. Ego?"

Peter laughed and dropped his hand to the member in question. "No. Mr. _Big_ Ego. Get it right." He let his fingertips trail up and down it. "He's a sensitive fellow."

Sylar shivered and stiffened. "You are _so_ lucky I'm not going to remember this in the morning." He laughed and it was a low, throaty sound that ran up and down Peter's spine like chilled fingers.

"Oh yeah? Why? You called me baby. I don't mind." His hand kept moving, gliding across the velvety softness of that special skin as it firmed again under his touch. "It's kind of nice. The dream-you is so much less inhibited than the normal-you." _No reason why that can't run both ways_, Peter thought. This whole thing was kind of like telling Emma how much he loved her when she wasn't reading his lips. He could do things here and never have to answer for them with Gabriel later.

Sylar started offering silly names for him, saying, "Baby, darling, lovey-dovey, sweetie-petey, oh!" His hips moved in a slow jerk against Peter's hand as he cupped it over the tip, making an O with his fingers and pressing it over the head, letting Sylar's gyration push his fingers apart as the swollen bulb squeezed through them.

"Mm. Ready already, Mr. Big?" Peter murmured. He slid his leg over Sylar's and hooked it around him, pressing against his chest and giving him a body to hump against. Thinking about the enhanced dimensions of the organ in his hand and what that meant, he said, "This thing deserves its own name. It's enormous. I couldn't believe it when I opened your pants. How did you even get it in there?"

Sylar scoffed, but he also squirmed with undisguised pride.

"I'm surprised it even fit in my mouth. It must be some sort of dream magic, because it's impossibly huge. You're as thick as Nathan and a hell of a lot longer. A _lot_ longer." Sylar made an unabashedly happy noise. Peter curled his fingers around it, even if he couldn't wrap around it entirely. He pumped up and down. Sylar bit his lip briefly and started moving his body to match him.

"There's no way this monster would fit in my ass. You'd rip me apart. I'm so desperate for you though, I might let you try. This is a gorgeous cock. I've never seen one more perfect. You'd have to work really hard to get me ready. Something that big would take a hell of a lot more than three fingers."

Peter chewed at Sylar's chest, finding his nipple through the cloth of his shirt and a moment later telekinesing the garment out of the way. He sucked and nibbled as Sylar threw his head back and surged against him. When Peter lifted his head, he said, "I know - you'd have to fist me. You'd have to fist me to get me ready for this thing. It's as big as a man's arm. That's what it feels like - like I'm jacking off a man's arm, with a proud fist at the end." He moved his hand to the tip, squeezing and pulling. Sylar's body shuddered and jerked unevenly.

Peter rolled up suddenly and straddled Sylar's thighs, taking the man's shaft between his hands. "This thing's so big it's going to take both hands." He stroked rapidly as Sylar bucked against him, staring at Peter worshipfully, like Peter was an angel, or a god.

"Come for me," Peter growled. "Come for me, big boy." He wrapped one hand around the head and rubbed the frenulum, that delicate divot of most-sensitive flesh, repeatedly with the pad of his thumb. It sent Sylar right off. He arched up off the bed against him, hot semen spurting between Peter's fingers.

Peter woke with the sheets tangled around his legs, a spot of wetness cooling at his hip and a sticky patch off to the side, both chronicling that he'd enjoyed the dream as much as Gabriel had. He grinned to himself and relaxed. _Now _**that**_ was good._


	232. Bad Decisions

**A/N:** **Descriptions for the clothing Peter is getting Gabriel (the suit last week, the ties this week) are drawn from things Zachary Quinto wore to formal events while he was working on Heroes. **

_Wednesday, May 25, 2011_

The next morning, Gabriel began a dream journal. He was reluctant to do that because of the number of nightmares he had, and the possibility that some enemy of his might find it and use it against him, but he figured he had more incriminating stuff in his Company file. The nightmares were probably something he needed to track as well. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to tell a dream with Peter in it from a dream where Peter was dream-walking, but at least this way he'd have a record.

That day, he got four ties from Peter. One was a vivid orange and brown, another grey and black in diagonal stripes, another a silvery blue and the last was simple black. There was a sprig of lavender tucked into the wrapping tissue, along with a note. He crushed a few leaves and inhaled as he unfolded the note. It read: _You said you wanted to tie me up. I thought I'd give you the materials._ He smiled softly and stroked the silk of one of the ties. He wanted to stroke Peter's skin and see him stretched out on the bed, limbs drawn apart, muscles taut. His skin wasn't quite as soft as silk, but it was smooth and warm and alive and far, far more irresistible. He pulled his hand back, blinking away the image before the fantasy went too far.

_Now if Peter had really been thinking,_ Gabriel reflected, _he would have tied himself up with these __**before**__ sending them to me. Guess I'll have to help him out with that. Mm… and afterward, I'd still be able to wear the ties, and then, it wouldn't be just my imagination filling in the scene when I touch it._

XXX

_Thursday, May 26, 2011_

Thursday he received another envelope. Smelling it made his nose itch. He suppressed a laugh. It would be funny if Peter included black pepper or sneezing powder one of these times. He'd be pretty mad at Peter if he did. He didn't think Peter's sense of humor ran that way. He opened the letter. _Ah, cinnamon. Nice._ Inside were two tickets to a boxing match that Saturday.

He thought about that. Peter didn't care for boxing. Professional wrestling was okay, because it was a performance. But a sport where two people intentionally tried to hurt each other seriously didn't do it for Peter. Nathan had always been a fan of boxing. Gabriel liked it well enough. He looked at the tickets. Neither of the boxers were ones that he'd followed the careers of, but he was still interested to go. It was more interesting that Peter wanted to go.

_Wait… does he?_ There was no letter. There was no indication of who he should invite, even if that might seem obvious since Peter had sent them. He could take Heidi. Or give them away to one of his law partners. Or hell, take Noah. Noah would probably appreciate it a lot more than Peter would. Now that he thought about it, that sounded like an excellent idea. He got out his phone and paused.

There were three different people he needed to call and while Noah was first in his mind at the moment, he suspected he needed to contact the other two first. His finger tapped restlessly on the side of the phone. He looked at the tickets. He looked at the envelope. He sighed and decided to tackle the toughest one first. He turned on the phone and speed dialed Peter. It rang through to voice mail. He grimaced. Peter was undoubtedly at work and while he had occasional downtime, there were also times when he wasn't going to answer his phone no matter what. Gabriel left a simple message: "Peter. Call me."

He went back to work. A half hour later, his phone rang. "Hello?"

"Hey. Gabriel. You left a message." He sounded happy.

"Yeah. I got these tickets from you today."

"Yeah?" Hopeful now.

"Yeah. And…" Gabriel's tone was strained, like it was difficult to speak. Peter didn't say anything. "I wanted to know if it was okay for me to take someone else."

Peter answered almost, but not quite, immediately. "No, that's fine. No problem." His voice was a little more bluff than it usually was.

"Hey, um," Gabriel swallowed and his words took on a softer quality. "Listen, I… I'd… would you like to come over Sunday afternoon? Maybe we could run some errands together, or just hang out… okay? Kind of a rain check?"

"Sure," Peter said, his voice now conveying a deep relief.

"Okay, yeah." Peter wasn't the only one relieved. "I'll need to make sure it's okay with Heidi. If I don't call back, then everything's a go."

"Sure. Hey, is two PM okay?"

"Yeah, that's great. Thanks." He hung up, not sure what he'd been thanking Peter for. Maybe it was for not making it more difficult than it already was. He called Heidi next, which was quick and also simpler than he'd feared. He was, after all, asking permission not only to go out without her Saturday night but to have Peter over for an undefined time on Sunday. She told him that was fine – she wanted to talk to Peter anyway. He smirked to himself, not envying Peter on that. Finally, he called Bennet.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Noah. Nathan. What are you doing this Saturday?"

There was a pause. "Taking my car in to get the tires rotated."

"That sounds… wow, non-stop excitement from you! Doing anything special that night?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"I have these two tickets to the big Madison Square Garden fight. You want to go?"

"I suppose. Is Peter coming with us?" As far as Gabriel knew, Noah knew nothing of their little tiff. His question cemented that.

"No. He doesn't like boxing as a sport. Too bloody."

Noah chuckled, probably at the irony of a paramedic having that opinion. "Sure. What time?"

"Seven." They coordinated with where to meet and when.

XXX

_Friday, May 27, 2011_

The next day, Friday, he received yet another package. They were really starting to soften him up. This time, it smelled very faintly like salt and rosemary. He opened it to find a sampler of jerkies, each individually wrapped and vacuum sealed, which was why he hadn't smelled them. There was a sprig of rosemary in the middle.

He sighed and grinned and rubbed his forehead. Peter was getting him things Peter didn't like, or even objected to on moral grounds, like boxing tickets or meat, because… he didn't know, maybe because he thought Gabriel liked them (which he did). Maybe he was trying to say it was okay and he didn't judge. Gabriel's fingers smoothed over the spot on the box Peter had kissed. He missed him.

XXX

_Saturday, May 28, 2011_

He found Noah without complication, at the entrance they'd agreed to meet at. Gabriel showed him the tickets – they were good seats – and said, "Before we go in, there's something you need to know." Noah nodded and leaned closer, because there was a lot of noise from the crowd of rowdy fans. Gabriel said, "Peter and I broke up two weeks ago. That's why I invited you… and not him." Noah's eyes widened slightly. He nodded again and said nothing, so Gabriel added, "I thought you needed to know, in case you don't want to go in with me. I wanted to talk to you though. I'm… still angry. I wanted to talk to someone about that, about things."

Noah nodded and gestured at the place. "Let's go on inside. We can talk afterwards." Now it was Gabriel's turn to simply nod. They went in. They spent their time during the event discussing the jerky samples Gabriel had brought with him, the fighters, their trainers, and training regimens. Gabriel shared some of Maury Parkman's theories on rigged sporting events and betting patterns. They went back and forth speculating about the legitimacy of _this_ match.

Noah managed to goad Gabriel into trying to use telepathy on one of the trainers, which was a spectacularly bad decision, given the near-overwhelming stimulus of the place. It resulted in a splitting headache that no amount of beer could soothe, even though they both consumed massive quantities - Gabriel, because his head hurt; Noah, because the more he drank, the funnier he thought it was that he'd managed to talk Gabriel into something that dumb. Noah's heckling made it clear he'd expected that side effect.

The fighter they had both decided to lend their support to ended up winning after a long bout, so they were in moderately good spirits as they left.

"How's your head?" Noah asked, still very amused by having pulled one over on the former serial killer.

"Fucking awful," Gabriel said, trying to blow off Noah's stunt as friendly male posturing. "Let's go down there," he pointed, "there's a bar there, won't have so many people. I want to get something stronger than that Garden water they call beer."

Noah shrugged. "Won't do you much good, will it? You'll just regenerate. Too bad you can't regenerate ability-inflicted psychic damage." He looked positively smug.

"I'm pretty sure I _can_, but while my head hurts this bad isn't the best time to try it. And anyway, I can definitely get drunk enough to take the edge off. I haven't had much to eat. An empty stomach will make it easier."

"I should have bought you a hot dog after all, then," Noah said, sighing melodramatically at his missed opportunity to make Gabriel a little more miserable.

"Hey, you better cool it," Gabriel said, starting to get annoyed. The throbbing pain in his head wasn't helping matters. "You kicked me right square in the nuts a few months ago and I have yet to pay you back for that." Gabriel spoke in a manner that might have been mock threat, or might have just been threat.

Noah took it as mock. "Oh! Thank you for reminding me about that! There I was," he said, framing the scene enthusiastically with his hands, "two broken arms, being manhandled by a trained fighter with enhanced strength, facing off against **you**, one of the most feared and powerful specials the world has ever known… and I _**still**_ put you to the floor with a single blow." He grinned and jabbed Gabriel hard in the ribs.

Gabriel gave him a glare that would have killed a lesser man. He reminded himself that he was here to talk to someone about his anger management problem. Socking Noah in the nose, while satisfying, was not appropriate.

Noah was unaffected by the scathing look. "And you stayed there for a while, too."

"I'm beginning to think this whole evening was a bad decision."

"No, no! Let's go get some more to drink, buddy." Noah jogged Gabriel's shoulder playfully with his fist, eyeing the other man's reaction. "You were going to tell me about things with Peter. I'm all ears."

Gabriel nodded. "I'll tell you in the bar." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and focused on calming himself. They walked in silence the rest of the way. They found a booth private enough for their needs – sufficient noise to make it difficult for them to be overheard, but quiet enough to hear one another. Gabriel bought a bottle. Noah got a milkshake. It was nonalcoholic. Gabriel approved, but said nothing.

"You were serious," Noah said of his purchase.

"Damn right. I'm beginning to think it's going to take me a while to catch up to you."

"Are you saying I'm drunk?" Noah asked.

"Yes." They settled in. Gabriel poured himself a drink. "Now, let's talk."

Noah snorted. "So, Peter left you again. That sucks." He didn't sound disappointed at all.

"No, I left him."

"What?" Noah looked as surprised as Maury Parkman had been. Gabriel wondered why everyone was so surprised that he would walk away from the relationship. Well, Heidi hadn't been surprised.

"I left him. I couldn't stand him anymore. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I just kept getting more and more angry and no matter what I did to try to calm down, he'd provoke me again. He was being a dick and I _still_ haven't completely calmed down. I was losing control of myself." He sighed and emptied his drink. "So we had a fuss, I was hurtful and mean, then he wouldn't let me leave, so I killed him."

"What?"

Gabriel waved his hand dismissively. "He's fine." Noah's mouth moved, but nothing came out. Gabriel continued, "You know he has Fatima's healing ability, right?"

"Ri-ight," Noah said slowly, still trying to process. He remembered the bruises on Peter's neck and back from only five months ago. Things had obviously escalated.

"He'd been using it a lot, I guess, for a couple weeks before that and he was getting really… erratic." Gabriel had been wanting to unload about Peter to somebody for quite a while, but he'd never had an audience. He wouldn't poison Heidi against Peter like that and he sure wasn't going to burden Emma with his complaints. Noah knew both Peter and Gabriel, had volunteered to talk them through their problems, and wasn't as dangerous to talk to as Maury.

Gabriel continued, "He wasn't thinking straight. He'd be a complete jerk one minute and then he'd catch himself and be nice for the next. Over and over - just a nonstop cycle of him being an ass and then being fine. I kept biting my tongue, thinking about how he didn't really mean it, I tried visualization, kept telling myself it was the ability and not him… but eventually I…" He shook his head. "He was screwed up like that because of things he did intentionally. This wasn't like he got an ability that makes you lose control of yourself, like a precognitive fugue or something. He got to choose to use it. And he did - over and over. He wouldn't stop. He was like an addict and I couldn't take it. So I got out, before it happened again."

"Before what happened again?"

"Before I lost control of myself again. I… when I killed him I just snapped. And then, the night before… I… I lost control then too. He pushed me away and…" He shrugged and looked away, unhappy about the whole thing. A different decision on Peter's part would have turned that from frightening, but ultimately harmless, into a nightmare.

Noah's brows drew together. Gabriel hadn't been reluctant to tell him he'd killed Peter, so why the reticence now? "What did you do?"

"I… we had sex. I didn't even know what was happening at first." He raised his hands, palms up, a sort of 'what can you do' gesture.

Noah tensed and his lips parted just a bit, baring his teeth. His fingers twitched - his trigger finger flexing unconsciously. "You… raped him."

"No!" Gabriel shook his head, bothered that Noah would jump to that conclusion. "I did _**not**_. He said he…" He tried to remember what Peter had said, exactly. Gabriel had asked him if he'd consented, during the sex, but Peter's answer had been vague, so he'd assumed… but didn't he say something after? Peter was pretty clear… If only his head didn't hurt so much right now. They'd snuggled on the couch, been warm and affectionate – surely people didn't do that if they hadn't enjoyed it? "He said it was okay."

"**You** said he _pushed you __**away**_," Noah snarled, voice rising.

"Hold your voice down!" Gabriel snapped. Noah glared at him and said nothing, so Gabriel shrugged helplessly and said, "Yes, I know, but that was _before_. It was what set me off. He'd been pushing me away all evening. Afterward he said it was okay; he enjoyed it."

Noah leaned forward and hissed, "Do you have any idea of what you sound like? Can you hear the words coming out of your mouth?"

Gabriel looked at him blankly, then poured himself another glass and considered what he'd said.

Noah interrupted his introspection. "And do you know _nothing_ of the psychology of rape victims?"

"It wasn't _rape!_"

"Oh, just like the last time wasn't rape either," Noah said with heavy sarcasm.

"Peter has his full powers now. If he didn't want me… I can't physically _make_ him do anything. He's stronger than I am."

Noah blinked at him in astonishment. "You really have no idea. You have no… fucking… idea."

"What?"

"He loves you, you idiot! He's not going to fight you off! Unlike you, Peter doesn't injure and kill the people he loves. He doesn't beat them. He doesn't _rape them!_ Of course he's going to tell you afterward it was okay. That's what nearly all rape victims do when they love the person who assaulted them! That's why it's so fucking underreported as a crime! Because otherwise they have to face that they still love someone who _**violated**_ them."

Gabriel flinched, remembering Peter telling him that he didn't like to think of the time in October as rape, because doing so was admitting he was still with someone who had done that to him. And so, instead, he'd said he preferred the euphemism 'forced to have sex.'

Noah leaned forward, driving his point home. "_You__** raped **__and__** murdered **__your__** lover**_, Gabriel. How sick do you have to be to think that's okay? I am so glad you and Peter are apart. You need to **stay** apart! And if you're beating your wife too," Gabriel's head jerked up at this, "then you need to leave her as well. Peter has a baby on the way, he has a fiancée, he doesn't need someone abusing him like this!" He put his hand to his forehead and murmured, "My God, Peter… I warned you and I warned you…"

"I didn't…" Gabriel's voice was weak. Somewhere, he knew, there had been a massive misunderstanding. Hadn't there? Or was the misunderstanding on his side, that he'd seen what he wanted in how Peter reacted to him and not what an impartial outsider would see? Noah wasn't exactly impartial. He'd never wanted them together, being far too protective of Peter for Gabriel's tastes. Gabriel felt a stirring of jealousy twist in his gut. His judgment was clouded and he recognized that.

"Yes, you _**did**_," Noah ground out. "By your own words. Even if you're too much of a _monster_," Gabriel flinched again, "to understand it!"

Gabriel downed another drink and tried to figure out what he needed to say to straighten this out. His head was hurting less, but on the other hand, he was starting to feel the liquor. He couldn't think very well.

Noah distracted him by going on, "Do you want to know why I didn't contest the divorce with Sandra?" Gabriel looked at him blankly. "It's because she didn't deserve to be involved in all of this." He waved his hand vaguely. "This whole life of mine, yours. It's dangerous. And you," he pointed, "you, Sylar - were the one who really drove it home to me that it was unfair to subject my family to that danger.

"The divorce was hard and I didn't know who I was without a family, for a long time, but it was the best thing I could have done for them. I only wish I'd done it sooner. But because I didn't, because I delayed too long, tried to juggle too much, I lost Claire. The Company has her now and she's been exposed to too much. She's lost her innocence, her rose-colored glasses, her idealism - she's lost the opportunity to look at the world with eyes that aren't jaded and cynical. And I lost her because I was selfish and greedy. I wanted to have it all - big, exciting Company job and safe, stable family - both at the same time. You can't do that. It's not fair to them. It's what you're trying to do, just as selfish as I was, and it's _**not**__ working out!_

"It's time to cut your losses, _Sylar_." Gabriel made another flinch, but he hardly seemed to notice it. He was staring straight at Noah, listening intently to every word he said. Noah went on, "If you care about these people _at all,_ you need to get out." Noah jerked his chin at Gabriel. "You've already seen your wife and child killed in all this. Is it really fair to them? Or is this just your selfishness, your neediness, wanting someone to be there to hold your hand when you're upset and-"

Gabriel stood abruptly. "Noah," he said quite calmly, "I told you a few months ago not to come between Peter and me. You said you didn't intend to. Peter was concerned I might hurt you. I told him I'd let you make the first move. You've done that now. You need to think about that, _very carefully_." He pushed the rest of the bottle of liquor across to the suddenly speechless older man and walked out.


	233. Holding Pattern

Gabriel was silent and still the entire way home, opting for the more prudent route of taking a cab instead of getting his car out of the parking garage. He'd expected to drink. He hadn't expected to drink so much. His head still hurt abominably. One part of his mind wanted to blame Noah for that, as well as his current emotional turmoil. He wanted to believe that Noah's accusations were groundless and his own behavior was rational, justified. Another part of his mind was frightened. What if it were true? What if he had raped Peter and Peter loved him too much to call it what it was? Was he endangering his family with his very presence? Did little Noah deserve to grow up with a father as deeply troubled as he was?

Gabriel was still turning these things over in his mind as he paid the cabbie and walked up the steps to his home. He was starting to pull together a plan, but as of yet, it was vague. He went inside, absorbed by his thoughts. Heidi spoke to him. He greeted her mechanically. Emma was there. The furniture in the open area near the stairs had been rearranged. Heidi said something about that too, but he really didn't care. He headed up the stairs. Heidi said something else to him about not listening to her. He answered by rote and went in the bedroom.

There was a parcel he wanted here. He pulled it out of the bottom drawer of the dresser. It was a sheet, a few shirts and bits of clothing, none of which was strictly his, but if he was leaving, he wanted to take this with him. He looked around for a suitable container. A small suitcase would do. His eyes lit on the crib. He walked over as Heidi came into the room. He stood over the crib, looking at his sleeping son. He breathed a heavy sigh.

Heidi stepped up next to him and put her hand on the small of his back. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

"I have to leave." He kept his voice low as well.

"What?" At the note of alarm that crept into her voice, the baby twitched.

They both walked away from the crib. Gabriel said, "I need to go. You were right - Peter didn't deserve what I did to him, and I shouldn't be with people if that's something I might do. You too."

"No," she said firmly, thinking he was speaking of an event they had kept secret between them. "That was an accident. You weren't even awake!" The baby made another noise.

He lowered his voice even more. "They went after you when you were pregnant because of _me_." He shook his head. "I can't do that to you again. If I'm gone, they won't…" He looked across the room at the crib, thinking about Maury and Angela's insinuations that his child was still very, very special, a priceless treasure far beyond the preciousness of any normal infant. Would it be any different if he wasn't here to protect them? Were they safer with him, or without him?

Heidi's eyes searched his face. "Do you have some reason to believe people are coming after us? Or is this just you thinking _you're_ the danger?"

"I _**am**_ the danger."

"And so you're leaving?" She put a hand on her hip and glared at him.

"Just for a little while. Just until I can think this through."

"No."

"What?"

"**No**. You don't get to run off every time you have a problem. You don't _get to_."

He blinked at her, trying and failing to understand.

She sniffed. "You've even been drinking." She shook her head angrily. "No. This isn't happening." She turned and stomped out of the bedroom.

He stood there quietly for several minutes, trying to figure out what she meant by 'this isn't happening.' Was she going to stop him from leaving? If so, how? She could nullify his powers, yes, but he could still walk out the door and call a cab - even if she became violent. Unless she shot him, or something really debilitating, and _then_ didn't let him heal. Would she do that? That sounded… like something out of a horror movie. He shook himself out of it. She wouldn't do that. That was crazy.

He got a suitcase out of the closet for the things he wanted to have with him in case he didn't come back. Impulsively, he grabbed one of the baby blankets out of the dirty clothes hamper and put it on top, hoping it was basically clean, maybe featuring some drool, but nothing worse. He went in the bathroom and took a few toiletries too before he realized he was stalling. He needed to just go, get a hotel room somewhere and sleep it off. In the morning, he'd be able to think more clearly, but right now he had a nearly crippling migraine. The alcohol was long gone from his system, but the disruption from telepathy would remain for some hours.

He walked down the stairs. He was about halfway down them before he noticed Peter standing at the bottom of them, clad in a t-shirt and sweat pants. Heidi and Emma stood a few paces behind him. Gabriel paused on the stairs. Peter must have teleported here - which he wouldn't have done if he hadn't been invited. So this was what Heidi meant about not letting him leave? She was going to have Peter stop him? That was laughable. And sad, that he might have to fight Peter to protect him.

"I don't want to have to hurt you again, Peter," he said, continuing down the stairs, watching the darker-haired man carefully.

Peter said, "All we need to do is talk, just the four of us." He backed up a few steps and raised his hands, palms outward. Maybe he was just making a common, conciliatory gesture.

Or maybe he was getting ready to shoot him with lightning or blind him light or a half dozen other things. Gabriel didn't wait to find out. He hit Peter with a blunt shove of telekinesis and continued down the steps, methodically locking the man up with the ability while Peter tried to resist it with his own version of it. That was a surprise and a new tactic – telekinesis, turned against telekinesis. The two powers grappled together. Peter wasn't willing to assault Gabriel directly, which irritated Gabriel because it also made him feel guilty.

"Let him go!" Heidi yelled. "He wasn't doing anything! Stop this!"

"No."

Peter didn't have the finesse Gabriel did, so it was a battle he lost by the time Gabriel reached the floor. He could see the hurt in Peter's eyes. This ability bothered the younger man a lot to have it used on him. This was a violation, of trust and a promise Gabriel had made. He hesitated, hand upraised. He didn't like breaking his promises. He wanted to let Peter go, to do what Heidi was asking, but if he did, Peter would interfere. Even now he was a little confused as to why Peter wasn't nullifying his powers. He flashed back to what Noah had said – that Peter loved him and wouldn't fight him off.

He hesitated too long. Emma raised a handheld safety airhorn. Heidi stepped back and Gabriel's telekinesis crumpled and vanished as Heidi, not Peter, ended his abilities. She didn't cancel Emma's, though, and a moment later he and Peter both were hit with a shockwave of sonic energy that knocked them both about ten feet and into the back of the couch. Gabriel didn't notice much where they went. It felt like his head had exploded. He ended up curled on the floor, clutching it and cowering away, praying she didn't do that again and realizing just how much of a mistake he'd been making in dismissing what anyone other than himself wanted.

Peter was next to him. He was vaguely aware of his hands and sharply aware of his scent even now. Still holding his head with one hand, he scrabbled at Peter with the other. Perhaps the empath thought he was trying to push him away because he started to back off, but one hand caught against Peter's forearm and he dug in, gripping him hard and tugging him closer. Peter stopped withdrawing. For a moment, they were still. Gabriel felt his regeneration kick in and his hearing returned.

He leaned forward a tiny bit, still curled on his knees on the floor, wanting to do nothing more than hug Peter to him. He couldn't ask for it because they'd been fighting and he'd been the one who started it. He craved the embrace anyway and clutched him like a lifeline. He didn't know what emotions he was projecting, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't be proud of them if he had. It didn't matter - at that moment his pride could go fuck itself. Peter wrapped his free arm around him like he knew what Gabriel wanted – comfort, support, some surcease from the turmoil inside of him. There was a noise to the side and he turned his head to look. The suitcase he'd come down the stairs with had fallen open when they'd been knocked aside. It had just now closed itself.

He glanced up at Peter, who looked compassionate. "That's mine," Gabriel said stiffly, reaching out and pulling it to him. He worried Peter had seen what was in it. It struck Gabriel suddenly as childish to be taking such things with him, like a kid clutching at a worn teddy bear. He continued to hold Peter with one hand and now the suitcase in the other, despite that thought.

"I know. It's okay," Peter said softly. He stroked Gabriel's side with the hand Gabe didn't still have a death grip on. Emma headed up the stairs, directed by Heidi's gestures to fetch the wakened and now crying baby. Peter and Gabriel looked up at Heidi as she walked closer.

Heidi said, "Now. We're all – all four of us – going to have a talk. No one is going anywhere until we do. Are we all in agreement about that?"

Both men nodded mutely. Gabriel finally let go of Peter. They got up and circled the couch, sitting. Gabriel looked at his suitcase for a bit, then set it out of the way around the end of the furniture. He hung his head and rubbed it.

Peter said, "Does it still hurt? Mine quit." He looked over at Heidi, trying to divine if she was still squelching Gabriel's abilities.

Gabriel said, "I… tried to use telepathy while at the boxing match. Bad idea. Big crowd, lots of noise."

"Will you let me heal you?"

Gabriel lifted his head, looking between them. Emma, holding Noah, settled into an easy chair where she could see everyone's faces, airhorn tucked between the cushion and her thigh. Heidi remained standing, one hand on her hip. He looked back to Peter and swallowed. "I'm sorry… that I used telekinesis on you earlier. I shouldn't have done that."

"No, you shouldn't have," Peter said with heat in his voice. Then he exhaled sharply and looked away for a moment. When he looked back, he said, "Apology accepted. Now will you let me help you? If healing can drive out possession and reverse mental commands, it should be able to undo this. I haven't healed anyone for more than two weeks."

Gabriel nodded, feeling uncomfortable that Peter forgave him so easily. It should have been harder. Peter put a hand to his head, sliding his fingers into his hair in an intimate gesture. A moment later the pain ceased. Gabriel sighed as his head cleared. "Thank you."

"Anytime." Peter dropped his hand away and turned to listen.

Heidi looked at Gabriel. "_**You**_, have to stop running away from your problems. You can do that when you're a loner and nobody cares about you. You _can't_ do that when you have people who love you unless you want them to quit caring about you. You have children, Nathan! Maybe it didn't matter to you before, but I _**need**_ you. I need you to argue with Simon so I don't have to. I need you to be a role model to all three of them of what a good father should be. I need you to protect me and Noah. You can't do any of that if you're off hiding somewhere!"

Gabriel made an inarticulate grumbling noise. Peter put a hand on his knee and patted him sympathetically.

"And you!" Heidi turned to the younger man. "Peter, I love you like a little brother, and just like a little brother, you are as annoying as can be. I don't know how Nathan puts up with you and I don't blame him for getting to the end of his rope now and then with you."

"What?" Peter said, surprised. "What do I do to annoy _you?_"

She threw her hands up. "That! That right there!" She shook her head at him. "You know, the old Nathan used to pull that too. It's got to be a Petrelli thing." She pulled a face and mocked, "_'Oh, I'm the great Nathan Petrelli, so everything I say is right!_', except with you it's _'I'm perfect Peter, I never do anything wrong! And to prove it, if you can show me what I did wrong, I'll change and do better next time'_!" She snorted in disgust.

Peter's mouth opened and shut as he couldn't figure out what to say to that, or even why this was a flaw. Emma covered her mouth even though her laughter was silent.

Heidi shook her head again at his speechlessness. "Yeah, let's see you fix _that_ one."

Gabriel patted Peter's knee, returning the gesture and the sentiment.

Grumpy now, Peter asked, "Why do you get to call him _Nathan_, anyway?"

"He's my husband. I'll call him whatever I damn well want."

Just loud enough to be heard, Gabriel murmured, "Just don't call me late for dinner."

They were all silent and stared at him. After a few beats he said, "What? It's funny."


	234. Opening Dialogue

After a long pause where no one laughed and Gabriel looked disappointed, Heidi said, "Okay. Yes. Well, we have some things to discuss."

She looked over at Emma, who said, "Yes. I want to talk about our schedule."

Heidi nodded and looked back at the couch, looking for a seat where all three of Emma's audience would be facing her. Gabriel had sat near one end. Peter was roughly in the middle, a little more towards the other end. Heidi went to sit down on the far end, on the other side of Peter. Gabriel leaned forward and turned to face her, looking intently past Peter at her. He didn't look alarmed, but maybe he did look a bit angry. His eyes darted between her and Peter and up and down at where their bodies were relative to one another. Peter was actually closer to her than he was to Gabriel. Gabriel slowly tensed all over, his chin dropping, looking between them from under lowered brows. Peter reached over and put a couple fingers unobtrusively on his thigh.

Peter stood and waved to Gabriel. "Scoot over." Gabriel eyed him again, then did. Peter sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Heidi. Gabriel relaxed.

Now Heidi looked between the two men. "What?" She focused on Gabriel. "Did you think I was going to _**do**_ something with him right now? Or _ever?_"

Peter looked past Gabriel with a mildly affronted expression. She thought so little of him - it bothered him. This was not a good time though to ask her to reconsider.

"I didn't think anything," Gabriel said to her.

She stared at him and then looked away, shaking her head. "Why is that not a lie?" She glanced back briefly. "Don't answer that." Gabriel shut his opened mouth without speaking.

"Seating arrangements are important too," Emma offered. "We can talk about them first."

Heidi looked at Emma briefly, then at Peter. "Why did you move?"

Peter glanced uncertainly at the back of Gabriel's head (as he was still facing Heidi), then said, "He's jealous. He's possessive. I shouldn't be…" he shrugged, "making that worse."

She frowned at Gabriel. "What are you jealous of?" He scowled and looked away without answering. He sat forward, clasped his hands and looked at the floor. Heidi said, "Okay, different question, what is it that I'm doing that's triggering you to feel jealous?"

"Stay away from Peter," he said immediately.

She looked over at Peter, then back at Gabriel. She reached out and touched her husband's knee slowly. He put his hand over hers immediately and left it there. After a pause for that warmth, she asked, "Okay, stay calm here, because I'm asking this very honestly, because I want to know - I need to know. What do you _mean _by that?" He looked up at her blankly so she elaborated, "Are you talking distance, like don't touch him, or stay more than ten feet from him, or do you mean we shouldn't be in the same room, or…?"

Gabriel took a deep breath and leaned back against the couch rather tensely. He looked between them. Peter's expression was neutral, but he was paying close attention too. Gabriel said, "I… I guess I mean don't touch him. Don't sit next to him. Don't… look at him too much." He shrugged and sat forward again, brows pulling together.

She was silent for a moment then said, "You have noticed, right, that I'm not attracted to Peter?"

He moved his head back and forth and tensed again. "Yes! I've noticed that. You're both… very… I don't know, loyal. You- this isn't about you. Either of you. I'm… crazy. I'm sorry. There's no reason to it. I'm irrational!" He shook his head in a more decisive negation and exhaled sharply. He was rapidly getting more worked up.

Heidi reached over and toyed with Gabriel's ear, letting her fingernails trail into his hair a little. He glanced over at her and held himself for a moment, before relaxing suddenly. He sighed and leaned back against the couch like he hadn't just been about to lose it. He defused entirely. Peter took mental notes, though he himself had calmed Gabriel at times in a similar manner - just usually not so dramatically.

After a beat, Emma said, "Then we have a simple seating arrangement - Heidi doesn't sit next to Peter."

Peter tilted his face to her and said quietly, "Gentlemen always sit or walk on the outside of the lady, so the order should be Gabriel, Heidi, Emma, and myself. Or the opposite."

Heidi said, "There's nothing wrong with the order being me, Gabriel, and then Emma/Peter or Peter/Emma. We don't have to be old-fashioned about this."

Peter gave a single laugh. "Okay. Just… something my dad tried to drill into us."

One side of Gabriel's mouth quirked up at the irony of Peter following his father's rules of conduct.

"Alright," Emma said. "Seating arrangements settled. It doesn't matter if you think it's rational or not. If it's causing a problem, we need to work it out."

Heidi said, "Which is what I want to talk about, but Emma and I talked and we want to talk about the schedule first, then what I wanted to get worked out."

Peter looked over at her. "What is it you wanted to address?"

"How we solve problems. Running off, or pretending there isn't one, isn't how we should do it."

Gabriel huffed. "Listen, I'm not very happy about this whole thing, but if we have a plan and we stick to it, I'll be happier. Let's pick a topic and finish with that before moving on to something else."

"Okay. I just wanted to know what all the topics were," Peter said quietly. "I want to talk about boundaries and primacy too." He looked at Gabriel and raised a brow. "We never got around to that."

Gabriel looked upwards briefly. "Yes, I know." He reached over and gave Peter a single pat on the shoulder. "I know. And the talks we've had before were real helpful, so I should just man up and have this one too."

Peter smiled at him suddenly, then turned to Emma, ceding the floor to her.

She said to Gabriel, "If you want us to have a plan and stick to it, then we need to know if there's anything you want to discuss tonight too. Right now we're discussing agenda: scheduling, problem resolution, and boundaries. Do you want to add anything?"

"This feels like a business meeting," Gabriel grumbled. He frowned at her, then sat forward and looked down. Peter and Heidi both settled back. Peter looked over at Emma's questioning expression and signed, "Wait," to her. He and Heidi were both familiar with Gabriel's 'I'm thinking about that' pose. Gabriel looked up at Peter for a long moment, briefly at Emma, then for a while at Heidi. He tapped his middle and ring finger on his knee. He looked back to Emma and said, "No."

Peter snorted. "You've _clearly_ got something on your mind."

Gabriel hunched a little and shuffled his feet closer together. "No."

Heidi said, "Is this one of those things you can't talk about?"

"Yes," he said simply, looking at her gratefully.

"Then we leave it alone." She looked at Emma. "Your turn."

Peter looked between Gabriel and Heidi. The urge to dig at that was really strong, but Peter knew there were topics Gabriel couldn't discuss calmly. He'd been opening up, bit by bit, but pushing him about it only damaged his trust. Heidi shook her head at Peter and he subsided. Emma was talking, anyway. He turned back. As it turned out, she was trying to talk to **him**, specifically. Embarrassed, he had to ask her to repeat herself.

She exhaled slowly and did. "I was saying that you have been disrespecting our time together. We need a new schedule, we need to talk about why the last one wasn't working, and then we need to make sure the new one is followed." Peter nodded.

Gabriel said, "The original schedule was fine. We just need to stick to it. Early morning and evening with wives, night with each other," he said, gesturing between himself and Peter. "And then one evening every other week for us."

Emma's brow furrowed. "When do you _sleep?_"

"We don't need much sleep," Gabriel said, again gesturing to Peter and himself.

"No," Peter said, "that might be something. You're working two jobs, Gabriel, and you're up most of the time I am. I know you need more rest than I do. A couple times you've even overslept. **You**, who have perfect time sense, got so tired you overslept. You're a freaking alarm clock. How did that happen?"

Gabriel grinned slowly. "I seem to remember there was a lot of activity that night. And it was only the once."

Heidi huffed and said, "Then you can either swear off the shenanigans or adjust the schedule. Which do you want - give up sex or change the hours?"

Gabriel frowned. "I'd rather give up sleep."

Peter laughed. "You don't get to do that!"

"How much sleep do you need?" Emma asked.

"Six hours," Peter answered quickly, before Gabriel could. "I need four. Roughly."

"Sleep time counts," Heidi said and Emma nodded. "I don't like being alone every night. I want to wake up at least sometimes and have you there. I don't feel safe alone all the time."

Eventually they got out a pad of paper and started writing things out, tweaking and adding and discussing the relative value of various time slots. What they worked out was nothing like the original schedule, but they all agreed it would work better:

Weekdays  
7 am - 5 pm: work  
5 pm - 9 pm: wives  
9 pm - 1 am: men  
1 am - 7 am: sleep (men)  
Wives: 25 hours; Men: 15 (+30 sleep hours) 

Weekends  
8 am - 4 pm: wives  
4 pm - 9 pm: group time  
9 pm - 1 am: men  
1 am - 8 am: sleep (wives)  
Wives: 16 (+14 sleep hours); Men: 6 

Total  
Wives: 41+14; Men: 23+30 

Any family events or early group activities on the weekends would cut into the wives' time without penalty. Gabriel promised not to work late, but he couldn't promise not to bring his work home. He'd done that to Peter too, so it was fair, even if no one was really happy about it. He'd be cutting his hours with the law firm again, since he has less flexibility with the Company.

Peter was left with an extra couple hours a night. He made vague promises to do housework. With his teleportation, he could do all kinds of things with that time. It seemed most likely that he'd read books or goof off, which was fine with everyone anyway, since no one who knew him believed him about the housework. And they all knew him.

"Okay then," Heidi said, once they'd hashed out the schedule. "Emma and I talked earlier about how we wanted to do this, tonight, and I'd wanted to put the schedule first for two reasons - it seemed like the most important and straight forward to fix, and secondly I wanted to see if we could all act like adults and handle that before moving on. Because the thing I wanted to talk about was how we handle problems between us - things like the schedule," she looked at the two men, "or things like tonight, or whatever happened with you two a couple weeks ago.

"That was not right," she shook her head. "Not that you two had a falling out - that's really up to you. But that it came out of the blue for me and Emma too. We _live_ with you guys and neither of us had a clue there were things going wrong." She gestured at Peter, "Emma said she knew you were getting harder to be around, and more withdrawn and stuff, but we didn't know why." She looked at Gabriel, "Or that it was getting so bad between you two that you were ready to call it quits.

"That _can't_ happen. You _have_ to talk to us when you're having trouble with each other. What you two do with each other impacts Emma and myself and the kids _**a lot **_- probably a lot more than you realize. It's not just the time, but where your head is at. If you're not happy with each other, then it rubs off on us and I'm sure that works the other way around too."

Gabriel sighed. "I can't guarantee that I'm never going to have… issues. That's why I wanted to leave tonight - just get away, get my head clear, and think this through so I could figure out what the best thing to do was."

"You don't get to do that _alone!_" Heidi exclaimed. Gabriel looked at her, lips thin, then away.

"So what are you saying you want us to do?" Peter asked, because clearly Gabriel wasn't going to speak.

"If you two are having an argument, _let us know_. Tell us the major issues. We're probably not going to be able to help, and it might be better if we don't, but we can listen and it helps _so much_ to know what's going on. That way if… Peter, under other circumstances that would have been a _**murder**_."

Gabriel leapt off the couch like a scalded cat, a burst of energy that took everyone by surprise. Even the baby, who had been happily nestled in Emma's lap, jerked. "I would _**never**_ had done that to him if he hadn't been able to take it! I am in control of my abilities and I adjust how I use them _very carefully_ to the situation."

"When you're awake," Heidi snapped at him.

Gabriel's hand came up, index finger extended in a gesture Peter associated with a lot of danger. Peter's eyes got wide, not sure what was about to happen. But all that occurred was Gabriel saying, "That - is private."

Heidi seemed to have no ill associations with the gesture, because it put her off not at all. "Is it?" She turned to Peter and extended her hand. "Give me that schedule." He glanced between them and handed it over. She scanned it and offered it to Gabriel. "You're planning on sleeping with him five days out of the week. Have you even _talked_ to him about it?"

Gabriel took the schedule and stared at it. His throat moved, but he didn't speak. He looked at Peter, then back at Heidi.

Peter said, "Are you talking about the nightmares?"

"Yes," Heidi said.

Peter nodded. "I've noticed he has them."

"They can be dangerous."

"He'd heal," Gabriel said, turning his back on them both and running a hand through his hair.

Heidi shared a frown with Peter, then spoke to Gabriel's back. "You're assuming a lot there, Nathan. Rather than just imagining he's fine with that risk, why don't you tell him about it so when it happens, it's not a surprise?"

"You're telling him now," he said, still facing away. Emma gestured at him, but it went unnoticed. She signed to Peter asking what Gabriel was saying. Peter responded in kind, speaking at the same time so Gabriel could hear that he was having to be repeated. With a sigh, Gabriel reoriented himself so Emma could see his face. He was still mostly turned away from Heidi and Peter.

When Peter was done, Heidi said, "Fine. Peter, his nightmares are violent sometimes and he's woke up trying to attack things before. If you're in bed with him, that might mean he attacks you. He doesn't like me to just cancel his abilities every time we sleep, so… you have to watch out for him." She took a deep breath and let it out.

Peter's eyes went between the two of them. "Okay."

Gabriel walked over to Emma and asked her for the baby. She handed him over. Gabriel kissed the top of his head and rubbed his back. He walked back and forth across the floor, jostling the five month old lightly and ignoring the rest of them. Heidi looked to Peter and said, "The baby calms him down. Now, when he starts giving you grief, will you let me know?"

Peter watched Gabriel for a moment, wondering if reporting on him would be seen as some kind of betrayal. He wished he was touching Gabriel to feel his emotions. "Yes." He paused, trying to read the other man, but Gabriel didn't show any reaction. "It's usually the other way around though."

At this, Gabriel glanced over at Peter. Peter dropped his eyes. Gabriel came over suddenly and tousled Peter's hair, then went back to pacing slowly with the baby. Peter smiled warmly at the gesture and dug out a comb to fix his hair. Heidi looked at Gabriel and asked, "Are you going to tell _me _if you have problems with him?"

"I don't like to tell you about my problems with Peter," Gabriel said, and it was in that tone of voice Peter had come to recognize as a gross understatement. "You already don't like him."

Heidi snorted. "I dislike him because I've had to listen to him be _lionized_ for the last thirteen years! According to you, he's a saint! It was always how wonderful Peter was, how great he's doing in school, what a good person he is, how he's his mother's darling, how he needs to be protected from mean ol' daddy because daddy's unhappy that he's not doing what he should be… Did it ever occur to you that maybe Peter _should_ have been doing what his father wanted? That all that nursing stuff and protesting and vegetarianism and hero act and so on is just childish rebellion? Being stubborn and headstrong just to get attention and be morally superior to all the rest of us peons?"

Peter was staring at her, but she was looking at Gabriel, who had stopped and turned to face her. She said, "It's no different than what Simon's doing to_ you_." Gabriel pulled his brows together. "Yeah," she continued, "Think about that next time you tell me about how military school will 'straighten him out.' Didn't your father want to do the same thing to 'straighten out' Peter and you and your mother talked him out of it?"

"That was different," Gabriel said, shifting his weight uneasily.

Heidi grinned. "Oh? It is, is it?" She put an elbow on the arm of the couch and covered her chin with her hand. "Now that it's your _son_ who needs to learn to stand on his own two feet, and not your precious little brother who needs coddling and protection, hm?"

Peter glanced over at Emma, who was watching back and forth, reading lips. He didn't really appreciate the way he was being cast, but… he could kind of see Heidi's point, if she'd had to listen to years of him being held up as perfect when he was just as human as anyone else. She'd said much the same thing to Peter a couple years ago when he'd told her Nathan was dead.

Gabriel started with, "Peter and Simon are… what are we even talking about here?"

"What we're talking about is that if you wouldn't pretend Peter was flawless, then I'd like him a lot more. But it's an uphill battle. He shows up and he's got this reputation preceding him. If I say the slightest thing against him, you're all defensive and 'I know you don't like him'. I get _so tired_ of hearing that. He seems fine, really, but I can't have a conversation with you about him without you either sulking that I don't like him, or getting your back up that I might."

Gabriel glowered at her. She looked over at Emma. Emma gave her a supportive smile.

"I have noticed," Peter said quietly, "there's uh, you know, a catch-22 there." Gabriel turned his glower on Peter, who continued anyway, "Every time she acts friendly towards me, you shut her down, or get physically between us."

"That's the jealousy acting," Heidi said.

Gabriel snorted and quit glaring at them. He went back to pacing. He paused at the end of his walk and looked at Emma. "You're being quiet."

She smiled up at him. "These things needed to be said. They need to be out in the open. We're not two couples. We can't act like two couples. We have to be able to talk through our problems together - all four of us."

He nodded silently and offered her Noah. She took him. Gabriel paced a bit more.

Emma said to Peter, "You said you wouldn't heal anymore without our agreement?"

Peter sighed and looked down, nodding jerkily.

Gabriel looked over at him. "All three of us have to agree?"

Peter said quietly, looking up only enough so Emma could see his lips, "No, any one of you. That's what I told Emma. And… I told you that I'd ask your permission specifically. But as long as we're talking about it, I'd rather it was any one of you. And if any one of you thinks I'm doing it too much, I'll stop."

Gabriel looked between Emma and Heidi, then back to Peter. "So everyone has veto power, but you only need permission from whoever is handy."

"Yes."

Gabriel shrugged. "I'm okay with that." Heidi and Emma nodded.

Emma turned to Gabriel and said, "Tell us what happened tonight. Why were you leaving? Why did you ignore us and attack Peter?"

Gabriel frowned at her. "Noah…" He looked at Peter, then blinked and turned his back on him. Peter looked up at his back, having missed Gabriel's expression of hurt and concern, but he could see the tension in the way he held himself. Heidi and Emma didn't miss either.

"Noah Bennet?" Heidi asked. Gabriel nodded once. "Do we have something to fear from him?"

"No," Gabriel said.

Emma asked, "What happened?"

Gabriel reached up and touched his forehead, fingertips stroking across it. "He made me doubt myself and what I've done. He reminded me of how much I'd hurt the people I loved. And how… inappropriate that was. You could… all… both of you… find someone better, someone who wouldn't hurt you. You probably _should_."

Peter pursed his lips and looked uneasily between Emma and Heidi. He didn't know what he was allowed to do here. It was why he'd mentioned boundaries - he wanted to know what sort of displays of affection or support were okay and which were off limits. And so he did nothing, even though he wanted to act.

Heidi said, "Noah's not one of us. He's one of them." Peter's head snapped around at the same time Gabriel turned. Both men stared at her. "What?" she asked.

Peter said, "It's a… phrase the Company uses - one of us, one of them - for how they pair up agents. One will be mundane, no power, and the other will have an ability."

"Oh," she said. "Well, what I meant is that Noah Bennet isn't part of this family or," she waved vaguely at Peter and Emma, "whatever we are. He's not one of the four of us." She looked at Gabriel. "Pay attention to when **we** tell you that you're hurting us. Don't listen to _him_. Don't doubt yourself. I love you."

"I love you too," Peter murmured, glancing between Emma and Heidi.

"Don't make me go looking for someone better," Heidi teased. "I'd be looking forever!" Gabriel gave her a warm smile and maybe a hint of a blush.

Peter said, "I can take what you dish out. Don't worry about it. What happened… like you said, I'll heal."

Gabriel's expression faded. "Peter… I've hurt you before."

"Yeah, and you probably will again. No relationship avoids that." He gestured at Heidi, "Like she says, don't run off. Come back; deal with me. You **know** I'll give you another chance."

Gabriel said, "My second chances will run out someday."

"That day's not here," Peter said with quiet certainty. Gabriel frowned at him.

Emma said, "Are we all in agreement that we'll talk out our problems and keep each other informed on issues important to all of us?"

There was a consensus on it, so she said, "Then Peter, you wanted to ask about primacy?"

He scratched his neck and said, "I think the schedule settles most of that, but something that's bothered me a couple times tonight is… uhm," he looked up at Gabriel, then between the women, "what can I _do_ here?" They looked at him blankly, so he said, "If I want to kiss Emma, that's fine, it's okay. What if I want to kiss _him?_"

"Right now?" Gabriel looked so pleased that Heidi laughed out loud.

"Mr. Eveready," she muttered.

Emma said, "Heidi?"

Heidi looked up at her and sighed. "Fine. Go ahead."

"That's not exactly a ringing endorsement," Gabriel said.

She lifted her brows at him. "Do you expect one, Mr. 'Stay away from Peter'?"

"Whoa," Peter said, putting his hands up in a surrender motion, "I don't **have** to do anything. I just wanted to know."

"No," Heidi said, snapping at him, "It's fine! Just don't make out with him." She sighed and took several deep breaths. "No, really. It's fine. I thought… for a little while that I was just going to be a beard while he chased after you. And yeah, he's hotter for you than he is for me," Gabriel tried to interrupt and she waved him down. "Shush! I'm not stupid or blind so don't act like I am. And anyway, you've left him and he's left you, but no one's left me, so it's not like I'm feeling left out here." Gabriel stood tensely and kept his mouth shut.

Heidi went on to Peter, "But in any case, the schedule's good, he's here talking to all of us, we're all four working things out. If you two want to hold hands or he swats you on the ass like he does me, or you give him a hug or a kiss, that's fine. If you start doing something in front of me that you wouldn't do in front of the kids, I swear I'll throw a pitcher of water on the both of you."

Peter snorted and then laughed at the image that presented.

She said, "I'm just saying that I was afraid the marriage would be a sham or a front and he didn't really want me, he just wanted me on the side. That's not the case. I can tell." She pointed at her temple - Peter assumed she was referencing some aspect of her ability that he didn't have. Or maybe she just meant the lie detection, because it would apply just as much to Gabriel's declarations of love and loyalty to her as to anything else he said.

Peter nodded and turned to Emma. Given the degree of telepathic communication he'd had with her, and the things he'd inadvertently picked up from her from time to time, he didn't think she objected to modest displays of affection between himself and Gabriel. But to be fair, he needed to have her say that to everyone because they didn't know. "Emma?"

She nodded. "Don't ignore me and I'm okay with it. A pitcher of water is a good idea." He smiled.

Gabriel said, "That's everything, then."

The other three looked up at him. He said, "That's everything that was on the agenda. Are we done?"

They all looked between one another. Heidi shrugged, Emma nodded, and Peter leaned back. Emma said, "Yes. We are done."

He nodded. "Well then. It's a little past midnight. According to the schedule, I have a little time I can spend with Peter." He looked at Peter with soft eyes. "If you're willing?"

Peter's brows rose in question, not sure what was being asked. A quickie seemed in poor taste and despite Gabriel's surprisingly interested comment earlier, Peter didn't think anything was going to happen right away. He'd felt the emotions in Gabriel's grip after getting knocked down by Emma's sonic blast - they'd been needy and sad and desperate and afraid. It wasn't lust, but Gabriel wanted him.

Gabriel gestured up at the second floor. "I'd just like to talk. Maybe out on the balcony?"

"Sure!" Peter got up quickly, glancing between the two women. He walked over to Emma and bent to kiss her. As he pulled back, he signed to her quickly a number of different things, 'Thank you' being repeated several times. She patted him and he kissed her again before backing away. He headed up the stairs. He couldn't contain a degree of excitement to his steps. Gabriel smiled as he followed, noticing the enthusiasm.


	235. Closing Remarks

They walked out onto the balcony. It was nice and cool for a late May evening, with a sharp wind that immediately made a mess of Gabriel's hair. Peter's was shorter and less tossed by the breeze.

Peter went to the rail and looked out, then turned back when he realized Gabriel hadn't followed. The other man was standing at the glass-paned door, having shut it behind him. Gabriel asked, "Do you want to get back together?"

"Yes!" Peter answered immediately. "Yes, please!"

Gabriel nodded and looked down. Peter wanted to go to him so badly but he didn't think Gabriel would respond well to that. Peter thought of something and said, "Hey, you remember telling me that all I needed to do was make myself available to you?" Gabriel looked up at him, face unreadable. Peter went on, "Hey… I'm available. If I didn't think it would run you off I'd be over there hugging you right now." He swallowed and gripped the railing on either side of himself to anchor himself to the spot.

Gabriel walked over to him slowly, so slowly Peter couldn't tell if he was doing it on purpose to draw it out, or if he was thinking and didn't want to hurry himself. When he reached him, Gabriel raised his hand, tickling along Peter's bare arm, up to the sleeve of his t-shirt, then skipping up and turning it to smooth his knuckles over the stubble on Peter's cheek. Peter watched his face, watching Gabriel watch him, waiting for the other man's eyes to finally rise to his. Peter held them then, not looking away automatically like he usually did. He wanted to see; he wanted to look right in Gabriel's eyes and share that intimacy.

Gabriel didn't seem to mind. He moved his hand to take Peter's chin between his forefinger and thumb, then leaned in as if to kiss him. Peter swayed forward, lips slightly parted. Gabriel only brushed them, a brief contact before pulling his head back. Peter moaned and shut his eyes, struggling to hold himself still. He turned his head to the side. "You tease," he said.

Gabriel smiled. "Yes, I do. I like to hear you wanting me. You're strung tight like the string on an instrument and I'm plucking you." He reached over and took Peter's chin again, turning him back. His face came nearer to Peter's and Peter could feel the warmth of his breath playing across his lips. Their gazes met and then Gabriel sealed his mouth over Peter's… but the moment Peter leaned into it and responded, Gabriel pulled away.

Peter groaned. Frustrating. He let go of the railing and bunched his hands in the sides of Gabriel's shirt. He pulled himself against the other man because he couldn't take much more of this. He didn't want to take much more of it. He could feel Gabriel's warmth and solidity against him and more importantly he could feel his emotions inside of him, swirling through his brain and his heart. Gabriel didn't push him away – instead he seemed gratified, pleased – probably that Peter wanted him so much. Peter sighed and tucked in his head, glad to have been allowed to do this at least. He hadn't realized how painful it would be to be parted from either of his lovers or how much of a strain that would put on him.

There was a bond here - he had suspected it, but now he was sure, because he'd felt it click back into place with the cherished contact. He'd missed it. He'd felt it growing over the preceding months, as he'd become more and more sensitive to these two people. Being apart from them was like an itch he couldn't scratch. He didn't know what it meant, because there didn't seem to be any cool side effect to it. He had trouble sleeping without them and had felt miserable a lot of the time, but that seemed like normal heartbreak and rejection. He trembled a little just to be allowed to stand against Gabriel.

"I need you," Peter said and it was never more true.

Gabriel brought his hands around to settle them lightly on Peter's back. Peter tipped up his head, bringing his lips to Gabriel's throat, pressing them softly to his adam's apple. He felt a pang of annoyance in Gabriel's emotions, but the thing about sensing emotions was it didn't tell you the thoughts behind them or what a person was likely to do in response. Peter suspected he was annoyed that Peter was being more forward than Gabriel's tastes ran at the moment. There were plenty of other feelings to balance it out – warmth, affection, love, satisfaction and contentment. He was still angry, too, and Peter could feel that like a bad aftertaste. He hoped it would fade.

The annoyance _did_ fade as Peter pressed another kiss to the side of his windpipe, sliding his hands around Gabriel's back. Gabriel tilted his head a little, stretching his neck, making it easier and sending a clear approval of what Peter was doing. He kissed him over and over, moving steadily up to his jaw, laying a kiss on the edge of it – but then Gabriel pulled his head away. "No. That's enough for now."

Peter took a deep breath and tucked his head again. Gabriel let his hands rub over Peter's back, up and down the curve of the small of his back and over the top of his buttocks. The sweat pants he was wearing did nothing to hide the delicious shape of his body. Gabriel explored that part with his fingers, feeling him out, following his spine, then tracing his hips, and smoothing up and down again.

"I'm really sorry I upset you," Peter said after they'd been standing together quietly for several minutes.

Gabriel kissed the top of his head. "I'm getting over it. Our schedule needs some clarification."

"How so? It seemed pretty clear to me." Peter stayed hugging, happy with where he was.

"We didn't define 'weekend.' I'm thinking the transition should start Saturday morning and end Monday morning when we go to work."

Peter grunted. "I don't remember exactly what it said."

"Well, it means that we'll have a few hours to the two of us tomorrow night after we all play cards, but not the whole night. I'd like to go flying. If you can teleport us to Greenland, there's a lava flow there I'd like to show you."

Peter laughed a little and looked up. "A lava flow?"

"Yeah." Gabriel kissed his forehead. "I went and checked it out last week. It's still active."

"Okay," Peter said, thinking Gabriel really did want to take this slow. "Am I ever getting in bed with you again?" Peter tried to go for 'teasing' in his tone, but it came out sounding more like a plea. Gabriel had only asked if Peter wanted to get back together. He hadn't given his own thoughts on the matter, though his arms still wrapped around Peter's form were an eloquent statement of his feelings.

"Hm," Gabriel said, shifting his hands down to massage the top of Peter's ass and pull him into himself. "Might I still want some of this – is that what you're asking?"

Peter grinned and let his fingertips press a little harder, gripping instead of holding.

Gabriel brought one hand up and teased his fingers under the waistband, then followed it around to the front. Peter backed up a half step, looking down and breathing harder. He leaned against the railing behind him and watched as Gabriel's fingers toyed with the knotted string in the front. Gabriel leaned in and kissed him twice, giving up on the threat of untying the string and instead just running his hand down the front of the garment, stroking over Peter's groin and provoking another groan from him.

Peter was suddenly and intently aware of every touch there. He wanted Gabriel bad. He wanted more – more touching, more stroking, more rubbing. He bit his lip and moved his hips in small hitches as Gabriel cupped him, then gave him what he wanted, his hand moving faster against him. Gabriel watched Peter's face, a smile playing about his lips. "You are so beautiful, Peter. I love watching you get turned on. I love hearing it. You're so shameless about it. It's so complete – like leaping off a building. Once you decide to do it, you jump in with everything you have… so enthusiastic, so good," he crooned. He kissed Peter's cheek, rubbing the now-erect shaft through the cotton, making Peter moan and squirm in delight.

Gabriel kissed him on the mouth, finally letting slip his tongue past his lips to meet Peter's. His hand gripped Peter's tip, squeezing and moving up and down lightly, but enough to send thrills of sensation through Peter. It matched the increasingly jerky motions of Peter's hips.

Then Gabriel stopped completely and stepped back, leaving Peter panting hard, leaning on the rail, confused. "Yes," Gabriel said, answering Peter's earlier question. "Monday night, when we have more time."

Peter put his hand over his erection, feeling profoundly frustrated. "Wh…"

"Monday," Gabriel said. "Keep your hands off yourself until then. You're not back with Emma yet, are you?"

"No…" Reluctantly Peter moved his hands back to the railing.

Gabriel grinned. "Good. Then when I see you Monday night, you aren't to have come, from now until I give you permission to."

Peter stared at him for a moment before groaning and cursing good-naturedly. "You are mean, cruel and _evil_, Gabriel!"

"Just playing to my strengths," he replied.


	236. Rebuilding Trust

Gabriel was in a very good mood. He and his partner in crime, Emma, had won very handily at cards for the evening, which meant Heidi and Peter got to do dishes and cleanup while he sat at the bar with Emma, 'supervising.' And trying not to notice whenever Peter was too close to Heidi, or vice versa. The whole switching up of card partners was Emma's idea. He talked with her telepathically about the issue while keeping an eye on his two romantic interests.

She was thinking, _That's why I wanted us to change up partners. We usually go with you/Peter vs. me/Heidi, and a few times we've done you/Heidi vs. me/Peter, but maybe it might help to push your comfort zone this way. You said yourself it was your problem, not theirs._

_Yeah, I know. There are some things that a lot of exposure to only aggravates, though. I don't know if this is one yet. Aren't you the least bit jealous of me and Peter?_

_Jealous? No. Annoyed that I have to share him? Yes. Jealous is when you want to keep someone from something else because you don't want them to enjoy anything outside of what you give them. That doesn't mean you can't still resent that someone spends so much time on other things. Like if he was working two shifts. I wouldn't be jealous of his work, but I'd still think he was overdoing it._

_Peter overdoes a lot of things._

_Yes_, Emma replied.

_I'll get him back to you by one tonight._

_Okay._

_We weren't going to do anything… you know. I was going to have him teleport us out to Greenland and show him that subglacial lava flow the news has been going on about lately._

_The one that's signaling the end of the world, going to melt the glaciers and flood everything?_

Gabriel answered, _Yeah, that one. I don't know what the news media would go on about if they didn't have something that exciting to discuss. But who knows? Maybe someone with a geokinetic ability caused it._

_2012._

_What's that?_

Emma projected, _If the news didn't have that to report on, they'd be talking about how the world's going to end next year._

_Oh, right. That. I'd blocked that one out because it was so ridiculous. If people only knew, the world as we know it has almost ended twice in just the last few years._

_That's just that you know of._

_That's really cynical, Emma. I'm proud of you. I must be rubbing off on you._

She shrugged. _There's nothing to be done about it. What else can we do except keep going and hope for the best?_

He looked over at Heidi's ass. _You're right. There are certainly more entertaining things to be doing._

She laughed out loud.

Peter looked over from where he was drying a casserole pan and asked, "What are you guys discussing over there?"

"The end of the world as we know it," Gabriel said, grinning. "And how we'd spend our time if the end was nigh and we couldn't do anything about it."

Peter snorted. "I'd be out there trying to stop it anyway."

Gabriel sighed, still grinning. "Yeah, you would be. I think my priorities are shifting from what they used to be. A few years ago it was survival no matter what. Now…" He shrugged.

XXX

The volcano wasn't much to see, really, especially compared to the exciting footage on the television. The magma flow had slowed and cooled and it was, of course, nighttime (as much as such a thing counted when so far north in summer). When Gabriel had been here before, the lava itself had shed enough light to make the view spectacular. They could feel the heat through the now-thickened crust over it, but there wasn't anything very interesting to look at, other than the admittedly breath-taking vista of snow-covered peaks to the north. If you weren't careful about where you stood, the vapors and gasses venting downwind would make it difficult to breathe. They stayed upwind.

They explored the odd rock formations of the irregular terrain. Gabriel showed Peter mentally what it had looked like a week earlier. They discussed how rapidly the landscape had changed. They threw rocks at each other, which quickly turned into a mission of search and destroy, using telekinesis, flight and chunks of pumice that were, by quick agreement, no larger than a volleyball – which even though it was a light stone, still packed a punch.

Peter had been aiming at the middle of Gabriel's back, having managed to get behind him by dint of hiding in a crevice that couldn't be seen unless a person stood right over it. He lured him over with a few flashes of light, then hid. Gabriel had forgotten what a sneaky SOB Peter could be when he wanted. He was usually so forthright.

Peter popped up after Gabriel, trying to be silent by levitating, had drifted by. Peter's stealth tactic was muffling his sonic aura with interposing stone. It had worked. Peter launched his projectile, but Gabriel had heard him once he came up to throw it, and was dropping and turning by the time it got to him. Instead of the middle of the back, the rock hit him squarely in the face.

Rock and Gabriel fell abruptly under the influence of nothing but gravity. He regenerated fine, waking groggily to find Peter straightening his neck, bracing it so it would heal right instead of giving him a crick for the next few hours or days. Peter looked alarmed and frightened – probably afraid for having hurt him. Gabriel didn't mind. He'd enjoyed the game, stalking and prowling through the boulders in the night. He _liked_ hunting.

As soon as his face was presentable again, Gabriel reached up and looped his hand around Peter's neck, pulling him down for a kiss and muffling the apologies already falling from Peter's lips. When they parted, Gabriel said gently, "Shut up. You're sweet. I'm fine. You win."

Peter shifted a little so that Gabriel's head was pillowed in his lap. He ran his fingers through Gabe's hair, combing out little pebbles as he relaxed. "Do you want to be together?" Peter asked impulsively.

Gabriel didn't really answer. He'd been mulling that over himself. There were two things impacting his decision – the hunger, and his own desires. The hunger dictated that Peter's ability was very, very attractive to him – more so than with most specials. Heidi's didn't trigger him at all – he couldn't even hear that she had one, but that was a quirk of power nullification. Everyone else he was exposed to only briefly, or at least he could exert enough control while he was around them that he wasn't a danger to them.

He'd been able to twist his need for Peter's ability into a need for Peter himself. The hunger was, after all, a drive to understand and possess. If he didn't possess Peter physically or emotionally, then he'd have to stay well away from him, ending things entirely between them, because otherwise he'd eventually snap.

Then there were his own desires. He enjoyed the sex, that was for sure, but the main reason he'd done it initially was to please Peter. He wanted his approval, his presence, his comfort and affection. He'd so enjoyed their time together, snuggling and touching and fucking and being blissful afterwards. He was enjoying what they were doing now. He was pretty sure he wouldn't get that without a sexual component though. Just to be sure, he asked, "Would you be happy with a relationship that was strictly platonic?"

Peter's face betrayed him, even though he said, "If that's what you want, then I'll be happy with it."

It was true enough to pass lie detection, but that wasn't saying much. Gabriel studied him in the dim light and said nothing. He couldn't have a platonic relationship so it was kind of a pointless question. The hunger had requirements and this was either/or. Peter's scent always triggered a desire in him to gather the other man into his arms and have him. He really, really enjoyed indulging that desire and if he couldn't, then he was going to have to stay away from him. Which meant no touching, no playing, and no expressions of affection. Gabriel didn't think he could handle that. Even aside from the hunger, he wanted to keep this intimacy.

He could hear Peter getting worked up, which was an answer by itself. Not being with Gabriel romantically would break his heart and Gabriel didn't want to let that happen. Peter swallowed and blinked. His jaw worked. His voice caught as he said, "I really fucked things up, didn't I?"

Gabriel rolled up and turned. He scooted closer. Peter flinched from him, breathing harder. Gabriel ignored the flinch and put his arms around him anyway, drawing him closer. "I _left_ you, Peter. I wouldn't have done that if I wasn't ready to walk away from everything with you. I never stopped loving you. I still love you. I want to be with you. It's just going to take some time for me to come back."

Peter swallowed again and curled up a little in his arms, leaning against him. Gabriel could smell him strongly. He wanted to kiss him and nuzzle him out of affectionate habit, as he'd done for the last couple months, when they'd been together so closely. Something had broken inside of him though and it wasn't repaired yet. He lifted his chin, trying to breathe the cool, fresh air of the wild landscape and not so much the scent of the man he was holding.

They sat like that for a little while, until Peter straightened a bit and started to do to Gabriel what Gabriel had so long done for him. He gave him small kisses. He rubbed his face with his nose. He hugged Gabriel and petted him. He nibbled on his skin. He bit him lightly and sucked at him. He reached up and combed Gabriel's hair out of his eyes and ran his fingers through it. It was one gesture after another, piled on, of deliberate and intentional role reversal.

Gabriel's breathing changed and he raised his hands a little to Peter's back, holding him to him. His heart was beating faster and harder. He felt moisture in the corners of his eyes as he thought about what it meant that Peter was doing this, offering affection the way Gabriel had before in their relationship, making it physical instead of verbal. He was trying to say something just like he had with the gifts and his efforts.

Gabriel felt something melting inside of himself. His resistance was crumbling, being pulled down one kiss at a time. He blinked and looked away, tightening the embrace as his emotions surged. Peter hesitated, looking up at him. "I don't want it to be platonic," Gabriel said. Peter nodded and turned Gabriel's head a little more so he could lick along the curve of his earlobe where it attached closely to the line of his jaw. Gabriel made a small sound and said, "This is turning me on, just so you know."

"Mm-hm," Peter said, nibbling up the shell of his ear. He whispered, "That's kind of the idea. I'm the only one here who can't get off. You're fair game." Peter shifted so he could mouth the sensitive spot behind the other man's ear. He put one hand on his shoulder to balance himself and let the other explore down Gabriel's chest. He felt the deep rumbling groan in Gabriel's chest that never became audible. Peter smiled and started his mouth down Gabriel's neck as his hand fell to his groin.

At that touch, Gabriel leaned back, then yanked off his sweater and turtleneck, laying them out on the uneven rock behind him. The stone here was as warm as a summer sidewalk in the hot sun. The air was cool though, with a steady, light breeze. He lay back on the discarded clothes. The temperature wouldn't bother him. Peter climbed over him, leaning down to work one nipple, then the other. Gabriel stared upward at the starry sky. The firmament was a deep indigo rather than black – it was close enough to the summer solstice, and far enough north, that it wouldn't get completely dark even at midnight. Peter's mouth moved to the middle of his chest, where he nuzzled the thicker hair there and rubbed his cheek against him. Gabriel smiled and reached over to caress Peter's shoulders.

Peter moved down, licking across his abs until he reached his navel. He tongued the indentation while the fingers of one hand opened his slacks. He started to follow the treasure trail down, but Gabriel grabbed his hair suddenly. "Come back up here and kiss me first."

Peter obliged. Gabriel ran his hands up and down Peter's sides and over his buttocks. He ground up into him, pressing Peter against him. Peter said breathily, "Please don't torture me too much. I won't- You told me not to get off." Peter kissed him again. His obedience made Gabriel smile and gave him a shiver that had nothing to do with the breeze.

"I ought to tease you mercilessly, but I won't." Gabriel nudged him back down and this time didn't interrupt as Peter worked his underwear down and exposed him to the world.

He'd never done something so sexual out in the sight of God and everyone, out in the middle of nowhere, in the wilderness. It lent a thrill to the act. He grinned at the sky as Peter began to suck him off with the meticulous care he usually used. Gabriel rocked his hips slowly and Peter adjusted to the motion, taking him deeper with each small thrust. Nothing seemed to exist except the sensation of Peter's mouth and tongue on his member and the steady, crystalline passage of time. He felt like he was floating, thinking of nothing at all but the rising pressure within him, the rushing of his blood, and the sparking energy within him. When Gabriel trembled on the verge of release, Peter deep throated him, enveloping him and accepting the result of his ministrations.

He slid from his mouth a few moments later as Peter gracefully sucked him dry. Gabriel moaned as his body twitched with an aftershock. "You are so, _**so**_ good. Only you, Peter. Only you."

"Heidi still won't give you head?" Peter said conversationally, tucking Gabriel away and refastening his slacks for him.

"No. But at least we're trying anal now. Come here. I don't want to talk about her."

Peter maneuvered out from between his legs, but eyed the ground uneasily. He put his hand on it and said, "Rock's kind of hot. I don't think it would hurt me, but I'd rather not lay on it."

"It's too rough for me to want you on top of me, either." Gabriel sat up and stretched. He looked at Peter, who was kneeling next to him, watching him, watching for his reaction. After a moment Gabriel reached out and pulled Peter to him, pressing his face to the side of Peter's head. He inhaled deeply, getting his fix for the first time in more than two weeks, then rubbed his face in the other man's hair. He breathed him in as he finally gave in to that primal urge that plagued him whenever his lover was around.

Peter made a pleased whimper and crawled back into the space made by the encompassing circle of Gabriel's legs. Peter kissed the taller man's shoulder as Gabriel kissed down the back of his neck. Gabriel wrapped his arms around the other man and held him close, resting his cheek against the top of Peter's back. "I want to be together. I'll fix your watch tomorrow evening."

Peter hugged him tightly.


	237. Watch Me

Peter walked back down the hall of the apartment complex, carrying the hard plastic box of his medical kit. He saw Gabriel coming up the stairs, carrying a small, cloth-wrapped package in one hand. The other man's eyes darted between the door of Peter's apartment and then down the hall. Peter lifted the case and said, "Man down the hall cut his finger open trying to fix a kid's toy. I patched him up." He stopped in front of his door.

Gabriel crowded him immediately, so Peter turned his back to the wall and looked up at him. Gabriel said, "Hm. You didn't use healing?"

"No. I never used it for little stuff like that anyway. I was using it for strokes, heart attacks, spinal injury, head trauma – that sort of stuff. Things people don't otherwise recover from." He sighed. "And those also seem to be the things that take the most out of me."

"Hm," Gabriel replied, nosing along Peter's temple, then kissing his forehead.

"I've missed you," Peter said. "I was such an idiot, and an ass. I'm sorry I didn't treat you like I should have. I'm sorry I let myself get carried away and prioritized other things ahead of you and Emma. I won't do that again."

Gabriel kissed down his cheek and Peter put his free hand on Gabe's hip.

"You've always been wonderful to me. Thank you for being forgiving. Thank you for giving me another chance. Thank you for still loving me after I walked all over you." He opened his mouth to say something else, but Gabriel kissed him and shut him up. Peter returned it with interest. He didn't think Gabriel wanted to hear his apologies or expressions of gratitude, but he felt he needed to say them anyway. If Gabe didn't like it, he could always do exactly what he had just done. Peter smiled, opening his mouth and letting the other man's tongue slide inside sensually. Gabriel's free hand came up to cup the side of his face and Peter moaned a little. He moved his hips against the other man.

Doing this out in the hallway was a huge thrill for Peter, but he wasn't that wild about being known for making out on his own doorstep. He started trying to use telekinesis to work the locks on his door, but he made a hash of it. They rattled – some opened, some didn't and he wasn't sure which was which. He wasn't about to concentrate on anything besides Gabriel enough to do a good job of it. The locks suddenly worked themselves, accurately and all at once, as Gabriel apparently lent his efforts to it. Peter's hand fumbled with the knob and got it open. Gabriel stepped back, smiling at him, lips reddened, and gave him space to go in.

Once inside, Peter dropped off his medical box and turned back to his lover. He started to cleave to him again but was gently pushed back. "No," Gabriel said, raising the bundle in his hand. "I have something to do first."

Peter nodded, reining in his desire. He really wanted to be all over him, which was a little different than the usual mix. Generally it was Gabriel who initiated. Peter reflected that tonight hadn't been that different in that regard – it was Gabriel who had started kissing him in the hall, after all.

The other man went to the couch and summoned over a chair from the table. He turned on the lamp and adjusted it. He put down his bundle on the seat of the chair and unwrapped it, showing an assortment of fine tools and supplies. Peter came over and sat next to him, watching. There were two watches, both Sylars, in the middle. One was in perfect condition. The other was cracked and stopped. Gabriel picked up the damaged one.

He turned to Peter and asked, "Do you know anything about Sylars?"

"The watches?" Gabriel nodded at him. "Not really."

"They're different than nearly any other watch you'll find. Most watches, you see, follow the Swiss design, but not these. They were modeled after a Russian piece brought to the US by John Pershing after WWI. He contracted with a US watchmaker to replicate it, but the man he contacted had never designed watches before – only clocks and larger chronographs. He'd seen Swiss watches, obviously, but when he tried to replicate the Sylar he used a different configuration, unique for the time and… well, actually unique period. There are other watches with variations from the Swiss, of course."

He turned the watch over, selected a tool and paused to add, "What he ended up with is what was called the Sylar Field Edition. You see how this is a bit thicker than most watches? That usually means it has a complication or two in it, but the Sylar only has basic functions, except for the calendar. It's because the design he ended up with wasn't the most efficient. When he tried to work out how to accomplish his goal, he used a different gearing pattern and so we get the same result – a watch that tells time reliably – but with a different mechanism. Now some might say that's a flaw and I suppose it is in a way. It's certainly a difference. It's important to preserve deviations like this because sometimes they might have hidden advantages that aren't apparent on first blush. After all, our abilities are nothing but a difference from the basic human pattern.

"Because of that feature, Sylars never made it in the mass market. Because they had different gear works than standard watches, they weren't repaired very much and when they were, they were stripped and had their internals replaced with Swiss gearing, using a modified Hamilton process." He lightly shook the watch in his hand. "It's very, very rare to find an original Sylar. That's why it took me so long to repair the one I had. I had to teach myself how to do it and then I had to scour the world to find replacement parts. I never found another working model, and of course mine wasn't working when I started. I've always kind of wondered," at this he looked sheepish, with an embarrassed pride, "if maybe I had the only one."

Peter reached over and put his hand on Gabriel's knee, giving him a squeeze. It was interesting to get the history of the watch. There had been a little half-page write-up about the watch in Sylar's file, but it didn't explain _why_ it was important or what made it different from other watches. It was dismissed as a failed design of a mediocre Russian watchmaker from nearly a century before. They were rare because they were difficult to repair and although they had some value as a novelty or collector's item, they didn't hold any intrinsic feature that put them at the top of anyone's list. Except for Gabriel, for whom the watch had become a metaphor for something greater.

"Now," Gabriel said as he began to pry off the rear cover, "give me a little extra light and I'll show you something."

Peter lifted his hand, bringing forth a bright white light shining down on Gabriel's impromptu workbench. "I don't think I should watch."

"No, I want you to. We'll find out why this one stopped." He put the cover aside. Peter looked away, refusing to look at the mechanism. Gabriel looked at him, a little hurt.

Peter knew the other man wanted to share his interest with him. He had to explain. "In the future, when I went to the future and I saw you, you showed me how to access your ability. You had me fix your watch – a Sylar, just like that one. You said all I needed to do was open it, look at it, concentrate and it would come to me as I realized how all the gears moved one another." He shrugged, knowing he wasn't putting it into words very well. "The watch was a focus. If I don't want your ability and all the problems that go with it, then I don't think I should look while you fix it."

Gabriel considered him for several long seconds. Finally he looked back at the watch and said, "Okay. Hold the light steady. Can you listen?"

"Yes."

Gabriel nodded and explained what he was doing. "It looks like it was just jarred by the shock wave. That's what I suspected, but I wanted to be sure. I brought a new crystal for it. I think all it needs is to replace that and rebalance it. If that doesn't do it, then I'll have to disassemble it, find out what's broken, get or make replacement parts, and repeat that process until it works."

"Can't you just use shape-shifting to fix it?"

"Yes." Gabriel turned towards Peter with a soft smile, leaning over to kiss him on the lips. "I'm not going to fix our relationship with an ability. It's more than that."

Peter nodded. His eyes dropped to the watch as Gabriel turned back to it, then he adjusted the angle of the light and looked away again until Gabriel was done. Gabriel explained what he was doing as he worked. Peter could hear the faint ticking when it restarted, muffled when the rear cover was replaced. Gabriel held it to his ear and listened raptly. He turned and wordlessly put it to Peter's ear.

Well… it was a ticking noise. Peter listened to it. This seemed to be another of those things Gabriel was really into that Peter didn't share – but he listened and smiled. He reached for the watch, but Gabriel pulled it away as if he hadn't seen Peter's motion. The other man put it next to the original Sylar on the chair and wrapped up his tools. When he was done, he had a bundle and two watches sitting out.

He took up the original and pondered it for a moment while Peter looked on. Gabriel seemed deep in thought about something, so Peter didn't push. Gabriel put the original watch down and picked up the other, Peter's, holding it in his hand. He stood up, turned before him and then to Peter's surprise went down on one knee. Peter choked in surprise. He was about to be proposed to. His stomach somersaulted.

"Peter Petrelli," Gabriel said very soberly, laying one hand on Peter's knee. Peter immediately covered it with his own. "Only a few months ago, less than half a year, you told me you weren't mine, you didn't belong to me, and you didn't want to have any mark on you of our time together."

Peter swallowed and dipped his head, shamed by having his words come back to haunt him. He'd said that. He remembered it. He felt a chill go through him. This was a weird way to start a proposal.

Gabriel went on, "I know that when you first put on this watch, you were still angry with me and you didn't intend to be with me. You'd left me and after you put it on, we remained apart for two weeks before I saw it. I think it was only coincidence that you had it on at all, but after that you knew and you _kept it_. That meant a lot to me."

Peter's gut clenched. He'd never wanted Gabriel to know that he hadn't even noticed when he put it on for the first time. Gabriel had mistakenly thought, initially, that it meant something greater. But of course with his constant use of psychometry and his frequent touching of the watch, he'd found out the truth. He'd been thoughtful enough to never mention it though, letting Peter's illusion stand.

"You've left me. I've left you." Gabriel looked down at the device in his hand, rubbing his thumb across the face of it. "I want commitment. I want a promise. But I don't want some empty Petrelli promise that's…" He took several deep breaths and looked away for a moment, before turning back to Peter, "that's kept only so long as it's convenient. If we fight, if we argue – and we will, all couples do - I want us to be committed to working it out, to listening to each other, to giving each other all the chances we need. I shouldn't have left you like I did and I shouldn't have hurt you. If you accept," he looked down at the watch, then back up to Peter's eyes, "my offer, then I want to know that it means the same thing to both of us – which is marriage."

Peter blinked and swallowed and squeezed Gabriel's hand. He looked down and tried to think. He tilted his head up. "Gabriel." He reached out and touched the other man's cheek, appreciating how Gabriel leaned into the touch. "A lot has happened between us. A lot has happened to _me_ in the last five years, things I never imagined possible. I've died. I've come back to life. I've gained these abilities, lost them, gained them again, and now I have something different. My family has changed. I thought you were my brother… twice." He laughed hollowly. Gabriel gave him a soft smile.

Peter said, "And the things that have happened to you have been even worse. I understand – I think you're looking for something that isn't going to change on you." He looked away, feeling such a yawning chasm in his heart for what he'd done to Gabriel. Being shitty to him recently wasn't a patch on the whole shattered identity he'd been afflicted with.

Peter sighed. "I can give you promises and they'll be true – they won't detect as lies. But even if I looked into the future, that doesn't really tell us as much as it seems. Even if I tell you what's in my heart, we both know someone can come along with an ability and change that. _**I love you**_. I want to be with you. I want to be with you_ forever_. I will be the best man I can be for you and if we have a fight, you have my permission to kick my sorry ass until I act right. I will do _everything_ within my power to stay with you until the end."

He knew it wasn't the best speech he could have given, but Gabriel clearly wanted an honest answer, not a bunch of platitudes. Peter wanted to claim that he'd be as immovable as the rock that was the root word for both his names. He was already thinking of a dozen things he should have said instead and considering saying some of them when Gabriel gave his knee a slight squeeze and said, "Peter Petrelli, will you be mine?"

Peter blushed. He didn't think he deserved this. It was kind of embarrassing. And sweet. And corny. And sappy. And Gabriel was doing it with a completely straight face, serious and solemn. Peter answered, "Yes, I will."

Gabriel reached out and took Peter's left hand, fastening the timepiece on it. He bent his head and kissed the back of Peter's hand. "Thank you," he said softly, looking up at Peter, and he had never looked more handsome than he did in that moment.


	238. Repeat Performance

"Oh God, come here!" Peter growled, pulling Gabriel up and hugging him, urging him forward as Peter scooted to the edge of the couch, making the embrace of their whole bodies. Gabriel grinned and mouthed Peter's cheek. He didn't get to do it for long though because Peter pulled back, grabbed his head with both hands and kissed him, moaning in desire and excitement. There was nothing that turned him on more than professions of love and devotion.

Gabriel was on both knees now and Peter hooked his legs behind the man's thighs, leaning back and pulling Gabriel over him as they continued their impassioned kiss. Gabriel broke from him long enough to give him a naughty, but inviting look, running his fingers under Peter's waistband and tugging once. Peter didn't need twice. He started getting his clothes off so fast it was like he shape-shifted out of them. The only thing he left on was the watch. Gabriel noticed that, and then got to his feet, using the mentioned ability to quickly shed his own.

Peter scooted to the end of the couch, pulling one of the cushions off the back and stuffing it behind him so he had some support. Gabriel climbed over him, letting warm skin slide across skin, moving up Peter's body in an all-over caress. "Do you want this?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes!" Peter ran his hands up and down the other man's sides, shifting his hips and working his feet around so his heels ran up the backs of Gabriel's legs again.

"You want me to make love to you?"

"Yes!" He kissed Gabriel's collarbone, then chewed at it enthusiastically.

Gabriel thrust against him lightly, his penis rubbing against Peter's stomach, and asked for a third time, "Do you want me to have sex with you?"

Peter laughed, grinding back up against him. "Yes, Gabriel! Fuck me, do me, get inside of me, fill me up, make me scream, sex me, plow me, screw me silly, fuck me until I can't walk straight." He paused for breath, wondering why Gabriel was moving against him slowly, excruciatingly, without going further or faster. Peter recalled that he'd been the one to pull Gabriel on top of him. Haltingly he asked, "Am I being too aggressive?"

"No," Gabriel said decisively. "I needed to hear that. All of it." He kissed Peter hard, moving his hips against him faster and not explaining how much he'd needed that to drown out Noah Bennet's poisonous accusations. Peter didn't really need an explanation. He needed satisfaction. He needed ecstasy. He wanted to join their bodies and consummate their relationship right the hell now, dammit!

Peter put his hand out to the side of the couch and concentrated, which wasn't all that easy while the side of his neck was being systematically mauled by his lover. Luckily, he didn't need finesse. It was just a plastic bottle of lube. It popped out from under the couch and into his hand. He brought it back and flipped the lid.

Gabriel looked over and asked, perplexed, "Where did that come from?"

"We'd been talking about how we needed to stash some out here. So I did."

Gabriel kissed his cheek. "Smart man."

Peter dispensed some and reached down between them to lube himself up, and Gabriel's shaft on the way back. He liked the way the other man arched into that, so he stroked him repeatedly, watching as bliss flooded Gabe's face. Peter leaned up to mouth Gabriel's chest, keeping at it until the taller man pulled back abruptly and scooted down his body. Peter pulled his knees up immediately, canting his hips.

He felt Gabriel's cockhead press just a little against him, finding the right spot, and then pausing. Gabriel met his eyes. There seemed to be a question there. Peter couldn't place it. He pulled his knees up a little further and begged, "Please?" Gabriel pushed into him very gradually, as he hadn't been opened with fingers like they usually did. Peter was plenty aroused though. It was tight, but it didn't hurt. It helped that Gabriel went slow. Peter was struck with the urge to talk, so he did, "Come on, please, thank you, I want you, I love you, yes, I like this, a little more, yes, I like that, your hands, you're wonderful, oh! Yes! A little faster, oh yes! Please… Oh…"

Gabriel kissed his face, avoiding his lips, which Peter took as an encouragement to keep going. "This is good, great, thank you, you're fantastic, wow, oh, that's good, good, good, I like that. Yes. Now… no, push my knees up, a little more, then settle back, like… oh! That's it, that's the spot! Yes, you've got… oh God, oh God, oh God. Slower, my God Gabe! Slower. Oh, just a… oh… oh wait. _**Fuck**_."

Peter tensed all over as something occurred to him almost, but not quite, too late. He'd clenched too, which Gabriel apparently took as part of the experience because he plowed into him harder, shoving his length into Peter, then pulling it out steadily, dragging against the ring of muscle both ways. Peter made a halting shudder that might have been a strangled laugh or a choked sob. He was neither amused nor sad though, instead he was struggling to calm himself down and stave himself off.

It was a lot easier to separate your mind from your surroundings when you were alone in a tranquil, soothing environment with nothing but your own thoughts. It was much more difficult to do it while you were being vigorously and expertly fucked by your lover, who had just turned you on like crazy and played to your most central and reliable source of arousal. Peter groaned with the effort and turned to look across the living room, staring at the far wall and trying desperately to think of something unsexy.

Gabriel slowed. "Peter?"

Through clenched teeth, Peter panted, "You told me I couldn't come, until you gave me permission."

"Ohhh, yesss," Gabriel purred, leaning down to kiss sweetly along Peter's neck. He started thrusting again, light jabs straight to Peter's prostate that he'd so conveniently helped Gabriel locate just a few moments before. "So I did."

Peter bit his lip, hard. Pain was a turn-off and he'd regenerate, so there was nothing stopping him from using that to distract himself. "Did you forget?" he asked, noticing he still didn't have permission.

"No, but I thought _you_ did." Gabriel kept prodding him, admiring the way it made Peter's whole body twitch with each motion. "I wasn't going to hold it against you."

"My promises aren't _empty!_" Peter said, baring his teeth and finally achieving a sort of equilibrium, despite Gabriel's efforts.

"Mm, little bit of a temper there, Petey. I didn't even mention that." He slammed into him hard, making Peter gasp suddenly and lose the focus he'd gained while the other man was moving steadily and predictably.

"Oh, God, Gabriel…" He shuddered again and tried to regain his calm.

Gabriel didn't give him much of a chance, thrusting into him hard and fast, hitting the right spot almost every single time, making Peter's dick throb and swell against his intentions. Peter looked away again, trying to hold it down, trying to think about horrific things, trying not to think about how relentless and _good_ Gabriel was at this. He didn't think he'd be able to last very long - a little longer, yes, but not a lot. Gabriel had to be close. He looked back and saw he was right. There was an unfocused expression on the man's face.

Peter reached up and curled his hands around Gabriel's shoulders, raking him with his nails and tightening his anus as much as he could. Two for one - hurting the other man turned Peter off and it turned Gabriel on. Gabriel's eyes flew wider and he sucked in air, right on the cusp. Peter drew him down and bit his shoulder hard, gripping his ass and pulling him into him. Gabriel came and stopped moving, other than a single jerk as some lingering sensation passed through him. He sagged over Peter and panted.

Peter was still hard and sensitive, but he wasn't quite as high on the curve of arousal as he had been before. If he could ease back, he'd be okay. His cock was heavy and hot on his stomach. His balls felt swollen. He held Gabriel in place to minimize the motion and for a few moments, Gabriel cooperated. Then he shifted and began to pepper Peter's face with tiny kisses as was his wont after peaking. By then Peter could tolerate it. He relaxed a little and let his lover shower him with affection.

"You called me Petey," he said muzzily.

"Mm, yes. You're my sweetie-petey, love. _My_ love." Gabriel continued kissing over his brow, then shifted a little and moved his lips over one of Peter's eyes. Peter shut them and Gabriel kissed him ever-so-lightly on the lid, then said, "I've never kissed you there. Amazing! There might be parts of you I've never kissed. I'm going to have to rectify that. It's completely unacceptable." He moved on to the other eye. Peter chuckled at Gabe being silly. Gabriel kissed carefully around the orbit of the eye, covering him with tiny pecks. "You're mine now, little man. I'll call you whatever I want." He grinned at Peter and said again, "Sweetie-petey." He rubbed the tip of his nose against Peter's. He was so happy.

Peter grinned back, seeing the parallel with how safe and comfortable Gabriel acted with Heidi. Was it because he'd never really believed Peter's commitment until now? "God, Gabriel. I've twisted you up."

"What?" Gabriel paused, regarding him with a hint of his old caution. He withdrew a little and Peter felt that. He'd been so open for a few seconds there.

Peter did not want to see that look on his face anymore. "I've stunted your displays of affection before now. I love this. I love you. Thank you." Peter stroked him, wondering what he needed to do to reassure and get the other man to open up again.

Gabriel glanced back and forth between Peter's eyes, then went back to kissing his face, but he was more reserved about it. He made a slow roll of his hips, letting Peter know he was still within him and not entirely soft.

"I'm all yours," Peter said, giving something he thought Gabriel wanted. "I belong to you." He knew instantly he'd hit the right button.

Gabriel practically moaned in his ear in pleasure. "Say that again!"

"I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm yours. I'm all yours. Yours completely. I belong to you. I wear your mark. Peter Petrelli's heart belongs to Gabriel Grey." He turned his face a little and mouthed the bottom of Gabe's ear as Gabriel shivered against him and then snapped his hips into him. _Uh-oh._ Peter was abruptly made aware that his words had had a definite effect. Gabriel was ready again. Peter squirmed and shifted into a better position, where he didn't have to take the hammering on his prostate. He could endure a simple in-and-out a lot better.

Gabriel raised his head and caught Peter's eyes, starting to thrust regularly, cooperating with Peter's change of angle. "You're going to do what I tell you to do?"

"Yes." Peter put his hands on Gabriel's shoulders, riding his motions.

"You're going to obey me?" Gabriel said with a quirk to the corners of his mouth.

"Yes, I am."

Gabriel kissed him – long, slow and unhurried, still moving within him. Peter ran his hands into the man's hair, feeling the love and gratification. When they parted, Gabriel said, "We'll have to turn this game around sometime. It runs both ways. I'm yours too, Peter. I'll do what you tell me to. You matter to me. What you ask of me matters."

Peter nodded. "I know."

Gabriel nodded back and fucked him steadily. Peter looked past his head, focusing on a spot on the ceiling, and letting his partner have him. His obedience was apparently quite a turn on for Gabriel, who finished inside of him a few minutes later, watching Peter's face and his calm acceptance.

After he came, Gabriel just stayed where he was, staring at Peter, doing nothing else. Peter looked back at him, blinking and refocusing. Gabriel just… looked at him and nothing else, like he was memorizing his face or imprinting on him or something like that. Peter waited, hands at Gabriel's sides where they'd been while they were making love. The eye contact was mesmerizing though and he felt himself get sucked into it, falling into those eyes, being held and loved and wanted and cherished. Gabriel occasionally let his gaze drift to the side or up or down as he studied different parts of Peter's face, but he always came back to his eyes.

Minutes passed. It felt like hours. It was profound to have someone you felt so strongly about, only a foot or two from your face, staring at you so intently. There was a connection between them. Peter could feel it strongly, mapping itself out. He started moving his body against the other man's, wanting release, desperate for it. His conscious mind caught up with his body a moment later and he stopped, grimacing.

Gabriel kissed him again. He raised himself, scooting back a little and disengaging from Peter's body. He looked down at Peter's turgid member. He shifted to hold himself up with one hand, then sent the other ghosting across Peter's skin – first his face, raising his eyes to meet Peter's, holding his gaze. He stroked with his fingertips, then turned his hand to brush over him with his knuckles. His hand ran down Peter's throat, pausing a moment to straddle his windpipe with thumb and forefinger. They kept eye contact. He dropped his hand to Peter's chest, smoothing across the planes of muscle, finding the indentation and bump of his nipple. He ran his fingertips across it, seeing Peter tense slightly and his eyelids flutter briefly at the sensation.

Gabriel leaned in for another kiss, then back up. His hand drifted lower, tickling across Peter's abdominals. Peter's expression changed slightly to being more stressed as it was obvious Gabriel was going to continue downward. Peter's lips thinned and his breathing sped up. He looked away. He wasn't sure how he'd manage a hand job, or if he could. Gabriel's tortures were fiendish. He knew Peter's body too well – he'd listened to his responses and knew what he liked, what got him off, and now he was using that against him.

"Look at me," Gabriel commanded, and Peter did. He swallowed and struggled with himself, but he met Gabriel's eyes. Peter's expression shifted again, this time to defiant and determined. He would do as he'd been told. He was not going to lose. He wouldn't disappoint or disobey. Gabriel brushed the head of his cock. Peter's jaw worked. Gabriel tilted his head slightly in curiosity. "You're not going to ask me not to?"

"No," Peter huffed, breathing harder out his nose.

"Ah," Gabriel said, as if that explained something. Peter blinked at him, uncertain as to what that meant. _Was I supposed to?_ He recalled immediately that the night before he'd asked Gabriel not to tease him like this and Gabe hadn't. Even if he'd realized that before though, he didn't think he would have asked. He'd _liked_ the opportunity to show what he was willing to do for his lover. Gabriel said, "You have my permission."

Peter waited a beat, uncertain, then sighed in relief. "Thank you," he breathed. Gabriel kissed the corner of his mouth as his fingertips starting to explore the flaring edge of the glans. For a few moments, Peter didn't know what to do with himself. The subtle, slight touchs Gabriel was giving him weren't enough, by themselves, to put him over. He rubbed his hands nervously up and down Gabriel's sides.

Gabriel brought his hand back up, a drop of clear moisture on the tip of one finger from where he'd dragged it through the precome that was copiously smeared on Peter's belly. He tasted it, watching Peter's face. He contemplated the flavor, then smiled and sent his hand back down, fingers running up and down the shaft. Peter bucked slightly. Gabriel rocked back on his knees and heels, adjusting his grip to let Peter fuck himself in his hand. Peter whined. "I feel like I'm going to explode."

"Mm. Yes, and you will." He took his hand away, provoking a grunt of displeasure from Peter. Gabriel took the lube and dispensed some, then slathered it on Peter's member. He groaned in response, loving the feeling of the hand sliding freely up and down. The whole world narrowed in focus as he thrust into that hand, sliding in and out of the ring of fingers. He was close, skating along the edge, when Gabriel quit gripping him and shifted his hand to his hip, holding him steady. Peter looked up, eyes glazed and confused. He understood a moment later as Gabe lined himself up and slid inside. His hand had not been the only thing slicked with lube.

Gabriel adjusted, finding the right spot inside of him and prodding it gently. Gentle or not, it put Peter right over the edge. He felt like he was filled with fire - tingling and burning. He threw his head back and arched his back, finally finding the release he'd sought. Gabriel thrust into him deeper and then bent over him as Peter was panting and trying to recover. Gabriel covered Peter's mouth with his own and kissed him, working his tongue inside and restricting his breathing.

The other man continued to drive inside him hard and fast, stimulating him so Peter had several successive, lesser peaks instead of the usual steady decline. Peter groaned and cried out, trying to get away because the sensation was just too much. Gabriel put his hands on his shoulders and held him down while he kept fucking him forcefully. Peter's fingers dug into Gabriel's biceps hard enough to leave bruises, anchoring himself until his lover finished within him.

Only then did he think, _Oh, um… 'stop.' Yeah, that's… probably what I should have said there when he held me down. Huh._ He wasn't upset, nor surprised that Gabriel would hold him down while he struggled. He wasn't real sure how he should feel about that. Peter seemed to think he needed to be bothered, but he wasn't, so he was merely confused.

Gabriel breathed hard for a moment, then began the usual process of expressing gratitude and affection with face kissing and nuzzling. Peter clung to him as Gabriel worked down to his throat, licking and nibbling. He scratched at the other man's back slowly, enjoying the feel of their bodies pressed together and that of Gabriel's lips on his collarbone. He worked down the middle of his chest, mouthing him. Peter tangled his hands in Gabe's hair. The other man seemed lost in the moment, licking his skin and tasting the sweat from their coupling. Peter put aside his confusion at his own pleasures and scruples and enjoyed what was happening.

Gabriel straightened, groaned slightly, and shifted up to go at Peter yet again, this time lasting only a handful of thrusts before losing it. He sank down on top of him after, pressing him into the cushion and against the arm of the couch. Peter was getting a bit crammed into place. Lazily Peter wondered how many times Gabriel was going to take him.

"I love you," Peter whispered, turning his head to speak directly in his lover's ear. Gabriel shifted a little, taking some weight off of him. "I love you. I love what you did for me earlier – proposing like that. No one's ever done that for me before. That's incredible. Thank you. I'm going to remember that for the rest of my life, you kneeling in front of me, asking me, putting this on my wrist… thank you. You're a great lover. You're a good partner. I want to stay with you. I'm _going_ to stay with you."

Gabriel twitched his head to the side to give Peter a quick peck on the cheek, making it clear he was listening.

"I think you're wonderful. You're h… handsome. I should tell you these things more often. Thank you for being with me. My life is richer for knowing you. I'm going to help you and you're going to help me. You're very strong – strong inside, where it counts." He fell silent, thinking about how much they'd both had to endure over the last several years.

Gabriel reached down and lifted Peter's knees and shortly began to fuck him again: slow, comfortable and languorous. Peter gave him a relaxed smile and jerked himself off while watching Gabriel's steady progress to climax. When he was done, the other man groaned and put his hands on the couch arm on either side of Peter's head. He sagged forward, his hair falling into Peter's face and tickling.

Gabriel leaned down and kissed him, one long, deep French kiss after another. Peter moaned in response and reached up to tease at Gabriel's nipples. He pressed his mouth against him harder and growled. They kept it up until he was hard yet again.

Some time later, Peter had lost track of how many times Gabriel had done him. It was somewhere between seven and nine. He wasn't sore so much as determinedly overstimulated, feeling like he had a cock inside him even when he didn't. It was awesome. What he wasn't all that comfortable with was how he'd ridden up against the arm of the couch. Peter was so reluctant to do anything that might put off or discourage that he hadn't tried to change the position. But when Gabriel wedged a shoulder between him and the back of the couch and asked, "Can you take us to the bedroom?" Peter was happy to oblige.

Peter reached over and snagged the other Sylar off the seat before whisking them into the other room. Gabriel rolled him over and snuggled up behind him. For a moment, he and Peter moved at cross-purposes, with Peter trying to shift up and cooperatively lifting his leg to give Gabriel better access. Gabriel laughed suddenly. "No, sweetie, I'm done for a little bit, but thanks for the offer. And for the vote of confidence in my stamina." He kept chuckling as he spooned Peter, wrapping his arm around him.

Peter snarked, "My confidence in your stamina became infinite three or four times ago." He took Gabriel's arm from around his waist and tugged, getting Gabriel to extend it in front of him. The other man raised his head to observe as Peter took the other watch and fastened it around Gabriel's wrist. He wasn't as practiced at putting someone else's watch on them. He fumbled with the strap a little. "Do I have it right?"

"Yes, you do." Gabriel kissed the side of his head, then leaned forward and gave the curve of his ear a tiny peck. Peter felt Gabriel sigh and put his nose against the back of Peter's head, exhaling hotly against him. Peter relaxed, feeling warm and content and very, very loved.


	239. Not a Victim

Peter would have fallen asleep, but a few minutes later Gabriel bit him on the shoulder enough to make Peter grunt and stir. Gabriel addressed him, "Peter?"

"Yeah?"

Gabriel nosed his shoulder restlessly. How he could be restless after fucking so much was a mystery. Peter felt boneless in more ways than one. But Peter also felt a disquiet in his partner, so he started paying attention. Gabriel said, "I like you."

Peter smiled, recognizing this was either a dodge to not bring up an uncomfortable subject that he'd been thinking of and changed his mind about mentioning, or a softening up maneuver before, yes, an uncomfortable subject. "I like you too. Quite a lot, by the way."

"Mm-hm," Gabriel agreed, kissing his shoulder now. Peter waited for it. "You know that… that part of me I hadn't really wanted to share with you?"

"Yes." He stroked Gabriel's forearm where it crossed his stomach.

"That's… Sylar. I'm… Sylar."

_I know_, Peter thought and almost said before squelching it. Of course he knew. Gabriel must be trying to say something else. "Okay."

Gabriel nosed at him again. "I love you. I never thought I'd find anyone to love, who would love me back. Now I have… two." He gave Peter's shoulder a peck. "You know… you should know… and I've changed my mind since, but at the time… what I did when I was Sylar, the killing, I wanted to. I made those decisions. I was in control. I decided to do that." He was tense now, waiting for Peter's reaction.

Peter swallowed and thought about that for a moment. He wondered how lie detection functioned when faced with a situation as complex as the hunger and Sylar's degree of responsibility. Nothing was coding as a lie, but it was a damnably inaccurate ability, sometimes worse than nothing at all because it would mislead. "I have trouble believing that."

Gabriel tensed more, breathing harder. "I did it, Peter. It was voluntary!" He curled a little, which curled Peter in turn. He put his forehead down on Peter's shoulder.

"I had your ability for a while, Gabe. I remember how it felt. I was a maniac."

"You would have gotten over that!" Gabriel snapped, head still down. Now he was angry, but he was still lying on his side, spooning Peter. It was an oddly intimate position to be fighting in.

Peter held very still. "We don't have to talk about this right now."

"Yes we do!" Gabriel snarled. "I won't talk about it any other time. I might never talk about it to you again!" It sounded like a childish threat, with Gabriel's voice wavering immaturely at the end.

Peter turned slowly and carefully, without moving further away, until he was facing his lover. "Maybe I would have gotten over the hunger. You told me you were working on getting over it - that just knowing it could be done gave you hope." He paused and then went on, "You've obviously gotten better. Other than Matt, it's been a year and half. That's a long time."

Gabriel tucked his chin down further, muscles bunching. Peter pursed his lips. He wasn't doing the right thing. He had no idea what that thing was. Once upon a time, when he had his full empathy, these things would have come to him like breathing, like second nature. Now… Peter struggled, just like anyone else.

Gabriel was about to lose it, breathing hard and starting to tremble. The other man was trying very hard to get something across to Peter, making himself vulnerable, or perhaps using the openness and trust of post-coital relaxation to say something he wouldn't normally be able to bring himself to discuss. And Peter was fucking it up by not knowing what he should do to help.

He looked at the top of Gabriel's head, thinking about pulling his chin up so he could see his face. That too was wrong and Peter was sure of it, so he abandoned the impulse. Peter recalled the last time Gabriel had been nearly hysterical in bed and Peter had combed his hair. He thought about Heidi running her fingernails through it a couple nights ago and how it had calmed her husband.

Peter reached up and touched Gabriel's hair, carding his fingers through it. The other man went still at the contact, holding his breath even. "Easy, easy, calm down," Peter crooned instinctively. Gabriel took in a deep breath and did exactly that. The shaking stopped. He leaned forward into Peter's touch.

Peter felt a small surge of joy. He'd figured something out, something that would make things work better between them. _It's no wonder. He gets upset about something and I keep asking him upsetting questions, so of course he gets more and more upset. Just ask him to calm down. Change the subject. Quit hammering on the freaking wall, because it's not going to do any good. Show a little love and understanding instead._ He threaded his fingers through Gabriel's hair. "It's okay," he murmured. "It's okay, it's going to be okay."

Gabriel lifted his head and kissed Peter spontaneously. Peter could feel the intense gratitude in that gesture. Gabriel kissed him once more then dropped his chin again, moving Peter's hand back. Peter smiled and petted him, rolling the hair between his fingertips like Gabriel did to him. He wasn't using clairsentience; he was just mimicking the motions. Gabriel's hand snaked around his waist and a moment later pulled him close, hugging him. Gabriel said, "I love you. I need this. I just wanted you to know - I'm not a victim of my ability. I _like_ my ability. That's… that's what I want you to know. That's all." He sighed. "We'll… let's talk about this later. You're right."

"You said you might never talk about this with me again," Peter said, guarded. He tried to push Gabriel back enough to see his face, but the other man refused. Peter desisted immediately.

Gabriel shook his head. "No. I will. I promise. I just needed to get this out between us, if we're really going to be together. I'm not going to hide who I am from you." He pulled back a little, making the embrace looser but not enough so Peter could see him. He seemed to be talking to Peter's cheek now.

Gabe went on, beginning to ramble, "This isn't going to go away and it's nothing urgent anyway. I just can't talk about this with Heidi. Or, rather, I can, but she doesn't have any frame of reference for it. The best thing she could probably come up with as an analogy is alcoholism and I suppose that's an _okay_ analogy, but it's- Mmph." Gabriel cut off in mid-comment to chew on a particularly delectable bit of Peter's neck.

Peter laughed and stroked the back of his head. Gabriel didn't stop at just one nibble. He settled in for the full meal. Peter squirmed a little, breathing out his mouth and caressing Gabriel's shoulders, holding him to him. "You are _so_ sexy, Gabriel. You just about fucked me into oblivion and I wouldn't mind going again already."

Gabriel managed to part his lips from Peter's skin long enough to say, "Oh really? Hm, I wouldn't mind that either." He swung a leg over Peter's and continued his work.

"Okay," Peter said with a laugh as he tried to disentangle himself from Gabriel's encircling limbs. "But I'm going to top this time."

"That's fine with me." Gabriel let Peter get some space finally. "You've been having me do all the hard work anyway, while you just lay there and have a good time. You lazy bum!" He reached out and poked Peter on the left side of his chest.

"_Lazy bum?_" Peter said with mock outrage, pushing the offending, poking finger aside. He realized Gabriel had relaxed again with him as much as he'd been after the first time, earlier in the evening. He was being playful once more. Peter matched the tone and asserted, "My bum is **not** lazy. It's been doing very hard work keeping you happy." Peter pushed Gabriel onto his back. "Now scoot over. You've set the bar really high. Might take me a while to match that."

Gabriel grinned and waggled his eyebrows, spreading his legs. Peter climbed in between and looked at him, smiling. He waited a beat, slowly stroking the back of one of Gabriel's thighs. "You realize this is kind of like our honeymoon?"

"Yeah," Gabriel said. "'cept we had the vacation last night. Don't say I never took you anywhere."

Peter grinned, letting his expression soften. "It's our first night back together in here, too." Peter had worried, for a while, that Gabriel would never have him back. He lubed them both up, stroking himself a little extra because he wasn't entirely hard yet. Gabriel took the opportunity to get a pillow under his rump. Peter bent Gabe's knees up and entered him slowly, watching the other man's expression. His eyes narrowed a little and his lips thinned. This was something he did for Peter, not for himself. Peter appreciated it. Once he was all the way in, he started moving regularly, leaning into it.

Gabriel began talking to him, "You know what I ought to do next board meeting?"

_Um, having sex with you here. Don't want to discuss board meetings. _"What?" The 'what' was more along the lines of 'why are you mentioning this' than any actual curiosity.

Gabriel grinned. "I think I ought to invite you to come along."

_I know receiving isn't your thing, but really, Gabe…_ "Okay." He didn't know if he'd be able to keep an erection if this line of discussion continued much.

"Yeah," Gabriel said, tilting his head back and looking at the ceiling. "I'd have you with me and then right in the middle of things, I'd use telekinesis to lock everyone into their chairs."

Peter stopped moving. _What the hell?_

Gabriel took over somewhat, moving his pelvis and hooking his legs around Peter's hips. "I'd pull you up out of your chair and bend you over the table, right there in front of everyone."

_Oh! A fantasy. Good God, I thought for a moment there he was serious!_ Peter grinned and started moving again.

"I'd make you pull your pants down, I'd give you orders, and everyone would see what a little slut you are for me." At this Gabriel lifted his head and looked at Peter intently. Peter smirked. He knew Gabriel was judging his reaction to that. Peter was happy with it. "You'd have lube with you, just in case I needed you, because you'd know I might want to do it anywhere."

Peter leaned into him, bending Gabriel's knees back and thrusting as deeply as possible.

"And I'd start to fuck you right there on the table, bent over in front of the whole board. You'd be looking right across at one of them. Hm, Al-Walid maybe? I can imagine how uncomfortable that would make the old goat, to have the Petrelli scion being sodomized right in front of him. You'd be whining and panting and squirming as I drove into you, because even with the lube you'd be tight and I wouldn't prep you – just make you slick and slam it home," Gabriel reached up, bending his body so he could kiss Peter briefly before laying back again and continuing, "because I _**like**_ the noises you make when I take you rough. Let 'em _all_ listen, force them to watch…"

Peter's mouth fell open slackly as he pounded into him harder, eyes glazed just thinking about it. He imagined the rich wood of the table cool against his thighs, bruising at the edge where Gabriel would slam him into it, shaking the whole table, making everyone a party to the act, making them feel it a little in addition to seeing and hearing.

"Every one of them would be seeing you take it up the ass, Peter. You know that every time they talked to you after, that image would be branded in their mind, the image of you _writhing_ on the end of my cock."

Peter was breathing hard, feeling his end approaching, letting his imagination go wild with the scenario.

"You'd _moan_ for more, _begging_ me not to stop, mewling and struggling while I plowed you _in front of everyone_."

"Oh God…" Peter sunk in for the last time, jerking forward and gasping. Gabriel reached up and ran his fingertips from Peter's sternum up his chest and throat to his chin. Peter quivered with an aftershock, looking at his lover with dazed eyes. He slipped out and came forward to snuggle next to him quietly. He'd intended to go quite a bit more than that, but embarrassingly that was all he felt up to at the moment. He wanted nothing more now than a good cuddle and maybe a nap.

Gabriel kissed the top of his head tenderly and stroked his arm lightly. He used his telekinesis to get a blanket over them. Peter made a little pleased hum and settled himself more firmly in Gabriel's arms. This time they actually did fall asleep.


	240. Frotting, Necking and Worrying

Tuesday evening, Peter teleported just inside the door. Gabriel looked up from the couch, setting aside his laptop. Peter said, "Oh, you're already here?"

"Yeah. The kids went to bed early and Heidi started watching Biggest Loser: Couples. I… I can't stand it, so she took pity on me and told me I could go early if I wanted."

Peter laughed. Gabriel walked over to him with a sway to his hips. He waggled his brows suggestively. When he was close enough, he put just his fingertips against Peter's chest, bending his head to kiss him sweetly. They shared a long, slow, passionate kiss. When they parted, Peter said, "Oh God, you are so sexy. You _seriously_ turn me on."

"Really?"

"**Oh yeah**," Peter let his voice drop a bit for emphasis.

"Good." Gabriel gave him a light peck. "Then let's fuck."

Right then Peter decided that what had gone before, when he'd worn the watch, was an engagement and what he was dealing with now was marriage. Or something like that, because their relationship had really changed, starting last night. Gabriel was shedding his inhibitions right and left, being more comfortable with Peter, trusting him. Peter _liked_ it. "Okay," he said in a hokey voice.

Gabriel took his hand and led him into the bedroom, where he turned back and kissed him soundly again. His fingers tugged out Peter's polo shirt from his pants. When they parted for him to pull it over Peter's head, Gabriel said, "I like it when you wear things with buttons. It gives me something to fuss with."

"I'll keep that in mind. Have you noticed I've been wearing brown?"

Gabriel blinked and looked at the light tan shirt in his hands, then at Peter's dark brown slacks. He smiled slowly and kissed Peter deeply. "You didn't, did you?" Peter asked the next time he got a chance.

Gabriel laughed a little then shook his head. "I didn't- I just-" He shrugged.

"Ha, score one for Peter," he said, looping his hands around Gabriel's neck and drawing the taller man against himself. He was pleased to be able to show off that he'd been trying to be more thoughtful.

"Hm. Light blue is another good color on you, as is grey. I don't like you in reds or greens much. I'd have to see about pale yellow."

"I'll adjust my wardrobe," Peter promised.

"You will?"

"Uh-huh."

"Huh."

"Now, you said something about fucking? I seem to be the only one here missing any clothes."

Gabriel gave him a brief smooch and shed his clothing while Peter took off his pants and underwear. Gabriel climbed on the bed and Peter followed. "You're leaving your socks on?" Gabriel asked. "Kinky, Pete."

Peter ignored the comment and knee-walked towards his partner. "So what are we-" Gabriel tugged him forward firmly. Peter fell against him, but Gabriel was braced for it. He caught him and they kissed again, with Gabriel running his hands over the outside of Peter's shoulders and down his arms, then back up his hips and smoothing over his chest, curling up over his shoulders and up his neck, framing his face, before he parted from the kiss. Peter gave him a desirous growl and leaned in for another round of that.

He got it. Gabriel's hands explored him again, one of them dipping to fondle Peter's balls while the other continued the circuit. He rolled the testicles back and forth in his palm, handling them gently. Peter's lack of reaction to it was eloquent though, and he moved up to Peter's penis, which was unsurprisingly standing at attention. "Come closer," Gabriel directed. Peter did, touching his knees to Gabriel's, putting their bodies against one another. Gabriel rubbed Peter's cock against his own.

"So silky, so hot, so sexy," Gabriel crooned.

Peter panted against his neck as Gabriel stroked him slowly. He rocked his hips, mouthing Gabriel's neck as the other man shifted his grip, trying to hold both of their cocks in one hand. It was a little awkward. Peter offered, "Do you want me to help?"

Gabriel fended off his interfering hand. "No, let me. I like to get you off. Just relax and let me do you."

That was easy. For the moment, Peter hung on Gabriel's neck and let his body sway into his lover's grip. Gabriel called over the lube and slicked his hand, then put both hands to their members, holding them together. Gabriel matched the rhythm of his own hips to Peter's. Once they were moving together steadily, Peter let his hands roam. In particular, he liked seizing Gabriel's buttocks and massaging them.

"Oh! Good," Gabriel said, sounding surprised.

"Like that?"

"Yeah."

Peter repeated it, kneading the flesh and spreading him. His questing fingers reached a little further. "You want me to play with you?"

"No."

Peter nodded and went back to working the muscle, until the urge to thrust distracted him, rapidly becoming blinding in intensity. Knowing Gabe liked it, he brought his hands up behind Gabriel's shoulders and raked him, biting the skin over his collarbone at the same time. Gabriel groaned. Peter could feel the other man throbbing and struggling to hang on. He did it again, harder. It had to hurt - stinging trails of quickly vanishing pain down Gabe's back. His lover came, hot and wet between them, spurting onto Peter's upper stomach. The feel of the come against his skin was what Peter wanted. He leaned forward, thrusting rapidly into Gabriel's hands, clinging to him as Gabriel gripped him tighter. He came against him a few moments later.

They stood together quietly, holding one another. Gabriel summoned over a t-shirt to clean his hands before wrapping his arms around Peter. "You like me?" Gabriel asked out of the blue.

"Yes, I do, you big lunk," Peter answered with a little bit of a slur.

"Yeah, I think you do," Gabriel replied, bemused. "You really do. That is _so_ weird."

Peter snorted.

XXX

On Wednesday night, Peter walked out of the kitchen, having satisfied his desire for a snack with a simple bread and butter sandwich.

Gabriel called to him, "Hey, come here." He set aside his book. As Peter walked over, Gabriel lifted off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. Peter stopped in front of him, not sure what he wanted. "Come here," Gabriel repeated, leaning forward and extending a hand, crooking his fingers in a clear gesture for him to get closer. Peter moved right up to him and Gabriel tugged him on until Peter sat on his lap, straddling him.

It was a little unexpected, but not as much as Gabriel reaching behind Peter's neck and pulling him in for a sudden kiss. Gabriel's tongue probed at Peter's lips immediately. "Mngh," Peter grunted at how abrupt and unexplained it was. Gabriel turned his head and kissed him no less insistently, but he stopped demanding entrance to his mouth. Peter tensed a little against the hand holding him where he was, but Gabriel didn't let go.

Peter gave in to it. He relaxed, shut his eyes and opened his mouth cooperatively. The pressure on the back of his neck lightened. Gabriel's other hand came up and stroked his side. Gabriel continued to kiss him as he had before until it was Peter's tongue that invaded his mouth first. Peter sighed and brought his hands up to caress the other man's face, who gave a soft moan at his touch. Peter smiled, feeling a happy surge at the sound.

After several minutes of continuing kissing, Peter leaned back and paused. Gabe didn't seem interested in taking it further than just kissing and a little touching, nearly all of the latter being of his sides, face and the back of his hands. Peter asked, "What's all this about?" The best he could characterize Gabriel's emotions was 'needy', but it was hard to put a label to what he could feel.

Gabriel gave him a tiny smile and leaned his head back on the couch, slouching and looking up at the ceiling. "I just wanted to prove a point to myself."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. That there you were… and if I wanted you, I could call you over here and have you." He sighed and lifted his head enough to gaze briefly at Peter with pure adoration, before letting it loll back again.

The expression, and the very genuine emotion he could feel with it, did funny things to Peter's stomach. A rush of butterflies filled him and he grinned. He leaned in towards Gabriel's exposed neck, feeling the other man tense a little as he did. His neck stiffened and he brought his hands up on Peter's sides, the pressure on the heels of his hands in case he needed to push him away.

Peter stopped, very surprised that this sort of thing would trigger insecurity in his lover. After a beat, he brought his own hands up to touch the sides of Gabriel's neck with his fingertips - asking and preparing. Gabriel took even, measured breaths, neither pushing him away nor pulling him in. Peter finished moving in much more slowly. Gabriel remained still, which struck Peter as ambivalent. Peter pursed his lips to plant a delicate, careful kiss on the left side of his windpipe.

Gabriel swallowed reflexively. It seemed to Peter that the other man was hyperaware of his presence at his throat. He'd sprawled out and made himself vulnerable, but he hadn't expected Peter to touch him like this. Obviously Gabriel had thought they were done. Were their positions reversed, Gabriel would be working him with teeth and mouth, biting and sucking, or at least nibbling and moving more aggressively. Peter's neck was his favorite playground and while Peter returned the favor quite often, Gabriel seemed surprised by it now. Maybe it was because it was divorced from any other expression of sex. Peter kissed him again as tenderly as he had before. Gabriel sighed a little and let his neck roll back freely. His hands were still at the ready though at Peter's sides.

Gabriel's own words ran through Peter's head: _'Just because no one's ever been careful enough with you to do it doesn't mean I can't be.'_ Peter kissed him again, just a tiny peck. Then he rubbed his lips across the stubbly skin, following the direction the hairs naturally grew in. He kissed him again at the join of his neck and jaw, where the windpipe ended. He was careful, oh so careful, and graceful and subtle, lipping at his handsome lover gently and persistently. Gabriel swallowed again, but this time was slower and less apprehensive. The pressure from his hands was shifting from the heels to his fingertips, from being poised to reject the advance, to holding Peter to him. He seemed to understand now - he was being pleasured, Peter was being sensual, and there need not be anything more than that to it.

Peter breathed across Gabriel's skin, not missing the almost-inaudible moan the other man made. He kissed up and down the sensitive skin of his throat, exposed to him in a traditional display of submission. Gabriel _would_ submit to Peter. Or at least, he _**had**_. He did before the change, before the healing. Peter wasn't so sure about now. Gabriel had done it dozens or maybe even a score or two of times earlier in their relationship. Back then, when Peter had demanded Gabriel do something, he did it, even when those things were ridiculously inimical to his personality. But there was always this lingering frustration and resentment. He pushed back at Peter in other ways. It wasn't a true submission. It was a capitulation, an admission that he had no options.

He had options now. But Peter didn't want his submission. What he wanted was for Gabriel to trust him and let him touch him like this without reticence and without hesitation. And to do that, Peter had to show him there was nothing to fear.

He ran his lips back and forth across his flesh, pursing them occasionally for a smooch before moving on. His fingertips stroked softly, barely brushing him and framing his face. Peter moved along the other man's jaw and leaned forward and up to kiss around his chin, then the space between chin and lower lip. Gabriel's eyes were shut and his fingers pressed a little more into Peter, holding him close, threatening that he wouldn't let him go. The affection Peter could feel from him was intoxicating. Peter smiled.

He kissed up his cheek to his temple and felt Gabriel shift a little under him. His hands didn't press so firmly to his sides. Gabriel's eyes fluttered open, flicked towards Peter, and then shut again. There was a moment of disappointment there, so Peter sank back down to his lover's neck and felt that emotion fade. This, then, was where his lover wanted him to be. He leaned back up for one other thing, but Gabriel stayed calm. Peter gently pressed his lips to Gabriel's. They were warm, and soft and plush. Gabriel opened his mouth slightly under him and Peter felt a tremendous surge of arousal at that simple acceptance.

_God, I want to fuck him so bad…_ Peter's breath caught and he shivered. He wanted to put his cock in that sinful, acquiescing mouth. He wanted to put his tongue in it, or hell, his fingers. He pulled away slowly. Gabriel looked at him through his lashes, eyes nearly shut, making no gesture to encourage or discourage Peter, although he had to know his state. Peter's erection was stiff against the front of his jeans. Peter settled back to where he'd been before. If this was a demonstration that Gabriel could trust Peter to behave himself, then he had to behave.

That Gabriel wasn't making an advance was telling. Peter had had more than one episode recently where he misread Gabriel's compliance as reciprocated desire. He wasn't going to make that mistake now. Gabriel seemed perfectly happy with how things were right at the moment and that was exactly how Peter wanted him to feel. Peter would just continue as he had been.

He laved at his partner's neck a little more, resisting the temptation to use his teeth or move more aggressively, or otherwise express his passion. Peter took a couple deep breaths and let them out before laying small kisses at the base of Gabriel's neck where it joined his collarbone. Calmer now, Peter traveled slowly back up. As he relaxed, apparently so did Gabe. His hands drifted to Peter's hips, then to the couch on either side. Peter worked him for many minutes more, making sure to give scrupulous attention to every square inch of his skin.

Gabriel gave a strong twitch all over. Peter's brows furrowed. He lifted a little and looked at him. Gabriel was taking slow, deep breaths and his emotions had blanked out. He was asleep. Peter smirked. _Well, I don't think he can get any more relaxed than that. I think I've proven my point - he can lower his defenses with me and I won't take advantage of him. _Nevertheless, he continued for a little while until he was certain his lover was entirely out of it. He backed off cautiously, then fetched a blanket from the linen closet. He spread it over the other man. Gabriel sighed, but didn't wake.

Peter watched him for a moment, then shrugged. He got himself a pillow and another blanket, then curled up on the couch next to him, the top of his head against Gabriel's lower arm. He settled in, wriggled around until he was as comfortable as he was going to get, and went to sleep himself.

XXX

He woke up to the sensation of eyes on him. Peter shifted and looked up to see Gabriel watching him. "Erg," Peter managed, before reaching up to wipe the gunk from his eyes. He shifted, a little stiff from the position. He wriggled a bit, moved the pillow and put his head on Gabriel's leg. "Love you," he sighed, closing his eyes again for the moment.

"Love you too." Gabriel moved his fingertips over Peter's cheek, down to the left side of his mouth, then across the nerve-damaged flesh under it. It was a little numb there. "Do you remember how this happened?"

"No," Peter answered groggily.

"Do you want me to let you sleep more?"

"No, s'fine. Really. Like to talk." Even if he wasn't very verbal at the moment.

"You said you could focus regeneration to restore erased memories. What about this memory?"

Peter shook his head a little and looked away. He hadn't thought about it, but now that Gabriel pointed it out, it was an obvious hole in his past. "Ma's always said there was an accident when I was four. She said if I couldn't remember it, maybe it was because I too young and I blocked it out."

"'Ma said'," Gabriel repeated.

"Yeah." Peter looked back. "Do you remember it happening? Nathan…?"

"You were nine."

"Oh." Peter reached up and touched the spot, following it down to his chin. Then it was definitely an erased memory. He wondered what Gabriel knew of it. Finally he asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know. Nathan was in college. He came home one weekend and they were renovating the house. There was a lot of damage. They didn't tell him what caused it. You had this." He touched Peter's lip. "At first you told him you fell off your bike. Later, in private, you told him you weren't sure what had happened. Do you remember any of that?"

"I remember the renovation, but that's it." Peter sighed and rubbed at his eyes again. "Nor do I really care. I know enough dark secrets about our family. I don't want to know any more." He wondered why he even had the spot. Supernatural healing or Adam's blood both should have fixed the problem, but on the other hand, both were capable of only partial healing if applied in too small a usage for the injuries. Many times he'd used healing to address a patient's serious problem, leaving the superficial ones untouched.

Gabriel said, "I worry about raising kids in this environment."

Peter looked up at him, seeing the other man staring across the room, eyes unfocused. He caught his lover's hand and held it. He thought about his child, growing in Emma's womb. He wondered if he needed to be with her. He wondered if Gabriel thought his children were less safe when he wasn't around to protect them. The idea of them all crowding into the same house for mutual protection crossed Peter's mind. It seemed a little paranoid though, even to him.

Gabriel said, "Maybe we should look into the future. Just in case."

"Ma said we shouldn't, that every precognitive introduced the risk that they'd change the future. She said it was good now and we should leave it that way."

Gabriel squeezed Peter's hand. "I trust her, but I still worry."

"So do I," Peter said quietly. "So do I."


	241. Gabrielle

The door to Peter's apartment was open, slightly ajar. He smiled and walked inside. He knew he was a little late for their rendezvous, but he'd had to run an errand first that precluded teleportation. "Gabriel?" Peter called out, looking around. He heard a noise from the bedroom and walked in. He started at seeing a woman he didn't know walk out of his bathroom. "Oh! Ah… excuse me?" _What are you doing in my apartment?_ and _I am going to kill Gabriel for leaving the door unlocked_ and _What was she doing in my bathroom?_ ran through his mind.

"Hi," she said shyly.

She was stunningly beautiful. So much so that he found it difficult to think. "Yeah. Hi. This is my apartment." _That was a stupid thing to say. _He kicked himself mentally.

She nodded a little. "Yeah, I know." She looked down demurely and twisted back and forth coyly, biting her lip. The twisting was unfamiliar, but there was something nagging at him about the lip-biting.

"Um. You're-" he stopped as he realized. He'd been going to say something else stupid, like 'you're in my apartment', but it segued into, "You're _Gabriel?" _The woman looked up at him under her delicate, feminine brows and gave him a mischievous smile. **That** was a familiar look, but not on that face. Peter burst out laughing. "Oh my God. _Gabriel?" _He laughed harder and sat on the bed. "That's funny!" He grinned widely. _He's a __**girl!**_

'Gabriel' walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Peter stopped laughing abruptly as a host of things stampeded through his mind at the same time, each clamoring for his attention: the body Gabriel was in was incredibly attractive; Peter was bisexual, not gay; how far was Gabriel going to take this?; Gabriel had posed as another person for sex with his wife; Sylar had posed as a member of the opposite sex at least once; Gabriel had mentioned Sylar had gone through an 'experimental phase' shortly after getting this ability; this could become seriously, seriously kinky; Gabriel had a really, really dirty mind and had certainly already thought of that; Gabriel had told Peter he wanted to try something new tonight.

Peter exhaled as a soft, very non-masculine hand moved from his shoulder to the join of his neck, touching his bare skin. The hand stroked his skin slowly. Peter realized he was staring directly at 'her' breasts, which were full, firm and perfectly shaped, rising above a lithe waist and flaring hips. After that brief glance down, he jerked his eyes upward. It wasn't much of an improvement for his self control. He looked up over an expanse of dusky skin to a perfect Latina face, crowned by flowing black hair and accentuated with a light touch of expertly applied makeup. He could smell the faint wafting odor of her perfume.

"Um." His voice failed him. She wasn't merely beautiful – she was gorgeous. She rivaled the loveliest starlets, but instead of being locked behind the television screen, she was here, touching him. His body was responding on its own. The woman smiled and the hand came up to brush Peter's cheek with the back of her fingers. On the third stroke, her thumb trailed over his lips, pulling the lower one down a little. Peter blinked and struggled to come to his senses. "Uh… who… who was this? Who… who is…" He couldn't pull it together better than that.

Softly the other said, "No one you need to worry about, Peter."

"But… No." He scooted down the end of the bed to where 'Gabriel' couldn't touch him and short-circuit his brain anymore. At least, not without following him and his partner granted him the isolation. After a few seconds to gather his thoughts, Peter said, "What… what do you mean by that? Who is she?"

'Gabriel' straightened, which action involved an unnecessarily sensual cocking of her hips and said, "She works at the bank I go to. I'm sure you can see why I keep going to **that** bank. New York is a big place, Peter. You're not going to run into her. She doesn't have an ability. Or at least, nothing you wouldn't expect from someone who looks like this." Gabriel ran his hands down his body's sides and over the hips, then back up across that taut stomach and over the swell of the breasts, then beyond, to caress the neck and frame the face, and finally to run fingers through that luxurious hair that was worthy of a shampoo commercial. The whole maneuver looked about as orgasmic too.

Peter made a quiet choking sound. His fingers flexed involuntarily at how much he wanted to be the one doing the touching. "She's… uh… uhm…"

Gabriel took the two short steps to where Peter was sitting and bent in front of him. The position left Peter staring down her cleavage. "Uh…" He couldn't stop wanting to say something and he still couldn't get his mouth to work right. Gabriel didn't help by planting a pair of luscious lips against Peter's. Peter made a high-pitched whine, but whether it was meant as a complaint or encouragement, even he couldn't tell.

Gabriel snaked a hand behind Peter's head and worked it into his hair. It was too short to get much of a grip, but the nails dug into his scalp anyway. Peter made another sound that was less ambiguous and more clearly desirous. He fell back slowly and Gabriel followed him, spreading legs to sit on his lap. The feeling of a foreign body pressed warmly against his own seemed to shock some sense back into Peter. No more were they on the bed than he pushed Gabriel off him. "No. No." His voice was firm.

Gabriel didn't take no for an answer and reached out to pull Peter back to him. "Stop!" Peter said. Gabriel hesitated, glanced at his own hand and released him. That was the safe word between them. Peter rolled away and stood up. He shook his head, adjusted his jeans (which had become a size too small for some obvious reason) and then ran his hand through his hair. He swallowed and blew out air, pacing a little. Gabriel took up a seductive pose on the bed, lying on his side with his head propped up, elbow to the bed.

"We have to talk about this," Peter said. "We have to talk about it." Gabriel said nothing, just watching him with liquid brown eyes the color of dark chocolate. Peter tore his eyes away. "A woman? You're a _woman?_"

"Well… I was going to give you the opportunity to check under the hood and see for yourself…"

Peter stared at him for a moment and then looked away. He was getting control of himself again. It was getting easier. "You've… have you _done this_ before?"

"Yes."

Peter looked at him intently. It hadn't been a lie. On the other hand, his question had not been explicit. "You've had sex before, as a woman?"

"Sylar did, and I still have those memories, so yes."

Peter blinked and exhaled. He recalled the file saying Sylar had had an identity crisis brought on by shape-shifting. He'd alluded to it before. He'd stayed in the form of Agent Taub and various others for days at a time and it hadn't done good things for his sanity. Of course, an hour or less as this woman wasn't going to do anything _bad_ to his sanity. To Peter's, on the other hand… He shook his head.

Gabriel cocked his head, where it was propped on his hand. "Is it _that_ **hard** for you, Peter?"

Peter glanced at him and away several times. "You look different," was all he could manage to say.

Gabriel rolled abruptly to a kneeling position, his (her?) expression serious. "You… you see me as who I look like." He sounded astonished. Peter blinked at him, not sure what he was getting at, and then Gabriel shifted into his normal face. Peter actually took a half step back at the transition. Gabriel started to go to him, then apparently changed his mind and sat on the side of the bed. "No wonder you were so hung up on me looking like Nathan. I… never realized."

Peter swallowed, watching him. Now he had no trouble keeping his eyes on the other constantly. He wasn't nearly as distracted by the familiar appearance. It seemed wrong somehow that Gabriel didn't look at least a little like himself, like some highly feminized version of himself, when in the form of a woman. Peter asked, "What did you _think?_"

"I thought you were confused about who I was." Gabriel tilted his head again and shrugged. "Well, I suppose you were." He looked down and picked at the bedspread, trying to suppress a sigh.

Peter gathered Gabriel was disappointed things hadn't gone as expected. Peter looked around the bedroom and thought about what he was willing to do. There was no question he was interested – he had been barely able to breathe; his body had had only one thing on its mind and it had been really, really tough to override it. The situation met all of Peter's usual requirements: everyone involved was a willing, consenting adult; no one was getting hurt; it wasn't dangerous… He blinked. He jerked and walked suddenly to the bathroom, sorting through the medicine cabinet. He came out a moment later with a foil packet.

"A condom?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes. We are _**so**_ **not** doing an mpreg episode here."

Gabriel eyed the foil packet. After a moment of consideration, he said, "Peter, I know how my abilities work and that one doesn't work that way. It's not a danger."

"Are you **sure? **_Absolutely sure? _Heidi got pregnant while you looked like Nathan. Shape-shifted, you're still fertile."

"Abso- er." It was a lie. "Almost." That wasn't. "I can't carry a baby." Also not a lie.

"That's part of my _point_," Peter said. He noted Gabriel wasn't saying he couldn't conceive, and he hadn't been explicit that he was physically incapable of carrying a child. His statement could easily mean he just wasn't willing to do it. What seemed most likely, given Peter's understanding of the ability, was that he could indeed conceive, but the fertilized egg would be absorbed or aborted when Gabriel next changed shape. It seemed just possible that such a development might block the shape shifting and then there would be a serious problem. All the more since Peter didn't agree with abortion, at least insofar as it involved children he was responsible for.

Gabriel looked down and then shrugged. "Okay. We'll use a condom. It's not a big deal." He looked back up. "So does that mean…?" He gestured, palm up, as a question.

Peter looked at the condom in a moment of surprise. Actually, he hadn't quite made up his mind. He'd just been trying to find a reason why not and the need to avoid an accident came to mind. But since he had the condom in his hand… it seemed that his subconscious was way ahead of him. "Um," he blushed. "I guess…"

Gabriel grinned wickedly and stood up. Somewhere in the process of standing, he shifted back to a womanly form.

Peter looked him up and down and asked, "How does that feel?" He wondered what happened to one's genitals during the transformation. Peter had used shape shifting exactly three times: once to look like the president, once to look like Gabriel and once to look like his father - all male. It had never even occurred to him to turn into a female, because he'd never had a reason to. He gained abilities, and used them, for specific purposes and idle curiosity was not an acceptable use. Gabriel had no such compunctions.

Gabriel ran his hands very distractingly over his body and deliberately misinterpreted Peter's question. "It feels _hot_. Why don't you come over here and find out?"

Peter's feet stirred, but he didn't come closer. The woman facing him was still a stranger. "I feel like I'm about to cheat on Emma and Gabriel both."

Gabriel pouted and finally closed the short distance between them. "You're so cute, Petey. You have my permission to cheat on me with myself and Emma already knows you're with me at times. This isn't adultery."

Plump lips pressed against Peter's cheek and he shut his eyes, just feeling it. The sensation ran all through him and he understood what Heidi saw in this. It was an ultimate form of role playing. "You could be anyone I wanted?" Thoughts of Caitlin and then Simone leapt unbidden into his mind. He quashed them. That was wrong and anyway, it was impossible. Gabriel needed to touch the person in question or at least have access to their DNA. That limited his choices considerably.

"Tonight I want to look like this. But yeah, we can negotiate future appearances, especially now that I understand a little better where your head is at with the shape-shifting." Gabriel tried to nuzzle Peter's neck from the side as he did in his usual form, but found he wasn't tall enough for it. The woman whose shape he now wore was three or four inches shorter than Peter. He moved around to the front and Peter grinned. It was funny to see the tables turned. He'd always been the shorter one with Gabriel - about as much shorter as Gabriel was now.

At the moment, he had a beautiful woman kissing his neck, lipping along his collarbone, touching his sides. As of yet, he still hadn't touched her. It continued to be vaguely creepy – okay, make that definitely creepy. The woman's breasts were two soft, warm spots of light pressure against his chest.

Very deliberately, he brought his hands up and rested them on her hips. "I'm gonna go to hell for this," he muttered.

"We're not doing anything sinful here, Peter." Gabriel spoke calmly. He looked up at Peter's face, reading his expression carefully. One side of Peter's mouth tugged up in a smile and Gabriel felt comfortable enough to joke, "At least, not yet." Gabriel pulled Peter's shirt out of his jeans, but then smoothed it down and just ran his hands up and down Peter's chest, on top of the cloth. "It's not like you're coveting your neighbor's wife. Of course, she's a little old lady, so that's pretty unlikely anyway." He smiled a little.

Peter tried to think when Gabriel had seen either of his neighbors. He was almost always here late at night. He guessed, "You've researched my neighbors?"

"Mm-hm," Gabriel affirmed, leaning back in to kiss Peter's on the chin and nip along his jaw. "_Our_ neighbors." Peter suspected he was taking his time, letting him get comfortable with the idea of what they were doing. Usually by now, the clothes were on the floor and they were going after it. But Peter hadn't relaxed yet. If Gabriel _had_ been rushing him, he likely would have freaked out (more than he already had) and shut down completely. At the pace they were moving, Peter thought he could get into this. It would just take a while.

"And your co-workers," Gabriel added. "And your family. Your cousins, grandparents, past roommates… I have your tax returns, college transcript, report cards…" Peter felt a rising resentment at the invasion of his past. Gabriel continued, "…and that father's day card you gave to me when Dad didn't come home. I think you were seven." The resentment vanished in an instant and left him feeling uncertain about the rest of it. "I love that card."

Gabriel paused to look back and forth between Peter's eyes. Peter blinked, returned the gaze, and leaned forward to kiss him gently on the lips. Of course Gabriel knew about his past from Nathan's memories. He worked his mouth across those thicker boundaries, running his tongue across them and tasting the lipstick. She didn't taste like Gabriel or Emma. She tasted like a strange woman – forbidden fruit. Peter felt his breathing deepen and his cock twitch. Gabriel obviously sensed the response, because he pressed forward a little, putting their bodies into full contact.

Peter groaned and deepened the kiss, letting his hands slide around to the top of her buttocks. He had a sudden, wild urge to go further, faster, as fast as Gabriel would let him and he knew there were no limits on that. He trembled with the desire and brought his hands up to press their bodies together as he tried to swallow her mouth. His groan turned into something of a growl.

When they parted, Gabriel searched his face as Peter looked down at the ample bosom crushed between them. "Oh, Peter... You're so much more dominant with women."

"What?" Peter blinked up at him, dragging his thoughts out of the idea of putting his penis between those globes. He didn't think she was quite chesty enough to allow that. He struggled to think about whatever it was Gabriel had just said.

"It's different, but I like it." Gabriel kissed him again, leaving Peter wondering if there was anything wrong with how he was acting. Gabriel had always been very sensitive to minor changes in Peter's demeanor. He'd reacted differently depending on which face the other man wore: Gabriel or Nathan. Now, he supposed, he was acting differently again. Gabriel broke the kiss and raised his hands to either side of Peter's face. "I'm sorry I said anything. It's okay, Peter. It's okay. You're fine."

He blinked again, realizing he really hadn't returned the kiss - but only stood there woodenly while trying to process. He threw his thoughts out the window and went with his instincts. He leaned in and kissed her fiercely, pressing their bodies together again. He kissed across her jaw and down her neck, while his fingers fumbled at the back of her bra. After a moment, he realized it must be a front-hooking design. He backed up with a final brief kiss and began to undress her. Gabriel gave him a sultry, smug smile as he did it.

When the offending clothing had been pushed aside, Peter just stared for a moment, drinking in the view with his eyes. It was as lovely and flawless as he'd expected. He raised a hand and looked to her face. There was no resistance, so he touched her on the outer side of one breast. The skin was just as silky smooth as it had looked; the breast was soft, firm and bouncy. He made another subvocal growl of appreciation and let his hand cup one side. He ran his thumb across the nipple, watching the play of expression caused by the sensation. She sucked in air in a quick breath, so Peter did it again and again and then brought his index finger over to gently roll the now-erect nipple between them.

The woman's hand snuck beneath his shirt and up along his side, lightly trailing her nails along his skin. He purred and shifted to repeat the process with the other breast, moving a little faster. He put his hands on both, squeezing lightly and enjoying the feel of them under his fingers. He bent to lick one and then suck the nipple into his mouth entirely, sucking steadily at it like a nursing babe. Gabriel dug sharp fingernails painfully into his back and after a moment, Peter bit down – it was hard enough to hurt and bruise. Gabriel let out a choked gasp and a muffled curse that wasn't ladylike at all, then clung to him with a moan of pleasure, but she didn't dig her nails into him again.

Peter let go and went back to a gentle sucking, then switched breasts. Hands ran up and down his back, nails dragging only lightly across him. It gave him goose bumps, somehow heightened by the knowledge that he'd backed Gabriel down from hurting him. He didn't want to let that get started. _Maybe he's right and I do take charge more with women. Weird._

He pushed her towards the bed, kissing her face at every step, stroking her sides and bringing his hands up to take off her shirt. The back of Gabriel's knees touched the bed and she sat, then tossed her shirt and bra aside. Peter pulled his t-shirt off over his head and sent it after the other clothes. Gabriel scooted backwards and Peter crawled over her.

Peter put his face between the other's breasts and Gabriel abruptly said, "If you make motorboat noises, I will _hurt_ you."

Peter looked up and laughed. "Oh? So there are some limits after all." _Ones that involve your dignity. Check. Paging Mr. Big Ego. Mr. Big Ego, table for two…_

Gabriel seemed at a loss as to how to respond to that, so Peter moved up to press his mouth over that delicious orifice. He plunged his tongue in as deeply as it would go, grinding himself against her. She matched him, wrapping legs around him and bringing them as close together as their clothing would allow. Both still wore jeans. The skin of her upper body was warm and smooth against Peter's chest. A tiny part of his brain kind of missed Gabriel's scratchy, hairy upper body before it was drowned out.

He was fully aroused, but still having trouble with the concept. He looked down at the face of a stranger, someone he'd never met before. Knowing, intellectually, that behind those eyes was Gabriel, a man he knew very well, wasn't as helpful as he wanted it to be. It reminded him of when Gabriel had first shed Nathan's face for him. Peter had found it impossible to respond then too.

Sensing his reluctance and prolonged hesitation, Gabriel started talking while slowly stroking his sides. "Sylar did this quite a few times." He smiled. "Purely for educational purposes, of course. Heidi has greatly appreciated my efforts." He got a distant look. "So did Janice."

_Janice? _Peter tried to place the name, but his mind failed him at the moment. Later he'd remember she was Matt Parkman's wife and be even more confused. What it did do was to distract him from his uncertainties. He concentrated a little on flight, enough to make him levitate above the bed. It freed his hands to caress the sides of her face and run his fingers through her hair.

Gabriel raised his head a little and tilted it, eyeing Peter's position and inch or two above. She smiled slowly. "Ah. Trying out something new as well?"

Peter smirked. He'd already been using this with Emma, but it was new for him with Gabriel. He didn't answer directly, saying instead, "So what sort of things did you learn, oh great student of the female form?"

Gabriel laughed and tugged Peter down for a tighter embrace. "Hm. Three main things. First, never try to rush a woman. There's really no point, unless all you're interested in is yourself. Second, a woman _will_ give you signs, really clear ones if you know what to look for, that she's ready. Third, the clitoris is to a woman what her vagina is to you."

Peter muttered, "I always thought the clitoris was analogous to the penis."

"Yeah, I suppose, but you'll get your pleasure from her vagina and she'll get it from her clitoris. So if you want her to have a good time, you shouldn't spend it all thrusting around somewhere else, no matter how good it feels to _you_. Or _me_, I suppose."

Peter kissed her, another long, slow, passionate kiss. Gabriel tightened his legs around Peter again, rubbing against him. Peter responded by humping into her body. He wanted to tear those jeans off and plunge into her, but again he hesitated. He kissed down her face and to her neck. She was like a blend of Peter's last lovers: Simone's skin, Caitlin's fitness and Emma's proportions. He panted indecisively over her chest. Okay, well, Emma's chest wasn't _quite_ this perfectly symmetrical. He moved back up to her mouth and kissed again before hugging her to him, his face to her cheek. Thinking about his other lovers put him off, so instead he asked, "Tell me about these signs."

Infinitely patient, Gabriel did. "Look at where she looks. When she starts looking at your lips, you can kiss her. She'll even open her mouth before you ever kiss if you get her turned on enough." He kissed Peter's cheek and Peter pulled back to do it on the lips. He rocked his body against hers. Another surge of _need_ ran through him. It was like there was something in his hindbrain that knew this was a strange woman and was urging him on to bed her as quickly as possible. He resisted that part.

Gabriel reached between them and unfastened her jeans, pushing them off. "And this, this is another sign. If you get a woman hot enough, she'll take her clothes off for you. Yours too if you're slow." He grinned at Peter, who took a couple deep breaths and then got out of his own jeans and underwear. "If the guy has to rush things, then you're on the wrong wavelength. Find another girl, or _slow down_. One or the other."

Peter bit his lip and held his erection against his body, then laid on her so it was between them. Gabriel immediately cocked his hips and wrapped his legs around him so Peter's member was between her lower lips. "Oh God," Peter said, rocking against her. He could feel her wetness against him. "Are you ready?" he asked breathlessly.

"Almost. I'm waiting until we're on the same wavelength."

Peter smiled and leaned in for another all-consuming kiss. When he came up for air, Gabriel said, "Once a woman spreads her legs for you, it's all green light from there." She squeezed her legs around Peter's hips, making him whine.

Peter pushed back, going to his knees between her legs. He reached down to aim himself and Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder to stop any forward motion. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Peter looked back and forth between the woman's eyes, confused. He blinked a few times and said, "Thank you. Thank you for this." He could see that was the wrong answer, because Gabriel's expression didn't change. Thinking maybe more foreplay was in order, Peter bent forward to kiss one breast while he fondled the other.

"Mm," Gabriel said approvingly. "But that wasn't what I was trying to tell you." Peter switched breasts, getting another undulation of pleasure. He went back to his knees, surveying the stunning creature before him. All he could think of was getting inside her. He reached down for himself a second time and actually whimpered in frustration when Gabriel stopped him again.

This time Gabriel took pity on him and was explicit. "Peter? Where's the condom?"

Peter stared at him blankly, then looked at his hand stupidly. The last time he remembered having it, it was in his hand. Now his hand was empty. _Where did it go? _He really couldn't think.

It must have shown on his face, because Gabriel laughed. "God, Peter! For someone in the medical profession, you really have risky sex. Didn't use one with me as Nathan, got Emma pregnant and now even though you _wanted_ to use one with me, you forgot it completely."

Peter tensed, feeling anger rising in his mind. It pissed him off because it was _true_. Not some of his better moments there and he didn't appreciate having his nose rubbed in it. Gabriel rolled enough to see the floor and the foil wrapper flew to hover in front of Peter. He snatched it out of the air and tore the package open with his teeth, glaring at Gabriel. He looked down and rolled it over himself, pinching some slack into the top.

He started to move forward, his face still angry. He glanced up at Gabriel's silent, guarded expression and saw her flinch at the eye contact. Peter caught himself and took a deep breath. Obviously, his mood had not gone unnoticed. He felt ashamed of himself. Gabriel didn't deserve to be abused for Peter's failings, even if, and especially because, he would clearly take it without complaint.

Peter moved his hand from himself to her, to the top of her vulva. His thumb rubbed restlessly until he found the nub he was looking for. Gabriel's expression changed completely. He went from being tense all over to relaxed. Peter had been too wrapped up in his anger before to notice the tension.

He started to scoot back to go down on her as another way of apologizing, but Gabriel pulled him back up. "No. Now." At Peter's look, he added, "Please."

Peter moved forward, adjusted himself and pressed in against the yielding flesh. "Oh, God." He slid in easily and Gabriel mewled in pleasure.

"Are you that close?" Peter asked.

"Oh God, Peter," Gabriel gasped as he spread his legs so Peter could sink even deeper into her. "I've been waiting on you to be ready for half an hour." She whined and bucked against her lover, reaching between them, fingers almost frantic. "Please, more. Pete…" His voice was tight and high-pitched.

Peter took hold of her shoulder with one hand and put the other on the bed, getting leverage. He pumped in and out, trying not to interfere with Gabriel's hand. A reddish tinge spread suddenly over her face, neck and chest as she flushed with arousal. Her nipples stood out pertly and her toes curled as Gabriel lifted her knees to either side of Peter's body, crying out with passion and completion. "Oh God, Peter! Peter! Pete! Oh… Oh… OH!"

Gabriel moved his hand from between them to Peter's hip and lowered her knees. "Oh, God. Oh… oh… oh." Peter continued to plunge into her.

Peter arched a brow. "That was quick. Do you want me to stop?"

Gabriel gave him a look like he was insane. "I'm a woman. Just make sure you give me a second time and I'll be happy," he said, breathing heavily.

Peter snorted and started thrusting harder. He focused on what he wanted, floating enough to let him fondle a breast while he bent in for a kiss. Her lips were swollen with arousal, pupils blown wide and dilated from lust. After a minute, she started matching his motions, moving with him in a dance of passion. They were in sync, hearts beating together, bodies rushing to meet one another, lips frantic on each other.

Gabriel moaned breathless cries when he had the chance. Peter hammered into him harder as he felt his own peak nearing. He looked down and considered what Gabriel had asked for; what the simplest way was to get him off reliably a second time. He bent for another kiss, but bit his lover's lips instead, his hand on her breast pinching the nipple roughly, pulling it to the side. Gabriel gasped beneath him and tightened her legs around him.

Peter let the fleshy lip slip from between his teeth. "You going to come for me?"

"Petey… Oh…"

He twisted the nipple again, hard enough to bruise. "You going to come? Come for me again, Gabriel. Come for me. Say my name. Say it!" Peter kissed her roughly and made sure to hold himself with levitation. He reached up with his other hand and gripped that lovely neck. He squeezed lightly and the pitch of Gabriel's vocalizations changed to higher as she arched off the bed into him, saying, "Peter!"

Peter saw her flush again and this time felt the clenching muscles around his cock. He was glad. He hadn't wanted to take the pain thing much further. He released her neck, hugged her to himself and let go of the levitation. He had one thing on his mind and he let it take him, let the desire and the lust consume him. He came powerfully a few moments later.

He lay on top of her for a moment before rolling to the side, but instead of rolling away he stayed near, wrapping one arm around her protectively. Gabriel hugged that arm against her chest, as her panting subsided. She turned her head to watch Peter's face, lids heavy. Peter smiled at her. "You have _no idea_ how strange that was for me."

Gabriel snorted in an unladylike fashion. "I think I can relate way more than you think. One of Maury Parkman's early commands to me was for me to see you as a woman when we were in bed." He rolled his eyes.

Peter blinked and propped himself up on an elbow. "What?" He started to say something else, but nothing came out.

Gabriel smirked. "So, yeah, I think I have a really good idea of how strange that was. You didn't give me nearly as much time to get used to the idea. The next time we were in bed after that you nearly fucked me into next Tuesday. You haven't had weird until someone you can _**feel**_ is a woman," he tapped his temple to make it clear what he meant by 'feel', "puts her dick in you and fucks you repeatedly." He looked up at the ceiling. "There was a lot of stuff going on then. Complicated."

Peter exhaled softly as he considered that. He recalled that the sex had been fantastic, but he also remembered Gabriel begging him to stop, flinching away and even covering himself at the end. The actions took on a very different light when viewed through a different lens. He ran his fingers up and down across Gabriel's far shoulder. "Thank you for putting up with me."

Gabriel looked back at him, still in that gorgeous female face. "I say the same, friend. I love you. Love forgives. Love accepts. We're together. We're joined. It's all good." She sighed and shut her eyes, smiling to herself, head inclined slightly towards Peter.

Peter leaned forward and kissed her forehead, murmuring, "I love you too." Peter rolled on his back and they lay there together until their bodies cooled and the sticky parts became uncomfortable. Gabriel rolled off the bed and headed to the shower. Peter collected and disposed of the loose condom and followed a moment later. He reached into the shower and made sure the temperature was set at something humanly tolerable while Gabriel was washing off. He climbed in a few moments later and it was good enough.

Peter's tub was not full length, by some quirk of poor apartment design. As a result, taking a shower in it was generally an activity best restricted to one person at a time. Usually Peter and Gabriel took turns. For whatever reason (which probably had something to do with Gabriel being in a female form and exactly what Gabriel had observed about Peter's level of possessiveness and dominance being gender-related), Peter didn't wait this time. He climbed right in and discouraged Gabriel from leaving with a blocking motion and his expression. Gabriel made a short exhale and smiled with that lovely face. She wedged herself in the corner to give Peter enough room to turn around.

Peter washed up quickly, not bothering with his hair other than to rinse it out. When he was done, he turned to Gabriel and covered her body with his own. He kissed those strangely unfamiliar lips while the water sprayed down his back, surrounding them in a fine spray. "You're a really good lover," he murmured.

"Thank you," Gabriel replied. "I _do_ try."

Peter gave her another smooch and pulled back to a slightly more conversational distance - as much as possible while still in the confines of the shower, at least. He asked, "So is this to be reciprocal?" He had to fight to make his voice even and uninflected. The moment he said it he knew he shouldn't have bothered. Gabriel could hear his physical state - the stress, the tension, the effort at control.

Just the idea of being a woman for Gabriel to have sex with was freaking him out. '_Your kink is not my kink and that's okay_,' but Peter had already done his level best to roll with Gabriel's idea this session. It had been a struggle (a turn-on, yes, but a struggle, and Peter would take morally unambiguous sex every day of the week over stuff that gave him mental fits). He couldn't imagine that he had the ability to switch. He'd always scoffed (to himself) at those who were inflexible in pitching or receiving. It had seemed to him that a good lover should do what Gabriel did for him and put up with the occasional change-out. Suddenly he had a **lot** more sympathy.

His partner changed back to his usual masculine form and Peter was struck again by how much taller he was, having just grown most of a foot from the woman's shape. The shower was significantly more cramped. Peter got out immediately, dripping on the rug. The water cut off behind him, but Gabriel still hadn't said anything. Peter realized his departure spoke volumes about a number of different things: his different conduct towards Gabriel depending on his form, as well as his feelings about reversing their roles.

When Gabriel got out, his expression was blank. It had been a while since Peter had seen that look on his face. He'd thought it was gone for good. Apparently not. Instead of handing over a towel, he pulled out a dry one and started using it on the other man. Gabriel tried to take it from him, but Peter shook his head mutely, keeping his eyes downcast. He leaned forward and gave Gabriel a quick peck on the shoulder. Gabriel sighed and relaxed, letting Peter wick away the moisture and apologize for not wanting to reciprocate, through his actions, if not his words.

When he was done (and he'd taken his time about it), Peter ran his fingers across the unblemished skin of Gabriel's chest. He played across the man's hair-covered sternum. There should have been a scar there from where Hiro stabbed him, but there wasn't. Peter didn't know why, as regeneration didn't heal scars from injuries obtained long before gaining the power. Gabriel took Peter's shoulder and turned him away, then drew him back against him so they stood together. Peter found himself looking forward into the mirror. Gabriel tenderly kissed the side of his head. Peter smiled and melted into him.

"Peter, I did this because I thought you'd enjoy it. I thought _I'd_ enjoy it. And I did. There is no requirement or request for you to do the same to me. There are a lot of things I would love to do while you pretended not to like it, but there's nothing I want to do if you _really_ don't like it."

Peter kissed Gabriel's arm because it was the only part he could. Looking into the mirror, where he could see both of their reflected faces in their comfortingly familiar guises, he asked, "I have to know though - is that the kinkiest thing you had in mind, or is there more?"

Gabriel smiled wickedly. "_Oh, Petey_. We just had heterosexual, vaginal sex in the missionary position – consensual, you and I are married, and neither we, nor the forms we were using are related. There wasn't even any oral, no implements, bondage or role play. There's an _endless_ variety of kink still out there to be explored."


	242. Disquiet

Peter was quiet when he climbed into bed, but he didn't make any extraordinary effort at stealth. Gabriel woke, as usual, no matter how careful Peter was. His hand drifted over to rest on Peter's wrist, where it stayed as a warm presence. Peter lay on his back.

And he lay on his back some more, still awake. He huffed and stretched a little, shifting. Now he wanted to be on his side. He usually slept on his side, but he didn't want to dislodge Gabe's hand. What he really wanted to do was go to sleep. He'd stayed up because he was restless and Gabriel had conked out without him, which was fine. He hadn't wanted to do anything else anyway. The gender-switch earlier was still bugging the hell out of Peter and he didn't want to admit it.

He rolled over onto his side finally. Gabriel grunted and scooted a little closer, putting his curled knuckles against Peter's chest. He always wanted skin contact, even if it was just a little bit, though right now his hand was against Peter's t-shirt. Peter tried to get comfortable. It wasn't to be. Gabriel touching him was bothersome for some reason. He just wanted to be left alone. He rolled over, flouncing, until he was facing away. This time Gabriel didn't touch him - which was annoying too. Why would he quit now? He always touched him! Peter put his hands over his face at his own contrariness, thinking he should have just stayed up longer, until he settled down. He'd felt sleepy pretty much until the second his head hit the pillow.

"What's wrong?" Gabriel asked, his voice entirely clear of drowsiness. He must have been wide awake for some time now.

Peter rolled back and scooted in to him, cuddling up. He was sorry he'd woken Gabe. He was sorry he was being a poor bed partner. He was sorry he was giving a hot-and-cold act again, being distant and then affectionate in rapid succession. He considered this as Gabriel wrapped arms around him and kissed his head, but pulling away now would be the same pattern he needed to break. He stayed where he was.

"Do you think I should tell her?" Peter asked, his face more or less at Gabriel's collarbone.

"Tell who?"

"Emma."

Gabriel was silent for a moment. "Tell her what?"

"That I had sex with her."

There was another moment of silence, as Gabriel struggled to decipher the pronoun 'her' in a manner that made at least a shred of sense. Peter elaborated, "That woman. I don't even know her name!"

"The … wait, no. The … Peter, you had sex with _**me!**_"

"I know that! But you looked different. What if I ever had to explain it? I was with another woman, Gabe."

"Oh _Jesus_, Peter." Gabriel sighed deeply. "I'd think you were messing with me if this didn't explain almost _everything _about your problems with me looking like Nathan. That an empath would be so hung up on appearances is bizarre."

Peter leaned forward to put his forehead against Gabriel's chest. His lover was naked, which was pretty common in bed for him, but not universal. It wasn't like the minor temperature difference mattered to him. "I'm really sorry, but … it's just upsetting to me. I can't explain it. Maybe … maybe because my ability … I'm used to sensing people's feelings and so I never … I don't know!"

Gabriel exhaled. "Okay, first off, I'm not going to tell you her name because you didn't have sex with _her_. Secondly, if Emma finds out and you have to explain it, then _explain_ it. I wanted to play around with shape shifting and you went along with it. That's it, end of story."

"But how would she tell it was _you_? A shape shifter could be anyone."

"Just how many shape shifters do you take to bed, Peter?"

Peter's head snapped up and he tried to see Gabriel's face, but in the darkness that was useless. "How would she be able to tell?" he asked stubbornly.

Gabriel made a frustrated noise in his throat. "If she somehow stumbled into the room while we were in flagrante, Peter, then I'd shift into Gabriel right there. If she needed credentials, I'm sure I could provide some. As for who you're with when she's not around, it's the same as anything else – she just has to trust you."

"But what if someone took a picture?"

"Peter, there aren't any cameras here in the bedroom." Peter tensed at how selective that was. Gabriel obviously guessed the cause, because he added, "Or anywhere else in the apartment, though I do have a motion detector in the living room."

"You do?"

"Yes, Peter, I do."

"Damn." He'd searched the place pretty thoroughly while renovating. "Where is it?"

"In the shelves, disguised in one of the books."

"Oh." He had not taken down any of the books. He'd assumed they were exactly what they looked like, which was the point of using them as a cover for a security device.

Gabriel said, "It's my … okay, you're right. I did something I shouldn't have. It's your apartment too and I should have told you. It wasn't there until I took over the rent. I know you don't like me spying on you. I just wanted a log of when people were in here, so I'd know if anyone else was … putting in security devices. Or whatever."

Peter snuggled back up to him. The privacy thing – it wasn't a new issue. He'd just have to live with it. "Anything else around here I need to know about?"

"No. Not that I can think of."

"Good." He sounded sullen even to his own ears. Trying to make up for that, Peter tilted his head up and kissed Gabriel's cheek, then used that as reference to find his mouth.

"Mm. That's nice," Gabriel said after they parted. "Do you want me to do something for you, to help you get to sleep?"

"I don't know." Peter lay there quietly while Gabriel found one of Peter's hands. The other man lifted it to his lips and kissed one fingertip after another, then began to massage it. He did one hand and then the other. He started to work up Peter's arms, but Peter caught Gabriel's hand and began the same process in return, beginning with kissing the fingertips. Gabriel chuckled.

"So," Peter said, having relaxed a little and trying to get his mind off the troublesome subject of shape shifting, "I had this idea for tomorrow night and I thought maybe I needed to go over it with you beforehand."

"Okay."

"I want to try a little light bondage and discipline."

Gabriel mulled that over. "Okay."

Peter considered Gabriel's reaction the night before to kissing his neck. It had set him to thinking. "I played around in the BDSM scene a bit when I was in college, but I never got very into it. What I was thinking was a little rougher version of what you did with me before, with the handcuffs and blindfold."

"Hm," Gabriel said noncommittally.

"Are you okay with that?"

"Yeah, I think so. How rough?"

Peter smiled, "As rough as you want." And therein, with the best of intentions of pleasing his partner, Peter made his mistake.

"Mmm. That sounds nice," Gabriel purred.

"I'll set it up." Peter gave him another kiss, then scooted back so he could finally settle in and go to sleep.


	243. Sexualized Violence

Gabriel showed up a few minutes early, to find Peter was unsurprisingly there before him. The Italian had an unfair advantage in teleportation. He walked through the living room, hearing Peter's aura before he saw him. What he saw arrested his forward progress and dropped his jaw. Peter stood before him in black leather straps (and precious little of that), a cup and boots. His hair was gelled and spiked, giving him a distinctly butch appearance. The straps stood out sharply against his pale skin.

Peter gave Gabriel a smug, crooked smile. "Get your clothes off, slave. I don't want to see you until you're naked." He started to turn away. "Oh. Except for this." Something flew to his hand from within the bedroom and he tossed it on to Gabriel, who caught it. It was a collar, made of thick, wide leather with a longer piece of chain attached to it. "You can beg me to let you in when you're presentable."

He shut the bedroom door, leaving Gabriel standing there dumbfounded. They had not discussed who would have what role. They probably should have. He looked at the collar. He'd imagined and assumed, from what Peter had said, that he (Gabriel) would be in the dominant role. Apparently that wasn't what Peter had in mind. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He knew it made him uneasy, but also eager.

Gabriel stripped anyway and looked the collar over. He ran it back and forth in his fingers. With a quick glance at the shut bedroom door, he rubbed it against his cock and wrapped the leather around himself. He grinned at the thrill. He lifted it to his face and smelled himself faintly on it, then wrapped the collar around his throat, fastening it. He looked at the chain and thought about how he'd suffocated Peter when they'd played. Maybe Peter intended to do that in return? He fussed with it a bit, looping it around his neck. It was easily long enough to thread through the loop and make a choke chain of it, though it wasn't intended for such a use. He played with it a little more before walking to the door and knocking.

He heard Peter move behind it and the door whipped open. Peter's hand snaked out and hooked into the collar, yanking him forward and then throwing him back forcefully. He gagged at being effectively punched in the throat, since nearly all the pressure for throwing him back had come there. "I told you to _**beg!**_" Peter snarled, then slammed the door shut. Gabriel coughed from the floor where he'd landed and rubbed his neck. A lot of emotions roiled under the surface. He wondered if it was finally safe to let them out.

He started to stand, then changed his mind and crawled over to the door, following the script. He reached up and scratched at it hesitantly. "Please Peter … please let me in. Peter?" he asked in a small voice. "Ple-" The door opened and he fell silent. He sat back on his heels, kneeling.

He looked up at his lover, his eyes ravishing the other man's body all the way from his shiny boots, across that luscious cup and over his muscular chest, accentuated by a bulldog harness. He gazed into Peter's face, grinning, then started to get up.

Peter scowled and put out his hand to the side. In a moment, a riding crop was in it – long, thin and rigid. Gabriel had time only to hesitate before Peter hit him with it, really hard, across the side of the head and the face. It gave him a welt and split his lip. Although it healed immediately, the taste of his own blood was still in his mouth. All of those roiling emotions came together at once - the fuse was lit. Peter had hurt him, intentionally, and in play – it was as safe as it was going to get. His breathing deepened as every sense sharpened at once.

Gabriel touched his lip and looked between the dot of blood on his hand and the riding crop. Peter no longer looked smug or self-assured. He looked more like normal: sensitive, caring and at the moment, worried. "Are you okay?" he asked. It totally ruined his tough-guy persona of the moment, but it was also totally Peter. "I've never hit anyone with this thing." That was also totally Peter.

Gabriel licked the blood off his hand, his mouth still hanging open a bit in a leer. "Oh yeah. All green here."

He looked up at Peter with anticipation. Peter smiled, an odd mix of soft and sweet, smug and arrogant. He brought the crop back around, stroking it across Gabriel's face where he'd hit him. When the tip came to his lips, Gabriel opened his mouth and let the slightly knobbed end slide inside, sucking at it with enthusiasm. Peter moved it slowly in and out of his mouth while Gabriel looked up at him raptly. The crop moved out of his mouth and trailed down under his chin, leaving a wet trace of saliva behind it. Gabriel let Peter move his head one way and then the other with a slight pressure. They watched one another's reactions.

Gabriel was eye-fucking Peter to an extraordinary degree and already fully hard. Peter tried to get control of the situation again, saying softly, "You're not supposed to look at me." He rapped the underside of Gabriel's chin. The other man dropped his eyes to Peter's boots immediately. Gabriel looked between them. He suspected he could take Peter. He'd always kind of wondered, though. Peter had a lot of hand-to-hand combat training Gabriel lacked.

Peter knew nothing of how his inexperienced swing of the crop had set things into motion. "You're an obedient little slave. Where'd you learn that? Did someone train you, or is it just a natural aptitude?"

Gabriel smiled, still looking at Peter's boots. "All of my aptitudes are _intuitive_."

Peter snorted, then laughed. He couldn't help it. Gabriel snickered. Peter rapped him on the head with the crop. It stung. The fuse shortened. "Hey! Stop that! You're not allowed to be funnier than I am." _And anyway,_ Peter thought, _I'm supposed to be in control here._

Gabriel looked up at him, grinning, his gaze hot under his heavy brows. His chest was moving deeply. Peter rapped him again on the side of the head and said through his teeth, "I told you: eyes down."

Gabriel grinned like a shark and said, "If you want me to be your slave, you have to prove you're my master." And with that, he exploded up from the floor as the fuse reached its charge.

Kneeling is not the fastest position to rise from and the extra few fractions of a second it took was enough for Peter to realize both the meaning of Gabriel's words and that he no longer had access to his abilities. He blocked out a welter of chaotic, panicked thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him and instead focused on nullifying Gabriel's abilities in turn. He backpedaled and spun, snatching the handcuffs off the bed. Fortunately, they were where he'd remembered putting them. Unfortunately, Gabriel slammed into him before he could get fully turned back around. They both fell forcefully on the bed.

There was a loud snap and a muffled crash as the bed collapsed under the unexpected weight of two grown men smashing into it at an angle. The mattress and box springs slid and shifted, putting the heads of the men lower than their feet. Peter brought up the handcuffs, but Gabriel grabbed them as well. They struggled over them in deadly earnest, Gabriel on top, and one of them clicked shut over Peter's right wrist.

_Crap!_ Peter thought. He yanked his right hand away from his left. Gabriel scrambled after it, one hand curled around the handcuff and the other grappling with Peter's right hand. So Peter took the opportunity to sock him in the temple with his left - once, twice and then a third time. He didn't have good leverage, but neither of them was regenerating so it hurt and seemed to addle him a little. Gabriel glanced to his left, gave up on Peter's arm and grabbed his harness with both hands. He jerked on him and rolled, mouth set in determination.

Peter flipped and he knew he was going to be the one coming down on the floor, but something else happened on the way down. Something stabbed into his back and left shoulder with a lance of pain and a tearing feeling that seemed determined to take half his muscle off and maybe stop his fall, until there was a snap and a crunch that he hoped like hell wasn't a bone. He had no idea, but God it felt like it and he'd had enough severe injuries to know that was one of them. He hit the floor, Gabriel on top of him, driving the air out of him. There was another lance of pain into his body - something had just penetrated his chest cavity. He had no abilities and he might have just taken a mortal injury. As if he needed something else to push him over the edge, to galvanize him – _that_ did.

This was **not** how the scene was supposed to have gone. Things had gone way, way overboard and if Peter had been thinking clearly he would have called a halt to it. Safe, sane and consensual had been defenestrated. Peter was fighting for his life.

Peter lost focus for a moment and got his senses back just in time for Gabriel to fasten the other handcuff over his left wrist. Unwisely, Gabriel relaxed and looked triumphant. The fight was over, right? Perhaps it should have been, but Peter was still thinking Gabriel was trying to kill him - if what was going through his mind at the moment could be characterized as "thought." He reached up and grabbed the ring of the choke chain and yanked it.

Gabriel gagged and looked shocked. He tried to scramble back and up, but Peter hadn't let go and so it only cut off his air even further. Peter wrapped his legs around the other man and rolled him on the floor. Now Peter was on top. His breath caught raggedly as whatever had stabbed him was impeding his breathing. His left shoulder hurt terribly and blood splattered freely across the floor. _I'm going to have to clean that up,_ Peter thought. For some reason, the thought enraged him more than anything else that had happened. It was odd what a person focused on in moments of extreme stress.

Gabriel struggled to unseat him for a while, which was a bad idea. It gave Peter time to wrap the choke chain several times around his right hand and tighten it unbearably. The other man reached up and tried to get his fingers under the chain, but the leather of the collar was in the way and Peter already had it too tight to make it easy. It cut deeply into his throat as Peter managed to get one last twist around his right hand. It was biting into his hand too and if it was hurting _him_, he couldn't imagine what it was like for Gabriel. Peter had a moment to wonder what the hell he was doing. He didn't know. All he knew was Gabriel had attacked him and escalated things to the point Peter didn't know how to de-escalate them. Something had happened. Something had changed.

The other man was making sickening, wet noises in the back of his throat - not so much as a gurgle or wheeze. His face began to discolor and he switched to fighting with Peter's hands. Yanking on Peter's hands did nothing to give him air, a fact that took him too long to figure out. He was getting desperate, his gestures futile and frantic. Peter put the heel of his left hand under Gabriel's chin and slammed his head abruptly into the floor. It was a wood floor. Had it been concrete it might have knocked him out, or at least rendered him senseless. Instead it just rattled him more than he already was.

Gabriel grabbed the straps over Peter's hips and tried to unseat him - Peter tightened his knees and managed to slam the man's head into the floor again. Gabriel was starting to falter. Peter realized a few things at once: he had his abilities back; his shoulder didn't hurt anymore, or at least it hurt differently, and he could breathe better; and he was well into the process of murdering Gabriel. The reality of what was happening crashed down on him in an instant as regeneration cleared his head somewhat.

The other man was starting to convulse under him. Peter released the chain immediately, twisting his hand to unwrap it. Gabriel gulped in air, gasping and clutching at his throat. Peter reached in and loosened the chain completely, then stood up, getting off his body. He took a step away and broke the handcuffs in a fit of pique, now that he had his powers back. Despite what he'd just done, or maybe because of it, he was too angry to be of help. His left shoulder still hurt. He looked back to see his body had healed around a jagged dagger of wood. A good six inches protruded from his body - the rest had gone through his scapula and wedged between his ribs. He couldn't reach it, so he used telekinesis to pull it out.

He looked over to see the bedpost had broken, sheared off to a needle-sharp point. This had been part of it. He recalled Gabriel looking at it during the fight and then deliberately rolling Peter onto it. He'd done it on purpose - Peter was clear on that. Peter thought, _This is way, __**way**__ rougher than I expected. _Somehow they'd gone from a playful whack with a riding crop to a life-or-death fight.

Gabriel came up to his knees and coughed, doubling over. He glanced up at Peter several times. He started towards Peter, but Peter took a step back, not sure things were over even if he was still nullifying Gabriel's abilities. He still had his own, too, he realized. He would have expected Gabriel to cut them off once he had his breath back, but apparently not. Instead, Gabriel abased himself and groveled in front of him, his face to the floor. He said nothing. His body language was complete submission.

Peter walked back to the other man and shook his head. "We've got to stop."

Gabriel coughed and spat out, "Fuck that." He looked up, an expression first of betrayal, then of rage. He was as intent as Peter had ever seen him. In a voice barely recognizable from the hoarseness, he snarled, "You said as rough as I wanted. You don't get to walk away from me like this. _**Finish it!**_"

"I …" Peter stopped as all the muscles on Gabriel's back bunched. He was gathering himself to attack him again. Peter reached out with his foot, putting his boot on Gabriel's shoulder. If Gabriel wanted to fight, this was his chance to seize that leg and throw Peter off, and Peter would submit entirely because he didn't know what the hell was going on here. But if they were somehow still in scene … He put pressure on it and Gabriel put his head down, letting himself be pushed to the floor. Peter told him, "Call me your master." His tone of voice sounded more frightened than demanding.

"You're my master, Peter. I am your slave." His voice was rough and muffled against the floor. He coughed several times more.

"Are you done fighting with me?"

He nodded. "You win."

"_Of course _I win." Peter shoved him with his foot and Gabriel fell limply to the side, cringing. Peter felt a strong desire to touch him, to comfort him, to tell the other man it was all right and he was sorry for hurting him. He was pretty sure Gabriel would knock his block off for that if he tried it right now. He thought about his own total surrender to Gabriel only a few weeks before in sex play. Gabriel had kept him safe and … for the most part kept things within the bounds of what Peter was willing to do. Peter didn't have any complaints. Gabriel was the one setting the boundaries here.

Peter looked at his ruined bed. He called the riding crop to his hand from where he'd dropped it by the door. He whacked it against his palm noisily. "Roll over and give me your ass."

Gabriel complied immediately. Peter saw the other man had inadvertently rolled into Peter's blood on the floor. It was smeared along his back and side now. Peter hit his rump hard with the crop, not giving any warning. The other man flinched. "You broke my bed," Peter accused. He hit him again, giving him another angry red mark. Peter had not, as yet, let him heal.

Gabriel coughed again and said, "I'm sorry." That was a complete lie. Peter was very glad Gabriel had his face to the floor again. If he'd been telling the truth and he was truly repentant and apologetic … well, Peter didn't think he could have continued.

"You _aren't_ sorry! You destructive bastard!" He hit him again, harder, and this time Gabriel yelped at the stroke, sucking in his breath with a few hitches. Peter knelt next to him and stroked his back, keeping his hand to the clean part. He let his fingers wander over Gabriel's ass, feeling the hot, raised bands of tissue where he'd hit him. That had to hurt, but Gabriel moaned as Peter touched them and when, encouraged by that, Peter ran his fingers along the length of each mark, Gabe crooned softly.

"You like that?" Peter asked, moving behind him.

"Yes, master. I deserve to be hurt worse."

Peter chose to ignore the invitation. He was already very bothered to see his lover covered with blood and welted. Instead, he pulled Gabriel's cheeks apart gently and blew air on the other man's anus. "Mm," Peter said, watching as the sensitive flesh reacted. "I think you might want something in there."

Gabriel looked back and then away, clearing his throat. Peter stopped nullifying his abilities. He watched as the welts on his buttocks vanished. Peter blew on the other man's anus again and dipped his head to lick at it briefly. Gabriel made a small mewl of pleasure.

"You like that, huh? Stay here." Peter walked off and searched around for what he wanted. It had been laid out neatly on the bed at one point, but that was before they decided to duke it out. He found it and came back. He knelt directly behind Gabriel and rubbed his buttocks. Gabriel's rear end was in the air, his head down. He'd crossed his arms so his forehead rested against his forearms.

Peter licked the crack of his ass and rimmed him slowly. He reached between Gabriel's legs and caressed his male parts, making the man whine in pleasure. Gabriel already had a full erection and had pretty much from the moment Peter had seen him kneeling outside the door. Peter leaned back and opened the bottle of lube he'd brought. He coated the slender, small butt plug and wiped the lube all over the fingers of one hand. He rubbed it on Gabriel's anus and reached through with the other hand to slowly stroke Gabriel's member. Peter leaned forward and bit Gabriel on the butt cheek, making him groan and push back against him.

He worked his finger back and forth and then added a second. Gabriel's erection was beginning to flag. Peter wasn't surprised. It wasn't like he'd ever gotten off much on anal before. He pulled out his fingers a couple times and then after a pause, slid them back in. The fourth time, he reached down for the butt plug and used it instead. Another quirk of Gabriel's was his poor temperature sense. The plug was room temperature - far cooler than fingers - but he didn't notice the swap.

Peter smiled and enjoyed pushing it in and out, watching the man's hole stretch around it. He worked it in further and further, then pushed it in over the bulge. Gabriel grunted and raised his head, realizing finally those weren't fingers. Peter gripped his member and put his fingernails to it in threat. "Shh."

Peter watched the plug for a moment to make sure it was seated properly, then stood up. He picked up the crop and stroked the tip of it over Gabriel's butt, then along his spine. He tapped him on the head, to which Gabriel responded by putting his head down again.

"Sit up. Kneel. Suck me off."

Gabriel shifted, moving awkwardly. He obviously wasn't used to having anything in his rear end except during sex itself. Peter unhooked his cup and pulled it to the side, retrieving a single condom packet that he'd stashed inside with the expectation that he'd ask for head at some point. Gabriel glanced up at him and Peter slapped him lightly on the side of the head. "Don't look at me."

The other man lowered his eyes, then after a beat looked back up deliberately. Peter felt a surge of irritation that the whole fight might start again. He immediately killed Gabriel's abilities and brought up the riding crop, stepping back to give himself room. Gabriel cringed away for a moment, but when Peter didn't strike, he straightened suddenly as if sensing weakness and looked Peter full in the face. Gabriel bared his teeth.

_Damnit! _It was starting again. Somehow this wasn't just a sex game. It was something else, something dangerous. Peter hit him with the crop and didn't just stop at the one stroke. When Gabriel let himself be knocked back and didn't retaliate, Peter hit him three more times. Gabriel looked up at him after a moment of hiding his face, his mouth open and panting heavily. His nose was bleeding and he had angry red marks across his face. He was also fully erect again. Peter really wished he still had the handcuffs intact, instead of dangling on his wrists. He took the point of the crop and stuck it under Gabriel's chin, pushing it up. The other man let him and Peter leaned in, pulling out the slack on the choke chain.

_**That**_ got a reaction. Eyes glazed, Gabriel came from that alone, his penis bobbing as it spurted onto the floor and Peter's boots, with no direct stimulation. Peter blinked at that and slowly drew the slack out of the chain, giving Gabriel a few moments to process the aftershocks of the orgasm. Gabriel twitched when the links started to tighten around his throat. "Don't look at me," Peter said softly, giving the chain a tiny tug. "Or else." Gabriel dropped his gaze, panting, and reached up to wipe the blood running from his nose. Peter released his ability nullification.

He moved close enough to put his junk within inches of Gabriel's face. He ran the tip of the riding crop down the other man's back with one hand while the other held the chain and the condom both. Gabriel started to bring his hands up to Peter's legs, but Peter hit him across the back with the crop. "You _ask_ before you touch me."

In a suitably subservient voice, Gabriel asked, "May I touch your legs, master?"

"Yes."

Gabriel started to lean in, then paused an inch before Peter's semi-hard member and asked, "May I touch your cock, master?" His words puffed air onto him.

"Yes, you may." He offered the condom. Gabriel took it, but for the moment didn't use it.

Gabriel lipped along the flesh and nuzzled it. Peter noticed he was breathing him in. Gabriel finally seemed satisfied with whatever olfactory examination he needed to do and began to mouth the side and base of Peter's cock. He brought a hand up to caress his balls, glancing up briefly. Peter whacked him - not hard, just firmly. Gabriel made an appreciative noise, then looked back down. When Peter was hard enough, he applied the condom and started sucking.

Peter switched the chain to the same hand as the crop and ran the other one through Gabriel's hair. "I need to touch you," he murmured. He needed the contact. Maybe Gabriel could get off from being hurt, but what he'd been doing to his lover was not a turn-on for Peter. Now he shut his eyes and focused on Gabriel's emotions, reassuring himself this was all consensual. He moved his hips slightly in the rhythm and let it happen, feeling his lover's soft, hot, moist mouth and thinking about how willing and enthusiastic and cooperative he was. Even now, after a knock-down, drag-out fight, Gabriel was willing to service him carefully and tenderly.

He came a few moments later and dropped the chain and crop to summon a towel to his hand. Gabriel peeled off the condom and tossed it on the bloody part of the floor. Peter wiped up and reattached the cup, then squatted down. He took a clean part of the towel and wiped Gabriel's face. He looked into Gabriel's eyes. The other man seemed satisfied and content in a way Peter wasn't sure he'd ever seen.

After a beat, Gabriel remembered himself and looked down, but Peter reached out and lifted his chin. "Look at me." When Gabriel did, Peter let his hand fall to the chain and played with it. Peter leaned forward wordlessly and kissed him. Gabriel whined slightly and returned it with as much passion as he could give it without touching Peter or moving himself.

He separated and said, "Now. I'm still pissed you broke my bed. You've got a long way to go before you're a good boy." He reached out and stroked Gabriel's cheek. "Do you like that thing in your ass?"

Gabriel gave him an ambiguous expression.

"We're going to work on that." Peter scooted to the side and reached behind and under Gabriel to finger the butt plug. "Stroke yourself," he whispered and Gabriel did. It left Peter's other hand free to toy with the chain and touch the collar. "I've got you," he breathed and licked Gabriel's ear. "I want to watch you come again." The other man groaned softly and worked himself harder. Peter licked his earlobe and chewed on it gently as he got a grip on the base of the plug and started pulling it back and forth. Gabriel swallowed and shifted to heavier breathing. Peter asked, "You like that?"

He nodded much more decisively this time. Gabriel also reached up and rattled the chain on the collar, giving Peter a heavy-lidded look. Peter nodded slightly and said, "Okay." He pulled it taut, one link at a time in a slow progression. He stopped moving the plug, because it was not nearly as big a hit as the collar. Peter knelt in front of Gabriel, opposite him, and curled the fingers of one hand into the collar. He pulled Gabriel into a kiss, gradually tightening the chain while Gabriel worked himself. He didn't last long.

Peter was drawing it enough to bite slightly into his lover's skin, tugging and then releasing, when the man started to come undone. Peter alternately kissed him and touched his forehead to Gabriel's, watching his face from inches away, sharing the passion of the moment, drinking it in. Gabriel's arousal was intoxicating. His eyelids fluttered and he slumped forward, leaning into Peter, breathing hard in his face. Peter fought off the desire to roll him over, jerk the butt plug out and fuck him hard – maybe he should, maybe he shouldn't, but he wanted to stop and this was a good point. Gabe was fulfilled and Peter could wait. He didn't _want_ to wait, but he did.

After his spasm subsided, Gabriel said, "I always wondered how far you'd take it." It pulled Peter out of his own train of thought, which had more to do with what he wanted to be doing with Gabriel's body. He gave himself a little shake and focused.

"Take what?" Peter began taking off the collar, eyeing Gabriel to make sure he didn't object. It seemed they were finished with the scene. Gabriel was looking at the bed, his gaze drifting to the mess the room was in, like he was seeing it for the first time.

"Anything. Everything. You were always so reluctant to finish Sylar. You'd hit me and you'd hurt me, but it seemed almost like a game. Once I was down you'd stop … because you aren't a killer." He reached back and removed the butt plug with a grimace. He gave it an unappreciative glance and set it aside.

"I've …" Peter took a deep breath. "You were there when I shot my dad. I pulled the trigger, Gabriel. You might have put the bullet into him, but I'd already committed myself to doing it." Peter had killed people intentionally. He wasn't proud of it, but he'd done it.

"Yeah, but …" Gabriel turned to him. "Maybe that was just _him_, you know? Or at least that's what I thought." He scooted over to Peter. "You like being my master?" He reached down and ran a finger along the collar that was on the floor beside him.

There were a lot of possible answers to that, but Peter addressed something different - something more pressing for him. "Fighting with you scared the crap out of me."

Gabriel eyed him for a long moment and Peter saw some of that old guardedness. Gabriel scooted forward a little more and leaned in to kiss him on the shoulder. He didn't speak.

Peter deflated a little. "Gabe, baby …" He caught him and hugged him. "Baby, maybe I'm a really lousy lover but I am trying, _really_ trying to … to do right here, if I can just figure out what that is. Do you _want_ me to beat the crap out of you?"

Gabriel's expression blanked entirely. He rose fluidly from the floor. "I need to clean up."

"Oh, hell no!" Peter stood quickly. "Don't you do that to me. It's not fair. You can't get onto me for not giving you what you want if you won't tell me what that is!"

Gabriel hesitated, looking off to the side for a long beat, as if thinking things over. He turned back to his partner, who had committed to him, for better or worse, and this time Gabriel believed that commitment. To Peter's surprise, he virtually saw the defenses go down. Gabriel told him, "You're a wonderful lover." He put his hands on Peter's shoulders, looking straight into his eyes. "And yes, I want you to beat the crap out of me. I want to beat the crap out of you, too." He started to say more, but didn't, watching for Peter's reaction.

Peter blinked. It was obvious, in retrospect. He raised his hands to put them on Gabriel's forearms. He followed the length of his arms back in, then moved forward enough to hook his hands behind Gabe's neck. He sighed and looked at Gabriel's throat, where there was still a clear indentation of where the collar had been. "That's going to take some work from both of us - probably more from me than you. We'll have to set limits." He looked back up at Gabriel's face. "Firm limits, especially at first. Not like tonight."

Gabriel cocked his head. "But … yes?"

"Yes," Peter nodded.

Gabriel pulled him in for a crushing hug. They embraced warmly. When Gabriel relaxed from it, Peter pushed him back and reached up to drag his finger along Gabriel's lower lip. Softly he told him, "Go clean up. You are one nasty boy right now. I'll get the mattress and box springs on the floor, so we can sleep on it tonight."

Gabriel leaned in and kissed Peter playfully. "I'll buy you another bed."

"Yes, you will," Peter chuckled. "Now go on," he said, swatting Gabriel on the ass when he turned.


	244. Aftercare

When Peter got out of the shower, Gabriel was on his knees on the floor, scrubbing at the blood. By the time Peter was done drying himself, washing up their toy and brushing his teeth, he was nearly done. Peter picked up a few splinters and then straightened the covers on the bed. His left shoulder still twinged a little when he moved it, which was weird. Gabriel took his dirty rag in the bathroom and washed his hands. He came back and smiled softly at Peter, who was inspecting the floor. Gabe had missed a few spots.

"Get in bed with me," Gabriel said. "I want to put my hands all over you."

That sounded a lot more interesting that those last spots. Peter climbed on the bed and Gabriel pushed him over on his back, then straddled him. He put his hands on Peter's chest and slid them up and down his torso. He leaned in to kiss him, then trailed his mouth down Peter's chin to his neck. He stroked Peter's shoulders and arms as Peter was bringing them up to tangle fingers in his hair. They caressed and petted for long minutes, taking their time about it, winding down affectionately from what had been a very high-tension encounter for both of them.

When neither seemed inclined to take things further than touching, Gabriel finally flopped down on his side, propping himself up on one elbow. He bent in to mouth at the top of Peter's chest, making an "ohm nom nom" noise. Peter burst out laughing. "Oh, come on, quit it!" He reached over and shoved at Gabriel's shoulder, grinning.

Gabriel reached up and pulled Peter's head to him, saying into his hair, "Ohm nom nom … brains … yummy brains …"

"Now that's just gross! I can't believe you'd even joke about that! I said quit it!" An edge crept into Peter's voice that wasn't amused.

Gabriel let him go, now wearing a shit-eating grin. He leaned in slowly and kissed Peter's cheek tenderly. Peter eyed him with exaggerated suspicion. Gabriel snapped his teeth at him. Peter smiled softly, put his hand on Gabriel's shoulder more deliberately, and pushed him back slowly. For a moment, Gabriel collapsed, letting his head loll down. He gave Peter sad puppy-dog eyes.

Peter rolled his eyes and looked away, but he reached back and rubbed Gabriel's hip a few times. His partner perked back up and leaned in to kiss and nuzzle at him more normally.

"You're in a really good mood, aren't you?" Peter asked.

"Fantastic, Peter," he said as he kissed along his jaw and nosed Peter's chin up so he could continue down his neck. "Simply fantastic. I want to fly to the moon! And I might, if I didn't think I'd suffocate."

"Okay," Peter said, chuckling. He felt the hand that had been propping up Gabe's head drift down to his own, brushing at his hair. "Like I said, we need to work on some things. I made a huge mistake in not qualifying how much was too much."

"Mm," Gabriel progressed down to the top of Peter's collarbone and then back along the shoulder closer to himself. His other hand he twined with Peter's, lacing their fingers. "As long as we're mentioning things we should have cleared up beforehand - I would have rather'd been in charge."

Peter was silent and Gabriel abruptly stopped, his mouth hovering an inch above his skin. He looked over at Peter's face. Peter squeezed his hand and finally asked, "How far would things have gone if you'd been in charge?"

"Less than they did." Gabriel remained frozen where he was, watching his partner warily.

"What would you have done to me if I'd tried to stop the scene, there after the fight?"

Gabriel dipped his head enough to give a single small kiss. "If you wouldn't fight with me?"

"Yeah, if I'd just let you knock me down and I'd given up - what would you have done to me?"

"Nothing. I'd have been frustrated … I wouldn't have left - I've learned my lesson on that. Sulked a bit, probably." He kissed him again a few times, nibbling a bit. He looked back at Peter, raising a single brow, probably to question the continuing tension he was hearing.

"You scared me then."

"Hm." Gabriel sniffed at the seam of his armpit, then moved on past to Peter's chest. "Should I not do that?"

"Please don't, for a while. Let me calm back down. This pushed my limits, hard." Peter shifted a little. "My shoulder _still_ hurts." He exhaled sharply. "I know you get off on the fear and I'm okay with having some emotion play, but we need to delineate it a little better. Just tell me outright. Say - 'I want you to be afraid' or ask me real sexy, 'Are you afraid of me yet, Peter?' It lets me know what you're aiming at. You know how to push my buttons better than I do."

Gabriel scooted down a little, following the curve of the side of Peter's chest on the nearer side, which was Peter's left. Peter shifted a little. "What are you doing? You hardly ever kiss me there."

Gabriel lifted his head and adopted a mocking, fake oriental accent to say, "Ah, you have answered your own question, ass-hopper. Thus, begins wisdom."

Peter slapped his hand over his eyes in a gesture of long-suffering patience. He was grinning though. "I love you. I really do. You are hysterical."

"Hmf. No one laughed at my joke the other night, about calling me late for dinner. No appreciation." He bit the skin over Peter's ribs.

Peter squirmed. "Ow! Stop that!"

Gabriel let him go, scooching down a little more and looking soberly back up at Peter. "If 'stop' is the safe word, then what does it mean for you to use it idly in a sentence like that? Should I stop, or keep going until you're clearer?"

"Okay, sorry. Shouldn't have used that word. But you're right. We need something less common."

Gabriel bit him again in the same spot. Peter tensed and said nothing. Again, Gabe let go. "Nothing came to mind, huh?"

Peter snorted and reached over to run his fingers through Gabriel's hair. "No, it's just that if that's what you want to do, then I'm going to let you. Biting me like that isn't worth using a safe word, which a person shouldn't use unless they're really serious about it. What about 'red'? I'll remember it and it's less likely to come up unless we mean it."

Gabriel shrugged. "Red's okay." He went back to mouthing his way down Peter's side.

Peter pulled his left arm out of the way so Gabriel had better access. "So, is that it? Red?"

Gabriel stopped and looked up at him with a slightly annoyed expression. "You don't _seem_ really serious."

Peter snorted again. "You know, we're just talking here." He bent his left arm around a bit to pet Gabe's hair.

Gabriel leaned into it. "_You_ might be just talking. _I'm_ doing serious business here."

"Tell me about your serious business, baby," Peter crooned, combing Gabriel's hair back with his fingers.

"I'm loving on you. I take that _very_ seriously." He bent his head to continue down the side of Peter's waist.

Peter smiled at how that wasn't a lie. He felt a flush of warmth. "I appreciate that. Do you want me to reciprocate somehow?"

"No. I get to kiss on you endlessly and you get to yak at me. I suppose we're both happy."

Peter chuckled. "Doesn't seem fair, since you're having to kiss on me **and** yak."

"Mmf," Gabriel replied, putting a hand over Peter's knee and rubbing it.

"So is that my signal that I get to carry the rest of this conversation on my own?"

"Mm-hm," Gabriel said, working over Peter's hip slowly. He brought his hands to it, prodding a little and feeling of the structure of the bone in a strangely clinical fashion.

Peter propped himself up a little more on his pillow and watched that, then dismissed it. He sighed and looked at the ceiling, thinking about how he had a captive audience here and actually, there were a lot of things he'd been wanting to talk about. "Okay." He exhaled. "Okay, then. Don't draw blood. That was just way out of line."

"You started it."

"I did not!"

Gabriel glanced up at him, raising one brow. When Peter just looked at him, Gabe licked his upper lip slowly. Peter sucked in air. "Oh! You're right … When I hit you with the crop." He looked off into the distance for a moment, thinking about that. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I enjoyed it. It was a little shocking though, I'll admit."

"I didn't intend to hit you that hard."

"Let _me_ use the whip next time. You don't seem to calibrate very well and it's not just your abilities."

Peter opened his mouth to reflexively defend himself, then he caught himself and snapped it shut.

Gabriel added, now working methodically down Peter's thigh, "Getting punched in the throat was kind of out there too."

"Oh," Peter said in a small voice. "Yeah, we should … let you be in charge next time."

Gabriel looked up at Peter and grinned, all teeth. He bit his kneecap hard enough to make Peter wince.

"I wish you wouldn't bite me all the time. You're constant about that."

"I like using my mouth on you. I like tasting you. It's like smelling you. And I like kissing you." He laid a few smooches on Peter's shin. "All this talking makes it hard to do, though." He gave Peter a frown. "I thought you were going to carry the yakking part."

"You want to talk mentally?"

Gabriel looked at him blankly for a moment, then Peter felt a ping of contact. _Hey,_ Peter thought, suffusing the word with affection, reassurance and gratitude. He hadn't tried even the most basic mental contact since the blow up.

_Hey,_ Gabriel responded, chewing down the line of Peter's shin. _Ah, much more convenient._

Peter wasn't sure what he wanted to say.

Gabriel took the lead, asking, _How much of an aversion do you have to me biting you? On a scale of one to ten, with one being you'd rather I didn't, but you're only saying because I asked and it hardly matters, ten being you'd rather die than have me bite you again, and seven being that you'd leave me for it._

_I wouldn't put leaving you as a seven. At least eight, maybe nine, maybe even ten._

Peter could feel the gears turning in Gabriel's mind. To illustrate his point, Peter asked, _On a scale of one to ten, to rate how much you like biting me, with a one being you like it but if you never did it again that'd be fine, a ten being you'd rather die than go without it, would you really say that a seven would be that you'd leave me if you didn't get to do it?_

_Okay,_ Gabriel conceded,_ leaving you over it is a nine. But what's your answer?_

Peter thought about that as Gabriel worshipped his left ankle. _I don't know - a three? And that's only the hard bites. I like the little ones. I like you chewing on me and nibbling and stuff. You use a big range of affection and I like it, it's just that on the far end there you bite too hard sometimes. It hurts._

_Your pain tolerance goes way up when you're near orgasm,_ Gabriel observed.

_Well …_ Peter looked away, embarrassed by the things that worked to put him over the edge, because most of them were turn-**offs** the rest of the time. _I'm talking about all the other times you bite me too hard. How much do you want to do it?_

_Hm. Scoot over here so I can start up your right side_. They maneuvered on the bed and Gabriel settled in to lavish affection on Peter's right lower leg. _I think a five. I really want to. I'm trying to get a reaction when I do it._

_What kind of a reaction do you want?_

_I dunno. Just attention, I guess_.

Peter snorted softly. _Okay, well, go ahead and do it then._

_Really?_

_Yeah, really. If it matters more to you to keep doing it than to me for you to stop, then … _He gave a mental shrug.

He noticed Gabriel wasn't guarding his thoughts as zealously as he usually did. Peter could almost sense them, like shapes in fog. He was sure that if he only pushed a little bit, he'd understand more of Gabriel's motivations. Gabriel seemed to trust him so much more lately … Peter looked away at the section of wall he'd had to rebuild after being knocked through it. He remembered Gabriel asking him accusingly a few months ago, 'What happened to 'some things should be private'?' Once Peter had become emotionally involved, it had become harder to respect Gabriel's boundaries. He directed his attention elsewhere and bottled up his curiosity.

Peter felt a slow build of affection and appreciation, because he'd made no attempt to block any of his musings from his lover – not even his interest in knowing his mind. He looked down to see Gabriel hug both his lower legs, resting his head sideways on Peter's knees, looking up at him lovingly. _Thank you,_ Gabriel thought and more distantly, less guarded, probably not meant to be heard but he wasn't blocking it, Peter heard, _Maybe I'll be safe_.

It was that last thought that ran all through Peter. He felt profoundly guilty about not only the minor transgressions he'd had, but the one that brought all this about – his mother's attempt to purge Sylar's identity, Peter trying to wipe him out with the Haitian's power and then later talking Matt into trying to restore Nathan a second time. All three acts had shown the deepest disrespect for a person's existence. Even capital punishment was more dignified. _Why are you even with me?_ he thought, miserable that there was no way to change the past.

_Because I love you … and by loving you, and you loving me, I protect myself from those things ever happening again._

Peter sighed. _That's a strange, selfish motivation for love._

_We all have selfish motivations for love. If you need proof, look at all the unrequited love out there. We love for ourselves and I have many reasons to love you. I'm so happy you've … _His thoughts struggled to go on, but managed, _you've found me lovable._

Peter smiled softly. _You are __**deeply**__ lovable, Gabriel._

_Oh! Look, a mole._

Peter raised his head a little to look down at where Gabriel was examining his right thigh. _Yeah, I've got a few of those._ He noticed Gabriel was changing the subject to something less uncomfortable. Finding a mole was not such a singular occurrence as to warrant pointing it out.

_And there's a scar here. Where did you get this?_

_Skateboarding. I think I was 13 or 14._

_Ah. I would- Nathan would have been away then._ Gabriel crawled up to his hip and gave this side the same strangely professional palpation as he'd given the left.

_Mm-hm._ Peter reached down and ran his fingers into Gabriel's hair, now that he was close enough again. _I love you a lot,_ Peter offered, trying to think of a way to go back to the earlier subject.

Gabriel pulled away from him after a moment and projected, _So, what other issues do you want to get worked out with your 'captive audience'?_

Peter scratched his stomach idly, accepting the redirect to the conversation. _Do you mind me reading your emotions? I think you know I do it._

_No, I don't mind. It's a sensory thing. One-way powers don't bother me._

_Doesn't bother you at all? _Peter projected faintly his own dislike of psychometry, thinking there might be a parallel there.

_Nope, not at all. I also don't mind you using lie detection on me, touching me with telekinesis, flying around the room or whatever it is you want to do. Your abilities are part of who you are. I'd never try to keep you from using them._

_Do you … feel like I …_ Peter couldn't finish. What he meant was clear, he just couldn't put it into words, not even mental ones. Of course he wanted Gabriel to suppress his intuitive aptitude. He wanted him to suppress the hunger and not give in to it. He didn't want people to die.

Gabriel quietly moved up to his waist, smoothing his hand across the subtle planes of Peter's belly. He leaned over to kiss that skin repeatedly.

Peter didn't know what to think, so he finally just changed the subject. _Okay, yeah. So. Um, hey, what did Noah say that got you so worked up the other night?_

Gabriel looked up at Peter blankly, but the telepathy made him transparent. He was thinking dark thoughts about Noah Bennet. Peter could sense those thoughts like a storm cloud in Gabe's head, boiling up to the stratosphere with occasional flashes of lightning and a steady, threatening rumble.

… _still worked up, I see,_ Peter thought, wondering if he should cut the telepathy to preserve Gabriel's privacy. The other man gave no sign.

Gabriel moved up along Peter's ribs, nipping at them gently, his actions no indication of his thoughts. Peter found the dichotomy intriguing. He'd often wondered what happened behind Gabriel's eyes when he'd ask a sensitive question and Gabriel would give him little in the way of expression change. He knew the man had emotional reactions, but he'd wondered if he really thought about it consciously. Apparently so.

_A while back, you asked me not to hurt Noah unless I was absolutely-_

_Is Noah alright?_ Peter interrupted in alarm. He hadn't heard from the other man all week, but that wasn't unusual. Visions of Gabriel killing Noah flashed in his mind.

Gabriel grinned slowly, a vicious expression. He kept his head down, but Peter could feel his intense amusement. Even though Gabriel was starting to block him, Peter was pretty sure his worry was misplaced. He thought about it, and it occurred to him that Gabriel wouldn't still be angry with Noah if the agent was dead. Gabriel sighed as Peter realized that, and thought, _I was enjoying the images of what I might have done to him. You can be very imaginative._

Peter frowned at him. _Okay, so he's fine, right?_

_As far as I know, yes._

It seemed to Peter that Gabriel was being honest and open with that. He turned his mind back to what might have happened between them that made Gabriel feel he needed to leave, even if only for a little while. He wasn't so imaginative now.

Gabriel let Peter stew a bit before clarifying, _He said he was glad we were apart. He wanted us to stay apart. He implied that even when you seemed consenting to sex with me, it was still rape because you couldn't possibly want me-_

Peter reached down and grabbed Gabriel's shoulders, pulling the man over him and kissing him soundly. Gabriel tensed against him, his back stiff and unyielding. Peter hooked a leg behind Gabriel's and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, running one into his hair. He turned his head and probed relentlessly at Gabriel's lips. _That is __**not**__ true. I __**do**__ want you!_

_He said I abused you._

_You don't!_ Peter responded hotly. Gabriel opened his mouth slightly before Peter's insistence and Peter plunged his tongue into it, making him widen.

Gabriel relaxed just a little, bringing his hands up to rest on Peter's upper arms. _He said I was too much of a monster, too inhuman, to understand the people who loved me._

_That's a lie! You know me better than I know myself._ Peter kept kissing him hard, frantically, rolling so their bodies were against one another. Gabriel wasn't responding very much, but Peter could feel he appreciated the display. Peter thought, _That lying sack of shit! No wonder you were upset! _Peter jerked back from the kiss abruptly. _Did I think that out loud? Damn._ He was breathing fast, gripping his lover a lot harder than he needed to, experiencing his own thundercloud of thoughts regarding his former mentor. He tried to put up some barriers.

Gabriel saved him the trouble and cut the mental contact. He leaned forward to kiss Peter softly, a chaste pressing of lips. "He was drunk."

"That's not an excuse," Peter said, his voice shaking a little. "He knows how … he knows how that sort of thing might effect you."

"He thinks I'm insane and unstable, and too dangerous for anyone to be around."

"He said that too?"

Gabriel shook his head slightly. "Well, yes, but he said it to you also. I heard it through my ability." Gabriel reached out to stroke Peter's bicep. He kissed him again softly. "You defended me to him. That meant so much to me."

Peter exhaled heavily and nodded. He assumed he meant clairsentience. If he hadn't lifted the memory out of Peter's hair, he could have gotten it from the dining room table. Peter pulled Gabriel into a full embrace, his chin resting on the other man's shoulder. "What are you going to do to him?"

"You're not going to stop me?"

Peter kissed Gabriel's shoulder. "No, I'm not going to stop you. I might … ask you … I … He's my niece's stepfather. He did a really good job of raising her." He pursed his lips.

"He's my son's godfather and namesake, Peter."

Peter sighed. "Yeah, that too."

"I'm not going to hurt him. Or rather, I don't _plan_ on hurting him. Right now I'm just planning on staying away from him."

There was a long pause, before Peter finally asked, "Do you mind if _**I**_ hurt him?"


	245. Five Short Scenes

**Small Reminders**

Peter tried to settle down to sleep, but his back was still twinging every now and then. "Ow." He finally sat up and reached back to scratch at his left shoulder. "I don't know what's wrong. It_ still_ hurts."

"Let me see." Gabriel flipped the light with telekinesis. He sat up behind him and looked for a bit, pinching at the skin and pulling on it. "You've got a couple splinters in there. Pretty big ones. I'll get them out."

"Won't they come out on their own? The bullets always do."

"That's because you always have bullet holes for them to come out of. I'm sure your body will purge these eventually, but I might as well get them out now." After a few more moments, he said, "Hm." Gabriel shifted position and gave Peter's shoulder another examination to be sure he got the right spot the first time. Measure twice; cut once. His fingers were deft and careful on his lover's skin.

Peter said softly, "I don't deserve you."

Gabriel snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. Now hold still. This will hurt." It did, but Gabriel got it on the first try, getting out two small shards of wood a half inch long each. He kissed the healed spot while Peter rolled the splinters between his fingertips and looked at the broken bed post.

XXX

**Things Better Forgotten**

They separated again for sleep, Gabriel on his side facing Peter, Peter on his back with a leg crossing Gabe's at the ankle. Gabriel had flipped off the light. The quiet sound of their breathing filled the room.

"Wait!" Gabriel's alarmed voice broke the moment. Peter jumped. "You … ew."

"What?"

Gabriel sat up, pulling away from contact. "I kissed you! After you … you licked my ass, Peter, and I _kissed_ you after that!"

Peter was silent. He could hear Gabriel making noises with his mouth, probably trying to clean his tongue off.

"Don't ever let me do that again!" Gabriel said.

Peter pointed out, "I, uh, brushed my teeth after I got out of the shower." Just in case Gabriel was talking about the later kisses, the ones they'd shared in bed.

"That doesn't matter! I kissed you before that!"

Yes, yes he had. "You were clean," Peter offered.

"That doesn't matter either!"

Peter wondered if everything Gabriel said in this conversation was going to sound like it had an exclamation mark behind it. "You seemed to enjoy it - the kissing, I mean." Actually, he'd seemed to enjoy the rimming too, but this seemed like a bad moment to point that out.

"I was fucked up at the time, Peter!"

_That_, more than anything else, made Peter feel terrible, because Gabriel had trusted him to keep things within his limits, odd as those might be (lethal violence = perfectly fine; kissing after rimming = major squick). These were limits that had been laid out clearly some weeks back. Rimming hadn't been specifically mentioned, but it followed from his attitudes towards semen. Peter had failed him. "Gabriel, I didn't think about it at the time. I am so sorry. I … I just wasn't thinking. Please tell me you know I'm telling the truth."

"Yes, I know you are." He sounded sullen. With a huff, he flopped back down. A minute or two passed in tense silence.

Peter said quietly, "I'll try to find a way to make it up to you." He extended his foot so his toes bumped against Gabriel's shin.

"No," Gabriel said firmly and for a moment Peter thought that meant he'd never get over this, or maybe that he didn't want to touch him. "You and I do not 'make things up' to each other when we have mistakes or do bad things. If we did, I'd never get out of the negative. You made an honest mistake. I don't think you'll make it again. I trust you." Gabriel wormed his foot under Peter's.

"Thank you," Peter whispered.

"But no more rimming."

XXX

**The Free Pass**

Gabriel's phone vibrated in the middle of a meeting. He glanced down surreptitiously at it. It was Peter. He finished pulling it out. "I have to take this. Excuse me." He nodded to his associates as he stepped away and flipped the phone open. "Hello?"

Peter began without preamble, his voice stressed. "Can I use healing? It's a baby."

"Yes," Gabriel said. "Can you tell me …" He looked at the phone. The signal had ended. Peter had hung up as soon as he'd agreed. _Well, he wouldn't be calling if he didn't think someone's life was hanging in the balance._ He slipped the device back in his pocket and, after a moment to regather his thoughts, went back to his meeting.

From time to time that afternoon, he wondered what had happened, how things had turned out, but Peter never called and Gabriel was reluctant to dial. Emma came over with Peter to his and Heidi's house a little after dinner. One look at Peter's face told him why he hadn't called: things had not turned out well. His eyes went to Emma. After the usual greetings, she said, "I thought we needed to talk about something. I have a proposal, but it requires everyone's agreement."

Peter described what had happened in clinical terms. The child, a toddler, had ingested a poison and died despite life support techniques. He added at the end, "I couldn't leave in the middle of care to make a phone call, especially when it seemed like she might pull through. I waited until the last minute. I waited too long."

Gabriel pursed his lips, thinking about how he'd feel if little Noah was dying and a paramedic called to the scene to aid him left his side to make some ambiguous personal call. He thought of how he'd feel if Noah died. He tried to banish that thought. He didn't need to be evoking sympathy for random strangers, especially when he knew Peter was already giving the best care as humanly possible.

Heidi asked, "What was your proposal?"

Emma said, "I propose we give Peter a free pass – one free pass, to use as he sees fit, so he doesn't have to call us first. Then, when he uses it, he tells one of us how and why he used it, we talk to each other, and decide if we issue another one."

Gabriel agreed immediately in his head, but he just let his eyes slide over to Peter.

Peter said, "This isn't … the limit, getting permission - that's a good thing. I'm not trying to argue or claim it wasn't. I was using the ability too much before. But this wasn't the first time when I wanted to ask one of you if I could do it and just didn't have a chance. This was just the first time when I walked off from someone who was dying and got on the phone."

Gabriel inclined his head to Emma. "It sounds fine to me. For another thing, he won't always be able to reach one of us. Emma, you don't have a phone and I turn mine off a lot. Heidi's is usually on, but," he looked to her and shrugged, "you know the least about the ability."

"It sounds like a good compromise to me," Heidi said. They agreed and it was set.

XXX

**Healing is a Scary, **_**Scary**_** Ability**

Peter didn't go looking for Noah, but he certainly triggered as soon as he saw him. Peter had been standing in the lobby of the New Jersey Pinehearst office, talking to the receptionist about the weather as he waited for Sanders to come out for his appointment. Noah came in the front door on some business of his own. All thought about the appointment left Peter's mind when he saw the older man. In fact, all thought about much of anything left his mind. White hot rage filled its place. He strode purposefully across the lobby.

Noah saw him coming and smiled cheerily. He was generally happy to see Peter Petrelli. Then he did a double take. Peter's body language was _not good_. A moment later he was being swung on - hard, fast and direct. Peter gave no challenge or warning and managed to smack Noah good on the left cheekbone. Noah went down, flailing a bit.

Peter grabbed at Noah's shirt, then grabbed again because the other man dodged him. The second time, he got a fistful of cloth and yanked the bigger man closer, distantly aware that Noah's hand had gone under his jacket for his gun, but not really caring about that. He pulled Noah halfway to his feet, using his enhanced strength to do it.

Peter got in his face, teeth bared, spittle flying. "You stay the hell away from Gabriel! You know how easy it is to push him over the edge and you were doing everything you could to do it!" He shook Noah, using a little of his enhanced strength again. Noah's head jerked a little from the whiplash and the cloth of his shirt made threatening tearing sounds. Noah's hand came out empty and he grabbed Peter's wrist with it, trying to stabilize himself. "**Stay**" -shake- "**away**" -shake- "**from him**!"

Peter threw him to the floor. He stood over the other man, breathing hard. The two security guards circled uneasily behind him. Noah Bennet made a very slight motion with one hand for them to stay back and not complicate things. Peter turned his head and let his eyes slide back to them, then to Noah, who was being silent, still and non-provocative. Peter jerked his chin up a little and said, "I have healing now, Noah. If you mess with him again - and you know what I'm talking about - I am going to track you down and use it."

Noah's eyes widened slightly. He made sense of the threat instantly. As if for the benefit of the guards though, Peter nodded and said, "Yeah, nothing sucks as bad as someone who can hurt you as much as they want, because they know they can just heal it all away. But you'll still have the memories of the pain, and the mental scars, though there'll be not a mark on you when I'm done."

Peter waited another long moment, but no one seemed inclined to do or say anything to him. He teleported out. He'd just have to reschedule his appointment for later.

XXX

**Schooled**

"Noah," Angela said, taking her seat in the parlor. This was a simple meeting. There was no need for her to go to her office and have it be more formal.

The agent in question sat across from her. He was wearing a neck brace and had a shiner decorating the left side of his face and eye. It was too trivial an injury to warrant Claire's healing blood, but it marked him, so that everyone who saw him knew he'd been tagged.

She cut straight to the chase. "After a review of your file, you have been enrolled in an anger management class. There is a general public section," she handed him two sheets of paper and a trifold brochure, "and you will be taking private sessions with Maury Parkman. You are a valuable asset and your approach to situations you disagree with must be modified." His shoulders sunk slightly at what that implied. "In addition, you are to refrain from all non-work interactions with my sons until further notice."

She paused. He was staring at the class descriptions she'd handed him, but it was clear he wasn't really seeing the words on the paper. She said, "Your conduct during the incident yesterday was exemplary. I applaud you. Your conduct Saturday, in provoking that incident, was not. The personal lives of Peter Petrelli and Gabriel Grey are not your concern. If they need assistance or counseling, we will find other resources for them. Do you understand and agree?"

He nodded numbly, still staring at the papers.


	246. Worship The Hand

Gabriel came in that night to find Peter brooding quietly on the couch. He walked directly to him and knelt. "I had a few calls today about an incident with an aggressive special at the Pinehearst facility." He took Peter's right hand, curled the fingers and ghosted his own over the knuckles and the back of the hand, up to the wrist.

Peter watched his lover steadily. Peter didn't look guilty or chagrinned - and he wasn't. He knew Gabriel was seeing for himself what had happened. That he'd immediately taken the hand he'd hit Noah with indicated he must have seen the security camera footage of it. Peter waited for Gabriel's reaction.

His lover bent forward and kissed Peter's knuckles slowly, letting his tongue lick over them lazily. He smiled up at Peter, smug and pleased. Peter glanced off to the side, trying to remain impassive, because he really shouldn't smile about decking someone, even if they had said really upsetting things to his partner. The corners of his mouth turned up anyway.

Gabriel's clever tongue began to move decisively, probing between his fingers in short, quick swipes, tickling at the webbing. Peter groaned quietly and turned his hand so Gabriel could continue on the palm and the sensitive pads of his fingertips. His tongue danced across Peter's hand, making quick swipes across the middle of his palm from the heel to the webbing between thumb and forefinger. He sucked that part into his mouth and pulled at it.

Peter shifted his hips, breathing just a little bit harder. The sensations were wonderful - hot, wet, slick, cool where his tongue had been but was no longer, a little ball of pressure where it was at the moment. And the expression on Gabriel's face was fantastic - his eyes were smoldering with desire, staring up at Peter with a gaze so focused the Italian couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds at a stretch. He swallowed nervously.

Gabriel made a few rude sucking noises and then let his mouth wander around to the fleshy mound at the base of the thumb, working his teeth against the muscle - not too hard; just right. Peter twitched as his fly came undone by itself. He glanced down, watching as his zipper opened. He looked up at Gabriel, who released him long enough to say, "Get yourself out."

Peter nodded and shoved his jeans down enough to accomplish the task. Gabriel rotated his hand again and sucked lightly at each fingertip in turn, taking each into his mouth, pulling enough to hollow his cheeks, then swirling his tongue around it. Then he'd cup the fingertip with his tongue and suck again, letting his upper teeth rest on the knuckle while his lips moved suggestively around the digit. Suggestive - hell, it wasn't a suggestion. It was a promise.

He spat in his right hand, the one he wasn't using to help manipulate Peter's hand, and sent that one to slide around Peter's mostly-erect shaft. He slid it up and down in tandem with taking his fingers one after another again, but this time to the second knuckle - not just the tip. Peter sucked in air between his teeth, moving his hips slightly with the motions. When he'd finished that round Gabriel shifted Peter's hand in his own so that his thumb was massaging Peter's palm. Satisfied that the hand wouldn't be neglected, he leaned in to use his mouth to augment his attentions to Peter's penis.

He sucked at the underside of it, at the spongy body, moving his lips along the sides as his right hand stroked the side closer to Peter's body. He switched from stroking to fingering as he licked up and down the shaft. His fingertips traced the flaring edge of the head. Peter made a noise that started as a groan and ended as a whimper. Gabriel glanced up at the precome leaking from the tip. He wrapped his thumb around the glans and smoothly wiped it out of the way as his mouth moved up. He sucked at the frenulum, making Peter's body tighten and relax over and over.

Peter ran his hand into Gabriel's hair, petting him in the same rhythm that he wanted to be thrusting, but he was holding himself as still as possible while Gabriel's head was at his groin. He was beginning to pant. He whimpered again as Gabriel's mouth went back to his hand. Peter made a very strongly worded mental note to himself to get a damn condom out here in addition to the bottle of lube so as to accommodate surprise blowjobs. Or … sort-of blowjobs. It was more like a hand job with mouth action, but that was probably all he'd get without a condom.

Gabriel licked along Peter's palm and tickled at the webbing between each finger as his other hand rubbed up and down over just the tip of Peter's aching cock. He wanted release and he wasn't getting quite enough stimulation. Peter whimpered again and put his head back, his mouth open and his brows scrunched together. "Oh God, I want you," he whispered.

Gabriel smiled and sucked his index and ring finger into his mouth, his tongue probing between them, sucking aggressively. He bit down a little and Peter arched just a bit. That was a signal. He released the fingers with a wet plop and went to the edge of Peter's hand where it was thicker with muscle. Gabriel chewed at him, watching Peter's face as his mouth fell open further and his shoulders twitched. Peter put his free left hand around the base of his organ and began to pump it rapidly. Gabriel matched his speed a moment later, moving his teeth to the ball of the thumb and pressing harder into his skin. Peter arched up again and Gabriel pumped him faster, tightening his grip and twisting a little.

Peter made a faint noise like a whine or a squeak. Hot fluid erupted between Gabe's fingers. He grinned and stopped biting, changing to light sucking, then to merely licking as Peter relaxed and sagged into the couch. His lover looked up at him with heavy-lidded bedroom eyes. "You are awesome."

Gabriel leaned in between Peter's knees and forward over his body, probably getting his shirt stained with Peter's come, but he didn't seem to mind. He kissed him slowly but deeply. When they parted, he nuzzled Peter's cheek very gently. He spoke in a voice that was so deep and resonant that it by itself gave Peter goosebumps. "I've never had anyone defend my honor before."

Peter shivered, then pushed Gabriel back a little and caressed his face. "You are trying your damnedest to be a good person. No one should disrespect that." He brushed Gabriel's hair back and tucked it past his ear. "Noah's jealous. He wants what you have - a second chance. But he hasn't done what he needs to get it." Peter stroked Gabriel's cheek again. "You have."

Gabriel leaned in for another series of kisses. "I will give you anything you want tonight. I'll give you anything you want most nights, but I am _especially_ sincere tonight. Is there anything you want from me that you can't normally have? Anything?" He nuzzled Peter's neck, leaning into him like he wanted to climb inside his skin.

"I want to jerk you off like I did the other night, with you kneeling, panting in my face and leaning on me for support. That was incredibly hot."

Gabriel chuckled. "Peter, you are so easy to please."

He raised his brows. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No, it's wonderful. It makes it so easy for me to love you."


	247. Forever Yours

"How do you like it?" Gabriel asked.

Peter tilted his head and regarded the new setup. They now had an iron frame bed of unusually heavy construction. It was black and tubular with simple lines and rounded contours. Peter's mind immediately went to the many uses Gabriel probably had planned with such a structure. At least it would be much harder to break. "I think it will work great."

"We need to consecrate it." Gabriel spoke matter-of-factly.

Peter glanced back at him out of the corner of his eye. "You kept the mattresses, right?"

"Yeah, but the bed frame's new."

Peter turned and stood in front of Gabriel. He let his gaze wander around the taller man's face, making fleeting eye contact and making his availability clear. He parted his lips for good measure when Gabriel looked down at them. Gabriel brought his hands up to Peter's shirt buttons as he leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Gabriel murmured in his ear, "You know how to talk to me without saying a word." Then he lipped down Peter's jaw.

"Emma tells me our body language is as clear as sign."

"Oh?" Gabriel was taking his time with the shirt. Peter had found a style that had double the number of buttons than usual. They were small and required a lot of careful attention. He liked them. "Does it say, 'I love you, Petey'?"

Peter smiled slowly and actually blushed. Gabriel grinned and put his forehead against Peter's, looking at him while Peter looked down. "Does it?" he teased.

"Yeah, kinda." Peter kissed Gabriel's cheek and started working on the other man's clothes.

"Ah, good," Gabriel crooned. "Then she knows you're _mine_." He smiled again, obviously making light of it.

Peter chuckled. "Of course I am."

Shortly, they were both undressed. Gabriel rubbed his nose on Peter's cheek as his hands lightly caressed his hips. "So what _are_ we going to do here?"

Peter asked, "Can you handle something normal?"

"Normal is good," Gabriel said cooperatively.

Peter glanced over him. Gabriel was letting him lead. Peter stroked up and then down his back and reached up to lip along Gabriel's jaw. Just before he thought Gabriel was about to turn and kiss him, Peter angled his body and turned his head, presenting the side and back of his neck.

"Mm," Gabriel said in slight surprise. Peter had never simply offered himself for that particular pleasure. Gabriel knew his partner thought it was strange and weird and it was, but he liked doing it anyway. Gabriel put one hand on Peter's stomach and the other on the small of his back. He put his nose into Peter's hair and inhaled deeply. He growled so deep in his chest that it made no sound at all, but Peter felt the vibration in his chest, against his shoulder. Gabriel bit the side of his neck very lightly, just a nip, giving Peter gooseflesh and making his breath quicken.

After several more bites, Peter's hand found Gabriel's shaft and wrapped around it. Gabriel hunched slightly into the grip and Peter retreated to the bed. He sat down and beckoned. "Come here," he called softly.

Gabriel did, but Peter stopped him a little further out than usual. He slid down from the mattress and knelt before the other man, wrapping his hand around his member again and looking up. He licked up the shaft and around the head, then mouthed it gently. He started pumping with his hand as he sucked on the tip, hollowing his cheeks. Gabriel ran a hand through Peter's hair and the other around Peter's hand on his shaft. After a few moments, he encouraged Peter to pull that hand away and take him deeper. Peter complied.

He sucked him with meticulous care until he felt Gabriel's arousal starting to peak. He pulled off then, hoping he hadn't gone too far. Gabriel gave him a moment of resistance, his fingers pressing against Peter's scalp. "Not yet, please," Peter whispered, "I don't want you to come yet." The other man desisted.

Peter climbed on the bed and Gabriel followed him automatically, his eyes devouring him. He paused over Peter's body and Peter wiggled around, positioning himself so Gabriel was kneeling between his legs, hands on the mattress on either side. Gabriel was blinking, his breathing slowing, coming down from the near-orgasm. Peter propped himself up on his elbows, below the other man, and nipped along his jaw, his teeth scraping against stubble.

He kissed along the curve of his chin and then up to the corner of his mouth. _That_ was where he kissed that was almost guaranteed to cause Gabriel to turn and kiss him passionately and this time was no different. Gabriel opened his mouth and pressed into him, plunging his tongue inside Peter. He let it happen, his head slowly falling back under the osculatory assault. It stretched his neck, exposing it. Gabriel shifted his weight, bringing his knees forward to rest against Peter's groin and putting the rest of his weight on one arm. He lifted the other hand, now free, and stroked that vulnerable flesh, tracing Peter's windpipe with his fingertips.

Gabriel broke the kiss, but Peter kept his head lolled back. "You are _so_ good," Gabriel murmured. "You're so beautiful, Peter. You're so perfect. I love you." He continued to stroke his neck, following the path of his jugular and carotid more precisely than most medical students. Peter realized he was even matching the direction of blood flow.

When Gabriel's hand went lower to caress his chest and tweak his nipple, Peter brought his head up and said breathily, "I want you in me, inside of me." Gabriel shifted up to kiss him again briefly in answer, then rocked back on his knees and called the lube to him. He popped the top and squirted some out while Peter tilted his hips back and spread his legs further.

Gabriel prepared him gently, taking more time at it than Peter had expected. Peter arched off the bedspread as Gabriel slid a second finger into him and began to draw it back and forth. His other hand stroked his own organ at a slow, measured pace.

Peter nodded when he was ready. He didn't need to speak. Gabriel had been watching him as attentively as he always did. Peter didn't know what sacrifice he'd made in a past life to gain him this wonderful a lover, but it must have been a doozy. Gabriel shifted and leaned forward, aiming himself. Peter lifted his hips and felt the pressure of the other man's hardness against him. He shut his eyes and opened his mouth, arching back against it. "Oh!" he said in a high, breathless voice.

Gabriel pushed into him as gradually as he'd been stroking himself, not changing the rhythm even now that he was inside Peter. When he was all the way in, he went forward over Peter's body and Peter brought his knees up on either side of Gabriel's torso. He was limber enough for it and Gabriel was just tall enough that they were face-to-face. They fit together perfectly like this. Gabe kissed him, still moving inside of him. Peter's eyelids fluttered and his body clenched a little with each gentle thrust.

Gabriel was taking it slower than usual, finding the right spot immediately, rubbing against it with each flex of his hips. He rolled his tongue through Peter's mostly slack mouth, enjoying the sounds of Peter's body thrilling to his own, listening to the incredible harmony they made. He always knew when they were in sync - all he had to do was listen. As long as Peter was cooperating, Gabriel could play him like a beautiful instrument, creating music to stir both their souls and satisfy needs that had been unmet for their entire lives.

Gabriel broke off and put his chin on Peter's shoulder, riding him in a steady, rocking motion. One would think, at that slow cadence, that they might last a while, but Peter was sure they were both on the edge. He turned his head slightly, getting a sandpapering from Gabriel's stubble on his cheek, and whispered those words that meant everything to his lover: "I belong to you."

"Oh God," Gabriel groaned so low it was guttural and for a moment Peter thought the other man had come. He pushed into him harder.

"I'm yours," Peter crooned, turning his head further to breathe right in Gabriel's ear. He licked over it and flicked the lobe with his tongue. "I belong to you," he repeated. "My heart is yours. It's Emma's too and a little bit for mom, but _I belong to __**you**_. I'm _yours_. I'm yours _forever_."

Gabriel curled his arms under Peter and hooked his hands over his shoulders, pulling him down into his thrust. Though he was gentle, it still drove the breath out of Peter's body with its force. It felt like lightning shot up his spine with each time Gabriel's penis massaged across his prostate. Peter crossed his ankles over Gabriel's back and gave an "Ah!" with each driving motion Gabriel made. He made them faster and harder, shoving himself into Peter so hard now Peter knew he'd ache if it weren't for regeneration.

He caught a breath and said, "I'm yours. I'm yours. I belong to you. To you. To you, Gabriel. Yours. Yours. Yours! I'm yours!" His arms were wrapped firmly around the taller man's body, clinging to him like he was life itself, letting him fill him time after time. Gabriel's head turned as his thrusts reached a crescendo and he sunk his teeth into Peter's throat, hard enough to bruise but not break the skin. Peter cried out as he felt Gabriel come inside him with a shudder that was almost violent. He didn't release him until the aftershocks subsided.

"Oh God, Gabriel. Oh God, Gabriel. Oh God. Oh… oh…." Peter hadn't quite come himself, but he was _so close_. He panted in unfulfilled need.

Gabriel licked his neck slowly as he withdrew and slid down a little. He shifted over languidly to support himself on one elbow and reached his hand between them. He wrapped long fingers around Peter with a firm grip, watching Peter's face with a steady, unblinking gaze. Peter's eyes were glazed, his head thrown back. He teetered on the brink. His whole body jerked at Gabriel's touch.

Gabriel stroked upwards. "You are so good, Peter." He stroked down. "You are so good. So good to me, so good _for_ me. You are everything I need." He pulled back up and Peter's whole body trembled on the edge of release. "I love you, Peter. I love you so much. Forever. I'm yours." He pushed down and Peter turned and sought out his mouth with a single-minded frenzy. He kissed him, coming in spurts across them both. His hips moved him involuntarily against Gabriel's hand, which now moved smoothly at the pace Peter needed.

When he was done he pulled back only a little because he was still hanging onto Gabriel like the other man might try to get away. He put his forehead against his partner's, eyes shut. "I love you," Peter murmured. "I love you. I love you. I love you. Oh God, Gabe. I love you."

Gabriel nosed Peter's face up and kissed him, chastely at first and then running his tongue along Peter's lips. The tips of their tongues met, played and retreated. Gabriel said, "You taste good. You taste right. You smell right. You _**are **_right. You even feel right." His hands played up and down Peter's back. He gave his cheek a peck. "You're everything I want."

XXX

They fell asleep in one another's arms. Peter woke first, but seeing no way to extricate himself without waking the other, he lay there, limbs tangled, and watched Gabriel sleep. He looked peaceful and relaxed at first, but then he began to dream and his countenance clouded. Peter caught the edge of the dreams as the other man projected.

In one of the early phantasms, Gabriel was standing with a version of Peter in front of an enormous clock, akin to Big Ben, but on ground level. Gabriel was telling Peter all about the machine, but the dream-Peter wasn't paying attention. Gabriel noticed the inattentiveness, so he kept coming up with more and more outlandish and inaccurate facts, trying to tease Peter into noticing. It didn't work. The dream unraveled.

In the next, Gabriel was driving, but didn't know where he was going. He kept peering ahead looking for familiar landmarks, but the area was a mystery. He'd see things that looked familiar, only to get closer and have them distort and shift. Suddenly he noticed his mother, Virginia, was in the seat next to him, nattering on about how he needed to stop and ask for directions and it was all his fault they were lost. It was a memory from his childhood, he realized. He looked in the rearview mirror to see Gabriel Gray, as a boy of 12 or 13, sitting in the back of the car looking bored. He tilted the mirror to look at himself and realized he was Martin Gray. That was such a shock the dream ended abruptly and Gabriel's whole body jerked.

Peter blinked and shook his head a little to clear the emotional shockwave that had come with that understanding. He looked at Gabriel, but he seemed to be firmly asleep still. He didn't see a reason to wake him.

A few minutes later, another dream began. Sylar (and it was definitely Sylar - Peter knew that as firmly as Gabriel did) was in Nathan's senatorial office, trying desperately to make sense of pages of legalese. He had none of Nathan's memories. He was frightened, certain someone would notice and finger him as an imposter and he would be forced to kill that person to cover it up. People came and went and he tried to convince each of them he was really Nathan - his secretary, the Haitian, a teenaged version of Peter, Heidi (who was carrying a baby named Arty, but Sylar couldn't recall the infant's name and guessed wrong, calling the child Noah).

He failed to convince each of them in turn, but he was so torn up with fear and self-loathing that he couldn't bring himself to kill them. He knew he should. He'd raise his hand, finger extended, and tension would fill him. His chest would hurt and his heart would pound, his brain buzzing with unreleased power. He couldn't do it though, not even to save his life. They were all innocent, each and every one of them. They just wanted their life, with Nathan in it, and he wasn't Nathan.

With each person he let leave, he knew he was signing his death warrant. They'd tell someone, the "authorities," and they'd come to get him. He knew he needed to flee, to hide, but he had to finish Nathan's work first and that meant reading these damn legal papers, where the words kept shifting and dancing before his eyes. If only he had Nathan's memories, he'd be able to understand it!

Peter could see Gabriel was starting to sweat, his eyes moving erratically under his lids. He could feel the emotions building up so strongly that he was drenched in them. Peter finally decided that unlike the others, this nightmare wasn't resolving on its own and he needed to wake his partner. He shook him. Gabriel yelled, very nearly right in his face, and jumped back from him. Peter was nearly as startled as he was. For a moment neither of them moved. Gabriel started breathing again. He sat up, looking around the room in disorientation.

He was still projecting mentally, his thoughts wholly unguarded and panicked: _Why am I not in the office? Where am I? Did they get me? What are you doing here? Peter? That's Peter. Peter … I'm safe?_

"It's okay, it's okay," Peter said softly. "It was a dream."

Gabriel nodded with gradual acceptance of that. He exhaled slowly and turned to put his forehead down on the bed, his body bowed. His defenses came back up and his mind became private again. Peter started to move closer, but Gabriel put out one long arm immediately to halt him. Peter felt anger flare behind that touch and he stayed where he was. The other man's emotions were unsettled. It took a few moments for him to sort them out. When he did, he flopped down and gestured for Peter to come to him. "Okay. It all makes sense now. I'm sorry I woke you."

"You didn't wake me," Peter said, sliding closer to give him a brief kiss. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you if the dreams get too bad, okay?"

Gabriel blinked at him, searching his face. "What?"

"I'll wake you up if you start having a nightmare. Is that okay?"

Gabriel looked dumbstruck. "You … You were reading my mind?"

"When you're asleep, you tend to project. I do too. Emma's told me." Then Peter realized why this phenomenon would be a surprise to Gabe. "Heidi blocks automatically. Whenever anyone uses an ability on her, she nullifies it reflexively. She doesn't see your dreams."

Gabriel considered that, struggling to process through a brain still slowed by sleepiness. "Yeah." He looked up at Peter. "You know, that means it's a lot more dangerous for me to sleep with you. The times I attacked her, she was already awake."

Peter kissed him again. "Unlike Heidi, I heal. Don't worry - just go back to sleep. I'll watch over you."

Gabriel seemed to want to argue. His brows drew together in worry and fatigue, but he failed to assemble his argument coherently. Instead, he pulled Peter closer still and ended up as entwined with him as he'd been before. Comforted by that, he fell back asleep. Peter gave a little sigh. When he was sure Gabe was entirely out, he managed to get free enough to telekinese one of his books to himself. He read, keeping a little attention on his lover, but Gabriel's sleep was undisturbed this time.


	248. Angela Relents

**A/N: Intolerance happened on April 8. The first part here is set on June 4, the day after the chapter "Forever Yours." ****This is the beginning of the Temptation arc, which will span ten chapters.**

"I want to talk to you about Peter," Gabriel said. It was a nice Saturday afternoon in early June. They'd come over for a family brunch at Angela's - just himself, Heidi, the kids and Angela herself. Maury was off in Europe pursuing a project that would soon involve Gabriel and Peter both, but that part hadn't come to pass yet. Gabriel and Angela had stepped into the kitchen, cleaning up, as Heidi got the boys settled into working a puzzle in the living room.

"What about him?" Angela asked, her voice normal. A few seconds later, scanning Gabriel's face, her expression closed as she lost the trace of openness he'd gained from working with her.

Gabriel swallowed a little and looked down at the dishes in his hands as he stacked them next to the sink, then up to see her reaction as he said, "We took vows to each other. I wanted you to know. Permanent ones."

She was silent. Her expression didn't change.

"Tell me congratulations," Gabriel said, his voice suddenly cold and commanding, although he used no ability to reinforce it.

She met his eyes and didn't look away when she said simply, "Congratulations."

Gabriel swallowed again and said, "Next time you see Peter, tell him you're happy for him, and why."

"What do you expect to gain from this, Gabriel?" she snapped.

"I want this to be something you accept, not something that's hidden away in the closet. Of all the things we have to hide about ourselves, _this_ isn't something I want concealed. This is good. This is love. Maybe we don't tell the rest of the world, but he's your _son_." He leaned forward emphatically. "We can talk about abilities and abductions and things so secret no one would believe us if we shouted it from the rooftops, but we can't have _this_ mentioned?" His voice became softer as he leaned back. "We love each other. I want you to recognize that."

"I know you love one another," she said, trying to sound sharp but it just came out tired. "That's why I haven't interfered."

He rolled his eyes. "Angela, there's a world of hurt between not interfering and accepting him the way he is. Let him know … let him know it's okay."

She pursed her lips and looked away.

"Do _you_ love him?" he asked.

She gave him a scathing look in answer.

Gabriel went on, "Family is very, very important to him. You know that. He's already alienated enough from you. Does this _really_ need to be between you in addition?"

He waited a very long beat. She finally said, "What kind of vows?"

He looked down at his hands. "Private ones. It had to be that way."

"Hm." It was a non-judgmental sound.

He took off his watch and slid it across the counter to her. "He wears one of these. Always."

She took the watch in hand and looked at it, her brows quirking briefly. "Sylar," she said with a hiss.

"He knows who he's married to," he said, managing to keep the defensiveness out of his voice.

She sighed and he watched as she ran her fingertip across the face of the watch, then around the outer rim. A hopeful hint of a smile crossed his face, then he lapsed back into seriousness. She told him, "I'm glad he knows. I've seen him … the way he looks at you. I think he knows." She handed the watch back to him and he refastened it.

Very quietly, she said, "I'm happy for both of you. I'll tell him that."

Gabriel nodded, not trusting himself to speak, not wanting to risk ruining it. He turned and began to rinse the dishes, saying no more about it. Angela filled him in on recent events in Europe.

XXX

Angela had Peter and Emma over for dinner the next evening. When she'd invited them, Angela had asked, "Do you mind if Michael and Patty join us?"

Peter had responded, "Michael - your bodyguard?"

"Yes."

"No, no, not at all." It had always struck Peter as wrong anyway when the staff ate in the kitchen or in their rooms, separate from the family. When his father had been alive … no, he was still alive. Better to say that when Arthur had been living at the Petrelli mansion, the staff knew their place and that was not at the dining room table with the family and guests - at least, not unless they were actively serving them. After he left, Angela had removed that barrier whenever the boys weren't visiting or she didn't have guests, not wanting to eat alone. And gradually after that, she'd invited Michael or Taylor or Cassie in when it was just herself and Peter or Gabriel or Maury. It made Peter happy to see them included.

He didn't know who Patty was though. When he and Emma arrived, he recognized her as Patricia Pennington, the new agent he'd been paired with briefly a few months before, for a single mission to Utah. "Hey!" he said, smiling crookedly at her. "What are you doing here? I'm glad to see your leg's better."

"Oh," she said breezily, "Just bumming around - free-loading. You know how it is."

His brows drew together as he still didn't know what she was doing here. Michael came out of the living room to give greetings as well. Angela was standing to the side talking to Emma. The pair of them moved on into the dining room, leaving Peter with Patty and Michael in the foyer. Michael slid a large hand around Patty's waist and drew her to him, clarifying immediately what Patty was doing here. Given that Peter had thought she was borderline sociopathic, he wasn't sure what to think about that. He guessed it was a good thing. Not like he could really throw stones, given the reputation one of his lovers had.

Michael looked Peter up and down, emoting some mixed signals. Peter wasn't as sensitive to that sort of thing as he once was - not without touch. He extended his hand to shake. "Hi. Good to see you, Michael."

Michael shook his hand cooperatively and Peter sensed disdain, fear, anger, dislike, and rivalry. Michael lied, "Yeah, good to see you too, Peter. What have you been up to lately?"

Since he was trying to be receptive, Peter picked up several thoughts about his attack on Noah Bennet. Michael was not a fan. Peter put up his mental barriers and switched gears to being more non-confrontational than usual. He took a step back at the next convenient moment and adjusted his body language. It worked.

"Oh, mostly just working as a paramedic. I did some remodeling to the apartment last week." He studied Michael's features, but there was no change at the latter sentence and the big man wasn't one to hide his feelings. Peter surmised he didn't know about his recent personal issues. They made small talk about normal life and managed to get through dinner in a polite manner.

Michael and Patty gave their good-byes shortly afterward, with Michael leaving to accompany Patty to her place. He said he'd be back later. Angela and Emma discussed the wedding plans. It was to be in August, which seemed to be approaching with alarming speed. Peter wished he and Emma could handle their union as simply as he had with Gabriel - an offer, an acceptance, and that was that. But no - there had to be a spectacle and a fuss because no Petrelli was going to be married in secret. Except of course that he already was married in secret. Peter sat there tensely and listened, occasionally speaking when his opinion was directly solicited.

It went on interminably. Peter rubbed his forehead and stared blankly at the floor, thinking about the music he and Emma had played the day before at the park. They'd taken their instruments - his rather old guitar and a violin he'd bought for her as one of many gifts while they'd been apart - and had a picnic lunch. They'd messed around making lights and sounds. A side effect of Emma's ability was an unnatural affinity with musical instruments. She could play mesmerizing music on devices she'd never touched before. She was wicked good with a spoon and teacups too. Peter wasn't quite as good, but he could follow her lead.

He heard his mother say, "That's probably enough for now. I believe we have bored poor Peter to tears."

He snapped his head up. "No, that's fine. I'm still paying attention." Not true, but it was Gabriel and Heidi with lie detection, not Emma or Angela. Not that either of them believed him anyway. They didn't need an ability to have the power of observation.

"That's alright. We were done anyway. Emma, I need to speak with Peter privately for a few minutes. Would you excuse us?"

Emma nodded. "Of course. I need to freshen up anyway."

Angela watched her go for a moment and then sighed. She looked back at Peter sitting on the couch, then moved over to sit at his left, next to him. He suppressed the urge to move away as she put her right hand on his left arm. There were a lot of intense emotions coming off his mother. He turned to her, softening. "Mom?"

"Peter." Her hand tightened a little on his wrist. "Your marriage with Emma is not the only commitment you have made lately."

His eyes snapped down to where her hand was covering his watch. He swallowed, remembering her slapping him just two months before for having the gall to kiss Gabriel in her sight. Or rather, to kiss Gabriel and then be seen by her - it wasn't like he'd done it right in front of her on purpose. He wondered where this was going. She wasn't angry with him - he could feel that.

"Congratulations, Peter." His eyes widened and he blinked. She went on, "I'm very happy for you." She gave his wrist another squeeze and looked down at it, turning it to better see the face of the watch.

"Thank you," he said so softly that she could only hear it because she sat right next to him. His heart melted a little.

She chewed her lip a little and patted his arm as if she'd discharged a duty. She turned a little towards him and said, "Peter - please understand that I am not as untutored in complicated relationships as perhaps you think I am. I have lived a long life, full of adventures both romantic and not. What you are doing is very difficult even under normal circumstances. The … man … you have chosen to be with is not normal. I know you are capable of a great deal, but know that he will test you. He will test you greatly," she said, looking directly into his eyes. "There are many paths before you, Peter. You need not walk with him on his."

Peter sighed and looked away, tilting his head to the side. He shook it slightly. "And here I thought you'd seen something of the future and were trying to help me." His voice was bitter.

"I _have_ and I _am_."

He looked back at her for a moment and then shook his head again. "You're going to twist it to your own purposes. I don't want to hear it." He started to rise and she gripped his arm, contesting his action. After a moment, he sank back down. She'd told him she was happy for him, at least … even if he thought now that was probably some manipulative ploy to make him listen to this other part. "I've really had enough of people telling me not to be with him, Ma."

"Is it beyond you to understand that I come by my feelings and judgments as legitimately as you have come by your own?"

Very quiet and low, in a tense voice, he said, "You seem to think there's something wrong with me because of my orientation."

"I love you, Peter, whether there are things wrong with you or not." She sounded exasperated.

He tensed and tugged against the grip she had on his arm. She didn't let go and he didn't pull harder. She said, "Peter! I am not telling you not to be with him. I am trying to tell you that just because you wear this watch doesn't mean you have to understand what goes on beyond its face."

He lifted his eyes to hers, because that … almost made sense. "The path," he said, wonderingly, "You're not saying I shouldn't be with him, you're saying I shouldn't … activate his ability?" He felt her emotions clearly in response to that - she was flustered and surprised, but he couldn't tell from looking at her.

She removed her hand from his arm. "It was only a metaphor, Peter. But I would hope you wouldn't see a need to activate that particular ability again, regardless of what happens. It has taken Gabriel years and many trials to attain the tenuous control he has now. It would be a disaster for you. What I was _trying_ to say is that _your_ strength has always lain in different areas than Gabriel's. And you will have a need of that strength, very soon. You do _not_ fail him if you walk your own path. _**He**_ is the one who is trying to depart his old routes."

She patted his arm again, then stood. Emma had returned to the room. Angela smiled pleasantly and went to talk to her, leaving Peter pondering on the couch.


	249. Temptation

Peter intended to talk to Gabriel about his mother's news as soon as he saw him, but that night Gabe called it off between them. He said he had Company work and couldn't get free. Peter had gathered there was a big project going down in Europe, though he hadn't been privy to the details. He'd been contacted by Haroldson about what he'd charge for teleporting groups and doing healing for injuries too minor to warrant Claire's blood, but too severe to leave to conventional medical treatment or natural healing. The Company had two other teleporters, so after the incident with Noah, Peter didn't think he'd be first on anyone's list.

He tried not to think about whatever was going on, because it wasn't his business. The Company didn't take the time to put together large operations for peaceful folk who were doing their own harmless things. To those people they sent a simple team, picking one that was good at face. Large-scale activities like this were pulled out for people who were not only dangerous, but had _done_ something dangerous, and probably violent to boot. Peter went to their shared apartment and spent the time working out. He'd been doing a lot of that in the last few weeks, especially during the time when neither Gabriel nor Emma would have him. It was a way to channel stress.

It was after midnight when the call came in. He'd just been thinking about how he had time for two more reps before hitting the shower. His phone began playing one of the ring tones he'd installed just a couple days before, so he could easily pick out the callers he would always answer for, even in an emergency, from those who could go on to voicemail until he was free. This was the first time that particular caller had rang him since setting it up and Peter couldn't help but burst out laughing at how wildly inappropriate the song was.

_Tonight Imma fight,_

'_Til we see the sunlight._

_Tick tock on the clock-_

He answered it, still chuckling to himself. "Hey Gabe."

The other man's tone sobered Peter instantly. "Peter. I need you here, now. My study. Can you-"

Peter was there. Gabriel looked at him, snapping his phone shut. He hesitated, looking Peter up and down. Peter was barefoot, in cut off gym shorts and nothing else. "Oh-kay," Gabriel said, walking to him anyway and hurriedly unbuttoning his shirt. "Open your mind."

Peter nodded and did so. A moment later Gabriel was projecting a location to him - he had an impression of coordinates, then a city grid, then a local map and building numbers. He also had a sense, difficult to describe, of what Gabriel knew of the place. Gabriel hung his shirt around Peter's shoulders and said, "Take us there."

There were questions in Peter's mind. Gabriel projected quickly, _Agents - firefight - residential area - need backup - now!_ Peter didn't ask for more. They teleported. They were somewhere in Spain, in a mixed urban area, on a street corner. Although though Peter knew _where_ they were, he wasn't even sure what city they were in. It had been so fast that his conscious mind was still playing catch up.

"Shit," Gabriel said softly, spinning slowly, studying their surroundings. Dawn was approaching, but it was most of an hour away still.

"Is this the right place?" Peter asked, worried that he might have misunderstood.

Gabriel fixed on a direction and said, "Come on!" He didn't bother with running, but just took off horizontally, shooting down the street through the air. After a beat of hesitation and the feel of the gritty asphalt under his bare soles, Peter followed him in like manner. He grabbed at the shirt, hanging onto it.

There was a van parked crookedly about a block down. A woman dodged behind it as Gabriel landed. Peter came down next to him, managing to scrape his heels pretty badly. He hopped a little as they healed. Gabriel crouched, looking under the van for the woman's feet. "Senorita Barra?" Peter shrugged into the shirt and shape shifted to button it closed and adjust the size a little.

"Si?" the woman answered.

"Donde?"

"Ahi." She pointed, exposing no more than her hand to them.

Gabriel turned to the building next to them and went inside, gesturing silently for Peter to follow. Peter glanced back to see the woman peek out at them, gun drawn. She wasn't pointing it at them though. Peter didn't know but a few of the European agents. He turned and went through the door.

It was completely dark inside, but Peter saw the form of a man lying on the floor, dimly illuminated from outside. Gabriel had stepped past him like he was so much human-shaped refuse. Peter knelt immediately, summoning light, only to see that he was dead - not just dead, but desiccated. All the moisture had been sucked from his body. There was an ability that did this, though Peter had never seen the effects firsthand.

There was a bang of a door slamming upstairs and a crackle from Gabriel, whose palms lit up with electricity. He held his hands before him, finding stairs and navigating up them. Peter left the deceased and shone his light past Gabriel, who moved faster with the increased visibility. They reached the second floor to see another man down, but not dead. He stared at them blankly; his hands and face twitched erratically.

There was a flurry of activity down the hall as two people ran out of a room, looked down the hall and saw them, then rushed in the other direction. Almost at the same time, a gunshot rang out behind a door to their right. Gabriel pointed at the people fleeing. "Peter - them!" He turned to the door and it flew open before him.

Peter dashed after his targets, hoping Gabriel could handle whatever unknown dangers were behind the door. From that direction, he heard another shot, then someone unfamiliar yell, "He's down!" in American-accented English. The next moment, three more people barreled out into the hall in front of him from where the two had come from. Peter skidded to a halt. A flashlight was played over him quickly. He brought his hands up to show he was unarmed. Light still emanated from them.

As soon as they saw that and before Peter could say anything, he was shot, point blank, center of the chest. It was followed a second later with another bullet. He was knocked back against the wall. Two of his assailants, whom he suspected, due to the Company issue armor and armaments, were on his team, had a quick conference in Spanish. They turned and hustled off down the hall. The other yanked out a flashlight and shined it at his chest.

It was a thin shirt. The bullet holes and blood were obvious. The man was satisfied Peter had taken mortal wounds and started to leave.

"Hey, don't shoot me again."

That startled the guy, who spun and pointed his gun again. There was a long, teetering moment of indecision. Then, "Don't move." He had a slight accent but at the moment Peter couldn't place it. This time he shined the light in Peter's face. He blinked at the glare. "Who are you?" the man demanded.

"Peter Petrelli. Reinforcements." _Bullet-catcher, more like_.

Down the hall, a body was being levitated out of the room. The faint light from Gabriel's electricity told Peter his lover was fine. There was someone with him with a flashlight. It flicked down in their direction.

"Can I get up?" Peter asked.

"Yeah," his captor said, sounding put-off. The man turned and headed after the other two. Peter considered his options and went back to Gabriel. He didn't know friend from foe and although he might be able to shed light, that only meant he made a nice target for people hunting unfamiliar specials.

The body that had been brought out was a woman, twitching and alive. Another of their agents, too, unless Peter missed his guess. There was a burned odor from her, like ozone. She'd been electrocuted, badly. He had a free pass on healing. He used it. A moment later she was fine. He pointed her at the man slumped against the wall a few feet away. "Take care of him," Peter told her, though from what he could see, there was nothing much to take care of. The man had stopped twitching. At least on casual examination, he didn't look hurt as bad as she had been. Peter stood up and went in the other room, illuminating it more brightly.

Gabriel was looking down pensively at another body, this one in street clothes. Peter hurried to the man's side, but Gabriel intercepted him. "He's dead," he said roughly, catching Peter's arm solidly enough to stop his forward momentum entirely.

Peter shook loose and started to push past Gabriel, but he found the taller man harder to shift than he'd expected. Gabriel didn't give ground automatically. "I can heal him!" Peter exclaimed, giving Gabriel another futile push.

"He's dead, Peter. Your power doesn't work that way." The overhead lights kicked on feebly, like they weren't quite getting enough power.

Peter took a step back from him and looked Gabriel over. He was feeling something odd from him - nerves, unsettled, anxious … afraid. "Just let me look at him," he said softly. "That's all I'll do." Gabriel finally moved out of the way. Peter went to his knees next to the body. There was an entry wound in the chest, but it was impossible to tell what that really meant. Even though it was directly over the heart, the angle and possible deflection from the ribs could put the bullet anywhere.

He shifted the body very carefully, looking for an exit wound. There was none, but there was a bulge on his back. He felt of it very gently. It was soft and spongy. He surmised the bullet had hit the spine and lowered the man. He would have worried he was doing irrevocable damage with the movement, but if the man was alive then Peter could heal every injury he had, even the ones he'd gained in the examination. Assuming of course Gabriel allowed it. He needed permission now, Peter realized with bitterness. He checked for a pulse. There was none.

Gabriel walked to the opposite side of the body and knelt there, watching Peter closely.

The man hadn't bled much. If the spot in his back was the straight-line trajectory of the bullet, then it had probably passed through the upper portion of his heart, which would have killed him almost instantly. It at least stopped the heart, resulted in massive internal bleeding and in this case also shattered the spine. He glanced at Gabriel. While he was right that Peter's healing power couldn't bring back the dead, by what measure was a person truly dead? Peter had seen people with their hearts stopped for much longer than this revived through normal medical means without any long term ill effect.

"Can I try?" Peter asked. Gabriel stared at the body without answering. "Gabriel, I need an answer - yes or no. If he's really dead, I don't lose the power. It just loops inside of me."

Gabriel exhaled. "Go ahead. He's gone."

Peter put his hand over the man's chest. Peter tried to push in his healing, but it was just like the two times before that he'd tried to heal the dead. Once it had been a car accident victim. She'd been dead for many long minutes before he got to her. The other time was Heidi, who had been dead about the same length of time. This man was less, but it still didn't work. He tried what had worked with Heidi. He tried to summon his empathy, but he didn't know this man. He imagined how he must have felt: fear, anger, isolation. He looked at him and felt sorry for him. He felt all kinds of things, but his healing ability was still blocked.

He rocked back, hissing through his teeth, frustrated. The man's brain hadn't even had enough time to suffocate! It took several minutes of no blood flow for the brain to sustain damage and it simply hadn't been that long. Peter had been restored by Jeremy Greer after taking a shotgun blast to the chest, but on the other hand that had been mere seconds. Peter hadn't even lost consciousness. Why would the ability balk _now?_

Gabriel looked rapidly between him and the man. "He's still dead," he said unhelpfully.

Peter barely avoided snapping _'I know that' _at him. Instead he exhaled forcefully and said, "You're right. He's dead. I can't bring him back."

"You're sure?"

_Why would he even ask?_ Peter heard a noise and looked up. The lights had brightened to a normal level. Whatever had been cutting the electricity was gone. He could see a semi-familiar face at the door. It was Eric Thompson, Jr., or at least what Eric Thompson, Jr. would look like with a goatee and dark hair. He had to be one of those clones Gabriel had told him about. Peter looked to Gabriel and said, "I'm sure." He studied the man on the floor. Gabriel stared at the body too, clenching and unclenching his fists restlessly. It was when he began to wring his hands that Peter suddenly clicked to what was going on. Their target had had an ability.

Peter leaned forward a little, dipping his head to look into Gabriel's face. "Hey. He's _**dead.**_ You … your ability doesn't work on the dead any more than mine does."

A sound escaped Gabriel's lips that might have been a bark of laughter. He cut it short, biting his lip and shaking his head. He reached out uncertain fingers to touch the man and then jerked them back. He hugged himself, trapping his hands in his armpits so he couldn't reach out again. "It works. Samson's ability … and Sylar's. They're more together than they were individually. It works on the dead."

Peter stood, breathing shallowly as he digested that. Noah had mentioned, more than a year before, that some very similar abilities would layer and interact with one another in unexpected ways. Peter had noticed it with regeneration once he had it from both Claire and Arthur. Noah had speculated there might be unknown effects from layering two close variants of intuitive aptitude. Peter had asked Gabriel only a few months before if he'd been involved in the executions of dangerous specials. Gabriel had denied it. He'd stayed well clear of such things, in fact - avoiding temptation. Now here it was on the floor in front of him.

Peter looked back at Eric - or whatever his name was. The man merely shrugged, watching the two of them, probably waiting to find out what they were doing here. Gabriel began to rock back and forth, still staring at the corpse. Peter knew he had to act. This had to be the test then that his mother had spoken of. It didn't seem that tough - but what was it he was supposed to do here? Be understanding, or judgmental? Or both?

He walked around to his partner's side and knelt beside him. He reached out slowly and touched Gabriel's knee, not wanting to provoke anything, but still trying to reach him. Gabriel looked up at him with intense, hungry eyes. Peter said, "I … I can't bring him back. He's dead." He hesitated, not at all sure of what he was saying. "It's okay."

Gabriel's hand shot out suddenly, grabbing Peter's bloodstained shirt. When Peter didn't move, he twisted his hand in it, wrapping the fabric tightly around his fist and jerking Peter forward a few inches. He snarled, "Why are you trying to talk me into it?"

Peter reached up and rested his hand over Gabriel's. Then he met the man's eyes. "Because it's not my place to talk you _out_ of it. You said you weren't a victim of your ability."

Gabriel released him slowly.

Peter continued, "Using it has to be _your_ decision. It's not mine. He's **dead**. He wasn't killed for this. It just happened." He paused and glanced at the body, then his eyes locked with Gabriel's again. "You have to decide what you can live with."

Gabriel cocked his head in one of Sylar's gestures. "What can _**you**_ live with, Peter?"

"Whatever you decide is right. I'll stay with you …" Peter nodded. "… either way." He rose to his feet, not at all sure of what he was doing, either, but it felt right and sometimes that's all a person had to go on. He walked over to the agent who looked like Eric. "Come on," he said to the other man and with one last glance at Gabriel, they walked out. Peter pulled the door to behind him. It wouldn't shut perfectly, but it granted some privacy.

Outside, Peter leaned against the wall, staring straight ahead and trying to gather his thoughts. _I can't think of what this means. Is it wrong? Is it just like organ harvest? But even if it was, people get a choice about that. This guy didn't get a choice. It's the choice that matters and he didn't choose it. Should I go back in there and stop him? Should I trust him to do the right thing? Is he even _capable_ of controlling himself? Was he relying on me to stop him? Am I abandoning him when he needs me?_

He straightened. _I made my decision. I left it up to him. I have to know what he'd do … He didn't kill that guy - he doesn't even have a gun, so he wasn't the one who shot him. I should go back in there … No, that's not right. If he decides to do it, then that's how it is and I have to just go on, because he would have let me stop him and I didn't. I made that decision. I have to live with the consequences just like he does._

Eric was still standing there, watching him as impassively as he'd watched Gabriel. Peter pulled himself together. "What's your name?"

"Derek Von Krag."

_Derek - great. Makes it easy to remember at least._ "I'm Peter Petrelli." The man's eyes slipped up and down him and Peter realized he was still barefoot and in gym shorts. _Good professional image I'm presenting here. Great first impression, Pete._ "Who's in charge of the team?"

"I am." He gave Peter an expression somewhere between a shark-like grin and a snarl. "Battlefield promotion. The vampire got my boss."

"Vampire?"

"The blood-sucker."

Peter thought about the desiccated corpse. The description of the power he was familiar with was that it drew all the moisture out of a body or object, but he supposed drawing the blood out was basically the same thing. It just had bizarre connotations with popular mythology. It wouldn't be the first ability that did. "Okay. You need to contact the European district manager-"

"That was my boss," Derek interrupted.

"Oh." Next level up was directors and although there were a couple assigned to European operations (and one was probably around here somewhere, or in a control center nearby), the director-on-scene always trumped. "Okay, then … wait until the director is done in there," Peter hooked his thumb in Gabriel's direction. "Then he'll tell you what to do."

Derek eyed him closely, like he was memorizing Peter's face. "You're a contractor?"

"Yeah."

"And a Petrelli?"

"Yeah." Peter's eyes narrowed at the man, who shrugged and turned his back on Peter in a deliberate insult. Peter sighed inside. He'd heard enough about Eric Thompson, Jr. to know what the correct answer was to this. The woman he'd healed earlier was watching and so was the injured man she was tending. He didn't really _need_ to assert himself here, but it seemed pretty likely that they'd have to work together again at some point. He couldn't let this pass unanswered.

Derek was getting out his radio when Peter grabbed the back of his neck and rammed him hard into the wall, face-first. If he was like his clones, Derek was almost preternaturally tough. He punched him in the back, trying to hit the pressure points under and along the short ribs, to hurt him without doing much real damage. From Derek's pained grunt, he was successful. _Thank you, Noah Bennet,_ Peter thought. Aloud he said, "Don't turn your back on me."

The door to the room Gabriel was in opened. Peter released the much larger man whom he was holding effortlessly due to enhanced strength. Derek turned and gave Peter a subordinate and respectful nod before looking to Gabriel, who raised a single brow. Gabriel asked, "Everything under control out here?"

Derek let Peter answer first, who merely said, "Fine." Peter looked Gabriel over. He wasn't bloody, but given his abilities that really didn't tell him anything. How long did it take to use intuitive aptitude? Originally it seemed that Sylar had taken quite a while to gain a new ability, as he'd sought privacy and sequestration. Later though, as he apparently became more practiced, he got bolder. Towards the end, using it took no more than a few minutes - and Gabriel had had that much time. It seemed to Peter that Samson's variant was more elaborate, but he really didn't know. Also, it might be that Gabriel could use one and not the other.

Derek stepped forward and started giving a report. Peter suppressed the urge to go in the other room and look at the body. Instead he turned to help the injured man get to his feet and down the stairs to the van. Gabriel joined them on the street shortly thereafter. Peter bit his lip and looked up at the building, trying to think of an excuse to go check that didn't sound like he was checking. Finally he asked, "What are you going to do about the body?"

Gabriel told him, "I disintegrated it. I'll have Faisal or Maury send a clean-up crew."

Well, that settled that. There was nothing to see. Now that the urge to_ see_ was gone, the urge to _ask_ took its place.

The rest of the team loaded up in the van, along with the one special they'd managed to catch. The 'vampire' had gotten away. The woman they had caught possessed plant growth, which had been of no assistance in getting away. When cornered, she'd surrendered.

Gabriel patted Peter's shoulder. "We need to get out of here, and we're bringing Alan with us. We need to go to the Pinehearst facility." 'Alan' was the dried out corpse. Given the Company's health plan (and Claire's blood), he'd probably be up and walking around within an hour - something that couldn't be said of the man whose corpse had been left in the room with Gabriel. The Company's selectiveness with who they helped bothered the hell out of Peter. The van pulled away.

Peter blinked and looked down. He looked at the corpse Gabriel had levitated outside. _I shouldn't ask. It would be doubting him. It would be passing judgment. I can't pass judgment on him. Not on this. I know the hunger. The man was dead. I told him it was okay. If I have a strength, it's being understanding - it's forgiving. Stop trying to judge._

Gabriel hooked his arm around Peter's neck and gave him a noogie. It was so surprising that Peter didn't react for a moment, then he struggled away, calling out, "Stop that! Hey!"

"Come here," Gabriel said more softly, reaching out slowly to put his arm around Peter's neck again. Peter let him, still wary. He relaxed when Gabriel leaned in cheek to cheek. He whispered in Peter's ear, "I didn't do it," and Peter let out a sigh of relief before he could catch himself.

Gabriel drew away, watching Peter closely. Peter was blinking and still looking down, stealing sideways glances at the other man. Gabriel reached over, again telegraphing his motion, and caught Peter's chin. "Can you look at me now?" he asked as he moved Peter to face him.

Peter smiled, realizing his body language had given away his apprehensions far more clearly than any words would have. He looked directly into Gabriel's eyes and saw worry and concern there, but also a steady determination that he had done the right thing. Peter leaned into him and kissed him. _Yes, you did the right thing. So did I, in trusting you._

As they parted and Peter brought together the idea of their destination before teleporting them out of there, Gabriel smirked and said, "It wasn't an ability I wanted anyway."


	250. The Waiting Game

Gabriel sat at the desk of Nathan Petrelli, attorney. It was Monday morning. He hadn't slept the night before, but he'd never really had a chance. By the time things wound down, it was 8 am in New York and he figured he might as well go into the office. He was too wired up to rest anyway.

He stared straight ahead, the latest allegation of industrial espionage in the ongoing intellectual property case lay before him, ignored. The only movement he made, aside from steady, shallow breaths, was the equally steady but far more rapid tapping of the index finger of his left hand. It moved two beats to the second, regular as clockwork.

_He said it was okay. I could do it. Next time, someone else. I could do it. What if I did? He wouldn't leave me. Or was that just that once? Just that one guy? He was already dead. But there will be more … more opportunities. And does it really matter if they're already dead or I kill them? He forgave me for Matt. What about someone else?_

_I should tell him, tell him I'm thinking about this. Fuck that - I should _ask_ him. Ask him if he'll let me. He has to ask if he can use healing. This is way more important._

_But I can't _ask_ him - because it's 'way more important'. If I ask him, he'll know I'm thinking about doing it and if I'm wrong, he'll stop me. Right now he's said it's okay. I could do it and it would be okay. He _**said**_ it would be okay._

_Then I should be able to ask him._

_No!_

_So I don't ask him. Should I tell him afterward? Or just keep it a secret? Can he detect abilities that well? I'm sure he can for… or he _should_ be able to for single abilities, but I'll bet if I added one it would just be lost in the wash. I'd really like to have invisibility. Or time travel. That Japanese goof is still alive. Not sure if he would work since he can hardly use his own ability anymore. Peter wouldn't suspect me of doing anything in Japan. And if the guy just disappeared without a trace, it wouldn't really be all that strange. He's done stuff like that before. On the other hand, if his ability works at all and he gets away, I'll be outed. Can't have that._

_If I can't stand Peter knowing, then that really says something about whether I should tell him beforehand._

_I can't tell him! He might stop me. __**I can't **_**have**_** that**__._

_I want to do it. Don't _have_ to. I'm in control. This is my choice. He said I could. He said it was okay. He said he'd stay with me even if I did it. But was it just that guy? And what does it mean to stay with me? Would he still love me? Would he love me less? Would he trust me less?_

_He _should_ trust me. I've never done anything to him. I've had him helpless in every way and I've never hurt him. I wouldn't hurt him. Would it hurt him for me to do this? Would I be able to convince him that it was just others and never him? Would I be able to convince him I was in control of it? I'm in control of it, aren't I?_

_What was that 12 step bullshit Matt Parkman was into? Admitting you had a problem… no, that wasn't the first step. Admitting you were powerless to deal with your problem. I think that was it. Total bullshit. I'm not powerless. I _**can**_ deal with this. I just don't want to. Probably shouldn't. I want power. I need power. I want more. It makes me safe. It makes me special. It's what makes me what I am._

_What I want to be._

_If Peter would let me take___**his**_ ability, he'd be fine and then I wouldn't even have to kill them. I could just drain them like he can. Or maybe I'd get his full ability and just gain their powers without them losing anything. Hell, even if I got just the one-shot crappy knock-off power, that might still be enough, if I could gain an ability and then use intuitive aptitude to figure it out, maybe I'd keep it when I swapped for something new? Maybe. But he won't. He said no. But then he said I could, in that letter. If I needed to. But I don't need to - I just want to. _

_Maybe I should tell him, and if he says no, then I'll have him let me take his ability. Or give him a choice - I do it the normal way or I take his ability and do it that way. … That is a really sick choice. He won't buy it. I don't want to lose him. I don't want to hurt him. Not like that. I'd be betraying him. I'd rather he was pissed off at me or thought I was some pathetic power junkie than have him think I'd violated him._

_Think? Ha. It wouldn't be 'think' - I _would_ have violated him. How would I feel if he used his ability to drain one of mine? Or all of them? It would be a fitting punishment._

_I can't let him know I'm even thinking about this. He doesn't want me thinking about it. He wouldn't trust me if he knew I was thinking about this. I'm not sure he trusts me now. The way he looked at me … he still didn't trust._

_He said it was like I was addicted. Maybe I could just _tell_ him I was powerless to stop it and then I could go ahead and do it and blame the hunger? No, bullshit. I'm not going to admit that. It's not true. He'd be able to hear that. And anyway, if he thought I couldn't control myself, he'd lock me up again. Or worse._

Gabriel's finger ceased tapping and for a moment he didn't breathe. A minute ticked by as his mind hung up on the void that marked the dissolution of Sylar and Nathan's discrete memories and personality traits. It was the most traumatic event he'd had in his life. His finger started up again, uneven at first, then finding the rhythm. He breathed.

_He wouldn't do that to me again. He wouldn't. He loves me. He wouldn't. He wouldn't. He wouldn't. He said he wouldn't._

_He loved Nathan… before, and he did it anyway._ His finger missed a beat, then went on.

_Maybe that was a mistake and he didn't realize it might kill off what was left of Nathan? Maybe he thought he didn't have a choice. I've never asked him. I wonder if I should? I don't want to. I don't want to know. Matt took his memories with him when I killed him. I don't really know. Maury could probably fish them out of me. But I don't want to know. I don't. The answer's pretty clear. Peter wanted me dead. He _should_ have wanted me dead. I should have been killed. He only kept me because of Nathan._

_Is that why he keeps me now?_

_It can't be. He loves _**me**_. He knows _**me**_. I'm not some consolation prize._

_But if it's me he loves and not Nathan, then wouldn't he be okay with me taking a new ability? He already said it was okay._

_But the guy was dead. And there was one of those fucking trick questions in there - "You have to decide what you can live with." What the fuck sort of question is that? Does that mean I'll have to live with the consequences, like losing him? He said I wouldn't lose him … but that was for a dead guy and I didn't kill him and Peter was absolutely sure of that. It might be different if I go kill someone. It probably will be._

_I should ask him. I should tell him._

_I can't! If I'm wrong, he'll lock me up. Or… I can't. He wouldn't. I can't!_ He shifted slightly in his seat like the position was uncomfortable, still staring off into nothingness, still tapping evenly.

_It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. It's not like he can stop me. Especially if he doesn't know._

_But he could leave me. And he'll find out, eventually._

_He wasn't worth having if he decides to do that._

He shut his eyes and his finger stopped tapping, but he breathed steadily. The voice in his head, the voice that just his own thoughts, his inner dialogue, was becoming … voices, plural. It was disturbing. One voice was him?; the other was the devil's advocate. Or … no, merely the devil. _Sylar._ He shuddered. Having named it, the voice grew more distinct.

_I can do it. I know how to hide:_ The memory of a cool, dry hand on his forehead, the knowledge imparted in concepts, fully formed, instantly and irrevocably deposited in his brain by Arthur Petrelli.

_Things I did not wish to know._ Anguish tore at him. What was it that book about the magical boy claimed? That killing someone tears one's soul in half? He'd killed enough to know that wasn't true, but _this_ … something was tearing inside of him now. Peter had ruined him with two simple words, said in love: 'it's okay.' Gabriel was in agony inside, his identity in dissolution. Sylar was incomplete, a shadow and two-dimensional, but full of wrath and emotion, an outlet for all those things Gabriel knew better than to let loose.

_Yes, of course_, this new/old voice purred._ Things you don't _have_ to know. Let _**me**_ know them instead. Things Peter doesn't have to know. And I'll still have the abilities in both minds. I'll just refrain from using them when Peter is around. _Another memory, of Maury Parkman telling him, "… you might be the most compartmentalized person I've ever seen who didn't go all the way and have multiple personalities. It would be easier that way, you know?" _Easier. Simpler. Less complicated. It's not a cop-out. It's just efficient._ "Easier to segment, to justify, to rationalize. This way you always have to deal with everything. Can't shove off responsibility to anyone else. … This is the hard way."

_Shove off the responsibility?_

_Yes, let me take it._

_I shouldn't do it. He doesn't want me to do it._

_He said it was okay. And it's who I am. I said I wasn't going to hide who I was from him anymore._

_No, it's who I used to be._

_Isn't it who I _want_ to be? Isn't that why I was hiding from him? Because otherwise, you know, it's something in my past that I've put behind me, like everything else, and we're going forward without it. The only reason I was hiding was because that part of me wasn't gone. I kept thinking that if he accepted it, then maybe I could be that person again. Think of it this way: what would Nathan do? Because I'm pretty sure he'd do this. He was a bit of an immoral bastard that way. If you think he only loves me for Nathan, then think about that. If it's Sylar he loves, then it's a simple decision._

_I don't want to be Sylar anymore. I don't want to be Nathan. Why are my choices defined by them, anyway? They both defined themselves by everyone else. Do I really want to just go off and be some insignificant watchmaker? _

_Sylar wasn't insignificant! You're the watchmaker. _**I**_ am what came after._

_Am I _**ever**_ insignificant if Peter loves me? What ability is worth threatening that?_

_Then let's think about what I might lose if I do it …_

_My sanity?_

_Ha. No. I'm as sane as anyone else - which, sadly, isn't saying much. There's not much to lose here, really, other than maybe Peter - and that's a maybe. _

_The most important 'maybe.'_

_I think Heidi would be okay with it. So would Angela, as long as I was reasonably discreet. Hell, she might even help me out. Wouldn't be the first time, or the second. Hm… maybe I should ask _her_._

_I almost went crazy last year because I was listening to her. It was only after Peter took me in that I got sane again, became happy with myself, really happy. I am __**so happy**__ when I'm with him._

_Well, going to Angela is just a thought. I'll come back to that. There's still the problem of Peter. He won't like this. I'm not insensitive to that, Sylar or not. … I love him too._

_I could wait until there was someone else dead. I could just be patient. Yes, I think that might be best. Just be patient. It shows I'm in control. Because I __**am**__ in control. I'll wait. An opportunity will present itself. Then I'll take it._

He blinked down at his work. He really needed to get to it. Sylar would bide his time.


	251. Texting 1 2 3

**A/N: This is a text conversation from Monday afternoon, the same day as "The Waiting Game." Gabriel can't figure out punctuation or capitalization. Gabriel **_**could**_** have called, he just … didn't.**

G: hey

P: Hey b

G: b what

P: back

G: ok i

G: m going to spain in an hour

P: rly?

G: yes i

G: ll be back thuesday

P: Tue or Thur?

G: thursday

P: k need me?

G: always

G: but no

P: k

G: love you

P: U 2

G: never texted much before

P: I do all time w Em

G: way to make me feel special

P: Jealous?

P: G?

P: Dnt b that way

G: what are you doing

P: Work. U?

G: texting u

P: Ha. Faisal taking u?

G: yes

P: K

G: u on a call

P: No. Btwn calls

G: k miss u already

P: Sweet

G: what

P: Miss u 2

P: Ur good to me

G: really

P: Ya, rly

G: i want to b

P: U R

G: would u still lov me if I wasnt good to others

P: Heidi?

G: no others we don't know

P: like rude?

G: no just not good

P: dnt understand

G: never mind we need to talk

P: k call?

G: faisal here bye luv

P: Bye


	252. The Last of the Airbender

**A/N: Warning for gore. Oh, and murder. Several murders, in fact. Note that I do not usually warn for these things. I do not sugarcoat Intuitive Aptitude here (or much of anything else - just so you know).**

Gabriel was moving with a small group - Derek, Jason and Cinnamond. They were hunting, stalking their prey and while Gabriel had never done that as part of a group, he reveled in the opportunity to do it at all. The man they were hunting was jokingly called the Last Airbender, though his real name was Hanke Rupesh. He was an aerokineticist who had eluded Noah and Peter, among others, in Germany only a few months before. The Company still had his wife and infant daughter incarcerated. She'd been pregnant when Peter had caught her.

Their target had run an extortion ring for a while, though since his German operation was broken up, he'd set his sights higher. Now he was contacting governments and offering "services", most of which boiled down to not turning his own or his new allies' abilities on the citizenry. It was the same song and dance as his previous vocation, but with more allies and on a bigger scale. Two days before the Company had taken out two of these allies - one who could control plants and thereby blight farmland, and another who could shut down electrical grids.

It was this latter whom Gabriel had tasted briefly. It was just the slightest of touches, to see what the ability was and what it did without actually taking it. It was curiosity that drove his power: a burning, hungering curiosity, an urge to know, to look, to see and to have. Maybe if he just knew a little, it would be enough. It hadn't been, and so just like when his obsession with the nuts had threatened to overwhelm him, he'd destroyed the body before he could go further. Temptation removed. He was safe.

None of the three agents with him today had abilities. He'd been allowed to pick his team and his selection looked rational for almost any sort of inspection. He had considered this carefully, in case such an examination were made. Us and Them was satisfied and if there were three of them and one of him it was only fitting because he had a multiplicity of abilities. Taking three seasoned agents (even if Jason and Cinnamond had only been on a handful of missions each, they at least weren't green) freed up what limited specials they had to be paired elsewhere.

Their current activities were mundane enough. They drove to one location after another seeking after their target. One of his companions could deflect abilities, including mental ones such as Molly's. All she got when she tried to read Hanke's location lately was her own. Eventually, the man would be without his protector. Until then, they had to hope they got lucky, by checking locations of his known associates, or other places they had leads on. Their investigations were carried out plains-clothes, with a minimum of armor and weaponry.

With their last update from command control, it sounded like luck might have decided to smile on them. Molly had been checking the location of a man seen with Hanke the day before and she suddenly found herself - her own location. One moment he was in southern France and the next Boston. The ability deflector was with him. She relayed on the last known location. Gabriel immediately redeployed his group.

He would have to hope the target was still there when they arrived. He could have called Peter. Peter might be in bed, but with his help they'd have been there in five minutes, not the twenty it took them otherwise. Gabriel told himself he didn't want to impose. He told himself it was unfair to take advantage of his relationship with Peter that way. He told himself whatever he needed to. But there was a voice deep inside, Sylar's voice, who told him they didn't want Peter there in case the inevitable happened.

And it _had_ become inevitable. Maybe not this time, but the next or the next after that. Sylar- no, Gabriel (… or was it Sylar after all?) had hand-picked his agents - no abilities, nothing to distract him. His hunger was gnawing at him like a starving animal at a bone and he had enough sense not to put anyone with an ability in front of himself that he didn't want to kill. Yet another reason to leave Peter out of it.

They arrived. He was glad to see it was a remote area, littered with businesses, sure, but it was late in the evening and working hours were long done. Empty parking lots spoke to him of few witnesses. Another reason for his three agents - Derek was amenable to mind control and well practiced at receiving orders. The other two were too inexperienced to resist it. None had high ratings for their mental defenses. Yes, Sylar had made his choices well.

They prowled out ahead of him, checking warehouses and businesses while he flew overhead, watching the traffic patterns, looking for pedestrians and parked cars that might indicate where their target was. It was Derek who saw them and managed to retreat for communication without giving himself away. Gabriel swept in.

Derek reported, "If I heard them right, they're arguing about that car. Something about having already paid more than it's worth. They're on a receiving dock - door's open. They're about ten or fifteen feet inside it, with folding chairs and a little table."

Gabriel nodded. "You said there were five of them?"

"Yes. Should I call for backup?" That would be standard, and expected. They should also report direct sighting of the target.

"No. No communications." The inevitable was at hand. He didn't want any more witnesses than they had. "Let's wait. The group will split up soon enough. We'll take them then." None of them questioned him, though both Jason and Cinnamond glanced uneasily between Derek and Gabriel. This was a departure from training and they knew it.

Five to four was not good odds, even when one of those four was Sy- Gabriel. He didn't know which of them deflected abilities. If Gabriel chose the wrong target, he might put himself out of the fight. And the other three - they might have abilities too, or they might not. There were too many wild cards. Waiting was an important aspect of hunting, often overlooked. Patience, and time, was on the side of the watchmaker. He left one of his agents to be lookout while he and the other two withdrew to the likely route of departure. They waited.

After another half hour, two of the five left and three, including their target, remained. The odds were better, but Gabriel still didn't like them. He was bulletproof; his men were not. Of course, neither were their foes (probably), but they had no rifles with them. Despite how television and movies liked to portray handguns, they were frightfully inaccurate at a distance even in the hands of an expert. Gabriel was a better shot with telekinesis and it had roughly the same limited range.

He asked Cinnamond, who was acting as lookout, "You said they have beer?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Tell me the next time one goes to the bathroom."

He turned to relate his plan. Fifteen minutes later, they had an opportunity, but the one in the bathroom was Hanke. That left a man and a woman on the receiving dock. Gabriel decided to go with it anyway. At worst he'd take out the one with ability deflection (well, not really worst - at worst he'd fail and get ended in some irrevocable manner). He came in fast by flight with Derek on his back, offloading him immediately. He focused Jesse's sound manipulation. All sound ceased. In eerie silence the man at the table stood and drew a gun. He pointed it at Gabriel. He made a good target, standing still and tall, intentionally drawing fire so Derek was not targeted. The man pulled the trigger. Still holding the silence, Gabriel caught the bullets with telekinesis.

Derek targeted the gunman in the man's moment of surprise, as he realized his weapon was ineffective. Before Derek could bring him down though, the silence collapsed in a roar of noise and a clap of thunder that knocked three of them to the ground - Gabriel, Derek and the gunman. The lone woman standing was the one who had, after a moment of considering how to do it, reversed the ability. Gabriel had been hoping that an area of effect ability would be outside her purview. After all, how did one reverse silence? And even if she did manage to do exactly as she had, Gabriel had planned for it.

Jason and Cinnamond shot her as they ran up.

Gabriel staggered to his feet. Derek was holding his gun in one hand and the side of his head with the other, trying to roll to his knees. The gunman, who had dropped his weapon when he fell, started trying to scramble away weakly. Gabriel considered catching him, but motion caught his eye instead. Hanke, the airbender, had returned, seen the cause was lost, and fled into the building. Gabriel relayed orders mentally - it was a faster form of communication, his hearing was just now coming back, and Derek was deafened anyway.

_Derek, get the gunman. Cin, Jason - flush Hanke through the building. I'll take him at the back._

He flew around to what he had thought was the rear of the structure. There was no door, because this was the side of the building, not the rear. Gabriel had made a mistake about its orientation, having not had the opportunity to get a thorough lay of the land. _What the hell? How the hell can the place have no exit on this side? God-damn it!_ He settled to the ground and took the precious, extra seconds to blow a hole in the wall with a combination of telekinesis and sonic projection.

In a live combat, a lot can happen in a few seconds. Bullets can fly, glass can be shattered, and an artificial wind can whip through it all, driving a hail of deadly projectiles into unarmored flesh. Gabriel came in with an unsubtle blast. Debris, and dust, went everywhere. His quarry was in here somewhere, but so too should have been two of his people. He moved inside and a whirlwind rose up around him. He tried to nullify the ability, but this was one that didn't lend itself too well to that particular trick. The wind lessened, but it didn't stop and objects already in motion continued. The dust was the worst because he couldn't see. He couldn't breathe either, but for now he held his breath.

Gabriel raised his hands over his eyes, palms outward as he tried to focus his telekinesis instead to ward off the particles. It was a crutch - telekinesis did not work well with liquids and hardly at all with air. Maybe he would have come up with a better solution a moment later, but he got shot while he was standing there blinded. Four times and down he went - large caliber hollow point rounds with plenty of stopping power. His assailant stood over him as the dust cleared rapidly. Hanke pumped several more slugs into him and a few into the surrounding floor.

Other than groaning loudly (because damn did it hurt), Gabriel played like he was dying from the wounds and prayed the aerokineticist didn't know who he was, or that he could regenerate. It seemed likely that he was ignorant. Not that there was much Hanke could do if he wasn't. Or maybe that was Sylar being overconfident.

His eyes were still partly open, gazing upwards. The airbender stood over him and spat on him, giving some curse in German. The music of his life force was sweet - long, sweeping stanzas with a rapid, pulsing beat driving them on, slowing just a bit as the man calmed. The other man looked at the gun, but it was out of bullets. Gabriel noticed it was a Company issue weapon. One that had, until moments ago, belonged to one of his people. One of his people, who was now most likely dead, if Hanke had one of their guns in his hand. _**His**_ people.

There were tools on the wall behind Hanke, over his shoulder from Gabriel's perspective on the floor. The ones still there were heavy and made of metal. Everything lightweight had been ripped away by scouring wind or concussive blast. Telekinesis grabbed a hand sledge and slammed it into the back of Hanke's hand, the one holding the gun. The percussive sound of bones breaking and the body reacting in surprise was gorgeous. Revenge had never sounded so musical.

Gabriel swung the hammer in an arc as Hanke tried to use his ability against the weighty object. It was too heavy for wind to deflect and he was hit again, this time on the clavicle, breaking his collarbone. As he staggered back, Gabriel spun the head of the hammer and smacked him squarely in the sternum. The man was knocked to the ground - ribs popping with a sucking, snapping sound something like pencils breaking, really, as a half dozen of them sprang free from the cartilage that joined them to his breastbone.

Hanke was in no danger of dying from his injuries, which had been intentional. Gabriel's ability worked on the dead, yes, but it worked _better _on the living. All he really cared was that the aerokineticist was in too much pain to summon his ability. It was Sylar who rose from the floor. He grabbed his victim by the collar. He drug him back a score of feet, the other man struggling the whole way, making muffled exclamations in German, to where he found the bodies of Cinnamond and Jason. Jason was still alive and clutching the two worst wounds he had, trying to prevent himself from bleeding out. Gabriel couldn't heal and he didn't have medical training - or at least that's what Sylar told himself as he drug the airbender out of Jason's sight. It was the explanation he gave himself for not even rendering first aid. At least he knew what had happened to them.

He threw the German down and crouched directly over his chest, knees splayed to either side of the man's shoulders, his buttocks on the man's ribcage enough to make him whimper and stammer in fear and pain. Sylar paused a moment to appreciate that respiratory indicator of his distress - most of it was emotional, anticipatory, frightened that Sylar would settle back and let his weight crush the man's already damaged chest. Sylar grinned at him. He opened his mouth and rolled his neck slowly, feeling that energy flow around and through him: _fear_. His own breathing deepened. He looked down at Hanke and a thin ribbon of saliva fell from his mouth onto the man's chin. Sylar was literally drooling. It had been _**so long**_ …

The man had fallen silent, confused, not sure what was about to happen. Sylar fixed his head in place with telekinesis and began with the skull. That was the quickest route to the ability and he didn't know how much time he had. He lost himself immediately, giving himself over with a totality he'd only experienced twice before - for Brian Davis, and for Matt Parkman. For these, he had not let himself feel regret. He thought of nothing but the power, feeling it run through his veins and spark against every neuron - a firestorm of exultation, a religious ecstasy, he was one with everything Hanke Rupesh had been. A more perfect union than near-literal consumption, Sylar did not know.

Time passed - glorious, glorious time and every second that ticked by was a miracle and a fantasy simultaneously. He felt like he existed beyond this mortal plane, in some other dimension, knowing all, seeing all, understanding all. He knew when he came back from this high, he would bring with him a proof of that other state - that momentary deification. He'd bring back a power that no mortal man could explain or conjure, a _**extra**_-ordinary ability, the mere possession of which made him special beyond his mother's wildest dreams and he would have not just that, but every ability he'd taken before. None could rival him!

But something was imperfect.

He was being interfered with.

He was being interfered with and he wasn't _done_.

The hunger was too basic and primitive an urge to understand _why_ he was being interfered with and so with difficulty, his conscious mind was roused from the drunken, dopamine-drenched trip he was on. He could barely string together two coherent thoughts that related to the material plane of existence rather than the headspace he was lost in, but the ones that came to mind were: _cops, fighting._ He had been drug back and away from the corpse, or what he assumed was the corpse. It was hardly recognizable as human in the incomplete state, skin peeled back and partly removed, muscles and organs grotesquely naked to the world.

It was amazing, really, that they hadn't merely shot him. He threw the female one away rather ineptly as the male tried to finish handcuffing him. Frustrated by that, he yanked his uncuffed hand away from the man, easier than it should have been because his arms were slick with blood and bits of fascia from the elbows down. Sylar staggered and twisted, slashing with a quick gesture and an ability that was so innate he could reach it even under these circumstances. The policeman who had interfered with him now grabbed at his own throat, where the soft flesh had parted as if spontaneously, by itself. Dark, hot blood welled out in rapid surges, keeping time with the man's heart, the symphony of his existence entering the final movement. He looked confused - and he was.

_Nathan_. Gabriel reached up to his own throat, remembering what that had felt like and coming to himself rather suddenly. He remembered the warmth down his front, a somehow friendly sensation, pleasant almost. He remembered the taste, overwhelming, choking him and making him want to gag. He recalled the perfect clarity that this was a fatal injury and that unlike when he'd been trapped in that fiery cockpit after the landing accident with the jet; or after the bailout over Serbia at night, under enemy fire; or the scalding heat of Peter's explosion; or the impact of sudden bullets to his chest in the middle of a press conference - he wasn't getting out of this one. He remembered looking at Sylar and grasping at his final thoughts. He'd wanted mercy, there at the end, but without the slightest pleading or begging. It was just a request, a simple and common request, one that nearly every human being possessed of self-awareness had - _please, treat my death with dignity._

Now was when the other cop decided to shoot him. Three bullets slammed into him, and Gabriel swayed, but that was all. They were small caliber rounds - she did not possess a weapon that might reasonably threaten one such as he. He looked at the woman. If he had to kill again, he would be violently ill, and so with difficulty he dredged up the next easiest ability: _Run_. She did. He turned, sagging, and stared at the German's body. The last of the three bullets plinked to the ground before him, unnoticed. He reached up and put his hand on the side of his face, then ran it up across his forehead and through his hair, inadvertently soiling himself with blood and bits of thicker matter the whole way through. He gave his head a shake, trying to focus. His ears were full of the siren call to return to his task.

He fell to his knees and gagged, retching at the memory of blood in his throat and his heart slowing, his vision clouding. He'd never seen Nathan's death so clearly as he did today. It had always been glimpses and usually leavened with equal scenes from Sylar's perspective. Behind him he could hear the gurgles and spasmodic kicking of the dying policeman. Nathan must have made sounds like that, but Sylar had left the room and Nathan's capacity for hearing himself and remembering it would have been gone. He gagged again and this time vomited. Was the effluvia dark? Had he been so long without taking an ability that he'd reverted and consumed … something? He retched until his guts were a throbbing knot of pain, until he was crying.

He knew he couldn't leave. He had to … no, he didn't have to … finish. He moved to the corpse of the aerokineticist and summoned what little self-control he had. He stood in the face of the hunger and defied it for only a moment - just long enough to find disintegration among his many abilities and activate it. The destruction of the body caused a spiritual snap within him that stabbed him to the core, but he didn't care. It didn't hurt nearly as bad as it would have to have continued. What he'd done was already bad enough.

He panted, getting control of himself. He disintegrated off the dangling handcuff. Where were his people? Derek at least should be around. A quick search did not turn up anyone he was looking for, or their bodies - not Jason, Cinnamond, Derek, the gunman, or the ability blocker. He disintegrated the policeman too, when he thought the man was dead enough not to feel it. He heard a distant, warbling police siren and left the building out the far side. He took to the air, letting the night hide him. Flying, he shape shifted to Nathan instinctively.

Conveniently, it also shed most of the blood. Nathan didn't like to have his hands dirty. For a while at least, he could pretend to be someone who didn't suffer from the hunger, someone who'd survived much, had a good life with many loved ones, with Peter, and … he could pretend that that undignified end of having his consciousness stuffed into a demented serial killer's head had never happened.


	253. Secondary Alexithymia

**A/N: Alexithymia: a state of deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing emotions. "Secondary alexithymia" … is state-dependent and disappears after the evoking stressful situation has changed.**

Peter didn't have a clue. Heidi gave him one. She called, at about five minutes to nine on Thursday night, saying, "Peter?"

"Yeah?" There were only three people he would have answered the phone for at that moment - Heidi, Gabriel, or a text from Emma. With the state of his life, the possibility of an emergency was always there, so no matter what he was doing, if they called, he answered. Madonna's "Material Girl" was perhaps not the most fitting of choices for the ring tone, though it was at least quite memorable.

"Nathan … he just left, so he should be at your place in a few minutes."

"Uh-huh." He wasn't all that pleased with the interruption though, so if all she was doing was calling to let him know Gabriel was on his way, then Peter was going to be annoyed. He'd been in the middle of prepping. It had been five days, which maybe for most couples wasn't the end of the world, but he thought it was possible Gabriel wouldn't be all that inclined to be patient. And so he was on the bed, holding the phone with his clean hand, wishing the conversation would end already. "Well, I'll see him soon then, alright?" He added, putting that lilt into one's voice you use at the end of the call, that 'I'm going to get off the phone now' tone of voice.

"Peter, there's something wrong." That stopped him. She continued before he could ask what it was. "He's not himself and I mean that … almost literally. It's like he's a different person, again."

Prepping suddenly got a lot less important. "Do you mean he's been replaced by a shape-shifter?" And one stupid enough to think he could pull off an act with both Heidi and Peter? It would have made more sense to just stay away longer. Peter was very sure the mission had taken the described five days, but excuses could have been made. Just the night before he'd teleported to France, after a conference with his spouses (Gabriel included, though to be honest he'd been a bit monosyllabic on the phone) to use healing on Derek.

Ruptured eardrums were simple to heal with the ability, taking very little energy, but they had a disproportionate effect on a person's life. More to the point, really, the Company paid him handsomely for the service and Peter's finances had been tapped hard in the last month. He refused to make gold for money or tap into his trust fund, although he regarded money earned from the Company as honest enough in most cases.

"No, I don't think so," Heidi said. "He's just … Peter, I don't know how to describe it. You'll see for yourself, maybe? It's a thing with this ability I have. He's just not the same. I wanted you to know, so you'd be paying attention - not that I think you could miss this one blind-folded."

"Okay. I will. Was he okay?" He put the lube back on the nightstand and went in the bathroom to wash.

"I don't think so."

"No, I'm sorry. What I meant was, was he okay to _you?_ And the kids? Is he safe to be around, that sort of thing? Are you guys alright?"

"Yes, we're fine. He's never been that way."

He nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "Okay. Thanks for the heads-up."

"Let me know if you figure anything out, alright?"

"I will." He dried his hand off, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder for a moment. "It might not be convenient for me to call for a while, you know?"

"I know."

"Okay. I gotta finish getting ready. Good-bye."

Getting ready didn't take much more than pulling on his pajama pants. He was already wearing a t-shirt. After that he sat on the couch, trying to think of what might have happened. Derek hadn't said anything and Peter hadn't asked much in the way of questions either. His mind went back over what he'd heard, but nothing really jumped out at him as suspicious or odd.

Gabriel came in a few minutes later. He took in Peter's informal attire and gave him a polite smile. Peter stood from the couch. Gabriel walked over to him slowly and slipped one hand around Peter's waist while the other went behind his head to cradle him. Peter tilted for him, parting his lips and Gabriel bent slightly to kiss him.

For a moment, that was normal - everything seemed right. But as it went on … he was different all right. While there was certainly an intensity to the kiss, there was no passion. Their bodies didn't press together, his left hand held Peter's head steady and his right was equally still where it rested on the small of his back. They'd been apart for _five days_, not even seen each other once during that, hardly talked on the phone, and Gabriel finished the kiss, gave him a light smooch in parting, and sat down on the couch. He looked at Peter with an expression that was generally content. He wasn't all over him. Peter wasn't being affectionately and enthusiastically mauled. There was no groaning, no humping, no lust - no nothing. He was vacant and his emotions even more so than his behavior. There was almost nothing there, emotionally, under Peter's hands when he touched him.

Peter felt deeply disappointed and he would have blamed _himself_ as the cause of Gabriel's profound disinterest if Heidi hadn't called. Now his guesses about the cause of the change switched from an imposter or shape-shifter to mental damage. He sat down a polite distance away, turning to face Gabriel, tucking one leg under his body. "So how did it go?"

Gabriel shrugged one shoulder. "We were successful."

"Uh-huh. What happened?"

"We got the ringleader - Hanke Rupesh, the airbender. The problem is taken care of."

Peter hesitated, but like with 'we were successful', Gabriel showed no sign of elaborating unless pressed. "We missed him in Germany, Noah and I. Tell me how it went down."

Peter didn't miss the steady, slightly deeper than usual inhale and exhale. "There was a fight. It didn't go well. I lost two of my men. Derek was deafened, but you knew that."

Peter nodded. All of this he already knew. "Go on."

Gabriel's eyes flicked to him in the first solid emotion Peter had seen - annoyance - like he would rather leave the description at that. "We attacked them. Their ability deflector turned back my field of silence on Derek and I. Hanke killed the other two. I killed him. The scene was difficult to clean."

_All true._ "How so?"

"There had been a lot of noise, dead bodies. The police arrived faster than I'd expected, before I was done." Gabriel looked off to the side, his face blank, like he was bored.

_Also true_. "What happened afterwards? Did you run into other people? Was there other clean up?"

Gabriel shrugged. "There was the normal excess of contacts and work and double-checking that goes with an operation like that."

_Too vague to make much of that, _Peter thought, though as far as lie detection went, it checked out as true. "Was Maury Parkman there?"

"Yes, but I never saw him. Europe's a big place, and he kept having Faisal teleport him back here to the states."

Peter sighed. Someone must have gotten to Gabriel mentally and it seemed likely Gabriel wasn't even aware of it. He wasn't acting stressed, just out of it - totally out of it. He considered using telepathy on him, or psychometry. The latter seemed like a better route. He'd freak about the former - or at least, Peter kind of hoped he'd freak. Gabriel wasn't showing normal reactions to much of anything.

Gabriel smiled at him politely again and said, "So tell me what you've been up to these past few days."

"Not much. Same old, same old." Peter decided to go back and double-check his assumptions. "Oh, hey! Did I tell you I got to transport one of the actors of Law and Order?"

"No, you didn't."

"Yeah." Peter leaned forward a little in enthusiasm as he told his story. It was true, up until the part where he slipped in, "Hesam was driving, so I teched. That meant I got to stay in the back and talk to him a lot."

Gabriel's brow furrowed slightly. "Hesam?"

Peter was silent, watching as his partner worked that out. Lie detection should have gone off too, if he had Gabriel's abilities in addition to his memories.

"You're … I don't understand."

"It was a slip of the tongue. My new partner's Paula. She was driving."

Gabriel kept regarding him with mild confusion. "While that last is true … you must have said it on purpose?"

Okay, then he definitely had lie detection. Peter sighed and his expression softened as he ruled '_imposter_' out entirely. (Well, almost entirely - Lilith gained people's abilities when she possessed them and it wasn't like she didn't have incentive to try to fuck up Peter and Gabriel's life, assuming she was still existent. But if it _was_ her, then Peter didn't think Gabriel would be acting this weird. This was just a dead giveaway. It was like he _wanted_ to be noticed.) "Yes, I did. You're … You might not realize this, but you're acting really odd. I just wanted to make sure it was you."

"It's me." _Lie._

Peter swallowed, barely controlling his reaction to that. "That's good to hear," he said with a tense voice and a small smile so false a blind man would have seen through it.

Gabriel didn't, or at least he showed no sign of having done so, which Peter took as another sign of '_probably not Lilith either_,' because anyone wanting to convince him there was nothing wrong should have been saying something, anything, to try to reassure him. Instead Gabriel said, "I'm really tired, Peter. I'm going to turn in. I haven't been sleeping well."

"I'll bet," Peter said, expecting some sort of reaction to that, but getting none. Mental damage was looking more and more likely. He followed Gabriel into the bedroom and watched as Gabe went to his dresser and stood before it to disrobe. He did so methodically. He never even looked at Peter, who was pretending to mess with the contents of the nightstand drawer. Peter didn't feel inclined to take off his shirt as he usually did. It wasn't that he thought he was dealing with a stranger - he just didn't know what he was dealing with at all. He understood why Heidi couldn't describe it and why she felt like he needed a warning.

Gabriel got in bed and lay on his back. Peter finished his unnecessary subterfuge and climbed in on his side. They weren't touching. Peter turned on his side and watched the other man. Gabriel stared at the ceiling for a while, then shut his eyes. The light was still on. Gabriel usually turned it off.

Peter sighed heavily, but it went unnoticed. '_The lights are on – but nobody's home_,' never seemed more apt.


	254. False Steps

Peter waited a good fifteen minutes. Gabriel showed no signs of being asleep. He was just lying there unmoving. Peter put out his hand and covered the other man's wrist. He was definitely awake, but very calm. He turned to look at Peter at the touch. The light was still on - in more ways than one.

Gabriel stared at him, silent and otherwise not moving. Peter didn't either. He was trying to _feel_, through the emotional link he knew they shared. There had to be something there. Whatever this ability drain power Peter had was, it was a close relative of empathy. He concentrated on it, watching Gabriel's empty eyes as they watched him with a hundred yard stare that would have been unnerving if Peter hadn't been so intent on what he was doing.

His hand tingled. He could feel Gabriel's abilities faintly, available for the taking. That wasn't the aspect of his ability he was trying for. He put that aside and tried again to reach out emotionally. _Emptiness, exhaustion, strain._ Peter pulled on those threads, but all that meant was that he felt a stab of ennui within himself, depression pouring into him. He lifted his hand, breaking contact. _Okay, that wasn't quite right either._ He waited until he thought he'd purged the feeling, then rested his hand on Gabriel's wrist again. This time instead of pulling, he pushed: _let me help you._

He hoped like hell this did not break the so-fragile trust Gabriel had with him in regards to mind control.

The other man animated, rolling towards him and scooting across the sheets, unexpectedly climbing into Peter's arms. He buried his face against Peter's neck and began to breathe hard, wrapping his arms around him. Peter's heart melted. _I reached him!_ Peter returned the embrace. He didn't know what had happened to his lover, but there was a smoldering fire building inside of Peter that was just waiting for a target - Noah, Maury, Angela, this Rupesh guy - someone had to be responsible for this and when he found out who, he was going to _kill_ them and he didn't mean that figuratively.

Gabriel had an emotion now - faint and strained, but it was there - grief. Or maybe fear, or regret. Peter couldn't get much of a grip as it was tenuous at best. He laid off from using his ability. He had a connection - he'd build on that. He absolutely did not want to push too far. He stroked Gabe's back and crooned softly, "It's okay, it's-"

Gabriel made a sudden choked sound and then fell silent and still, not breathing for a moment. Peter froze. _Not grief - despair_. Gabriel went on like nothing had happened, breathing evenly, if heavily, again. A moment later his shoulders shook, more like from an involuntary spasm than crying. Peter hugged him tightly, fiercely, and Gabriel calmed again.

"I'm here," Peter said, hoping that this time the sound of his voice didn't upset his lover. "We're together. We're going to make it. Whatever happened to you - we're going to make it. I love you. I can tell you're hurting. I am so sorry." He pushed Gabriel back a little, which was easy enough. Gabriel didn't resist or to try cling to him. Peter asked, "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Gabriel looked down. _Sadness._ He shook his head.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Peter asked, stressed.

Gabriel shook his head again. _No emotion at all._

"Is there anyone … a name, a place, any piece of information you can give me? A word even?"

Gabriel leaned forward tentatively, slowly, and Peter gathered him back into his arms. Someone was going to _**die**_. Peter had never felt anything quite so fervently. This went way, way beyond how pissed he'd been at Noah for mouthing off. Peter shook a little from the intensity of it, trying to put a lid on his emotions. Gabriel needed him right now - he needed someone to hold him and comfort him and Peter had no idea who he needed to go hurt for this. So he calmed himself down and held his lover gently, stroking his back and murmuring supportive things to him.

About an hour later, Gabriel looked across the room and summoned his watch from the dresser, then Peter's from the nightstand. He held them next to each other in the empty space between their bodies. The two devices ticked together, perfectly synchronized. Gabriel smiled. _A flash of happiness_. He looked up at Peter and kissed him lightly on the lips. He went back to looking at the timepieces. He slowly sagged with a true relaxation he hadn't shown before.

"When was the last time you slept?" Peter asked. "And I mean actually fell asleep - not this 'laying in the bed with your eyes shut' stuff."

"Saturday."

"Four days ago."

Gabriel nodded.

Peter shook his head. He took that to mean that whatever had happened to Gabriel, must have happened shortly after he saw him on Sunday. "No one's going to get you. I'll protect you. Okay? You can sleep now. I'll stay awake all night."

Gabriel looked up at him with dull eyes and kissed him again. Holding the two watches in one hand, he curled inward. Tears danced at the edges of Peter's eyes and he beat down another surge of wild desire to bring someone to justice for this. Instead he glanced behind him. He was on the edge of the bed already, because every time Gabriel had tried to climb into his arms over the last hour, he had pushed Peter backwards. "Can I be big spoon tonight?"

Gabriel nodded agreeably. Peter climbed over him and settled in, wrapping an arm around the other man. He kissed the middle of his back, between his shoulders. A few minutes later, Gabriel finally slept. Peter remained awake.

XXX

In the morning, Gabriel got up and made his arrangements as methodically as he'd prepared for bed the night before. He did seem a little bit better from the rest. He was quiet and self-absorbed. It had been a long night for Peter. He'd thought, a few times, that Gabriel dreamt, but all he could sense was eyes - Gabriel's - staring at him watchful and alert, as if very aware that Peter might try to eavesdrop on his dreams. It was disturbing.

Whoever had done this to him had been frighteningly thorough. There was only one person he could think of who had the ability. Despite Peter's misgivings about Maury Parkman, the case was not conclusive. There were many other specials out there with unknown powers - one of which might have been involved with Rupesh's extortion operation.

"What are you going to do today?" Peter asked over a simple breakfast of toast and jelly.

"Go to the law office. Catch up. That will take all day." Gabriel spoke in a near-monotone, watching his food, not Peter.

"No Company projects?"

"No." He spread jelly on another piece of toast, spreading it meticulously out to the corners, being very exacting at it.

"Gabriel … do you understand that you're not acting normal?"

"Yes." He watched his toast, taking a measured bite from the upper left corner. He examined the shape of the remaining bread as he chewed, inspecting it for adherence to some mental standard of toast-shape.

Peter exhaled. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"

"I won't."

Not '_no_,' but '_I won't_.' Peter sighed now. "I want to help you."

"You can't."

"What's going on with you?"

"…" Gabriel opened his mouth, sat silently for a moment, then put his toast in it and ate without speaking. He checked his toast again obsessively and nibbled off a tiny portion that needed to go if the rest of the piece of toast was to remain acceptable. He turned it this way and that, making sure that his two bites were symmetrical and appropriate.

"Okay." Peter got up and walked around to him, hugging Gabe's head to his chest. Gabriel's eyes did not leave his food. Peter said, "I love you. I'll see you tonight, won't I?"

"Yes."

XXX

Peter waited until Gabriel left. Then he called in sick to work and for once he had absolutely no compunctions about doing so. After that, he called suspect number one.

Maury Parkman answered the phone, "Hello. Can I call you back? I have business."

"No. Get alone. Are you in your office?"

"Yes."

"Leave the line open and get alone. Stay in the office."

"Very well," he said a bit stiffly. In a distant tone that Peter could still make out clearly, Maury said, "Gentlemen, I have to take this. It's an emergency. Can we adjourn for a half hour?" There was an indistinct murmur of voices, then Maury saying, "I appreciate that. Yes, we'll reschedule then. That might be better for everyone. I'll call you later and set something up. … Yes." The door shut. "I'm alone."

Peter teleported into his office, pocketing his own phone. "I need a straight answer. It's very important." He had Maury's complete attention. "When was the last time you were in mental contact with Gabriel Gray?"

"About … three weeks ago, I think."

Peter took a half step towards him, angling unconsciously into a fighting stance at the equivocation of 'I think.'

Maury immediately made a conciliatory gesture. "Let me check! Let me check the date. I don't know." He edged around Peter carefully to get to his desk. "We were at church, with your mother. We talked about you. Here, here it is. May 22nd."

"That's _two_ weeks ago," Peter said, watching the old telepath closely.

"I'm … I'm not good with dates. I'm sorry." When no attack was forthcoming, Maury calmed down a little and added, "The last time I had mental contact with Gabriel Gray was on May 22nd. I've spoken with him in person several times since then, but he was on teleconference for the board meeting two days ago."

Peter sighed and sank into one of the chairs. It was still warm from the previous occupant. He rubbed his forehead. Maury glanced at his own seat and settled into it as well, a bit gingerly at first, then relaxing into it. He drew up to the desk and put his hands on it, fingers interlaced. He and Peter had seen each other a few times at family gatherings, so things had cooled between them somewhat, but really it had only moved to the point of basic greetings and the most unavoidable of small talk.

Frustrated and concerned, Peter finally said, "There's something wrong with him. He came back from Europe _wrong_. Maybe you can tell me what's going on, because it seems like something your ability could do. He's hollowed out, but he still has all his memories, as far as I can tell. His emotions are _way off_ though - he hardly has any at all. He's like a robot, acting on autopilot. And he's stressed, really stressed, but it's all under the surface, buried deep. He won't let me in and I'm afraid to push any more than I already have."

Maury tilted his head and Peter shook his. "I mean that … metaphorically. He won't tell me what's wrong. He _knows_ there's something wrong. It's like he can't tell me what it is. He hadn't slept since Saturday, at least not before last night. He got a couple hours last night because I promised to stay awake and watch over him. I think he might have dreamed a little but it was all this creepy dream of him watching me, being hyper-alert even while he was asleep. I know he's afraid that I'll push him mentally, but …"

"Is he happy?"

"No, he's depressed. Or … I don't know. Sad, maybe? He feels hopeless." Peter made a frustrated gesture. "I can't tell _what's _wrong with him. And that's part of the thing - I can feel his emotions and I can't figure out what he's feeling. And with _him_, I don't dare try to force it out of him."

"Probably wise." Maury leaned back. "Two people died on scene with him. Two of _his _people, which he takes very seriously even if they were both resurrected later. And then there were the targets, and two other deaths from the operation you were part of. That much mortality can cause temporary dissociation."

"I don't think people dying is going to bother _him_." Peter shook his head. "He was perfectly fine at the operation I was part of." His mind suddenly snagged on something. No, he hadn't been perfectly fine the whole time. Gabriel had been deeply upset about taking the man's ability. He'd said he hadn't done it, which was true, and yet he knew what that ability was. Peter had later dismissed that as Gabriel knowing their targets. It seemed likely, after all. He'd known the woman could control plants and he hadn't had a chance to do anything to her.

Maury asked, "What is it?"

"I don't know. He told me that his ability, the hunger, works on the dead. That mission I did the teleportation for, on Sunday, had one of the targets dead. He'd been shot in the operation. I suppose in self-defense by an agent, but I wasn't in the room at the time. Gabriel was … upset. He wanted to take the ability."

"And did he?"

"I don't think so. He said he didn't and it wasn't a lie, but that's …" He shrugged. It hadn't checked as a lie for Matt either. "I told him it was okay."

"Okay that he did or okay that he didn't?"

"Either. I told him I'd still be with him either way." He frowned and shrugged. "He didn't kill him. He just happened to be there when the guy was killed. It … honestly, it didn't seem like a big deal. Like if he'd decided the Company needed the guy's body for research and drug him off to a morgue somewhere. That's not very cool, but it's not something I'm going to argue with him about."

"But even after you gave him permission, he didn't do it?"

"N-, I don't think so. I left him in the room with the body. He said he disintegrated it. I didn't check."

"He was okay after that?"

"Seemed like it." Peter pursed his lips. Maury hadn't done it. He supposed he'd go on to suspect number two then. "Where's Bandar?"

Maury looked annoyed. "Peter, you can't-" He caught himself. "Peter, let me help you. If you go dragging in everyone out there with an ability that might do this you're only advertising that Gabriel has a problem. He's not going to appreciate that. It won't be good for him. I can keep things private. Bandar won't."

"What do you propose?"

"I go talk to Gabriel. What's he up to?" Maury turned to his computer, muttering, "I'll see what his calendar says."

"No, he's at Nathan's law office today. He probably just got there. But if he's doing catch-up like he told me then his schedule should be flexible."

"Okay. I'd prefer to talk to him off-site and I don't want him walking into me by surprise. How's your apartment?"

"My old one? It's okay. Why there?"

"He'll feel safer there." Maury picked up the phone, taking charge of the situation. Peter found that annoying, but he didn't object. Maury dialed and spoke into the receiver. "Hey, Mr. Petrelli. I need to talk to you right away about a new piece of information from the French operation. Are you free? This is important. … I have Peter here. I'll send him over to get you and we can talk in the apartment. It's private, isn't it? … Yes, Peter. … That guy you like a bit? … I guess he is, since I'm paying him. … Yep, right here." He offered the phone. "He wants to talk to you."

Peter nodded and took it, taking a deep breath. Gabriel wasn't going to be happy about him involving the telepath, but Peter didn't know what else to do. _Maybe I should have thought this through a little more first_. "Hey," he said apologetically. "I'm just worried about you."

Gabriel answered in a resigned voice, "Leave him out of it. I'll tell you. Just come get me and we'll talk." He sounded defeated.

"Okay," Peter answered quietly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He hung up.

Peter handed the phone back to Maury. "You're not going. He said he'd explain things to me."

Maury nodded. "I can't say you don't have me curious now."

Peter stood up. "I'm sorry I involved you."

Maury shrugged. "Maybe you needed the threat of taking it to other people to get him to open up. Who knows? Don't beat yourself up over it."

Peter nodded and teleported out.


	255. Restraining Order

"I killed him," Gabriel said simply, looking like Nathan, dressed in a business suit. He and Peter were back at the apartment, standing in the living room. "I killed Hanke Rupesh when I could have taken him alive, but I killed him for his ability and I took it." He raised one hand and a breeze rose with it.

Peter's eyes widened. He didn't know what to say. This was … not the reason he'd expected. His assumptions had all been wrong. His mind kept failing to progress, like a bicycle wheel with a stick through the spokes.

Gabriel walked over to the end of the couch and sat down, then slowly collapsed in on himself.

'_He will test you greatly_'. Peter covered his mouth. "Um. How many?"

"How many what?" Gabriel stared blankly at the floor, his voice as expressionless as it had been since they got here.

"How many people have you killed for their abilities, since Matt?"

"Just the one."

"And … uh … it was self-defense?" Peter asked, grasping at straws - something, anything to make this okay.

The other man shifted form into … Gabriel? Sylar smiled and straightened in the seat, graceful and feline in his motions. "Of course it was," he lied sarcastically. He looked over at Peter, animated suddenly, his voice deep and modulated. "Come on, Petey. You're not that naïve. I made decisions every step of the way. I hunted him like a predator stalks prey. And yeah, I was pissed by the time I got to him, but it wasn't like it hadn't been inevitable long before that point. Next time I'll be more careful. Derek saw me 'mutilating the body' but he didn't know what to make of it so he collected up the others and left. I killed a cop too, because he got in my way. That wasn't self-defense either. They were threatening me with a pair of _handcuffs_."

"Gabriel …?" The confession didn't make any sense. Nor did the way the other man was acting, to shift suddenly from monotone and lifeless to … this?

The man rose from the couch and stalked over to him, looming. "Sylar," he hissed at Peter. He reached up and put his hand on Peter's throat, introducing him to an overwhelming welter of intense emotions - the polar opposite of the blankness he'd felt the night before. He pushed him back up against a wall and Peter let him, staring at the feral intensity of the gaze locked with his own.

Peter tensed all over, breathing out hard, trying to figure out what had happened to his lover. He was suddenly realizing that the change had come from within - this wasn't something someone else had done to him. Sylar kissed him aggressively, tilting his head and pushing, prying at Peter's mouth with his own. Peter opened reluctantly, making a small sound in the back of his throat - it was not a sound of desire; it was a frightened whimper.

Peter put his hands on Sylar's upper arms, trying to decide if he should push him away. His hands were trembling. Sylar pulled his head back and said huskily, "You are … Oh, Pete. I could get drunk on this." He grinned at him wickedly. "What was that you wanted me to ask? 'Are you afraid of me yet?'" His voice was throaty and resonant and undeniably sexy. It terrified Peter with how different it was.

Peter pushed him away shakily. "No, no. Stop, stop, stop. R-red. Red. Okay? Please? Gabriel? Sylar? Please? Red?"

Sylar backed up a step, then held up one finger. Peter did not miss that it was pointed roughly at his forehead. Sylar leaned in and gave Peter a short peck on the lips, eliciting a flinch. Then he backed off entirely and walked to the couch. He stood next to his customary seat, turning to look over his shoulder at Peter, who was still frozen against the wall - held there by his own shock, not by any special power of Sylar's.

"Why?" Peter breathed out.

Sylar wheeled to face him and shouted, "Because _**YOU TOLD ME I COULD!**_" His teeth were bared and he leaned forward in his intensity.

Peter quailed back, giving the slightest shake of his head. He had not endorsed killing people. Taking the abilities of the _dead_ was different. Morally questionable, sure, but actually tracking people down with the intent of killing them was **not** morally questionable.

Sylar strode forward to halfway between them, large in his fury, looking taller than normal. "_**This is YOUR fault!**_ I had it under control until-" His voice shifted slightly and took on a desperate tone. It was more familiar, even if stressed. "_**I'm still in control!**_ I'm … I'm …" He stared at the floor as anger turned to grief on his face. He staggered and grabbed at his hair, pulling at it. Peter left the wall, stepping towards him, but he paused when Gabriel threw out his arm to ward him off. "I want your ability. What am I doing? I want it." Sylar turned towards Peter, straightening to his full height again. His voice shifted once more to more confident, deeper and more assertive. "And I'm going to take it."

He used telekinesis to slam Peter against the wall. He took one step closer and his stride wobbled. The hand extended to hold Peter in place shook. The telekinesis slipped. His voice shifted back. "You said I could. You said I could. It's all your fault. I'm so sorry. You made me … You …" Tears fell down his face as his hand dropped, he sagged and Peter was free. Gabriel lifted his head, teeth together and for a moment Peter expected another shift, another attack. Hair screened half the other man's face. "You have to kill me, Peter. _**Stop me!**_"

Peter looked at him in frank disbelief. He shook his head and his mouth moved. _That_ was when the next attack came. He was slammed against the wall again and this time his elbows put dents in the sheetrock as he tried to catch himself. It was Sylar's mass that drove him back, not his ability. The taller man crushed his own body against Peter's, rolling his hips and undulating his spine to make his sexual intent clear.

Sylar bit the side of Peter's face, hard and bruising, making Peter gasp in surprise. A moment later he savaged his ear, making Peter cry out and struggle. "Oh yes! Fight me, Peter!" Peter went still for a moment, too shocked to act, too confused to fight. Sylar went on, breathing in his aching, healing ear, still pinning him, "I'm going to fuck you up against this wall and I'm going to cut you open while I do it. Over and over for as long as I last." Sylar grinned. "Might not be long, really." He thrust the sickening hardness of his groin against Peter. "I will _break_ you, Petrelli. When I'm done with you, you'll be _pieces _and then I'll put you back together like a broken clock!"

Peter had had enough of this bullshit. He shoved Sylar off of him and cancelled his abilities when the other man tried to telekinetically pin him in place. Sylar grimaced at his hand and its sudden impotence, but to Peter's surprise, he didn't retaliate with the same ability of nullification. He just said, "You'll have to do better than that, Petrelli." Then he swung at him.

Peter jumped aside, dodging his fist. They had a brief chase around the living room until Peter retreated into the kitchen. He backed up to the far wall. He looked trapped, but he could teleport out in an instant as long as Sylar wasn't preventing it, and mystifyingly, he wasn't so far.

Sylar said slyly, "Ah, the kitchen. That'll make it easy to clean up. You're so thoughtful, Peter." He reached over to the counter where they'd fucked before, running his fingertips along it and purring lecherously, then he jerked open the drawer under it. He pulled out a meat knife. "If I can't use my abilities to carve you up, I suppose I could use this. Your concentration won't hold forever, Pe-."

He lifted the knife and twitched in the middle of the word. "-ter." His demeanor changed. His voice shifted. "I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have to be a killer, Peter."

Gabriel turned the blade to the side of his head, just under his left ear. He found the kill spot effortlessly, and drove the knife in as Peter jumped forward, yelling, "NO!"

XXX

For a long moment, Peter stood where he'd skidded to a stop, catching himself on the counter. Gabriel lay on the floor. The paramedic bent and rolled him over, careful not to disturb the knife. He had no pulse, nor was he bleeding. His whole body had just shut down instantly. Peter sagged and cradled his lover's head for a moment. He could take him somewhere. He could ask for help. He could do whatever he needed to do, maybe put him in a cell for a while until they figured out why he'd reverted.

He stroked Gabriel's forehead. One of the man's worst fears was being abandoned again in one of those cells, that the 'authorities' would come get him and take him away because he wasn't the person they wanted him to be. Gabriel trusted Peter so totally that now, in his hour of need, he'd surrendered to him completely. A knot formed in Peter's throat. He breathed hard and sniffled. He wiped at his eyes.

Gabriel had even done exactly what Peter and Heidi had asked of him. Faced with a problem that racked his soul and shook his very sense of identity, he had not fled them. He had stayed, even though it divorced him from himself. He'd even explained - though it had taken some pressing, he'd told Peter what he had done. This, then, was what he'd been trying to protect them from - the violence, the danger, the assault. Unable to resolve the tension within himself, he'd taken his own life rather than persist in threatening Peter's.

He was a killer, and a murderer, and he'd murdered again. He'd planned it, premeditated it, carried it out, and confessed it. Peter bit his lip. There was a war inside of the empath. What Gabriel had done (Sylar, whoever) was absolutely unacceptable. And yet so was betraying this man by taking him in. Peter rubbed restlessly at his lover's lifeless shoulders and sniffed again.

All he could think of was how Gabriel had done as he'd been asked, to the best of his ability. This was, in no way, a failure of effort. In some ways though, that made it worse - maybe the best he could expect from Gabriel was that the murders were sporadic rather than frequent; that he felt bad about it rather than reveling in it. Peter had said, over and over, that if Gabriel was _trying_, that was good enough. This was the test then, of whether Peter really believed those words. The temptation had been too much for Gabe and it had broken him. To turn him away now like he was damaged goods was … unfathomable. Gabriel had tried. He'd tried as hard as he could.

Peter stood up, having made a decision. Gabriel _was_ damaged. Maybe he could be fixed. Or maybe he couldn't, in which case Peter would love him anyway, every piece. But in any case, the patterns of the past had to be changed. No one was leaving anyone here - no matter what. Even Maury Parkman had recognized the need to keep Gabriel where he felt safe.

Peter hauled his lover to the bedroom with telekinesis, stripped off the blankets, and dropped him on the bed, face up. He got out some of their toys and handcuffed him to the top, then used straps and wrap-around cuffs for his feet. He pulled out the knife and suspended the cancellation of abilities for a moment. Gabriel's eyes opened immediately, but Peter waited a beat longer until the wound was an angry red mark before nullifying again. It was simultaneous with Gabriel working out where he was.

He yanked at the restraints. He snarled. He smiled. The smile faded. He looked frightened. He looked angry once more. Then frightened. He jerked at his limbs again, breathing hard. He gnashed his teeth and struggled with everything he had. He did not ask to be released - he just fought quietly like a wild animal in a trap, desperate and angry.

Peter watched as the cuffs and straps held. Gabriel had, after all, tried to purchase a bed that would stand up to the worst they could dish out, minus abilities, and Peter had used the same guidelines when purchasing restraints. Peter watched the struggle, feeling himself knot up inside to see his lover like this - fighting and convulsing. It was painful to watch when it was a stranger with a medical seizure. To see Gabriel in this state felt like the knife was in Peter's chest, twisting with every spasm.

When he was spent, Gabriel shut his eyes, panting, trying to calm down. "Touch me, Peter. Please touch me. Let me know … Let me know you … Oh God, do you …? I can't." His body was now racked by a different emotion as he shook with a half-suppressed sob.

Peter moved to his side and put a hand in the middle of the man's chest. The sobs subsided immediately. Gabriel opened his eyes and stared at him, tears leaking down the sides of his face, the barest shred of hope there telling Peter that Gabriel didn't class the restraints as a betrayal. Peter leaned forward to wipe his face, hoping he didn't get bitten in some sudden turn of identity or emotion. But although Gabriel turned his head against Peter's hand, it was just to get more pressure. Peter rested his hand against his partner's cheek, letting him have the touch he needed. Gabriel's heaving chest slowed. His lids drooped. "I'm tired, Pete." He gave one last sigh. "I don't think I can do it anymore. I don't think I can hang on."

Peter reached up and smoothed back Gabriel's mussed hair. "You don't have to. You don't have to be what I want you to be. I'll love you no matter what." He wondered if Gabriel realized he'd just copied Nathan's words from the fight in the hospital, right down to the 'Pete.' Peter had refused to let Nathan go. He'd learned since then, and, he hoped, grown. His answer to Gabriel was very different from what he'd told Nathan that night.

"Thank you." He sounded so grateful, like Peter had granted him life itself.

Peter looked at him stretched out across the bed. "I'm not real sure what I'm supposed to do now." He smiled, trying to make a joke of it. "I feel like the dog that chases cars who finally catches one."

Gabriel smiled at him, laughing a little in semi-hysterical relief. "Kiss me? Please?"

"Don't bite me, okay?"

Gabriel shook his head. Peter leaned in and kissed him gently. Gabriel spoke when he pulled back, "Hold me? Please hold me. Don't … leave."

"I'm not leaving."

"I … just need to know that you still want me."

Peter hugged him. It felt odd to do without Gabriel's arms wrapping around him in return. "I don't want to have sex with you like this. I have no idea where your head is at." _Or even who I'm talking to._ "But yes, I want you."

"I just need reassurance, Peter. I'm afraid."

Peter nodded, his head still against the other man's chest. "I feel that." He felt it clearly. Gabriel was terrified, but it was ebbing slowly - very slowly. Peter held him for a while longer before pulling back. "What's going to happen if I let you go?"

"Don't."

Peter studied him for a long moment and then nodded.


	256. Safe Words

"I am really, _really _out of my depth here, Gabriel," Peter said. The other man seemed to have had some sort of a shift after he'd told him not to let him go. He'd rolled his shoulders a bit and flexed, straightening. His expression had changed and he'd quit looking at Peter with eyes that were desperate with need. Instead they were predatory, when they bothered to look at him at all.

Peter was watching for a reaction to the name. There was none. "Hm," was all the other man said, craning his head to examine each handcuff in turn. They'd bitten into his wrists during his struggle, the metal cutting the skin deeply enough to draw blood.

Peter frowned at that, but he hadn't expected to have to use these things to restrain someone _for real_. And so he'd purchased a pair of traditional metal police-style handcuffs (even though they weren't the style police used these days, probably for exactly the reason decorating Gabriel's wrists at the moment) and a pair of wide-strap leather ones with a buckle and padding. The latter were the ones on the other man's ankles. Peter had imagined they'd sit down and discuss pros and cons and settle on what to use in future. _Guess I need to invest in a full set of padded ones._

"Are you … Gabriel? Or Sylar?"

"Depends."

"Did you … get an ability that gives you a split personality?" That would be weird, considering he hadn't been lying when he'd said he'd only killed the one person, but maybe it had been someone already dead. How else would he know his ability worked on the dead unless he'd tried it?

"No."

Would that count as true if Peter didn't happen to be talking to the personality that had done it? He didn't know. "So what's going on here?"

Gabriel looked at him with a sly smile and didn't answer. No, Peter was certain that this wasn't Gabriel right now. Peter tilted his head and asked, "Sylar?"

"Yes?"

"Ah," Peter said, nodding.

"Kiss me."

Peter bent, but hesitated before getting there. "Are _you_ going to bite me this time?"

"Yes," Sylar told him, grinning. "Kiss me anyway. You'll heal."

Peter blinked at him and then perversely went ahead and did it. He really didn't know why, because Sylar had told him outright what he was going to do. He sucked in Peter's tongue and bit it hard, until the taste of blood filled their mouths and Peter was whining, grimacing and flailing a little at his head. Sylar let him go and Peter jerked away, wincing. Regeneration took care of it. He panted and frowned severely at the other man. He would have said something, but at the moment his tongue was still healing.

Sylar grinned more widely. "You liked that, didn't you?"

It hadn't taken long to heal - it wasn't a deep bite. "Shut up." He didn't know if he did or not. He didn't think so. He knew he _shouldn't_. It had hurt like hell, but there was something strangely sexy about it. If he could just get the other man to dial it back a notch … He got up off the bed and went to get a chair from the dining room. If he wasn't careful, he'd get manipulated into doing something really dumb, or psychologically disturbing, or both, like having sex under these very messed up circumstances. He considered calling in Maury Parkman just on general principles.

Peter sat down. "Anyone else in your head there I need to know about?"

Sylar answered playfully, "Oh, Nathan, my mom, Taub, maybe Danko … I don't know. Who do you want me to be for you, Petey? I'll be anyone."

Peter shook his head.

Sylar's tone changed to more serious, but he was still Sylar. "Anyone at all? Let me be someone for you, Peter. I love you no matter who I am."

That was … interesting. Peter blinked at him. He'd thought that … maybe … Sylar was just a vicious killer who wanted his ability. But that last statement implied a lot more and explained perhaps why even while he was Sylar, he hadn't fought Peter with everything he had. He hadn't canceled his abilities and even now he wasn't trying to talk his way loose. Sylar seemed as content as Gabriel at being restrained for the moment. "I fell in love with Gabriel," Peter said slowly, holding up his left wrist. "That's who I wear this for." He swallowed as he watched the shift in personalities. _Did I just fuck things up by saying that?_

Gabriel turned his face away. Peter moved off the chair to sit on the bed. The man was crying silently. Peter stroked his chest and then his face. "And now … I love _you_ - _**all**_ of you," he said softly, trying to recover from the misstep he was pretty sure he'd made. He could feel the man's anguish and his upset. Peter hugged him, lying next to him on the bed, feeling his warmth and lending his presence. They passed a half hour that way, until Gabriel had truly calmed down.

It was he who broke the silence, asking Peter, "Can we just pretend none of this ever happened?" He seemed deeply embarrassed by the whole thing.

Peter sat up, then leaned over and kissed him chastely. "Dunno. You still going to try to kill me and … all that other stuff?"

"No." _Truth_. "I was just trying to scare you." _Lie_.

"Scared the hell out of me all right." Peter said, looking away.

Gabriel rattled one of the restraints in a not-very-subtle 'let me go' gesture. Peter shifted up and began carefully massaging that arm, in case it was cramping from being in the same position for too long. It was his not-very-subtle answer of 'no.' If Gabriel really wanted loose, he could ask and they'd talk about it. Before Peter released him, he wanted a better idea of what was going to happen if he did. Having Sylar attack him and chase him around the apartment probably wasn't good for _either_ of them.

Peter said, "This isn't the first time you've said you were Sylar." He looked at Gabriel, who wouldn't meet his eyes, but didn't turn away at least. Peter went on, "I need to know who I'm with here, so when I get asked questions like 'who does Peter want me to be?' I know what the right answer is. Because I was lying there holding you thinking that maybe I didn't give the right answer. I don't really know … Sylar."

Gabriel gave a little shake of his head and spoke nervously, too fast. "No. You were fine. I'm sorry. It's a stupid question. You've answered it before. It's not fair of me to even ask it."

Peter looked at him with hooded eyes, then moved on to the man's forearm. "I think it's a fair question. It's just that I'm not sure what you're asking. I want you to be _you_. I want you to be happy and relaxed - whoever that is for you." He bent and kissed Gabriel's hand. The other man turned it, extending his fingers and waving them a little. Peter bent back in and kissed each one in turn, getting a happy noise. He circled the bed to the other arm.

"You're being very understanding about this," Gabriel observed.

"You're the one tied to the bed. You're being pretty understanding about _that_."

"I threatened to rape and kill you."

"Yeah." Peter sighed. "I'm trying to figure out how to get to a point where we'll both be safe if I let you go."

"You shouldn't worry about me."

"Gabriel …" He sighed. "That's what Heidi was getting onto you about the other day, you know? The people who love you _get_ to worry about you. That's their right. They love you, they want what's best for you and they get to worry when it looks like things aren't going right for you. Now let's talk about this 'tracking people down and murdering them' thing."

Gabriel swallowed and pulled against all the restraints. He tried to turn, to twist away from Peter. He was very exposed in his current position. Peter backed off and went to the chair. Gabe relaxed a little, but he was still breathing too fast.

When no talk was forthcoming, Peter asked, "Do you want to be doing that?"

"Yes." _Lie_. "No." _Lie_. "I don't know." _Lie_.

_Great. Wonderful, useful ability there - only works on sane people who know what they want. I wonder if that means he's definitely crazy?_ He considered calling Maury again, but it was just an idle thought. Gabriel was engaging with him and that was good enough. Sylar had done the same, Peter realized. "Do you feel compelled to do it?"

Anger suffused Gabriel's voice and he huffed. "_**I'm**_ in control of myself!"

"Okay. You're in control," Peter agreed easily. "Are you going to control yourself to go do it again, or are you going to control yourself and not do it?"

Gabriel looked away and asked sulkily, "What do you want me to do?"

Peter's jaw worked. He wanted to rail at Gabriel that he didn't get to shove off responsibility onto someone else. It was a patently clear moral question. Of course Peter would say 'no, don't go around killing people.' Gabriel knew that, so why the hell was he asking? Peter rubbed his forehead. The temptation to tell Gabriel how he needed to be living his life was pretty strong. "You know, if you get put in a jail cell on neutralizing pills or something all the time, because you've been out murdering people and the only way to stop you is to lock you up … then I'll still visit you. I'm not going to live with you in the jail cell though."

Assuming he didn't go down as an accomplice, which seemed likely and would serve him right. Maybe they could get neighboring jail cells, so they could still talk to each other like he had with Adam. And have conjugal visits (not that he'd had those with Adam, but Gabe was different). That wouldn't be that bad. Peter tried to banish the weird, idle thoughts and stay focused.

"You could get me out."

"Yeah, I _could_, but I won't."

Gabriel said, "You're not going to let me out of these cuffs either, unless you think I'm not going to kill people." It wasn't a question.

Peter swallowed. "I understand … that at some points in time, killing is … it's not a good thing, but it's justified. It's the best of a bunch of bad options. Self-defense, or defending someone else - those qualify easily. And in our line of work, sometimes stopping a special who has proven they'll hurt innocents … might include killing them. I accept that. As long as I think you're trying to do right and that your definition of 'right' means the least hurt for the most people, then I think you and I are good on this.

"What I said was okay on Sunday, in Spain, was taking the ability of someone who was already dead through no fault of your own. And I'm **not** sure that's okay. If you think it's okay for you, then … sure, it's okay for you. I'm not going to do it, but I'm not the one with the compulsion."

Gabriel shifted again. "I'm not 'compelled' to do anything."

"I'm not the one with the hunger then. My point is that it's not something I want, so if you do and you don't have any moral issues with what you're doing, then fine." Peter sighed. "But if being allowed to do that is some sort of slippery slope that's going to cause you to go out and … You can't-" He shook his head, frustrated.

"Rub my foot?" Gabriel asked into the resulting silence, shaking the appendage in question.

Peter snorted softly at the diversion. "Sure." He moved over to it, slipping off Gabriel's shoe and sock.

"I like you touching me," Gabriel said in a sweet voice.

Peter smiled at him, wondering how much this would taint or inspire their love life, in regards to bondage. Gabriel didn't seem to be phobic about it, which was good to know. And very helpful, under the circumstances.

Gabriel said, "You don't want me hunting people down, but if I happen to find a corpse, that's okay."

Peter snorted. "I suppose so, yeah."

"Great. From a predator at the top of the food chain to a scavenger looking for carrion." Gabriel rolled his eyes and looked away.

Peter bent and kissed the sole of his foot. Gabriel flexed it to rub across his face a bit, emoting affection. Peter smiled and straightened, pushing up his pant leg to he could rub up his calf. "I like how you're loving even in this situation."

"I trust you. You're not doing anything to hurt me. You said as many second chances as I needed. Something solid in my life - that's what you told Noah. That's what I want." He was silent for a moment, then added, "That's what you're giving me right now."

Peter nodded. "Then understand that I'm being what you want when I take a stand on things and don't change. And some things, like human life, I'm just not going to change on."

Gabriel lifted his head and looked at him for a moment before huffing and putting it down. He squirmed a bit. Peter shifted to his other foot. He thought about his mother's dream and what she'd said of it. Gabriel didn't really want to go down his old roads. Maybe, what needed to happen, was for Gabriel to walk Peter's path with him.

Gabriel started, "I won't …" He fell silent. "I …" He turned his face away. "The only way I'm getting off this bed is if I promise you I won't kill people for their abilities?"

Peter sighed, stopped and rubbed his forehead. _This was so much easier when he was trying to be a good person, not … trying to find a loophole so he can be a murderer._ "Gabriel, if you're one of the bad guys, one of those people out there killing or intending to kill innocents, or people who haven't wronged you, then _yes_, I'm going to have to stop you. And if stopping you means leaving you here for a while, until I figure out something more permanent, then I guess … I- I don't know!" He reached out and touched the man's thigh, trying to appeal to him in plaintive tone, but somewhere in there he'd hit one of Gabriel's buttons.

Gabriel tensed and an intense fear shot through him. "I'll do it. I promise."

"What?" Peter said dumbly.

Gabriel's words came tumbling out. "I won't put you in that position, Peter. Let me go. I won't do it again."

Peter blinked. He looked at his hand on Gabriel's leg. He thought about the sudden fear, which was still screaming along under the calm-looking surface of his lover's face. Gabriel was panicking. "What was it I said?"

Gabriel breathed out in a carefully controlled exhalation. "I'm not going to put you in the position, Peter, of trying to find a permanent way to make me … acceptable. I can control myself. I've been doing it for months. I'll do it more. Plleease. Just-let-me-go."

"Gabriel, I'm not going to-"

"Please Peter, let me go! Please. Quit talking about it. Getout. Letmego!" He shut his mouth and looked sharply to the side. He jerked erratically at the restraints. He was starting to lose control of himself.

Seconds ticked by. Peter stood at the foot of the bed, trying to make up his mind about what was right for both of them, and everyone else in the world Gabriel might hurt. Gabriel trembled with the strain of holding still, of knowing he was tied down and couldn't get away. He shut his eyes and bit his lip, panting roughly around his teeth.

Gabriel opened his eyes to look at him once. It was a furtive, quick look and then away, scrunching his eyes shut. "Red? Ha," he said in a small, timid voice. He tried to force a smile on his face, but he looked mostly nauseous.

Peter tried to think of a time that Gabriel had used the safe word, any safe word. He was pretty sure he had, at some point, but nothing came to mind. This wasn't the sort of situation it was intended for, but it was a sign of Gabriel's desperation. He was begging. He'd been calm about the restraints until now - until Peter had inadvertently set him off, making him fear what Peter might do to him more than what Sylar might do instead. Peter reached over and started unbuckling the nearer foot restraint. "Please don't run off after I let you out of this, okay?"

"Idontwanttoanswerthat," Gabriel snapped, words coming out so fast Peter almost didn't understand them.

Peter nodded. "That's fair. You're under duress." Peter unbuckled the other. "I'm letting you go now. Easy. It's going to be okay." Gabriel pulled his feet up. Peter got the key out of the nightstand and unlocked one, and then the other, set of cuffs. "You asked me to let you go and that's what I'm doing."

The second he was free, Gabriel jumped up off the bed and fled to the entrance to the bathroom. He held himself. His eyes darted to the door to the living room. Peter was still near the top of the bed, hardly cutting him off from there, but to get there he would have to pass a little closer to Peter than he was now. Peter leaned over on the bed, lying down. There was no way he'd be able to get up and catch the other man if he decided to dash past - not that he wanted to, but he laid down to reinforce it.

Instead, after a long moment of indecision, Gabriel paced. He shot Peter intent looks, sensitive to every tiny motion Peter made. Peter tried to think of what he could do to reassure. He stopped canceling the other man's abilities.

Like that was what Gabriel had been waiting for, he exclaimed, "Oh, Peter!" and rushed back to him suddenly. He climbed on the bed to pull the empath into an embrace. After a moment of hugging, Gabriel nuzzled him and turned him to breathe in his scent from his hair. He ran his hands across Peter's face and down his neck, manipulating him like a doll. Peter allowed it. He was a little twitchy and cautious, hoping Gabriel didn't switch personalities in the middle of this, but his concerns were unfounded.

Gabriel hugged him again. "Love me, love me, love me. God, Peter, please love me. I am so fucked up. Please … Please?"

"I love you."

"I won't do it again. I won't. I'm so sorry. I love you. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry." Gabriel was all over him, his manner still begging and pleading.

Peter kissed his forehead and tried to calm him, pulling him down prone on the bed next to him. "It's all okay. We're just having a rough time here. Everything's going to be okay. We'll work it out together."

Gabriel shuddered and burrowed more firmly against Peter, holding him tightly for many minutes. His hold gradually relaxed. His breathing slowed. The emotional intensity of it all had taken a toll. Peter rested his head lightly against his. He hadn't slept at all the night before. He felt kind of drowsy right at the moment, letting the feeling of Gabriel's winding down drag him under as well. He wasn't real clear on which one of them fell asleep first.


	257. Talking the Talk

Peter woke to a sensation he'd felt many times as he fell asleep - the feeling of having his hair petted and combed through. He blinked his eyes open to see Gabriel leaning over him, quietly obsessing with his hair. Peter reached up and stroked the other man's side. Gabriel jumped guiltily. That he could be surprised was a measure of how engrossed he was.

Peter told him sleepily, "Go ahead and keep doing that if you want to." It was comfortingly _normal_ – and a hell of a lot better than waking up to Sylar trying to cut into his skull. He wondered how safe it was to fall asleep with Gabriel around – actually, he noticed, pretty damn safe, since he was perfectly fine. The other man touched Peter's hair hesitantly. Peter smiled at him encouragingly and Gabe went back to it. Peter let himself wake up slowly.

Gabriel noticed when Peter was finally fully alert. He stopped what he'd been doing and gave Peter a quick kiss. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked in a worried tone.

"I dunno." Peter stretched, avoiding the implications of that question. "What time is it?"

"Eleven thirty-two."

Peter ran his tongue around in his mouth and swallowed a few times. "Can I take you to lunch?"

Gabriel snorted. "Yes, Peter. You can take me to lunch. What are you going to do with me _after that?_"

Avoidance was not an option, then. Peter noticed that suddenly Gabriel's whole life was at his disposal. _Weird_. "I … Don't you still have work to do at the law office?"

"Yes."

Peter sat up and shrugged. "Well, maybe you should go do it. You can get in a half-day at least. Then you can see Heidi for dinner and see me later tonight - as per the schedule." He looked back at Gabriel and said, "I'm not an expert on any of this psychological stuff, at all, but maybe a little bit of normalcy would do you good?"

Gabriel nodded, accepting his orders for the day. He summoned over his shoes with telekinesis. Peter was reminded of his mother telling him Gabriel wasn't normal. Peter asked, "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes."

"All right. Now I'm going to tell Heidi about this." He gestured around the room and at the living room. "All of it - because that was our deal. We all agreed, when we had problems, bad problems like this, we'd tell each other. Emma too." He looked at Gabriel's reaction. The other man wasn't happy about it, but he didn't say anything. Peter yawned. "You pick the place to eat. I'm gonna … go brush my teeth and stuff." He wandered into the bathroom to take care of necessities, trying to act normal himself, trying to act like he had the utmost faith and trust in Gabriel. Although he had his doubts and he had his fears, for the most part, it wasn't an act.

XXX

The first thing Peter did after seeing Gabriel off to Nathan's law firm was find Maury Parkman. He'd asked Gabriel over lunch if it was okay for him to talk about their issues with him. Gabriel had been even less pleased about the prospect of that than Peter talking to Heidi and Emma, but he hadn't quite said no and he'd finally, reluctantly, said yes. As Peter had pointed out, the alternative was accepting that Peter had no idea what he was doing and that, most likely, his attempts to deal with Gabriel's psychoses would be littered with even more mistakes than he figured he'd make if he had professional advice.

This time he waited a little until Maury was free, but then he had the older man's complete attention. Maury settled back in behind his desk and waited for Peter to begin.

Peter, for his part, seemed to be doing the same at first, then huffed when he figured out that he had to start. "Okay. Gabriel explained. He … he took Rupesh's ability, the aerokinesis."

"Ah."

Peter rubbed his forehead, frowning and looking away. "He's okay now, by the way."

"Define 'okay' for me, because that's kind of broad."

"I mean he's …" Peter sighed. What_ was_ Gabriel? What were the defining elements between how he'd been at lunch and how he'd been at breakfast? "He's more relaxed. He's engaging emotionally now. He's quit talking in that flat tone and he … responds. He's not … he makes more eye contact. His responses make sense - not that they didn't before, but they're … I don't know, more social now. He acts like he has emotions. Well, he _does_ have emotions. I can feel them."

There was a long moment of silence between them. This time Maury broke it. "I never took you as the type, Peter, to come by just to satisfy my curiosity. And even if you were, you've done that. Since you're still here, I'm going to guess that there's a lot more you're not telling me, that you intend to tell me, but you're having trouble bringing yourself to tell me." He tilted his head forward a bit. "Would that be true?"

"Yeah," Peter said, looking away again. He squared his shoulders unconsciously and sat up straighter. "I asked Gabe if it was okay for me to talk to you about this and he said yes. This morning after he told me that he took the ability, he freaked out, said he was Sylar, attacked me, threatened me, said he was going to … to kill me. He kept switching back and forth between personalities I guess - Gabriel and Sylar. He chased me into the kitchen. Then he got out a knife, said he'd cut me up with it, switched back to Gabriel, and stabbed himself in his kill spot." Peter sighed.

"Oh," Maury said, brows rising. He leaned forward and asked, "What happened next?"

Peter sighed again and finally started looking at the man he was talking to. "I put him on the bed and tied him down, then pulled the knife out. I'd cancelled his abilities early on, but he never did it in turn to me." He shrugged. "Then … honestly, we just talked. He calmed down. He switched personalities a few more times, said he loved me no matter which he was, told me not to let him go at first because it wasn't safe, then he freaked out when I said I'd have to look for a way to keep him from murdering people. He panicked and begged me to let him go, so I did. He calmed down again and everything was fine. We took a nap and went to lunch. He left to the law office. Or rather, I told him to go, since he seemed to think I needed to tell him what to do."

Peter frowned. "He was being a little weird about that, I'll admit."

Maury rubbed his hands together slowly. "Okay. What bothers you about all this?"

The whole thing bothered him, so Peter just blinked at him. "This - is not normal behavior."

"Is that what bothers you?"

Peter frowned again. "No. Well … yes." His brow furrowed and he shrugged. "How the hell am I supposed to know? Is he Sylar or is he Gabriel? Why did his personality split? I think he blames me for it, because I told him it was okay to do it to that other guy!" He looked exasperated, then added, "I want to know what I can do to help him cope with whatever's going on in his head. I want him happy. He doesn't seem happy. Right now he's scared. He's scared of me again and I wonder if the whole reason for that unemotional stuff was because he was … he knew he'd disappointed me."

Maury waited a moment. When it was clear Peter was waiting for an answer, he said, "His personality split because he didn't think you'd accept the person he was. So he created a new persona, or in this case resurrected an old one, blamed off what he did on the other and will now pretend to be the persona who doesn't do bad things and see if you'll buy it. He's playing a game with you, but the stakes are high - really high - and this isn't juvenile or immature."

Maury spoke very seriously. "He's _trying_ to cope. You want to help him cope? Don't make him play a game to win your affection. Don't tell him you're the one who's going to keep him from doing bad things. I can see how that would cause a panic attack. Just imagine how you'd react if I told you I was going to find a way to keep your mother from doing things I didn't like."

Peter's brows drew together and his lips narrowed. He knew it was just a hypothetical, but it created a wave of anger anyway.

"See?" Maury said. "Now imagine how you'd feel if I'd done it before, really nastily, but she'd forgiven me somehow. This scenario I'm talking about puts you on the outside looking in. But for Gabriel, he's the one you're talking about and he has no way to defend against you without losing you. Of course it terrifies him. He loves you. You're not just threatening him, you're threatening the whole relationship."

Maury drummed his fingers slowly on the desktop, looking at Peter, who was mulling these things over.

Finally Peter said, "So should I treat him as one person?"

"Yes. You don't have to deny he's acting like two different people, but just keep in mind it's a role. It's make-believe. He might try to make you pick between them and he'll probably have one be a lot more appealing than the other, but don't fall for that. You're not in love with him on every day except Sunday, you're in love with him all the time. If he pushes it, stress the _actions _you don't like. Don't make it about the personality, because that's _him_ no matter what little acting job he's trying to snow you with."

Peter frowned at the front of Maury's desk, slumping in the chair a bit.

"He's not going to see what he's doing as trying to deceive you either. For him, this is very real, so don't confront him about that. Don't try to get him to admit he's doing this to dodge responsibility." Maury changed tack (at least, from Peter's perspective - from Maury's he was just exploring why Gabriel was electing to dodge so _hard_) and asked, "You said you'd look for a way to stop him from murdering people. What did you have in mind?"

Peter shook his head. "I don't know. I can't lock him up. He … he just … can he quit it? No, never mind, that's stupid. I've read the files. He really can't. I thought maybe he'd found a way."

Maury shrugged. "He can channel it though. If dead people don't bother your morals or his, then let him have dead people."

"There aren't … we can't guarantee he'll always be in the right place at the right time. I'm sure there's a time limit on it."

Maury shrugged again. "Then we issue a general order to have them resurrected and contained until he gets there."

Peter almost came up out of his seat. "Then they're alive!"

Maury chortled. "I'm sorry, Peter. I realize that's probably … pretty upsetting. I don't suppose it would help if we'd kill them again right before he got there, would it?" He struggled to get a straight face.

Peter sank back down, shaking his head, dumbfounded at the moral depravity of the whole suggestion. "No. _No, it __**wouldn't**_**.** Did the Company really operate like this for all these years?"

"Yes, Peter, we did. Not everyone agreed. You do realize you're going to have your own problems eventually, regarding taking abilities?"

Peter scowled at him. "No one dies when I take their ability." No more had the words left his mouth than he remembered his father almost dying from the drain, saved only by Fatima; and Phillip truly dying because Peter had taken his ability and stripped him of the immunity to the diseases he'd generated. One out of three was not a good rate. He scowled more firmly and looked down.

Maury said, "Well, we're not here to talk about _you_. Gabriel should be good for a few months or maybe a year or two, given his track record. If you've made it clear you don't want him taking abilities, then he'll probably avoid doing it until he just can't stand it. What you'll need to work out, within the next month or so, is figuring out how to tell when he's reaching that point. I'll dig around in the records and see if I can find anything useful."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Maury stood up and went to his bookcase, looking at it. He started pulling out books and tossing them on the desk. "Read this stuff. Your boyfriend's off his nut-"

"Husband," Peter said absently, picking up the first book Maury had tossed over.

Maury looked back at him silently for a long moment. Peter looked up at him after he'd stared a little too long. Maury gave himself a shake and returned to picking out books. "Yeah. Read this stuff and it will give you a better understanding of what's going on from a clinical point of view. None of these books have the answers in them, but it's better than nothing. And I think it will help _you_, which believe it or not, you're more than half the problem here, Peter."

He turned back. "The thing to remember is that Gabriel's the same guy he was last week. Exact same guy, except with one more ability and a shit pile of guilt that's tearing him apart. He might be a little agitated right now, but don't leave him, don't threaten him, don't judge him - and he'll calm down. You want him fired up and off-balance? Then just keep pushing his buttons - you know what they are." Peter shook his head silently and Maury went on, "If it gets bad, just curl up in a ball on the floor and let him vent. It's undignified, but he'll get the message he's pushed it too far. I've seen his head. He won't keep at you unless you're on your feet fighting him, or unless he's stopped loving you, which ain't gonna happen anytime soon."

Peter looked at the stack of books, considering what Maury had said about him being more than half the problem. He sighed and stood up. "Okay. What do I do about him wanting me to run his life?"

"You're already running his life, Peter. He's just being a passive aggressive ass and making it overt."

Peter couldn't wrap his mind around that. "What?"

"You're already telling him when he can indulge his hunger and when he can't. As long as that's _your_ decision and not _his_, then you don't have a lot of room to bitch when he lays back and tells you to run the rest of the show too."

Peter sighed again. He could see the point, but not what to do about it. "What … should I do?"

"Tell him to live his own life and then _let him_. That might include him doing things you can't deal with in a partner. In which case, don't be his partner. Husband, whatever. You want him to calm down, relax, be happy with himself? Don't tell him you can't handle what he is - because there's very little he can do about that and the choices you're giving him are forcing him to desperate solutions like yelling out the equivalent of 'that wasn't me!' and seeing if you'll believe it, maybe seeing if he can make _himself_ believe it."

Peter felt his heart clench simply at the suggestion of leaving. "How … how do I reconcile this with …" He huffed. "I've told him I'd give him as many second chances as he needed. What if he decides to do it anyway - taking abilities? Do I just … accept that and let him walk all over me?" He didn't think Maury's moral guidance was worth a fig, but he thought he might as well ask. He could always ignore it.

Maury snorted. "Peter, quit trying to have it both ways. You're being a twit. There are other solutions out there. We've already discussed a couple. Samson had his own; Sylar was basically functional; you could always try experimentation and see if maybe he cuts open Claire or someone else with regeneration if that would give him the hit he needs ..."

Peter's eyes narrowed at the implication. Maury smiled at Peter's expression. "But seriously, Peter, this isn't the end of the world. Give it a little time to settle down then talk to him about it. You know how _you _feel about this. Do you really know how _he_ feels? I'm not talking emotions, I mean what he intends to do, what he'd think the ideal solution would be if your feelings weren't in the picture - that sort of thing."

Peter shook his head silently, thinking about Gabriel telling him he liked his ability.

"Well, maybe you should find out."

Peter stood up, saying, "I'll do that. I need to get going. Thanks for the books. If we can't work it out, I'll come back." He picked up the texts.

Maury gave him a cheerfully false smile, knowing that about half of what he'd said likely hadn't made an impression. But half was better than none.


	258. Girl Talk part 1

**A/N: This is the afternoon, same day as False Steps, Restraining Order, Safe Words and Talking the Talk.**

"I don't think this is a conversation Gabriel should be here for," Peter said in response to Heidi's question. Gabriel was still at work at the moment and probably would be for the next hour. "You can tell him whatever you want, but I can't imagine he'd be comfortable listening to me tell you this."

He forged on. "Thank you for the heads up last night. This morning I … finally got out of him what had happened. Sunday, this last Sunday, he had me teleport him to Spain. There was a team in trouble. They'd lost situation containment and they needed backup. Gabriel and I went in. I don't know if we did much good as things were going down as we showed up, but we were there at least. One of the targets was killed, another captured, and the last got away.

"Gabriel's … main, original ability allowed him to take the abilities of others by killing them. You knew that." She nodded. She'd found out about six months before. "That's changed since then, so now he can take abilities from people who are dead. I'm going to assume just the recently dead, but with powers there's no telling. I think he would have said something though if it was just any body out there."

"But regardless," Heidi said, "You had someone recently dead."

He nodded. "I told him it was okay if he did it." He pursed his lips and looked away.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Peter's head came back around and he blinked at her. "The … that's … that's not right."

She stared at him for a long moment. "… Why?"

"It's not right. It's … just … trust me."

"Why do I need to trust you on this?" She laughed. "Is it because you don't _have_ a reason?"

He rubbed at his forehead nervously. He'd had a few conversations with Heidi like this in the past and he always hated them. He and she were just diametrically opposed on some very basic philosophical issues. He was spiritual – right and wrong were transcendent values that existed independent of human thought; she was utilitarian – what mattered was how an action affected you and your loved ones, and eventually your peers and community. How she managed to have this philosophy and yet remain a devout, observant Catholic was a mystery to Peter.

"No, I don't, alright?" he snapped.

"Okay," she nodded levelly, like that was an acceptable answer.

He sighed and shook his head. _See, that's the sort of answer that would have set me off, but she thinks that's fine. Whatever. Focus on Gabriel. That's why I'm here._ "Anyway, I told him it was okay, but he didn't do it."

"Why not?"

He blinked at her again, suddenly seeing Gabriel's stated reason in a new light. _Weird. I thought he was being flippant. Never occurred to me he might have been serious_. "He said he didn't want that ability."

"Okay," she said, nodding again, because this too was a good reason for her.

"So then he got … upset, because I guess he started thinking that if I was okay with him taking a dead guy's ability, then he could go out and arrange for someone to be dead, and then it would be okay to take their ability. Someone with an ability he actually wanted."

Just saying the words explained things to Peter that he hadn't understood yet. He'd been wondering why Gabriel had declined in Spain and then went to the trouble of going after Rupesh, because Peter had been hung up thinking it was the process of getting an ability – just any ability – that Gabriel craved. But no. He'd gone after a specific target and a specific ability, which meant that he really might be the rational actor in this that he kept telling Peter he was. It didn't mean he wasn't still an addict, but it changed the way Peter was looking at this.

Peter shook his head a little and said, "He set things up, found someone the Company wanted gone, killed him and took his ability. Then he had a breakdown."

"Because of the ability?"

Peter looked at her blankly, thinking of all the pictures he'd waded through in Sylar's file – and although the never-ending photographs of the dead haunted him, what he remembered the most clearly were the pictures of Gabriel's closet, endlessly decorated with pleas for forgiveness and confessions of guilt. "No," he said quietly. "I think because he doesn't like to kill people."

"Hm," she said. "He's never struck me as blood-thirsty, I'll agree."

"That's what happened – he had a breakdown. He felt …" Peter wasn't sure how Gabriel had felt about it and talking to Maury had underscored that. He was making assumptions, based on how depressed Gabe had acted once Peter found out, or when he thought Peter might find out. Gabriel's reactions to the act itself weren't something Peter knew. He said, "… however it is he felt and by the time he got back here to us, it was so heavy on him he couldn't cope." He chewed his lip, worrying that the reason Gabriel couldn't cope was Peter - not the ability or self-inspired guilt. "He had a … a bit of a fit this morning."

"A fit?"

"Yeah," Peter looked away uneasily. "He got violent. Said he was going to hurt me, take my ability, kill me maybe. When I wouldn't fight him, he …" Peter wondered if she knew about Gabriel's kill spot. He suspected she did not. It wasn't his place to advertise that particular weakness, so he continued with, "… he stopped himself and I was able to cancel his abilities. Then we talked, once he calmed down."

He left out the tying-him-down part too. Although he was sure Heidi wouldn't have a problem with that if it was necessary, she might pause to wonder why they had handcuffs and locking straps in the nightstand. She was exceedingly straight-laced as far as sexual experimentation went, from what Gabriel and Nathan both had said of her. Kinky was doing it non-missionary. To find out that Peter and Gabe were playing around with bondage might be a case of 'too much information.'

Heidi asked, "What happens now? Is he calmed down, or still upset?"

"He's okay. We took a nap, got lunch and like I told you on the phone, he went to work. I think he'll be all right. He's engaging now – no more Mr. Roboto." He smiled a little.

Heidi did too. "Yeah, he was pretty weird last night. He wouldn't talk much – kept saying he was tired."

"He was under a lot of emotional strain. That wears a person out."

She nodded. "Is he going to have these fits … more? With me? Or did you set him off somehow?"

"No, I set him off. He's … I don't think you have anything to worry about. I talked to Maury Parkman today, a little earlier, and he agreed. Gabriel used to be called Sylar, back … before." Heidi nodded – this wasn't news to her, so Peter went on, "That's when he did most of the killing. He likes to wear these personas – Nathan, Sylar, Gabriel, whoever – and he sort of pretends they're different people, or that he's different when he's them. He's not. I've had to work real hard to get past the face, but he's the same underneath. I'm telling you this because this morning he shifted back and forth between being Sylar and Gabriel, he answered to different names, acted different."

"Like … Sybil, multiple personality stuff?"

"Kind of. I'm told that's mostly exaggerated for film, like most medical conditions, so … take it with, like, a huge block of salt." Heidi nodded. Peter chewed his lip again. "Anyway, Maury and I both agree he's the same guy, but I think your ability will be the best judge of that. You tell me if he's two people or not. I'm thinking he's just one – one who isn't very happy with who he is inside, the things he's been forced to do, and so he's got this defense mechanism of playing pretend with other people's faces."

Heidi smiled suddenly and blushed. Peter's brow furrowed. She said, "It doesn't matter whose shape he's in, Peter, he's still the same guy. I'm sure of that."

Peter's eyes widened slightly. The sole 'unusual' sex play Gabriel had been able to talk Heidi into was him taking the form of different men in the bedroom, so of course she'd be familiar with the role playing - more than Peter. He laughed a little. "Ah, yeah. But … that might be different. I mean like … well, just call me if he strikes you as different, okay?"

She agreed.

XXX

Gabriel's cell phone rang. It was Maury Parkman. He debated, only for a moment, not answering, but went ahead. He'd been sort of expecting this and there was no way in hell he was coming in to discuss his current situation. Or at least, that's what he tried telling himself. "Hello?" His tone was distinctly uninterested.

Maury, on the other hand, sounded cheerful. "Hey there! Are you on a rampage?"

Gabriel stared forward coldly, while a number of possible responses ran through his brain, starting with '_What?_', ending with '_Go fuck yourself!_' and covering a broad spectrum in between. Finally he said merely, "No."

"Good! That's all I wanted to know that was really critical. Now, tomorrow Angela wanted to serve roast beef for lunch, but I was trying to talk her into some of that Mexican-style chicken she made a few weeks ago. Were you there for that?"

Gabriel was silent for another long moment, knowing the old telepath well enough to know that this conversation was littered with far more meaning than the surface held. _How did he respond to direct questions? Indirect ones? Was he still coming to lunch tomorrow or was he shunning social gatherings now? Was his memory intact? Was he so easily irritated and unsettled that he couldn't hold a basic conversation? How long did it take him to answer these questions?_ This one had already taken too long, he realized. He sighed. "Yes, I remember that. It had a cream sauce with green chilis. I liked it; the kids didn't."

"Yeah, good point. They didn't." Maury waited a beat, then said, "Well, they're just kids. What's your vote - roast beef or Mexican chicken?"

"Roast beef. One less thing to fight with people over." He twitched as soon as the words left his mouth, worrying what that meant, if it had any larger meaning, was he trying to calm things down in his life and avoiding conflict … But that was probably a good thing if he was. This was not the time to have arguments with his kids or anyone else about trivial crap. He still felt an itching need to lash out.

"Okay," Maury said. "I'll let her know. She's already got the meat for the roast, so it was probably going to be that anyway. It's not like I get my way over there at her house. She does what she wants, puts what she wants on the table and I eat it. I'm happy that way. I'm sure that's your situation too."

Gabriel smiled slightly and let himself relax. The subtext was a little clearer on that one. "Yes, it is. Thanks for checking on me, Maury. I'm fine. My family's fine. Peter's fine."

Maury's voice changed a little too, just as Gabe's had when he relaxed. "Glad to hear that. You know my number if you need help. Don't let Peter push you around too much. I chewed his ass off for you, as much as I thought he'd stand for - which isn't much, really."

Gabriel snorted. "Good-bye, Maury." He hung up. He looked at the phone for a long minute, then shook his head slowly. He had a feeling he'd passed the old man's test.


	259. Girl Talk part 2

Peter was lying on the couch reading one of the psychology books when Emma came in. He stuck a hand up and waved. She saw the gesture, but didn't respond verbally. She put away her bag and hung up her keys, then got herself a cheese stick to snack on. She settled down on the other end of the short couch, lifting Peter's feet and scooting under them. He smiled and set the book aside to free up his hands. He tapped his forehead and then signed, "We need to talk about Gabriel. Long talk."

She nodded and he projected his thoughts into her mind - an easier conversation than having to sign everything and watch each other's gestures closely. He told her, _You remember how you and Heidi wanted to know if Gabe and I were having a bad problem?_

_Yes?_

_We're having a bad problem. Earlier this week he went on a mission for the Company. He was supposed to bring this guy in alive if possible, but they knew he was dangerous so it was sort of dead or alive, prefer alive. Gabriel could have brought him in that way, but he killed him to take his ability instead._

_What?_ Emma was alarmed._ He killed him anyway?_

_Yeah._

_Oh no._ Unlike Heidi, Emma saw immediately why this was a problem.

_Yeah. It messed him up, too. Not the ability, but killing someone. He has this drive - the hunger is all the time urging him on and making him think it's a good idea to kill, but I don't think he really wants to do it. It messes with his idea that he's in control of himself and I … I just don't think he wants to be a killer. That he is doesn't have much to do with it - he doesn't __**want**__ to be, and so when he slipped and went ahead and did it, he had this sort of emotional breakdown._

Peter continued, _He came back really upset, really distant, acting unemotional and off. Heidi told me, then I saw for myself. I finally got him to open up this morning and he …_ Peter shut his eyes briefly, blocking his thoughts at the same time as he tried to decide how to express what had happened. He decided to go with a little more explicit and truthful than he'd given Heidi earlier. _He got violent. He said he was going to kill me too and take my ability-_

_What?_ Now she was alarmed and a bit angry.

_No, no, he didn't. He was just talking, threatening. He didn't even try to do it (at least, not very hard)._ His mind tacked on the parenthetical unintentionally. Peter wasn't precise enough in his mental control to partition what he thought from what he projected. Generally, if he thought it, he projected it, unless he made a specific effort not to. He went on, _When I wouldn't fight him, he stopped himself. I canceled his abilities, tied him to the bed and we talked._

_You tied him to the bed?_ Emma wasn't sure whether to be amused about that.

_I said he was violent._

_Yeah. Okay._ Not amusing, then.

_He calmed down and said he wouldn't kill anyone else for their abilities. He said he'd control himself. He apologized for getting carried away. (Did he? I don't know if he did…) _Peter yanked his thoughts back in line. _Things are okay now, sort of okay, at least I think he's stable. He went to work. I'll see him tonight._

_Is he going to stay that way? Do you believe him that he won't do it again? It doesn't sound like you do._

_No, I … well, I _believe_ that he might never do it again. I _believe_ that he's going to__** try**__ to never do it again. I _believe_ that maybe we'll find a way so he doesn't have to. But if there was an easy solution to this, then someone would have come up with it already. I think it's more likely that in four months to a year he'll snap again. The Company files on his ability say that for someone who isn't locked up, six months is the maximum between kills they've seen, even when the person is pretty motivated to stay 'clean.' But I know for a fact that Gabriel went almost a full year between Matt Parkman and the victim before him, and it's been six months from Matt to now. I don't think he'd have done it even now if I hadn't set him off by telling him it was okay to take an ability from someone who was dead already._

_Wait,_ Emma asked,_ you told him it was okay?_

_A few days before the guy that he killed on purpose, he and I were on a mission where one of the targets was killed in self-defense by an agent. He was dead and Gabriel didn't have anything to do with it. Gabriel said he could take the ability of the dead and … I told him that if he was okay with that, morally, then I wouldn't object. I guess I kind of thought of it like organ harvest or something. I don't know what's right or wrong there, really, I mean it seems sort of wrong because the person was never asked if we could use their body that way … but …_

_I understand. Can't he take abilities without killing though? You said he could, if he had a strong empathy with them already._

_Yeah, he can, but he seems pretty limited in who he can do that with. He doesn't have my ability, for example._

_He doesn't? Why not?_

Peter sighed._ He told me once it was because he didn't understand me._

_Oh._ She wasn't sure what to make of that.

_Well, that's the problem we're having: he's upset about killing someone and torn up about it, and then there's the whole aspect of how this is likely to happen again in a year or so even with the best of intentions._

_You think his intentions are good on this? From what you say, he murdered someone!_

_If they weren't, he wouldn't be so upset about it. Maury kind of implied all of Gabriel's guilt was my fault, but I don't buy it. It's not like he was acting normal last night when he was around Heidi, or-_

_Did he hurt Heidi?_ Emma interrupted.

_No, he didn't. He was just upset and unemotional and distant. That's all. I don't think he's a danger for us to be around. (At least no more than normal. Wait, that doesn't sound good …) He _picked_ the guy he killed and the guy was really a problem, not that that means he deserved what happened to him. I know that's not a big consolation, but it wasn't like he lost control and went after the next special he saw, so he's not … _

Peter's mind flashed to the trouble Gabriel had been having only a few weeks before, controlling himself around Peter. It had seemed like something he'd put behind him, but had those incidents exacerbated the hunger? Or were they the warning signs Maury had mentioned, that would begin to build up as Gabe got to the end of his rope? He pulled his thoughts back to what he was trying to communicate, _he's not out of control. He's also getting to the point where he _tells_ people he's upset. He didn't used to, not so much. He's starting to open up though. He didn't run off this time._

_You said he got violent. Did he assault you?_

_No. _What was in Peter's mind, what he'd feared happening, what had almost happened, was a sexual assault. Then he realized that Emma just meant physically. _No, yes. I mean yes. I mean, he pushed me against the wall and threw a punch at me, but that was it. It wasn't like he let loose and blew me through the wall into the other room. He was trying to provoke me into fighting back and I wouldn't. Without that trigger of someone laying hands on him, he self-limits on what he's willing to do._

_What are you going to do?_

_Read up on his issues and try to help him. All the other options are worse. And after a few days, maybe next week, I'm going to sit down and talk with him about what he wants help with. I don't really know what he wants to do about this, so I'll ask._

She looked over at the stack of books on the coffee table. _What are those?_

_Books I got from Maury: dissociative identity disorder; passivity, irresponsibility and partner anger; repressed memories and psychogenic amnesia; psychological stress and the coping process; self medication and addictive behavior; post traumatic stress disorder and panic reactions; depression in the functional individual; and whatever those two on the bottom are - I forget, and I'm probably mangling the titles of the others anyway._

_What's he addicted to? Taking abilities?_

_I have no idea. If I had to guess, I'd say so. It looked like Maury was pulling these books out at random, but maybe not. Probably not. … Almost certainly not._

_Hm._ She fished through the stack for the one on partner anger. _I think this one might have a lot of application for me. __**Peter**__._

He snorted, getting her implication that he was passive aggressive, irresponsible and hacked her off at times. _Thanks a lot._

She grinned at him and settled in to read. Peter shook his head a little and reached out for his own book on DID. He ended the mental connection so he could concentrate. Other than dinner, they spent the evening reading.


	260. Removing the Stain

That evening, Gabriel came in on time. Peter set aside the book he'd been reading and swung his legs down to the floor. Gabriel shut the door behind him and leaned on it like he was holding it shut. He gave Peter an uncertain, nervous smile. Peter smiled softly in response and regarded him steadily, trying to project the confidence in Gabriel that the other man lacked in himself at the moment.

After a long beat, Gabriel pushed off from the door and took a couple steps in the room. He paused at the section of wall he'd knocked Peter into repeatedly. Two pink spots of damp spackle decorated it where Peter had recently patched the dents his elbows had left. Gabriel touched one, looking at the bit of plaster on his finger afterward. He brushed it off and touched the wall itself. He shuddered and looked away, breathing harder. He turned to Peter, opening his mouth to speak.

Peter stood up abruptly and interrupted. "Don't apologize."

Gabriel blinked at him, shutting his mouth. Peter walked over and put his hands on the man's hips. After a moment he slid his thumbs into the waistband. He tilted his head up and looked at Gabriel's lips. Tentatively at first, then with quick-building ardor, Gabriel bent his head and kissed him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight. When he was done, he was panting.

Peter kissed him again on the chin and said, "There's a part of you that doesn't apologize for anything that you are. I happen to like that part."

"Is that the part you prefer?" the taller man asked.

"I prefer all of you – whole and complete." Peter tugged Gabriel down for another kiss. "I've heard enough apologies lately. I don't want to hear any more." Peter paused and raised a hand to stroke his lover's cheek. "You have so little to be sorry for. There's a lot on you, and you're dealing with it as best you can. I'm trying to help you deal with it, and if what I'm doing isn't helpful, tell me. Maybe we can find something better to do."

Gabriel considered that, took a deep breath and gave Peter a quick smooch. "If I can't apologize, then let me at least say thank you for fixing the wall. You're handy," he smiled, "in addition to being handsome."

"I've had a lot of practice lately - with the handy part." In the general remodel a few weeks before, he'd also fixed the dent in the wall over the headboard in the bedroom.

"Hm." Gabriel parted from the embrace and walked over to look at the stack of books. He picked up the one on top. "What is this? Chicken Soup for the Multiple Personality Psycho-Killer's Soul?"

Peter snorted. That wasn't the title of any book in the stack, much less the one on top. "For your information, it's called dissociative identity disorder and it's not that uncommon a reaction to extreme stress or trauma. Short term dissociation by itself is a _very_ common response to trauma, especially events that …" Peter frowned, trailing off.

Gabriel looked at him. "Yes?"

Peter shrugged. "Especially events that the person might feel indicate a betrayal of trust or personalized persecution rather than just being caught up in a disaster." Child and sexual abuse were the prime markers. While Gabriel might not have had those (or maybe he did - what little Peter knew of his childhood did not look good), what he definitely _did_ have was an experience of having his identity blotted out and overlaid by Nathan's, and then having his tenuous grasp on his reconstituted identity as Sylar mixed _with_ Nathan's. That those elements of Nathan's personality might feel betrayed - by Angela, by Peter - seemed very likely. And it was about as personalized as you could get. Peter scratched at his nose and looked away.

Gabriel put the book down and sat on the couch. "Thank you for letting me go - from the bed, this morning, when I asked."

Peter shrugged one shoulder uneasily. The long seconds he'd waited between the safe word and releasing Gabriel bothered him. He walked over and sat at the other end, next to the books. "I talked to Maury. He didn't seem all that concerned, really. Do you want to see him? I don't have any problem with it, if you think it would help."

Gabriel gave him a small shake of his head.

Peter nodded. "That's kind of what I thought - that we'd deal with this between the two of us. Four of us, I guess. Anyway, he gave me some recommendations for books." He gestured at the stack. "Actually, those are his. He lent them to me."

Gabriel waved his hand and pulled over the top three books with telekinesis. He read the titles and then looked at the table of contents for each. "You're going to read these?"

"Yes. I'm halfway through the first one. I took the day off. Emma finished this one." He pulled out one of the slimmer volumes that was towards the bottom. "She reads faster than I do."

"Emma?" Gabriel stuck his hand out for the book. Peter gave it to him.

"Yeah. We're in this together."

Gabriel's brows were knitted together. He scanned this book too, very quickly. "My problems should not … be … absorbing everyone's time." He looked uncomfortable.

"She seemed to think that one applied more to me than you." Peter smiled at how discomfited Gabriel was. Peter crawled over to him on his hands and knees. "Hey. I love it when you absorb my time." He nipped the other man on the shoulder, catching the fabric of the shirt and tugging at it with his mouth.

Gabriel smiled, caught between flirting back and being uncertain. "You really … want to be with me after everything I did this morning?"

"Yes, definitely." Peter moved back to chew at the point of his shoulder, leaving a damp spot on the cloth. He tilted his head to look up at his partner. In a whining, pleading tone, he added, "It's been _six __**days**_ since I had sex with you, Gabe. I might_** die**_ if I don't get some from you soon!"

"Oh, God! You poor thing." Gabriel burst out laughing, intensely flattered, and fell back, pulling Peter on top of him. They scooted and rearranged. Books fell off the couch haphazardly. It probably would have been better to teleport to the bedroom, but for the moment at least they were both happy where they were at.

Peter reached down and took Gabriel's hips, rubbing their groins together. "You have no idea how horny I was for you to come back," he breathed.

Gabriel smiled up at him with such a vulnerable expression that it made Peter hesitate. Tears were glistening in the corners of Gabriel's eyes. He was very happy - unalloyed happiness was what Peter could feel from his emotions. And so Peter continued, leaning down to see if he could unbutton Gabriel's dress shirt with his teeth. If he couldn't, he could always cheat with telekinesis. Gabriel's hands ghosted up his sides, touching lightly, like he couldn't believe what was going on.

_Yeah, it's real ya big dork,_ Peter thought. _Death didn't scare me off from trying to keep Nathan. A little bit of Sylar isn't going to put me off from you. Besides, you're crazy good in bed._ "You are delicious." Peter sucked at the exposed bit of chest, ignoring the hairs that were likely getting stuck in his teeth.

Gabriel shifted under him, brows coming together as he moved his hands to Peter's head as the Italian applied increasing amounts of suction. "Oh. Ow. _Oh…_ that's _good_."

Peter lifted away, watching the hickey fade. He grinned and undid a few more buttons. He pulled the fabric over, exposing something more sensitive. He gave Gabriel a slack-jawed grin, running his tongue back and forth across his teeth in anticipation.

"Oh, yeah," Gabriel said, chuckling. Peter descended onto his target, giving it an initial hard nip, then settling in to tongue the nub gently, enjoying how the other man squirmed underneath him. The wriggling was wonderful, and **hot** - so hot. Peter shifted and drove his hand under Gabriel's waistband, into his pants. Gabriel moaned, one hand still on Peter's head, tangled in his hair, but the other now falling to clutch at Peter's ass.

Peter, for his part, humped slowly against his lover's hip while his hand caressed the growing hardness of his shaft. That Gabriel was taking a little longer to get fully into it didn't surprise him. Peter's hand was outside Gabe's underwear but under his slacks. He ran his nails up and down the cotton-sheathed organ, too light to hurt, but it definitely had Gabriel's attention. He changed to sucking at his nipple instead of teasing it and worked one thigh between Gabriel's legs.

Gabriel opened the rest of his shirt and shoved it off, leaning up to do it. Peter rode him up and then back down, but on the way down switched sides. He had to twist a little to keep his hand in Gabe's pants. He stopped for a moment to ask, "Should we go to the bed?" He wasn't sure how Gabriel would feel about that, given the morning. His suspicion was confirmed with the man's answer.

"No, here's good." Gabriel pulled Peter's shirt up and off of him before letting the empath continue his assault on his chest. He ran his hands down over Peter's buttocks and ground him against himself, pulling him on top. Peter couldn't keep his hand on Gabe's member, so he brought it up to tweak his other nipple relentlessly.

"Still got lube out here?" Gabriel asked, panting.

"Yeah." Peter reached out, concentrated for a moment, and had it in his hand. Gabriel took it from him and waggled his brows. He set it aside for a moment and reached down to unfasten his pants. Peter leaned back onto his knees and did the same. Both sets were thrown to the side.

Gabriel sat up and made Peter pause as he started to lie on him again. "No. Turn around."

Peter nodded and obeyed, on his knees. Gabriel put lube on his hand. He sat up, then went up on his knees behind Peter, who glanced back. Gabriel put one hand on his shoulder and the other low between his thighs. He moved it upwards slowly, letting his thumb drag lightly along Peter's skin, giving him an update all the way up of where that hand was. His fingertips tickled his balls briefly then went up further. Gabriel kissed the back of his neck, nosed at his hair and then came back down to nip at him lightly.

"Oh, God," Peter said softly, putting one leg down and off the couch to spread himself eagerly, even though Gabriel had yet to touch him there. He felt it a moment later: cool, wet and slick, with warm fingers rubbing the lubricant across him. Peter reached back to fondle Gabriel's shaft and was discouraged.

"Play with yourself."

Peter stroked slowly with one hand and teased at his nipples with the other.

Gabriel began working fingers into him, finding the right spot and making him moan wantonly. "You like this?"

"Yes!"

Gabriel grinned and took a moment to chuckle. "I love you, Peter. Oh God how I love you." Relief flooded through him. It really hit him that everything was going to be all right – he had another chance. He'd had his outburst, Peter still loved him and they were going forward from here. The man wasn't even put off from having sex with him. Peter had never left his side, even at his worst. There were tears in Gabriel's eyes again.

Peter could feel the emotions shift. "Don't break down on me, baby. Don't you break down on me right now or I will have the blue balls from hell." He pushed down against the fingers that had paused in their efforts.

"Oh, no. I wouldn't do that to you," Gabriel promised, biting the back of his neck hard, then kissing over the spot gently. He had Peter opened enough. He bent him forward, slicked himself, and worked inside gradually. Peter's sounds were wonderful. He moaned, he called out, he groaned. Peter was getting way less inhibited than he used to be. He started pressing back into him quickly. When Gabriel was buried balls deep, he leaned forward and wrapped an arm firmly across Peter's chest. "Come all the way back with me, sweetie. All the way."

Peter let himself be guided back until Gabriel was lying flat on his back and Peter was on top of him, facing up, with Gabriel still sheathed within him. Peter waited a beat. Gabriel moved the hand that was still a little wet with lube down to Peter's cock while the other held him firmly.

Peter asked, "What am I supposed to do?"

"You're supposed to come, Peter. I'm in your ass, my hand is on your cock, and I'm holding you to me. There's nothing else you _can_ do. I'm going to hold you here and work you until you come all over yourself." He nipped his shoulder and teased, "How's that sound to you, little man?"

Peter grinned and sprawled back. "Sounds like heaven." He preferred a position where he had a little more input on things, but as Gabriel had observed, this put all the control in Gabe's hands. Maybe that was what he needed tonight. Gabriel started pumping him, flexing his hips to remind Peter of where his dick was. Gabriel mouthed his neck and sucked at the spot right behind his ear. Now Peter was the one squirming and wriggling, with every struggle moving him on Gabriel's shaft. He arched against him and Gabriel tightened his arm, pulling Peter back down.

"Not yet, Pete. Not yet." He got more forceful with his strokes and Peter started desperately trying to find a way to thrust more of Gabriel's cock inside of himself. He bit his lip, whining and keening as he felt it start. His back bowed again and this time Gabriel let him, tweaking a nipple viciously instead of holding him back. He came hard, crying out. Gabriel worked him more and more gently as Peter wound down, until he finally slumped back against him.

Gabriel whispered to him, "I'm going to use telekinesis and flip us, so you're face down. Then I'm going to fuck the living daylights out of you. Okay?" Peter nodded weakly. He was still catching his breath. He felt a little spasm of fear when Gabriel locked them both up for the flip. Peter didn't like being held with that power, but it was expected and brief. He was released as promised and also as promised, Gabriel began to slam into him powerfully. He put his hands on Peter's upper arms, holding him down, and hesitated. "This okay?"

"Yes." He didn't mind being held down. He'd grown confident that Gabriel would stop instantly if he asked it. He certainly noticed the repeated themes of dominating and controlling him that Gabriel was putting into play, but at the same time, Gabe was asking permission. If this was what he needed to work out any lingering resentment over being tied to the bed, then Peter was _very _willing to take this one for the team.

"Alright." Gabriel delivered a pounding, one leg off the couch for traction on the floor, the other hooked around Peter's. He was hammering his prostate. All Peter could do was moan and writhe. If Gabriel could figure out how to make him multi-orgasmic, then he was certainly going to try at it. Peter skated along in ecstasy as Gabriel finally climaxed, surging against him in a final, deep thrust.

Peter reached down between himself and the couch. He'd been on the edge anyway. He stroked himself only a few times, and finished again before Gabriel pulled out. He panted against the couch, realizing that he'd just soiled it rather thoroughly with his ejaculate. He … well, that hadn't been what was on his mind at that moment. Finding release had been a little more important.

"God, this poor couch," Peter muttered.

"Poor couch?" Gabriel asked, mystified. He pulled out. "I didn't even get any lube on it."

Peter rolled off, revealing a darkening wet spot, along with some smears where the come that had been on his chest had been rubbed into the upholstery.

"Oh," Gabriel said. "Well, there's always stain remover."


	261. Marital Constraints

This time, Peter cleaned up after himself. He'd intended to, of course, but it became a necessity. One good squirt from the bottle of spray cleaner and Gabriel recoiled, holding his nose and muttering, "God, that's disgusting."

"I could just use hot water," Peter offered.

"No! You've already sprayed it. And anyway, protein … stuff … It's probably better. I'll just stand over here and supervise."

Peter chuckled and scrubbed until he was satisfied with things. He put the bottle away under the kitchen sink. Gabriel had followed him to the kitchen entry and watched him blankly, as if waiting for directions.

"Let's go shower up," Peter said, and Gabriel nodded, following him obediently to the bathroom. Peter noticed two things: one, he should have _asked_ Gabriel and not told him, and Gabriel had said nothing of it, had not even an annoyed expression; and two, Maury had told him to let Gabriel run his own life – but did that apply to trivial things like this? Should he make a deal out of it? Peter huffed and got in the shower first, thinking he was over-analyzing things.

Gabriel puttered in the bathroom waiting for his turn. Peter traded places and then wandered into the bedroom as he dried. He stood at the threshold between the bathroom and bedroom, looking at the bed. They weren't likely to sleep on the couch, what with the lingering smell of cleaning compound on it. He wondered how unsettling the bed was for Gabriel, or if having his panic attack there earlier would put him off from sleeping on it until he calmed down more. Trauma was often location-specific, but exactly how traumatic did he code this morning's problem? Peter suspected he was over-analyzing things a lot.

He tossed his towel over the door and wandered over to the dresser, getting out a pair of old boxer shorts and putting them on. He contemplated the loose waistband on it, noting the elastic was getting a bit far gone. The shower kicked off and Gabriel stuck his head out. "Peter?"

"Yeah?" He looked up.

"I couldn't hear you over the shower."

"Um … I wasn't saying anything."

"I know. I couldn't …" Gabriel shook his head and got out, reaching for a towel.

_Okay, not over-analyzing things. He couldn't hear my aura. He wants me close_. Peter looked at the bed and impulsively acted on an idea. He walked over to the nightstand and pulled out a set of those metal handcuffs. He snapped one over his wrist, then lay on the bed and used telekinesis to wrap it around one of the bars of the frame at the head of the bed. He clicked the other side around his other hand.

He'd gone out of line of sight of the bathroom to do this, which lured Gabriel to the door (that, and the odd noises). The man toweled off his front idly while looking on. Peter stretched and settled in, his arms drawn above his head. Noticing his audience, he stuck out his chest and flexed, tensing and tightening his muscles, showing himself off. Gabriel smiled at the show, tossed his towel over Peter's and started towards him. He hesitated, smile faltering. He looked at the bed and then circled it to the other side, where he'd have more room. He hesitated again, smile disappearing entirely, then climbed on it carefully like it might swallow him up. Peter rocked his body suggestively, giving him a distraction.

It worked. Gabriel came up on his knees to put his hands on either side of Peter's ribs, fingers curled in a threat to tickle. Peter breathed harder and tensed, waiting for the attack that didn't come. Instead Gabriel put his nearer hand on the bed to support himself and kissed along the curve of Peter's ribs, from his side to his breastbone. He looked up at his lover from there. Peter moved his hands restlessly, working the links of the short chain back and forth around the metal bar.

Gabriel pulled over a pillow and lay next to him, propped on his elbow. His other hand roamed unhindered up and down Peter's body. Gooseflesh erupted across Peter's skin and he groaned slightly, arching into the touch, shutting his eyes and sinking himself into the sensation of being bound and restrained. Gabriel asked, "You want to do something?"

"Not really," Peter breathed, just enjoying what they were doing at the moment. It was nice. He pulled at the cuffs. He liked the feeling of the metal biting into him. It kept him from putting too much pressure on them and gave him a hint of pain when he jerked at it. _Maybe we need to keep these after all._ "Tomorrow night, when we're alone – you can tie me up if you want."

"I'd like that," Gabriel purred, kissing his side again. He toyed with him for a while, appreciating Peter's motions. He leaned in and licked across his chest, setting off another wave of squirming. Gabriel drew back only an inch and examined him. "How is it that you don't have any hair on your chest?"

Peter stilled for a moment, then chuckled. "Just one of those things, I guess."

"Honestly Peter - Heidi has more hair on her chest than you do."

Now he laughed. "She does not!"

"Yes, she does. She has hairs around her nipples, at least, when she hasn't shaved them off." Gabriel leaned in and rubbed one finger around Peter's nearer nipple. "You have some too, but they're tiny."

"That tickles." He wriggled, unable to really get away.

"Hm," Gabriel said, leaning back down to kiss him softly on the flat nub. Peter stopped moving to let him. Gabriel told him, "You know, Emma's probably going to get some too."

The Italian was silent for a moment. "What? Why?"

"She's pregnant. Hormones."

Peter was silent again.

Gabriel grinned at him. "Don't tell me you don't know about these things, Mister Paramedic."

"I'm a _paramedic_, yeah. Not an obstetrician. How much hair are we talking? It can't be much …"

"She's going to get more hair everywhere," Gabriel murmured threateningly, teasingly, running his hand down Peter's front and brushing over his groin. "Probably on her face too."

Peter shifted uncomfortably. "Well … okay."

"If Emma's helping you out on your reading for me, then I assign you mandatory reading of one of her pregnancy books, Peter – for her. You need to know these things."

Peter huffed. "Did you read them when Heidi was pregnant?"

"Of course. What else do you think I did while lying in bed at night, horny, when she wouldn't … when we'd decided not to have sex because she was afraid of miscarrying? It was a great way to kill the mood."

Peter said, "I don't think I'll need it for that."

"Then read it for educational purposes. Trust me – it helps."

"Okay."

Gabriel moved up to nuzzle along Peter's upper arm. "How long can you stay like this?" he asked.

Peter shrugged, as much as he could in the position. "I don't know. This isn't a good position for anything long term. Hands drawn over the head is a high-stress pose. I'd probably cramp up after a while."

Gabriel looked up at the cuffs and they released. "Wouldn't want that." He kissed Peter's shoulder after he lowered his arms. "Let's go to sleep and I'll dream of what pose to put you in tomorrow night."

Peter nodded and put the handcuffs on the nightstand. They got under the covers and Gabriel flicked the light off. He snuggled up behind Peter for a while, then rolled onto his back. A little bit later he scooted over back to his side. Peter rolled over and reached out a foot to touch him, stretching. Gabriel turned back towards him. A moment later he heard the clink of metal and the cuffs flew through the air over him, landing in Gabriel's raised hand. The other man studied them. Peter turned on his side to face him.

Gabriel ran his fingers around the ring of metal, pulling memories from it. This was the one that had been on his right hand that morning. He said, "Are you really going to stay with me? I'm _crazy_, Peter."

Peter snorted. "You're not crazy. And anyway, we're married. I don't believe in divorce."

"Hm … are we?" Peter could see the glint of Gabriel's eyes in the darkness. "You're having a wedding with Emma. I had one with Heidi."

Peter reached out to him, finding the handcuff between his hand and Gabe's. "_**You**_ are my husband. That's how I think of you now. That's what you are. If you want a ceremony, there are places we could go. I have my mother's blessing. I'm pretty sure I have my father's. The only problem will be working out the bigamy, legally."

"No, no!" Gabriel shook his head. "That's not … I don't need a _ceremony_, Peter." He sounded exasperated.

Peter pulled his hand back, taking the handcuffs from Gabriel. "I, Peter Petrelli, do hereby take you, Gabriel Gray, to be my," Gabriel began to sputter, but Peter wouldn't be interrupted, "beloved husband, in sickness and in health, through thick and thin, struggles and smooth sailing, **crazy **_**or**_** sane**, until death do us part." He snapped the cuff around his own wrist, "We are linked together, no matter what." He reached out and pulled Gabriel's hand to his and closed the other side around it.

Gabriel jerked. His sputtering stopped and he started breathing fast and shallow. He yanked against the cuff, pulling Peter's hand to him, alarmed by the constraint.

_Shit,_ Peter thought, his playful attempt to soothe going bad. He turned his hand (the one that was cuffed, and closer to the other man) and touched him cautiously, feeling for his emotions. Gabe wasn't panicking, which relieved the empath. He was close to it, but he was winding back down quickly. His breathing slowed. He moved his hand a little. Peter let his own follow. Gabriel moved it around some more, experimentally, then smiled. He turned and caught Peter's hand, twining their fingers together. He relaxed.

"I, Gabriel Gray, do hereby take _you_," he squeezed Peter's hand, "Peter Petrelli, to be my beloved husband … through everything. And anything. For so long as you'll have me." He was silent a moment and then said, "And the lawyer part of me has to insist that the death you're talking about is permanent, and not any of that temporary stuff you and I might get into."

Peter laughed at the stipulation. "Yes, I meant something permanent." He leaned in and kissed him. "All better?"

"Yes." Gabriel jerked his hand back and to the far side suddenly, still gripping Peter, rolling onto his back and pulling Peter on top of him. He hugged him and they kissed passionately for a while. Eventually Peter slipped to the side, nestled against his lover. Gabriel used telekinesis to unlock the handcuffs again and sent them back to the top of the nightstand. "While those are certainly interesting, I don't think they're going to replace the watches. Would be tougher to explain in public anyway."

"Mrm," Peter said, feeling drowsy. "It's been a long day. Let's just go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay." Gabriel played with Peter's hair for a moment, still having trouble winding down and letting go. "Sweetie-petey."

"All yours," Peter slurred.

A few moments later, Gabriel said, "I love you." Peter didn't answer. A few moments after that, Gabriel said, "You're a good lover."

Peter blinked, firmly shoved aside his desire to sleep, and tilted his head up to show some interest. He was sure Gabriel could hear he wasn't asleep yet, so he didn't think he needed to do anything else.

"You're with me?"

"Yes."

"Hm." Gabriel fell silent. Now that he had Peter's complete attention, he didn't know what to say. Finally he offered, "I'm sorry about earlier. Wait- I'm, I … I know you didn't want an apology."

"It's okay."

"Is it?"

"Yes." Peter wondered how many reassurances he was going to have to give. Well … he'd just keep giving them then.

"I want to be what you want me to be."

Peter tensed a little, then hugged him. He couldn't think of what to say to that. His mind went back to Gabriel telling him he couldn't change who he was, a few months ago when he'd first noticed Peter wearing the watch. He guessed the killing and the split had caused a setback, where Gabe was back to trying to be whatever he needed to be to gain approval. It made Peter feel bad, but at the same time it showed him how much progress Gabriel had made. It would be easier the second time around.

"I'm not sorry I killed him," Gabriel said. "Is that okay?"

_No, but you're definitely fishing for validation_. Peter tucked his head against him for a moment and then said, "How you feel is how you feel. That's always okay."

"Okay." He paused. "Okay." He paused again. "It … it felt good." His voice pitched up like it was a question, even though the words didn't indicate one.

Peter rubbed the side of Gabriel's stomach, where his hand was resting, and didn't say anything.

That wasn't enough though. Gabriel prompted him with, "Is that okay?"

_No_. "How does it feel to take someone's ability like that?"

"Fantastic," he answered immediately, his voice deepening and his emotions shifting. "It's incredible, surreal! It's …" Guilt crushed him again and he fell silent.

_That was Sylar_, Peter thought. He lifted himself up on his elbow and look in the direction of the other man's face. He couldn't see him well in the dark and he really wished he could. _How do I get him back? What triggered that? Was it remembering the sensation of sating the hunger?_ "How long … does the feeling last?" Peter wasn't sure why he wanted Sylar back as opposed to Gabriel – just curious, maybe, or uncertain. The book he'd read had given conflicting advice to Maury's about how to handle an alter, or an alternate personality. He felt the strong emotions beginning to spiral up in his lover: guilt, tension, more guilt, a thread of anger, shame, more tension, anger again … and then it was gone and the other man relaxed.

"A few hours." And there was that little deeper, more gravelly voice. He swallowed and spoke calmly. "A few hours that I can recall it clearly and feel the aftershocks. It's most intense while I'm doing it, of course." He was quiet and still, as opposed to the subtle fidgeting Gabriel had been doing.

Peter leaned in slowly, shifting a little so he could kiss him. His lips brushed softly and Sylar turned his head slowly, letting Peter kiss him. He brought a hand up and slid it behind Peter's head, holding him to him for a few more soft, careful kisses, with none of the violence of earlier. _So Sylar has a softer side_. He could feel the love too, along with caution and wariness. Peter could see his eyes watching him with a steady gaze. Sylar finished and Peter backed up a few inches, looking between his eyes as best he could in the dimness. The other man let his hand fall to Peter's shoulder and pushed him back down firmly. "I shouldn't talk about this with you. Let's go to sleep."

_You were the one who was restless and couldn't get comfortable … no, that was Gabriel. Who … doesn't want Sylar talking to me?_ "Okay," Peter said, settling in and just accepting things as they were. He patted Sylar's side where his hand rested. The other man reached over and gave his hand a squeeze, telegraphing that he wanted him to quit that. Peter smiled a little. He lay still and let drowsiness reclaim him.


	262. Fit to be Tied

**A/N: This is set the very next day, Saturday night, when the guys have a couple hours to themselves before heading back to their respective wives. **

Sylar slipped the silk tie between his fingertips, enjoying the sensation. It was smooth, soft and strong. Peter lay out across the bed, watching him a little too alertly for Sylar's liking. Yes, he knew who he was dealing with, which struck the killer as odd. Peter had been confused, frequently, when he wore Nathan's face, but now he could tell the shift between Gabriel and Sylar within seconds. Why that was, was something Sylar was still trying to figure out. All of the usual explanations fell flat – Peter was no less motivated, and he assumed Peter's emotions would be clouding the issue as much now as before. It wasn't like he wanted Sylar, after all … right? Didn't he prefer Gabriel? And even if he did want them both, why was the shift so transparent to him?

Sylar pondered this as he fastened the tie around Peter's right wrist, making sure to use a knot that wouldn't slip tighter when pulled. He tied the other end around a bar of the metal frame of the head board. He picked out another tie from the small stack on the nightstand. He flicked the end of it over Peter's chest, eliciting a smile as he drew it back across his skin. He'd been thinking of buying a flogger, but it was Heidi's hands he'd put that in, not Peter's. He circled the bed, whapping Peter with the tie on his legs, then the other side of his chest, before moving to restrain his left hand.

Yes, he was looking forward to giving that to Heidi. The riding crop had given him ideas, but one of those ideas was that Peter wasn't ready to hold something like that and even more surely Gabriel wasn't ready to be hit with it by him. He _wanted_ to be – that was certain. But he wanted to be hit by Peter so he could hit him back. He wanted the release, the excuse, the justification. Peter didn't know what he was getting into there and until he did, or more likely until Gabriel mastered his impulses, it was best not to exacerbate the situation. He had no such desire to pound Heidi into a paste.

He paused, looking down at Peter, who was still watching him quietly. A brief vision of him bruised, bleeding and broken flitted before Sylar's eyes. He smiled a little and climbed more fully on the bed. Peter's movements with Sylar were more deliberate, slower and more telegraphed than they were with Gabriel. He breathed more deeply and stayed more relaxed – or at least tried to. His muscles were obedient, but the central nervous system hummed along at a slightly elevated rate. Sylar leaned in and kissed him deeply, letting Peter's tongue stroke his own, aroused by a deep moan in Peter's throat and feeling him twist slightly to press his chest up against him. Peter wanted him. _Interesting._

He pulled back and urged up Peter's knees until Peter had them bent before him. Sylar summoned over one of the locking straps. He examined it for a moment. These had been on his feet and now they'd be on Peter's. He didn't want to replicate the layout Peter had done with him. That was part of why he'd gone with the ties instead of cuffs. He hadn't contested Peter laying face up on the bed – he was the one being tied up, after all, so it seemed right to let him pick. Sylar would have preferred him face down. He let these thoughts stew in the back of his head as he fastened the strap over the left ankle, then called the second to his hand for the right one.

He kissed Peter's nearer knee and rested his chin on it, looking at Peter looking at him. Peter smiled softly, but Sylar just stared back with an unchanged expression. Peter put his head back and looked at the ceiling. After a few moments he glanced down to see if he was still being watched, then he looked away again, shifting up to wrap his hands around the length of tie between his wrists and the bed frame. He gripped them uneasily, obviously uncomfortable about the scrutiny.

Sylar sat up and lifted one of Peter's legs, extending it up into the air, straightening it. He was limber – that was nice. Sylar nibbled along the calf, getting a pleased sound. His fingers explored the padded leather strap. It seemed tight enough, without being too much so. He looked past Peter's leg at the top of the bed frame, over Peter's head. He had an idea. He pushed Peter's leg back, listening as the muscles stretched. Ah, yes, he could do this, at least for a while, probably long enough and if it wasn't, a little pain on Peter's part, if he was properly stimulated and it was towards the end, might be appreciated. He'd pushed Peter's knees up to his chest quite often, though this was a bit extra. He took the other end of the strap and buckled it around the bed frame. Peter looked up at that with a little consternation. Sylar moved on to do the same with the right leg, then settled directly in front of his victim.

Now Peter lay with both arms up and out, tied to the frame. His legs were straight up, angled towards his head, ankles tied to the very same frame, making his body into something of an L shape. He flexed his knees experimentally as Sylar admired the view. Peter's rear end was completely exposed this way, even spread a bit. He looked very vulnerable. Sylar liked that. He smiled and waggled his eyebrows. Peter looked back at him and gave a chuckle. Sylar's fingers played down his leg, starting at the ankle and trailing along the back of his calf, knee (and there was quite a reaction there, even though Peter tried to stifle it – the backs of knees were one of those technically 'off-limits' areas), the back of his thighs and then his buttocks. They were rounded, pulled tight – a nice, firm curve. Sylar turned his hand to cup it around him and squeeze lightly. Peter flexed against his restraints, pushing against Sylar's hand.

Sylar let his hand drift to Peter's asshole – so inviting at this angle, slightly spread and entirely visible – just begging to be touched. He touched, watching Peter squirm in response, pulling down with his feet, bending his knees and lifting his ass. Sylar bent his head to his lover's groin and licked along the bottom of his shaft, fingers still tickling over sensitive flesh as Peter mewled in pleasure. He sat back up, though if anything would get him to lick Peter's ass, something like this might. He licked the fingers of his other hand instead and switched, leaving little trails of cool moisture as his fingers made a new circuit, teasing and tempting. Peter bit his lip and whined, unable to press back into him, but desperately wanting to. Sylar liked that.

He leaned over Peter's body, worming between his legs to kiss his lips. Peter returned it with interest, flexing his knees to rub his groin against Sylar. He was still watching for cues, too attentive. Sylar wanted him relaxed, compliant, losing himself in the act. He loved it when Peter threw himself into sex and he usually did. The killer didn't like this reluctance, holding back some of his attention rather than letting go. Sylar had a solution for that. He called over another tie and wrapped it over Peter's eyes. Peter inhaled sharply and made a small sound of helplessness. It wasn't an act. A thrill of fear shot through him – adrenaline and tension. Sylar tied it off anyway, adjusting the silk to minimize what he could see around the edges and taking care not to catch too much of his hair in it.

"Give in to me, Peter," he whispered, kissing him softly. "Give in."

"Okay," Peter said in a small voice, and to Sylar's eternal gratification, he did. Peter relaxed, his breathing deepened and he let his head loll back. Gooseflesh prickled along _Sylar's_ skin and he sat back up, smiling to himself in real pleasure. He wished he could do that – just surrender and get off on being helpless and open. But he'd been taken advantage of too many times like that, forced to be that way and then hurt. The only way he got off on it was to be completely and forcibly subjugated so that the only way out was obeisance, re-enacting patterns of abuse and appeasement, regaining ownership by eroticizing it.

Peter's experience had been different. He'd always begged for attention and rarely received it. Displays of neediness had provoked protectiveness from Nathan and his mother, not aggression, and so for Peter it was a pattern of behavior closely keyed with reward and love. Sylar kissed Peter's calf, kissing down it slowly, being very careful and soft and fleeting over the back of his knees, but refusing to avoid them altogether. He could hear the storm of sensation that provoked, out of proportion to the touch and so he was more delicate there than anywhere else. Peter didn't object or even tense – he just moaned wantonly. It was a delicious sound.

He let his fingers play with Peter's hole again, getting a new flavor of vocalization from him. He pressed just the tip of his finger against the center. He was dry, so it was resisted, but Sylar wasn't trying to slip it inside anyway. He was just providing the sensation, feeling Peter's anal ring flex and retract as Peter tried to envelop him regardless. Sylar summoned over the lube and slicked his fingers, sliding two abruptly inside his partner, making Peter moan aloud again and rock his body against him. Sylar hooked his fingers and motioned, stroking inside him and setting off another firestorm of sensation, but this time it was sexual, starting up feedback loops, making Peter breathe harder and groan and whine, shifting his hips, begging for more.

Sylar put his other hand on Peter's shaft partly to steady his motions and make it easier to rub his prostate with each hook of his fingers. He pumped slowly up and down. Peter's mouth had fallen open and now, Sylar could hear, he was entirely in the moment. It could have been anyone pleasuring him, because at the moment Peter was lost to everything but the endorphin high he was riding. He pulled against the restraints and writhed. He was _**so**_ turned on. The urge to just bring him off and watch the whole process was strong, but … to hell with it. He wanted to see this, so Sylar did exactly that. He liked plowing Peter's ass – he really, really did – but he liked even more watching him struggle against the bonds and whimper like he was doing now.

Sylar kept up a relentless pressure, rolling his fingertips back and forth against that so-sensitive gland within Peter's body. He stroked him up and down, bunching the skin to get a bit of a sleeve. He tightened his grip and leaned over to chew down Peter's tautly stretched calf, hearing Peter's breath catch as the rising stimulation was beginning to drown him, pulling him under. He went willingly, flushing, keening, throwing his head back and throbbing, clenching under Sylar's hands. He came –_ so beautiful._

He eased down, letting Peter calm. Sylar reached up for Peter's legs, unbuckling the restraints from his ankles and lowering them before they could cramp up and spoil the afterglow. His own cock was aching. He wanted Peter's mouth and so shuffled to the head of the bed on Peter's left, untying the tie on his left hand. He didn't unfasten the one on his right. He ran a dirty hand into Peter's hair and turned his head. His mouth was slack. He nudged the lips with the tip of his penis. Peter made a small, compliant sound and opened for him, letting him push inside. He tongued him and sucked, not doing the greatest job as he was still blown from his own orgasm, but Sylar didn't care about that. It was an intense turn-on by itself.

He moved a little closer, leaning in, and shoved Peter's head further onto him. Peter gulped around him, made another of those fantastic helpless noises and took him deep, pushing even further on him until his nose was buried in Sylar's pubic hair. Sylar put both hands on Peter's head, held him there and felt his throat spasm around him. He came almost immediately. His eyes tried to roll up to the back of his head as he emptied himself with a groan. He pulled back a moment later and Peter coughed, tried to breathe, and struggled for a moment. Sylar looked down, concerned. Peter got himself sorted out.

Sylar supported himself with the frame of the bed, watching as his lover sagged, one arm still stretched and tied, blindfold still over his eyes. He reached down and stroked Peter's face idly with a finger. It was dry now, but had either been in Peter's ass or his come earlier. Oh well. Sex was messy. It wasn't like they wouldn't shower afterward. Peter smiled softly and relaxed even more.

"Angle was bad," Peter said, slurring a little. "Sorry."

"Hm," Sylar hummed. He unfastened the last tie with telekinesis, but left the blindfold on. He didn't want Peter looking at him. He propped a few pillows against the bed frame and drew Peter up into his arms as he sat back against it. They sat together quietly, touching each other occasionally with exploring fingers. It was nearly a half hour later when Gabriel looked around the room uneasily, then at Peter nestled against him in complete contentment. He pulled off the blindfold and swallowed. "Peter? Are you okay?"

Peter looked up, brows drawing together at the slightly different voice. He studied his face, then smiled in recognition. "Yes. I'm fine." Peter wrapped his arms around the other man and hugged him more firmly. "Everything's great. Thank you."


	263. Near Misses

Monday evening, Gabriel snagged the book on repressed memories and they settled in to read, eventually drifting from the couch to the bed, but continuing their literary pursuit. Peter had a second book on dissociative identity disorder (DID) that had been suggested by a therapist he'd spoken to over the phone. He'd been told to check out borderline personality disorder as well, but a quick scan of the basic diagnostic elements had saved him the trouble. Gabriel was not impulsive, schizophrenic, or paranoid out of relation to the very real persecution he'd faced, nor did he have trouble controlling his emotions. He was a little over-controlled to Peter's perception, but given his abilities, that was probably wise. He wasn't unstable - again, not out of proportion to the unstable events that had marked his life recently. He didn't have borderline personality disorder. Peter had an appointment with her the next day. He had no idea how he would convince the therapist that the 'friend' he wanted to talk about wasn't himself.

Peter was absorbed by the new book, which had a subtly different point of view on DID than the last one, which had been different from Maury's input on the subject. This sort of thing really wasn't a surprise to Peter, as it was common in medicine. The layman often thought there was a single, recognized treatment for every ailment, but the reality was a lot murkier. Peter wasn't paying a lot of attention to anything else, but he was finally snapped out of it by a quickly rising surge of anger, fear and self-pity from Gabriel. Peter raised himself a little, lifting one brow and glancing discreetly over his shoulder. Gabriel's face was a mask of rage and a moment later he flung the half-finished book about repressed memories violently across the room.

"Liars!" he snarled. He muttered, "Assholes. Arrogant assholes. What do they know?" He reached up and squeezed the bridge of his nose like his head was hurting him.

Peter started to turn around to comfort him and Gabriel snapped, "I don't want to talk to you either! Go back to reading!" Peter nodded silently and turned back, but there was no way he was reading. His foot was against Gabriel's calf, which was how he was getting the somewhat muffled emotional read. Not that he'd needed a good contact for that one - Gabriel was telegraphing loud and clear. Pity turned to loathing, anger to hate. The fear faded, but didn't disappear.

Well, this answered a question Peter had. The hallmark of DID was missing memory during dissociative episodes, when another personality took control. While that personality might choose to share memories, it didn't have to. Gabriel had never seemed to have impaired recall, but on the other hand, the most likely incidents for dissociation were the ones Peter and Gabriel never spoke of - Gabriel had said he _couldn't_ speak of them. He became anxious to the extreme when pressed about it, so both Heidi and Peter had let it be.

Peter had noticed and considered that when he asked about Rupesh's killing only two nights before, it was Sylar who answered him, not Gabriel. Gabriel, regardless of personality, wasn't dumb. He obviously knew when he started after someone who had an ability and turning up with it later made it obvious what had happened. There would seem to be no lapses partly because they didn't discuss it, and partly because Gabriel covered for the gaps. Or so Peter assumed. He continued to be bothered by how much he was having to assume here.

Now Gabriel rolled to his side and started stroking Peter's back with his fingertips. Peter turned onto his back, thinking Gabe was asking for his attention. He wasn't, really, but he continued what he was doing with Peter's chest instead. He was clearly using psychometry, looking distant as he pawed slowly at Peter. He started breathing harder and his face pinched a couple times like he was in pain. Peter held his tongue because he'd been told to.

Sylar looked up at him with a sudden intensity, staring into his eyes for a long, threatening pause. Then he looked an inch or two above and scooted up slightly, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes as he regarded his target. Peter felt a pressure, like an odd headache and now he was the one breathing harder. His eyes began to water and he made a small sound, though whether it was from the pain or the fact that Sylar was obviously going to take his ability without so much as a 'may I?' he couldn't have said. He would have guessed the latter though.

He didn't think it was his sound that deterred the other man. He had no idea what did, but Sylar looked confused, then tired, and let his head drop until his forehead rested on Peter's shoulder. He sagged. "Gabriel?" Peter asked, putting a cautious hand on his shoulder.

Gabriel lifted his head and looked back and forth dully between Peter's eyes for a moment. He sighed and shifted to support his upper body on one elbow. With his free hand he reached up to Peter's face. Peter blinked several times, wondering if that hand would continue to his forehead and cut. But no. His lover wiped away the tear track at the corner of Peter's eye on one side, then the other. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Peter was seized by a sudden fear that those words meant more. He reached out and grabbed Gabe's arm, saying, "Don't you leave me!"

Gabriel looked down at the hand and Peter jerked it away as if scalded, remembering getting killed for making that gesture, though the circumstances had been a lot more tense. Peter's voice changed to pleading, "Please don't - _Gabriel?_"

"Peter," he said calmly. "It's okay. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just … having trouble. I won't hurt you … much." He smiled hollowly.

Peter nodded. "Can I help you?"

"No." Gabriel sighed and settled back down. "Just … lay here. Let me …" He leaned and kissed Peter's bicep, then propped himself up and started touching Peter's chest again, a slow tickle of fingertips as he summoned whatever memories Peter's skin there held. There wouldn't be anything more than a handful of hours or maybe a day, but he did it anyway. Peter suspected Gabriel was doing this for self-comfort more than the actual memories themselves.

_Memories._ He looked in the direction of the book Gabe had thrown from himself.

"Do you like me doing this?" Gabriel asked.

"I don't mind," Peter said.

"That's not a very clear answer."

"I don't want to lie to you. I _like_ that it makes you feel better. If it soothes you, relaxes you, makes you feel better - I like _that_."

Gabriel paused and looked at him for a moment, then nodded and continued. "Thank you for letting me. It means a lot to me."

"Can I ask a question?"

Gabriel's expression was not welcoming, but he said, "Yes."

Peter wanted to ask about the memories. There were a dozen things he wanted to know. This was a horrible time to press the man about a subject that had given him fits _before_ the latest personality split, though, so he asked something else that had been bothering him. "Do you think there's something wrong with you?"

Gabriel's hand stopped. He bowed his head silently. Peter waited. Finally the other man said, "I don't know how to answer that, Peter."

Peter reached over and stroked his shoulder. He spoke softly and intently. "The thing is, if you think you're fine just like you are, then you are. I will take you _exactly_ as you are - exactly as you want to be - even if there are parts I have trouble dealing with. It's you. It's part of the package. I accept that." He was quiet for a long moment. Gabriel didn't move except to breathe steadily. Peter kept petting him. "If there's nothing wrong with you, then there's nothing to fix. I, and no one else, is going to do anything to you - anything at all - without your _**explicit, informed consent**_. If someone does and I find out about it, I will make sure they can _never_ do that to anyone again. _**I will kill them if I need to**_." Gabriel raised his head and blinked at the emphasis Peter put on that. "If you think you're alright, or you're going to be able to handle this alone, then I'll support you as completely as I'll support trying to help you."

Gabriel gazed at Peter, turning over his words. "I'm not alone." There were two ways to read that sentence and Peter suspected from the subtle tone to it that Gabriel meant both of them - both that he was grateful to have loved ones who were helping him, and aware of the obligations and responsibilities towards self-care that such entailed.

"No, you're not."

"I'm not …" Gabriel breathed unsteadily now. "This isn't how I want to be."

"Okay."

Gabriel sagged again, shifting to lie on his side, facing away from Peter, but with his back against Peter's arm. Peter turned and spooned behind him, feeling it ease his lover a little more. "You're in control," Peter murmured to him. "You're in complete control."

"What do you have in mind?"

Peter smiled a little behind Gabriel's back, amused that 'you're in control' elicited a question that Peter took as essentially translating to 'what do you want me to do?' It was a start, he supposed. "I need to understand what you want to have happen and what's already happened to you. Talking to Maury and reading these books makes it so clear to me that I'm guessing a lot. Are you ready to talk to me about it?"

"No." It was a simple answer, not delivered with petulance or sulkiness, just level and matter-of-fact.

Peter nodded and slid his hand under Gabe's elbow and around his waist. He snugged them together, turned his head for a more comfortable position, and let it drop. Not long after, he went to sleep.


	264. Breakfast in Bed

There was a knock at the door. Where Sylar was resting, no one should knock - no one who would be there with him would need to. No one ever had. He jerked fully awake, alert instantly, hand coming up to … Peter was standing at the door to the bedroom, holding a tray with a plate of food and glass of orange juice on it. A few seconds passed in silence as Peter stood exactly where he was and the other man's expression faltered and shifted. "Peter," Gabriel said, reaching up to rub his face, still sleepy. His eyelids were heavy. _How the hell did Peter know that was Sylar sleeping? Or did he? That's … positively creepy._

Peter walked over with the tray. "Made you breakfast. You need to go to the bathroom first?"

Gabriel looked down at himself and considered, then shook his head. "No, I'm fine."

Peter nodded and set up the tray. "Breakfast in bed." He leaned in to get a kiss, which was immediately given. Peter rubbed his nose briefly against Gabe's before he pulled away.

Gabriel caressed Peter's arm, getting a smile from him. He looked at his tray of eggs, bacon and toast. "You cooked bacon."

"You bought bacon. It was in the fridge."

"Yes, but you_ cooked_ _bacon_."

Peter snorted and carefully settled in on the other side of the bed on his stomach, not wanting to upset the tray. "You like bacon."

Gabriel picked up a piece and took a bite, declining to pursue it further. Peter, the vegetarian, had made him meat. Always before, assuming Peter cooked, it was oatmeal or pancakes or waffles or biscuits or toast and gravy or eggs or French toast or any of a number of other things that did not require the death of animal to provide it. Gabriel finished the slice. "Yummy. Thank you."

"Hm," Peter said, watching him with a dreamy, smitten expression. Gabriel felt very flattered by that look. He tore off a bit of toast and offered it to him. Peter leaned over and took it, settling back to chew slowly. Gabriel smiled warmly at him and set to his meal, ending up feeding his lover about a third of it (but none of the bacon). The entertainment of having Peter take sustenance direct from his hand was more than worth it.

Gabriel was finishing his juice as Peter continued to watch him. He looked out the corner of his eye and said lightly, "Would you quit looking at me all the time? You look at me like you expect … something to happen … while you're looking."

Peter grunted and turned to lay flat on his stomach, head facing the mattress. He reached over blindly and poked Gabriel in the leg. Gabriel shifted the tray off and set it aside. Peter poked him again. And again.

"And stop poking me!"

Peter rolled over and gave him a huge grin, saying in a playful, child-like voice, "Mom! He's looking at me! Stop touching me! Make him stop touching me!" He laughed and reached out to poke Gabriel again.

Gabriel pulled his leg out of the way and laughed too. Peter lunged suddenly and jabbed him anyway. Gabriel hooted, "Oh! You want to play, huh?" He set his empty juice glass down and turned his full attention on his foe.

Peter had come up on his hands and knees and was regarding him with an eager wariness. Gabriel made a few feints, watching Peter very, very closely. The other man seemed entirely into the game. It _was_ a game. Gabriel grabbed at him and Peter slapped him away, moving quickly to the far edge of the bed. Sylar followed, grabbed again and got Peter's shirt, ripping it. Gabriel hesitated, afraid he'd gone too far. And maybe he had, because Peter used his moment of indecision to close with him, grappling in earnest. The smaller man was all over him faster than he could knock him away and in an embarrassingly short time Gabriel was in a half nelson and Peter had his other wrist, twisting it back so he had no leverage.

He recalled the last time he'd wrestled with Peter and he'd been beaten handily then too. It was frustrating. One thing he was better with was his abilities. He tried to get a grip on Peter's body with telekinesis, but a second later his ability unraveled as Peter canceled it. All of a sudden it wasn't a game. He wanted to struggle. He wanted to panic. He wanted to lose it. He tensed and fought, trying to keep his head. _Fight him, kill him! - No, just get loose…_

Peter held him securely and wouldn't let go. He went limp for a moment, panting and waiting. It had worked before, after all. Peter had let him go repeatedly the last time they'd wrestled. He didn't this time though. Gabriel started fighting again with everything he had. They rolled off the bed, crashing to the floor. For a moment he got Peter out of position and drove a heel into him. Peter grunted and there was a tense moment of scuffling before Pete broke him down again - no leverage.

Gabriel was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating. He couldn't think. Peter was talking to him, but he wasn't listening. It was something about him needing to take it easy. The very fact that he was talking provoked another round of rolling and fighting - teeth, fingernails, anything. He ended up with his face planted to the floor.

Peter told him, "Calm down. Calm down. You know the safe word. … Gabriel, are you in there?"

"Rrr." _Fuck you_._ Quit fooling around and kill him!_ Gabriel trembled and tried to keep control. _What is it I'm trying to say? There was a word. There's a word. I have to stop. Stop isn't the word anymore. I-_ There was a switch. _-am going to kill him._

"Gabriel? … Sylar?"

He went very still - not limp, just still and calm, willing to wait. _I am going to kill you. I am going to fucking kill you._

Peter let him go and backed up, on his knees. Sylar sat up, glaring at him. His hand whipped out fast as a snake. Peter winced, but he didn't dodge away. Sylar grabbed the Italian and threw him on the floor. Peter caught himself, hands out to the side. He shoved him down the rest of the way and Peter let him. He had his powers back now. _Cut your fucking head open from behind then!_

He hesitated, his hand still gripping the back of Peter's neck. His abilities were back. Peter was cringing, hands out to the side, fingers splayed. Sylar moved his hand up and pushed on the back of the man's head, hard enough to smash his nose into the floor. Peter grunted and turned his head a little to relieve the pressure. Just that slight motion made Sylar want to kill him all over again. He grabbed Peter's hair and yanked his head up, intending to slam him back down. Peter let him jerk his head back slackly. Sylar hesitated again. He wobbled Peter's head back and forth. He didn't resist - at all.

Sylar considered for a moment that he ought to take his chances where he found them. But this wasn't some random special in an alley, so instead Sylar went off to sulk. He let Peter go and sagged to the side, panting. He scooted over to the wall and leaned against it. Gabriel glanced over at Peter, who was still prone and motionless. He shut his eyes and shook his head. _Breakfast in bed. He was so nice. That smile. He loves me. I treat him so bad… He was just playing. I've __**told**__ him I wanted him to fight me! What the fuck is wrong with me?_ He turned to face the wall, slowly but firmly banging his head against it.

A moment later Peter was with him, putting his arms around him, putting his hand between his forehead and the wall. Gabriel quit trying and waited out the emotion. He felt Peter's body against his and a moment later he leaned into it, letting Peter support him. He thought about Noah Bennet saying he was a danger to everyone around him. _It's a lie. It has to be a lie. I have to make sure it's a lie. I have to stop doing this. He won't let me do it forever. Not even __**he**__ is that patient. _Gabriel turned his face to Peter's and nuzzled him. Peter smiled and repeated the gesture back to him, stroking his back.

"Tonight," Gabriel whispered. "I'll answer everything you ask of me tonight."

Peter opened his mouth, clearly about to argue and tell him that was unnecessary. Gabriel kissed him. Peter relaxed into it and when they parted, Peter only nodded.


	265. Rub Me the Right Way

Peter teleported in at nine PM to find that Gabriel was already there. The other man rose as soon as Peter arrived and stood tensely.

"Hey," Peter said softly. "How are you doing?" He took a few steps towards him, but stopped short. Gabriel's body language wasn't welcoming.

"I'm fine. You had questions."

"Yeah." Peter looked him up and down. As he'd expected, Gabriel was incredibly wound up. He could see it in the set of his shoulders, in his too carefully schooled features and his too bland voice that was practiced and honed not to give away his feelings. By using it, he did exactly the opposite of what he was trying to achieve. It would have fooled a stranger, but Peter had cottoned to this trick a half a year earlier. It seemed odd that they'd been together so little time. "Yeah, I have questions. And the first one is: Do you mind if I give you a massage?"

Gabriel blinked several times, telegraphing his surprise at that. Which told Peter something else: he wasn't trying to hide his emotions at the moment, because if he was, he wouldn't have done something so obvious as the blinking. That meant he was falling back on the stoic front unconsciously, as a defense. That was good. If Peter could calm him down then they could get somewhere.

"Sure," Gabriel said.

Peter nodded and got the massage oil off the shelf while Gabriel pulled a chair out of the dining room. He stood next to it, lost in thought. Peter stuck the bottle of oil in his pocket and walked over to start unbuttoning Gabriel's shirt. The other man pulled back to the present and smiled slowly, watching the progress of Peter's fingers. Peter spread Gabe's shirt out to either side and sighed in _want_ as he surveyed his lover's chest. He looked up at Gabriel's face with a tight, obviously tempted expression.

The empath had thought about using sex as a therapeutic tool - several times, and the arguments weren't all about self-fulfillment. Gabriel had opened up most of all after sex. Having sexual access to Peter was very important to him. Peter had discarded it as an idea and decided to go with the massage instead. He reached up and slipped Gabriel's shirt off his shoulders. The other man shrugged them slightly, an intentionally seductive roll of his shoulders, letting the fabric fall off him to puddle on the floor.

Peter flushed a little. Gabriel's smile broadened as he relaxed a bit. He obviously liked knowing he had that affect on Peter. Fearing he might get distracted, Peter looked down and away, then busied himself fetching a second chair. Gabriel was still standing when he returned and Gabe stepped closer to him, right into his space. Peter hesitated, feeling the warmth of Gabriel's bare skin. The taller man bent and tilted his head with a hesitant motion as if to kiss him. Peter met him. Gabriel kept it chaste, moving his hands up, using one to stroke Peter's cheek and the other to cup the side of his neck, thumb stroking his windpipe. He turned him a little, kissing along Peter's cheek with eyes shut, breathing deeply.

Peter could feel Gabriel's emotions - nerves and jitters slowly receding. He had his own routine for calming himself and as Peter had noticed, intimacy played a big role in it. He turned Peter's head even more, shifting his body to the side and putting his nose to the base of his scalp. He left a light kiss on the back of Peter's neck, whispering, "Thank you." Peter nodded and Gabriel stepped back, taking another deep breath. He turned and sat, facing backwards in the chair, his arms folded primly over the back of it.

Peter took the other seat. He remembered the other time he'd done this in an involved way, in the living room like this. Gabriel had been in Nathan's form. They'd only been together twice before and the second of those two times, the hunger had caused problems. The massage had helped Peter deal with it. He hoped it helped Gabriel deal with the tensions he knew he was going to inflict tonight just by asking questions he didn't really want to answer.

He reached out and ran his fingertips down his partner's skin, now as he had then. Gabriel didn't arch under his touch like Nathan had, or rather, like he had then, as Nathan. He'd lost some of the ridiculous sensitivity Maury's commands had imposed on him. Impulsively Peter leaned forward and kissed him, chewing at a spot over one shoulder blade. He wanted to mark him. This was _his_ - this man was _**his**_. He stopped short though, not wanting to get carried away. It was a strange, out of place desire. He rested his forehead on him for a moment before leaning back.

"I liked that," Gabriel said quietly.

Peter went back to just running his fingertips over him. "So did I," he said huskily. He didn't know what got into him sometimes. He'd had a few weird moments the week before, nearly flipping out over Emma joking about her newest co-worker making a pass at her. "Maybe later."

"Mm," Gabriel said. He wasn't very relaxed. He was very prone to carrying his tensions in his frame, letting it knot up his muscles. It was part of why Peter had settled on giving him a massage. It gave him an excuse to have his hands on him for an emotional read, and it let him try to soothe him physically. Gabriel began to tense again, then he exhaled tightly and asked, "What do you want to know?"

Peter stopped stroking to rest his hand palm down over Gabe's spine. He asked the first question that popped into his head. "What's your favorite color?"

Gabriel snorted, or choked at the silliness of it, and answered almost as quickly, "Orange."

Peter waited a beat, but it was true. He barked out a laugh. "Orange? No kidding?" _I did not know that!_ Now that he thought about it, Gabe had worn the color a fair amount.

"Yeah," Gabriel said with a touch of defensiveness. "I like brown too."

"What was Nathan's? Blue, wasn't it?"

"Dark blue, royal blue, yes." Gabriel paused. "But you knew that."

"I remembered it was blue. You'd know a lot better than I do, buddy," he said, giving Gabriel a pat on the back.

He could feel the topic having the desired effect as Gabriel eased a bit, enough to ask, "What's yours?"

When Peter had been a kid, he'd never had a 'favorite' color, always insisting on 'rainbow-colored' when he was younger and turning the question back on the asker when he was a little older as a child. Now he thought about it. "Red. A lot of important things in my life lately have had to do with that color." Sometimes it seemed like his life was haphazardly color-coded. He remembered Simone's red umbrella with an odd twist of nostalgia.

"Really?" Gabriel looked back over his shoulder.

"Yeah, and I don't mean blood." He shrugged. "It's just a thing." The statue at Kirby Plaza, Claire's cheerleading outfit, Isaac's painting of Peter exploding … he shook himself out of it and focused on Gabriel again.

"Hm. Okay." Gabe turned away and settled in the way one should for a massage, rather than his earlier pose of sitting stiffly upright.

Peter reflected that he was getting somewhere here. Maybe he could start questions that were a little more intrusive. "What's Sylar's favorite color?"

"Black."

"Huh." He ran his fingers up and down, starting to use a little pressure. "Do you just know that, or does he tell you?"

"We … I just know. I was just the one identity _before_, Peter."

Hoping he wasn't getting into the memory dissolution by Parkman, Peter asked innocently, "Before what?"

"Before last week."

"Ah. With Rupesh?"

"Yes."

Peter nodded, unseen, and began to massage the top of Gabriel's shoulders. He worked through that muscle group methodically. "What about back when you were calling yourself Sylar, years back. Were you one person then?"

Gabriel was quiet for a moment. "I don't know." _Lie_. "I don't think so."

"Okay."

The former killer sighed. "I don't know how to describe it. I was one person, yeah, but that person was Sylar, not … who I am now. Things aren't the same now." He pointed at his temple, his hand arranged like an imaginary gun. "There's different stuff in here. It's arranged differently. Before, I'd snapped and I'd changed and until I got shape shifting I wasn't Gabriel anymore. Maybe it was just repressed. Maybe Sylar took over as a personality and Gabriel … I don't know, hid? Everything Gabriel _was_ had been left behind. I was just Sylar."

"What did shape-shifting do? You've mentioned that before." Peter paused in his work to dispense some massage oil, beginning to smooth it over the other man's skin.

"It made me crazy."

Peter snorted because really, Sylar had been pretty off the deep end well before getting shape-shifting. His native ability had done him no favors in the sanity department. Peter hadn't had any problems with shape-shifting, so he suspected, strongly, that Sylar's issues with the ability had more to do with it triggering his latent unstable personality rather than the ability itself. "What happened?"

Gabriel sighed and put his forehead down on his folded arms, making a sound like a whine. Peter paused to check in with his emotions: _embarrassment_. Gabe said, "You mean aside from the sex?"

"Is the sex important?"

_More embarrassment. Shame. Anger._ "I don't know. I started … that was when I started _seeing_ people. I could be someone other than … who I was. I could be anyone. I could … I could be_ with_ people. I could be what they wanted," he finished softly.

Peter's brows rose. _Of all his abilities, it was shape-shifting that gave him empathy and restored his humanity? I thought it was Nathan's memories. So it started before? I don't even known what I'm trying to think here, but there was a shift somewhere in his past. I always thought it was just what Matt did. Maybe there was more to it than that._

Gabriel volunteered, "It started that I just wanted to screw around, because that's what the guy who'd had the power before did with it. It _seemed_ like a good idea, or at least harmless – to me I mean. I like getting laid as much as the next guy. But then it became like a power trip. I'd pretend to be people and they'd react to me based on who they thought I was and then I started torturing-" Gabriel bit his lip and tensed. "Do I have to tell you … Is this what you wanted to know?"

"I don't think I need to know the details," Peter said quietly. He rubbed slowly down the trapezius muscles on either side of Gabriel's spine.

"Okay. Well, anyway, I started to lose my grip on who I was. It's … it's why I was so upset about you seeing me as Nathan, because when you did, I _**was **_Nathan. You saw me that way and," his inflection changed, he straightened a bit, and other than it being Gabriel's voice, it was a dead ringer for Peter's brother as he continued, "Who's to say I'm not all that because of you? Most of what we are is what people expect us to be. I mean, if you take them away, nothing means anything."

Peter felt a shiver crawl down his spine like a racing spider across bare flesh. Nathan had said that to him years before. He'd been standing in his father's study, the home office, looking at a cabinet of trophies and awards. It was the day Peter's body had been brought to the house with a piece of glass in the back of his head. Peter's mortality had made Nathan question himself and who he was. "Gabriel?" he asked in a whisper, his own emotions suddenly thrown into turmoil by that single lapse.

"Yeah?" It was Gabriel's voice. The other man sighed. "It's just an act, Peter – a very, very well-informed act. I think."

"Is Sylar just an act?" He asked, remembering Maury's statements that he was.

"No. Neither was Taub or my mother or … others. Those were … me, I guess. I don't know. But Nathan was a shape, a set of clothes I wore, just like if I shape shift into someone named Bill. Doesn't mean I'm really Bill, or that I've gained some extra personality called Bill."

"Were you … ever … really Nathan?" Peter felt tears sting his eyes.

"No, Peter," he said gently but firmly.

Peter began rubbing lower on his back, kneading the erector muscles.

Gabriel amended, "I don't know. How do you define that?"

"Define what?"

"Who I am? If I'm Nathan or Gabriel or whatever?"

Peter looked at the middle of his back blankly. "I don't know - self assertion, I guess. You seem sure of who you were. Why … Why did you say no, if you weren't sure?"

"I am sure that I don't want to be Nathan for you, Peter. I don't want to take that from you. I don't want to take his memory … I don't want to be the man who was your brother. I'm … I'm _not_. I've come to care about him. That man … he deserves, he deserved the dignity of a clean death. I started to … He had his flaws, you know, but I don't want to erase his past by … I don't know, plagiarizing it, stealing it … I'm the custodian of his family, or at least that's how I think of it anymore. I'm … not a thief. I have my own identity, my own relationships." He reached up and ran a hand roughly through his hair, but he wasn't tense and conflicted. He was just struggling to find the right words.

The conversation wasn't going where Peter had expected, but this was useful too. He smoothed his hands around Gabriel's lateral muscles, pausing to apply more oil.

"I am certain that I'm not the same person you grew up with. I might look like Nathan, I might think I am Nathan sometimes, I might have some of his memories – but I'm not that person. Maybe he's another personality I have, but it doesn't really feel the same. It's something I was _programmed to_, not something I had … before."

"Okay," Peter said, nodding. "But Sylar … he was there before?"

"Yes. He's who I was for years. That's … who I was, after I had my ability."

And now Peter was getting to one of the main questions he'd wanted to ask this evening. He made several sweeping gestures across the other man's back, from the sides working inward and up, then reversing it down and outward. "A little while back, you told me you didn't want to be Sylar anymore. You wanted to be Gabriel. Does that mean anything … different?"

"I only had the one personality then, so if I were to say it now, tonight, I wouldn't be talking about the same thing. What I meant then was that Sylar …" he shook his head. "Sylar was a lifestyle. That's not the lifestyle I want to lead: a loner, a predator, a ... it's complicated. Well, actually now I suppose it means about the same thing if I were to say it, but," he twisted suddenly to look back at Peter, looking at him intently, his features changing slightly and voice deepening. "But it doesn't seem like I'd have to be alone. With you or Heidi. Neither of you would leave me."

Peter looked down and away, blinking. "I won't leave you," he said quietly, knowing he was confirming that he'd stay with him no matter how many people he killed or how much of a monster he was. Ice settled in Peter's stomach at what that really meant, at how deep he was in with this man.

His lover leaned back, turning further and commanding, "Kiss me." Peter did, feeling an intense love that drug him under so far he lost track of the room, what he was doing, everything but the kiss itself. Time stood still, their existence measured only in heartbeats and breaths until finally he pulled away. He sagged, blinking again and trying to claw his way back up to a normal awareness. _What the hell was that?_ The other man's voice was deep and resonant – Sylar's voice, Peter noted and he realized the shift must have happened when he turned to look at him, for his expression had been too intent, his gaze too steady – as he said, "I hope you know how important that is to me, Peter."

"Kind of important to me too," Peter said breathily. He leaned back, pulling himself together. Sylar looked up and down him briefly and then turned away, relaxing over the back of the chair, waiting calmly for the rest of Peter's questions.


	266. Rub Me the Wrong Way

Peter took a long moment to regroup, eyeing Sylar's back. He hadn't expected to talk to the alter directly tonight, but there it was. "Sylar?"

"Yes?"

Okay, that confirmed it, not that he'd had doubts. "Is Gabriel okay with us talking?"

"Y-yes. Gabriel knows we need to talk."

"Okay." He wondered what that slight catch to Sylar's voice meant. He reached out slowly and touched him, smoothing his fingers up the man's back. Sylar shifted appreciatively under his hands, more responsive and relaxed than Gabriel had been. "Do you _want_ to kill people?"

"I want power. And understanding. I only kill people as a means to getting that, or when they stand between me and what I want."

"So … if I could find a way for you to get 'power' and 'understanding' without killing people, would you use it?"

"Yes, but I have ways like that now. They're just less convenient. There's a limit of how worthwhile the scenic route is when you're in a hurry and a shortcut lies right in front of you."

"If I … made it more convenient, could I get you to reconsider using those other ways?"

Sylar glanced back at him, cocking his head. "It would be simpler for you to oppose me on the more direct method and try to protect anyone I went after." He smiled slowly. "My hero." He smirked and turned away, settling against the chair tranquilly.

"I will not _oppose_ you."

"So you say." Sylar sounded arrogantly amused.

Peter pursed his lips and let his hands fall away for the moment. _It sure didn't take long for him to get under my skin. Let it go. Just let it go._ "There are other options. You can have me, for example."

Sylar tensed and growled, "That introduces a lot of issues, Peter."

"Like what?"

"It would change things between us. This is not a medical operation. It means more than that to you and you know it."

"What are the issues?" Peter pressed.

Sylar's voice rose suddenly in wrath. "_Why are you offering this?_" He turned in his seat to pin Peter with a deadly glare.

The intensity of the emotion caught Peter by surprise. In a small voice he said, "I just want to save people's lives, Sylar, and if I can make this sac- if I can let you do this, then maybe you can get abilities with mine, like you said, and you'd never need to kill anyone again."

"If I _ever_ take you up on that, Peter, I will have no use for you after." He pointed at him briefly in emphasis. "Think about that."

Peter blinked, not sure what that meant. _Is that a death threat? I don't _think_ it's a death threat …_

Sylar gave a tightly controlled sigh at Peter's obvious lack of comprehension. "It's a wedge. It's a division. It leads to places and interactions between us I don't want. And you don't want them either, if you'd stop and think this through. It's not a solution. It's an _answer_, but not a solution."

Peter remained silent. He fidgeted with his hands a little. Sylar was still turned around to face him, his continued scrutiny more than a little intimidating.

"There are _other_ ways," Sylar insisted.

By which Peter was pretty sure he meant just finding other people to kill. The empath found the assertiveness to argue, "What I'm offering is _sure_ and no one dies." _Assuming, you know, that wasn't a death threat earlier._

"Yes, and neither does anyone if you drain my powers!" the killer said with a sharp, frustrated gesture upward.

Peter blinked. "I- I would nev- I didn't even _imply-_"

Sylar snapped at him, "Yes, I know, Peter! You're being an idiot. Simply because something would fix the immediate problem doesn't mean it's a solution that works for both of us." A beat later he added, exasperated, "You talk like it's just you involved – what can _you_ do, what can _you_ sacrifice; if _you_ can find a way, if _you_ can make it more convenient-"

"I am sorry," Peter interrupted, bowing his head and groveling, because Sylar was entirely right. That sort of thinking had gotten him into all sorts of problems with the other man. It was also, indirectly, exactly what Maury had been talking about for Peter running Gabriel's life. "I am so sorry. You're right. You're-"

"Just _shut up_."

Peter did. _Didn't take long for me to get under his skin either._

Sylar gave him another annoyed glare and shook his head. He turned away at least, leaning forward against the chair. He took a deep breath and relaxed slowly. "Rub my shoulders and my neck," he ordered sullenly.

Peter did, immediately. He reflected that he'd just had a heated argument with Sylar and no one had been thrown into a wall. He could feel the other man calming. A few minutes passed in silence until Sylar leaned back and twisted, "Kiss me." Peter complied with that too, accepting the probing of Sylar's tongue and the pressure of his lips. When they parted Sylar said, "You're so obedient when you're contrite. You should do wrong things more often."

Peter smiled and rested his forehead on Sylar's cheek. The taller man laughed a little and said, "Apology accepted. That mode of thinking is more often my problem than yours, but after that little intervention by the ladies a few weeks ago, and … the watch, marriage to you?," he shrugged, looking away for a moment, then back to meet Peter's eyes and lean in for a quick smooch. "I've been trying very hard to think of us, all four of us, as working together on this. We're all involved. You're not the only one who gets to save the day and fix things, Peter."

"Okay." He smiled sheepishly. "You're a lot nicer than I thought you'd be." At the other man's look, Peter shrugged. "For Sylar."

He chuckled and turned away. "Keep rubbing. Use more pressure. I'm not a 'light touch' kind of guy."

Peter refreshed the oil and went back to it, being more vigorous, using harder strokes. Sylar groaned in pleasure. Peter suspected he might be okay to move on to some of the tougher questions. "I asked Gabriel, last night, if he thought there was anything wrong with him, if he wanted to try to change … how he is, with two personalities … wait, are there others?"

"Not that matter."

Peter pursed his lips, but no elaboration was forthcoming, so he went on with his question, "Then what I want to know is how you feel."

He snorted. "Peter, I lived on my own for four years. You've been with Gabriel, semi-committed, for not much more than that in months. With an actual commitment that you and he both recognize for only a couple weeks." He looked back at Peter with narrowed eyes. "The difference is around a hundred times. Gabriel, hell _**I**_, might want this, this balance with Heidi and you and Emma, but so far the burden of proof is on the new to prove out the old."

Peter didn't care for how Sylar had figured the numbers at all, but he didn't argue it. "Were you happy before, as Sylar?"

"Sometimes," he said grudgingly, turning away again. He looked like he was sulking. From his emotions, Peter was pretty sure he was.

"Are you happy _now?_ I mean with … the relationship?"

"Most of the time, yes," he answered quietly. "That's why I'm here, right now."

Peter nodded. "Thank you."

"Hm."

"So how do you feel about reintegration?"

"It has yet to be proven that that's a good idea."

"Are you going to give us a chance though? Or are you going to fight this?"

Sylar tensed slightly and Peter felt all sorts of emotions run through him at once. "Fight what?" he said in a deceptively calm voice, a little lower than usual even for him.

Very carefully Peter said, "I just meant … are you going to resist _us_ working through reintegration, so I can be with _both_ of you, at the same time?"

Sylar calmed back down. "No."

Peter nodded and moved to one side to start massaging down Sylar's left arm. The other man took a deep breath and let it out. Peter asked, "That brings up another question. Did you, or Gabriel, mind me tying you up the other day, when you stabbed yourself?"

"Given the alternatives, no."

"If something like that happens again, is it okay for me to restrain you?"

"Yes."

Peter nodded, glad to have permission. "Is it okay if I cancel your abilities?"

"In the context of an emergency like that, yes. When we're playing, like last night, _**hell no**_."

Peter winced, wishing suddenly that he'd asked this same question the night before, when it was fresher. This clarified something he'd suspected, which was that_** he**_ was the reason Gabriel had freaked out. He hadn't been sure at the time and things were happening quicker than he could think them through. Now he felt ashamed that he'd made the wrong decision. He hung his head. "I'm sorry."

Sylar abruptly pulled his arm free from Peter's manipulations. He reached up and slapped him hard enough to sting. "Don't do it again," he said curtly.

Peter stared at him, frozen.

Sylar's brows pulled together in confusion. "Too much?" He sat forward suddenly, bringing his hand to Peter's cheek again, trying to deliver some gentler touch, but Peter jerked away from him. He looked Peter up and down, assessing. His face slipped to cautious.

"It's okay. Just … startled me is all." Peter reached up and touched his cheek, a bit of wariness in his expression. He'd tolerated way, way worse from Gabriel, but for some reason this act just ran all through him. It had something to do with the _intention_. What Sylar had just done had been _punitive_. Peter started breathing harder. The more he thought about it, the more upset he was and the less 'okay' that had been.

Apparently Sylar understood he'd stuck his foot in it, because he pulled back and a moment later it was Gabriel looking around, blinking rapidly at the sudden transition.

Peter saw that and jumped to his feet, _really_ incensed now.

"Peter?" the other man asked uncertainly.

"That fucking coward," Peter muttered, stalking off into the bedroom.

"Peter?" Gabriel called to him, voice pitching higher with concern. The paramedic rarely used that sort of language.

The younger man spun in the doorway. "Gabriel," he said tightly. "You did _nothing wrong_. Sylar fucked up, and instead of facing it, he ditched. I'm pissed. Give me a moment to get … unpissed." He went in the bedroom and paced.


	267. Apologies Are Useless

Several quiet minutes passed, before Gabriel came to the door and peered in. "I saw what happened … and watched the conversation. I'm sorry for what he did."

_Psychometry_. Peter shook his head. "I don't need your apology. I don't need Sylar's either, not that I expect to have one offered. What I _want_ is an admission that he understands what he did was wrong, that he doesn't get to punish me like that and that when we disagree, we talk about it! We don't _hit_ each other!"

"Ha. Um, yeah." Gabriel said, laughing nervously and shuffling a little. "You can, um, hit a lot harder than I can anyway."

Peter looked up at him, then sighed and looked away. He patted the bed. "I don't need to be taking this out on you either. From what I've read … it's not your fault. Regardless of what Maury says."

Gabriel came over and sat near the foot of the bed, several feet from where Peter had indicated and well out of reach. He rotated precisely to face Peter, hitching up his leg and bending his knee, fixed in place once he got to the final position. "What does Maury say?"

"Well …" Peter frowned. Gabriel's back was too straight, too stiff; his motions too mechanical. He was scared, or offended (or both), and in any case trying not to act like it. It wasn't like Peter didn't know he emoted threat when angry. A number of people had remarked on it. And calling Sylar a coward was not wise either. It was one of the man's hot buttons and Peter knew it, hence using it. Even if Sylar wasn't there to hear it, Gabriel was and Peter was talking about _him_ even if it was an alternate personality.

Peter tried to calm down. He shifted so his back was against the bars of the headboard, facing the other man and making Gabriel's avoidance of him less obvious. It also moved him a little further away from Gabe - maybe that would help. "Maury's going off what he'd seen of you before last week. So maybe what he was saying was more reflective of what you did while you were Nathan, because what you've said fits perfectly with what he said about … you having Sylar as a personality."

"What did he _say?_" Gabriel asked in exasperation.

"He said it was an act, but for me to treat it as real, and it might _be_ from your point of view."

Gabriel snorted. "I'd say it's not an act, but he covered his ass really nicely there so the only person who can refute him can't. I can't even prove it by pointing out that I'm telling the truth."

"You don't have to prove anything to me. I believe you. I don't think it's an act," Peter said. "And I don't think he'd think that either if he saw you now. But you yourself said it _was_ for Nathan and that's what Maury knows. He hasn't seen inside your head lately, has he?"

"No." Gabriel picked at the bedspread. Peter was pleased to see him relaxing a little. "For what it's worth, you know, I don't think Sylar meant the slap the way you took it."

"How else did he mean it?" Peter asked stridently, his anger surging back to the forefront now that it sounded like Gabriel was going to try to defend Sylar hitting him.

Gabriel looked away, hunching his shoulders a little and staring at a point on the floor. "Your mother slaps you."

Peter paused. She _did_, but she didn't slap him that hard and it was clearly affectionate. On the other hand, Sylar could have hit him a lot harder too. What was it he'd asked? '_Too much?_' Sylar had looked genuinely confused when Peter became angry. Then he'd run and hid. They were not really the actions of someone who was being abusive, unless you thought they were afraid of retaliation, which was what Peter had thought when it happened. Now that he considered it again, if Sylar was expecting a physical response on Peter's part, it seemed more likely that he'd stick around for the fight. It was still chickenshit to bail at that point and make Gabriel try to cover for him. "Then tell him to explain himself!" he snapped.

His continued argumentative tone was starting to take a toll on Gabriel, who answered with a precise, level voice, "Peter, I don't pass notes to myself."

Peter huffed, still wrapped up in his own emotional response. "That's another thing both of those books suggested – you need to get a journal and write to yourself. Open the lines of communication."

Gabriel stared at him blankly, then gave a single curt nod. "Okay. Then I will get a journal and I will pass notes to myself. The first one will be '_don't slap Peter around, no matter what_.'" His lips were tight and he looked fixedly Peter, having moved past looking away and now making a level of eye contact any primate would have recognized as threatening.

Peter shook his head. "No, the first one should be '_go talk to Peter._'" He looked at Gabriel's face and realized they were on the cusp of something very bad happening. He thought back to what the other man had just said. More to the point, he thought about the tone he'd used. He blinked, looked down and pulled in his shoulders.

Gabriel did not argue or express dissatisfaction with him the same way Sylar did. If Sylar was angry - you knew it. He yelled, he hit you, he glared and made immediate, 'loud' body language to express his emotional state. Gabriel was a bit more subtle and even if Peter had seen it building one step at a time, it wasn't until Gabe got to Sylar-levels of obviousness that he'd caught on.

_So much for being an empath._ He tried to amend with, "or, at least, I'd _rather_ you had Sylar talk to me." Realizing that wasn't very helpful, Peter stumbled over himself by continuing, "You can say what you want. Never mind, I- Don't listen to me. I'm … just … still mad. And stupid. Still stupid." _This isn't working._ He took a deep breath and let it out. _Maybe if I was talking to Sylar again?_ He held up a hand, "This is just a question, because I honestly don't know – but … can you decide when Sylar is in control?"

"Sort of. I can fight him, if I know what's going on. I usually don't. It's only been a week, Peter. I'm not an expert at this."

"He certainly seems able to take control and disappear whenever it's convenient for him," Peter muttered sarcastically. He started to run his hand through his hair, but caught himself first. His hand was still covered with massage oil. He looked to Gabriel, who still had his shirt off, the skin of his back and one arm glossy with oil. "Want to lie down and I'll work on you some more?"

"No." Firm and blunt.

Peter looked at him blankly for a moment, then down at the floor. _Rejected_. He shook his head, upset and angry with himself. _Now I've fucked things up with Gabriel as well! I saw that one coming, too._ He went to get up, intending to burn off energy by pacing.

Gabriel cut him off, commanding in a clipped voice even harder than his previous negation, "Stay."

Peter sat back down immediately, thinking about how his obedience earlier had rapidly defused Sylar. He also realized Gabriel was trying something else here - angry, yes, but rather than blowing up or sulking he was giving orders. When nothing else happened, Peter let his shoulders slump and tried to relax, staring down at the floor, waiting patiently. Moments ticked by. Gabriel climbed on the bed and circled behind him. Peter itched to move and glance back, but didn't move as Gabe got directly behind him

Peter wouldn't say that made him nervous, exactly, but he was very aware that he couldn't see him without turning his head. It occurred to him then that he'd done the same thing to Gabriel, and Sylar earlier, in rubbing the man's back while interrogating him. He shut his eyes._ Can't win for losing._ He kept them shut as Gabriel touched his collar tentatively, then his shoulder, and then to Peter's surprise shifted to settle in behind him, arranging his long legs on either side of his own. He scooted in a bit more to hug him from behind. Peter remained still. He knew this was Gabriel making up - not admitting or accusing either of them of being in the wrong - just making up, calming things down, and being affectionate. This was his way of putting aside his anger, if Peter would only let him. And so he did, very glad that at least one of them had the sense to stop the vicious upward spiral of tension.

After a few more moments of holding him quietly, Gabriel put one hand on Peter's head and tilted it, planting his lips delicately against the side of his neck. Peter groaned gratefully at the feel of that mouth, getting a brief nibble along the sensitive flesh. He moved one hand down to rest on Gabriel's right knee. The other man stopped and went back to hugging, resting the side of his head against Peter's. For several long moments they simply sat together, until Gabriel finally said, "Now then - what other questions do you have? I said I'd answer anything."

Peter smiled slowly, having let most of the agitation drain out of his frame. Affecting a deliberately bad English accent, he said, "What … is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Gabriel was silent so long that Peter thought he'd missed the joke. But no, there was amusement bubbling along under the surface. Finally he asked, "African or European?"

"Huh. I don't know." Peter snorted and mimed dismay, "Aaaah!" He waved his arms a little in mockery of falling to his death.

Gabriel hugged him tighter, grinning. "I couldn't remember the exact line. I'm pretty sure what I said wasn't it."

"It's close enough. So you've seen the Monty Python movies?"

"Most of them, I think. It's a requirement for getting your nerd credentials. I have mine on the wall next to my Federation citizenship papers."

Peter stifled a laugh. It was nice to remember that Gabriel had had a life and interests before his ability had manifested. They were quirky and pedestrian, endearing all the same. "I think I have mine at the bottom of that box of comic books under the bed."

"I never could get into comics," Gabriel sighed. "Too expensive, for so little text. And they always ended on cliffhangers! I hated that. I'd get so little to read for the price, and then there'd be no resolution anyway. My library card saw a lot of use though. That's where I saw the Monty Python movies, after all - you can check those things out for free instead of lurking around Blockbuster."

"You're a much faster reader than I am." Peter considered how he'd never thought about the impact his family's affluence had on things as trivial as his access to comics, or even which movies he'd seen. His mother had never balked at giving him ten or twenty dollars to spend on a half dozen comic books every week, or even an equal amount on top of that for the movie theatre. It was simply the cost of entertainment. He could see how that sort of expense wouldn't be tolerated in the lower class household Gabriel had grown up in.

Considering his privilege made him uncomfortable, so he asked, "Can I go back to harder questions?"

Gabriel nuzzled him briefly, his way of refocusing his calm, and said, "Yes."

"What caused the personality split, exactly?" _You said it was my fault._

Gabriel sighed, much more relaxed here with his arms around Peter than he ever had been while Peter had been giving him a massage. It was something Peter took note of, but he didn't know how he'd be able to arrange it deliberately. The sex angle didn't seem quite right, but they didn't usually cuddle like this _unless_ they were being sexual. Gabriel answered him, "I don't know. You said it would be okay if I took someone's ability. You said you'd stay with me. I wanted to do it so bad I … I don't know."

"So did you have the personality split … before killing Rupesh?"

"Yes."

"It's not the act itself that caused it?"

"The act itself is a symptom of the desire."

"Just theoretically … and really, I'm not suggesting anything, just wondering … if you _could _get abilities some other way, that was, say, easy and low-stress, would you still have multiple personalities?"

"I … have no idea."

"Huh." Peter shifted a little in his arms, looking back at him. "You're supposed to have all the answers, smart guy!" he teased, smiling to soften it further. Gabriel kissed him gently a few times in response, then moved out of reach. Peter took the hint. "Okay. Here's another one you might not know the answer to, but I need at least some kind of ballpark and you're the only one who can tell me … How long do you think it will be until you need to take another ability?"

"Need? I never 'need' to take other abilities. I just want to. And I want to _all the time_." He mouthed at the side of Peter's head, pressing his teeth against him, obviously flirting.

"I've said you could."

An angry tone immediately suffused his voice as the lighter mood evaporated. "Don't tempt me. Seriously, Peter. Do _**not**_ tempt me." He hesitated and elaborated because he didn't think Peter was really getting the point, "_**Don't**_ offer it anymore. Please. It does really bad things to my head. If you don't want me messed up, then consider the problems I've had for doing that to a stranger."

"_Oh no_," Peter breathed. "I hadn't thought of it like that …" He tensed and shifted uncomfortably, blinking, thinking about the emotional impact it would have on Gabriel to make him satisfy the hunger on Peter when he knew, they both knew, Peter didn't want it. It was like forcing him to rape him, some sort of bizarre double bind – it might actually be all the worse _because_ Peter was trying to be the good guy and let Gabriel do what he needed to do. "I'd only been thinking that maybe I could …"

"'_I,_'" Gabriel said, pointing out the perspective Peter had been seeing things from.

"Okay." Peter fell silent. He felt like an idiot. Apologizing was useless. Honestly, Sylar's advice had been good – '_Don't do it again_.'_ If only it was that easy._

Gabriel went on, "I was doing okay without it before Matt. I was stressed a lot, by a lot of things during that year, but I was doing alright. When I gave in there and did it to Matt I'd … I'd just lost Heidi and the baby and died and everything was a mess. And I hadn't just died for getting hurt, but by draining and that … I really don't think my willpower has been any lower than then. Ever."

"But with Rupesh … what happened to stress you there?"

Gabriel buried his nose in the hair at the back of Peter's head, inhaling and breathing out hotly. After a few breaths he pulled back and said, "Peter, my life lately has changed a lot. Things are very much in flux. You took out the last of the commands. We fought over you healing people. I killed you. We were apart. We're married now. And while we're juggling this, I have a wife, I have two jobs, I'm arguing a lot with my oldest son and I have another who's still an infant. Things are … happening. It's not the same as it was with Matt, but if you don't think I haven't been hanging onto my life with white knuckles, then … I guess I've been succeeding in trying to act normal."

Gabriel sighed. "Maybe it wasn't that big a provocation, but the idea that it might be okay was just too much. Always before, that was definitely wrong and I could stand against it because I knew that, I could tell myself that. The idea that there was nothing … no reason why I shouldn't … I don't know."

_You were tempted and you lost control. But you're not going to admit you lost control. You probably don't even admit that to yourself._ "One of the books Maury lent me was 'self medication and addictive behavior' – what do you think he was trying to say with that?"

"That he thinks I'm an alcoholic and addicted to taking abilities? No, that I'm addicted to taking abilities and I'm … self-medicating by … taking them. Or whatever."

"Are you?"

Peter felt Gabriel's emotions turn. They'd been basically level, amazingly, through the latter part of the conversation, but now they turned ugly and he regretted asking the question immediately. He cringed, not even having to hear whatever answer Gabe would give. His lover growled threateningly, "I am _not_ addicted to _anything_. Taking abilities is something I _want_ to do. It's not 'self-medicating' or pathological. You _asked me_ to guess about Maury Parkman's motives and I _did_. Do _**not**_ ask me trick questions, Peter."

"I won't," Peter said in a small voice. _Wow, that pissed him off._ Gabriel was practically bristling, though he still held Peter as before. He was stiff and completely still. "You know, I think really I know enough here."

"Not yet. Not like this." Gabriel tightened his grip and said quietly, through clenched teeth, "Do not patronize me, Peter."

"No, no," Peter said faintly, nodding because yes, that was wrong too. He was too scared of fucking things up again to go back to the personal questions. He prayed Gabriel wouldn't be pissed if he sought a little relief by asking something inoffensive. "So, um, what's your favorite Monty Python movie?"

Gabriel snorted and Peter felt his arms relax around him. "Peter, you're sweet." He nosed at the side of his head. The gesture was a little stiff, but he was trying and obviously Peter's refusal to go right back to the 'hard' questions was okay.

"Really, which one?"

"I think that would be a toss up between the Life of Brian and the Meaning of Life."

"Hm. Good choices. Very mainstream though."

"There's a reason they're mainstream."

"True." He swallowed, reaching up to stroke Gabriel's forearm. "Okay, on … the guy who was dead, in Spain, why did you pass on taking his ability?"

"Because it was the ability to dampen and suppress electrical fields. I'm not sure how it would have interacted with Elle's ability, electrical manipulation, but I'm pretty sure it would have cancelled it or messed it up. Not all similar abilities layer and enhance. I like Elle's ability, a lot. I don't want to risk damaging it."

"Oh," Peter answered, blinking. _So there was a simple, logical explanation after all - which also explains the power outage in the building._

"You know, that's why our lie detection is so messed up too. Sue's must have been literal and Heidi's is off intent, so they conflict and give us a null reading a lot of the time. Which classes out as 'truth', when I suspect it's just null."

"Oh. Okay." Another interesting bit of information. "I'm getting the impression that Sylar isn't sharing information with you, but it seems like anything you knew, Sylar knows. Is that what's going on?"

Gabriel was quiet for a moment and Peter felt … something, like the beginnings of a personality shift. He usually detected that just by watching – facial expressions, mannerisms, eye contact and body language were dead giveaways - but what he was feeling now was more like a baseline emotional shift. It went back to Gabriel, who tucked his chin down against Peter's shoulder. "Yes, that's accurate. Sylar does, at times, talk to me in my head. I asked him about the slap thing and he told me, and you, to fuck off."

Peter snorted. "Okay. I'm not nearly as hacked off as I was, but I _do_ want to talk about that with him. That's important." Their lie detection might not work much, but if Sylar had any balls (and Peter did not think he lacked them), then he'd cough up a straight enough answer to what he'd been trying to do. "You know, I have other questions, but I want to read some more and think about what you've already told me. Because … I really, really appreciate what you're doing for me here and I know you don't go around volunteering this level of information about yourself. You promised you'd answer anything I asked and I don't want to abuse that by asking things at random, or that it turns out I didn't really need to know. … Okay?"

"Okay."

Peter turned and looked back at him. Gabriel settled his arms around him again, linking his hands together, and leaned his head out to the side with brows raised, looking back at him. Peter asked, "So, how do you feel about doing what Sylar suggested?" Gabriel's brows climbed slightly higher in an unspoken question, so Peter added, "You, and me, fucking off?"

Gabriel smiled.


	268. Things That Suit Me

"Can I make a request?" Gabriel asked.

"Always."

"You give me one of those so-called '_non-sexual_' massages – no personal questions this time – on my front, and work your way down."

"Down?" Peter smiled.

"I'd like it if you'd go down, yes."

Peter grinned now. "Let me go get a towel before you lie on the bed and we've got a deal." The other man was too oily to lie directly on the spread without getting it dirty.

Gabriel leaned in and pulled Peter's chin around so he could kiss his mouth. He groaned slightly. "Sealed with a kiss."

"Baby," Peter said lovingly and extricated himself slowly from Gabriel's arms. He fetched a towel and laid it out where he wanted Gabriel to be, then went to take off his shirt. Gabriel had already shucked out of the rest of his clothes.

"No, no." Gabriel said, eyeing him. He looked Peter up and down as the empath stood waiting, shirt half-unbuttoned. "Can I make another request?"

"Of course."

"Shift into a suit, a nice one. Armani maybe?"

"Okay. Color preference?"

"Um," his eyes slid out of focus for a moment. "Charcoal."

"Can you show me mentally? You seem to have something specific in mind."

"Yeah."

He did and the image he gave was of Peter fully clothed, kneeling on the floor, servicing a nude Gabriel. Peter smiled as the mental contact ended. "I can do that. How about you lie over here to start with and I'll be all 'non-sexual' and stuff first, then get to that other part after. You want role play – businessman, politician, fashion model?"

Gabriel smiled, reaching out and pulling Peter to him suddenly. He kissed him passionately. When Peter figured out it wasn't just a short smooch, he returned it enthusiastically. When they parted, Gabriel said, "You are _**so**_ cooperative, Peter. Thank you, but no. Just you, exactly as you are. Well, in the suit."

Peter waggled his eyebrows. "Gabriel, you are fantastically hot. Anyone who wasn't blind would jump at the chance to be with you. Just exactly as _you_ are." _No shape-shifting required._ "Lie down. I'll be right back." He went to the living room to retrieve the massage oil, shifting into the garments specified.

Peter paused at the entrance to the bedroom, leaning on the doorframe, legs crossed at the ankles. He watched as Gabe ignored where Peter had put the towel and instead built up the pillows, then moved the towel to protect them. He turned around, noticed Peter watching him, and smiled. He settled in.

Peter made a show of adjusting his cuffs, fingers tracing the crisp edges of the fabric. He toyed with the two buttons and the top of the vest a bit, then straightened. He shifted the waistband and tugged at the hem of the jacket. He reached up and adjusted the tie, raising and lowering his chin experimentally with it until he had it as he wanted. Gabriel seemed enamored with his every motion. He walked over to the bed and tossed the bottle of oil on it.

The Italian crawled on the end of the bed, leaning down and lowering himself to one of Gabriel's feet, licking the big toe. Gabriel purred appreciatively, so Peter sucked it into his mouth and worked it briefly, pulling off with a pop. Gabriel gave a slightly more vocal, "Mmmm." Peter licked a trail down the top of his foot to his ankle, where heavier hair growth started in. He realigned himself parallel with Gabe's body and started up it, rubbing his face against his shin. He paused over the knee and chewed at the loose skin.

He looked up the line of Gabriel's body, a little surprised to see he wasn't erect. Heidi didn't call him Mr. Ever-Ready for nothing. Gabe was watching him with a smug smile though, head propped up with one hand behind it, elbow in the air. Peter licked lasciviously halfway up his thigh, then switched to planting kisses one above another. He moved over and nosed Gabriel's flaccid organ, kissing it too.

"No," Gabriel said. "Not yet."

Peter turned to follow the line of his hip, chewing along it to the point. He kissed and licked a lazy arc across his belly to tongue the other man's navel. Gabriel reached out a tentative hand to Peter's head, touching him hesitantly. He carded his fingers through Peter's hair once, twice and a third time before Peter rubbed his body upwards in a slow crawl, bringing the suit's fabric into contact with Gabriel's skin all the way up.

The man was watching him, but that was really about it. Somewhere along the line Peter had lost his audience and he didn't even know why. He kissed Gabe's breastbone, then moved up to his face. His partner's expression had faded to neutral.

Gabriel stopped propping his head up and kissed Peter. It was slow and easy, letting Peter set the pace. _What the hell did I do wrong? _Peter thought. _Was I too aggressive? Did he change his mind about the suit? Is it just that this was a tense night and he's having trouble getting into it? Is he upset that I was with Sylar last time? Was it something else?_ He looked down at Gabriel's lips and Gabriel leaned up to kiss him as if Peter's look had been a command. _God-dammit. He's back to being submissive. I've got to fix this._

_What the hell was I doing wrong though? He asked for this … I was …_ Peter felt a strange tension inside himself, an unfamiliar degree of strain like he was trying to use an ability and being blocked. _It's not supposed to be this hard! What the hell is wrong with me? I can't even tell when he's angry any- … wait …_ Peter blinked and looked at Gabriel uncertainly. He knew they shared an emotional bond. He had a sudden feeling that he was not insulated from whatever was going on in Gabriel's head. He took a deep breath and let it out.

"Gabriel?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yes?" The other man was watching him closely, not unaware that Peter had suddenly become wound up.

"What am I-" Peter let his forehead sink down to rest on Gabriel's collarbone. He frowned. "I … Listen, I get that this isn't just about me. I get it. But what I am I supposed to _do_ here?" His question had meanings far outside the sex they'd been trying to get into and for once Peter meant all those other meanings – in fact, he meant the larger question a lot more than the smaller, more immediate one.

Gabriel slowly stroked his back through the fine wool of the suit – very slowly, not in a hurry. "You're right. It's not just about me. I need to let you set the table."

Peter pulled his head up and looked at him, not understanding.

Gabriel smiled softly at him. "You remember, a few weeks ago when I made breakfast for you and I'd already set the table and taken care of everything?"

Peter nodded, his mind jumping ahead to figure out what Gabe meant. Gabriel continued anyway, not privy to his thoughts, "And you were upset that there wasn't anything for you to do?" He took a slow breath. "Peter, there are things you can do here. I need your support." He looked away, his jaw flexing. "I need it a lot." He swallowed. "I need your affection. And-" He hesitated, struggling with his breathing for a moment. Peter watched him, being quiet and giving Gabriel the chance to open up if that's what he was doing. It was either that, or he was switching personalities and that didn't seem quite right. "And I need you to accept, or at least allow, me to show affection to you. Stay here. Be calm. Please," he tensed and struggled with himself again, still looking fixedly off to the side. "Please don't get … angry with me. I love you. I'm-" He tensed again and this time didn't seem able to unknot himself and continue.

Peter leaned in and kissed his cheek. Gabriel pulled in a deep breath, because for a moment there he'd stopped breathing, and tilted his head forward to rest it against the side of Peter's face. "Yes, _that_. I need that from you. Maybe it doesn't seem like much to you, but I need that. Remember those hospice patients you used to see, years ago? There was nothing you could do for them, to change the outcome, but they still _needed_ you, Peter. They needed help." He laid his head back on the pillow, but his eyes fixed on a point over Peter's right shoulder as he kept speaking.

"And I … Heidi would be happy to be married to Sylar, I think. I think she'd prefer it. The parts of me that are more Gabriel aren't parts that … that she'd miss. You hold me together, Peter. You give me depth. Or maybe, you let me keep my depth. The things I've done bother the hell out me. They don't bother her. And while that's nice in a way because I don't have to live with the guilt with her, honestly I'm happier that you're bothered by them too. It makes me feel like I'm not crazy for feeling that way. Even if I feel the other way too."

Gabriel shook his head. "It's like those patients you serve as a paramedic. Most of the time you're not doing anything for them directly. Most of modern medicine doesn't, actually. You help by being there. By showing concern. By listening to their problems and taking them to a doctor when they need it. But at the end of the day, no paramedic, no doctor, no procedure can help. It's the patient's own healing process that has to do the job. I have to heal, Peter. But that doesn't mean there's nothing for you to do."

Gabriel finally looked into Peter's eyes. Peter held his gaze for a moment, then dropped it politely. "Thank you for telling me that," he said softly. "I needed to hear it."

Gabriel nodded and shifted Peter to the side, nestling him under his arm. "Just lie here with me, please. I'm not ready."

Peter nodded and settled in. "Want me to stay in the suit?" It felt odd to be fully, elaborately clothed and cuddled up to a naked man.

"Yes," Gabe said firmly. "I like the suit."

Peter chuckled. "Suits me fine."

Gabriel gave him a happy squeeze.


	269. Recovery Room

They lay together for a quarter hour, doing not much of anything, each lost in their thoughts and contemplations of what had gone before. Eventually Gabriel reached up to where Peter's arm was stretched across his chest and began playing with the buttons on his cuff. A bit after that, he started idly ringing the inside of the cuff with one finger, then did the same to the sleeve of the jacket. Peter detected a stirring in the other man's emotions. Even if Gabriel's body wasn't showing it yet, he was interested. Peter stayed still while Gabriel followed the jacket sleeve to Peter's elbow and circled it, rubbing gently as his interest developed.

Peter took and let out a slow, deep breath. Gabriel wasn't the only one feeling a stirring.

Gabriel reached down and nuzzled the top of his head. "Do you mind … would you mind just letting me have you?"

"I don't think I'd mind, but," Peter looked up at him, "I'm not sure what you mean by that."

Gabriel shrugged one shoulder slightly and looked away. "I mean … just let me … sort of … masturbate with you."

Peter smiled. "No, I do _not_ mind. Go right ahead." Gabriel was honest about it and that was incredible. Most couples … yeah. Peter suspected the majority of sex was about one party using the other and pleasuring them only as a side effect or as some sort of 'entry fee' for the recreational area. Part of why Gabriel was so stunningly good in bed was his constant focus on his partner. Peter had no problems at all with letting himself be used as an occasional thing.

Gabriel shifted up on his side, rolling Peter on his back. He put his hand in the middle of Peter's torso, over the top of the vest.

Peter asked quietly, "Do you want me to stay still, act like I'm asleep, or …?"

"I don't mind if you participate a little, but let me lead."

Peter nodded. That Gabriel's ego needed some recovery room wasn't a big surprise either. The man toyed with the V of the top of the vest, stroking the rougher wool and rubbing his knuckles on the soft silk of the tie tucked in under it. He leaned over to kiss Peter in a long, slow, gentle osculation before rising again. "You're very handsome." He let his eyes go up and down Peter's body, then shifted his hips over and rubbed himself lazily against Peter's side. He let his hand slide down the length of Peter's body, catching up over his groin and cupping him firmly enough to make Peter blink and take notice. Gabriel grinned and released his grip. He leaned over and kissed him again, a little more aggressively this time.

His kisses trailed down Peter's jaw to his neck, then his collar. Gabriel bit the fabric and pulled at it, beginning to hump against him, hard enough for Peter to feel him by this point.

_This is really weird,_ Peter thought, and kept his thoughts very much to himself.

Gabriel reached up and pulled out the tie, wrapping it around his hand.

_Uh-oh, _Peter thought. Gabriel's motion reminded Peter of when he'd done it himself, but with a chain. His partner tugged him up to his lips with that as a leash and Peter suddenly realized he was not wild about that _at all_. Visions of choking Gabriel out came back to him and even though that hadn't been _him_ getting hurt, he was afraid of Gabriel turning the tables on him. A strange fear, given that Gabe had made no sign of intending to be that rough. After they parted, Gabriel's eyes dropped to the tie, his lips parted but teeth set together. Peter spoke up, "Wait, please. Yellow?"

Gabriel's eyes came back to his, confused until he put the color in context and figured out what Peter was saying. His eye line went to the side for a moment in memory retrieval, then back to Peter's. He unwrapped his hand. "What?"

"It's … Don't choke me, please."

Gabriel looked at the tie and immediately reached in to loosen it around his throat. It had snugged up, but it wasn't cutting in. "Okay."

"Okay. That was all." Peter leaned over and gave him a peck. "Carry on, I guess?"

"Okay." Gabriel stayed perfectly still for a few moments, obviously having been thrown off stride. Then he climbed on top of Peter suddenly, sitting up on his knees as he straddled Peter's thighs. He glanced around the bed and summoned the massage oil to his hand. Peter started to point out they had lube on the nightstand, but it occurred to him that Gabriel knew that and he might be picking something oil-based for a reason. He looked down at Peter, holding the bottle, thinking something through. He put the bottle down and started to stroke himself. "Where are those condoms?"

"Right- right in the nightstand." Peter had learned his lesson to keep those things handy if he wanted head - not that he'd been getting much, but if it was offered, he was prepared. He watched as Gabriel used telekinesis to equip himself with a packet. He tucked it between his fingers and came down with that hand beside Peter's head, the other still stroking himself. He kissed Peter deeply and passionately. He started moving his hips even as he pumped himself, moving his whole body into Peter. The empath could feel the lust rising and he was reacting to it. He brought his hands up to caress Gabriel's sides, earning him a pleased moan. They kept kissing for so long Peter began to wonder if Gabriel was going to finish on him while they did, but no.

The taller man drew back, opened the condom packet and unrolled the contents over himself. Peter watched, curious about what he had in mind. Gabriel upended a really large quantity of oil into his hand and across his sheathed organ. The oil in his hand went on the bottom of Peter's crotch and between his legs. _Oh!_ Peter thought. Gabriel positioned himself to slide his cock between Peter's thighs. _No wonder he wanted something to … protect him from friction, I guess. Carpet burn of the dick – sounds painful._ He'd used enough oil that Peter was sure they'd need to wash the spread. He made a mental note. Shape shifting would deal with the suit.

Gabriel took several experimental thrusts, settled himself and started moving more vigorously. He held himself up over Peter's body, ravishing it with his gaze until he was nearing his peak, which didn't take long – he'd been nearly there already. He leaned in to take Peter's mouth. Peter held him tightly, curling his arms over his lover's back, raking him with his nails and clinging to him until he finished.

Peter himself was rock hard by that point, having had to lie there and feel his lover go through the whole cycle, but unable to do much of anything other than hold him while he did. Gabriel shifted to one side, staring deeply into Peter's eyes. He unfastened the catch on his slacks very slowly. The corner of Peter's mouth turned up and he started breathing more deeply. _He's not going to leave me wanting – he never does_. Gabriel undid the inner button. His fingers found the zipper and slowly, very slowly, pulled it down. He caressed Peter's straining shaft, pinching the tip repeatedly.

Peter moaned and squirmed. "Please?" he looked at Gabriel, not sure if talking was allowed.

"Beg me."

_Oh yeah, it's allowed._ "Please let me come, sir. Please. Oh God, that feels good. Please give me more. Please, Gabriel, oh God, please. Yes!" he yelped the last as Gabriel shoved down his briefs roughly and began to run oily fingertips up and down him teasingly. "Please stroke me. Please touch me. I need more. I need more, rougher, harder …" Gabriel gripped him and started moving. It was a tight grip, but slow and methodical. Peter felt like he was about to burst. "Oh please, baby, faster. Faster, please?"

Gabriel didn't change speed. "Am I 'baby' or 'sir'?"

Peter groaned. "You are whoever you want to be. I don't fucking know," he panted, struggling with the urge to touch himself and help out. He knew that wouldn't be appreciated. Gabriel was getting off on seeing him like this, hot and bothered, so he was unrestrained in expressing it. "Whoever … I'll take you. Please?"

"Hm." He still didn't change speed, but Peter could feel himself beginning to clench anyway. "I'm not sure that's the right answer."

"I'm about to come …"

"Are you?"

Peter froze and bit his lip, holding himself off by force of will. The edge of threat in Gabriel's voice helped a lot too. "May I?"

Gabriel was silent long enough for Peter give a muffled sob of frustration. Gabe leaned in and kissed Peter slowly. Peter's toes curled and he whined in need. "God I'm so fucking close, _please,_ Gabriel, for the love of God …" He groaned.

He laughed. "Pick one."

"Pick?"

"Sir or baby. Pick one. Then you can come." He squeezed and twisted very slowly on the upstroke. Peter knew then he was going to lose it anyway, whether he picked or not, so really it was only a choice of whether he picked or didn't – he was coming either way.

"Baby!" he managed to get out as he spurted onto the vest and shirt tails. "Oh God," he moaned weakly.

Gabriel leaned in and captured his mouth again, pressing a little harder when Peter tried to turn aside and part for breath after a moment. Peter complied with the unspoken demand and stayed, huffing out his nose instead, not getting quite enough air.

The other man let him go finally, on both ends – sitting back and letting him breathe, and releasing his organ, putting his clothes a bit to rights.

"Hm," Gabriel mused. "What do you think that means, psychoanalytically?"

"I have no idea," Peter moaned.

"You're lying," Gabriel informed him calmly.

Peter sagged, having finally gotten his breath back. "I'd guess it means I like to take care of you." He reached up slowly and stroked Gabriel's cheek.

The other man turned his head after a moment and kissed Peter's hand repeatedly. "I love you."

Peter smiled. "Love you too, baby."


	270. Setting Boundaries

Peter slumped back against the bed. Yeah, okay, the evening had been awful tense for him too. He asked, "You going to start psychoanalyzing everything we do in bed?"

"Hm," Gabriel hummed as he settled down beside him, propping himself on one elbow and putting his other hand on Peter's chest. He toyed with the handkerchief pocket, fingers dipping briefly inside, then exploring the edges. It was an expensive suit design. The pocket had an edging of silk - a small detail, part of what made it worth the money. Gabriel leaned over and licked it, rolling his eyes up to look at Peter and grinning. Peter's brows rose. Gabe wet the edges and probed inside it with his tongue, exploring the slit. When he was done, he asked, "I'm sure that has some deeper psychological significance. Tell me."

Peter snorted. "I have no idea!" He laughed. "None at all."

"No, no, tell me," Gabriel said playfully. "You're the one who saw that therapist today. You didn't ask her about my oral-Armani fetish?"

Peter laughed harder. "I didn't know you _had_ an 'oral-Armani' fetish!"

"Italians in Italian suits - I can't get enough." Gabriel settled back into his previous position, propped up next to him.

Peter calmed. "And besides, you were the one who asking what 'baby' meant, not me. I try not to question why people are attracted to what they're attracted to. It's never made any sense anyway."

"I over-intellectualize everything."

"I've noticed."

Gabriel smiled and leaned in for a short kiss.

When they parted, Peter said, "See? You're wanting reassurance, validation that it's okay to over-intellectualize."

"Mm. True. Thank you for giving it." He sighed. "So what did the good doctor say, anyway?"

"She wants to see both of us."

Gabriel snorted and rolled over on his back, staring upward. "Of course. While I'd like to say she's just trying to get more paying customers, I realize no one can give much of a diagnosis without actually seeing the patient. Else they get off-base. Maury really thinks I'm faking this?"

"Has he even _seen_ you since last week?"

"Yeah, I ate lunch over at Angela's on Saturday, but I stayed the hell away from him and he didn't push. He tried a few times. I told him to fuck off. He did."

Peter's voice took on a sudden, very menacing tone. "He tried … what, exactly?"

Gabriel looked at him, thinking about Peter saying he'd kill anyone who tried to coerce Gabriel, thinking about him slugging his own mentor and parting ways permanently over Noah speaking badly of them. It was still surprising to be with someone who had his back. Surprising and delightful. "Um. Peter. He just asked me to come outside while he smoked a cigar. I declined. And, then later he asked if I wanted to talk, some other time, and that he had the next couple Wednesday afternoons free, if I wanted to drop by his office. He didn't do anything to me." He rolled his eyes briefly. "Telling him to fuck off was figurative. Really, I just told him I'd think about it and that was it."

Peter nodded, having calmed down while Gabriel explained. "I told her about us … structurally, I guess: that you were married, I was engaged, and we were married to each other with the knowledge and permission of our spouses. She found that fascinating." Peter rolled his eyes now. Actually he'd had a hard time getting her off the subject. He paused, considering what Gabriel had said about hanging onto his life with white knuckles. "You know, I might be over-focusing on the abilities and stuff and under-focusing on the relationships."

"Hm," Gabriel said because some form of input seemed required. He was listening attentively.

Peter huffed a little. "I didn't tell her about the abilities. I told her you'd been involved in the war on terror and that you'd seen, and done, a lot of things in that that had upset you. I told her you'd called yourself Tyler then-"

"Tyler?" Gabriel asked.

"Yeah. It rhymed! I didn't think about Fight Club until she mentioned it."

"Fight Club?"

"Tyler Durden? He was Edward Norton's alter ego in it. Played by Brad Pitt?"

"I … haven't seen it."

"It was good. You ought to. I think you'd like it. Anyway, you called yourself Tyler while you were working for the government doing … bad things and when you got out of that you went back to your life as Greg."

"Now I'm Greg. I suppose because it starts with a G?"

"Yes, Gabriel. Because I am _completely_ unoriginal. And I didn't know anyone else named Greg so I figured it would be harder to get confused that way. So I told her you'd … been called off on a mission last week and a couple people on your team had died, and it had caused Tyler to surface again."

"Hm." They lay there quietly for a few minutes before Gabriel offered, "I really have a lot of identities to keep track of: Sylar, Gabriel, Nathan, Greg, Tyler, Dad, that asshole, baby…"

Peter rolled over and kissed his lover. "Who calls you 'that asshole'?"

"I have telepathy. I know what people call me. I get that one just walking down the street sometimes."

Peter shook his head and kissed him again. He'd overheard a lot of stuff mentally he'd have preferred not to know as well. There was a reason why not saying everything one thought was a valuable skill. When they parted he rolled back. "You ever hear someone making a pass at you in their head?"

"Oh yeah. Embarrassing. You get that too?"

"I don't block as well as you do. Yes, I get that."

"Hm. Did this therapist give you any advice, or was it just 'I want to see both of you'?"

"No, she gave me some advice. I told her you'd become rough in the bedroom. She said we should be real specific on boundaries, write it down and make sure Tyler and Greg are both aware and in agreement - assuming of course that I'm willing to get into bed with both of you, which I am."

Gabriel rolled over and pounced on him suddenly, so intent that for a moment Peter thought he was Sylar. He pinned him by the shoulders and said, "And what's all that about, anyway?"

"I … what?" Peter's eyes were wide, trying to read the situation. Gabriel's actions and expression spoke of anger. The emotions Peter was reading through his hands were amusement and teasing. His tone of voice was ambiguous.

"Are you sleeping around on me, Peter Petrelli?"

Peter smiled a little and when he saw a fleeting, but answering expression on Gabriel's face he grinned. "Hey now! You were the one who said it was okay for me to cheat on you with you back when you were that woman!"

"Damn it!" Gabriel said theatrically, shoving Peter's shoulders down. He flopped on his back on the bed again, putting his hand to his forehead. "You _would_ bring that up!"

Peter said slowly, "You know … if you don't know what I do with Sylar … that does make that a little different."

Gabriel looked over at him and raised a single brow, but said nothing. Peter said, "Because … do _you_ think that's cheating?"

"No. The _last_ thing I want to do is have Sylar frustrated and not getting any from you - sex _or_ affection. He likes you, loves you, I think, and if something happens to sabotage that then I'm going to have a lot more problems than I do with being with you. Assuming you're still around to be with."

Peter smiled slowly, deciding to overlook the very threatening 'if you're still around' part. "So you're willing to share me?"

"If … yes." Gabriel turned and met Peter's eyes, very serious. "With him."

Peter sobered under the gaze. "Okay. Sylar looks a lot like you. That must be why I find him so sexy."

That prompted an easy grin from Gabe.

Peter went on, "But I still think she has a point - the therapist - her name is Rita, by the way - that we should lay out some boundaries. All the more because Sylar's in the picture. There's a question I asked him that I need to ask you too - if there's an emergency, and you're really worked up, a danger - to me, to yourself - are you okay with me canceling your abilities."

Gabriel thought that over. "Yes. What did Sylar say?"

"He said the same thing. He also said for me not to do it any other time; that if we're playing, that's out of bounds. And because of that, I need to talk to you, and then him, about how we use abilities when we play. I got my nose out of joint about his before, when we were swimming." Peter paused, but other than having his lover's complete attention, nothing was said. He went on, "I would prefer that all abilities that affect someone else - and for this purpose I include shape-shifting - be used on one another only with prior permission."

"Or in case of an emergency."

Peter furrowed his brow, trying to decide if Gabriel was creating a loophole for himself, or simply exercising some lawyeristic reflex to cover for contingencies, however unlikely. He decided to trust, since Gabe had never betrayed him before. "Okay."

"Now to quibble," Gabriel said. "I use clairsentience. Do you think that affects you?"

"No. And I've given a blanket permission for that." He wasn't ecstatic about it, but he wasn't resentful either. Gabriel wanted it badly, so he got it.

"Okay. Likewise, I have no objection to you reading my emotions, or, if it comes up, my thoughts. If I'm too whacked out to block them, then you can read them." Peter nodded and Gabriel was silent, obviously pondering something. Finally he said hesitantly, "If … even if I'm … even if it's an emergency, do not … _please_ do not coerce me mentally. Don't give me orders," his voice got softer and quieter. Peter strained to hear. "Don't push for my memories or try to figure out what's going on with me." He shook his head and swallowed, clearing his throat, staring at the bedspread. "Tie me down, shoot me, run me through with a sword, paralyze me, put a knife in my kill spot - I don't care. But don't do _that _to me." Gabriel shut his eyes for a long moment.

Peter reached out and touched him. "I won't." He'd known Gabriel couldn't tolerate that, but he hadn't known it went to the point that he'd rather be killed by whatever means necessary. He wondered if Gabriel was aware that Peter had pushed him emotionally just last week, trying to get him out of the fugue he'd returned home with. Peter wondered if he should confess that, or leave it alone. He started to lead up to it obliquely with, "I know … Maury's done it to you in the past-"

Gabriel interrupted, voice hard. "He doesn't do it anymore. In the past I was afraid. I was unstable. I couldn't defend myself. I can now. I won't let anyone do that to me again."

_Oh. Kay. Keep mouth shut then,_ Peter thought.

Gabriel paused for a moment, then added, "He knows. He's said he's glad I'm … back on my feet, able to set limits and willing to enforce them. Of course he's also said I needed to work with you on getting over the phobia, but …" he shook his head. Like that was going to happen. Maybe someday. Not yet.

Peter segued to a different subject, one that he felt less guilty about. "I'm glad to hear you say that, that you're willing to set limits. I need you to start letting me know when I'm pushing them. Like I did earlier, with the choking - interrupt me. Right then. Let me know. That's what the colors are for and I am so thankful that you're good about that, that you respect it. But there've been times that I've done things and then only happened to find out accidentally, later, that I hurt you. I don't want to hurt you. Finding out that way makes me feel terrible. It makes me wonder how many other things I do that piss you off that you stay silent on. And then maybe I just keep doing them and I-"

Gabriel kissed him, hard and for a long time. Peter stayed tense for a while, waiting for him to finish so he could go on, but that wasn't to be. Finally he relaxed into it. A little while after that he started actively returning it. They came to a mutual conclusion a few moments later. "Consider yourself interrupted. You talk too much."

Peter burst out laughing. "Okay. Got it. Thank you."

Gabriel laid there for a moment, then rolled back over to kiss Peter again, for about as long. He caressed the suit jacket and the tie, fingers following the lines of the cloth while his mouth worked at his lover's. He pulled back. "That's nice. I like that."

Peter rolled to face him and kissed his chin. For the next few minutes, they made out quietly - a low-key intimacy. It didn't go anywhere and they eventually parted to their previous positions.

Peter said, "You've said you want to beat me up."

That hung in the air for a long moment and Peter suspected the sweet spot of Gabriel's cooperativeness after sex had expired. It didn't mean they couldn't talk - it just meant there was a tension there that he'd rather wasn't.

Finally Gabriel answered, "Not right now."

"Yes, I know. But … sometimes."

"I don't think it's safe."

Peter's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean … I don't think this is a good time for you to hit me. I couldn't even handle you holding me down. How do you think I'm going to act when I win?"

"Just like you did. Sylar didn't hurt me." He was a little rougher than Peter appreciated, but considering he'd been freaking out moments earlier, it wasn't bad. Admittedly he'd been freaking out as Gabriel, but it only underscored how upset he was that Sylar came out to defend him.

"Sylar might not always back down. It's stupid to test his limits. I won't … I won't let you take that risk." Gabriel sat up.

Peter wondered how he'd keep him from it, but the obvious answer was to remove himself from the situation. Or rather, remove himself from seeing Peter anymore - which was what it looked like, maybe, he was getting up to do. Peter capitulated quickly, "I won't hit you. I won't wrestle with you. I won't hold you down. And I'm not going to play with restraints on you anymore either. None of that until you tell me you're ready for it. Okay?"

Gabriel looked down at him warily, then laid back down. "Okay." He took a deep breath and let it out, staring at the ceiling.

"In the same vein," Peter said, "You can hold me down without asking." Gabriel's head turned to him. "Don't hit me, don't trigger pressure points, don't do anything that would leave a bruise on someone else - unless you're using your mouth, I kind of like that and I trust you not to get carried away - and like I've said before, don't draw blood. Don't choke me or suffocate me without asking first. And you've never done it, but just to be clear, don't cancel my abilities either. All of this is negotiable. But it's not something I want to negotiate during sex. As soon as the clothes start coming off, the time for negotiation has _stopped_. If you want to make requests for something more than vanilla, like choking, or hurting me, or using telekinesis on me or something like that, then we put our clothes back on and talk about it."

Peter was inclined to belabor how Gabriel seemed to like to wait until Peter was aroused and not thinking clearly to make any request he wasn't sure would pass muster, but he didn't. Gabriel was already glaring at him. "Okay," the other man bit out. He rolled off the bed and stalked into the bathroom. Peter pursed his lips. _That was not received well._ He sighed and covered his face with both hands. _Not received well at all. Well, fuck._


	271. Sylar? We need to talk

Peter padded into the bathroom several minutes later. Barely loud enough to pitch over the sound of the shower, he said, "What was it I did that pissed you off?"

"Tone of voice. I don't like you giving me orders." Speaking of tone, Gabriel's was clipped, still angry.

"Okay. That's fair." He didn't think it was - fair, that is - but it wasn't a surprise and it was exactly what he'd expected. In a way that was soothing because it meant it wasn't the boundaries themselves that bothered Gabe. Peter ran a hand through his hair. He was going to shower anyway. "May I lose the suit?" he asked, hoping to get back on his lover's good side by making a point of his submission.

Gabriel pulled back the curtain and looked him up and down. After a long beat, he smiled slightly. "You're still wearing it."

"Yes, I am," Peter said, a little tired. "_You asked me to_."

Gabriel's eyes pulled up to Peter's, getting what he was trying to say. "Yes, you may lose the suit." He watched the transformation into a t-shirt and sweat pants blankly, then said quietly, "Thank you, Peter. What you were saying was fair too. I … reacted … overreacted."

Peter nodded. "I knew I was pushing it." He rolled his eyes. "And then I kept pushing it." He sighed. "Like I always do."

Gabriel tugged him over and kissed him, then nuzzled him, getting the side of Peter's face wet. The empath didn't mind in the least, grateful for the clear message that he was forgiven and Gabriel wasn't pissy anymore. Gabe pulled back. "I need to finish rinsing."

"Sure." Peter leaned back against the sink, legs crossed at the ankles. "Do you want to go see her?"

"Who?"

"The therapist."

"Did you like her? As a therapist?"

"Yeah. I read her mind. I suppose I shouldn't do that but …" Peter sighed again.

Gabriel turned the shower off and got out. Peter handed him a towel and said, "She seemed okay."

Gabriel nodded. "Do you think it would help? I think we're doing alright as we are."

Peter let out a breath. He thought they were muddling through, but he wouldn't characterize it as 'alright' except insomuch as Gabriel or Sylar hadn't carried through with cutting his head open yet. And while he'd more or less resigned himself to that as an eventuality with Gabriel, the fact that the former killer was having to struggle to control himself was not missed. As much as he hated to admit it, Noah's advice about not tolerating poor behavior from Gabriel was running through his mind. Peter was no longer thinking of it in terms of what he'd 'tolerate', but more in terms of what they needed to keep working on, actively. The current situation needed a lot of work.

Peter asked, "Are there other personalities, than just you and Sylar?" He didn't miss the way Gabriel's eyes dodged to the side and he turned partly away, becoming absorbed in drying himself. Peter raised and lowered his brows to himself, unseen, and started taking his clothes off before getting in the shower.

He was climbing in it before Gabriel finally answered, saying, "I think so, yes."

"You think so?"

"I don't know, Peter." His tone was caught between being quiet and annoyed. Peter nodded quickly and held up a hand to show surrender. Gabriel added, "There used to be. I don't know about now. Why? Have I been acting weird? Well … more weird?"

Peter smiled, standing in the shower stall. He thought about that odd meticulousness Gabriel had been showing from time to time since last week. "Not … really, but I asked that question of Sylar and he said, 'Not that mattered' or something like that. It made it sound like there definitely were. Like I've said before, I'm not really sure how to handle this. You know, I'm fine with just going to see her myself some more, but … I'd feel a lot better if you were seeing someone and talking this out. Maybe I'm just too close. I know that sometimes you're more comfortable talking to someone else."

He turned on the shower, adjusting the temperature as he had to after every time Gabriel used it. _You know, I could do something about this … and this one I can do all on my own._ He turned off the shower abruptly, shape shifted to get most of the moisture off himself, and stalked out through his apartment. Gabriel watched him go, blinking.

Peter came back shortly, waving a sharpie marker. He got a hand towel and dried the area around the knobs. Gabriel watched him, curiosity piqued. Peter glanced up and said, "I'm going to mark where a decent temperature is, okay?"

"For me?"

"Yeah." _And for me … mostly for me._

"Thank you, Peter. I hadn't really thought …"

Peter played with the temperature, picked one he liked, and made big, bold markings on the tile to show where the hot and cold knobs needed to be pointed. He handed the pen out to Gabe. "It's mostly for me, but … on some level that's got to be uncomfortable."

"One of these days I'll do some more self-inflicted brain surgery and try to fix it," Gabriel said.

Peter didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing and pulled the curtain closed.

* * *

_Wake up._

_Er?_

_Wake up and tell Peter to stop snoring._

_What?_

_Wake up and tell Peter to stop snoring. I can't sleep with this racket._

_Who the hell is talking to me?_ Peter was snoring loudly, right in Gabriel's face. It couldn't possibly be him and it wasn't Peter projecting mentally, during a dream. The voice was too clear and it was only a voice – or rather, a mental impression of a voice. It sounded like his own.

_I am, you idiot. Now wake up and tell Peter to stop snoring._

_Why don't … you … I?_

_Because I'm not talking to Peter right now. Wake up and tell him to stop snoring._

_Sylar?_ Gabriel sat up, looking around the room fruitlessly, waking up completely. The half-dreamt exchange began to fade. _Sylar?_ He huffed at the lack of answer and moved to the edge of the bed. Peter swallowed, shifted and reached out in his sleep to touch him. Gabriel reached back immediately and put his hand where Peter's next movement covered it. For a moment Peter was still, then he pulled away and abruptly rolled over.

_Huh. Now that I'm awake, he stops snoring._ He looked around the room blankly. _Sylar? … We need to talk. … Come on. … Crap. I suppose this is what it feels like when Peter's trying to pin **me** down on something._ He got up and pulled on some pants, then searched through the apartment until he found a Steno pad and a pen. He sat down on the couch and began to write.

* * *

Gabriel left early the next morning, having been up for a while when Peter rose. Peter worried about him not sleeping well, but he didn't know what to do about it other than be there for him. He tried to kiss and caress and got fended off. Gabe wasn't in the mood; Peter didn't push it.

He saw Gabriel off and continued getting ready. He was sitting on the bed pulling his socks on when he noticed a Steno pad sitting on the nightstand. It looked like a letter, or a list, with groupings of lines alternating in neat block lettering and equally neat cursive. Thinking Gabriel had left him some oblique note, Peter pulled it over and read it, snorting after the first line:

_Do not slap or backhand Peter. Or Heidi. Or the kids. Or Emma. Do not talk to the kids again, at all. Especially about killing people. Or sex. Do not talk to Emma unless Peter is there. Don't hurt Peter. Trust him. Be gentle with him, you clumsy asshole. He's not a target - quit acting like he is._

Go to hell.

_And stop fighting with me._

Stop arguing with me.

_You're going to fuck things up._

Things are already fucked up. Going to hell in a hand basket. You've noticed_._

_You're accelerating it._

I'm dealing with it.

_Stop making things worse._

Start making them better.

_How?_

Get rid of the fucking law firm. You're not Nathan. Nathan's dead. Quit playing pretend.

_Okay. I'll get rid of the law firm. What else?_

I don't know. It's not my fucking life anymore!

_You need to talk to Peter about the slap thing._

I'm not going to talk to Peter about the fucking slap thing. He's a big boy. He'll deal with it.

_He's not your dog to kick around as you please. His way of dealing with it involves talking to you._

I'm not going to talk to him about it.

_Can you explain it to me?_

I am not going to explain myself.

_This is not helpful._

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but I don't give a fuck if I'm helpful to you or not.

_No, I've noticed that._

Good.

_Fine._

Peter covered his mouth and sat there silently, not sure whether to be amused (that Gabriel and Sylar were arguing with each other), horrified (for much the same reason) or pleased (that they were at least communicating). He had a rather strong urge to use clairsentience and watch the process of Gabriel writing this out. Gabriel did the same thing to him after all – constantly. He was sure this hadn't come line after line in quick succession. There must have been pauses in there, moments of indecision on how to respond and what to say, facial expressions … perhaps even things muttered aloud.

Instead, Peter set the pad down where he'd found it. He'd trespassed enough just by continuing to read after he saw it wasn't a letter to him. Gabriel did a really admirable job of keeping his mouth shut about the things he picked up through psychometry. This sort of journal was exactly what Peter had asked him to do. He didn't need to discourage it by drawing attention. Though at the same time he had to wonder if Gabriel had left it lying out precisely so he'd look at it - Gabe wasn't the kind of person who left his things in disarray, or who revealed his private nature.

Peter finished putting on his socks and went about his morning routine, trying to imagine what it was like to have someone else in your head – not even a foreign consciousness like Sylar in Matt, but just … another you. _'It's not my fucking life anymore!'_ He thought about what that meant, in particular. That had been Sylar's writing, as far as he could tell.


	272. Discussions With The Wife

Gabriel carried in lunch, having called ahead and taken orders. He found Heidi in the kitchen, making lemonade. "Hi there, lovely," he said in a purr.

She smiled and almost blushed, looking back at him as she stirred in the sugar syrup. He set down the bags of food and stepped over to put his hands on either side of her waist. He kissed her neck. She stopped stirring and tilted her head to the side. He let his mouth roam up and down nibbling lightly. She turned in his arms to return the kiss. It was soft, sweet and chaste, just a press of lips and an exchange of gazes.

One of the boys came trotting into the room, having heard his father's arrival. He sighed dramatically at the sight of his parents kissing. Gabriel looked over at Monty levelly, then turned back to kiss Heidi one more time in case there was any question of his right to do so. Monty had at least learned to keep his mouth shut about the near-instinctive 'ew.' Gabe turned to go around the bar. Under the line of the counter, where the gesture would be unseen, Heidi slapped him on the ass. Gabriel smiled to himself and scooped up the bags.

Monty eyed them. "Is that lunch?"

"Yep. Go get Simon. Tell him lunch is served."

"What is it?" Monty asked, not leaving.

"It's fish sandwiches and chips." He waited a beat. Monty came over to the table and started digging in the bags after Gabriel set them down, as if to check the contents, or maybe to secure his portion. Gabriel whapped him lightly on the head.

"Hey!" the boy dodged away, looking affronted.

"Go get your brother. Now."

Monty pursed his lips and left to do as ordered. Gabriel went to get plates. "Monty's learning Simon's bad habits."

"They're boys. Boys are always like that." Heidi brought over a quartet of glasses, then went back for the pitcher of lemonade. "Just fish sandwiches?" she called back.

"No. For the lady of the house I have the finest fried oysters, as directed, never frozen, cooked fresh while I waited. And waited."

She laughed and poured drinks as both boys came in. Gabriel asked them, "Have you washed your hands?" To his surprise, both dutifully filed back out without argument, though Simon grumbled something that sounded oddly like 'risk assessment.'

"I was not like that as a boy," Gabriel asserted as he went over to the kitchen sink to wash up himself. What he meant was clear, as he and Heidi talked several times a week about getting Simon's knee-jerk defiance under control. He was being fine at the moment, but that might not last.

"Yeah? What were you like?" Heidi asked, setting out salt and pepper while Gabriel came back to the table with napkins.

He froze, staring at her blankly. She looked at him innocently. "Ah ..." he swallowed and blinked. "Well, I always did whatever my father suggested. It was Peter who was the rebel."

"That's not the childhood I was talking about and you know it," Heidi said quietly as the boys came back in.

Gabriel took his seat, declining to elaborate further. The meal was good, without much in the way of squabbling around the table. Gabriel split his second sandwich between the boys, saying he wasn't all that hungry. They made quick work of it, took care of their dishes and vanished off to their games and television. Heidi left to check on Noah, who had woke and made this noisily clear over the baby monitor. Gabriel cleaned up the table.

About the time she was done changing the baby, Heidi got a call from a friend and handed the infant off to Gabriel, who was still hanging around for reasons he hadn't made clear to her yet. He settled in on the couch to wait, with his youngest son sitting next to him. For a while he entertained the baby with silly sounds and letting him gnaw on his fingers. He rubbed his head and the fine, silky dark brown hair that graced it.

The baby looked a bit more like Nathan than Gabriel, something which the paternity test had confirmed. Shape-shifting changed your DNA in a manner that extended after death - apparently past conception as well. Gabriel smiled. Nathan would have been beside himself to know that 'Sylar' would father Nathan's last child. Gabriel felt very comfortable, very relaxed, very safe and loved. He leaned back against the couch, child tucked up against him, and shut his eyes.

* * *

Heidi walked in the room to see little Noah at the edge of the couch, peering off it at the very long drop to the floor. He seemed to be considering taking the plunge, kicking his legs erratically but only occasionally managing to get any forward motion. Her husband was passed out, arms limp at his side, head back, snoring lightly. She made an alarmed yelp and lunged forward.

The man on the couch came awake instantly, jerking up and almost, but not quite rising from the furniture. He fixed her with such a hostile gaze that she pulled up immediately, blinking at him. That was _**not**_ her husband. She was sure of it. This was not the same guy even more than when he'd come back from the trip to Europe the week before. Peter's inaccurate assessment of Gabriel's mental state, telling her he thought Gabriel was still the same person, came immediately to mind. Her eyes went to the baby, within an easy arm's reach of the man.

Sylar looked between the mother and her child, the baby still worming his way forward, center of mass slowly shifting his balance point. The killer reached out and grabbed the kid by his jumper, not at all interested in the hell he'd catch if he let the urchin get hurt on his watch. He unceremoniously deposited the budding rug rat at the back of the couch instead. He glanced up at Heidi, who was still poised where she'd caught up before. There was no other reason for him to be here and this had the potential to get awkward really fast (not that it wasn't already), so he vacated, conveying the situation to Gabriel as he went.

Gabriel immediately reached for the child, scooping him up and examining him minutely, a worried expression on his face. Heidi finished closing the distance between them very slowly. Gabriel told her, not taking his eyes off Noah, "I'm sorry, I … when I woke up …" He shook his head. "When I get startled anymore …" He sighed and handed her the baby, having confirmed for himself the child was fine.

She settled in next to him, watching Gabriel very, very closely. He drew in under her scrutiny, looking down and hunching a little. She said, "That was … weird. Like you were possessed."

"I'm not _possessed!_" he said, exasperated that she'd even imply that.

She put a hand on his knee. "I know. But that wasn't you in there for a moment."

"No," he said quietly, calming a little and looking up at her for a moment. He looked away. "No, it wasn't."

"What was that?"

"'Who.' It's not a 'what.' 'He' is Sylar."

"Ah."

"I think you'd prefer him to me anyway, if you got to know him."

"Why's that?"

"He's very practical."

"Hm. Well … as much as I adore practicality, as long as you're the silly one, I can be as hard-nosed as I want. I think if you were suddenly acting like me, I'd have to get softer to counter it." She thought about that. "I don't think I want that. Right now we can play good cop/bad cop. Can't do that if we're both the same, can we?" He blinked at her in surprise, not having seen it that way. "And besides, what would happen to _you_? _This_ you?"

"I'm not the 'silly' one!"

She laughed and shifted Noah into his lap, giving him one last uncertain look and then coming to a decision. She snuggled under his arm. "Oh yes you are, Mr. Big and Fearsome. I have your number."

_Mr. Big … Ego?_ Some random snippet of a dream tried to come back to him. He shook it off and pulled her to him tightly, his other hand on the baby, who took the opportunity to grab at his fingers and chew on a knuckle, drooling copiously. "I don't know what would happen to me. I had it all together, before … this last week. Really, I did. Then it was just too much. It was too easy … this division thing." He laughed a little. "I was thinking maybe I could timeshare between you and Peter - Peter gets … uh, Gabriel and you get Sylar. Maybe it should be the other way around. I'd worry about Peter though."

"With Sylar?"

"Yeah. Sylar wants his ability."

"And he doesn't want mine?"

"Yours isn't as loud. Or as useful. I already have it. I don't think Sylar would see any reason to hurt you. He's not a maniac, or I never would have thought you and he …"

"But he has reasons to hurt Peter. Why hasn't he already? If he's so practical and all - what's he waiting for?"

"An excuse."

"Ah. Does Peter know this?"

"I think so."

"That sucks for Peter then, always having to walk around on eggshells, worried that if he ever offends you you'll do … what? He _would_ survive that, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah, he'd survive it. I don't think he'd ever trust me again, but he'd survive it."

"So what can you do to keep this Sylar away from Peter? Aside from not letting him surprise you?"

Gabriel was quiet for a long moment. Noah gurgled a bit, trying to gnaw his fingers off. Gabriel could feel the edge of a tooth getting involved there. Heidi stroked the back of the baby's head. Her husband said, "I can reintegrate him. It's the only way I'll have any control - the only way I can really control myself."

"What will that take?"

"I don't know. There are … several ways that come to mind. I think … I think there are mental abilities that could force the process, because I used to be really messed up and … then I wasn't. When I came back to you as Nathan, I was just the one guy and I put myself back together from there. It took a year, but I got back together. Then …" He shook his head, uncomfortable with what Arthur had showed him and the implications of it. "Peter wants me to go to therapy."

"It's helped me. I don't have to be in the same room anymore with Noah." She twisted and looked up at him, reaching up to caress his face. "I don't hit you anymore."

He snorted softly. "Not much." At her disappointed expression he said, "No, you don't. Speaking of that … do you know what a flogger is?"

"A flogger? Like a whip?"

"Yes, exactly. Well, sort of. It's a kind of whip. It's a handle with a bunch of tails on it, usually fairly soft … I thought … I might get you one."

She looked up at him, one brow raised. He kissed her forehead and smiled sweetly. "Okay," she said, digesting that.

"And there's something else, the reason why I came home for lunch … I'm thinking of selling out my share of the law firm."

She sat up, getting out from under his arm and turning to where she could see his face more easily. He let his hand fall to her knee. "You're thinking about it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"So you're going to?"

He shrugged. "I'm thinking about it. That's why I wanted to hear what you had to say about it, since it's not a decision I should make in a vacuum. It affects others."

"What does Peter say?"

"I haven't talked to Peter about it."

"Why? I mean," she caught herself, "I mean why are you going to sell?"

He sighed. "The Company has really been ramping up operations. Twelve directors means there are more people for the work, but it also means twelve sets of projects and people needing to talk to each other, things to coordinate and keep track of – important things to keep track of. My salary with the Company covers us for legal income and tax purposes. We don't _need_ the law firm, not even for legitimacy."

"What would you do if I said no?"

"That's why I'm asking. I'd see what else I could do. Maybe cut back on hours. Or something else."

"Let me think about it a little bit, but I think I'm fine with it. You'll need to talk to Peter about it too. It was his brother's, after all."

He reached out and kissed her, holding Noah in his lap with his free hand. "Yes. But I wanted to ask you first."


	273. People Who Can't Help

Gabriel paused in the doorway to Maury's office, hands stuffed in his pockets. He stood there silently and looked at the much older man. Maury looked up at him, then set aside the report he'd been squinting at. He gestured at the chair in front of his desk. Gabriel glanced up and down the hallway, then ambled over to the chair. He waited a long beat before sitting.

"It's good to see you," Maury said neutrally.

"I'm not faking this," Gabriel said a little petulantly.

"Okay."

"I was faking with Nathan, I'll agree, but not with _this_."

"Okay."

Gabriel gave him a brief glare for his bland responses. He shifted his foot uncomfortably.

When Gabe glanced back at the door, Maury prompted, "What can I help you with?"

"Arthur … had you."

"Metaphorically."

Gabriel smiled slightly at the mental image of the more literal take on that. What he had meant, what he was referring to, was that Arthur had gotten hold of Maury a few years back and worked him over mentally, establishing who the top dog was in that relationship so thoroughly that even when Arthur was paralyzed and unable to move, the elder Parkman continued to be subservient to him. "Yes," Gabriel said. "So maybe you'll understand, or at least believe me, when I say that something was done to me." He swallowed. "I am going to go see a therapist, but before I do I want to know if there's even anything she can do."

Maury raised his brows. "No, there isn't anything a normal therapist can do for you, Gabriel. There's only what you're willing to do for yourself, with a therapist giving you support while you do."

Gabriel mulled that over for a bit, considering Maury's use of the word 'normal' and the implication that this might indeed be something he could work out without the direct application of abilities. To clarify, he asked, "Is there anything _**I**_ can do?"

"About what? We're being awfully vague here."

Gabriel took a deep breath and let it seep from him. He leaned forward, looking at the floor. "I don't really know," he said quietly. "I was together. For once. Maybe for the first time. Arthur showed me how to … dissociate, I guess is the right word. Intentionally. And I did." He sighed. "Because I wanted that ability."

"Telepathy," Maury said dryly. So many of these issues led back to Matt Parkman, either being broken by him or killing him, that there was no way Gabriel could reasonably go to Matt's father for advice.

Gabe nodded, still looking at the floor. "I thought it was temporary. No, that's not true. I didn't think about it at all. I just did it. But that was it. It was done, gone, there didn't seem to be a personality or anything else, just that those memories and that experience wasn't part of the rest of my consciousness. Then a couple weeks ago … it was different. Sylar was back." He shrugged. "He was just back. It wasn't a memory or an experience, it was a voice, a personality. I didn't … I don't think I _decided_ to have him come back. He just … was."

Maury scratched at his wrist. "So you have a past where you had multiple personalities, then Matt got hold of you, tore you down to your essentials without removing your intellectual capacity or your memories." Gabriel flinched at the description and held himself very still. Maury went on like there was no reaction at all. "You came back together as a singularity. Arthur shows you how to return to that multiple state and you jump at it." Gabriel winced again, a slightly different expression this time and shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

The older man went on, "You jump at it because of the hunger. You schism and then you kill Matt." _My son,_ ran through Maury's mind. "Note the order of events there – I think that might be important and let me know if I'm getting this wrong – schism _then_ murder, not the other way around." He paused for a moment, but Gabriel nodded that he was right. "A few months later, you get tempted again. Exact same thing happens, only this time instead of being highly motivated to pretend none of that really happened, you think maybe you can open up. You've confessed it and shared it. So this other personality is safe enough to stick around, maybe you can actually act like a full person now instead of who you think people want you to be."

Gabriel considered that explanation and how he'd told Peter only a few weeks before about being Sylar. He hadn't really been able to face telling him, even though Peter seemed accepting enough to hear it. "You think he was there all along? Since I k-, since I got telepathy?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. You were still in the process of integration at that point – though it wasn't specific, discrete personalities you were integrating, just everything you were. As I recall, that's when you shed Nathan's skin and started putting yourself forward as Gabriel in more sections of your life. You seemed pretty together when I looked at you back then."

"So Sylar might be a whole personality now because … I am?"

"Because you're healthier, mentally, now than you were then. It's a possibility. We're just kicking around ideas here. That's what most therapists will be able to do for you – talk you through things, get you to think about how you want to be and point you in the direction of what you need to do to get there. If you go to someone outside, there's a lot of explanation you'll have to do before you can get to the actual problems. And then there's the things you'll need to do to maintain the sort of confidentiality this needs."

"I'll do what it takes."

"Don't want to talk to me?"

"I'm talking to you right now." _More than I probably should._ "As Peter observed last night, I tend to be more comfortable talking to someone who isn't close. I have to see you four or five times a week in both personal and professional contexts. I'd rather talk to a stranger."

Maury waggled his head ambivalently. "I can understand that. There's no commitment, fewer repercussions. My door's still open though and I know how to keep my mouth shut."

Gabriel nodded. After another moment to think, he stood and excused himself.

* * *

Gabriel opened the door to the apartment quietly, lost in thought as he had been most of the day, getting worse as the day progressed. Or at least that was how it felt. He was having trouble thinking anything at all. It was like his head was a computer and some virus or malware was eating up all his available mental resources, leaving him able to perform basic functions, but not much more. Peter was doing something in the kitchen. The smell of popcorn filled the place.

Gabe walked over and collapsed on the couch, putting his hands over his face. Peter came out after a moment. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked, voice full of concern and immediately coming to his side. He set the bowl of popcorn on the floor.

"I'm fine." It wasn't quite a lie. He wasn't sure if there was anything unusual wrong with him or not.

Peter put his hand on Gabriel's arm, then shifted it up to the side of his face for skin-to-skin contact. Gabriel sat up suddenly, moving his hand just as fast to catch Peter's and hold it against his face. He reached out for Peter's other hand and put it on his other cheek, replicating the posture Peter had used once before on him. "Heal me."

Peter blinked at him. "What?"

"Heal me, Peter. Just … use your ability."

"This is … are you hurt somehow, or is this about the personality thing?"

"It's the personalities."

"Gabriel," Peter said, looking at a loss for words for a long moment. "From what I've read, there's nothing about dissociative identity disorder that's organic. It's behavioral. It's adaptive. I can't heal someone of grief or anger. What's happened to you is a natural response to certain situations. It's not a chemical imbalance or a … an injury. At least not the kind of injury my ability will work on. It's not _foreign_."

"Just try."

Peter blinked again several times. "What if it works? Is Sylar on board with this?"

Gabriel felt a tremendous surge of tension and anger and formless dissatisfaction with himself boil inside. Peter did too, from the way his eyes widened. The former killer had the feeling he had a rather limited window to accomplish this before he was stopped by the not-so-former killer part of himself. Teeth clenched, he ordered, "_**Do it!**_"

Peter jerked his hands away and said just as strongly, "_**No!**_"

For a long, tense moment Gabriel glared at him, then fell backwards against the couch and looked away sullenly.

"I told you," Peter said, "I am not doing _anything_ that can be construed as mentally coercive to you without your explicit, informed consent and that means I hear from _everyone_ involved. That's not just _you_."

"Fine," Gabriel said, defeated. It made sense. There was a continuous, stirring thrill of happiness in fact, that Peter not only cared that much about him as a whole, but he understood and would act to protect Gabriel's integrity even in the face of Gabe's own moments of weakness. He turned back to Peter, face softening. He leaned forward slowly, because Peter's expression was hard and forbidding. Gabriel reached out and took his hand, twining together their fingers and watching as Peter felt his emotions and relaxed. He kissed him. "Thank you," Gabriel murmured.

Peter nodded.

He looked past Peter at the bowl of popcorn. "So is all that popcorn for you, or are you willing to share?"

Peter reached back and picked up a piece, offering it to Gabriel who took it. "I got a laptop from mom and a movie. Thought we'd watch together." Peter fed him another piece of popcorn.

"Mm. What kind of movie are we talking about?"

"Well, the first rule of Fight Club is … we don't talk about Fight Club."


	274. Introductory Exercises

**A/N: I take some liberties with Gabriel's past. The most glaring deviation from canon is that Martin remained remained in Gabe's life for a number of years, rather than leaving very soon after Gabriel came into their household. He still left, but it was when Gabriel was a young teen rather than as a small child. I believe this is more more in keeping with the _spirit _of canon and things said in Season 1, later made improbable by statements in Season 3.  
**

"Hello. My name is Rita. How are you doing? Are you Peter's friend?"

Gabriel smiled at her briefly and moved from the waiting room to her office, handing her the clipboard of required information and keeping the handouts he was supposed to keep for the office's privacy and other policies. He spoke as his eyes raked the place, making judgments immediately. None of them were deal-breakers. "I'm fine, I suppose. Yes, I'm Peter's friend."

"And his … partner?"

"He prefers the term husband."

"What term do you prefer?"

"Partner." He looked at her for a moment, a little blank. Peter had never asked his preference. Of course, Gabriel had never expressed it either. He considered Peter's request that he tell him when he was trespassing on limits. It had a broader application. Gabriel did not like to cause confrontation, especially about things so minor. He pulled back to dealing with her, rather than contemplating his navel. He figured he'd get enough of that later. He settled into a comfortable chair.

"Then you're his partner. Could you introduce yourself to me?"

He tore his eyes away from what looked like a set of Navajo antiquities sitting on a shelf nearby. He wanted to touch them and ascertain if they were authentic or replicas. Instead, he looked at her. "Peter lied about my name to protect me. My name is Gabriel, not Greg. And my … other personality is Sylar, not Tyler."

"Okay." She accepted that easily enough. "And this other personality … have you seen or worked with any other therapists?"

"No. I have a friend-" he hesitated, but yes, he'd put Maury Parkman very tentatively in the category of 'friend.' He didn't have many of them. Were he on fire, Maury would at least piss on him to put it out, if only for his own twisted reasons. "I have a friend who is a psychologist. I've talked to him only a little about this though. I- He's dating Peter's mother, so I would prefer not to use him as a primary counselor."

"Oh, I can entirely understand that. Never practice on your family or friends. Peter seemed very certain that you had dissociative identity disorder. Do you believe that is an accurate diagnosis?"

"Yes."

"And … I'm not challenging here, just trying to understand your situation … how did you come to that assessment?"

He listened to her thoughts. She didn't disbelieve him, per se, but it was often more difficult to deal with a well-educated patient who might try to shoehorn their experiences and perceptions into a desired diagnosis than one who came with a list of problems and didn't get hung up on the clinical description of the disorder. He settled back in the chair. "I came to that assessment when I … when Sylar assaulted Peter, last Friday. That wasn't me. I didn't do it. I didn't want to do it. Peter didn't deserve it."

"Does he ever?"

"Does he ever … deserve to be assaulted?" he finished the sentence from her own thoughts. She nodded. _Only if he attacks me first. _He looked down. _Peter never … well_. How had he even come to this situation? Wasn't it ultimately something Peter had done to him? He remembered, very vaguely, seeking Peter out at the hospital not long after Thanksgiving. After that it was a bit of a blur, but he knew he'd left from that place, Peter had been alive and … Peter had … and then later, there was Peter, a kind face, a gentle touch, a syringe in hand, telling him it wouldn't hurt much. Then darkness again. He drew in a deep breath. These were memories he'd had no interest in stirring for a long time. He wasn't very happy to be conjuring them _now_.

"Peter …" He tried to finish the sentence. He really did. He wanted to deny that Peter deserved to be hurt. He couldn't. He could feel his body beginning to wind up. He hadn't expected this. She was a stranger. The stress level should have been low. He should have been willing to lie to her at least, but nothing was coming out of his mouth.

Rita said, "You don't have to answer. Just think about it. How long have you been with him?"

"I've known him for years." _All his life, if you count Nathan's memories. I remember changing the kid's diapers. Makes for a strange relationship, really. _"We started dating, I guess, last fall." He swallowed, uneasy about how things had started there. "Then a few months ago we … got engaged, I guess. A few weeks ago we finalized it."

"'Finalized' - that's an interesting word."

He shrugged. "We made vows and promises. That's all any marriage really is, anyway. That and various legal entanglements Peter and I don't want anyway."

"You're sure he doesn't want them?"

Gabriel stared off into space for a moment, replaying Peter's conversation about being willing to have a ceremony and find a place that would marry them; considering Peter's preference for the term 'husband.' "I'm fairly sure. I'll ask him."

"Well, this brings to my mind some standard disclosures I need to make." Rita went into a memorized spiel of "As I mentioned before on the phone and was in your paperwork, everything we discuss here is entirely confidential, just between you and I. However, as your safety and that of others is of paramount importance to me, if you do or say anything that makes me think you're going to hurt yourself or someone else, I am legally required to act on that information. That's not to say there's anything wrong with having feelings of anger or fantasizing about violence, but if I think it is very likely that such might become action and people, including yourself, might get hurt, I am legally and morally obligated to try to prevent it. Do you understand that?"

"Yes. And I have my own standard statements to make: You will keep everything we discuss here, including my presence as one of your clients, entirely confidential under _all_ circumstances, _even_ if you think I might harm someone. I may tell you that I have supernatural or extraordinary abilities. You will believe me if I do. If any of this alarms or upsets you to the point that you feel greatly stressed, you will tell me so that I may modify or remove these commands, or otherwise change the situation so you can deal with it."

He gave her a moment to digest that, reading her mind and watching how the commands sunk in and drifted below her normal level of consciousness. She was unbothered by his assertion of powers, and although the element of not being able to notify authorities if he was going to hurt someone didn't sit well, she recognized the out - tell him, and then call the EMTs. Since she didn't believe in abilities anyway, the idea that he would then issue new commands to prevent her didn't occur to her. The danger inherent in informing him explicitly did, but she wasn't a stranger to that, either.

She seemed lost in thought, her mind trying to hang onto the mental command and puzzle it out. Gabriel decided to distract her from that, asking, "How often have you had to call the authorities on your patients?"

_Four times,_ her mind supplied him and she knew the details of each case, having memorized them, worried over them and sought therapy herself for a couple of them. What she admitted to verbally was more vague. "It's happened before. You can rest assured that I will pursue all other options first. The point of therapy is to help people and that's always foremost in my mind. People come to me because they have problems." She supposed those four times were because she was willing to take on patients with a history of violence, but someone had to.

He sat forward, realizing that Peter had not picked her at random. "Have you ever had patients who have killed people?"

"Yes." Car crashes, people dealing with having inflicted accidental deaths, and a few murders in the heat of passion were in her mind, but nothing that was as premeditated as he felt his own were, or on that scale. _Of course,_ he thought to himself, _there probably aren't a lot of people who specialize in serial killers, who would also be close to New York, non-judgmental and well versed in identity disorders. _

Rita said, "Let me tell you a little about myself. I grew up in Maine in a small town, went to Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor, then I met a man, we got married and moved here to New York. I had two children, went back to college to complete a double bachelor's degree in psychology and social work. I worked for the City of New York's Department of Homeless Services for a while, then the Mental Health division. I had a tremendous upheaval in my life at that point. I divorced, got a master's degree, changed jobs, joined a practice and a few years after that my youngest left for college and I was on my own again. I've spent the last fifteen years in private practice, where I've been very happy."

Gabriel had read what amounted to her resume. He made a mental note to have Carson get him a full workup on her background. If he was actually going to continue seeing her, which he was strongly considering, then he needed to know that sort of thing.

"So, tell me a little about yourself."

Gabriel looked up at her, blinking in surprise. It was a reasonable question. It was a simple question.

At his expression, she added, "It's like they ask in job interviews - just give me the highlights of your life, general structure, that sort of thing." He looked like a professional. He'd probably had a number of positions, maybe even hired people. He looked like a manager type to her.

_Job interview. I've never had a job interview._ He stared at the floor, realizing he'd managed to get through his life without one of the basic experiences that nearly everyone had. _Nathan_ had never had a job interview - at least, not a real one, not one where the outcome wasn't already pre-determined. _I'm not Nathan! But I've got to say something. Where did she start? Where she grew up._

"I grew up in Queens …" _Did I?_ He'd road-tripped with Luke from New York to southern Ohio to find Samson Gray, but there was no telling where he'd grown up before Samson had sold him. _Fuck Samson._ A distant feeling ran through him of being cheated by the man, taking his ability only to find himself trapped and suckered. "I grew up in Queens, the son of Virginia and Martin Gray …" He didn't want to claim them as parents either, or at least not Martin. He hardly ever thought about the useless bastard. In fact, he hardly ever thought about his childhood at all. It was better that way. "Adopted son," he added quietly.

Rita was silent, paying attention, with an interested, encouraging look on her face that matched her thoughts. There was nothing there for him to take offense at and blow up about. He snapped his eyes back to the floor, realizing that was exactly what he was doing - looking for something to get mad about and change the subject, maybe leave. _What the hell? It's a simple fucking question! 'Tell me about yourself' - am I seriously having trouble answering that to a near stranger?_

"I, uh, I was a watchmaker. I mean, I got a job as a watchmaker, after … well, Martin left and … but before then I'd been working in the watch shop and …" _We needed money. Mom …_ He remembered being sent over to Mrs. Rutherford's to eat. He was supposed to do errands for her, but she rarely required them. He'd felt so embarrassed by the whole thing, and guilty to go home with his stomach full of good food. "I got a job with another watch shop and then …" _And then what? How the hell did I get from being a watchmaker to an executive with Pharmatech? _His resume as Nathan was perfect, but that wasn't the past he wanted to claim, not that he was all that much happier with the real one.

There was no college in between, no fancy professional career. He really needed to look at setting up a past for himself, becoming educated in how to present himself. He'd done all of these things for his identity as Nathan. But if he was shedding that, leaving the law firm and taking up a life as Gabriel, then he needed to get his paper trail in order. He needed to be able to answer basic questions about himself. It was no wonder he'd thrown away Gabriel's past and clung to Nathan's like it was a lifeline, a passport to a better life, an influential one, a powerful life - one that he wasn't ashamed to admit to, one where even if he didn't talk about how special he was, he at least had _meaning_. What did Gabriel's past have? Pity. It wasn't worth talking about. Why did she even want to know? "I … I don't know …" _Fuck, did I say that out loud? Dammit._

"It's alright," she said sympathetically. "Sometimes times of transition are difficult to talk about. Peter said you were involved in the war on terror-"

"Yes!" he said enthusiastically, sitting up straighter as he saw a way out. _I can do this_. The words spilled out faster now. "Yes, I was a watchmaker until …" _I joined the Army. No, the Navy. No, went to military school like Nathan? No, only rich kids and people with scholarships go to the schools he went to. Just be vague_. "Until I was involved in the war. I did really well, had a lot of training there." _Chandra was my recruiter. Ha._ Amused and smiling now, he said, "I traveled a lot. Met a lot of interesting people and picked their brains." He laughed at his jokes and she smiled at his levity, not knowing why that was so funny. "And then went I got out, I had some connections, some pull, and I got a job at Pharm- at a biotechnology company. We're supposed to be doing primary research, but really we're working on bioweapons."

He gave her a brittle smile, pleased that he'd managed to get through a basic introduction and painfully aware that there was something deeply wrong with himself if that was such a struggle. _Well, I've got start somewhere._


	275. The Story of My Life

"Tell me about your family," Rita asked.

"Which … what do you mean by that?"

"Family means different things to different people. How do you define it?"

He furrowed his brows and avoided the question. "Well, as you know I'm married to Heidi-" _Petrelli. Use last names? No, don't use last names. Protect. Just in case. _"And to Peter. Peter's engaged to Emma. I think of her as my sister-in-law." _Which she is literally, if I'm in Nathan's guise._ "I have three children, all boys." _Do I mention they're adopted? I haven't really adopted them though. They're __**mine**__. How do I express this? It's kind of complicated._ "And then there's my-" _No. Um. Almost. I thought I'd gotten over that particular slip?_ "Peter's mother, Angela. She's very involved. We have other relatives," _Claire_. "But they're more distant." He mulled over mentioning Martin or Heidi's relatives or the extended Petrelli clan, but they weren't 'family' - just relatives.

"Can you tell me how you met Heidi? I'm going to assume since you have three children together, that you've known each other for a while. You said you only started dating Peter last fall."

He nodded. _She's not stupid. That's good_. "Yes. Yes. But …" He sighed. "They're not quite … my … children. Not …" He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. _Maybe … a lie to make everything make sense? Because the truth is too weird, even for this. _"There … in the war, there was a man named Nathan. He died and afterward I was assigned his identity." Her brows rose, her mind tying this into his identity issues. _Well really,_ he thought, _I killed him. Should I mention that? Because it's kind of important to what my problems are. But that makes me sound like a pervert to be banging his wife. And some sort of obsessive control freak that I'm raising his kids and pretending to be him. That's … I sound like a monster. _"Heidi and I … we hit it off," he said lamely. The lie was falling apart already, hardly having been uttered.

Rita's mind was turning over what he'd said and considering it closely. Did they really hit it off, or was that just Gabriel's perception? Was it one of his alters who had hit it off and not the person in front of her? Was he really Nathan, but felt that he'd 'died' in the war and a new identity had emerged? And how was she to finesse out what really happened, given that she was dealing with someone who was having trouble expressing such basic things about his life? She could see he was stressed.

"No … I'm … I'm not _Nathan_, dammit!" He stood up. He _was_ stressed. He couldn't figure out how to communicate - _what_ to communicate. "This isn't working. It can't work." He went to the door and into the foyer, with her rising and following.

"Gabriel! Gabriel, please!"

_She at least has the sense not to grab me like Peter does. Did._ He stopped. _Maury was right. Going to an outsider is too complicated_. "Listen, I'm sorry I wasted your time. I'll pay you for the session."

"You are **not** wasting my time."

Frustrated, he gestured impotently, "I don't know what to say!"

"You don't have to say _anything!_ Gabriel, I will be here to listen to you whether you find the words or not. Like I've told many of my clients who have had the same problem - and this is not unique, especially early on or in times of stress and early on _is_ stressful - when you come here we create a moment in time when you can be heard. It's an opportunity. Even if you just sit in my office for the whole hour and say nothing, nothing at all, the whole time, you've had that moment when someone was _listening_. For those who are having trouble finding their voice, just that opportunity is important. I want you to have that opportunity, Gabriel." More softly she continued, "Listen to yourself. Tell me what you have to say. The words will come. And if they don't - know that that's okay too."

_What am I even doing here?_ Gabriel sighed. Maury had told him: _'There's only what you're willing to do for yourself, with a therapist giving you support while you do.' Am I willing to do this for … myself? She's not going to tell anyone. I don't know her. I don't have to see her anywhere else. It doesn't matter what I say here. If it doesn't work, I can just … have her memory wiped and … do it alone._ He relaxed a little, nodded shakily and followed her back inside. He sat down heavily and stared at the floor, elbows on knees.

_What good is it to try to come up with lies for this? If I tell her whatever story I come up with and we work out the issues that imaginary person has, that doesn't do me any good! … The truth then._

He reached up and covered his face, because he didn't want to see her while he did this. He blocked out her thoughts, because he didn't want to hear her either. All he needed to do was talk. _Find my voice. Whatever the fuck that means. Here goes. _He shifted his hands up so they weren't covering his mouth.

"I … That … let's start at the beginning. Time. It matters. It … arranges things. Chronological order. So. I was born in Queens- No! I don't know where the fuck I was born. I was born … somewhere. My biological father was Samson Gray. I don't … I don't know what my biological mother's name was. I was somewhere." He'd never looked this up, even though he'd held his Company file in his hands. He'd never been able to face it. "I grew up in Queens. No, I'm out of order! Back. So. I was … I remember … I must have been four or five. I was with Samson and he took money from Martin and went outside … outside this shitty little diner we were at. When he got in the car, I realized he was leaving me so I broke free from Martin and Virginia and ran outside to see Samson push my mother out of the car, dead. Her head was … covered with blood."

"Oh my," Rita breathed.

He shook his head. He didn't want to hear her voice any more than her thoughts. "Just listen." He waited a beat, still trying to block off everything. It was silent. "They … Martin and Virginia … I grew up in Queens. They were … Martin … It wasn't … I …" He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, hard enough to see stars and flares of light from the pressure. "And then I … Martin left. I was thirteen. **No**. Out of order again. I went to work before that, in the watch shop with him. For … a few years. Then he left. Went out for cigarettes and just left." He breathed a sigh of relief. Martin had left. Of course, Gabriel had been getting taller and stronger and more sullen about that age - the constant, low-burning rage that served him well as Sylar had started early.

"So it was … me and Mom. She … she didn't have a job for a while, at least, not one that made money. I kept working at the watch shop. They started paying me. They'd been paying before, I guess, but they paid _him_, not me. They kept me on even after he was gone. And so … that's how it was. High school." He freed one hand and waved it vaguely, relaxing a little. "And I worked, learned things. I didn't go to college. Even though the counselors at school said I was … they did tests. They said I was a genius." He laughed hollowly. "I didn't fill out the right forms. My mother didn't know how to either. Shows how much_ that_ mattered - not smart enough to use the system. I never have been. I was … just a watchmaker. I worked in the shop. I read books. That's … that's all. That's all I was. I wasn't anything. I wasn't going to _be_ anything, no matter how much my mother kept telling me I was special. She was touched. I love … loved her, but …" He shook his head. "Years went by. Just me. Mom. I had my own apartment, at least. Mom had a job as a secretary."

He swallowed. "And then Chan-Chandra. He came by. Asked to talk to me. He said I was different, special. He did tests, weird tests. He said I had all the markers, all the signs of being the … the most special person he'd been able to find. I was patient zero. Not in an epidemiological sense, of course. But I couldn't _do_ anything." He quit covering his eyes and settled for staring at the floor.

"My ability is to absorb other people's abilities, to replicate them. At first it only worked if I could study their brains, which meant … I had to kill them. It was …" He stared vacantly and his voice shifted. He might as well. This part was _his_ story, after all. "It was instinctive, at first, just like anyone using their ability initially. No one has to tell you how to do it. I wanted his. I knew how to get it. I hit him in the back of the head with a crystal display piece - amethyst. I killed him, on the floor of the watch shop right in the middle of business hours. I opened his brain case like opening the casing of a timepiece. His ability has always been my favorite." He leaned back in the chair and looked her in the face. He had her complete, unadulterated attention. He smiled slowly, basking in that silent tribute.

He looked past her, then up to the shelf where the southwestern styled pottery set. He let the smile fade as he raised his hand and spoke in a deep, rumbling tone, full of reverence for his subject, "Telekinesis. The power to manipulate everything physical and solid with my mere thoughts." The piece lifted itself from the shelf and drifted slowly through the air. Even with his command for her to believe that he had powers, her brows rose, she sucked in air, and she began to wonder if his 'story' might be true.

He reached out and touched it, drawing its past into his mind. "An original work, given to you by a female friend who has long black hair and hazel eyes, who bought it from the artisan - a Native American - who had not been able to sell it for many years. It was one of her earlier works, when she was copying the old ways, and not so willing to change them so they had more commercial appeal." He smiled slightly. "I like this ability too, a great deal." He sent the pot back to its place, declining the urge to explore the rest of the interesting things she had on her shelves.

He looked back at Rita. She looked shocked, but she was still here, still listening, still giving him her time. He blinked at her. "Have I gone too far?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

He considered that, then smiled. He studied her more closely. She meant that at least two ways - that was amusing. "Then let me explain - the sad, stupid story of Sylar," he said mockingly. "That's who I was. Gabriel was gone, or at least he didn't matter. I killed Chandra and took the list he had of people with abilities. I hunted down as many of them as I could and I killed them. I ran into Peter a few times. We fought. He had an ability too - one even more powerful than my own. I wonder what Chandra would have made of it. Peter absorbed abilities just by being near someone with them, but he didn't need to kill them. I envied him that. I still do. And now, like then, he didn't use it to its potential. He's always been a bit … dumb."

"Are you still Gabriel?" she asked tentatively.

He smiled at her slyly. No, she was not stupid. He supposed he'd given himself away with the relaxation, eye contact, abilities, and being able to speak in normal, flowing sentences without having to pause to collect his thoughts every few seconds. Sylar knew what he wanted; Gabriel was still trying to figure that out. "It went on for years - the hunt for more power. I had failures and victories, but it wasn't really _going_ anywhere. I wasn't _in control_. I had it presented to me that I could change. I might not have to hunt. I could master the hunger. I _**tried**_. I abased myself and I was kicked in the face. I fell in love and she betrayed me. So I killed her - not for her ability, not because of the hunger - just because I wanted to. There was no excuse for it. I'd become a murderer - not just a killer.

"I gained another ability not long after that let me replicate the physical form of others." He shifted through Rita's form and those of two other random people he'd touched at the Company the day before, then settled back into his own body. "I lost track of who I was and who I wanted to be. I think I'd lost track earlier, when I tried to be better, rehabilitate myself. That was the turning point. Peter was the one who convinced me, though that wasn't his intention." He snorted softly. "Interesting how our lives kept intersecting.

"And so it wasn't a big surprise that when I wanted to take out the president and assume his form - I had some scheme, but it hardly matters now - the person whose form I took was Peter's brother, then-Senator Nathan Petrelli." He felt a spasm. Someone had not wanted him using that name. He ignored it. They weren't in control. He was. This was _his_ story and he got to tell it as he wished. He certainly had a raptly attentive audience, even if he wasn't sure whether Rita believed him or not. She'd recognized Nathan's name.

"Peter and Nathan had things to say to me about that. I killed Nathan. Then Peter's mother had one of his friends, one Matt Parkman, a telepath, take what was left of Nathan's memories from his cooling brain case and stuff them into my head. Then he mind controlled me into thinking I was Nathan. It worked for about six weeks." He smiled cruelly. "It was Peter who helped me unravel it, but he didn't realize it at the time. Once I figured out what they'd done to me, I came back to … Crap." Sylar gave up without much of a fight. He'd gotten to say his piece and that was enough.

Gabriel spoke now, voice quiet and withdrawn, looking at the floor once more. "Sylar went to find him. He did - find him. I don't know what he planned to do." He knew, it was just stupid: He'd wanted to beg for Peter's help. He'd wanted to kill him. He hadn't figured out how to do both, but he was desperate and still very, very confused. "I still … sort of … thought I was Nathan." He put his hands over his eyes again, elbows on knees, leaning forward.

Very softly he said, "I don't remember what happened … not well." He shook his head. "After that … I lost a couple weeks. Whole weeks. I still don't know happened." Again - it was probably in his file. He hadn't looked. All this time, Peter had never mentioned it, but on the other hand they had an unspoken agreement not to go over the past. He sighed. "Peter … found me. Again. And Matt Parkman, on his orders, repeated what he'd done before but this time he didn't try to make me think I was Nathan, he just made it impossible for me to know who I was at all. I was … blank."

He dropped his hands from his face. "It took me a long time to pull back together. Months. A year, I guess, sort of depending on how that worked out. And early on I decided that if they wanted me to be Nathan so damned bad, then I'd be Nathan. It was the only way I could resolve what had happened - I wanted to _be _him, I sort of thought I _was_, or _might be_, and I _wanted_ to be … being him gave me most of what Sylar had wanted anyway - power, influence, security. So I took his shape. I went to his house and convinced Heidi I was him. For a while I convinced myself I was him. I started a law firm. I was the father of his kids." He gestured loosely. "I wasn't a bad person about it. I was … pretty good, actually. I was a better Nathan than Nathan had been.

"And during that time, I hooked up with Peter."

Rita couldn't stop herself from asking, "While he thought you were his brother?"

"Not exactly. He knew what I was - a shape shifter who was pretending to be his dead brother. But he and Nathan had been going at each other off and on for years anyway." He looked up at her to be clear, "Yes, incest." He looked back down, shaking his head. "I knew that much from the memories I had. I thought … if I could … I don't know what I thought." He sagged. "But I started seeing him. And it got better. He …" his voice labored and he swallowed. "He started admitting I had a right to exist, I guess. He hadn't been able to kill me, so I got to live. Or … I don't know, I'm not conveying this well. I don't even understand it _myself_. I just sort of … go along … and I hope everything works out. I don't know."

He scrubbed at his face, tired and wrung out. The emotion was intense, but he felt he needed to get to the end of it. "I … wanted to be … _**me**_. Someone other than Nathan. This was … just six months ago." He spoke quietly, barely above a whisper. "Heidi was kidnapped by Peter's father. Peter and I went to save her, along with Noah Bennet." _I shouldn't be too rough on Noah. He was there for me when I needed him. It wasn't a Company assignment. It was just him helping us._ "I stopped being Nathan. Just gave it up. We saved Heidi. She was … traumatized, to put it mildly. She'd delivered my son while … kidnapped." _No reason to be gory about it._ "She's been in therapy too. It's helped. Peter stopped his father, a few months later."

_Speak of all that other crap that happened? Not that important, really._ "Peter committed to me, said he loved me, said he'd be with me. We still had our ups and downs. He left me for a while. We got back together. I left him for a while. We got back together." _Oh, and I killed him because he'd been a jerk and pissed me off, then put his hand on my arm as I tried to leave. For that, I killed him. Fucking overreaction. Probably best to leave that out for now._ "And this last time, just a few weeks ago, we promised we wouldn't part again - no matter what, we'd work it out."

He sighed. "I'd stopped killing people. For Peter, I think. Or maybe for me." _Kind of doubt that, but I wasn't killing even before he and I were together. No … I think it was for me._ "I'd only killed one guy while saving Heidi. But then a couple weeks ago - after the vows - I came across someone who was dead and I could have taken his ability. Peter said it was okay - he was already dead and I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't do it though. I thought he'd judge me. I didn't … I didn't want to look weak. I didn't want to disappoint him. And I didn't want that particular ability. I didn't want to get started again.

"But I couldn't get it out of my head. It was there, constant. The next day, Sylar came out. I hunted someone down and murdered them a few days later. Peter … he hasn't forgiven me. I haven't asked. It's not forgivable. Really, nothing I've done is. But … we're still together. From what I can tell, Sylar wants to stay with Peter too, but he keeps having trouble wanting to take his ability. Peter wouldn't die if I did, but he'd never trust me again." He swallowed. "And … that's why I'm in therapy. My life has gone to shit and I'm …" He took a deep breath that caught roughly. "I want to stay in control. I'm trying not to become a serial killer again and fuck everything up."_ I don't want to be that anymore._


	276. Doubt and Disbelief

"That's … a lot," Rita said, struggling to assimilate all of that.

Gabriel eyed her and started listening to her thoughts again. She didn't believe him. Or rather, she believed that _he_ believed this, but she couldn't believe all of that had really happened. She imagined he'd fabricated it for some psychological reason of his own. He rubbed his forehead. He'd told her to believe him about the abilities because he'd thought that would be the sticking point. But he could prove those. What she wasn't believing was the rest of it - the _events_, and they were important, dammit!

"Yes," he snapped, annoyed. "I know it is. You believe me."

"I believe you," she repeated blankly. Her eyes narrowed. She tried to disbelieve it anyway, but it didn't work. Her mind ran in a tight little circle where it examined the story, compared it to reality as she knew it, failed to find a fit, and thought that she must have missed something. So she examined the story again and repeated the process.

Gabriel sighed and looked off to the side. _This isn't going to work if I have to keep doing that to her. It's abuse. I shouldn't have done it. What does it matter if she thinks it's real or not? I shouldn't have done that. Dammit, this isn't working! I should leave. Just leave_.

Sylar's voice chimed in helpfully: _Coward._ Mocking now, the killer said, _'Run away!'_ and went on in a sing-song voice, _'when danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled!'_ He went back to a normal tone, to add smugly,_ Or difficulty at least, if not danger._

_Not like you would have done any better_, Gabriel snarled to himself, but he remained sitting.

Sylar responded,_ I wouldn't have gone to a therapist in the first place._

Gabriel wanted to answer that no, Sylar would have just found someone to kill instead, defused his tensions through blood, but … he'd been paying attention when he'd read those books Peter had. Not that he'd finished them yet, but he'd read sections. This was a part of him. If he wanted to integrate, then he needed to listen to himself. He needed to draw that part into the dialogue. _What__** would**__ you have done?_

There was silence, which Gabriel interpreted as surprise that he had asked. After a while, Sylar said, _I tried this becoming-a-better-person-crap before. It didn't work._

_Yes, I know. You tried it on __**your own**__, while Elle was stringing you along and Arthur and Angela were fighting over you. This is different. We're in a better place - we have people genuinely trying to help us. It was a good idea then. It's a good idea now. Let's stick it out._

_You're the one who wanted to run off and leave._

_I changed my mind._

There was silence again, which was at least not dissent. Gabriel huffed and looked back up at the woman unfortunate enough to have been chosen as his therapist. "I know it's complicated. I'm sorry. It really is true."

She nodded shallowly. "So … your partner's … father … kidnapped your wife while she was pregnant and then Peter … killed him?"

He smiled slightly. "No. Peter didn't kill his father." _I did. Just the once._ "He just stopped his plans. Do you remember that eclipse we had a few months back? The one the news and scientific community was all upset about?" _For, like, all of three days? People have such short attention spans. It's a wonder we manage to have any civilization at all._

She nodded. Gabriel said, "Peter's father was responsible for that. We tried to stop it, but we were too late."

"Oh," she said faintly and this time Gabriel successfully repressed the urge to convince her he was telling the truth. The idea that a person was responsible for a major astronomical event was boggling her mind. "I'm … feeling greatly stressed."

He sagged. _Too fucking much. Overload the poor woman._ "I'm sorry. You don't have to believe me."

She was quiet, her mind working more freely now, rather than locking up. It was still quite a story. Gabriel reached up and massaged slow circles on his temples. He had a sudden desire to find Peter, hug him and breathe in his scent - anything to get comfort. He dropped his head and inhaled deeply. Peter's scent still clung to him faintly from the morning. _He's still out there. Just relax. It'll be okay._

"You ... say that you've killed people?"

He looked up at her, raising a single brow. "Yes. I said that. I have."

"How many?"

"Eighty or ninety. I'm not sure. I didn't stick around on everyone I smashed into walls or pinned to their own ceiling or disemboweled or whatever to see if they survived or not. Might be only fifty or sixty." He exhaled and stared at the floor. "I don't remember all of them," he added quietly. He shook his head. "I don't even know who some of them are." He swallowed. It was the theme of a recurring nightmare - he'd run into people who hated him and he didn't even know why; couldn't remember who he might have killed that was important to them. They'd torture him until he remembered. He never did. He'd wake up to his mind trying to inflict psychosomatic damage faster than his regeneration could heal it. Or if he was lucky, and Heidi was sleeping with him, it would be no worse than phantom pains and a cold sweat.

"I … how?"

He looked up at her again, reading that she was asking how he'd gotten away with killing that many people, not asking for a description of the deaths themselves. "Mostly, I didn't leave any witnesses alive. My victims seemed random to anyone without the list. They were all over the place, even in other countries. I'm sure I have three or four governments looking for me. I know the FBI is after me. But 'white male, thirties, no distinguishing marks, brown hair, tallish' - it covers a lot of ground. I'm fairly normal looking."

He smiled a little to himself at her immediate mental disagreement with him on that last statement. _Well, it's a nice ego stroke_. She had to be in her fifties or sixties though, so the thought came off more as factual observation than an embarrassing expression of attraction. It was still nice.

She asked, "Are there other people you intend to kill?"

"That's why I'm here. I'm trying not to."

She thought about that. Now that she was allowed to doubt him, she frankly didn't believe he'd killed that many people in only a few years. Even soldiers in war had trouble racking up that sort of body count. If his count was accurate, it put him in the top ten of most prolific serial killers of the modern age. He sighed and buried his face in his hands. He struck her as being truly unhappy about it. What a horrible way to perceive one's self, true or not. "Tell me why you killed them again?"

"I wanted … abilities. Some of them had them. And those who had abilities sometimes had family, or friends, or neighbors. If I could wait until they were alone, I did, but I didn't always have that much _control_." He recalled chasing Claire around the stadium at her high school like a crazed idiot. The whole scene was dim to him, the details foggy. They didn't matter, really. He was sure he could pull them up easily enough in the right frame of mind - Sylar's, for example. He didn't want to be in that frame of mind.

"Do you think maybe the killing is symbolic?" She was trying to find a way to politely discredit the literal version of what he'd said.

He dropped his hands away and looked at them, remembering a conversation with Peter while he was posing as Nathan, telling him that he'd killed so many people with these hands. "It's not symbolic. I have actually killed … scores of people." He thought about making some sort of display - maybe levitating a chair and describing what he thought the usual sequence of events was. But his mind could play out that scene quickly to the logical conclusion of her freaking out. _It's probably best, really, if I don't manage to convince her._ "Or at least I think I have." _Why the hell does Peter let me touch him, if he knows what I've done? Why does he even let me touch him? I'm so ruined. Heidi at least doesn't know, or doesn't know the scale. What was that line in MacBeth? 'Out, out, damn spot!'; constantly washing her hands, to no avail._

He looked up and smiled blandly at her.

"Are you on any medications?" She thought about the clipboard she'd set on the desk, with, supposedly, his medical history. It was generally true.

"No."

"Have you ever been on any medications?" She wondered if his perception of reality, his idea that he'd killed so many people, was a drug-induced fabrication.

He put up with the doubt. "Not routinely, no."

"Have you ever been hospitalized, including being admitted to a psychiatric hospital?"

"No."

"You mentioned the police and the FBI are after you. Do you know why they haven't come to your house?" She was trying to ascertain the limits of his paranoia. That was annoying to him, but he supposed he'd have to live with it for a while.

"They're not looking for Nathan Petrelli." And they had only been looking for Gabriel Gray for _questioning_, a case that Nathan's name had been able to shut with only a minor use of influence. The real search was for Sylar. His earliest, clumsiest kills had been covered up by the Company, so that by the time he gained enough control to clean up after himself, there was no connection between Sylar's feats and Gabriel's identity.

She looked at him blankly, thinking about the political posters that had been plastered everywhere a few years before. He wasn't Nathan Petrelli. He shifted shape into the late senator. She blinked, reassessed, and decided that she really couldn't handle the idea, so she'd accept it as a given and move on. "Okay. Now … I know you just told me a great deal, but that was so much at once. Remind me about Nathan. Tell me how you knew him." _Are you him?_ she wondered.

"Nathan had a normal childhood, as rich kid, favorite son types go, I suppose." He smirked a little. _What I would have given for Nathan's childhood. I suppose I ended up with just about everything else that was his_. He shifted back to Gabriel's form. "_**I**_ grew up in Queens, with … parents I couldn't deal with, when they were present at all. Very different backgrounds. Nathan went to military school, joined the Navy, fought in a few conflicts, graduated law school, worked in the DA's office, got elected senator, was involved with the Department of Homeland Security's ill-thought-out plan to persecute people with abilities - all that hero crap that people approve of so much. Then he tried to kill me and I did for him first.

"_**I**_, Gabriel Gray, was a worker bee in a menial job until I found my ability, took on the name of Sylar and traveled the world killing people, which eventually meant I killed Nathan, got his memories, got mind-fucked into thinking I was him …" He gestured loosely, not wanting to repeat the story, not even the highlights, of what had happened afterward. It bothered him. "I'm not Nathan. Please don't confuse me with him. It upsets me anymore." He said that mildly. She didn't know him well enough to understand his occasionally understated emphasis. He frowned and thought about what to do about that. _Well, I can do what I've done with Peter recently and try repeating myself. "_I … am not … Nathan Petrelli." He looked at her very intently. _Why is it I say these things to people and they don't get it the first time? If saying it twice doesn't work, perhaps I should try cursing or acting more agitated about it._ "Please don't confuse me with him, or think I _am_ him. Okay?"

She nodded slowly, understanding that this was important to him. Even if she'd missed it the first time, she didn't the second. He relaxed. She said, "Have you ever put together an identity map?"

"No." He didn't know what that was.

"Well, there are some diagnostic tools that might help me understand what's going on, as underlying issues, and give us launching points to start discussion. Would you be okay with taking some of them home with you, taking a look at them and seeing if you could fill them out before our next session?"

"Yes."

She nodded and stood to assemble the papers for him from her files. "You've said you don't want to be a killer anymore. You want to change the pattern of the last several years of your life. What other goals do you have for therapy?"

He looked at her blankly. _That's not enough? Become sane, I guess. _"What other goals should I have?" He watched as she compiled the papers into a single folder for him.

"Some people want to get to know themselves. Others seek integration of multiple personalities. Some want memory recall. Those are all facets of the same things. Then there are behavioral issues: Some people have particular relationships, outside relationships, that they want to strengthen. They have destructive habits they want to stop."

He snorted and chuckled. "Like killing people?"

"Yes, like killing people." She smiled at him and handed over the folder. "I'm so glad you don't want to kill people anymore." She still didn't believe he'd literally killed people. She'd really had in mind some of the things Peter had told her, of how he'd been violent since he returned from the last mission, how he'd frightened him, and how uncertain Peter was of how to deal with him. Peter had told her that for now he was surrendering completely, trusting totally, and hoping with everything he had that Gabriel could pull through this and that just loving him throughout would be enough. She thought Peter had a bit of a martyr complex in addition to being a little deluded. 'Love' did not cure mental illness.

Gabriel sighed and rolled his eyes, still smiling, both at her assessment of Peter and what she'd said. No wonder she told his lover to grow a pair and set some freaking boundaries. The way Peter had been acting with him really hadn't told Gabriel how shaken this had made the empath. Peter had been there for Gabriel, steady as a rock, being a help and a support. It hadn't occurred to Gabe that the unquestioning totality of Peter's support was because he couldn't think of what else to do, even though Peter had said as much repeatedly._ He's really trying for me. That's a nice change._ "I think I mainly just want to figure out what I want. Well, no. My primary goal is to manage-" _the hunger_, "is to not kill anyone. I know I want that. Secondarily I want to know myself better." _Whatever that means._

She thought about her schedule for the next day, who she could reschedule and when she could squeeze in lunch. His brows pulled together slightly at the urgency he sensed. She asked, "Would you be able to come in tomorrow?"

_I'm that bad, am I? Afraid I'll snap and someone will get hurt; bothered about all the talk of killing people; the metaphorical, but rich fantasy life, or whatever. Huh. _"Yes, I can."


	277. Greetings

Gabriel parked and sat in the car for a little while, gathering himself. There was something he was supposed to do this evening. He scratched at his forehead. _Someone's going to a football game … or a practice. One of the boys. _He got out of the car and headed inside to find out who and when. Normally he remembered stuff like that, but he'd lost focus in the last week. If he managed to get from day to day, then he was … well, not happy, but he assumed he was supposed to be.

"Hey honey," he said as he walked in. "I'm home." He snorted, realizing too late he'd parroted a rather stereotypical line.

Heidi shifted aside a stack of paperwork she'd been going through. He eyed it, noting it included a batch of mocks for Reading's campaign for state representative. She'd stayed away from work for months due to Noah. He asked, "Is that for Victor? Victor Reading?"

"Yes. I'm meeting Sunday with his campaign manager." She walked over and gave him a quick smooch. "Can you watch Noah then? It should be two to four or maybe five."

"Sure." He put his arm around her waist and didn't let go when she started to pull away.

She looked up at him, putting her hands palms down on his chest, turning her face to his, eyes searching. "Are you okay?"

"Not really. I saw that therapist Peter suggested." He moved his hands around to her back, holding her close.

"Ah. I didn't know if you'd really go. What's she like?"

"Sixty. But you should worry – she thinks I'm cute."

Heidi laughed. "You!" She slapped his chest with one hand. "If there's one thing I'm _not_ worried about anymore with you, it's _that_."

"What sort of things_ are_ you worried about with me?"

Simon came out of the second floor hall and started thundering down the stairs. "Where's my soccer pads? They're not in my closet."

Gabriel sighed and looked up at the boy, letting his hands fall to his sides. He said dryly, "Hello, Simon. Nice to see you this evening too."

Simon paused on a middle step and looked at his father blankly, not understanding the sarcasm. "Yeah. So where's my soccer pads?"

Heidi stepped away from her husband. "They're probably in the garage, with the rest of the sports stuff." She walked back over to her work.

Gabriel frowned, feeling vaguely unhappy about things and not sure why. He turned to Simon and said, "I thought it was football."

"Only in Brazil, dad!" The boy headed out into the garage.

Gabe shook his head and looked back at Heidi, who appeared to be absorbed again by proofing the promotional materials. He looked around the room a little morosely and ambled off into the kitchen. Heidi called out after him, "I packed you some sandwiches. They're on the counter."

"Thanks." He saw the sack and poked around in it. _I wonder what time I'm supposed to drive him to whatever? Well … someone will let me know. _He leaned against the counter and let his mind fuzz out to blankness.

* * *

Peter arrived home to find the apartment he shared with Emma to be empty. He padded around, considered the television, considered his lengthy reading list, and considered making dinner. He pulled out his phone and texted her, then settled in with the pregnancy book, her on his mind, until she texted back – 'c u 7.' He looked at his watch, then went back to reading.

After an hour of that, he stirred out to make dinner, contemplating his choices. Emma usually handled the cooking, as did Gabriel when he was with his other partner. It wasn't that Peter _couldn't_ cook – he just couldn't do it _well_, a trait he shared with Heidi and for much the same reason. Both had grown up in households where most of the meals were made by staff. Peter knew how to make a range of breakfast foods and he was good at those – precisely because he'd usually been on his own for breakfast. The hired help didn't show until 10 am to set up for lunch.

Now he looked at a box of macaroni and cheese. It was one of his favorites. He could fix this easily, but it was a bit plain. He poked around in the freezer and found some frozen vegetables to add to it, then set about to boiling water and thawing them. He was just stirring everything together and congratulating himself on not having burned the place down when Emma arrived. She was in fantastically high spirits, running over to him, turning him around and hugging him enthusiastically, kissing him hard.

"Mmph!" Peter said, and reached back to make sure the burner knob was turned to 'off.'

She pulled back, grinning and then stepped back to sign excitedly, "The transfer went through! I met with my advisor and I'm for sure working with Dr. Canning for my residency!"

"Wow. That's great!" Peter knew she'd been trying to switch for a while, since Match Day back in March. He'd been out of the loop for most of it, pretty intentionally. Every time he paid too much attention, he began wondering if it would really be all that bad for him to talk to Micah and have things arranged as Emma wanted them. Peter easily found the strength to resist the urge to use abilities for his own advantage. Resisting using them for the advantage of others – now that was a _lot_ harder. After all, in his opinion, that was what abilities were _for_.

"I made dinner," he said, turning to gesture at the pan.

"Oh?" She looked in. "Thank you!" She beamed, still very happy. Peter smiled warmly, basking in the emotion coming off of her. They got out bowls and set the table, then divided the dinner and ate.

Emma filled him in on the details of Canning's work in the emergency services field, which was where she'd decided to specialize. For the next year, she'd be serving her residency, having been accepted the previous winter, after her second application. Peter worried about her ability to keep up with the required 80 hour work week while pregnant, even though she'd been able to swing a partial credit for her first residency, the one that had been terminated with the death of her nephew. He worried a lot, because this meant a great deal to her and there was so much that could happen. Her first day was only two weeks away.

But for now, she was full of energy and enthusiasm so he lent encouragement and kept his mouth shut about the rest. He tried to think of what he could do to help._ Learn to cook,_ wandered through his head and he laughed out loud.

"What is it?" she signed.

"Let me take over meals from now on."

She frowned. The dinner she was eating was perfectly fine – actually really good, but she'd been with Peter long enough to know his range was pretty limited and this was one of his better efforts. "I don't start the residency until July 1."

"I know. That gives us a little while for you to teach me."

She mulled that over and nodded. "Good idea." After a few moments and a couple more bites, she signed slowly and clearly, "Thank you."

* * *

Hours later, Gabriel walked into the apartment to see Peter sitting on the couch, reading. He walked over, set his briefcase down, and sat next to the other man without speaking. Peter watched him, putting the book aside. Gabriel put a hand on Peter's shoulder, then very tentatively reached up with his other to touch his cheek. Peter's brows drew together slightly, then smoothed. He didn't know what Gabriel was up to, but the touch was nice. His fingers went to Peter's lips and brushed across them, resting on them briefly, then down his chin and under. He curled them and scratched lightly. Peter smiled a little and lifted his chin for it.

Gabriel's fingers continued down to his throat, then moved laterally across the delicate skin. He tugged a little and moved his thumb to nudge Peter's jaw. The empath took the hint and turned towards him for a kiss, soft and sweet and total, deepening by stages. Gabriel lost himself in it. Peter followed a moment later. They resurfaced after long moments. Heavy-lidded and breathing harder, Gabriel pulled back a little. "Thank you, Peter, for everything you do for me."

"You're welcome." He leaned back in for a short, chaste kiss. "I guess things went well at the therapist's?"

"They went okay. I go back tomorrow."

"Hm," Peter said, staying where Gabriel was holding him, about halfway leaned towards him.

"I don't always communicate myself well enough."

Peter smiled again, eyes going between Gabriel's and his lips a few times. He leaned in and kissed him again even though he wasn't getting a response. Apparently it was okay, because Gabe pressed to him harder, pushing him back this time. Peter let him and began to urge Gabriel onto him, but the other man desisted.

This time Gabriel pulled away entirely and said, "What's that you're reading?"

Peter reached out and stroked Gabriel's arm a couple times, but again, his request received no encouragement. He dropped it and picked up the book. "'What To Expect When You're Expecting.'" He showed off the front.

Gabriel patted him on the knee. "Good for you. We all have our domestic duties." He stood and reached down for his briefcase. "If you'll excuse me though, I was given a pile of homework to do and spent most of the evening watching kids chase balls up and down a field. I'll let you get back to your book." Gabriel retired to the dining room table.

Peter laughed a little, then turned on the couch to extend his legs across it. He settled back. "Okay." He watched Gabriel work for several minutes, before finally returning to reading.


	278. Compartments

Gabriel watched as the patient before him left. He was a young man, either in his teens or just out of them – lanky and a little scruffy. He reminded him vaguely of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, except not as happy. The man's thoughts as he left were an interesting medley of mental voices. One worried about how much gas he had in the car while another thought about what his girlfriend was doing tonight and a third contemplated the discussion he'd had with Rita about how to avoid depressive thoughts. He paid Gabriel no mind. Rita said she'd be with him in a moment and closed the door to her office.

_Multiple, parallel thought processes. Is that why I haven't been able to think the last few days? Is Sylar thinking about things and not telling me? Are there other personalities in my head thinking about things and not telling me?_ He tried to remember something Maury had told him. It had an air of the unreal to it, so he didn't know if he'd dreamed Maury had said it, if it had been during a mental exchange, or if he just had imperfect recall. It was something about Gabriel being compartmentalized. He'd imagined it meant that he kept his life compartmentalized, having his roles discrete and separate. But recently, in his reading he'd learned it had a psychological meaning different from what he'd thought.

It seemed more likely that Maury had intended this other meaning, where a person compartmentalized people and events in their life as 'all good' or 'all bad.' There were a lot of implications to this, including a deep confusion and insecurity when someone who was coded as 'good' did something 'bad.' Especially intriguing to Gabriel were the identity issues that arose when someone found themselves (whom they usually thought to be 'good') doing something 'bad.' It was very difficult for a highly compartmentalized person to handle this occurrence – at the very least, a low level of dissociation was common.

_Repression, isolation, splitting_ – all terms that had specific, thought-provoking definitions in the field of psychology, generally different from the meanings bandied about in mainstream society. He wasn't sure what to make of how they applied to him. He tried to make sense of it – he read, he understood the words, he could even, as now, remember the concepts and think about them – but the meaning in relation to himself just slipped under the surface of his consciousness like an object accidentally dropped over the side of a boat, disappearing into the murky water, never to be seen again. Gabriel felt like he was leaning over the side of the boat, staring into that water, wishing to retrieve some valuable item but having no power to do so._ Maybe that's what's chewing up my ability to _think_._

Rita's door opened. "Hello, Gabriel. Would you like to come in now?"

"Of course." He nodded and rose, walking inside to take his former place in the very comfortable chair. The previous occupant, whom he mentally labeled as 'Shaggy,' had sat in the other, further from the door.

Rita situated herself in a smaller seat to the side of her desk, as she had last time. She reached over and drew a yellow legal pad to her, which reminded Gabriel of his own paperwork. He opened his briefcase to remove the various profiles and identity maps and questionnaires she'd given him. Most were straight-forward in what they revealed – he could see the use of the instruments for someone to whom he was otherwise a stranger. Not all of his responses made sense to him, at least that was to say, they didn't always conform to the answers he thought he should be giving.

"Thank you," she said, taking them from him. "If you'll allow me, I'd rather look over these tonight, make some notes, and then talk to you about the results at our next meeting. Is that okay?"

His brows drew together and his lips thinned, but the reaction wasn't due to her delay in looking at what he'd written. It was the thought of how much was there in hard copy. He looked at the legal pad she had. He looked at the papers he'd filled out. He thought about how much of his life was already out there, exposed, in a Company file somewhere. _Probably in a box under Noah's bed. And of course trapped in Clarice's mind. Ah, now _there _is an ability I want. _He jerked his thoughts away from that. "What kind of notes are you keeping on me?" he asked softly. Given the context, it sounded like a dangerous tone and it was.

"They're just to help me understand and pull together my thoughts on what we talk about." She waved the legal pad a little. There was already half a page of writing on it, presumably from their conversation the day before.

"Let me see," he demanded abruptly, shifting forward and reaching out.

She looked at him carefully for a long moment as tension filled the air. He knew he could defuse this instantly by ordering her to give that to him. Or he could get up and take it from her, though he wasn't quite sure what would happen next. He didn't think she'd have any problems standing up for herself. These sorts of little social battles always perplexed him.

There were other ways to defuse it. Nathan knew those ways. Affecting half a smile, he withdrew his hand a few inches so as to look less demanding and said lightly, "I just want to see what you've written about me. It would put my mind at ease to know." It worked. After a beat, she handed it to him.

He read. It was topped with his name (with "A0" behind it), today's date (June 16), and notes from their last discussion. Since she hadn't taken any while they'd talked, she must have made them after he left. She had an N-diagram of his polyamorous family, "abilities" with several question marks beside it, notes that he "believes he is a serial killer", "A1 Sylar", "A2 Nathan – denied", "clear personal narrative", "adopted?" and "Martin?" He tensed, nostrils flaring. There was an assortment of other words, but those were the ones that jumped out at him.

He handed it back. "I don't like you taking notes about me." Which struck him as kind of stupid, since the information was in her brain one way or another, but it was how he felt.

"When we have sessions close together, like today and yesterday, I don't really need notes. But if we go to a more usual schedule and I'm seeing you once a week or so, then I will have a number of clients between our visits. The notes help me stay oriented and keep my information straight. Also, I can look back at them several months from now and see if there are issues we've avoided or talk to you about progress we've made."

He frowned. Perhaps she didn't get it. Repeating himself had worked the day before, so he tried it again. "I don't like you taking notes about me."

Now _she_ frowned and he could hear her thinking through that. She was thinking that he really wasn't saying she _couldn't _take notes about him – he wasn't saying he'd leave or he couldn't stand it. Maybe he was just stating a preference? But then again, his only reason for repeating it would be if he didn't consider her statement as having much of an impact on his wishes. But what were his wishes? He actually hadn't said. So she asked, "What do you want me to do?"

Even knowing she was about to ask that didn't keep the question from bothering him. His discomfiture was clear on his face. She labeled it passive aggressive in her head. Embarrassed now and remembering Maury recommending a book on the subject to Peter, Gabriel said, "Fine. I don't care. Take all the notes you want."

"Okay. I will," she responded, watching for his reaction. He was mainly relieved. He looked away. It really didn't matter. He'd been under a microscope for years anyway. Peter was always offended that Gabriel wanted to know the details of his life, but Gabe felt like the Company knew him better than he knew himself. Peter had never objected to them turning a magnifying glass on Gabriel's life. He'd even been one of the ones who compiled the file, edited and annotated it. For him to object to Gabriel using a little psychometry on him (okay, a _lot_ of psychometry, but whatever) was pretty rich. _Not that hypocrisy was ever something Peter had difficulty engaging in. I probably shouldn't pursue that to the logical conclusion, because if he were consistent in all things he wouldn't be with me._

Rita broke him out of his thoughts. "I'd like to talk about some of the things you mentioned yesterday."

"Sure."

"It's just so I understand this. You spoke a lot about abilities – that you had them, other people had them, that you killed to get them. The word 'ability' means a lot of things, but it's usually not something you kill to get. What does it mean to you, the way you were using it yesterday?"

He rubbed his forehead. Not that tough a question. "It's a supernatural or extraordinary power – something a person can do that defies physics, logic, history or our normal understanding of reality."

"Like a miracle?" She didn't think that was what he meant, but she asked anyway to probe indirectly at his feelings on the divine.

He smiled a little. "No. I … abilities can be granted to people through … I don't know, I hesitate to call it scientific or medical means, but people can get abilities synthetically through injection with certain compounds."

"So it's something you could order through the mail?" She didn't think that was what he meant either.

He furrowed his brow. "No." He said nothing else. _Is she mocking me?_

"Is that how you got yours? Through injection?"

_Yes._ "No." _Shut up, stupid-Nathan-memories._ "I was born with mine." _Wait, was I? Shit, I don't even fucking know._ "At least, I think so." His eyes widened as he considered what that might mean. _They injected Nathan when he was a baby. It's not like I'd remember it. It's not impossible that one of Samson's abilities was to activate abilities in someone. Matt Parkman's kid has a power like that. I might __**not**__ have been born with it._ That thought settled heavily in his stomach. It did strange things to his perception of self and his idea of being special. The connection between his identity and his specialness had always been intrinsic, inherent, inseparable – and definitely not something given to him by anyone else, through syringe or ability.

"I don't mean to be argumentative or challenging. I'm trying to understand. From what you said, you didn't have the ability all along …"

"No, I didn't. Abilities manifest. People don't know they have them and then one day, sometimes for no reason at all, but more often when they're stressed or afraid, they discover they have one. Adrenalin is a common trigger."

"A trigger they all have in common, or just a frequent one?"

"Frequent." He eyed her. She believed him and yet she didn't. She believed that he believed he had abilities. She believed she'd seen him do something very strange the day before, what with the apparent levitating of objects. He sighed. _How many times am I going to have to demonstrate that? Does it matter? Am I looking for a level of acceptance right off the bat that's unfair to expect of a mundane stranger? 'He's not your dog to kick around' doesn't just apply to Sylar's treatment of Peter._

"How did yours manifest?"

"I clubbed a guy with a crystal display and killed him," he said plainly.

"Oh," she said in a small voice and looked at the pad for a few moments. She was trying to figure out how to find out if he knew the difference between his fantasy that he was this serial killer and the reality that he probably wasn't. Gabriel listened irritably as she began to contemplate that possibility that he wasn't fantasizing and that maybe the fantasy was that she was treating a patient who had done exactly what he claimed and _she_ was the one insisting on unreality. She had such a moment of mental vertigo from it that Gabriel's building resentment of not being believed dissipated. _Okay,_ he thought. _So … well … maybe it's hard to believe._ He huffed.

"So," Rita asked, "did you know it was going to manifest and you were killing him for that reason, or did you kill him for some other reason and it manifested?"

_Wait, what?_ "Why _else_ would I kill him?" He felt offended at the implication he might go around murdering people for banal or no reason at all. _I'm not a run-of-the-mill murderer._

"I don't know," she said. "People kill others for many reasons."

He gave her a long look that was almost a glare. _She has no right to think I'm that sort of person, who goes around killing people 'just because.' I wouldn't be here if that were the case! _He looked away. "I killed him because he had an ability and I wanted it. I don't know at which precise point mine kicked in, but it _had_ to be before I picked up the crystal."

"Why do you think that?" He gave her another look that was definitely a glare this time. She noticed it and refused to be intimidated. She went on, stabbing right at the core of it, "Why do you think you couldn't be a killer without the manifestation of this ability making you do it?"

He shook, just a little, just a tiny tremor, before he caught himself. She didn't believe he'd killed all those people, but she god-damn well believed he had the capacity to be a killer, before, without and outside of the hunger driving him on. And while he knew that – it had happened a number of times, after all – it still shook him to his core to internalize it. It wasn't how he wanted to think of himself. _Compartmentalization_.


	279. Perfect Peter's Imperfections

"I wasn't the kind of person who would do that," Gabriel said. His realization about himself had tempered his glare to no more than an intent look. He was still sorting out his thoughts. His self-image had taken a shaking there.

She smiled a little. "Well, that's a great way to bring things to what I had hoped would be our main topic for today. You said last time that the primary thing you wanted to accomplish was not to be a killer. So let's talk about that. You didn't used to be the sort of person who would kill people. Something happened to you. That changed. You've killed a lot of people." Gabriel noted she still thought 'killing' had to be a metaphor for something, such as disliking people, or fantasizing about killing them. She went on, "And now you want to stop that behavior. Let's start by thinking about the problem – _why_ you want to kill people. We can go over solutions later. For now let's just talk about the problem itself."

_Why do I want to kill people? _He leaned back in the chair. _Well, they annoy me. And I __**can**__._ He smiled a little and looked off at a corner of the room. Such flippancy wasn't helpful, but it was amusing. _That's a why. But it doesn't explain why I pick some people over others. Lots of people annoy me. Rupesh was half a world away. So's that Hiro guy. Neither of them are cutting me off in traffic or anything and yet I went after Rupesh and I'm really not happy about those Japanese tourist bureau sites I found in my browser history._ He could just imagine Sylar's faux-innocent response: 'I was just looking!'_ I didn't go track Matt down and I was __**so**__ pissed at him. Peter doesn't annoy me. Usually. Well … he has more opportunity, so him annoying me more than most people doesn't matter so much. Besides, he evens it out with other things._

_Peter … I don't want to kill him. I just want the ability. I don't want to kill the others. At least, not so much. I just want them out of the way. I don't want anyone alive to take revenge on me later. I wonder if I could pay people for their abilities? I don't think I'd want to open up to them like I did with Elle or Heidi though. That's kind of … I don't know. I don't like that. Like Lydia. Or how Peter used to be. I don't think I could stand being that __**open**__, that exposed._

_How do I manage this compulsion then, the Hunger? Maybe I should have paid more attention in Matt's stupid addiction counseling meetings._ He leaned forward and looked at the floor, elbows on knees and rubbing his forehead with one hand. _I guess like any other addict – alcoholics, drug users, womanizers. Yeah, it's not so much a substance abuse issue as an interaction thing. I suppose sex addiction would be the closest analogy. Maybe if I had some sort of hang-up with first times, because it's not like I come back to the same person twice. _

_Peter's first time … _He flashed to the first time Peter had had sex with him that he remembered well, less than a year before. It had hurt, but he'd healed and it wasn't like he'd expected it to be pleasant. Anal sex hadn't been when he'd been Sylar, shape-shifted, and he'd had those memories to guide him. Peter hadn't been as considerate or careful as he was later, when he knew him better. _And the second time …_ Gabriel sighed. His brows drew together and he rubbed at his lined forehead more fitfully. _I tried to take his ability. It would have killed him – and not just temporarily, either. I've been trying again recently and the effects of that aren't going to be temporary either._ His shoulders slumped and he sagged. He thought about fighting with Sylar that second day back, after Peter had insisted on an explanation. He'd finally had to immobilize himself to stop the impulse.

He thought about that moment in bed a few days ago when Sylar had taken over and moved to do it. Peter had looked at him with simple acceptance, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. It had shaken Sylar. It was the same expression Elle had worn and for much the same reason – he had turned on her, betrayed her … it was over and she knew it. Peter had worn that same expression. Distraught and confused, Sylar had withdrawn, leaving Gabriel to wipe away Peter's tears and salvage the relationship. For a moment he'd considered removing himself if he was such a danger. Peter had sensed it, reacted in panic, and Gabriel reconsidered.

_Why does Sylar want to hurt Peter? She asked, 'Does he ever deserve it?' _Gabriel lifted his head and straightened a little, speaking after a long silence of thought. "I want to figure out how not to kill Peter."

"That's good. I think that's a great place to start. It's personal. It's close to you, matters a lot." She really hoped like hell 'killing' was a metaphor. She really did. "Why do you want to kill him? Aside from the ability thing – is there any reason why you want to hurt him?"

He looked at her for a long moment, sorting through her thoughts, because they were eerily similar to what he'd been asking himself. She wasn't a mind reader. It was just the same question she'd asked before, the same one he'd been mulling around. Of course they were the same. "I can't think of how to answer that in a way that would make sense to you." _There's too much history._

"It doesn't have to make sense to me. It has to make sense to _you_." He frowned at her, so she added, "I have another patient whom I've seen for many years who can only really get at her issues by speaking in a stream of consciousness. At first, you're right – nothing she said really made sense. But it helped her and as time passed, I started to understand what she was trying to say. Sometimes I was able to help her with redirects when she'd lose focus. But at first all I did was listen. Sometimes it helps to say things out loud. It gives the words a special attention they might not get if you only think them."

One side of his mouth turned up. That was the difference between thinking something to one's self and projecting a thought. Random mental rambling was fairly quiet for most people. In Peter's case it was dead silent, which unnerved Gabriel. (If it had been a stranger, Gabriel would have thought it meant they were stupid, or that they were really that lacking in thought, yet while Peter wasn't brilliant, that quiet was definitely **not** indicative of a lack of thought.) But for most people it was snatches of thought that were almost incoherent free-association based on what they were sensing at the time. One's internal monologue was what one projected during telepathy and a person's capacity to focus and refine that was critical to using the ability.

"Okay," he said. "Are you making any sort of audio recording of this?"

"No."

_Simple answer. Not a lie._ "Okay. Why do I want to hurt Peter: We have a long … history. Just … even without Nathan's memories, he and I have run across each other for years. We fought a lot. I killed him the first time we met, in fact. I didn't know he had an ability. Didn't stop to check. I was busy … I'd …" He'd been trying to run away from the horror of realizing he'd killed a random cheerleader, murdered the wrong person and overlooked the special. It was embarrassing. He was disgusted with himself. He just wanted to get the right one and leave and there was Peter stopping him. _Fucking cock-blocker._ "Anyway … it was complicated. I was trying to get away. I ran into him later, killed him again – glass shard to the back of the head. Didn't get his ability then either, as this other guy knocked me out. Then again at Kirby. I didn't kill him that time, but we fought."

He frowned. "And other times. I thought maybe we had a chance … to put that behind us. I wasn't interested in him the way I am now, not a relationship … well, sort of." _Hard to explain I thought we might be brothers._ "Not sexual. And even with everything that was between us, I was trying to reform, to be better, like I am now. I came back to help him. I tried to keep him safe. I was kind of clumsy, but I tried and he _had_ to know it was me. He's dumb, but he's not _that_ dumb. His dad was onto me." He laughed a little. Arthur was scary-smart.

"I suppose I fucked everything up. But he's supposed to be the _fucking empath!_ He's the good guy! Why do I have to be the villain all the time? Why didn't he see how much I wanted to change? Why didn't he care? I saved his fucking life and got my brains bashed out on the floor for him and I _know_ he recognized that … but then when he and Nathan came after me there wasn't any talking, any questions, any … anything. I didn't go there to fight them, though I'll agree they'd been a thorn in my side if I'd had to kill them I would have. I'd had the opportunity with Peter before, after his father, and I'd just walked away. He didn't have an ability then but it didn't matter. I didn't want him dead. He was the only Petrelli who hadn't wronged me. He'd been played, just like I had. I thought that made a difference. I thought that meant I was safe from him. He was supposed to be the _**fucking good guy!**_"

He clenched his teeth, surprised by the force of his own reaction.

After a long pause, during which Gabriel's thoughts were a disorganized jumble of angry memories, Rita prompted, "But he wasn't the good guy?"

"No! He fucking _**wasn't**_." Gabriel ran a hand through his hair angrily, holding his body tensely, most of his muscles locked up. "He thought he watched me get burned alive – cremated – and he must have thought I was alive on some level and yet he stood there and _watched_. He never said a word about it, to stop it, and that was when he didn't know Nathan was dead – the hypocritical bastard. I really ought to disintegrate him just for that!" A wild desire to go track Peter down and do just that ran through him. _Whoa. Get a hold of yourself. I'm supposed to be working out how __**not**__ to kill him._ He panted and gripped his knees, focusing on the sensation, the pressure of his fingertips, watching as his knuckles changed color.

"Asshole. Fucking bastard." He was calming down though. There were so many things he wanted to do to Peter that he'd never expressed. _Oh yeah, there's a lot buried here. And not dissociated, just buried. Things I can't … can't. Because they're stupid. They're wrong. He doesn't hold me accountable for the past. I shouldn't …_ "Then there was that mind-rape his mother pulled on me. And what does he do when it turns out he's lost his brother? He pulls it on me _**again**_, like that's going to help somehow. I'm not _**fucking Nathan!**_ The person I _was_ actually matters, or he should have, especially to someone like _**him**_." He held his head for a moment, then ran his hands alternately through his hair, agitated. "I don't know why the fuck he fell in love with me. If he thought so little of me then, then why …?"

"Do you love him?"

"Yeah," he said sullenly. "Yeah, I do. He's kind of sweet." He sighed and the tension drained away surprisingly fast. "But … I can't think about the past. It's still there. I never talk to him about it. None of it. He never mentions it. Well, almost never. Every now and then we'll talk about something, kind of obliquely, but really … not much. I don't even know," he held out a hand helplessly, "parts of it. I don't know … I'm afraid to ask. I don't know why he did what he did. Maybe there were reasons. Or maybe there weren't. And if there's one thing Nathan's lawyer training hammered home is that you don't ask questions if you don't already know the answers. Sometimes I just want to kill him and be done with it – all of it."

"So it's not really about the ability, is it?"

"No." _I guess it's not. I knew it wasn't. I … guess I knew it wasn't. I hadn't really thought about it. He's just so fucking loud and I really want it. And he's there and he'd let me do it and … And that would be the end. _He sighed.

"Do you think that if you could talk to him about the past and get that out in the open, without him interrupting or defending himself – just if you had a chance to say to him what you've said to me – do you think that would help deal with your desire to kill him?"

He was quiet for a moment, imagining that. "I don't know." He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "My wife calls him 'Perfect Peter.' He's such a self-righteous asshole at times. He's a hypocrite and he doesn't even see it. I don't know how he'd handle the idea that I … didn't approve of how he'd treated me, that I thought he'd done wrong, especially in ways that he can't fix. He fucked up and I guess I've forgiven him because I'm with him … and I want to be with him. I married him for a reason, after all, and it wasn't just to keep him off my ass." He grinned suddenly. "Metaphorical – that. I don't mind the sex." _I like it, actually._ His voice softened, "I like that he wants me." He thought about Peter's approach the night before, that he'd turned down. _I should spend some time with him. It's important to him. I think he needs the intimacy like I need his scent._

"What was that reason – why you married him?"

He shrugged. "I like being with him. He makes me feel special." He snorted. _Now isn't __**that**__ loaded with meaning._

"Do you want to marry everyone who makes you feel special?"

He smiled a little. "If they make me feel like Peter does and they can manage to fit into my life, then sure. I'll marry all of them." He laughed a little. "I think my life is a little full at the moment though."

She smiled too. "So he makes you feel really good about yourself?"

"Yeah. He knows … my past and he's still with me. I've told Heidi about as much as I've told you, but she's about like you are. She believes me more, doesn't think it's a metaphor for anything, but since none of it happened to her it's not really something she cares about. Peter cares. Every single one of those people were _people_ – people I shouldn't have killed and he knows that. _**I**_ know that. He knows that I know that. But they're dead anyway."

"And you've said you don't want to kill anyone else." Her thoughts turned over the fact that he'd claimed to have killed Peter many times and Peter was obviously alive. If it wasn't a metaphor then it didn't make any sense at all.

He shrugged, finally getting to the point where he ignored her disbelief. "I want to control myself." _It's not that … maybe I should say this too?_ "It's not that I really mind killing people – at this point it's kind of de rigueur - but I want to be more careful, more selective, and when I do it I want to be doing it in ways that aren't going to screw up the rest of my life. I don't want to do it to Peter. I don't want to do it to people that if it ever comes to light I did it, that I'm going to be … that he'd leave me. Or whatever. Again." _The mental stuff_. He fidgeted, remembering promising Peter that he'd find a way to never do it again, that he'd find a way so that Peter wasn't in the position of having to prevent him. "I need _control_." _I can't keep my promises without that._

She nodded. "Do you think that you're holding Peter to a realistic standard of behavior?" He looked at her levelly. "You've said there was a lot of bad blood between you. You talk about how you think he was 'supposed' to be – which I'm hearing as how you wanted him to be. It's not how he was. Do you think that the way you're wishing he would have responded was appropriate?"

"What," he asked sarcastically, "you think maybe it was inappropriate to ask that he treat me like a human being, rather than some cardboard enemy to be disposed of as convenient?" He snorted. "He knew there was more to me than that. He _**knew**_ it."

"You used the words 'hero' and 'villain' and said he was supposed to be the good guy. Is it okay if he's not the good guy? Because it sounds to me like … he isn't. You want him to be, and maybe Peter wants to be, but he's not."

He blinked several times. _I know that. That's ridiculous. Of course he's not … he's not … Am I really just angry that he's not the perfect guy he wants to be? That he has faults and failings just like me? That's … what the hell?_ He rubbed at his face. _What the fuck is wrong with Peter wanting to be a decent person and being no more able to do it than anyone else? Is that really what I'm angry about? That he should have been nicer to me, more considerate, more forgiving, more thoughtful and he wasn't? That's … kind of selfish of me._ He huffed. "Okay, maybe there's a point to therapy."


	280. Acing the Test

After the revelation about Peter, Gabriel had changed the subject to managing irritation. Rita followed along cooperatively and they spent the rest of the session discussing anger management. Gabriel needed time to process before moving on.

That evening, Gabriel walked into their apartment and shut the door behind himself. Peter was much as he'd been the night before - sitting on the couch reading a book. Gabe smiled at him and sauntered over. His stride caught Peter's attention immediately. He set the book aside and sat up. Gabriel tossed his briefcase on the other end of the couch.

Peter raised a brow. "Do you have more homework tonight?"

"Yes, I do." He beckoned Peter to rise.

Standing now, Peter asked, "Really? Do you need help with it?" He glanced over uncertainly at the briefcase. When he turned back, he found himself meeting the other man's lips unexpectedly. It was a nice unexpected.

"Mm-hm," Gabriel hummed, kissing his lover sweetly. After a bit he worked along Peter's cheek, towards the join of his ear and jaw.

"Oh," Peter sighed, running his hands restlessly up and down Gabriel's sides. "What- what kind of homework are we talking here?"

Gabriel nipped and chewed at the skin along the line of his jaw. "Serious homework. Very important."

"Oh, wow." Peter grinned, letting his hands wander to Gabriel's back and pulling him to himself, grinding lightly. "That's … mm, nice. Do you think you're ready for a pop quiz then?"

"Yes. I've been studying very, very hard. And cramming. I've really enjoyed the cramming part. Cramming … over and over again, the same subject … it just never gets boring. There's always something new to learn."

Peter giggled and tilted his head back, which caused Gabriel to shift his attentions to his exposed neck. "All right then. First question - what does Peter most like to hear in bed?"

"Mm, that one's easy. Peter likes to hear how much I love him, in all the different ways." He nibbled and kissed along Peter's neck. "And what I might like to do to him."

Peter took the other man's hips and began to push against him regularly. "Yeah. Um … there … there should be more questions but, nngh, can't think."

"Then I'll ask a simple yes/no question. Does Peter want to have sex with me tonight?"

"_Yes!_ Definitely yes."

Gabriel ran his hand behind Peter's head, cradling it and tipping as he laid a light pressing of teeth on his windpipe before moving on to the other side of his throat. "It's always a good idea to check these things. Assumptions need to be examined from time to time." He paused to suck at a spot just beneath Peter's ear, giving him a hickey and making him rub against him harder. "Now, for a tougher one - multiple choice. You listening?"

"Yes," Peter breathed.

"Good. Does Peter want to A) have me give him head, or B) give me head, or C) me to top, D) him to top me, or E) some combination of the above?" He paused and then said, "Or F, fill in the blank." He went back to ravishing Peter's neck, turning him a little to work down the muscle of the side, from behind his ear to his shoulder, nibbling the whole way and making Peter cringe and whine. "I need an answer."

"Um … What … um, B and … was it C where you topped?"

"Yes."

"B and C." Peter began unfastening Gabriel's pants.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah, really." Peter went to his knees, pulling down his partner's pants and stroking him through his underwear. "Why - do you think I'm copying someone else's answers?"

"No. No. It's just …" he reached down and tousled Peter's hair thoroughly. "We usually do that and I sometimes wonder if that's what you want to do or if you just do it for me because you know I like it."

Peter inched down Gabriel's underwear, looking up at him. In a deeper, sultry voice, he said, "There is nothing sexier than taking you in my mouth and watching you come undone."

"You are incredible, Peter. You are awesome. I love you. I love you so much." Peter licked him, tilting his organ into his mouth and wrapping his lips around the head of it. "Oh God, I love you. You make me so happy. You know if you get me off like this, we'll have to take a break between … uh, B and C."

Peter gave him a short, light suck like a kiss and pulled off with a faint pop. "That's fine. I love how you are after you come. You snuggle. If you'll give me a little bit of a hand job in there, then you can cram all you want when you're ready." Peter took him into his mouth after that, rolling his eyes to look up, running one hand behind to massage the muscles of his ass.

Gabriel ran his hand through Peter's hair over and over, making tiny thrusts and groaning. "You're even letting your hair grow out. Thank you. Thank you for letting it grow out." Peter made a snort, or a choke. Gabriel grinned at him, working his hand into a fist in Peter's hair, then releasing it. "I like your hair. I … oh! … I like you." Peter sucked him harder, working the underside of his shaft with his tongue. "I … Peter … I can't stand for this. I need to sit, or …"

Peter pulled off of him. "Bedroom?" He gave him a slight tug by his dick as he got to his feet.

Gabriel glanced down uneasily at that.

"Come on," Peter crooned, tugging on him again.

"Okay," Gabriel said in a wary tone.

Peter let go of him and hugged him, kissing repeatedly at his neck and chin. "I'm sorry," Peter murmured. "I think I missed a question there. Is there anything I can do for extra credit to make up for it?"

"Yeah … maybe," Gabriel said, warming back up. "Let's go to the bedroom and you can finish that oral test you were working on." They went into the other room. Peter began to shuck his clothes. Gabriel did as well. "You know, for extra credit, you could just give the subject a consistently deeper treatment than usual."

"Hm. I think I can manage that. It's a long and hard subject to research, but I want to do more than just pass the course. I want to ace it."

Gabriel climbed on the bed. Peter arranged himself next to him as for sixty-nine and said quickly, "You don't have to do anything for me. This is just the best angle for deep throating." Gabriel nodded. He stroked Peter's side and nuzzled his organ anyway, licking at it after Peter took him into his mouth. Within a few moments though, he just hugged Peter to him and moaned as Peter delivered on his offer. Gabriel's fingers tightened and he bit his lip, panting and shifting, loving every moment of having his cock totally encased in his lover's mouth - hot, wet and willing, sucking at him and rubbing his tongue across the delicate skin. He came with a jerk and a shudder, sighing and making a slight noise as Peter pulled off of him.

Peter looked up and gave him a lop-sided grin. Peter admired Gabriel's blown expression for a few moments before going to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Gabriel gave a small moan and covered himself with the blanket. He _did_ want to cuddle. He felt kind of bereft not to have Peter here to do it with, but he knew Peter wanted kisses and yeah, the only way he was going to get them was by brushing. He was rejoined a few moments later by a minty-fresh partner.

Gabriel chuckled and nosed at Peter's face after their initial round of kissing. "I like the scent. You should do that … more."

"The scents? Like I did there for a while?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Okay." Peter snuggled into his arms as Gabriel nuzzled him and gave him tiny pecks. "I take it you're not talking cologne."

"No. I liked most of the scents you used and I don't mean you have to use them like perfume. I just … I don't know."

Peter nodded. "I know what I'll do."

"Good." Gabriel kissed him on the temple. "Your hair is so fine here. Roll over." Peter did. Gabriel spooned behind him, rubbing his face against the back of Peter's head. His outer hand - the one he wasn't lying on - caressed Peter's chest, then ran down his stomach where it paused at the faint trail of hair that extended from his navel downward. "Mm."

"Mm-hm?" Peter replied.

"Mm-hm-hm," Gabriel said, then smiled and nibbled on the join of Peter's neck and shoulder. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"You're sweet."

"So are you."

"I want you." Gabriel's hand drifted lower, his fingertips brushing across Peter's semi-hard state.

"Oh!" Peter arched against him.

"I want to plow into you; I want to fuck you; I want to make you come." He kissed him again on the shoulder, taking Peter's hardening shaft in his hand and stroking lightly. "I want to see your face. I want you to be looking at me while I take you. I want you to know it's _me_. That is _**so **_special to me, that you know who I am, that we're together, that you love me, that you want me to fuck you." He kissed him again and stroked harder. "I want to see you come. I want to see it all over your stomach. I want to _smell_ it, smell our sex all over you. I want to fill you up and feel you around me." He leaned forward and whispered, "I want to hear my name on your lips."

Panting, Peter whispered back, "Gabriel, if you keep this up … I think …" He put his hand over Gabriel's to stop him. "We need the lube and we need it _now_."

Gabriel grinned and kissed Peter's neck several times more. He was hard too, as Peter had noticed. Gabriel shifted to his knees and summoned the bottle of lube. Peter swung his leg around him and rolled on his back for missionary. He put a pillow under his rear. Gabriel slathered on the gel and probed at Peter with an exploratory finger. Peter pulled his knees back and let his head fall back. "I love you."

Gabriel opened him steadily and carefully, watching as Peter stroked himself very slowly. Gabriel scooted forward eventually and nudged at him. Peter spread his legs a little further, making every gesture of invitation he could.

"I want you," Peter said, looking up at him, meeting his dark eyes. "Gabriel - I want you. I want you in me."

Gabriel leaned over him, sliding inside by short, shallow thrusts. Peter let him know when he was ready for more. Gabriel kissed him deeply, doubly glad Peter had brushed, and started pushing into him harder. Peter wrapped his legs and arms around him, clinging and encouraging. Gabriel reached between them to stroke his lover. Peter arched, gasped and breathed, "Gabe! Babe … oh baby…" Gabriel started moving faster, wrenching moans and mewls of pleasure from his partner. He moved his mouth to Peter's neck, biting him as his end approached. Peter was holding him tighter, drawing him against him, fully engaged. He groaned, turning his neck to aid Gabriel's efforts until his cock throbbed under Gabriel's pumping hand and his come spurted between them.

"Yeah," Gabriel said, pounding into him even harder, eyes shut, his chin resting on Peter's shoulder as he pressed their bodies together. He finished a few moments later. "Oh, oh. Oh," he said, shifting off to the side. Peter was right up against him before he even settled, hugging him face-to-face now, needy, holding him. Gabriel nodded - at what he wasn't sure, maybe at his own assessment that Peter needed this, needed him and while the man could certainly go without, here he was holding onto him like he might get away. Peter had wanted more strongly than he'd asked for - that was clear.

Slowly, a little tiredly and still groggy from the orgasm, Gabriel began nosing and kissing at Peter's cheek, temple and forehead - what he could get to easily. Distantly he acknowledged it was a grooming motion, but whatever. They were kisses, not licks, and Peter liked it - he'd asked for it even! - so it didn't matter. In fact, Peter seemed to love it. He melted against him and they held each other, otherwise still except for the small motions of Gabriel's head.

"Did I pass?" Peter murmured.

It took Gabriel a moment to place what he was asking. "Oh sweetie, A+, all the way."


	281. Happy Saturday

"Happy Saturday," Rita said as Gabriel walked inside her office on the morning of the given day. She was considering him a crisis case until she understood his situation a little better, which meant she'd see him every day except Sunday until he _wasn't_ a crisis case. He felt vaguely insulted by that, but he was starting to really like the attention. So far it wasn't coming attached to getting thoroughly fucked over, unlike most attention he'd had in the last few years. He remembered when he'd been crazy for attention, desperate for it, _lusted_ after it. That had been before that sort of thing had resulted in getting his identity blotted out, which had put something of a damper on his enjoyment of being the center of anyone's attention. But this was nice. It was different.

"Yes, happy Saturday. Do you have plans for the rest of the weekend?" he asked as he settled himself into the same chair he'd used before.

"Yes, I do. I'm going to spend some time with family this afternoon. We have quite a day planned. How about you?"

"Yeah, we have plans. The boys have a party they're going to and tomorrow … Sunday afternoon … something. I can't remember." His brows pulled together. "And that's something I want to talk about - I can't seem to _think _anymore. I forget things and these aren't repressed memories, dissociated things, but just things like what Heidi asked me to do or where we're going on Sunday."

"This is a general memory problem or is it specific times and topics?"

"No, not gaps, nothing specific. I just can't think. It's like my head is … it's not all there."

"Maybe it isn't. Aside from high levels of psychological stress impairing memory, you could also be very distracted by some of the issues we've discussed. Even if it seems like you aren't thinking about those things, your subconscious is processing them."

"What can I do about this?" He was frustrated by it. He wasn't up to par and he hadn't been for almost two weeks now.

"Even if you could minimize the stressors in your life immediately, it can take up to a week to regain function. So what you're experiencing right now might be residual effects from last week. How were things for you, a week ago?"

He frowned. Last Friday, he'd fought with Peter, virtually passed out after being tied up, managed to drag himself through the day … yes, he'd been laid at the end of it, but God he'd thought Peter might never be with him again after the spectacle he'd made of himself. He didn't want to talk about any of that. "It's been more than a week. I should be better."

She raised her brows slightly. "_Are_ you better than you were last week? You seem to be in a better mood now than you were on Wednesday."

He snorted lightly. "I had a good night." _Though why talking about how angry I am with Peter made me want to go home and make love to him is one of those mysteries._

"It might help if you get a small pad you can carry in your pocket and make notes of things you think you'll need to remember - appointments and the like. You have several other people in your life. Tell them you're having trouble remembering things. Ask for their help in keeping you on track. Ask them to call or text reminders to you. They can't help you if you don't _ask_. As time passes, you'll get your function back."

She went on, "For now though, I would ask that you be forgiving of yourself and accept that you need time to heal. A major dissociative episode, like what Peter described to me and you've hinted at, is a coping mechanism to an injury - a mental trauma. You should treat the condition like you would a broken limb. Just because it's not visible doesn't make it any less real. You have suffered harm. Be gentle with yourself. Let yourself heal and accept that until you _are_ healed, you will have new and different limits just as you would if your arm or leg were in a cast."

He huffed. _I can heal a broken bone. Somewhere out there is an ability that will fix this. Of course, Maury hinted as much. He did things to me, before, with those … with what I did to Claire and Paul. He just reached right into my head and did something. Peter watched – he might be able to do that himself._ He gave himself a little shake. He'd gained a position in the relationship where he didn't have to permit that sort of thing from Peter. He wasn't ready to lower his defenses yet. Theoretically, Gabriel had the ability too. He lacked the decades of using it. He wasn't sure if he would work quite that easily on himself. _Physician, heal thyself, indeed._

He was mulling that over when Rita asked, "Have you thought about what happened last week? Am I right that things were going okay for you before then, and that you experienced … I guess what I'd call a triggering event?"

"Yes, I was triggered." He laughed hollowly. _That's one way to put it. I think the proper term though is 'induced.'_ His laughter vanished. Something Angela said to him came back full force: '_You can be triggered to indulge the Hunger just like you were originally_' and '_Arthur's methods are very different from my own_.' He gazed intently at the floor, brows drawn together, pondering.

_How do I get induced? Is that the key to the Hunger? Angela was so confident she could turn me on and off - and she __**could**__. But … if she could control me so easily, then why wasn't she able to stop me when I turned on her? Easier to start than it is to stop? I've certainly found it so. That's why I'm here. Then what's causing it to start? It's formulaic. It always has been. I told Peter: distraction, proximity and helplessness. Rupesh … had none of that, not until the end and that hardly matters because I'd made my decision long before that point._

_Luke … Samson, the first time … Micah … Elle … Angela … there were others … all people with abilities who I interacted with, where I was the stronger and I could have taken what I wanted, but I didn't. And now Peter, but that one is so complicated by other issues it hardly counts. Even now, there are people who are off-limits and I _want to_ but I respect those limits and leave them alone._

_What … is it … that's different … now? I'm only having this problem __**now**__. _His mind picked at the problem. He leaned forward, staring at the beige and grey patterned carpet like he was trying to burn a hole through it with his gaze._ Before Rupesh there was Spain. After Spain there was Sylar. The very day after; I didn't even sleep. Pretty much first chance I had to think, to listen to myself, there he was. Had nothing to do with Rupesh. Dammit! What the hell started it? Guess I could always ask the source. Sylar? … Sylar? _He focused on the taste of the dead man's power, just the barest taste he'd taken in Spain, when it was still just him and he hadn't split yet. That memory was his, not Sylar's. The decision had been his, not Sylar's. He pulled forward what that had felt like and hoped it would lure his alter ego into conversation.

_Yes?_ the killer finally deigned to answer.

_Why did it matter what Peter said in Spain? Why did it matter that he said it would be okay? Why did you … come out then … after that?_

_Because Peter said he wouldn't stop us. We discussed this, you know._

Gabriel blinked slowly, several times. _Ah._ His eyes widened as he finally saw it - the marriage, the removal of the commands, that he could fight Peter, resist him, kill him if need be (and he _had_, so it wasn't like it was unproven), Peter's promise of second chances (which he was delivering on), of staying with him and by him no matter what - of course his Hunger was out of control. There was no reason to control it. He could do anything, get away with it, carte blanche and he knew that. Sylar knew that. All the angst about consequences was just wanting to have his cake and eat it too. Peter wasn't actually going to _do_ anything and neither was anyone else. That was clear - none of the directors really cared as long as he was careful.

Sylar gave him a mental snort of derision, said, _Took you long enough_, and faded into the background again.

"I don't want to be that person," he whispered, running a hand slowly through his hair. _The only one who can stop it is me._ _If I don't, I'll lose Peter eventually. Every murder I commit will kill a part of him and even if I don't lose him in body, I'll lose that part of him that I love_. "I called him 'sweet.'" He shook his head, still talking to himself as he added, "He'd lose that. He'd have to. Me or his principles and he's picked me." He swallowed. "He's picked me." His eyes stung. He blinked and rubbed at them. He stood up and paced, barely aware that Rita was there, watching him calmly and quietly as he worked through things.

"I don't want him to lose that. No ability is worth that. _**I**_ don't want to lose that." If he could regain his own innocence, or at least his faith in himself as a good person … He straightened, eyes clearing, focusing on the door. A hint of a smile played at his lips. "I think … I think that works." Everything fell into place like the meshing of gears - the mechanism turned slow but true. He felt almost like his IQ jumped as part of the fog that had been inhabiting his mind lifted. "It does. It works." He turned to Rita, smiling a little in subdued delight. "I figured out how it works!"

"Good!" she effused, having no idea what he was talking about.

He grinned. She really had no clue. She didn't need one. He sat back down. _What was the last thing we were talking about? Oh yeah …_ "No, it wasn't last week that triggered me. It was the … a few days before that. I realized I could do anything I wanted, take anything I wanted, and get away with it. The only thing standing between me and power was my conscience and I … I didn't resist it." _Sylar … Sylar … Was that me? __**Is**__ that me? Am I …? He_ felt like he was grasping at a void, trying to figure out how to draw Sylar back in now that he had a better grip on why he'd resurfaced to begin with.

Sylar's mental voice answered him, _Like I told Peter, I was on my own for four years. I'm not _**leaving**_ just because you had an 'a-ha' moment there. Get over yourself. So you've decided how you want to be. Big deal. That's not how I am, so go sit and spin. You let me out for a reason and that reason has not stopped existing. Even when it does, that doesn't mean _**I**_ stop existing too._

_Er?,_ was Gabriel's only reply for the moment. Slowly he said aloud to Rita, "So … um … just figuring out where something started …" He sighed, feeling his previous elation dissipating. "Doesn't mean you can fix it."

"It's where we have to start though. Last week, or a few days before, something happened that hurt you and-" She paused, because his head had come up. "Yes?"

"It didn't hurt me."

"Are you sure?"

He looked down and thought about that. "Well … I suppose maybe that … I don't know. I didn't _feel_ hurt."

"How _did_ you feel?"

"Scared," he said quietly after a moment. "Scared. Alone. Again. Peter had left it all up to me. I didn't want it left up to me." _I didn't want to have to decide that. I didn't want the responsibility. I don't … I don't want to be in control? What the hell?_ He frowned at himself._ The commands … all of that … I left them there because I thought I needed them. I don't want to need a fucking crutch!_ He was pretty sure he _did_ need the crutch though. The broken bone analogy was seeming more apt all the time._ Or at least … I need something …_

Rita continued from the last thing he'd spoken aloud, saying, "You said yesterday you wanted Peter to be the good guy. You wanted him to understand you."

He sighed. He was still puzzling over whether he did, or did not, want help managing the Hunger. But to her comment, he breathed out, "Yeah."

"Did you try talking to him about it?"

"No," he said in a very small voice. He wasn't feeling very good about himself. He looked down. _I don't want to need help. I've done all of this - being Nathan, joining the Company, getting close to Peter, marrying Heidi - all of this. Doesn't that count for anything? Doesn't that show that I'm strong?_

"Did you talk to anyone about it?"

"No," he said even more timidly. He'd been so consumed by the desire that he hadn't asked anyone for help, too afraid they might offer it. _I'm weak. No matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish or how many powers I have, I'm still weak._

"I'm not blaming you, Gabriel," Rita said gently, reading his expression. "I'm not. You said you wanted to find a way not to be a killer. If you felt alone with the decision and overburdened with it - and it sounds like a really big decision - then maybe," she dipped her head a little to try to see his face, as his head was hanging, "maybe when you have that sort of decision again you could talk to someone about it?"

_Hiro. I should talk to someone about Hiro_. He tensed, looking up at her, feeling something akin to a buzzing in his head, like static. Someone did not want his pet project upset. And although Gabriel felt the Hunger too, it was far too soon for it to be overwhelming. Besides, Hiro was a different ball of wax. Rupesh had hurt people; he'd killed them. Hiro had not. "Okay," he got out, feeling like his throat was rebelling against the idea of speech. "That's a good idea." He nodded woodenly. _Maybe if I just …_

She could see he was fighting some inner battle. She considered distracting him, asking if he had any plans for the evening, but ... maybe she shouldn't?

He shook his head, wanting to tell her that a distraction would be welcome. He started talking. "Yes. Tonight. Um ..." He swallowed. "I was going out to dinner with Jacobson and the other partners, going to give them my offer for selling out my share of the firm. It's generous. They- they should like it. Then they can think about it until Monday." He took a deep breath, focusing his thoughts on something unobjectionable and mundane. "Then, afterward, I'll … Peter, for a little bit … we have a schedule. I don't know. Maybe I'll stay late for drinks with the guys? Then I go back to Heidi and spend the night ... Church. And whatever it is we're doing tomorrow that I can't remember."

He looked up at her. She was trying to figure out how he knew what she'd been thinking of asking. She was very sure she hadn't said anything. He huffed and said, "I can read your mind. Deal with it."

"Oh," was all she said.


	282. Habituation and Random Events

Gabriel touched his face nervously and fiddled with his hair yet again, touching it briefly, making sure it was combed back where it was supposed to be.

She thought, _You know what I'm thinking? What number am I thinking of? Of course I need to think of one … thirty-one. Or thirty-seven? Should I pick something big and random, like in the thousands?_

"Yes, I know what you're thinking and no, I don't want to play guessing games with numbers." He waved a hand dismissively. "Just … don't stress about it. I have powers, you believe me, etc."

She blinked at him, thinking, _This isn't the droid I was looking for? That's a fantastic ability. And weird. Bizarre. How does that work? Can I learn that? Did he have to kill someone for that?_

"As a matter of fact, yes. I killed someone about six months ago for this one and I still haven't come to terms with it. So let's talk about something else."

_Oh._ She asked aloud, "Am I in danger here?"

"Not really, no." He chuckled a little. "I'm finding these sessions really helpful. Fascinating, even. I've never been able to sit around and stay focused on this sort of navel-gazing since I was stuck on that island about a year and half ago. That really did help me pull things together, even if it was kind of unpleasant." _Understatement, even for me_. He looked momentarily amused, then sobered again. "Talk about the Hunger running away with me there – I couldn't even manage a conversation with someone. Just the presence of people was too much." He chewed on his lip and ignored the running commentary of Rita's thoughts. They were mostly irrelevant anyway.

Instead, he thought about his time on the island and what he'd done to Claire. It had helped. It really had. And it seemed like Peter was trying to offer him the same thing. _He knows what I did to Claire. He knows why. He saw that in my mind when Maury showed him how to fix what he was calling 'breaks from reality' – dissociated events, clearly. Why did it help – doing that to Claire? I was getting the same thing over and over. It was like scratching an itch, a really bad itch. Or eating so much of something I craved that it made me sick and I never wanted it again._

He tried to think about Claire's ability, about doing that to her again. _I already have her ability, but for a while I had it doubled. Do I want that again?_ The answer was, for the most part, no. _Huh. I think I could work myself up to it, but that's what it would be. I don't really __**want**__ it._

_I wonder, do I want rats?_ He mulled that around in his mind. _I don't think I do. People are pretty unique. So are rats, I suppose, but I really don't care much about the differences. Samson had one of everything. That's what it was - a collection. One of this, one of that … maybe a male and a female if that's something that matters to you. To me. Doesn't much for rats, that's for sure. Or voles, or whatever those things were._ He knew what they were – woodland voles, he'd done some research on them; noted for being monogamous, prolific and having a tendency to take over the homes of other, similar rodents – he just didn't care.

He looked to Rita, listening to the continuous sound she emitted on something of a different frequency than normal 'sound.' He perceived it as sonic, something of a vibration, much like lie detection_. I wouldn't mind having that - having __**her**__. The temptation is still there. Why did doing that to Claire change things? It seemed to dull it. It got it to where I was the one calling the shots. I'd had enough. I was full, overloaded. But she was special. Not all people are the same. Why did doing that to her enhance my control in relation to nearly everyone else?_

_Well, for one thing, I got to do it and that's always fun, but it's also always sated me for a while. It takes time to assimilate, after all, and really let the information sink in. Then I got to do it again without the Hunger driving me, without pressure. I got to indulge. That was nice, I guess. Horrifying for her, but … I wonder if she ever went to therapy for anything I did to her? I suspect she needs it. She's working for Maury now. I should ask him if she's … okay. Huh. Anyway, then the next time I could stop. I knew what was coming next and I knew I didn't need it. After that when I saw someone … I knew what was coming next. The novelty was less._

_Peter is certainly novel. So is Hiro. So was Rupesh. Nearly everyone who has an ability is. But I was able to stop myself from an ability very similar to Elle's. Sure, it might have interfered with hers, but maybe part of why I stopped was because it wasn't a good addition to the 'collection'? Hm. I never did it to Maury either and I had a lot of opportunity, but I almost lost it at first, before I had telepathy. It's something to think about._ He looked up at Rita and blinked, realizing that some time had passed in silence. "I'm sorry - what were we talking about?"

She smiled. "You seemed deep in thought. I didn't want to disturb you."

He shrugged. "I was, I suppose. Thank you. But … where were we?"

"You were telling me that sometimes the presence of people is too much for you."

_Did I say that?_ He thought back. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd said, but it wasn't _that_. Even if … maybe that was true. "Sometimes, when people have an ability I want, I have to leave," he admitted grudgingly.

"That's a good idea. Are there ever times when you can't leave?"

He snorted and decided to hell with it, he'd just lay it out on the table. "Yes. Then I get argumentative, threaten to kill them and make _them_ leave. It generally works. Or at least, there has yet to be a case where it hasn't."

She did not think very much of that as a coping strategy. Neither did he, really. He grinned and offered, "Hey, I'm being honest. That counts for something, right?"

She smiled in return. "Yes, it does. We couldn't make much progress without it. But I'm wondering if perhaps there are circumstances when threatening to kill someone isn't the best approach."

"You're wondering that, huh?"

She smiled a little more. "Yes, I'm wondering that. Do _you_ ever wonder about that?"

"Why do you think I'm here?"

"Touché."

She waited, watching him with an expectant look on her face. She finally made a gesture to invite him to speak. He knew what she was getting at and said, "Yes, you're right. I shouldn't threaten to kill people. I should be able to just stand there and take it, I guess."

"If what you're talking about 'taking' is just their presence, then yes, I would agree. But I would think there must be aspects of their behavior that was bothering you."

He shrugged, frowning. "Sometimes."

"Do you know what those aspects are?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know," he lied. "Why does it matter?"

"If you could define what exactly bothers you, and why, then we might be in a better position to set out a coping strategy."

He sighed. "It bothers me that they don't think much of me. I'm stuck on myself. It's wrong. When people disrespect me I …" He shrugged and looked away.

"Okay, that's an excellent start. I want to say, you seem very clear-eyed about yourself. Maybe the disrespect is because they don't know you very well-"

"No, the problem is I'm insecure and I have an over-inflated ego, always wanting to be the 'most special' and powerful, if not the center of attention." He scowled. On this front, he knew exactly what his problems were and he loathed them, but it didn't make them go away. These particular flaws he laid at Virginia's doorstep, but regardless of who was to blame, he had them and they'd gotten him into so, so much trouble. "Listen, I don't want to talk about this one. Let's … I don't know, let's talk about something else."

"Alright," Rita said cooperatively. "Let's go over the memory issues you mentioned earlier. You said that was something you wanted to address and I'm thinking maybe we should cover that in more detail."

He nodded, leaning forward and engaging again.

* * *

He walked out nearly a half hour later, lost in thought. Rita's next client (and last of the day) had shown up early and agitated. They'd been wrapping up anyway, as Gabriel was declining to deal with anything difficult at the moment and Rita wasn't pressing him. So he left about ten minutes earlier than expected. His car was in a parking lot, surrounded by dozens of others. He pressed the button on his key chain to unlock it as he approached. The clicking of the locks disengaging on the car startled a young woman who had been kneeling next to it. She jerked to her feet, looking around wildly and guiltily.

Gabriel went instantly to the alert, focusing on her. She very nearly projected, _Oh shit, it's him!_ and a moment later he was reading her thoughts in earnest.

He locked her up with telekinesis to thwart first her attempt to flee, then her attempt to scream, then her attempt to grab some manner of weapon from her purse. He didn't bother freezing up every muscle - the major ones were enough. She stood frozen, hand in her bag, eyes wide and breath coming too fast. He stalked closer to her, asking her mentally, _Who are you?_

Her thoughts were a disorganized welter, but he made out, _I hate you! Let me go! He's going to kill me! You killed my father, you bastard! Let me go! I'm going to die._

_Who was your father?_

The answer was not immediately apparent as 'Dad' had little meaning for Gabriel. He picked it out of her overexcited brain a moment later, having closed to stand next to her: _Joe Macon_.

_Pittsburgh,_ he thought and she confirmed it. His brows drew together. Joe Macon had been one of his victims from a few years ago. How had his daughter found him, here of all places? She was thinking of something else. Her fingers had found something in her purse, something important. She pressed a button.

All was white.

Shining … incredible … white. There was nothing to see but radiance, a continuous impression of blinding light and utter silence so profound it made his ears ache. It began to blur and a faint noise began to creep in, like static. A shape - the delineation of up and down, light and dark. Pain. No: agony. A perception of nothing but hurt. The static resolved into a ringing. The world danced before his eyes, but he was the one who was shaking and causing the motion. His vision was blurred and his mind too crippled to make sense of it anyway. All he could understand was that he hurt in every way possible all at once. His skin was on fire. He wouldn't have been surprised to find it was literal. Taste of blood, smell of smoke, char, gasoline, nitrates?

Something in his mouth. He couldn't breathe right. The shaking tapered off as his damaged nervous system put itself back together. His vision began to clear, not that it helped all that much. He'd never before been unfortunate enough to be ground zero for a serious explosion while using telepathy. His hands found the ground, which seemed something of an accomplishment. Grit. A fine dusting of … ash?

His throat itched, right under his chin. His body was starting to struggle for lack of oxygen, in addition to the other abuses it had suffered. He got to his knees and reached up to touch. His fingers were numb and for a moment he couldn't make sense of what little he was feeling, or why his tongue felt weird each time he moved whatever it was he had found sticking out of himself. He got a grip on the dagger-like piece of metal and jerked it out, removing it from where it had impaled him all the way through his mouth, his hard palate and into the nasal cavity.

He coughed and spat, bending over on hands and knees now, taking in great breaths as his body finished healing all the myriad injuries he'd taken. Regeneration was good, but it didn't do anything about the backlash from telepathy. He dry heaved. Pressure on his clothing. Noises. A voice. Movement. Threat?

_It's a person, you dumbass_, Sylar told him._ Probably come to finish you off while you're weak._

_I can't …_ was all he could manage as a reply.

_I know_, Sylar responded. _I can_.

Gabriel's perception of reality ended.


	283. Very Quietly Freaking Out

Peter's phone rang. It wasn't one of the ring tones he needed to answer right away and he was up to his elbows in soapy water, doing dishes. He grimaced, debated letting it go on to voice mail and finally decided to do just that. He'd get it later. A few minutes after, Heidi was calling him. Now he dried his hands and answered, wondering if he should have answered the first call after all. "Hello?"

"Peter," Heidi's voice was concerned and alarmed. He was on guard immediately. "Nathan's car exploded outside the therapist's. There's someone dead, but they don't think it's him. Rita doesn't know where he is. Do you know the address? Can you go there right now?"

"Yes, I've been there. I'll go and let you know. Okay?"

"Thank you." She hung up.

"Emma!" he called out, then cursed himself for an idiot because she couldn't hear him. He hustled through the apartment to find her. He did, in the bathroom as she'd told him earlier. He signed rapidly to her, "There's an emergency with Gabriel. I've got to go find out what happened. I'll text you later. Love you." He waited for a nod in understanding and teleported out.

Peter arrived before any emergency services did. The car was still on fire, though some brave and foolhardy soul from the office building next door was applying a fire extinguisher to the blaze. It seemed contained. There was a woman who had been moved from the area of the explosion. Peter walked over to her as someone covered her with a shirt. Her body was ravaged from the explosion. She was unrecognizable as anything except white and female. He bent next to her and pushed healing under the guise of checking for a pulse. She was dead, which he could easily see visually.

To the man in the singlet who had provided the dress shirt now covering her, Peter asked, "Was this the only victim?"

"I think so. Someone said there was a man, but no one's seen him. Maybe he was further away and left?"

Peter nodded, spotting Rita near the entrance of her building, on a cell phone. She hung up as he approached. He said, "Hi. I was in the area. Did you see what happened?"

She shook her head. "No, just the sound. It was loud. Blew out a lot of windows, cracked the ones in my office. He'd just left - Gabriel. That's his car, isn't it?"

Peter glanced back. "Yeah."

"Well …" she said, looking around. "Maybe he was just frightened and withdrew for a while? I've tried his cell, but there's no answer. It says he's out of area."

"Huh." Peter doubted that. It seemed more likely that Gabe's phone was nonfunctional - either due to the explosion or something else. He duplicated the course of Rita's search, looking carefully at each person. Only one was looking back at them steadily - a spare-bodied older Asian man leaning on the corner of the building across the lot. "I'll find him," Peter said. "I'll let you know." He started off towards the watcher.

"Peter!" she called to him and he paused.

She walked over closer and said quietly, "Peter, he was always talking about killing people. And you talked about the war." He looked past him at the now-smoldering car. He could hear sirens in the distance. "How much of this is real?"

He looked back at the car and then to her. "I don't know." He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "I know this … sort of life is hard on a person, in a lot of ways. If you don't want him as a patient, I understand. But I don't know what's happened here. Things aren't always as they appear. Let me find out. I'll talk to you later." She nodded and he left her there, staring at the twisted hulk of the vehicle, looking past it at the feet of the young woman who had died here. These things were not metaphorical _at all_.

He walked up to the man, noting the eye contact and steady expression. It didn't quite strike him as Gabriel, but he asked anyway. "Gabriel?"

"No."

The simple answer and return to watching the scene told Peter he was dealing with Sylar. He walked a little closer, pausing next to the other man's side. The different form was disconcerting, as always. A paramedic unit had arrived. Peter read off the insignia from where he was. He knew the unit and the people in it. He faded back a little, hoping not to be noticed or recognized.

The little old man turned slowly so his back was flat against the wall, preventing Peter from being behind him. He studied the empath. Peter had stopped, realizing that Sylar found him suspect for some reason, or perhaps no reason. In any case, Peter looked down and waited.

The question was not long in coming. Sylar asked slowly and thickly, as if speaking was difficult, "Have you told anyone I was getting therapy?"

Peter answered him directly and immediately, keeping his eyes down. "I haven't discussed it with anyone other than Emma and Heidi. I expect that Maury knows and it seems likely my mother knows." Peter waited at the ready for an indication of what he was to do.

"Did you have anything to do with this?"

"No. I had nothing to do with the explosion or any danger to you." He glanced up. "I helped set up the appointments with Rita for you. That's all."

Sylar frowned. His voice was strained. "I need you to heal me, like you did for Gabriel after the boxing match. Gabriel was using telepathy when the bomb went off."

"Okay." Peter stepped closer. "Can I touch you?"

"Yes," Sylar said, looking off at the bombsite again, watching the people there and dismissing Peter as a threat.

Peter put his hand to Sylar's forehead and concentrated on soothing the ache. Sylar's eyes fluttered shut for a moment and he sighed in relief. "Take me home, Peter. I need to make sure Heidi and those kids are okay."

Peter nodded and dropped his hand to the other man's forearm. "I talked to her on the phone before I came here." He didn't wait for an answer though, teleporting them into the study.

Sylar shifted shape to his normal form and pulled fully erect. He reached out and laid his open hand on Peter's cheek, a very slow-motion version as if he was going to slap him, but it was just a touch. Peter glanced down at it. Sylar rubbed up and down a little on his cheek and said, "Thank you."

Peter nodded, understanding that this was an apology of sorts, or as close to one as he was likely to get.

A few minutes later, Sylar, Peter and Heidi were gathered around the bar in the kitchen. Heidi was studying Sylar with an intense scrutiny that seemed to bother the man, who kept looking away from her. Peter considered asking her to dial it back, but he decided to leave it be. The boys had been checked on and Peter currently had little Noah in his arms. Heidi had not offered the baby to Sylar, which Peter found very telling. '_Heidi would prefer to be married to Sylar, my ass_,' Peter thought.

Sylar explained what had happened in straightforward terms. "Gabriel left Rita's office. There was a woman next to his car. She was guilty. And the daughter of one of my victims, a few years ago. Gabriel confronted her. She had placed an explosive device on his car. She triggered it while he was trying to read her mind and find out why she was there."

Sylar added, "After I got away from the site, I circled back and watched. I didn't see any sign that she wasn't operating alone, but that seemed like a very sophisticated, powerful explosive. It was military-grade, at least."

"How did she find you, though?" Peter asked.

Sylar shrugged. "I don't think it's a reflection on the therapy. Whoever it was could have bugged my car at any other place. I drive it to Angela's, to Pinehearst and down to the Philadelphia facility. And of course to here. I was shot at Pinehearst before, just a few months ago."

"What?" Peter asked, alarmed.

He shrugged. "Gabriel, that is. He was out in the parking lot and was hit by a sniper about a half dozen times. By the time he got to the gunman's location, he was gone. He had phasing and got away clean through the ground. I thought it was random and maybe it was. Maybe _this_ is. I'm not hard to find. Electronic bugs, precognition, Molly's ability, Micah or one of the cyberpaths tracking my cell phone, a skilled mundane telecommunications hacker could do the same thing - there are too many possibilities to track easily."

Peter stared at him. "How many other attempts have there been on your life?" _That you have not mentioned to me? Or to Heidi, from the expression on her face? At least I'm not alone in being left out of the loop. People trying to kill you is kind of important!_

"No others that I know of." Sylar did not seem all that bothered by the idea, but the fact that they were still dealing with Sylar, not Gabriel, spoke volumes.

Peter huffed and shifted the baby in his arms. He wanted to pace and be angry, or at least more demonstrative about his feelings. It was tough to do with a tiny ball of warm adorableness in your hands though. He calmed down, concerned that his agitation might translate into a wailing baby if he didn't. For now though, Noah was being quiet, eyes wide, and whipping his head back and forth between his mother and father. His little hands gripped Peter's shirt tightly.

Heidi finally spoke, saying, "What are we going to do now?"

All three of them were silent. Sylar finally shrugged. "I suggest you buy a new car."

Heidi started to get wound up at the bland comment. "How- What- I don't want to live like this! We need to find out what caused it and stop it!"

Sylar frowned at her. Peter moved to her and said, "Heidi? Heidi? Here, take the baby. We're going to. I promise." He handed off Noah and turned back to Sylar. He said, "The Company has resources. We'll get the car and have a bomb specialist tell us about the type of explosive, then research it that way. In the meantime, you listed off how they might have known where you were. We can start with asking Micah and the other cyberpaths if they can tell if you were tracked that way. You can find out if anyone else with a location ability like Molly's is out there. I'll put out some feelers for the same through some of my contacts in Rebel."

He looked back at Heidi. "We'll find out. We'll take care of it." To Sylar he said, "Can I talk to you in the other room?"

"Talk to him here," Heidi said commandingly. The corner of Sylar's mouth turned up in a smile. He didn't move to follow Peter, who came back and sighed.

"Okay, fine," Peter said. "Is Gabriel … okay?"

Sylar shrugged. "We cohabitate. That doesn't mean I keep tabs on him."

"Is he still in there?"

Sylar snorted. "Of course. Where else would he be?"

_Well … it isn't like he hadn't been known to be elsewhere on occasion. Someday I need to ask him what was going on with that being-in-Matt-Parkman's-head thing. Because especially in light of multiple personalities … I might need to know what was going on there. _"Okay," Peter said faintly. "I was just checking. I'm worried about him."

Sylar snorted again. Peter frowned. Another long silence descended. The other man was just standing there, watching them and while Peter was tempted to try to prompt him into action, having him use his status as a director to contact the Company and start the ball rolling, it occurred to him that Sylar expressed a lot of things very differently from Gabriel. His current inaction was uncharacteristic. Looked at another way, without Peter trying to read Gabriel's disposition into it, one might think Sylar was dazed and uncertain of how to proceed. Even though Peter had laid out a plan, Sylar was too rattled by the event to process it. He was standing there doing nothing because he was very quietly freaking out.

Peter looked over at Heidi, then let his eyes slide towards Sylar when she looked back at him. Peter said, "Maybe we should just take a moment, sit on the couch, and think this over. We're safe now. We're together."

"Where's Emma?" Sylar asked immediately.

"Let's go sit down and I'll text her. Okay?" He reached out as if to take Sylar's arm, but stopped several inches short, making the gesture a suggestion instead of a demand.

Sylar looked at Heidi, who said, "I'm going to go check on the boys again." She walked out.

Sylar turned and preceded Peter to the couch. When Peter sat, Sylar immediately put his arm over his shoulders and pulled him in, pressing his face briefly to the side of Peter's head, then shifting him a little so he could rest his chin on the top of the empath's head. Peter patted the other man's thigh for a moment, then let his hand rest there. Yes, Sylar was tremendously wound up. He'd been killed, and the random, nonsensical nature of the attack had deeply shaken him. He was acting calm and unfazed, but it was an act. He held Peter to him tightly now that he had a socially acceptable opportunity to do so, even though Peter had never had _Sylar_ hold him like this. It was almost clinging. If he'd been Gabriel, it would have been. Peter relaxed against him and let it happen without drawing attention to it.

Peter dug his cell phone out of his pocket and texted Emma. She was still fine. Peter showed the screen to Sylar, who gave a single nod and went back to resting his chin on Peter's head. It was a hard spot of pressure. Peter didn't complain. He continued texting, explaining to Emma what had happened.

Heidi came back in, holding Noah, and gazed at the two of them. Both looked up at her. Her expression and body language read as jealous. Peter felt embarrassed, aware that he should pull back and yet unwilling to do so since that meant rejecting Sylar. Apparently Sylar thought the same of her features, because he straightened a little and raised one arm in invitation. "Come here, Gabriel's wife," he offered.

She huffed at his strange address to her, but she came over to the couch. "Is that what you think of me as?"

"Sit with me and I'll tell you what I think of you as." He kept his arm lifted and after several seconds, she sat next to him, holding Noah on her lap. Peter resettled himself and went back to texting.

Sylar spoke as he toyed with her hair. "You are also Nathan's wife. You are Peter's sister-in-law. You are the mother of Gabriel's child, and the other two children he has claimed as his own." He lowered his arm around her shoulders and snugged her a little closer. "I hardly know you. I'm curious about what you see me as."

"I'm still figuring that out. You're not Gabriel."

Peter offered, "They're both the same person."

"I am _**not**_," Sylar snapped and Peter felt the surge of anger. He ducked his head and leaned in. He wasn't pushed away. The wrath faded as fast as it had appeared.

Heidi chimed in, saying, "I've seen how accurate your diagnosis has been in the past, Peter."

Peter smiled slightly to himself, where neither of them could see. So Heidi would gang up with _Sylar_ against him. That was funny, as long as it didn't get too serious. He thought about Gabriel telling him that it was important for Sylar and Peter to be together or else it would cause Gabriel problems. Maybe the same was true of Sylar and Heidi. Peter said, "Emma says she wants to come over. Are you two okay with that?"

Heidi said, "You should teleport her in. She shouldn't be going outside right now."

"I agree," Sylar added.

Peter nodded and extricated himself slowly. He looked at the two of them sitting next to each other on the couch and getting more comfortable than the stiff distance he'd seen between them in the kitchen. He smiled. "I'll go get her. It might take me a few minutes."


	284. Accusations

Peter returned with Emma shortly. As before, he teleported into the study of Gabriel and Heidi's house. For a moment, he kissed her, then rested his forehead against hers. Mentally he related to her, _I'm glad you're safe._

_Do you know what happened? Why it happened?_

His description by text and even in person at their apartment had been brief. _I know the events, but not why. Someone's behind it. This isn't the first time. He just never told us about the other. He was shot down outside of Pinehearst by a sniper a few months ago._

_A sniper? What was he doing? What _has_ he been doing to cause this? Anything?_

Peter shut his eyes briefly, thinking of the handful of inadvertent comments Gabriel had made about Company projects. Much of the work was potentially objectionable, but was it bad enough to bring multiple assassins out of the woodwork? _I don't know. Anything he might have been doing, the other directors would have been doing too. Unless it's one of __**them**__ gunning for him, but in that case I can't see why they'd _shoot_ him, or blow him up without backup. They _know_ he can heal._

_Are you saying they don't intend to kill him? They're just hurting him?_

Peter shrugged helplessly. The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him, because it looked more and more sadistic rather than purposeful. That was a human being they were shooting, flesh and blood, with a family, loved ones, hopes, goals, regrets and dreams. Yes, he had flaws, but Peter knew him pretty well and they weren't the sort of flaws that should be dealt with by blowing up his car or blowing out his brains. Even more viscerally, he was Peter's family, his lover, his husband and to some extent, Peter's ward. Peter had, felt, an obligation to protect him, just as he did towards Emma or their unborn child. And, he supposed, Heidi too, more distantly, but he wasn't married to her directly. He didn't share the same kind of bond with her. His emotions were beginning to rage under the surface.

Emma sensed that, as he was never very good at blocking his thoughts when speaking mentally, unless he worked hard at it. Hoping to distract him, she asked, _Should we go see the others and tell them we're here?_

He shook his head, gestured for her to stay put and stepped out in the hall after very quietly opening the door. He pulled back and thought to her, _When I left, it was Sylar and Heidi. They were getting to know each other. I'd like to give them a few more minutes. I need to think about this - about what happened._

_Getting to know each other?_ She asked dubiously, a number of possible meanings for that running through her mind to illustrate her words.

He smiled a little, getting sidetracked by Emma's speculations. _They're just talking, _he told her._ I could hear them when I stuck my head out._ And now faintly through the opened door he heard the thunder of feet coming down the stairs and the loud and careless tones of the boys, calling out about dinner and snacks. _Damn. The kids just came downstairs. Let's go on out_.

They went down the hall to see Heidi heading towards the kitchen, a somewhat-complaining Noah on her hip. When she saw them, she stopped to chat with Emma, who took Noah from her. They went in the kitchen, closely followed by the boys, who were clamoring to relate their food choices to the two women, oblivious that one couldn't hear them and the other was deliberately tuning them out. The last occupant of the room, other than Peter, had stood and was looking uncertainly at the empath, eyes flitting across his face. _That's Gabriel, _Peter thought.

"Hey?" Gabriel asked by way of greeting.

_Definitely him._ "Hey." Peter walked closer. His brows drew together a little, wondering about the other man's recall of what had happened. "Do you know how you got here?"

Gabriel reached over and rubbed his watch. "I … I don't feel all that well. I told Heidi I was going to go upstairs and lie down for a while."

"Okay," Peter said, nodding, recognizing the dodge. This wasn't a time to push on things. For Gabriel, Peter assumed, the accident had happened only moments ago for his internal timeline. He came over and took Gabriel's hands, kissing each one in turn. Then he said, "I'm going to leave for a while. There are some things about what happened I have to find out. Then I'll come back. I'll be back tonight. Don't worry."

Gabriel squeezed his hands. "Peter, it might have been just random. The woman … she was willing to _die_ to hurt me. That says a lot."

Peter laughed a little hollowly. "Yeah, it does. It says that whoever's doing this needs to be stopped - immediately. They're not just ruining _your_ life, even though that's plenty reason enough for me," Peter said with a strange emphasis and a baleful look. With an effort, he cleared his features and went on, "They're using others like pawns, and destroying them as well. You're right that once maybe was random. But this is _twice_. I told you what I'd do if anyone tried to hurt you. I'm going to go find out who's behind this and I'm going to take care of it."

He leaned in and kissed Gabriel on the lips, shutting his eyes briefly. Peter rocked back on his heels when he was done. He smiled a little. "I'll be back for dinner. I don't expect to get very much done tonight. We'll work on it together tomorrow, when you're better. Right now I'm just going to ask some questions."

Gabriel nodded. He looked at Peter oddly for a while, as if not quite sure of what he was seeing. Then smiled a little, rubbed Peter's hands with his thumbs and pulled himself free. He headed up the stairs to go lie down.

* * *

Peter looked down, lips pursed. He put his head in the kitchen long enough to announce his intentions to the ladies, then went down the hall to the study, lost in thought. He shut the door and stood quietly, finally having the leisure to really think about events.

_Noah - Noah shot him a lot last year. But he did that personally. He can be underhanded if he needs to be, but losing the girl to the car bomb isn't his speed. He doesn't have phasing, so the sniper wasn't him either. It wasn't him._

_My mother - No fucking telling. Using proxies fits. Manipulating Gabriel fits. Not having an obvious motive doesn't discount her. Might be._ His mind strayed to what he might do if she was behind this. _I shot Dad, after all. Or tried._

_Maury - I can't see it. Possible, yeah, but I really can't see it. It's too clumsy. He'd set someone else up to take the fall for it. I need to keep that in mind._

_Lilith? No. Or at least, I don't have anything that indicates she's still around and after us. This would be a bizarre way to do it._

_Dad - same answer as Maury, except even harder to detect and impossible to figure out why. Hell, might not even be him from this timeline._

_Fuad? Those other Halo guys? No telling. I have no idea what sort of currents are at work among these new directors. I can't imagine it's anything other than a snake pit or a shark tank. But calling out hits like this on one of the other directors - surely they'd know it was going to go down bad. There's not much point in doing it unless you're actually going to finish him. I suppose it's possible. I don't know enough about what's going on there._

_Past victims coming back to haunt him? I'd believe that for one, but two? And both lethal - no harassment, no confrontations, no police, no missteps. Two lethal attacks, neither leaving witnesses. No, it's not random. It's someone he knows._

Peter straightened and pulled out his phone. He called the director he trusted the most other than Gabriel.

* * *

Micah shut the door behind him, walling off the room full of cables and computers that he'd been immersed in when Peter had called. Peter told him, "Thanks for agreeing to meet me." It had actually taken a surprising degree of arm-twisting.

"You wanna beer?" Micah asked, heading to the fridge.

"No. I quit drinking."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Peter watched as Micah got one out for himself. He was hardly more than a kid, all of sixteen, maybe seventeen. So, yeah, he was getting to be a young man, but still Peter disapproved of watching him drink alcohol. On the other hand, Micah was on the board of directors of a multinational company that controlled or directly influenced nearly half of the connected, organized specials in the world. His day-to-day activities were about as adult as you could get without being sexual.

Peter studied him. Micah looked nervous and Peter hadn't even told him why he wanted to talk to him. He tilted his head slightly, waiting. Micah wasn't asking why he was there either. The young man guzzled his beer with alacrity. The realization that he was looking right at someone complicit in the assassination attempt on Gabriel, perhaps even directly responsible, overrode nearly every brain cell Peter had. Micah's beer bottle fell to the floor and bounced on the linoleum, what little was left in it splashing across the floor. Micah found himself suddenly against the wall, Peter's hand at his throat, fingers digging into his flesh with enhanced strength.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now," Peter hissed.

Micah yelped, "I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"

"You know who did," Peter said with certainty.

Micah hesitated for a second and Peter could see the confirmation flash across his features, but an instant later he blurted out, "Okay, I did it. It was me."

Peter blinked and his grip slackened in surprise. Micah wasn't outright lying either time, but … why would he … "It's someone you care about." Peter ran down a quick mental list of the people Micah associated with, and while Peter could see Abigail trying to arrange for Peter's death … and maybe, just _maybe_ he could see her striking at Gabriel in order to get at Peter … that just seemed really contrived. Abigail … she wasn't that _sneaky_. "Didn't you break up with Abigail last month?"

Micah kicked him right in the nuts and then struggled free, shoving the momentarily dazed Peter to the floor. Then Micah stood there, undecided. He stared at Peter for a few seconds, then seemed to snap out of it. "Sorry man," he said and tried to run for it, but by now regeneration had damped down Peter's pain. With telekinesis he sloppily snagged one of the young man's feet, but it was enough to trip him. Once down, Micah didn't bother to try to get away. He just cringed and waited for it.

Peter crossed the room to stand over him. "Why didn't you kick me while I was down, huh?"

Micah chewed his lip, hands still raised in front of his face defensively, still lying partly curled on the floor. He said nothing.

Peter said, "You could have killed me with the right kick to the head. Broke my neck maybe. That would have bought you enough time to get out." Not that such would have stopped Peter from tracking him down, but the point was that Micah wasn't bloodthirsty. He never had been. It made the idea of him being responsible for the attacks on Gabriel even more implausible.

Peter squatted next to him, trying to read his mind. Micah's power had a strong mental component and he'd become at least passingly familiar with telepathy in the board meetings. Peter could only catch snatches and fragments of thoughts, like parsing random lines of code, but it was enough to get the gist of it. Micah wouldn't fight him, but he would download his entire consciousness into an electronic form and take up residence in the grid before he would let Peter take from him the identity of the one he was protecting.

Peter didn't need to pull the information out of Micah's brain. _It's someone who needs to be protected. It's someone he loves. It's someone he'd die for. It's not Abigail. It's probably who he left Abby over. Female, then. It's not one of those other cyberpaths because I can't get to them anymore than I could get to him if he downloaded._ Peter's eyes tracked back and forth. Micah stayed still, waiting for the Petrelli heir to do something. _What female do I know who he's interacted with who has motivation to do this to Gabriel?_

There was only one candidate and once Peter saw it, everything made sense. He hadn't imagined he'd find out so quickly, but now that he had, he stood and teleported.


	285. Eggs Wielding Sledgehammers

Peter teleported into Mohinder's apartment. He'd been to it a couple times. He'd helped the Indian move furniture in once and another time came by to check on Molly just as a friendly visit. Mohinder was not his favorite person in the world. They had a complicated past. But the same could be said of Peter and Gabriel and Peter had managed to get past that.

When Peter appeared, Molly was sitting on the couch staring at the screen of her cell phone, looking horrified. Of course Micah was going to tell her Peter was on his way, and with his ability, he could do it as quickly as thinking about it. Mohinder was sitting near her, looking at her face, having yet to find out why she was upset. They were both draped with ribbon and a bright red swath of fabric they were apparently jointly working on making into a garment. A skeleton (of all things) stood nearby on a stand, loosely covered with a clothing pattern.

Molly wasted no time in reacting. She shrieked, leaped to her feet and tried to run.

"No! Molly!" Peter said as he surged forward. He tripped her just as he'd done to Micah but with a lot more accuracy and finesse. He even managed to keep her from hitting the floor too hard. He closed to her quickly.

"Peter!" Mohinder tried to leap to his feet but was momentarily foiled by the cloth. He threw it off and stood, circling the couch to be closer to the pair.

Molly rolled onto her back and tried to kick Peter away. He took the blows - they smarted but that was all - and knocked her feet out of the way. He grabbed her shoulders, snarling, "Stop it, Molly!" He spared a glance for her guardian, "Stay out of this, Mohinder."

"What are you doing?" Mohinder said, still shocked by the sudden attack. At the moment, all Peter was doing was holding Molly down.

To answer that question and ask his own, Peter turned to the girl of barely thirteen years. "Molly, did you send assassins to kill Gabriel Gray?"

"No! No, of course not!" She lied through her teeth.

_Kids._ Peter huffed._ Not that adults are any better._ "Molly, tell the truth." She said nothing. "Answer me. Did you send assassins to kill Gabriel Gray?"

"Yes."

"How many times?"

"Three. And one I talked to last week, but they …" Her voice trailed off and she shrank against the floor before Peter's baleful glare.

Mohinder said in disbelief, "Molly?"

She turned to look at him and tears began to well up in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Mohinder. I- I love you, but, but … Mom and Dad … he killed them!"

"That doesn't mean he deserves to die," Peter ground out.

Her head whipped around to face him. "Yes, _it does! _That's exactly why he deserves to die! Or at least to suffer! He killed people - an I for an I! They aren't _out there_ anymore. I can't find them; they don't exist. _**He**_ did that! I felt them disappear!"

"What role did Micah have in this?"

"It's not his fault! He told me not to do it!" she said hotly. "All he did was help me get in touch with them on the internet and give me their phone numbers." Which explained the ambiguous truth of both 'I didn't do it' and 'I did it' from Micah.

Mohinder was still trying to process that this innocent little girl was sending killers out after Sylar, of all people. "Molly, you've been … sending out hit men?"

_Some guardian you are_, ran through Peter's mind.

"What did you think I was doing on the computer all the time?"

Mohinder shrugged helplessly. "I-I don't know. Chatting with your friends, doing homework … I don't know, looking at pornography maybe. You said you needed privacy."

Molly's expression gave her opinion of the adults in whose care she had been entrusted. Speaking of which, she squirmed under Peter's hands and said, "Let me off the floor, right now!"

"Heh," he laughed a little hollowly. "No. I need to find out who set you up to do this. That's what I came here for."

She looked confused. "Who …? What? Nobody did."

"I need to see." Peter glanced over at Mohinder. He wasn't quite asking permission to use deep-level telepathy on her, but Molly was, supposedly, the Indian's ward. Also, more pressingly, Peter would be distracted while he was reading her mind. The only way this would work was if Mohinder allowed it. (Of course Peter could always teleport her somewhere private, but at the moment he was of the opinion she was being used just like Micah had been. Peter wanted to get to the bottom of this. Then that person would die. Maury Parkman was looking really good for it, even if Peter couldn't fathom _why_, or that he was that stupid.)

Mohinder knew, more-or-less, what Peter was asking. He gave a small shrug. He was seriously questioning his parenting skills. He knew Molly had _issues_, but …

Peter turned to face her and tilted his head slightly. She had zilch in the way of mental defenses. Her ability left her open to others in a way similar to how his own interfered with being able to block. He sifted through her mind easily, but what he saw wasn't what he wanted to find. He'd wanted to find that she was a blameless young woman who had been victimized by someone else. He wanted to find that someone hardly older than a little girl had been manipulated, encouraged and prodded to commit murder. But no. It had all been her idea, start to finish. She was the agent in her life, the motivating force, the captain of her own destiny.

Peter sagged, breathing harder. He dug deeper. She made a mewling sound of pain and bit her lip. Surely, Peter thought, there was something else. He looked to find how this had started. She'd snapped when Mohinder told her of how Sylar had tortured him just a few months ago for his allegiance to Lilith (and he had many reasons for being loyal to her) and how Peter had stopped the killer with a kiss, and how Peter and Gabriel were together now. The idea of Sylar having found love was despicable to her. It inflamed her. She'd been imagining that he was out there suffering for what he'd done, but now to find out he was having fun adventures, making a difference and had _lovers?_ Even a family of his own now? It was too much for her.

That very day she'd started trying to find people who would strike Sylar down and remind him of the debts he had to pay. Abilities were divine, she'd heard. There was nothing wrong with her shifting some of Gabriel Gray's karma from his next life to this one - especially as, if rumor was true, he was immortal and would never have another life. It was her duty to do this. It was her right. It was her responsibility. While Molly was sorry the latest attempt had killed the young woman with the car bomb, it was a price both she and the young woman had been willing to pay. Besides, her next attempt wouldn't target Gabriel directly, so it wouldn't run that risk.

Peter's lip curled with rage. It was _her_. _She_ killed him. On purpose, knowing what she was going to do, with no inducement from anyone else. Not even Mohinder carried any guilt for this, for he honestly had had no idea that his words had triggered her traumas so deeply. The mental image of her only real guardian being tortured at Sylar's hands had struck too close to home, evoking the memory of Sylar's murder of her parents. And while Mohinder had taken his forgiveness by Peter as a sort of grace and an unexpected, unearned generosity, she'd seen it as frightening and weak. It had destroyed her respect for Mohinder and set her on a course she didn't intend to deviate from until Sylar was a wreck. And if she couldn't get him, she already had some ideas for his 'family.' The man she'd talked to just last week had sounded willing to explore that sort of thing.

Peter snapped her neck with a surge of wrath.

Mohinder flipped out. He grabbed Peter and flung him bodily away from the girl, yelling, "Molly!" in an anguished tone. He spent a bare second looking her over, but there was nothing to be done. Peter had nearly torn her head off. Mohinder raised his head, teeth bared and looked at where Peter was getting to his feet. The Indian charged him, but Peter was gone before Mohinder had taken a single step.

* * *

Peter caught his balance in his apartment, then winced and pulled out a shard of wood from his thigh. Whatever wooden furniture he'd been thrown onto had collapsed under his weight. This particular shattered piece of wood had stabbed into him. _Molly. What the hell did I do?_

He was still feeling the white hot rage at the idea that she was not only turning people after Gabriel, but planning to send the next one against his wife, or his children. After all, Sylar had come to Molly's house when she was younger than Monty, with the intent of finding and killing _her_. The moral lesson she'd learn from that was that children were valid targets. She'd been manipulated by the Company time after time, bounced between a series of guardians, threatened with death several times, and the more loving those guardians were, the less able they were to protect her. Was it any wonder she'd decided to take matters into her own hands?

Peter, too, had taken matters into his own hands and with similarly disastrous effects. He looked at his hands in dismay. _I've got to fix this … No. No. I've got to calm down. I don't think this is something I can fix. Not alone. That's how I made this … mistake._ He took deep breaths and tried to get his head straight_. Help. I need to get help. There are people who will help. _He swallowed and teleported to the study in Heidi and Gabriel's house. He walked out into the hallway unsteadily and slowly, supporting himself against the wall. Strangely, he seemed to be getting weaker with each step as the reality of what he'd done crashed around him. It seemed surreal that he'd been gone less than twenty minutes.

Gabriel walked out to the top of the stairs at the same time Peter came out in the sitting area under it. Peter looked up at him, a broken expression on the empath's face. Gabriel's features were confused. He held in his hand his cell phone.


	286. Regrets, I've Had a Few

Gabriel watched as Peter made his way slowly across the foyer. The Italian looked stunned, but given the text message on Gabe's phone, he could understand that. It said, _Mohinder says Peter killed Molly_. That was confusing, to say the least. Was it an accident? If so, why wasn't Peter still with her, taking her to where she could be fixed? The way Peter was carrying himself, Gabe was pretty sure it hadn't been an accident. For Gabriel, there was a strange familiarity to the way Peter was walking, like he was lost in a fog, not sure who he was and why he'd done what he'd done. It looked like the way Gabriel felt sometimes, how he'd staggered away from kills years ago, before he'd hardened up inside and learned to walk off with the cocky swagger of a cat - '_I meant to do that_.'

Simon came out of the kitchen, eating a banana and offered Peter a greeting. Peter straightened and tried to act less beaten down. He returned the greeting and headed on to the base of the stairs. Simon asked him, "What's that on the back of your leg?"

Peter responded without looking back, "I fell and cut myself. I'm going to have your father look at it." Both lies.

"Oh," said the boy and went back in the kitchen. Gabriel watched as Peter started up the stairs, moving slowly, holding the banister for support. It lent an air of truth to the 'I fell and cut myself', but it also reinforced his previous careful manner of moving, like he was afraid he might, at any point, lose control of himself. And so he moved slowly and carefully, checking and rechecking each motion. Yeah - Gabriel knew the drill. He'd never expected _Peter_ to be doing it.

Gabriel's phone buzzed. He glanced at the ID and answered it. "Yeah."

'_It's me, Micah. Did you get my text?'_

"Yep."

'_What … is he coming back for me?'_ The young man sounded alarmed and a little out of breath.

"Nope." Gabriel watched Peter coming up the stairs one step at a time. He assumed Micah was talking about Peter.

'_What do I do? I'm sorry man, really I am. I should have told you. I should have done something.'_

_Peter goes out to find out who's behind the attacks on me, Molly's dead and you're telling me you knew about it. Huh. _He wasn't sure how he felt about that. What Gabriel said though was, "What's done is done. What you need to do _**now**_ is get a hold of Mohinder right away. Immediately. Don't let him do anything rash." He thought about Maury Parkman's words to him after Peter had left him. It was good advice, so he repeated it. "Stay with him. Don't let him be alone." And speaking of the old telepath, "I'll send Maury Parkman to you. He's on the payroll to deal with this sort of thing."

'_What about Molly?'_

"Call in a crew for cleanup. Ask Noah to handle it because you'll be busy with Mohinder." Noah was the North American district manager. Molly was a valuable asset. He'd probably want to take a hand personally in recovering her.

'_Cleanup? But we're going to bring her back, right?'_

"We _can_, but we need to get control of the situation first." _I need to know what the hell is going on._

'_Where's Peter?'_

Peter had just reached the top of the stairs. Gabriel turned to him. "I have him." He reached out to touch Peter's cheek. "I'll take care of Peter." Peter smiled just a little and shut his eyes, unworried by Gabriel's words. He swayed on his feet. Gabriel put one arm around him for support.

'_Shouldn't I have Rachel or someone go get Claire?'_

"No. _I_ need to understand what happened. _You_ need to get hold of Mohinder. _Maury_ needs to help you and _Noah_ needs to take care of Molly for now. That's what we need to do _now_ to get her back. As Angela says, we all have our roles to play. You're a director now. This is the job. We do the job."

'_Okay.'_

"Do you understand what you need to do?"

'_Yes.'_

"Good. I'll call you back in one hour."

'_Okay.'_ Micah disconnected.

Gabriel hung up and put both arms now around Peter, who was leaning into him as if exhausted, or overwhelmed. Simon and Monty came out of the kitchen and started up the stairs as quickly as they could under their parent's eyes. Gabriel immediately adjusted Peter to a less intimate embrace. The ladies, with Emma still carrying Noah, had followed the boys out. Gabriel looked down at them. "Peter's been hurt a little. It's no big deal," he said, enunciating the last sentence carefully, looking right at Heidi. "I'm going to take him in the bedroom and use the first aid kit," he continued to lie deliberately for the benefit of the two boys now going down the hall to the playroom. He waved the phone. "I'll call you."

Heidi nodded, understanding, and turned to relate what he really meant to Emma. Peter signed something to her first, which even Gabriel understood the first part, which was, 'I'm okay.' The second part was equally short. Emma turned to Heidi then to read her lips.

"Bedroom," Gabriel murmured. Peter nodded and walked in with him. Once the door was shut, Gabriel said, "Can you teleport us to the apartment?"

Peter nodded again and a moment later, they were there. Peter sagged away from him and walked to the couch, falling into the middle of it. He put his elbows on his knees and held his face with both hands. He murmured indistinctly to himself, with the occasional "don't know" and "I can't" being heard.

Gabriel looked at his lover for a long moment, then turned on his phone and dialed. "Hey, Maury?"

'_Yeah?'_

"I need you to make sure Mohinder Suresh doesn't go on some crazed rampage. Micah should be with him, or with him soon. Molly Walker's been killed. I have been told Peter did it." Peter nodded from the couch, not looking up. Gabriel sighed and thought, _Great. Still trying to figure out how that happened. Or rather, why_.

Maury had the same question. _'What happened?'_

"I don't know. I'm with Peter. I haven't had a chance to talk to him." He hesitated for a moment, then added, "Buy me an hour, okay?"

'_Sure.'_

Gabriel hung up the phone. He walked over in front of Peter and knelt, looking into the other man's face. "Can you tell me?"

Peter's face drew inward in distress. "I ki- It was her. She did it. No one else. Mohinder told her about … things with Lilith, including you hurting him. So she decided she'd torture you in return." _And the next item on the agenda was to kill your family._ But Peter left that part out. It had been what sent Peter over the edge. He couldn't imagine that piece of information doing good things for Gabriel's rationality. The former killer had been remarkably stoic about attacks on _himself_. Peter did not think that attitude would continue if his loved ones were threatened.

"And so you _**killed her?**_" Gabriel asked in disbelief. "You killed a little girl, Peter? What- what were you thinking? You killed _a little girl!_" Peter pulled away, looking aside, hurt showing on his face. Gabriel stood and walked away, touching his forehead in confusion. "You- She's, what, twelve, thirteen years old? About the same age as Simon. Kids that age don't have the same sort of moral compass as adults. They see things black and white, no grey! Everything's _simple _to them. They don't understand how complicated things can get."

"Gabriel, that doesn't matter-"

"**The hell it doesn't matter!**" Gabriel almost shouted, getting worked up. "She's a little kid, Peter! I deserve some torturing, okay? I'll let her kill me a dozen times if it makes her feel better!" He paced. "It wouldn't be the first fucking time I've let someone take revenge on me!"

"Did you not notice that people other than you were getting killed?"

"Yes, I noticed that, Peter," he said with exasperation. "But once you found out it was her, you know, there had to be options other than _**killing**_ her! She doesn't even have an ability that's dangerous!" He waved his arms around in an abortive attempt to express his upset. "What ever happened to 'I'm just going to ask some questions'?"

"Nobody gets to kill you, all right?" Peter surged to his feet and got in Gabriel's face. "I don't care who! Little girls, the Dalai Lama, your worst enemy, or Noah Bennet - _**no one**_ gets to hurt you."

The taller man blinked. Then he blinked a few more times. After a long beat he said, "Okay," very calmly, because it suddenly clicked in his head what might be going on. So Peter's triggers were … rather different from his own, but the reaction held too many parallels otherwise. Gabriel was seeing a distorted image of himself in the early times, confused about his ability and the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious effects it had on his conduct. Peter wheeled and threw himself back on the couch, running his hand through his hair in agitation. After a long pause, Gabriel decided to change the subject to give himself a chance to think about this. He asked, "So what happened to the back of your leg?"

"Mohinder threw me on some furniture. It broke." Peter looked off to the side and wiped at one eye.

"Is Mohinder okay?"

"Yeah. Except for … being upset. I didn't touch him. He wasn't involved." He hung his head, drawing into himself.

"Was Micah? Involved?"

"He helped her pass along messages and communicate. That's it." Peter sniffed.

"But he knew, after the sniper …" Gabriel looked off into the middle distance speculatively, thinking about Micah's input on the improved security system they were implementing. "Hm."

"I didn't do anything to Micah either," Peter said roughly.

Gabriel put his hand to his forehead and looked at Peter for nearly a minute. "Peter …" He let his hand slide down the side of his face and then dropped it. Peter was hunched inward, breathing hard and irregularly. He looked miserable. Gabriel walked over and sat next to him, putting his arm around Peter's shoulders and drawing him in. As he'd expected, Peter began to cry. "I don't know why … I don't understand … I shouldn't have … why did I …?"

"Shh," Gabriel told him. This wasn't the time for reasoned explanations, even if he had any. He put his cheek lightly against the top of Peter's head and held him. It would take a little while for the hysteria to pass, he knew. _And then the rationalizations will start_, he thought.


	287. An Honest Conversation

Gabriel sat on the couch rubbing his face. He could hear the water running in the bathroom sink as Peter washed up. The man came out a few minutes later, still looking a bit shell-shocked and weepy. Peter leaned against the frame of the door betwixt bedroom and living room. He crossed his arms over his chest and gazed steadily at Gabriel.

For his part, Gabriel leaned back on the couch. He smiled a little. It was the same posture Peter had used what now seemed like a couple lifetimes ago, when Gabe had just merged the identifying portion of his personality with that which had been carrying on as Nathan. He had been wearing Nathan's form and sitting here in the apartment while Peter looked at him much as he was doing now, with not too dissimilar an expression.

Gabriel asked, "Are you wondering what's going on in my head?"

"A little. Why?"

"You have that look." One corner of Peter's mouth pulled up, then relaxed and he let his eyes drift to the floor. Gabriel offered his thoughts, saying, "I was thinking about how you didn't run out on me when you thought I … might not be Nathan. I'd come to you for help, threw myself in your arms practically begging for it and you gave it. Even when it turned out the answer wasn't something you wanted to hear, when it turned out it wasn't me - I mean, Nathan - you didn't give up on him. Not until I ran out on my own." He smiled a little. "Even then, you came after me."

Peter was silent, which was probably wise. Gabriel didn't want to talk about that period. Maybe sometime, like Rita suggested, if he could get Peter to sit and listen, he could say more about it. This wasn't a good time though. Peter's shoulders were burdened enough at the moment with his own issues. Gabe looked over at his partner and asked, "How do you feel?"

"Disjointed. Like that wasn't really me who did it. I think I've been reading too many books about dissociation lately. I'm starting to see it all over the place."

Gabriel chuckled. "Maybe so."

Peter sighed. "Can you bring her back?"

"Definitely." Gabriel answered exactly what Peter asked: if it was _possible_ to restore Molly to life.

Peter was quiet for a moment before his eyes narrowed and he looked back at Gabriel. "Are you going to?"

_Ah, he's getting quicker about that sort of thing_. "Should I?"

Peter straightened and outrage flushed his face for a moment, before he caught himself, no doubt realizing just how hypocritical that was under the circumstances. "Yes, I think you should," he said firmly.

"You're not just going to kill her again, are you?"

Peter's lips thinned. It was a fair question, if harsh. He took a deep breath and looked away, thinking. "I didn't intend …" His brows drew together in dismay and he looked off to the side, turning his face further from Gabriel. "I don't know why I did it to start with. So … I don't want to, but if I don't understand …" Peter winced like he had a sudden pain. He grimaced.

"It's okay, Peter," Gabriel said.

Peter looked like he nearly snapped something at his lover, but he bit back the words before they got out. "Yes, you should bring her back. No, I won't kill her again. The only reason I did was because …" He frowned and stared at the floor. He looked to be considering his next words carefully. Peter relaxed a little as he came to a decision. He rubbed his eyes. "Listen … as Maury would say, I'm off my nut here, so I'm just going to throw myself on you and hope for the best, okay?"

Gabriel chortled at the image that presented to him. "Okay, Peter. I'm going to assume you meant something more figurative than literal, there."

"Yes. I do." He sighed. "Molly … she said she sent three assassins against you. You've only mentioned two." Peter studied Gabriel's face, but the other man gave no reaction. The third was not news.

After a beat though, Gabriel nodded and shared, "The security dragnet made a couple suspects more than a month ago. They were in the employ of the brother of Sue Landers, one of Sylar's victims. We did some very quiet interrogation on them. Their goal was just to gather information on me. We went to Molly to locate Sue's brother." He smiled thinly. "Of course he could not be located."

Peter nodded at that piece of information. "That means he's still out there, pointed at you."

Gabriel shrugged, raising his brows in a 'yeah, so?' gesture.

Peter went on, "She also said she'd talked to another just recently. He was going to strike at your family."

Gabriel carefully clamped down on his response to that. He blinked very slowly a couple times and otherwise did not move a muscle, letting the visceral reaction wash through him and drain away. "And so you killed her?" he said in a voice stripped of emotion. _She's still a child. She has good reason to hate me. I took her family. It makes sense that she'd want to take mine._

"Yeah."

"Did she … had she put anything into motion on that front?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. I was in her head. I saw what she'd done."

Gabriel nodded once.

Nervously, Peter asked, "Are you still going to bring her back?"

"I never said I would."

Peter covered his eyes with one hand, bit his lip and banged his head lightly against the wall a few times.

Gabriel watched that display. If he didn't restore her, then Peter would have a murder on his conscience forever. If he did, then Peter would have a terrible accident on his conscience. There was a big difference. He could make, or try to make, amends for the latter. The former was unforgivable because there was no one to grant him forgiveness. He weighed the continuing risk she would pose to himself and his family versus the definite effect her death would have on Peter.

"Don't get worked up, Peter. Yes, I'll have her brought back." _If only I could bring my victims back. Hey, I wonder if I anesthetized someone, took their ability, and then shot them up with Claire's blood, if that would work? Wait … that's kind of sick. Not that that's ever stopped me in the past … I'm sure someone out there would let me do that for money, or favors or something. _He yanked his thoughts back to Peter's issues.

"Thank you," Peter said quietly.

A long silence descended between them. Gabriel thought about the passage of time. _I need to call Heidi soon. Then Maury. Then Micah. Then probably Noah, to get his account of things and make sure Molly gets locked up and isolated for as long as it takes for us to work through this. _But first there were some things he wanted to broach with Peter, to move his thoughts from the realm of speculation to either fact or disproved theory. He finally broke the silence, saying, "You said you didn't know why you killed her?"

"Yeah, sort of. I know _why_ I killed her. It just doesn't make sense," Peter said, a little exasperated. "If _that_ makes any sense."

_More than you know_. "Peter … a while back you asked me what the hunger felt like." He suddenly had Peter's full, intent attention. "I didn't really answer you then." His fingertips rubbed across the surface of the couch and he suddenly found that irresistible - anything other than talking about this. A moment later he dragged his attention back to the conversation. _No cowardice; no avoidance. Peter deserves … __**needs**__ to know. _"It's not a feeling, really. It's an urge. It's a pattern of thinking. It's something you need and want and crave like a junkie needing a fix. It keeps prodding me in the back of my head, telling me what I need to do to get that hit."

Gabriel pulled his hand off the couch and put both hands palms-down on his knees. It was tough to stay focused here. His mind kept trying to skitter away from the topic. This wasn't something he was comfortable talking to Peter about, but his sessions with the counselor had showed him he could talk about his real feelings and sometimes - just sometimes - nothing bad happened. "I need … knowledge, possession, ownership, control maybe - I don't know, it's like it takes facets of my personality and magnifies them. I didn't used to be possessive, but then I got Samson's power and now I am. Or maybe that was the rats, I don't know, but now I'm territorial." He whispered, "_You …_" Peter straightened, but was still only listening; he was a rapt, if singular, audience.

Gabriel continued in a more normal tone, "You. You're getting it from a different source, a different ability, so maybe that's the difference. Or maybe it's that you're a different person than I am. Or maybe it's both. But this bit about doing things and not understanding why you thought that was a good idea - I've felt that." He smirked. "It's like falling all over yourself in front of someone attractive. Your hormones take over and all of a sudden your brains leak out your ears. Or being confronted with a snake or a mouse or a spider or heights or whatever it is a person is terrified of and all of a sudden they're having an irrational reaction to it."

Gabriel tilted his head inquisitively at Peter. "So you're confronted with a threat to your family and you react immediately, all out of proportion to the situation - just like, once upon a time, I couldn't- I _didn't_ stop myself from taking what I wanted … whenever it was in front of me and I thought I could get away with it." He smiled bitterly. "I guess that's not so long ago, after all."

He waited while Peter processed that. Finally the empath said, "How do you control it? Because you've got control."

Gabriel continued the sour expression. "Tell that to Rupesh. You know how shaky my control is, Peter."

That wasn't the answer Peter wanted to hear. He shook his head. "With yours, I thought we could manage it. I thought that it was something you maybe just had to do every … I don't know, six months, a year?" He frowned. "Are you telling me it's … now? All the time?"

Gabriel smiled and then chuckled. "Peter, I have considered how to sate my hunger and get away with it, actively, in the last _half hour_. Hardly a day goes by that it doesn't cross my mind. It _**is**_ managed, because I'm not leaving a trail of bodies behind me." He was silent, leaning forward, caressing his forehead with one hand. "I don't know. Maybe you could come to therapy with me and we could talk it out or something. I have triggers. You do too, I'm sure. Maybe we locate these triggers and …" He trailed off. _I'm going to therapy to find out how not to be a killer. How strange that maybe I need to figure out how to address it in someone else before I can sort myself out._

"And what?" Peter prompted.

Gabriel shrugged. "We work on it. Funny thing - one of the issues I mentioned to Rita was how I wanted you to be the good guy." One side of Gabriel's mouth turned up. "I wanted you to be the guy who didn't make mistakes, who wasn't tempted, who didn't give in to his base side, was always forgiving, always perfect. I didn't want you to have any of those failings I hate in myself." He exhaled deeply. "I think that's because … if you didn't have them, then … then I was right to hate that part of myself." He stared at the floor, turning that thought around in his mind like it was a puzzle piece. It _**fit**_. He could see that. He wasn't sure he wanted it to fit though.


	288. Insomnia, Part 1

Gabriel couldn't sleep. Every time he shut his eyes, instead of seeing darkness, he saw light - a piercing, clear white light - and heard a high-pitched ringing. He was pretty sure he was just hearing the usual tone of electricity, inescapable in the modern world, but that knowledge didn't help. The back of his brain kept making connections between that noise and the one he'd sensed after the explosion. He stared up at the ceiling and instead tried to listen to Heidi's steady breathing. She wasn't asleep either, which made him feel guilty. He was keeping her up, but he didn't want to leave because then she'd be alone. At least this way, he knew she was safe.

He worried about her and about the children. With Peter he didn't worry. Peter was … more durable than he looked, more resilient than mere regeneration allowed. Even with whatever had happened today that forced him into murdering a little girl, Peter hadn't freaked out, run away or … well, yes, he had gotten a little hysterical there, but he'd bottled it up until an appropriate moment. He hadn't run back to his apartment and painted the closet walls with '_Forgive me Father, for I have sinned_,' for example.

With Heidi and the kids, Gabriel was painfully aware of how fragile they were. He'd taken too many lives himself, waited outside apprehensively for his early kills and calmly for the later ones. He'd been amused, once upon a time, at how people built up these illusions of safety around themselves. Then he'd walk in, shred that to tatters, taking a life and an ability in broad daylight. He breathed harder and twisted onto his side.

He shut his eyes, trying not to think about unknown, unquantifiable risks to his family. His mind immediately reverted back to the traumatic event of the day. He rubbed his fingertips together, trying to dispel the memory of numbness from when his skin had been too damaged to convey sensation, but his body not so disrupted that the muscles were beyond his control. The taste of his own blood was too familiar to him. It turned his stomach. He swallowed roughly and buried his face in his pillow, breathing in scents other than burned hair and nitrates. His feet shifted uneasily. A moment later he started to pull his knees up, curling inward.

Heidi's hand slipped over his shoulder, halting him. "Can't sleep?"

"No." _Obviously_. At least she hadn't asked if he was okay. He was about to fall apart.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

_No_. He considered. _Maybe I **should**__._ "I guess so." He waited a beat, then added, "I can't think of anything to say about it though." _It hurts; I hurt. Life's shitty that way. Thank God for regeneration, eh?_

"You died today, didn't you?"

"Yes." He uncurled a little, tilting his body but not fully rolling onto his back. She was behind him.

"What's it like? Dying, for you?"

_Painful_. But that probably wasn't what she was asking. She'd been dead herself, after all, so she knew the basics. "What do you mean?"

"Did you see a light that you just don't go towards?"

He chuckled bitterly. _There was light all right._ "No, not really." He rolled on his back and put his hand over hers. "What makes you think I'd go to heaven anyway?"

She was quiet for a long moment. Finally she sighed. "You … might not be a state of Grace, but … I think God would understand."

_God always struck me as a bit of a bastard - that whole killing-his-own-son thing hits a little too close to home_. "I've wondered if God was one of us – someone with an ability, like telepathy, or like yours, able to see people's hearts."

"He …," Heidi began, then changed tacks. "Well, okay. I don't agree. I think to be God, He'd have to be … He'd have to be above that, above a … a mortal existence."

"Like Lilith was?" Gabriel asked. Heidi was quiet as she thought that over, so Gabriel went on, "After I killed Matt Parkman, he came and talked to me. He was dead, but he was still talking to me, in my head." Another possibility occurred to him. "At least, I think it was Matt. It might have been a dissociated personality, I suppose. No, wait. He went and talked to Maury too. So that had to be … him, sort of."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know."

"So … like, if you held a, a séance, would he answer?"

He chuckled again. She was completely serious though. "I have no idea. I think it might not be all that wise for me to try to attract his attention." The idea of being haunted by Matt's ghost was not a comfortable one. He thought about the other ghosts that haunted him. "I wonder, sometimes … who was running my body when I was stuck in Matt's?"

"I thought you said it was just you with mental programming."

"I know. I did say that. And maybe that's what it was – I had 'Sylar' stuck in Matt's head and the rest of me thinking I was Nathan in my body." He sighed. "It's not like Matt couldn't tear me apart. He did it more than the once. But what if that was Nathan?"

She waited a beat, looking at him in the darkness. "I don't think it was."

"How would you tell? Back then, when you didn't have your ability?"

"Why do you think it was him?"

"Because I … there was something there, when I got back in my body and it stayed there until last winter. I thought it was just the programming and maybe it was, but how can you tell? How can a person know these things for sure?"

She wrapped her hand around his bicep and rubbed lightly. "Gabriel," she said and caught his attention. She rarely called him that name. "There are some things in life we have to take on faith. There are some things where we have to decide what we want to believe and then _believe_. We need hope."

He tensed a little, eyes flicking back and forth in recollection of when she'd said something very similar, to Nathan, years ago. He looked back to her. "He was lying to you."

"What?"

"When you told Nathan that. He'd run into a woman in Las Vegas and …" _Uh, should I be saying this? I don't think so._ He shut up.

"I know. And I knew then. I wanted the lie. He gave me the lie. That's the point I'm trying to make. Sometimes people need to believe things that aren't necessarily true."

He looked at her in the dark, blinking slowly several times. She leaned in and kissed him, then stroked his face gently. She said very quietly, "I believe in a kind and loving God who will forgive me, and who will forgive _you_. I believe that Nathan has passed away and I hope he's in heaven. He died fighting for what," her voice caught for a moment and she looked down. "He died fighting for what he believed in."

He swallowed and looked away, thinking about Nathan's dying thoughts. The memory was linked to the last time he'd recalled it: Rupesh; his hands, stained with blood; viscera. He jerked up to sitting, pawing at his chest. It was dry, despite the phantom memory of his own hot life-blood gushing down it. He swallowed convulsively and panted, struggling to breathe more deeply and stave off the retch he knew was coming. A moment later he rose, staggered into the bathroom and vomited in the toilet. He hunched over the bowl, mind lost in a miserable haze of mixed emotions and swirling thoughts.

Heidi bent next to him with a wet towel and mopped his brow. The cool cloth was soothing, but far more was her thought and care in providing it. He took it from her, wiped his mouth, flushed the toilet with telekinesis and hugged her to him. "I wish I could change the past," he whispered hoarsely.

She stroked his hair, carding her fingers through it. "I know," she answered, rocking him slowly. She crooned softly, "_You are forgiven._ You know that, right?"

After a few moments, he nodded brokenly. Relief washed through him and he didn't know why. They were just words. Nothing had changed. People out there still hated him for what he'd done and … He felt better anyway. "I think I can sleep now."

She kissed his forehead and they rose. He brushed his teeth, then joined her. He slept.


	289. Insomnia, Part 2

Peter couldn't sleep. Every time he shut his eyes, instead of seeing darkness, he saw Molly's face, twisted in fear. And then Mohinder's, in rage. And finally Gabriel's, in disbelief, confusion and anger, and it upset Peter to realize that last hurt the most deeply. Not because he thought he shouldn't be affected by Gabe's opinion of him, but because he thought his husband's reaction should matter less than Molly's _life_.

He'd let people down. He'd disappointed. He'd strayed from how he was supposed and expected to act. He'd hurt people. He'd killed, intentionally, and while that wasn't a first for him … he was having trouble wrapping his head around it given the tender age of his victim. He sighed. He was just getting more and more wound up. He wanted to get up and pace or fidget or something. He was pretty sure Emma was asleep.

He slipped out of bed and pulled on a shirt. He dug around in the dark, heedless of making noise – one of the advantages of Emma's condition. He pulled on sweats and slipped into his shoes, then used Gabriel's shape-shifting trick to make his clothes more appropriate. He teleported out.

He smiled a little at the familiar Deveaux rooftop and walked over next to the decorative concrete fixture. He leaned on the wall beside it, listening to the sounds of the city. Not a moment later, another sound interrupted – his cell phone, telling him he had a text message. He pulled it out and frowned. It was from Emma. Apparently his departure had been noticed immediately. It said merely, "20," which was a part of the ten-code system used by EMS and related agencies to ask someone's location.

He sighed and started to tap in where he was. It wasn't simple to explain why he'd picked _here_ to be, because he didn't know for sure why he kept coming back to this place. He could list reasons - Charles, Claude, a more innocent time, strong mentors, people who had faith in him - but he wasn't sure. Instead of trying to explain, he typed, "Im ok" and left it at that. Would she understand that he just wanted some time alone to think and reflect? Her response back was "?icu", which he took as an inquiry of when he'd be back. He told her an hour and stuffed the phone in his pocket.

He looked out over the cityscape. He wanted to be alone. Everyone but perhaps Gabriel was safe, at the moment, from what he'd gleaned from Molly's mind. There was one assassin unaccounted for, but Molly had been sure that only her most recent contact was willing to target the uninvolved. The others had been specific – they wanted to hurt Gabriel, not the people around him. Even among the vengeance-crazed, there were standards.

He rubbed his hands together. The blood on them was metaphorical. Molly hadn't shed a drop – all internal bleeding. His mind tried to catalogue the likely injuries that had resulted in her death; he refused to dwell on it. He looked at his hands again, flexing the fingers slowly, balling them into fists. He wanted to hit someone for this, but there was no one guilty but himself.

He could recall his thoughts and the flow of events from when he was in Mohinder's apartment. Every step led to the next in flawless sequence. Somewhere along the way there needed to be an interruption. He _wanted_ there to be an interruption. Somewhere he wanted it to have stopped being _him_ and become someone else, like possession, or a foreign impulse, but he was pretty sure that had been him all the way through, disjointed and distorted as the experience was to him. He still felt the fire within himself: to defend, to protect, whatever the cost. He rubbed a hand across his face. His sense of perspective was just _gone_. It was insane.

_Is this what it's like for Gabriel? Why he obsesses about control and says he was responsible for everything he did? It was __**me**__ who did it._ _God, that's the same thing he says even!_ He ran a hand through his hair._ I'd been wanting to get him to admit he lost control or it wasn't his fault. I still don't think it … if it wasn't his fault, then it wasn't __**mine**__._ A grin curled the corner of Peter's mouth as he contemplated the logic problem. He couldn't figure out how he was responsible for what he'd done without holding his lover to the fire as well.

"Gah!" he spat out, turning to face the building, putting his back to the city lights.

He tried to let go of his responsibility, but it was a more difficult burden to put down than to pick up. The alternative was saying that Gabriel was guilty of each and every murder he'd committed. _Maybe he is. Sort of. But I know the person I am and that person doesn't … wouldn't … then why did I? _He grimaced in frustration. He tried to dig into himself and find the answers, but it was like there was nothing there. He chewed at his lip.

His mind ran in circles. No matter how much he tried to make sense of himself, it didn't work. He knew he had to get past this, deal with it, and move on, but he couldn't. He'd taken a step too far. Time passed in fruitless brooding until his cell phone buzzed again with a text message. He looked at the face of it, realizing it had been an hour and a half already since her last message. He teleported home immediately.

He walked in the living room to see Emma turn to face him, pocketing her phone. She crossed her arms loosely and frowned at him in concern. He gave her a half smile.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'm okay." _No, I'm not, but what else can I really say?_

She shook her head, still frowning. He didn't think she believed him for a second. She uncrossed her arms and began to sign. "You are not alone in this, Peter." Now he frowned at her, not appreciating the implication that he was dragging others into his problems. She looked up for a moment, then at him and continued, "Six years ago, I was supposed to keep a little boy safe - my nephew, Christopher. I didn't pay attention. He became tangled in … he drowned. If I had paid more attention in class; if I had taken better care of myself; if I'd noticed what he was doing earlier … he would have lived."

Peter interrupted at the first opportunity. "That was an accident! What I did was on purpose!"

"_**I'm not talking about you!**_" she signed so stridently that he felt the emotion and stilled his hands, watching her words. "I'm talking about _**me!**_" she continued a little more normally. She huffed and went on, "I think I killed him." His hands twitched up and she made a rapid, angry sign of negation. "I don't want to know what _you_ think! _**I**_ think I killed him. He would be alive today if I had done what I was supposed to do, what I knew I should have done. He was my nephew; I loved him; he had done nothing to deserve or explain why I failed him. But I did."

She was still for a long moment. "For six years, Peter, I could not forgive myself. I would not let myself help anyone else because I had failed someone. You've seen it too, I know, because you've told me - that there is a point for EMTs, where eventually they make a mistake in the field and someone dies or has their life ruined by that mistake. We lose a lot of EMTs because they can't continue being an EMT after that, always afraid they're going to make another mistake, and so they never help anyone again.

"Six years for me, Peter, six years." She sighed. "Now _this_ part is about you - I don't know how long it will take you to forgive yourself, but you're not 'okay' right now. I don't know what you're going through exactly, but I know you're not 'through' it yet." She walked over to him and put her hands on his cheeks.

He remembered putting the tiara on her head. "You're very special," he said, lips forming the words but only a whisper of sound coming out. He'd stood by and listened while Gabriel explained to Heidi and Emma everything that had happened, including how Molly's next attacks would have been at the rest of them rather than Gabriel specifically. He'd also told them that Peter's ability predisposed him towards certain reactions to those kinds of threats and that Peter had not known that until put into the situation. Gabriel had left it at that - an implication of it being an accident, or unintentional, at least, but without denying responsibility or placing blame. It was a fine line to walk.

She understood what he was saying and gave him a sad smile. "Will you come back to bed?" she asked verbally.

He nodded. Sleep was no easier to find, but at least he managed to dispel the faces for a while.


	290. Sandwiched

Emma shifted in the bed and opened her eyes. Peter was lying on his side facing her. She blinked. He was propped up on one elbow, staring down at one of the psychology books, but he didn't look to be reading it. His eyes were fixed on the same spot on the page. She swallowed and asked, "Did you sleep at all last night?"

He shook his head, not looking up. His eyes began to track slowly, like he was reading now. She reached out and patted his shoulder, then got out of bed to take care of the morning necessities.

By noon, she was starting to get worried. Peter was still in bed and while yes, he'd gotten up to wander into the bathroom and she'd managed to lure him out for breakfast, he was showing every sign of remaining in bed for the rest of the day. She weighed her options: patient, impatient, or indifferent? She wanted to be sensitive and caring … but she didn't think that was going to do any good. Being the opposite was worse.

She opened her laptop and composed a text to Gabriel. She'd texted him before, using her phone, but it had required so much explanation of what her abbreviations meant that she'd downloaded a program that allowed her to type a full message on her laptop and send it via text. Now she wrote: _Peter's in bed and won't get up. I'm worried. What should I do? _Maybe Gabriel could help get Peter back on his feet.

It took a long time for the reply to come in. She'd cleaned up from a lunch Peter had declined by then. She read it: _tell him i need his help everones leaving and i shouldnt be alone_. She looked at it and emailed a copy of the program she used on her computer to Gabriel. He probably wasn't at his laptop, but he'd benefit from it when he was. Then she read the message again. _Yeah, that will work._

She went to the door of the bedroom and looked in at Peter, who glanced up at her with a sigh. He knew she was unhappy with him. He was just too depressed to do anything about it. "Peter," she said, holding up the phone, "Gabriel says he needs your help. Everyone's leaving. He wants us to come over and be with him."

Peter looked down and shifted a little. "Right now?"

"Yes, right now. He just texted me."

"He should have called me."

"Well, he didn't." She was well aware of his ability to detect lies.

Peter rubbed at his forehead as if pained. "Where's Heidi?"

"He didn't say."

He rolled over on his back, flopping a little over-dramatically for a grown man, but hey, it was Peter. "Why now? This is your time - _our _time."

She frowned. He was almost whining and although she couldn't hear the tone of voice, she could read his expression clearly enough. Also, this wasn't much in the way of 'our' time if he was going to spend it bedridden and moping. "Get dressed, teleport me over there and we can find out. Weekends include family time. You and I will still be together."

Peter grumped, saying something where she couldn't see his face. She doubted she wanted to know what it was. The important thing was that he was laboriously rising from the bed and then heading over to get more properly dressed. She walked over and snagged his book off the bed. It was the one about addictive behavior.

* * *

They teleported into the study after Emma sent Gabriel a quick text telling him to expect them. Peter pointed at his ear and signed, "I hear him. He's talking to Noah."

They went down the hall to see Gabriel and Noah, both on the floor lying on their stomachs. A carrot, a ring of plastic keys and a couple blocks lay between them, but at the moment the pair were playing peek-a-boo. The man looked up at them and smirked, then went back to entertaining the baby.

"He needs me, huh?" Peter signed to her, but his expression had softened, touched by the scene. He'd have his own child in six months or so. And it was always deeply pleasing to Peter to see someone like _Gabriel_, with all his bloody history, being a good and loving father.

At about that point, Noah's attention wandered and he grabbed the carrot, waving it for a moment and saying gibberish, then chewing on it. The vegetable had already been scored a few times by what few teeth he had. Emma watched as Gabriel made an exaggerated face and said, "Oh my gosh! The carrot! You're right! The carrot is wonderful. The carrot is awesome. I must have some of that carrot too! Ohm nom nom…" He crawled forward a little and snapped his teeth at the child, who hit him squarely in the eye with the vegetable-turned-chew-toy. "Ow." Gabriel pulled back, rubbing the offended orb.

Peter snorted a laugh despite himself.

Gabriel rose gracefully to his feet. "He seems to be coming along well at self-defense."

"I see that," Emma said. Peter was silent, watching the baby with a bemused expression. Gabriel walked around the back of the couch and leaned against it, studying his husband. Peter finally looked back at him and Gabriel looked to Emma.

"Thank you," Gabriel told her.

She asked, "Where did everyone go?"

Gabriel sighed. "Heidi had some political work thing and the boys are on a play date with the Harrisons. They went to an amusement park."

"Ah. He didn't sleep last night," she said, indicating Peter.

Peter turned so she could see his put-upon expression. "I can miss a night of sleep. I'm not going to _die_ from it."

She frowned at him.

Gabriel offered, "I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night too." He turned to Peter. "Join me on the couch?"

Peter continued to sulk. "I don't want to talk about it," he said defensively. "There's nothing to talk about."

"I didn't say anything about talking." He tilted his head. "Peter, you're doing a lot of heavy lifting in there, up in your head. If what's happening to you is anything like what happened to me, you're rearranging; maybe changing who you are. I want to do everything I can to make sure that whatever new life you put together for yourself, I'm still part of it." He indicated Emma and made it a sweeping gesture to include Noah and perhaps others, "That _we_ are still part of it."

Peter shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Why do you think I'd leave? I'm not going to abandon anyone!" Emma tightened her lips. The pouty teenager act was very unlike Peter. She didn't know what to do with it.

Gabriel seemed much less phased by the behavior, having Nathan's memories to call on. He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you might think that if you don't have anyone to protect, you won't hurt anyone else."

Peter's brows drew together slightly in a troubled expression. Emma slid her hand over his shoulder, looking between the two men to follow the conversation.

"It doesn't matter," Gabriel said. "You promised you wouldn't run when things got tough. You've never been prone to that. Now come join me on the couch. I want to help you and I'm not much of a talker. But before last Christmas, you were messed up and I tried to help you then and it worked. I want to do that again."

"Do what?" Peter asked suspiciously.

Gabriel walked around the couch and sat at one end, arranging the pillows behind him so he could recline lengthwise on it. He gave Noah a careful look, but the baby had moved on to chewing on the plastic keys. Gabe ignored Peter pointedly, which had the mostly-expected result of luring him in. Peter came around the couch and started to sit. "No, no," Gabriel interrupted him. "Sit here, right in front of me, and lean back."

"Against you?"

"Yes," Gabriel said as if that was patently obvious. Emma cupped one elbow in one hand and rubbed her lip with the fingers of the other. She'd thought about this as well - just climbing in bed with Peter and snuggling up to him - but she didn't have the patience for it. She wasn't willing to go to him. Peter was usually the one reaching out between them and she was the one hiding in her shell. She watched as Gabriel smoothly reversed the roles and learned. Gabriel settled Peter in and then leaned back, trying to get Peter to lie back as well. This had the added benefit that both of them were facing her so she didn't have to look back and forth to see their words.

Peter was clearly having trouble relaxing. "This is stupid. What about Emma?"

"Well, she can sit in front of you and we can be a sandwich if she wants."

Peter's mouth opened, but his lips didn't form any words. Instead there were a few bright sparks of noise. Emma interpreted it was making a choking noise or sputtering. Gabriel colored profusely and said, "Ah … I suppose it doesn't matter that I meant that innocently?"

Peter rubbed his forehead and looked up through his hand at Emma, who raised a single, intrigued eyebrow. She'd long wondered what Gabriel's feelings were in that direction, and even if the slip was unintentional, he wasn't going to any great lengths to indicate it was an unpleasant suggestion. Peter, though, lurched forward, starting to get up. Gabriel grabbed him and pulled him back firmly. "Hey!" Peter called out, starting to struggle and jabbing him hard in the ribs with his elbow.

"Stop it! You said I could hold you down," Gabriel got out quickly.

Peter froze. His face took on a mien torn between confused and angry. Between clenched teeth he said, "That's not … That's _different_."

"Is it?" Gabriel raised himself slowly to nuzzle the side of Peter's head, murmuring, "Come on, sweetie. I need you. I need to know there's a reason why I'm alive. I want to hear your song. I want to feel you against me. We aren't going to do anything else. I just don't want to be alone. _Please?_" He paused for a moment, then added, "I'm _begging_."

At that, Peter stopped resisting and lay back against him, shaking his head and closing his eyes. Gabriel wrapped his arms snugly around him and looked up at Emma. "Thank you," he mouthed to her once more.

She nodded, surprised and amazed that Gabriel had gotten Peter to take comfort from him at all. They had a long history and she supposed there were things Peter might put up with from Gabriel that he wouldn't from her. It made her uncomfortable and a little jealous, even if _she_ had called Gabriel for help. It seemed stupid to be upset about him succeeding. Catching the man's eye, she asked, "Do you want anything out of the kitchen?"

Gabriel shook his head, kissing the side of Peter's head again, then reaching up to smooth the hair back from tickling his face. "No, I'm fine. Do you mind if I turn on the stereo for some music? We'll just sit here and listen. I'd appreciate it if you'd stay."

She nodded, smiling. The comment about the kitchen had been because she was planning to remove herself from the scene. It was good to hear she was included. "Music is fine. I'll be right back though. I'm going to get some water."

Gabriel nodded and settled in. Peter's eyes remained shut. She watched him for a long moment more, as he finally sighed and let his head loll back slowly on Gabe's shoulder. Emma shared a smile with Gabriel and set Peter's book down on the back of the couch before heading off.


	291. The Road to Shambala

Gabriel held Peter to him with one arm and reached out with the other towards the stereo set on the shelves built-in under the stairs. He waggled his fingers, brows furrowed in concentration. A few moments later, music began to emerge.

Peter opened his eyes and raised his head. Gabriel tightened his grip a tiny bit, enough to get the point across: _You're not going anywhere_. Peter didn't try, but instead asked, "Shambala? Is that Three Dog Night?"

"Yeah, guess so."

"Are you trying to say something there?" The lyrics floated over them: _Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain, with the rain in Shambala._

"Not particularly. Heidi has this huge collection of music. She's organized it into playlists. I have no idea what this one is, or if it has a theme or anything. It's whatever it was set to last time she played it." He paused. "Want me to skip it to the next song?"

"No." Peter smiled a little, murmuring in time with the music, "_Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind, on the road to Shambala_."

"You're very sweet." _And you sing off-tune. At best._

"Hm," Peter said as an ambiguous reply. He leaned back and wriggled a little. "You have a very bony chest."

Gabriel snorted. _At least I have the grace to keep my less-than-flattering remarks to myself. Besides, I have plenty of muscle! Just because I'm not as- Fine. Here: _"I could shape-shift into someone more … fleshy … if you'd like?" _Take that_. He said it with the intention of bothering Peter. It worked.

"No," Peter said quickly. "This is great." He turned his head and gave Gabriel a conciliatory peck on the cheek. Gabriel turned to kiss him in reply, but Peter had already turned away. _Darn it. Not fast enough_. Emma had walked back in. Peter raised his hands and signed something to her about seeing something beautiful.

Gabriel was fairly sure Peter wasn't talking about the music, and from her delighted smile, he became certain. _Come on, Peter! You're lying in __**my**__ arms and you're telling __**her **__she's pretty? Sheesh. You're shameless! _He sighed and looked away. _And I adore you anyway._ He glanced back a moment later, lowering his chin slightly and looking at Emma under his heavy brows. An urge to toy with Peter and make a point of who the man belonged to ran through his head. Gabriel gave himself a little shake and looked away again. _Stop that._

"You okay?" Peter said softly, stroking Gabriel's leg.

_Of course he can feel the jealousy, dammit._ "Yes, I'm fine." Gabriel exhaled and gave Peter a nudge with the side of his head. "I'm fine."

"Okay," Peter said cooperatively, still petting his husband's thigh. The touch soothed Gabriel.

Emma had lowered herself to the floor, rolling Noah onto his back and tickling his tummy. He was ecstatic about it, grabbing at her fingers and burbling happily. For the next several songs, she played with the baby and Gabriel looked on contentedly. Peter had settled back and shut his eyes again. Gabriel smoothed Peter's hair away from his face. It was nice to have his lover against him like this – just touching and sensual and comfortable. He listened to Peter's life force as the man wound down and dropped into sleep. _Yeah, I knew __**that**__ was coming_. Gabriel smiled at the transition as Peter gradually sagged against him. It gave him a warm rush of pleasure.

Noah grew cranky and tired of playing on the floor, so Emma picked him up and took him to a seat. She pulled it around where she could hold him and still see Gabe's face.

Gabriel gave a slight jerk of his chin to indicate Peter, whose head had tilted to the side facing the back of the couch. He was snoring softly. "He's asleep," he mouthed.

She nodded and pointed at her forehead, raising her brows slightly.

Gabriel nodded and took the conversation mental. _Other than dealing with the non-stop drama that seems to plague my life and Peter's, how are things?_

She smiled. _Yes, you do seem to have an exciting life. How many times have you died this year?_ She tried to convey it as humor, but her true concern was easy to detect behind it.

_Hm, let's see … France … then that guy out in the alley, but I'm not sure I really died there. And then I electrocuted myself going after Halo … and … hm, few more times I lost consciousness, but I don't think I actually died. Then that sniper in March. And this … yeah, this last time, yesterday. I think that's it._

_All in less than half a year?_

_Well … yeah._

_Was last year this bad?_

_Um … no. Last year was good. There were just those times when Noah shot me. And that time I lost flight and fell. And … froze to death on that island a whole lot. And, uh …_ his mind shied away from mentioning what he'd done to Peter which was far more traumatizing to Gabriel than 'mere' death. _I'm probably missing something._

_O-kay_. She looked between him and Peter. Gabriel was sexy, yeah, but she couldn't understand how Peter could stay with someone whose life was in so much turmoil. On the other hand, she knew Peter's wasn't exactly smooth sailing either and she was planning on sticking with him. She was aware that Gabriel could see her thoughts. _I'm sorry_. It gave her a new insight on the depth of commitment that was being asked of her by Peter's offer of marriage.

_Having second thoughts?_

_Not really. It's just … more than I was expecting._

_It's more than most people have to deal with, yes._

Her smile thinned. _I thought all I had to deal with was the … you and Heidi. And you and Peter. I hadn't really thought about everything else. I guess it's like he has a really dangerous job._

_You're not going through with this just because of the baby, right?_

She frowned crossly at him. Her thoughts were harsher than her expression. _I'm not that stupid! Of course not! I'm doing it because I love him and I want to be with him!_

_Okay, okay. Sorry. Really – I am. I just don't want to see Peter get hurt._

She looked at her fiancé, thinking about how violently he'd reacted to protect Gabriel's family. She wondered about what lengths Gabriel would go to in order to protect his own.

Gabriel told her, _I am __**not**__ Peter. I will __**not**__ hurt you. No matter what you do to him_. There were some limits to that, like if she didn't actually marry Peter, or became sadistic or abusive, but he didn't see a need to go into those conditions. _Ah. I see you've dodged me. I was trying to ask how things were with __**your**__ life. Why no answer?_

_I'm worried about the residency. And the baby. So is Peter. So is Angela. She tells me not to do it._

Gabriel let his eyes fall from Emma's face to look at Noah, who was, at the moment, making a vaguely dissatisfied face and tugging at the jumper he was wearing. _Angela tells you not to go back into the residency program because she's afraid you'll lose the baby?_

_I guess so._

Angela could foretell the future. Emma knew that as well. _What, exactly, did she say?_ Something important like a miscarriage she should have told them. Gabriel hoped the Petrelli matron agreed on the importance of that. But … Angela was very hard to judge. Maybe she was giving a warning because without a warning there would be a miscarriage.

Emma shrugged. _She says it's an unnecessary burden and that I won't be able to work as a doctor afterwards anyway because I'll be taking care of the baby. But that doesn't matter, because Peter has said he would quit his job and be a house husband._

_He did?_ Gabriel twitched a little in surprise. He didn't know why – it wasn't an outlandish idea, but Peter had only babysat a couple times and as much as yeah, he liked kids, he didn't seem much into the whole 'baby thing.' And what would he do with himself if he didn't have a job?

_Yes, he did._ She studied him. _You're not going to give me Angela's '__**attitude**__' about her son taking care of a baby full time, are you?_

_No, no. Of course not._ It was a little less masculine than he'd been thinking, he supposed. Really, he wasn't sure what he'd been thinking. He glanced down at Peter's slumbering form.

Emma projected, _He's already lost his seniority at work, just this spring. He's thinking he'll cut down to one shift a week so he can keep some hours – continuity of service – and he'll stay home the rest of the time._ She noticed Gabriel still looked dubious. _Do you seriously think I am more equipped to take care of a baby than he is? It's not like either of us have ever had a child of our own!_

_But …_ You're a woman. But he didn't project that to her, even if he clearly thought it. _Okay, yeah. I … he'll make a great father._ The desire to tease Peter mercilessly about this rose up. He tried to squash it, because that sort of thing would not go over well with anyone in his life at the moment. Except maybe Angela. The idea that he was intellectually on the same side as _Angela_ made it suddenly much easier to banish that urge.

Her thoughts still a little confrontational and defensive, Emma asked, _Who raised __**you**__, when you were a child?_

He looked up at her suddenly, eyes steely for a moment before he blinked and cleared that expression. Obviously, there were things about his past Peter hadn't told her, which was nice to know. Actually, he reflected, there were things about his past he hadn't told _Peter_. He supposed they were in his file, but probably not in any great detail and what it meant to **him** had certainly never been chronicled. He'd only recently tried to speak of it and only once, to Rita. He sighed and looked away. "My mother, mostly." He caught himself, not sure why he'd spoken that aloud. He went back to telepathy. _My mother … the woman … Virginia Gray._

_I don't understand._ She was confused about his qualifiers. Most people didn't speak of their mother as 'the woman.'

He sighed again. _I don't know who my birth mother was. I was adopted by Virginia and Martin Gray when I was four or five. Virginia … she raised me. Martin left when I was a teenager. She raised me alone after that. I never …_ He swallowed. _I … stayed. To help her. She wasn't mentally all there. I …_ He didn't go on.

_You cared for her and made sure she was okay._

Well, it was more complex than that. Or maybe it wasn't. _Yeah._

_That's very noble of you._

He blinked at her, unable to really process that. The idea that his treatment of the mother he'd killed, the mother he'd come to regard as smothering, abusive in her neglect and willful blindness, and mentally unstable to boot – he'd been noble? He blinked several more times and managed a feeble sort of smile. _Yeah, okay._

Emma could see the emotional reaction she'd engendered, so after a few moments of silence she offered, _I was raised by a single mom as well, but my whole childhood. I never knew my father. Or any, like, stable father figure._

Grateful for a change of subject, Gabriel nodded. _Really?_


	292. Soap Opera Dreams

Peter was dreaming and projecting, but he wasn't aware of that. In his dream, he was trying to use dream-walking. He was thinking it would make sense of his situation - tell him who he should go to, what he should do. He was in the cockpit of a jet, as far as he could tell, and he activated the ability by pulling back on the throttle. The world outside rushed past him in a swirl of scenes, a special effect stolen from a dozen science fiction shows, mashed together in his head.

Everything greyed into a blur and now he was standing in a vast, empty warehouse, or perhaps a hangar. A future version of him was walking across the floor towards him. It was taking a very long time for the man to get to him. Present Peter had plenty of time to watch him approach. Peter knew his future self could tell him what he was supposed to do. He waited impatiently for enlightenment. Sylar teleported between them unexpectedly and the future version of Peter bared his teeth, pointing past Sylar at Peter in accusation. Peter had called his future self here, but he'd forgotten he was still with Sylar. Sylar would kill him. Peter had unwittingly baited a trap for … himself.

Sure enough, Sylar raised his hand and slashed, cutting the future Peter neatly across the face, following the line of the scar and gruesomely slicing his head in two. Part of it fell to the floor, the rest of his body fell the opposite way. Sylar looked over his shoulder at Peter and smirked.

Peter stared at the body, horrified. Sylar turned and walked towards him, saying, "You don't need him, Peter. You've got me! I'll be everyone you need." Peter wasn't sure if that was true or not, but he knew if he turned the killer away, he'd be the next body cooling on the floor.

A female voice sounded distantly in his consciousness, but he didn't pay attention to it. _Should you wake him?_

A male voice responded, _No … I'm … not sure. He needs the sleep._

Peter went to embrace Sylar, his horror fading abruptly. The touch of their bodies kindled lust, but it flared out as soon as it happened. The scene changed. Peter was now standing outside a Company holding cell, looking inside as Elle played with Molly. Peter's breathing sped up. He kept expecting Elle to shock Molly cruelly. Anticipation crawled along his skin, but the torture didn't quite happen. Elle kept toying with Molly, shooting taunting looks at Peter through the glass, aware that Peter could do nothing to stop her.

Mohinder was at his side. Peter noticed him suddenly and blurted out, "Shouldn't you be protecting Molly?"

The scientist cocked his head curiously. "Isn't that your job, Peter? You're the one who put her in there, after all."

"I was wrong. We have to get her out!" Peter's voice rose in alarm. He knew if they didn't save Molly soon, Elle would hurt her.

"But we're not done experimenting on her. You see these dials?" And now there was a bank of controls and indicators under the cell window. Peter looked at them dumbly. Mohinder continued in his cultured voice, "Every time Molly fails to find someone for us, you turn this knob here and Elle shocks her. It's really quite fascinating!"

"I won't do it!" Peter refused, knowing he was the one who had been standing here turning the knob before.

"Oh, Peter. Why are you fighting it? We're experimenting on you as much as we are on her."

"I won't help you hurt people!"

"But you already have, Peter," Mohinder insisted. "You hurt _her!_" he said, speaking of Molly.

Gabriel showed up behind the Indian. "What are you doing here, Peter? I thought you didn't work for the Company."

"I don't!" He really didn't know what he was doing here at all. It was embarrassing to be caught here by Gabriel, for some reason.

"But then why are you torturing Molly?"

"I'm not! Elle is!" Peter pointed in the cell.

Gabriel looked, his expression changing quickly. "Elle's alive?" Wonder and hope chased across his features.

"I thought you were in love with **me?**" Peter questioned, hurt flooding through him, his previous embarrassment gone.

Gabriel scoffed. "You could never offer me what she does. She hurts me. You won't. I'm leaving you, Peter. I loved her first anyway." Gabriel opened the door and went in the cell, leaving Peter feeling sucker punched. He stared at the dials. All he had to do was turn this one, and Elle would shock whomever she was with. He looked up to see her and Gabriel embracing. Gabriel looked over at him and gave Peter that same smirk Sylar had earlier. Peter looked back at the dial.

_I think you should stop this_, Emma's mental voice said, like a narrator just off-screen.

"Turn it," Mohinder encouraged, cackling madly. In slow motion, Peter's hand extended for the knob.

_Yes, I agree. Okay Peter, that's enough. Peter? Sweetie?_

Someone was shaking him. Peter jerked awake, jumping back from Gabriel's face just inches from his own. _Sylar._ He jerked back again. Past the other man he saw Emma looking concerned, holding Noah. Peter blinked, processing that he'd been asleep and that was Gabriel, not Sylar. He smiled a little. "Oh. Was I … ah … dreaming?"

"Yes," Gabriel said. He leaned forward slowly, telegraphing his motion and kissed Peter on the cheek. "I love you. Go back to sleep. That didn't seem to be a good dream."

"No. It … it wasn't." Peter exhaled, mentally reviewing what had happened. "You saw that?"

"Yes. It's okay." Gabriel shifted Peter back against him, holding him securely.

Peter blinked heavily and let himself fall back under Morpheus' sway. "Thank God for you," he murmured.

* * *

"Huh," was all Gabriel said to it. He turned back to Emma and continued their interrupted conversation. _Does he dream much with you?_

_Only when he's tired or stressed. I wake him up and he stops. It's like snoring. His dreams are like soap operas. They're very weird._

_My dreams are horror shows. I'd take 'weird' any day. So your mom raised you alone?_

_Yes, but I have a brother, Christopher's father. He's five years younger than I am. It was about the same time he was born that my mother came home to find one of her friends, who was baby-sitting us, was sketching me nude … I don't think anything bad had happened, but she packed us up and we moved to Chicago. She didn't talk to anyone from what she calls 'her old life' ever again. I think there must have been other things going on, but she would never talk about it. I don't remember the details, but I remember I had a pretty lonely life until I was a teenager. We moved a few more times and finally ended up here, back in New York. You'd never know my mother used to be … _Emma shrugged.

_Used to be what?_

_A wild partier, I guess. A free-love hippy._ Emma's thoughts judged her mother's former life and found it degenerate. _That's what my mother always said about it. That she'd made mistakes and I shouldn't make the same ones. She really likes Peter. I … I haven't told her about … you. _She meant the non-standard marriage arrangement Emma had found herself in, but she couldn't, or at least didn't, put that into mental words.

Gabriel spared a moment's attention for Peter. He truly seemed to have gone back to sleep. He looked back at Emma, intentionally misunderstanding what she'd thought to him. _What about … me?_

_What? I meant you and Heidi._

_Yes, me and Heidi. But what about me and you and Peter?_

Emma pursed her lips and shifted Noah to the middle of her lap, as directly between herself and Gabriel as possible. _That's … what about us?_

Gabriel grinned. She wouldn't be evading so much if there was nothing there. _Peter has told me you're attracted to me. You've … pretty much said the same thing, but never directly. I want to know what I'm dealing with. Or maybe I just want an ego-stroke. Are you into me?_

_Um. Yeah_, she finally admitted.

He kept grinning. _Cool._

She snorted. _Are you into me?_

_No, not really. I'm kind of sorry to say that._ Honestly he'd hardly ever looked twice at her - at least not _that _way. She was a great friend, nice to talk to, and he knew Peter adored her, but did Gabe find her sexy? Not really. She was blonde, sure, but that was Nathan's type, not Gabriel's. _I'm … into empaths, I think._ Heidi, for all her hard-nosed practicality, read him really well. That was what had cemented his attraction to her. And she'd been sort of grandfathered in to start with. He certainly wasn't going to dump her like Nathan had. She deserved better. He'd give her better.

_Huh._ Emma looked at him blankly for a moment, not sure what to make of him not returning her interest.

_I'm into Peter though. So … you know …_

So that didn't exactly rule things out. _Ah. Yes. Have you talked to Heidi about it?_

_No. Have you?_

_Nnn… sort of. But not in a serious way._

_Oh._ The ladies have been talking about that though?_ I didn't think she'd be all that interested in allowing it. What do you think?_

_I think she's pretty happy to have me and Peter around to lean on you when you make her unhappy._

_I make her unhappy? What?_ And what did this have to do with a threesome?

Emma projected, _You know, when you were spending so much time away. Or when you don't let her know what your schedule is going to be or what's going on with you. We're all talking to each other now, or at least we have been for the past month. She appreciates that. She credits our … marriage … thing._

_Hrm._ He considered that. _That doesn't say she'd give permission for anything. I know I wouldn't, if it were the other way._

_The other way? You mean you, Peter and her?_

_Yes. _He tensed and shifted Peter's weight uncomfortably, causing the other man to stir a little, stretch and then settle back in. Just thinking about it made Gabriel restless.

_Does Peter like her that way?_

_No, I don't think so. I think the … I know this sounds positively insane under the circumstances, but I think the whole brother-in-law thing bothers him. I'm not sure though. I know it sure as hell wouldn't stop Heidi._ **Didn't **stop Heidi, he amended to himself. He shifted again, considering his latent hostility about her being with that jerk back when she'd thought Nathan was dead.

Peter grunted and muttered, "Would you stop whatever it is you're doing? Being upset … something …" Peter realized something _was_ upsetting his lover and he sat up, blinking himself awake suddenly. "Wait, are you alright?" He looked at Gabriel in concern, twisting to look back at him, brows drawing together.

"Yes, Peter, I am perfectly fine. I'm sorry I woke you." He kicked himself mentally for spoiling Peter's rest.

Peter looked between Gabriel and Emma. "What were you discussing that was getting you worked up?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes dramatically. "We were discussing threesomes, Peter. I told you - I'm fine. Can you just go back to sleep?"

Peter snorted at Gabriel's obvious sarcasm. It was a preposterous topic for them to have been discussing. "No, I'm not going back to sleep." Peter shifted up and away, rolling his neck and popping it. He stopped and blinked in perplexity. "Wait … _threesomes_? That wasn't a lie!"


	293. Peter doesn't quite blow up

Peter's eyes swept over Gabriel's face, then Emma's. That blinding rage he'd felt only the day before came back full force. Everything was tinged with red. He wanted to kill them, or hurt them, or at the very least yell. But he knew it was entirely uncalled for. They were both clothed. No one was doing anything. No one _had_ done anything and he was absolutely sure of it because he'd been lying right on top of Gabriel the whole time. The man hadn't even been aroused, as far as Peter could tell. Peter's breath came hard and fast anyway as he stared between them. He shook - barely, just barely, keeping control of himself.

Gabriel had opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated at Peter's reaction. He reached out and laid his hand on Peter's arm, only to have Peter jerk away from him with a hiss.

"Don't you touch me!" The shaking became more pronounced. Months ago, Peter had not cared who was with who as long as he was with someone he loved and they loved him in return. He could remember trying to convince Emma that being with Gabriel did not diminish his love for her. He'd been frustrated by her narrow-mindedness. The hypocrisy of his complete turnaround would have confused him more if it wasn't coming on the heels of an even worse atrocity with Molly.

Peter knew where this was coming from. It wasn't rational and it wasn't necessarily _him_. He gritted his teeth and started taking deeper, deliberate breaths. _I can do this. I can do this. __**Calm down**__._ A brief image of him being the bomb that would level New York floated behind his eyes. Controlling himself was critical. If he didn't, he'd hurt people, starting with the ones he cared about.

Gabriel carefully pulled his leg out from between Peter and the back of the couch, turning so both his feet were on the floor. Peter gave him a long, upset look, but what he was feeling was grateful that Gabriel did not look hurt by Peter's unwarrantedly vicious delivery. Nor was he moving further away. He seemed to understand. _Thank God for that._ Peter had a weird twist in his gut at the realization that more and more he was throwing himself on divinity, asking and begging for help. Or as he was at the moment, expressing gratitude for what help and strength he found around him. So much of what was happening to him seemed beyond his ability to affect.

Emma stood and said, "I'm going to get Noah a snack." Gabriel nodded to her, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Peter, who nodded as well when he realized she was waiting for his response. He relaxed suddenly. Somehow, her waiting for **his** input drained some of his anger like lancing a blister. It still hurt - he still ached to act, but the heat and the immediacy was gone from it. The trembling passed. She moved off to the kitchen.

Peter pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. "Oh my God," he muttered. "I don't know what's wrong with me." Actually he supposed he _did_, but knowing didn't help.

Long seconds ticked by. Finally Gabriel responded, "Is this because of what we were discussing, or your dream, or something else?"

"I … I don't know what it is. Don't be with her. Ever. At all. I'll kill one of you. I think. I don't know." He looked at Gabriel, eyes steely even if his words were confused.

The other man met his gaze briefly, then looked down pointedly. "What do you want from me, Peter?"

Peter looked away, blinking and shaking his head slowly like he was trying to throw off the effects of a drug. It's how he felt. "Exactly what I'm getting from you. This isn't your problem."

Gabriel made a small choked noise. It was Gabriel's problem too whether Peter wanted it to be or not. Peter's eyes snapped to him and Gabriel immediately flipped back to looking … subordinate. Peter could see the other man had adopted a body language and expression to be conciliatory and avoid aggravating whatever Peter was going through.

Peter heaved a deeper breath and scooted down the couch to the other man, putting his arms around him and embracing. "Thank you. You're being very, very patient with me." Peter rested his forehead on Gabe's shoulder, trying to let the last of the insane emotion go.

"Peter, it's hardly been a day." His voice took on an amused lilt. He spoke softly. "I'd like to think that what you're going through is like what I went through when I first developed my ability. I don't know if it is, and if it isn't … don't burst my bubble here. I like to think that I'm being given a chance to help someone the way I wish someone had helped me. The people around me at that time were either ignorant or traitorous - indifferent and unknowing, or deceitful and two-faced. It … ruined me for asking for help for a very, very long time."

"You don't ask for help even now," Peter said, leaning back and looking into Gabriel's face. "You just suffer - silently, if you can manage it."

Gabriel gave him a wry smile. "Well. I'd like to think that by helping you, I'm helping me. Or helping prevent someone from falling into that pit I was swallowed up by."

Peter nodded. "Okay. Can you … can you tell me what you were talking about with Emma?" His hands found Gabriel's and Peter slipped his hands within his husband's, hoping that would slow him from doing anything stupid if the conversation was less innocent than Peter suspected.

Gabriel took a moment to pick his words. Peter knew the man was going to give him an edited version. That was okay. Gabe said, "We were talking about how I wasn't really attracted to Emma and how none of us had asked Heidi for permission for a threesome. We were both under the impression - obviously I see now that it was false - that you were okay with Emma/you/me. We will not pursue that."

Peter nodded and let out a deep breath.

Gabriel went on, "And neither will I pursue you/me/Heidi, though I didn't think there was any point to that anyway."

Peter snorted softly. "No. I don't think you need to worry about that." He furrowed his brow and looked up into Gabriel's face. "Do _you_ want that?"

"Want … what? You, me and Heidi?"

"Yeah."

"No. That's what I was getting upset about. Just the thought …"

"Oh. Good. If none of the three of us want it, then I don't think that one's going anywhere."

"Neither is the other, okay?" Gabriel rubbed Peter's hands with his thumbs, studying his face intently.

Peter smiled a little and nodded. "Yeah. I just overreacted there."

"You didn't _do_ anything, Peter. You can't overreact if you don't even act."

"That's because I was certain you _hadn't_." Peter pulled his hands away and shifted back against the couch more normally. He brushed at his forehead. "I guess now I'm going to be kind of nuts about it like you are with Heidi."

"No, no," Gabriel said more loudly, in jest. "You're not nearly that bad. What would you do if I went in the kitchen right now, with Emma? Would you worry?"

"No," Peter said, exasperated. "You're not going to do anything in the kitchen. And I _believe_ you. If you say you won't, I trust you completely. We just hadn't discussed it before and I know she's been … thinking about it, so I freaked out. I think." _I hope that's what was going on. I do trust them, right? I know I __**should**__._

"Then there you go."

"You worry when … yeah, never mind. You've told me you do. I never realized it was _that_ bad."

"Good. Meaningful realizations all around." He chucked Peter's shoulder in a fraternal fashion. "See? This is just a great team-building experience - go through stressful circumstances, learn to rely on each other, empathize, sympathize, let me feel like I'm actually helping you rather than … whatever it is I'm usually doing, which just seems to be getting you off really effectively … repeatedly … and you like it a lot …"

Peter started laughing. "Gabriel, you bring more to the relationship than being good in bed. Not to say I don't appreciate that. A lot."

Gabriel leaned in and nuzzled Peter's face, letting his lower lip trail from the corner of Peter's mouth partway up his cheek. Peter sucked in a breath, feeling his heart rate jump suddenly in a way that had nothing to do with anger. He pulled back though. "Emma."

Gabriel smiled naughtily and tilted his head. "I just like making you react. It's very flattering." He leaned in close again, following Peter's earlier withdrawal. "Please don't ever … not react." Peter tilted his head a little and let their lips meet in a soft kiss. He could feel the spiral of emotion surge through both of them. Gabriel pulled away first, licking his lips and leaning away before he really did get too carried away. The observed a moment of silence before Gabe said, "Now let's _both_ go in the kitchen. You can sit at the … no, _I'll_ sit at the bar, and you can get some practice feeding a baby. From what I hear, you're going to need it."

Peter eyed him, but didn't say anything. He exhaled deeply and focused on the words. He wanted to ask how much Emma had told Gabe and what exactly Gabriel meant by needing practice, but he didn't dare until he had a better feel for how Gabriel would react. He knew how Nathan would have reacted. He hadn't exactly been supportive of the decision to be a nurse either. It was a little stupid, Peter supposed, that he was worried about how Gabriel would take Peter and Emma's decision for Peter to be the primary caregiver for their child. In the face of everything else that was going on, it really shouldn't matter.

But Peter said nothing. He just nodded agreeably and followed Gabriel into the kitchen, where Peter took over feeding duties for a moment while Emma cleaned up a little and put away the box of rice cereal. Peter watched Gabriel's face when he wasn't trying to get a spoon past a child's energetically flailing hands. The man looked generally content - a little worried maybe, but he wasn't guarding his expression. Peter gave himself a little internal nod and relaxed. It was going to be okay. He didn't think he could beat this - all of it - but he could handle it.


	294. A Fade to Black

Peter didn't look up right away when Gabriel climbed into bed with him. It had been a long Monday, surreal to go back to work like he hadn't murdered someone just that weekend, like he wasn't struggling with his sense of identity from time to time. Peter had copped out on going to therapy. Gabriel had not been happy about that. They'd argued as soon as they got together this evening. Gabriel had sort of won: Peter had agreed to go on Wednesday, after work. At least he didn't have to go tomorrow. It had been so much simpler when it was _Gabriel's_ problems he was talking to someone about.

When Peter finally glanced up, what he saw made him set his book aside and smile. His husband was wearing the glasses - the 'sexy dork' glasses. No doubt this was a 'thank you' for his concession. Gabriel smiled shyly at him. He was lying on his side, propped on an elbow. Peter rolled onto his side to face him, matching the pose. "Hi there, sexy," Peter said.

Gabriel colored a little more. He was also wearing a t-shirt and, Peter suspected, nothing else. The rest was hidden by the sheet. Gabriel reach out with two fingers and pushed on Peter's upper chest, moving him an inch or two. His eyes twinkled a little. Peter raised a brow. While things were definitely healing between them, he didn't think any but the lightest of rough-housing was a good idea. "Are we playing here?" he asked, his tone dubious, not inviting.

Gabriel got the message. "No." Yet he reached out again. This time, though, he just touched. His brows drew together slightly and Peter saw him click over from casual to intent. Gabriel leaned forward, very focused. His fingers traced out the curve of the pectoral muscle, following the indentation that defined the upper chest, probing gently, then more firmly, at where it attached to the sternum.

Peter raised his brows briefly in puzzlement, then let it go. His partner was being obsessive and weird. Again. He didn't mind. Gabriel's left hand traveled across Peter's breast, passing over the nipple without so much as a tweak. Peter lifted his right arm to facilitate the continued exploration down his ribs, which were then followed around to the front and back again. To be getting this sort of examination while Gabriel was wearing those glasses was almost too much. Gabriel's hand smoothed over the slight curve of waist to rest on his hip, then up again until it rested over lateral muscle, pressing enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to complain about.

"This is very intimate," Peter murmured, not sure how far gone into his own head Gabriel was.

"I don't do this to just anyone," he was answered immediately, proving that Gabriel was still with him. "Roll over." Gabe pushed him onto his back and then straddled his thighs matter-of-factly.

_Nope, not wearing anything else._ Peter smiled up at him. Gabriel brought both hands to Peter's gut, palpating.

"What are you doing?" Peter finally had to ask.

"Feeling you up." Gabriel glanced up, over the rim of the glasses - _oh wow, that's sexy_ - and said, "I've never done this to anyo-, any man before."

"Woman?" Peter queried. He was still trying to decide if Gabriel thought this was sexual or … what. Gabriel wasn't aroused, but the thorough treatment he often gave Peter's hair wasn't a turn on either. Peter didn't think he was using psychometry. He didn't have that look.

"Heidi."

"Hm." The jury was still out. There were lots of things Gabriel might only do with the two of them due to intimacy, not attraction.

"Before and after child. It's a fascinating progression." Gabriel stopped, looking straight down at Peter's dick. It had twitched, a side effect of Gabriel looking up at Peter over his glasses like that. "Emma's baby is still healthy from what I can hear."

"Yeah?" Peter said, not sure what he was supposed to say with his manhood being stared at so intently. What tumescence he had had was fast disappearing under the scrutiny.

"You know," Gabriel said, smiling now, "I have rarely seen you that you weren't erect."

Peter snorted. That was not true. Bathroom, getting dressed, and occasionally Peter slept naked, should Gabriel have decided to observe him then. He didn't dignify it with more of a response.

Gabriel went on, "I certainly can't think of a single time I've been on top of you that you weren't hard." His eyes went up to Peter's again, doing that over-the-top trick with the glasses again.

Another twitch, very faint. Gabriel grinned. "Normally when you're on top of me, yeah, I'm really turned on." Peter swallowed and his eyes darted off to the side, then back. "This … it's a little hard to tell if I should be aroused or not. Medical-type examinations don't really do it for me."

"Hm," Gabriel leaned forward slowly, letting his hands come down on either side of Peter's head. He came down for a long, slow kiss, licking along Peter's lips, which opened for him. Peter accepted him with a slight croon, bringing his own hands up to press to Gabriel's sides. Gabriel pulled away a moment later. "I love you, Peter."

Peter smiled. "Yeah. Love you too." _Don't know what you're up to here, but we're together. It's cool._

Gabriel began to massage him, starting with his chest.

Peter let his hands drop to where his fingertips were touching Gabriel's knees. When it seemed that Gabriel was going to continue with the massage and it wasn't just a prelude to something else, Peter said, "You know, you've said before that you like for me to hurt you."

"Mm. Yes." Gabriel gave him another of those hot looks over the rims and coupled it with a slight squeeze of his knees.

Peter took a deep breath and felt a happy surge. He smiled at the signs of encouragement. "I've been thinking about that. Just how much do you need to be hurt to get off?"

"I don't _need _to be hurt to get off. I just like it."

"Okay," Peter said, looking at him directly and obviously still waiting for an answer to his question. _Yes, I noticed you dodging there._

Gabriel finished with his chest and leaned forward to begin on Peter's left arm. He glanced over at Peter's face once, seeing that yes, he was still waiting for an answer, and sighed. "Not a lot. Just … some. I want you to punish me. But somewhere in there I also want to beat the crap out of you for everything you've ever done to me." The words seemed to slip out without Gabriel having thought about them. His expression, for a second, clearly indicated he wanted to take them back. Then it blanked.

Peter blinked, tensed and swallowed. Gabriel looked over at him, dead on. For a moment, Peter thought he was going to dismount and leave. Peter pressed his fingertips firmly into Gabriel's knees, trying to urge him to stay. He could feel the sudden fear and anger, strong and bitter, but there was also trust. Finally Gabe relaxed a little and started rubbing Peter's arm again. He took his gaze back to where his hands were working.

Peter thought about all the different things he could say to that admission: _You can. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Please don't. I don't want you to hurt me. If I said yes, how far would you go? Do you really think that would help anything? I'm not a big fan of pain. Why? _In the end though, what he said was, "I can understand that."

"You can?" Gabriel asked neutrally. Peter knew what that tone meant. Even if he didn't, he could feel the caution and vulnerability pouring from his husband's skin everywhere they touched.

"Yes. I've done a lot to you, to hurt you. Even in a normal relationship people fantasize about beating their partner up or strangling them." He chuckled a little. "'To the moon, Alice! To the moon!'"

Gabriel leaned in suddenly, breathing a little harder and nuzzled Peter unexpectedly, giving little kisses on his cheek. Peter hugged him immediately. _So … um … guess that's, yeah, a frequent subject of Gabriel's fantasies. Deal with it, Peter._ Peter told him, "It's okay," giving him the validation he needed.

Gabriel lifted himself enough to look over Peter's face, then gave him a quick smooch on the lips before sitting up and switching to the right arm now.

"I don't really think it would be … healthy for you to use me as an outlet for those fantasies," Peter said cautiously.

"No," Gabriel agreed right away. "But I'd still kind of like it if you'd hurt me. Just … sometimes."

"How much?"

"I don't know. Not much. I like the biting, the scratching that you've done. I like that," Gabriel added softly. "I'd like if you'd kind of push me around. Don't use your fists. Actually, don't _hit_ me at all if you can avoid it. I don't want to think we're fighting. Just push me down, use me. If you're going to top me, that is."

"You liked that choke chain?"

"_**Yes**_," Gabriel said with emphasis.

Peter nodded. He still had it in the nightstand. Every now and then it was moved around, but Gabriel had said nothing. "Do you want me to use it tonight?" Gabriel came back to him immediately, nuzzling and kissing and rubbing his face against Peter's. "I think that's a yes," Peter said.

"Uh-huh," Gabriel answered.

_But you can't ask - not yet. You will one of these days. We're definitely getting there. I can't think of a time before when you've essentially asked me to top … which I'm pretty sure is what you're asking for here_. Just to be sure, Peter murmured, "Get it out for me and show me what you want me to do." He figured they'd be safe if the violence - should there be any – was thoroughly scripted.

Gabriel drew back a little and nipped Peter playfully on the point of his chin. He grinned and straightened his glasses, then took them off and cleaned them with the hem of his t-shirt.

"I like those," Peter said. "Can you keep them on?"

"I intend to. Don't think I haven't noticed you keep reacting to them."

Peter shrugged a little, smiling back.

**A/N: Scene continued, next chapter.**


	295. Turning the Lights Back On

Gabriel put his glasses back on and extended a hand. With a few flicks of his fingers, the nightstand opened and the collar came to his hand. Peter chewed his bottom lip, watching. Gabriel opened it, straightened it, and grasped an end in each hand. He looked down at his lover, whom he was still straddling. He flipped the collar, so the inside of it was facing Peter and leaned down slowly. He savored how Peter's eyes widened a bit as he realized, then they darted to the side and up slightly as the empath tried to remember what, exactly, had been said.

_Nope_, Gabriel thought. _Nothing in there about __**who**__ it would be used on_. In what Gabriel thought was an admirable display of restraint, Peter said nothing at all about what must have seemed like a misunderstanding. His eyes tracked back to Gabe's and his expression smoothed as Gabriel buckled the collar in place around _Peter's_ neck, not his own. Gabriel returned to sitting and took up the slack on the leash. Peter's eyes went over the tightened chain between them. The steady, low level thrum of fear Gabe was getting was a delicious aperitif. One of these days he'd come back for the main course. But for now, he waited, holding that chain, waiting while Peter slowly tensed all over in building anticipation. Peter's breathing gradually picked up and his breaths became shallower. His lips were tight and teeth set together. He wasn't happy, but he wasn't refusing.

Gabriel tugged – one hard, small jerk, and two links slipped through the D-ring of the collar, letting the chain tighten firmly around the man's neck. It wasn't enough to cut off breathing, but it made Peter flush a little after a handful of heartbeats. Gabriel held the tension as long seconds ticked by. Finally, Peter blinked several times, rapidly. _There it is_, Gabriel thought, pleased. Peter leaned up a little. The act relieved some of the pressure, but what Gabriel had been looking for and what he'd gotten was a gesture of submission. Peter's body was relaxing even now, breathing deeper.

He wrapped the chain around his hand with a slow twist of his wrist, telegraphing the motion so that Peter could continue moving closer to him as the slack was taken up. The empath's expression had shifted. It was more open now, less closed off. Gabriel wrapped the thin chain until Peter was nearly to him, before pressing forward to kiss him and then riding him back to supine. Gabe reached in with a stray fingertip and loosened the chain a bit. Peter crooned softly at that.

Gabriel kissed him until he'd had enough, then unwrapped the chain, came up for breath (and a glance at the collar) and began kissing again. Between his fingers and telekinesis, the device unfastened. Peter made a muffled noise in response. The leather turned and refastened itself around Gabriel's neck. He took up the leash and put the end of it into Peter's hand, finally parting from his mouth. He raised a single brow behind his glasses.

Peter gave him a lop-sided grin. "You had me there for a moment."

"In more ways than one," Gabriel murmured. He dismounted carefully and knelt on hands and knees on the bed, not really sure what he needed to be doing next. Peter sat up, slid his hand over Gabriel's shoulder and across his back, over his shirt. He leaned in and kissed Gabriel's ear, then across to the nape of his neck and back, sucking softly at the spot behind his ear. Gabriel breathed a little harder.

Whispering in his ear, Peter said, "You were supposed to tell me what you wanted me to do with this." He bit the collar, pulling on it with his teeth.

"Ah."

"Tell me!" Peter hissed, this time biting Gabriel's ear.

_Ow!_ A lot of teeth action was really sexy to Gabriel, but getting bitten hard on the freaking ear took him by surprise. And it hurt in a very non-sexy way. He jerked away with a small pained noise, scrambling even. Peter tensed to follow him. Something ticked in the back of Gabriel's head and his head snapped around to look back. Sylar was saying something to him about what he needed to do … but Peter wasn't pursuing him. As he watched, Peter sank onto his haunches and toyed with the end of the chain, looking at Gabe only in his peripheral vision. The links were fully extended now, with only the slightest slack between the two men.

Peter gave him a careful, half-lidded look and raised the end of the leash, giving it a single slight tug. Gabriel felt the same shift within himself that he'd seen on Peter's face earlier. His breathing deepened. He gave in. He walked back, hands and knees, like an animal, he supposed. Peter raised a hand to his shoulder again and stroked him silently, as if aware that he'd very nearly triggered something there.

Gabriel sighed and leaned into his lover. Peter reached out and gathered up Gabe's t-shirt, pulling it off of him. Gabriel bumped against him again, rubbing his body across Peter's. Peter pushed him away and then grabbed the back of the collar. "Down," he said quietly, pushing a little. "Leave your ass in the air. I want that part."

"Heh." Sylar obediently arranged himself, head and shoulders on the bed, butt up.

Peter circled behind him and dropped the chain between his cheeks. Gabriel twitched as part of the length hit his balls. Peter ran his finger down the links, starting at the small of his back and down his crack, coming to the loop at the end. He gave it another tug. It didn't tighten around his neck - Peter wasn't pulling hard and the opening for it was at the front of Gabriel's neck.

"If you won't tell me what you _want_ me to do," Peter said softly, "then I'll tell you what I am _going_ to do." Peter leaned forward and kissed one side of Gabriel's rear end, letting his hand follow the links up Gabe's spine. "I'm going to fuck you like this, nice and slow, the way I like to. I'm going to reach around and jerk you off. And every time your attention seems to wander, I'm going to give you a little pull," and he did, to demonstrate. "But only a little one, and I'll let go right after."

That was disappointing enough to get Gabriel to look back at him, more than a little confused. Peter knew what he wanted and how he wanted it. Why was he promising something else? Gabriel barely avoided sighing and turned back to face the mattress. _Oh well. And to think I passed up a chance to leave this collar on __**him**__._

"_**Unless**_," Peter reached out and grabbed the back of the collar, yanking him up a little by it, getting Gabriel's full attention immediately, "you tell me when you want it _harder_, _faster_, and _**more**_." He punctuated the end with a bit more pressure on the collar, then let go. "You got it?"

Gabriel swallowed, coughed and answered, "Yes, yes. Got it." _So that's how it goes._

Peter summoned the lube and slicked himself.

"I … I …" For a moment, he had trouble finding the words. "Don't get me ready," Gabriel stumbled out before Peter could start prepping him.

"Oh yeah?" Peter breathed, leaning over him and reaching around with his lubed hand to fondle Gabriel's only somewhat firm manhood. Peter bit his back, hard, making Gabriel groan. A moment later, the fingers of his clean hand found Gabe's nipple and pinched it firmly, twisting, pulling a louder call from him. "I like you noisy," Peter said as Gabriel panted.

Peter lined himself up and nudged. Then he nudged again.

"You're going to have to push harder, Peter." He remembered using that line with Peter what seemed like forever ago. "I won't break."

"Yeah," Peter responded immediately. "That's the point isn't it? I'm _trying_ to hurt you."

Gabriel's grin at Peter giving a close enough response to count was cut short as Peter rammed into him harder, driving into him in three forceful thrusts. It ripped a cry from him. He spread his legs instinctively, or tried to. His muscles trembled. Peter wasn't moving. _Oh God, please move. Do I have to tell him __**everything**__?_ "Move. Move, please Peter."

Peter shoved against him once. "Pretty please?"

Gabriel felt a surge of anger and bit his lip. Peter moved slowly within him and pulled back steadily on the chain. Gabriel felt the collar slip to the side. "Yes, pretty please, pretty _**fucking**_ Peter," he growled. "Now fuck me, _**goddammit!**_" Rather than squashing it immediately, he let himself stay angry.

Peter started thrusting faster. "Yeah? That piss you off a little? You want it harder, you're going to have to tell me 'harder'."

"_Harder!_"

Peter obliged, taking hold of Gabe's hips and pounding into him. The immediate pain and buzz of being taken too fast was fading. Gabriel could feel himself opening. Peter shifted position a few times, positioning himself higher and thrusting downward, hitting the spot he wanted. Gabriel bit his lip again and grunted at the sensation against his prostate. There was a lot of stimulation there, but it wasn't the easiest thing in the world for his head to code it as arousing. It wasn't automatic like it seemed to be for Peter, and he presumed it was for a lot of men. If he was being hurt it counted; if he wasn't it was just weird and he tried to ignore it because Peter didn't want to top very often, so putting up with it occasionally wasn't a big deal. "Choke me," Gabriel asked.

Peter changed his grip, freeing one hand and tightening the chain around it. The collar slipped the rest of the way backward, the links now sliding freely in it. Gabriel felt them bite into the soft flesh of his neck and he pulled forward against the tension, wanting more. He didn't ask for it and Peter didn't give him more - at least, not right away. It felt good, getting fucked, feeling his world narrowing as his air was cut off, but it wasn't quite doing it for him.

_Peter?_ he reached out mentally, a little less precise and coherent than he usually was at telepathy.

Peter jumped a little. _Yeah?_

_Tighter. Harder. Hurt me. Please._

Peter adjusted the chain, then mentally poked a little at Gabriel's sensations. After a beat of hesitation, Gabriel sagged and let him into whatever he wanted, whatever he needed. Peter twisted the chain on his hand, tightening it so that Gabriel could feel it hurting and pulling his neck back painfully. His lover used the telepathy to gauge how much he needed and without crossing that fine, bright line between too much and enough. Peter's hand with the leash wrapped around it gripped Gabriel's hips. Everything clicked together at once - every sensation was perfect, even the slapping, bobbing motion his engorged penis was making against his belly. Gabriel reached back to stroke himself, hardly needing to do more than give himself a sleeve for Peter's powerful thrusts to rock him into.

He felt his toes curl. He was making some strangled keening but he didn't care. The whole world had contracted to just one thing - the impending orgasm - and he felt it rushing into place from every part of his body, crashing into his center and not stopping until he was filled to bursting … and he did.

Peter had been along for enough of the mental ride that he came as one with him. The feedback from the empath's cusp ran through Gabriel as well - most likely Peter was too far gone to block it out, but it was incredible to feel his lover's completion, sharper and more immediate than his own, but not as strong or all-encompassing. Bottoming was better, when he could get the circumstances right for him to enjoy it. Together they rode out the prolonged, rolling wave of light and pleasure.

Gabriel reached up to his neck, fumbling. Peter released the leash immediately and Gabe drew in much-needed air. Peter pulled out and shoved Gabriel roughly over on his side. Blown and boneless, Gabriel flopped over. He reached up and straightened his glasses. "Not sure why I wore 'em," Gabriel slurred a little. "You didn't even look at 'em."

"I'm looking at them now," Peter said, with a slow, appreciative smile. His eyes took Gabriel in from one end to the other, drinking in every detail. "You look _fantastic_."

Gabriel smiled back lazily, still basking in the afterglow. He raised his brows a little. "That's because I _am_ fantastic."

Peter burst out laughing for a moment, then hugged him. "Yes, you are, baby. Yes you are."


	296. Sticky Spots

Peter rolled to the side and sighed, smiling softly and heavy-lidded at his companion. He felt warm, romantic and affectionate feelings for him.

"You're lying in the wet spot," Gabriel pointed out, helping dispel some of those feelings.

"Yeah," Peter said. "Noticed." It was an unpleasant sensation mostly because of what it was, but they'd shower and clean up later and semen was far from a gross-out for Peter. "I wish I had a power that cleaned the sheets."

Gabriel exhaled a puff of air. "That wouldn't be very heroic - facing down the bad guys with the power of clean sheets."

Peter gave him a wry look. "You never know what ability might be useful."

"Oh, it would be _useful_, all right," Gabriel agreed. "Just not against bad guys."

"I dunno," Peter said. "I know a bad guy who's pretty partial to my clean sheets." _Even has one in his bag of things to grab when he's freaking out. _Not that Peter had ever said anything to draw attention to that. Actually he was very glad Gabriel had something like that grab-bag, even if the sheet in question probably wasn't 'clean'. He wondered which particular memory the man was trying to preserve with that.

Gabriel rolled onto his side to kiss Peter, who rolled to meet him. Gabriel kissed his mouth over and over, soft, sweet kisses, bringing back the affection. Then the man sighed and rested his forehead against Peter's, eyes shut in bliss. Long moments passed as they held one another. Gabriel broke the stillness briefly to get several more chaste kisses, then went back to resting his head against Peter's.

Peter reached up and gently carded his fingers through his husband's hair, provoking a soft sigh. He let his fingers drift down to the leather collar and tilted his head slightly to see to take it off. He tossed it unceremoniously behind him, where it clunked loudly against the floor. Gabriel chuckled. Peter stroked his neck with careful touches.

"Mm," Gabriel said in a high-pitched, pleased tone. He came back for more pecks and smooches, this time letting his mouth wander to Peter's cheek and across his temple. His urge to kiss spent, Gabriel flopped onto his back again. Peter rolled over as well to his original position.

"Still in the wet spot," Gabriel observed unnecessarily.

"Yeah," Peter agreed. "Still noticed. Still wouldn't mind an ability to fix that."

"You know, if you had time travel you could go back and throw down a towel."

Peter shrugged lazily. It wasn't like it mattered so much that he was getting up. "I think I'll leave time travel to smarter minds than mine. I never got it right."

"How smart is Hiro?"

"Hiro Nakamura?" Peter asked.

"Yeah."

Peter glanced over at Gabriel. Something had changed, mainly the man's emotions – he was scared and disturbed. Peter went on like he hadn't noticed because the conversation didn't otherwise lend itself to that. "Smart enough, I guess. I don't know. Maybe brains don't have anything to do with it." He waited a beat, contemplating that emotional shift Gabriel had gone through. He couldn't puzzle it out and it didn't seem to be a passing mood. "Why?"

"Sylar wants to kill him and take his ability," Gabriel blurted out, and the man's distress ratcheted up several notches.

Peter wanted to roll over and comfort him immediately, but he thought about what Gabriel had just said. It was important. "I like Hiro." On reflection, not the best thing to say if he was interested in keeping the Japanese man alive.

"You _like_ him?"

"No," Peter amended immediately, searching for words to describe Hiro in a likeable way that didn't imply anything more than that. "I mean, he's a good guy. He's done a lot of good things. I know him. I've met him. He seemed okay – reasonable."

"Oh." Gabriel looked away, up at the ceiling. Apparently the clarification was good enough.

Peter turned to look at him in profile, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with this information. And what was it, anyway? Sylar probably wanted to kill all kinds of people and take their ability. Why Hiro? Proximity clearly had nothing to do with it. Nor did having done anything dangerous or deserving of punishment. Was it the time travel? What would Sylar do with time travel? Peter had no idea, but given his past profession … maybe brains **did** have something to do with it. "Should I be worried?"

"About Hiro?"

"Yeah."

"I dunno."

Peter chewed his lower lip pensively, then reached out to stroke down the middle of Gabriel's chest. The distress Gabriel had still been experiencing faded a little.

Gabriel looked back at him a few times. "What are you going to do?"

Peter smiled a little. "Worry." _What the hell else can I do? If I'm not going to lock you up for __**doing**__ things, then I'm sure as hell not going to lock you up for thinking about them._

Gabriel snorted and rolled his eyes. "Is that all?"

"I suppose. What should I do? Do you want help?"

Gabriel grinned suddenly and laughed. "Yes, Peter. You neutralize his powers while I cut his head open!"

Peter stared at him, aghast for a second. It was such an awful thing to joke about that he couldn't imagine even Gabriel making fun of it for a moment. He pulled his hand back. In a sudden, surprising motion, Gabriel whipped over and rolled on top of him, pinning him, teeth bared in a wordless snarl. For a moment they stared at each other – Gabriel staring continually in challenge, Peter's eyes darting over the other man's face reading his intent. He didn't think Gabriel would do a thing to him – this was only a threat display, but it was being made because Gabriel was being vulnerable and Peter had pulled away from him, if only for a moment.

Peter looked away pointedly, turning his face to the side. He could feel Gabriel calming down from the rejection. The other man slipped his hands off Peter's shoulders and onto the bed, then leaned in and kissed Peter's cheek tentatively. Peter reached up to stroke his husband's sides lightly, stretching his head further to the side. Gabriel calmed further at that and began to progress down Peter's neck with little pecks. "I love you," Peter murmured.

"Mm-hm," Gabriel hummed in agreement. He nipped Peter lightly on the neck and rolled off him. For a moment he wavered on his knees, as if debating staying up in a less open position than lying on his back. He sighed and laid back down. Peter immediately reached out to stroke his chest as he had before.

"So, uh," Peter started, gamely trying to joke, "I'll hold his arms while you punch him in the gut?"

Gabriel barked a short laugh at Peter's question. "Well, you _did_ ask if you could help."

"You think you'll need help?"

Gabriel considered that for a moment. "No. He'll be easy to take. Shape-shifting to get close, then grab him somewhere private. His power takes a second or two to activate. TK is faster. I'll have him knocked out before he can get away."

Peter looked at him steadily. He chewed his lip again, nervously this time. This was getting too serious. He didn't know what to do, what to suggest or what to say. He wasn't sure if Gabriel were telling him something Sylar was going to do, or just expressing a near-idle want.

"You don't want me to?" Gabriel asked, checking.

"No," Peter responded. "Hiro's not a threat to anyone. It would be wrong," he said softly.

Gabriel nodded, rolling over to kiss him. Peter met him. When they parted Gabriel said, "I'll let you know if I think it's going anywhere – the desire, that is." He lifted a finger to stroke his knuckle along Peter's jaw line. "Thank you for listening. I need to start telling you these things. You … you need to listen to me," he concluded awkwardly.

Peter nodded. "I'm all ears."


	297. How did I get married to that guy?

_Peter is not asleep_. Gabriel wasn't sure why that filtered through to his somnolent state and woke him, but it did. He was fully awake when it occurred to him too, which gave him a sneaking suspicion that Sylar had been there … awake … before he, Gabriel, woke. He lifted his head warily and looked around. Peter was lying there staring at the ceiling blankly. His eyes went down to Gabe for a moment, then his expression shifted. "Gabriel?"

"Was I Sylar?"

Peter digested that question and what it meant, then answered, "Yeah, I think so."

Gabriel rolled over and rubbed at his face. "How long? Did I say anything? He – did he say anything?"

Peter answered in reverse order of the questions. "No. Just a few minutes."

"How can you tell?" Gabriel asked.

"How can I tell what? He didn't say anything."

"No, how can you tell it's Sylar?"

Peter blinked at him for a moment as if it was hard to fathom why that was even a question. "Well … um, for starters, when he woke up, he just lay there real quiet and didn't say anything. When you woke up, you looked at me, started talking to me." Gabriel didn't say anything. "You act different. And besides that," Peter rubbed his foot up and down Gabriel's calf. "You have different emotions."

"Oh." He'd forgotten they were usually touching in bed. "But you know even across the room." It was perplexing.

Peter shrugged. "You've already noticed I can't get past when you look different. Sylar … he acts different. He's different; I can tell; I don't know how to describe it."

"Okay." Gabriel wiped the gunk out of the corners of his eyes. "Why are you awake, anyway?"

Peter shrugged again. "No real reason."

Gabriel mulled over the lack of triggering for lie detection. Peter was tense – not incredibly wound up, but somewhat. Gabriel moved over and pressed his face to the side of Peter's head, inhaling. He gave a low growl. Peter turned to him and kissed his cheek before Gabriel pulled back away. Gabe looked around in the darkened room, considering and rejecting the idea of turning on the light. He flopped back down. "Can we talk?"

"Always."

_Of course._ Gabriel snorted. "I've noticed you call me your husband. Doesn't that …" _make you my wife? No, that's not right. It's just weird. Quite a bit weirder than two husbands, I suppose._ "What term do you prefer?"

Peter waited a beat. "Um, husband." He gave Gabriel an inscrutable look.

"Okay, yeah, dumb question. Of course you'd call me … you know, what you prefer." He sighed. He wasn't even sure what he was trying to ask. It had seemed so much clearer last week when he was talking to Rita. His ability to concentrate and remember was still pretty poor.

Gently, Peter elaborated, "I call you my husband because we're married. It's a commitment. Partners come and go. Partners can be special and you're _still_ my partner, but you're _also_ my husband."

Gabriel blinked repeatedly as he realized what his own words must have sounded like to Peter. "I've been insulting you all this time." _For more than a month!_ "I'm so sorry, Peter."

"No, no. Hey, it's okay." Peter reached over and stroked his shoulder reassuringly. "It's fine. It's not like you made any secret of what you meant. You meant we'd be together through everything. You asked if I'd be yours, and you'd be mine. The word – it's just a word. The only place it matters is when we start talking about it to others, and we're not public anyway."

Gabriel confessed, "I told Rita you were my partner."

Peter considered that, then shrugged. "You haven't done anything wrong. There's no reason for you to feel guilty. If I'd minded, I would have said something." Peter eyed him for a long moment, then said with damnable insightfulness, "You're not comfortable saying you have a husband."

Gabriel looked away, shifting uncomfortably in the bed. Yeah. Because he knew what that made _him_. Which was stupid, but it was how he'd been raised – both Nathan _and_ Gabriel – and so was pretty deeply ingrained. He turned and snuggled up to Peter, who wrapped an arm around him and kissed the top of his head. Gabriel sighed and spoke firmly, "You are my husband, Peter." _Oh boy that sounds bizarre._ He swallowed.

Peter chuckled and kissed the top of his head again. "You'll get used to it."

"Easy for you to say," Gabriel grumbled.

"Oh yeah? You're not the one who's married to _Sylar_."


	298. How To Make Tea

**A/N: The topic of this chapter was a request from jamie_prufrock of LJ.**

Peter asked, "What was with that setup I saw over at Heidi's in the kitchen?"

"What setup?" Gabriel asked in return.

"That separate coffee pot just for tea, those canisters, that sort of thing."

"I like tea."

"I gathered," Peter said patiently. "That's what I'm asking about. I always fix you coffee."

"Coffee's fine."

Peter looked at him levelly. Obviously, he needed to be explicit. "Do you _prefer_ tea to coffee?"

"Peter, I prefer whatever you serve me."

Now Peter frowned. Peter usually made the drinks when they were together. He'd paid attention to how much sugar Gabriel used in his coffee and how he occasionally added cream, but not always. He'd asked him about roasts and flavors and always gotten a supremely ambiguous lack of preference. Peter had thought he'd been a good, attentive husband. But now that he thought about it, he'd never actually _asked_ if coffee was what Gabriel wanted to drink. Well, no – that wasn't true. He'd _just _asked, seconds before, and got the usual non-answer. He stared at Gabriel, lips pursed.

Gabriel saw that expression and looked down for a long moment. When he looked up, Peter was still watching him, mostly because he wasn't sure how to pry the information he wanted out of his lover without being manipulative, demanding or presumptive. Gabriel shook himself a little and said, "Okay. Rita … Yeah. You brought this up before. You're right. I don't want to make you feel terrible."

Peter furrowed his brow. _Feel terrible?_ He had the impression Gabriel was quoting him from sometime fairly recently, but Peter couldn't place it. He wouldn't go so far as to say he felt 'terrible' about not providing Gabriel's beverage of choice, but he certainly didn't feel great about it. There were an awful lot of things Gabriel went along with for whatever impenetrable Gabriel reason (actually, Peter suspected Gabriel saw compliance as an expression of love, which was fucked up because it made it really hard for Peter to please his partner).

"Yes, I prefer tea." Gabriel studied Peter as if expecting this revelation would upset him.

"Okay," Peter said, nodding affirmatively. "I'll get some teabags next time I'm in the store."

"No!" Gabriel said sharply.

"What?"

"I don't want … It's not like that."

_It's … not like that? What the hell __**is**__ it like?_ "Gabriel, it's just a drink. I can make you tea." At the man's continuing apprehensive expression, Peter tried to reassure him with, "I'd _like_ to make you tea."

"I don't think you know _how_." Gabriel's lips made a thin line and he looked away, like he was regretting already having expressed what he wanted. "It's not your fault."

_Tea is not that tough to make. _Peter snorted, but he held his tongue for a moment and considered. He tried another tack, something other than 'this will be easy for you, let me handle it,' which never seemed to work with Gabriel anyway. "Emma has been showing me how to cook lately. I'm sure you have all the equipment over at Heidi's," he said slowly, even as he thought, _Though I can't imagine what 'equipment' you really need other than a pan of water and a cup_.

Peter walked over closer and touched Gabriel's shoulder. "I would really appreciate it if you'd show me." Gabriel looked up at him, blinking uncertainly. Peter could see the refusal coming. He wasn't interested in being refused. _Fine, manipulative it is._ He was a Petrelli, after all. "Or I could get Heidi to show me."

That worked. Immediately. Gabriel switched gears and said, "No. No, I'll show you. It won't take long."

"Good," Peter said. "That would be awesome. How about right now?"

Gabriel gave Peter a suspicious look, then sighed and looked across the kitchen. They hadn't gotten very far on fixing breakfast here at the apartment. Everything that was out could easily be put back up. "Okay." He picked up the milk and eggs, telekinesing the refrigerator open to put things away. A few minutes later, they teleported to the study at Heidi's house. Gabriel went upstairs to announce their arrival – not wanting Heidi to hear noises downstairs and be alarmed. Peter went in the kitchen.

He pulled out a stainless steel pitcher on a heating stand. It was empty. He left it that way for the time being. Next he pulled out three labeled canisters of different varieties of tea. Each helpfully had instructions on the back, all different. His brows rose. He leaned against the counter and read. _Hm. Temperature, time and … measurements._

Gabriel walked in as Peter was chewing his lower lip, thinking that tea might be more complicated than coffee. "So, uh," Peter asked, "does it really make a difference what temperature the water is?"

Gabriel gave him an odd smile. "Yes. It also makes a difference as to whether you heat the water in cast iron, glass or stainless steel. And how long you leave it at temperature, and if you accidentally boil it. The sense of taste is almost inseparable from that of smell, you know."

"Ah." Peter fiddled with the pot, realizing that Gabriel's palate was probably as refined as his olfactory senses.

"Fill that with water up to the liter mark."

"Okay," Peter moved to do that, pleased to be getting directions. "If I wasn't such a lousy cook myself, I would think you were joking that it was possible to screw up heating up water."

"Peter, you're … learning. Nathan was even more hopeless than you are in a kitchen."

"I am not hopeless in a kitchen!"

Gabriel moved over to where Peter was putting the pot on the heating unit and slipped a hand around his waist. He kissed him on the cheek. "No. But you are definitely defensive and I'll remember that." He reached past Peter and turned the heating unit on the teapot on. An indicator light at the bottom lit up. He kissed him again and pointed at the temperature settings on the unit. "It's preset, but you'd want to make sure it's on the right setting." Gabriel moved apart from him and pulled over one of the tea canisters. "Now, this is Earl Grey, loose leaf. It's a very popular, standard tea. Smell it."

Peter obediently picked up the container and inhaled. "This smells great."

Gabriel's face lit up a little. "Yeah? I think so too."

"This is … like that scented oil I got for you."

"Exactly! Oil of Bergamot. It's extracted from oranges, but it's not too citrusy." He handed Peter a steel measuring teaspoon and got out a German-style, extra-large glass beer stein from the cabinet overhead. Peter raised his brows at the odd container. Gabriel shrugged. "It was here."

"Yeah," Peter said distantly, thinking of the Oktoberfest he'd gone to with Nathan where his brother had bought it, seven or eight years before. "It was Nathan's."

"Um … yeah. Well, he left it here." Gabriel shifted uncomfortably, cleared his throat and said, "What's important is that it's tempered and made of glass. A liter is about four cups. You use one teaspoon of loose leaf tea to the cup. I prefer it a little dark, so make it a rounded teaspoon. And even though the glass is tempered, I put a teaspoon in it to absorb some of the heat." Gabriel stuck a long-handled teaspoon in the stein while Peter measured out tea.

"Will that hold a liter?" Peter asked when he was done. He smelled the dry tea leaves again. They did smell good.

Gabriel smiled at him, again delighted at Peter not being entirely nose-blind. "Yes. Now we wait for it to finish heating. And you can cap that canister now that you're done. It's mostly airtight. If the tea dries out, it's not as good – loses flavor. Tea goes bad eventually, or at least it's not all that worthwhile to drink. That's why you smell it first – if it still smells strongly, then it will taste strongly. Tea without odor isn't going to make tea that you want to drink."

Emma had told him the same thing about spices a few days before – if the smell was gone, the flavor was gone. "Are we going to just pour the water right in there? Shouldn't there be a filter, like for coffee? Or a bag?"

"Some people use filters, and they make little stainless steel tea ball strainers. I just use a strainer after the fact." Gabriel pulled out a fine mesh strainer from the nearest drawer.

"Ah. But why … you didn't want me buying bagged tea. I know they make Earl Grey in bags."

"That's made out of dust, Peter."

"Dust?" _Like, dirt? That's ridiculous._

Gabriel could see he was being misunderstood. "It's made out of fines. They taste different – just a little. They're a bit harsher, less subtle, less smooth. Loose leaf tastes better, unless you let it steep too long or … well, if you do it right, it tastes better. There are a lot of ways to screw it up."

"I am finding there are a lot of ways to screw up almost anything I try to fix," Peter muttered. He was glad he hadn't waited until Emma was in her residency before trying to take over cooking. Right now, they had time to try again or order out as a backup plan. Later, they wouldn't have as much time.

The teapot finished heating, beeped and shut off automatically. Peter picked it up, looking to Gabriel for the go-ahead. Gabe said, "Just pour it straight in, at the top of glass level so the water doesn't cool too much as you pour."

Peter blinked at him, recalling seeing in movies and on TV where people from Arabia and similar areas lifted the pot for their coffee up high above the cup, letting the liquid flow down in a long column. _They were cooling it,_ he thought. _I always thought that was for show. Huh_. He poured as directed.

Gabriel said, "Now we wait, two and a half minutes or so. And while we do, we get out cups and sweetener. I prefer a little white sugar. I know you always took honey with the hot tea Angela made."

"Yeah," Peter said. Now his mother - she knew how to make tea properly. He'd never paid much attention, as it wasn't his thing. He drank it when it was served, but preferred coffee.

Heidi came into the kitchen in a housecoat and slippers. She slid into a seat at the bar. Gabriel made a flourish towards her. "Madam, would you like a nice hot cup of tea to start your morning repast? Master Peter here is doing us the honor of preparing drinks."

Peter gave a small smile. "Under supervision," he said quietly.

She smiled. "Yes, if you please, good sir."

"You heard the lady," Gabe said. Peter got down a third cup. "And now you pour it up." Gabriel handed Peter the strainer. "Strainer in one hand, pitcher in the other, and when you're done, pour the rest into that jar, straining it."

Peter did as directed, but asked, "Can't we just leave it in the pitcher?"

"No, the tea will continue to infuse, get stronger and bitter. You don't want to drink it after it gets like that. It's like overcooked coffee."

"Ah." Now that Peter could relate to. "What do I do with the …" he looked at the wet leaves in the strainer, "this?"

Heidi said, "Just set it aside. Put the strainer in the stein. I'll dump them out later and put them around the plants on the veranda."

Gabriel doctored Heidi's drink and served her, then added sugar to his own. By then, Peter was done adding honey. Gabriel said, "You probably should have tasted that before adding honey. Angela tends to serve an English breakfast tea. It's very bold and I suspect you were using honey to temper it. Earl Grey is softer to the tongue. Earl Grey cream or white tip even more so."

Peter looked at his cup. He sipped, considered, and decided Gabriel was right – he didn't need any more honey and he had probably needed less than he'd already added. He stirred, sipped again and said, "It's okay. I like this better than what Ma serves."

"I don't remember if you put in cream in that – in what she serves. Have you tried it that way?"

"With cream? No."

Heidi piped up. "You ought to try it like that. It's better. That's why they serve it with cream."

Peter laughed a little. "I always drank the tea to be polite, but if I wanted something on my own, I got coffee. Or juice."

"There's nothing wrong with coffee," Gabriel said mildly.

"Oh God," Heidi said, rolling her eyes theatrically. "Don't get him started on coffee."

"Oh yeah?" Peter said, looking over at Gabriel. At least he could keep up in a discussion of grinds, roasting styles and blends, having spent plenty of time in coffee shops himself.

"Yes. I was just telling Heidi last week about a place down the street from Rita's that imports fresh beans every week! If you're coming with me tomorrow, we could stop by and try some."

"That sounds good," Peter answered, still not wild about going to therapy, but what the hell. Maybe it would help. A promise of excellent coffee would make it more palatable. He still remembered the coffee the man had brought from Riyadh earlier in the year. It had been delicious.

Heidi laughed, seeing Peter's expression brighten as he and her husband began to engage on a subject of shared interest. "I think I'll leave you two to it," she said, heading off to get dressed and check on Noah.


	299. Peter's Absurd Dream

The Petrelli family was gathered around the dining room table, seated and preparing to enjoy an elaborate dinner. Nathan was there, along with Arthur and of course Angela and himself, Peter. For some reason Maury was also there, smirking at everyone. Nathan's kids were running around upstairs. Even though the table was far too wide for it, Peter was still managing to play footsie with Nathan and hoping his parents didn't notice. Inevitably, they did, and he tried to stammer an explanation that sounded reasonable. Nathan was no help at all and in fact kept interrupting to say, "He started it!" and point out errors in Peter's justifications. Arthur was glaring at him, because he had to know that Peter had been flirting with his brother.

_Oh, I am really going to catch it now,_ Peter thought.

He was saved though, by Sylar. Someone had invited him to dinner, but although no one was confessing, they all knew it was Maury. Or maybe Nathan. Wait, maybe it was dad. Or mom. Or even Peter himself, but he couldn't quite remember whether he'd done it or not. He pulled out his wallet and checked, because he had a little calendar in there that folded out far bigger than his wallet and designated which days he got to see Sylar and which ones were Gabriel's and which belonged to Nathan. He couldn't find any days for Emma though and that was confusing. Didn't he love her? Why wasn't she here having dinner with them? And wait … wasn't Nathan dead?

Before he could figure any of that out, Sylar came over and sat sideways in his lap, wearing nothing but a G-string. Peter glanced surreptitiously around the table. Surely no one had noticed. He went on eating like normal, even with a mostly naked, sexy man sitting across his legs. He was pretty sure if he just carried on like usual, it would all be okay. He reached around the man for his fork and knife, but it was really awkward to try to eat with someone in your lap. Sylar was now Gabriel and even the G-string had gone missing. He took one of Peter's hands, making him drop the fork and guiding the hand to Gabriel's cock. Gabriel was groaning, but it sounded like snoring. Peter didn't appreciate the noises, but he couldn't figure out why. They sounded _wrong_.

Well outside of the dream Peter was having, his hand drifted to his shaft and fumbled at it until he got a loose grip. He leaned forward and mouthed at Gabriel's back, over his shoulder blade. The snoring stopped abruptly, but he didn't notice. Peter's thoughts remained firmly elsewhere.

In the dream, he was chewing at Gabriel's shoulder, kissing him sloppily while stroking him. No one else at the table seemed to be paying attention. Maybe he could just squeeze in a quick fuck? He was really hard, even aching. Gabriel's hand was grasping clumsily at Peter, but he wasn't doing a very good job.

The scene glitched a little and Peter was standing at the table, thrusting into Gabriel, who was lying face up on the table, trying to drink some of his wine out of Peter's glass. The liquid kept spilling though because Peter was slamming into him, even though he really couldn't feel much. He was hard, but frustratingly there was little sensation no matter how vigorous he was. His mother came over to help Gabriel, tipping the wine bottle for him as Gabriel lifted his head and puckered his lips for it. Peter complained to his mother to quit it, because that mouth belonged to him and he was the only one who got to put things in it.

He leaned down to kiss Gabriel, but couldn't find his lips. He was mouthing his back again. Maybe he'd been wrong about the position … maybe Gabriel was face down? Things shifted – there was motion and Peter almost woke up – then Gabriel's lips brushed against his own softly. No … he supposed he'd been right after all.

_I love you,_ Gabriel thought (or said? He wasn't sure) to him.

Peter started finally getting some sensation, some traction, on his cock. Peter panted fast, because he'd already been so close that the feeling of something wrapped around his penis was going to send him over almost immediately. He planted his hands on either side of Gabriel. One of them ended up in a bowl of potatoes and gravy. Nathan complained immediately that he was ruining the food. (The fact that he was having sex on the table still wasn't bothering anyone.)

_Don't get distracted_, Gabriel crooned and Peter brought the messy hand up to smear gravy across Gabriel's face. The sensation was weirdly intense, a double image of dream and reality. He came with a convulsive motion of his hips, the release finally jogging him awake enough to realize he'd been dreaming all along. Gabriel was facing him, his hand on Peter's shaft, Peter's hand touching his husband's face. Peter blinked and glanced around muzzily. They were in bed, not in a dining room.

_Oh._ He tried to pull it together. _Wait … what?_

_I'm not the only one who projects thoughts while I __dream. _Gabriel kissed him on the cheek and whispered, "Go back to sleep, sweetie."

Peter made a happy, contented sound, leaned his forehead against Gabe's chest and did as suggested.


	300. Couples Counseling

Peter and Gabriel settled into their seats across from Rita, who sat in her expected place beside her desk. The usual greetings had been exchanged as they walked in. Now she looked at them with brows slightly raised, as if inviting comment. Peter watched her blandly, still disconcerted to have a clinical eye turned his way.

Gabriel was a little more relaxed at it now and started speaking as soon as it was apparent that neither of the other two would. He turned to Peter. "I want to know - did you come to me for help after Molly?"

Peter looked put off. "Ah … what?"

"Help, Peter. Did you come to me so I would help you? Is that why you came to my house, came up the stairs to **me**, instead of to anyone else, instead of … I don't know, any_where_ else?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Peter's brows drew together a little. "Yes, that's why," he said with more conviction. "I needed your help. You helped." He said it like it was obvious. He gave Rita a sidelong glance, not wanting to get into how he'd lost composure _after_ going to Gabriel. If he'd stayed alone, he could have, _would_ have held it together.

"Good." Gabriel said, with an affirmed expression.

Peter's expression was less positive. He narrowed his eyes slightly at Gabe, trying to work out why this assertion, now.

Rita inserted, "Gabriel, is it important to you that Peter came to you for help?"

"Yes." He looked over at Pete. "I'm glad I could help you. I want to help you." He shook his head. "Sometimes I feel like an imposition on you, on your life. Like I just complicate it and you'd be better off without me."

"No!" Peter said at Gabriel's next pause for breath.

"Shut up," Gabriel snapped. "I wasn't done." Gabriel had begun to realize that sitting in front of Rita, he could say things that he couldn't work himself up to saying when it was just he and Peter.

Peter pursed his lips and did as told.

Gently, Rita said, "You should be more respectful, Gabriel."

Gabriel sighed. "Okay. Peter, let me speak, okay?" Peter nodded. "You were having … a good life, a better life, without me, before. I took things from you." Peter tensed and shifted, but kept his mouth shut. Gabriel went on, "Important things. And then I made you deal with me. I just think you would have been happier without me …" He made an empty gesture. "That's all." Quickly he amended, "No, that's not - not all. I'm glad that I was able to do something useful for you. That's- now, I'm done."

Peter waited a beat just in case, then said, "You do **a lot** useful for me. Is this because of what I said the other night, about you bringing more to the relationship than being good in bed?"

"No. Well, yes. But that didn't come up because _you_ said something. It came up because _I_ did." Peter nodded. He remembered it that way too. Gabriel continued, "But these attacks … I know I promised not to run, but I don't really bring anything to you except trouble. Maybe I do for Heidi, but without me, _you_ would still have Emma."

"I couldn't have handled my dad without you," Peter said softly.

Gabriel shook his head definitively. "No! That's my point. Your dad wasn't even your problem. If I hadn't been there, Heidi wouldn't have been attacked anyway. And even so, if I hadn't drug you into it - I _called _you, Peter - you would have never even known! And you handled your dad all by yourself. I was in New York. You were in Riyadh."

"That's ridiculous, Gabriel. You _saved_ me from Lilith."

"Did I? All I did was knock Mohinder away. He's not exactly the world's biggest threat. You took care of Lilith on your own."

Peter sighed and looked down, deciding not to argue the incidents the other man was bringing up. They weren't the core issue, anyway. "Gabriel, I love you. I want you in my life."

Gabriel stared at him silently for several seconds.

Peter finally looked up at him, eyes steely. "You're not going to run me off with this."

Gabriel snorted and rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair. "That's not the point, Peter. That's so far from the point! I feel pointless sometimes. I'm not trying to run you off, I'm …" He gestured a little more expansively than the situation called for, but couldn't finish his sentence.

Rita asked, "What do you want Peter to do that would make you feel like you were an important part of his life?"

Gabriel looked at her blankly. "I don't know. I just appreciated having the opportunity to help. I wanted to be … I want to think I'm helping."

Peter straightened a little as if realizing something. "You _are_ helping. Remember when you told me that sometimes all you needed from me was me to be there and be supportive?"

"You don't need that kind of support, Peter."

Peter's expression turned angry in an instant. "The hell I don't!" Rita jumped and Gabriel pulled back a little. Peter dialed it down quickly. He held up a hand in an attempt to be calming. " That's exactly why I came to you after Molly. I needed that kind of support and you gave it to me. See?" He waited until Gabriel gave him a nod. "I can't go to Emma with some of my problems - only you. You understand better what's going on with me and more importantly, you can stop me if things are going bad. I can relax more with you. You are much better than I am at calibrating and controlling your power. You're not afraid to use it when it comes down to it. If I lose control or something, you can shut me down. If we fight and I hurt you, you'll heal. If I hurt Emma … if she loses the baby, there's no recovery from that. I can't risk being …" He shrugged helplessly. "You're strong. I need that. I need your strength. We _all_ need it."

Gabriel absorbed that like a sponge, having shifted to lean forward and listen avidly. He seemed disappointed when Peter stopped. "I just wanted to know that … you hadn't come to me for … some other reason."

"Like what?" Peter asked.

Gabriel shrugged. "I don't know. Because I was a director and you were just making a report or … I don't know." He trailed off.

"Gabriel, I wasn't working for the Company right then," Peter said with a touch of sarcasm.

"Okay, okay. I know." Gabriel looked down and gave the floor an ironic smile for whatever thoughts were running through his mind at the moment. "I just want to be special, Peter."

"You are," Peter confirmed immediately. Gabriel raised a brow at him but said nothing. "Gabriel," he said softly, "you mean the world to me. I don't like to play that mental game of what would have happened if someone went back in time and stepped on a butterfly. It doesn't matter, because we're here, right here, as we are now. This is the reality we have to deal with. There were … rough times in our past. But I need you now. There's reasons why I'm trying to keep you, you know?"

Gabriel gave him an assessing look.

"I've been apart from you, remember? I didn't like it. Not one bit. It hurt, physically. It made me _sick_. I love you. I want to be with you. You're important to me. What do I need to do to convince you?"

Gabriel shrugged with one shoulder. "I think I'm convinced." He didn't look very convinced.

Peter looked off at a random corner of the room instead. "Where's all this insecurity coming from, anyway?" Rita frowned at him, disapproving of the question.

Gabriel's lips tightened and he snarked, "I don't know, Peter. Maybe it has something to do with someone trying to kill me outside my therapist's office and finding out the crosshairs were on my kids?" Peter frowned at him now. Gabriel went on in an angry tone, "You didn't even let me do anything about it. I was lying around like some pathetic waste while you took care of everything!" He gestured broadly, "So, no, I can't imagine why I'd be feeling insecure and _worthless_."

Peter turned his head, tilting it a little away from Gabriel, trying to weather that without saying something he'd regret. Slowly he said, "I didn't leave with the intention of … what I did."

"Yeah, well, you sure as hell _did_."

Peter waited another beat for his emotions to steady as he parsed that sentence in a way that made a little more sense than a direct contradiction of Peter's own statement. He exhaled slowly, trying to sort through what he _needed_ to say, which wasn't the same thing as what he _wanted_ to say. "Gabe-"

"Don't you 'Gabe' me!"

Peter blinked at him. With deceptive calmness, he said, "Let me talk."

"Fine," Gabriel sulked.

Peter gave him a long, level look, eyes slightly narrowed. He opened his mouth a couple times and finally asked, "Are you playing around here?"

"No." Gabriel looked off at the wall like it was fascinating suddenly. "I'll admit I do enjoy getting these things out on the table though. I like getting them off my chest. I don't feel comfortable doing it any other time." He glanced over at Peter and raked him with his eyes. "You are _so_ going to get it when we get home."

Peter choked and covered his face with his hands.

Rita asked, "You're not saying you're going to do anything retaliatory, are you?"

Peter answered her, hands still hiding his face in embarrassment, "No, I don't think that's what he's suggesting _at all_."

Gabriel murmured, "I hope he finds it a little more rewarding than retaliatory."

In an equally low voice, Peter said, "I think that's enough, _Gabe_."

Rita said, "It's very warming to see that you two can argue and open up while still having such affection for each other."

"Mm," Gabriel said noncommittally, but Peter saw hints of amusement there as he looked sideways at his partner, from behind his hands.

Peter dropped his hands away and rubbed them together. "Okay. I should have stopped after what I found out from Micah. I should have come back and involved you, because you needed to know, because maybe I was jumping into something dangerous - I'm pretty sure Mohinder can end us permanently if he … does the right things. And because you're a director. I was afraid Micah would warn her, which he did, but I got there before she could do anything about it. I didn't know she was the end of the line either when I went. I thought she was being used. I wasn't thinking straight."

"You just leaped without looking like you usually do," Gabriel said, musing.

"Yeah," Peter admitted. "But like I said before, I came to _you_ for help afterwards. I didn't go off alone like I have in the past. I came back to you because I knew I wasn't thinking right, I'd done something really bad, and I thought you could fix it. I thought you'd understand … and I think you _did_. I didn't want you to find out from someone else and have to track me down. I wanted you to know I was sincere, I was sorry, and I didn't mean to do that. Not … really, at least. I didn't … mean for it to _happen_ that way."

Gabriel sat up a little straighter.

Peter went on, "I'm glad I had you to go to. In the past when I nearly fucked the world over, I ran off and hid afterward. I never had anyone … I can trust you. I know you'll … help me, and not just take advantage." Peter gave him a wry smile. "And here I am in therapy, maybe getting past this. For those things before, it took me months to get back to anything close to normal. Because I have _you_, it's not going to take that long now."

"Yeah," Gabriel said very quietly, "definitely going to get it."


	301. Tell Me What You Want

"Tell me what you want, sweetie," Gabriel asked the moment they'd teleported into the apartment. Technically he supposed they were cutting into the ladies' time with their dalliance, but a certain amount of travel time, coffee shop detours and the like, etc. was allowed. He hoped Peter either didn't think about that, or didn't point it out. He kissed fervently along Peter's neck to help keep the man's attention on what Gabe wanted - which was getting Peter off and showing his appreciation for Peter letting him vent in therapy. There was probably not so small a part of him there too wanting to make up for anything mean and angry that he'd said, wanting to make sure Peter was still pleased with him.

Peter was running his hands up and down Gabriel's sides, breathing harder already. He certainly seemed pleased. Gabriel knew he had him - of course, that was no reason to slow down, so he didn't. Peter panted, "I want to suck you off."

Gabriel snorted and pulled back. "Peter, I want to do something for _you_. Why is this always about what _I_ want?"

Peter scoffed back and poked him in the chest with a finger. "Shut up!" he said playfully. "Let me talk! It's my turn." When Gabriel didn't say anything, Peter leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, plundering it, making Gabriel groan. When Peter pulled away he smiled. "It isn't about what _you_ want._ I_ want to watch you come undone without anything to distract me." He kissed him again, but just a press of lips and then withdrawing when Gabriel tried to make it more. "And then afterward I want you to blow _me_, okay?"

Gabriel mulled that around in his head. That was okay. Now he was actually having to … _getting_ to do something that let him feel like he was making an effort and contributing, rather than the idea of just laying back and getting his favorite sex act. Which was … yeah, his favorite and all, but it kind of stripped out any feeling of _giving_. "Okay," he conceded. "Is that really … You don't get off from giving me head. Why do you like doing it so much? You're telling the truth, right?"

Peter rolled his eyes and looked away. Gabriel realized his partner was starting to lose the interest he'd built up. Gabriel raised his hands to put them on Peter's shoulders, rubbing gently. Peter said, "Yes, Gabriel, I am telling the truth. I like it, okay? Maybe it's a power thing. I like looking up and seeing you on the edge, knowing I put you there." Peter turned his eyes back to him, beginning to build back that sexual energy he'd lost. He pushed Gabriel backwards towards the couch. "Get your pants down."

While Gabriel did, Peter continued, kneeling in front of him when Gabriel sat. "I want to make you moan. I want you to think my mouth is the sexiest thing in the universe. I know you like oral. That's why I want to give it to you. Making you come so easily is _hot_." Peter leaned in and hugged him, forehead down on Gabriel's chest. Gabriel gave a deep growl that didn't make it to audible, but Peter felt it. The kneeling man raised his head to look up at him and they shared another passionate kiss.

Tongues twined and slipped over one another as Peter's hand found Gabriel's shaft and tickled across it. He wasn't completely hard quite yet. He shifted his hips and breathed harder. Peter reached up with his other hand and ran it into Gabriel's hair, eliciting an immediate noise of pleasure. Peter made a fist and Gabriel was entirely stiff. Even his mouth slackened. Peter tugged him back by his hair. Gabriel panted in his face as Peter stroked him. Peter seemed to like that particularly, leaning in to nip and suck at his lips as his hand stroked him, thumb rolling over Gabriel's tip with each motion.

"Ohhh God!"

"You can just call me Peter, you know."

Gabriel blinked. _What?_ He was so shocked that for a moment, that was all he could think. That had to be the most sacrilegious thing he'd ever heard come out of the man's mouth. Gabriel grinned, Peter returned it, and with one last moan-inducing pull at Gabriel's hair, Peter sank back on his haunches to take Gabriel in his mouth.

Peter held his shaft with one hand as he bobbed and hollowed his cheeks, sucking him softly at first, then gradually harder. He reached up with his other hand and pushed Gabriel back so he could roll his eyes up and watch his face. Gabriel was pretty sure his face was putting on a show, mouth open, panting out barely voiced oh's with each breath … his legs twitched and his hips began to rock into Peter's willing mouth. _Oh, so hot._

Gabriel ran a hand into Peter's hair, carding through it without gripping. Peter didn't like to have his hair grabbed, but stroking it was fine. For a moment Gabriel put a hand on either side of Peter's face, framing him, looking down at Peter looking up at him, his dick half buried in the man's mouth. He wished he could keep that image forever. Gabriel smiled lazily and felt a spasm almost like an orgasm pass through him - but he wasn't there quite yet. One hand went back into Peter's hair. The other played with Gabriel's own nipples, rubbing them through his shirt. Peter was stroking the inside of his thighs, having dropped his hand from Gabriel's cock and taken over the fellatio fully with his mouth. He took him most of the way in. A true deep throating was difficult at this angle - Peter didn't try it. He was doing a fantastic job without it.

Gabriel groaned aloud, hooking his legs a little, trying to encircle Peter with them. His hips were going in fitful little jerks. Peter brought his hands up and around Gabe's waist, then under him to push his slacks down a little further and seize his butt cheeks. He gripped them hard enough to hurt. That tore a cry from Gabriel and his whole body stiffened. Just a second more … Peter sucked him hard, working him with his tongue as his fingers, still holding him tightly, firmly kneaded his ass. Gabriel felt the surge and throb go through him. He saw Peter's head jerk slightly and his throat work as he managed it. The man pulled back for a quick breath, then sucked him dry as Gabriel's body relaxed slowly.

He reached down to pet Peter's hair. "I love you. I love you. I love you." As he often did after he came, he wanted nothing more than to snuggle and kiss. When Peter finally pulled off, he tugged him up next to him and kissed the side of his face. "You smell like my dick," he murmured.

Peter chuckled a few times. "Might be a reason for that."

"Mm," Gabriel said, falling over sideways on the couch and pulling Peter with him, so Peter was lying on top of him. They hugged each other and basked in the moment. He could feel Peter's groin hard against his hip, but for now Peter said nothing. "You are so, so good. I want to be with you forever."

"You will be," Peter said with simple confidence.

Gabriel felt a corner of his mouth rise. Once upon a time he'd thought he'd eventually end up with Claire - that he'd be with Heidi for the rest of her life, then move on to the blonde when maybe things would have cooled between them and she'd be more approachable. He wasn't in a hurry and he had as many confused feelings towards her as he did with Peter. But he was starting to see that Claire didn't hold any appeal for him. He had everything he wanted right now and Peter was no more likely to age than he himself was. He hugged Peter more firmly. "You're everything I want."

Minutes later, he serviced Peter's condom-sheathed penis with meticulous care. Going slow seemed to be what was tripping Peter's trigger, as the Italian squirmed and mewled and clawed at Gabriel's legs with abandon, doing everything he could to avoid fucking Gabriel's face like he clearly wanted to do. It was delicious to have him be so demonstrative. Gabriel rolled the man's balls in his hand for a moment as he sucked, then moved his hand further, pressing his thumb into the perineum. Peter's breath hitched immediately and his mewls turned to whimpers. _Ah, a hit!_ He pressed harder, rubbing that spot, pulling moans of pleasure from the man until Peter bit his thigh and clung to him. The empath finally couldn't stop himself from making a single convulsive thrust, his shaft pulsing briefly under Gabe's tongue.

Gabriel pulled off, grimacing as his tongue tried to wipe the taste of latex out of his mouth. It wasn't going to work, he knew. He rested his forehead against Peter's hip as he got his breath. Other than the latex, he liked the way Peter smelled. It felt right in some subconscious way; it was a source of comfort; it clicked for him. Of course so did the scents for Heidi and Noah. Much as he loved Simon and Monty, the primal part of his brain didn't link them up the same way. He hadn't held them as much, hadn't slept with them and cared for them intimately - the neural pathways in his brain hadn't been cemented and reinforced for them. He wondered if they had been for Nathan. He sort of doubted it, for if they had, then how could he have ever left them?

His eyes opened, but he wasn't seeing. He was remembering Nathan picking up Peter's scent so many years ago, on that hot summer day on a baseball diamond, and becoming hard almost immediately. He blinked. Yeah, something had been cemented for the man, so it wasn't just Gabriel and his weird brain. He remembered Nathan caring for Peter as a baby, changing diapers even though they had a nanny, rocking him to sleep, holding him after nightmares, helping the boy when he was sick – all surprising amounts of affection from a teenage boy towards his younger brother, but his parents had had the strangest reaction to Peter. He was a thing to them, a product, even though he was clearly also their child. Angela had warmed to Peter eventually, but it had taken her years.

Gabriel remembered Nathan standing in the rain outside of a bar in Ireland, feeling desolate and hopeless, looking, searching for Peter because without him, life wasn't worth living. And too, his life was worth giving to save Peter's. He recalled holding him as they flew upward, as Peter's body glowed until just looking at him was painful, much less keeping him close as he did - but he was willing to die for Peter.

Another day, he'd done just that, in the Stanton. Sylar had stood over Peter's crumpled form, the killer's lip curled in a snarl, lit by the continuous arcs of electricity he was feeding into Peter's body. Nathan didn't know how much of that his brother could take. He wasn't going to find out. He surged across the room, tackling his foe and smashing them both through the window, into the empty air outside. Sylar had caught himself with difficulty. Telekinesis allowed for only the most clumsy and makeshift flight. The first chance he'd gotten, he'd shot Nathan out of the air, sending him tumbling through another window into the hotel, then following to get his feet on solid ground again. When Nathan had picked himself up, he'd known it was probably over. He'd only hoped his diversion, his sacrifice, would preserve Peter's life.

"What are you _thinking?_" Peter asked, mystified. No doubt he was catching the myriad play of emotions as Gabriel sorted through the history. Peter's implication was correct - this was inappropriate at the moment. And it was threatening to overwhelm him, as the memories sometimes did. He wanted to wonder about how much of his connection with Peter was a holdover from Nathan or was something he'd developed in the last few years as Gabriel, but this wasn't the time. He put it aside for later. It didn't really matter either way, because he treasured what he had, no matter where it came from.

Gabriel came up with something to say that was truthful, yet concealing. "I was thinking about how much I like the way you smell." He peeled off the condom. Peter tensed a little and lifted his head to look at him. Obviously, that wasn't enough of an explanation. His emotions had probably played through sadness and fear and horror, which really wasn't explicated by 'I like the way you smell.' He added, "Your scent … there are a lot of memories associated with it." He kissed Peter on the hip. "Good memories, by and large. I was just thinking about them, there for a moment."

That satisfied Peter. He relaxed, lying back down on the couch for a moment, before tensing again. "We need to go," Peter said. "The girls."

Gabriel tugged up Peter's pants for him. His own had been pulled up and refastened before he started on his husband. It still struck him as weird to think of Peter using that word, but he was determined to do it. "Yeah, I know," Gabriel said. "You going to brush your teeth?"

"Yes." Peter righted himself as Gabriel scooted back and got to his feet. "You should use some mouthwash."

"Yeah, Heidi might not appreciate condom breath," Gabriel joked.

Peter grinned guiltily and tilted his head, shaking it.


	302. Scent Marked

Gabriel walked over to give him a friendly, fraternal hug after he came through the door. Peter noticed, only because he'd become sensitive to it, that Gabriel inhaled with the embrace. He backed up a step and clapped Peter on the outside of the shoulders. "Good to see you," Gabriel told him.

"Yeah, you too. How much can you detect with that … nose?" He hesitated to call it an ability, because it wasn't quite.

"Ah … some." Gabriel let his arms fall to his sides. "What do you mean?"

Peter gave a half shrug and took a small step forward, putting his hand on Gabriel's hip. "I was just curious. I just wonder. Can you track people by scent or something like that?"

"No. Well … probably not. I'm sure I could pick _you_ out of a crowd, but I know you."

"Oh." Peter sounded disappointed.

His expression moved Gabriel to say, "Here. Let me see what I can tell." He moved as if to hug him again, but instead he leaned down to take a deep breath from the side of Peter's head, just behind his ear. He put his hands on Peter's shoulders.

"Why the back of the head? It's not like I have, you know, sweat glands there."

"Yes, you do, and you don't smear antiperspirant on them like you do the ones in your armpits."

"Oh." Peter was puzzled. Yes, he had sweat glands all over his body, but the scent producing ones weren't on the back of his head. "I don't get it."

Gabriel sighed. "You have very thick, fine hair, Peter. You shower at least once a day, usually getting your hair wet. It rarely dries entirely. The moisture traps your scent."

Peter's expression read as 'ew' very clearly.

With a threatening snarl, Gabriel said, "**Do **_**not**_** use a hair dryer**."

"Okay, okay. Never. Got it." Peter had pulled back a little. Gabriel was still looking at him like he might need to cut into Peter's skull, looking between his eyes and his hair. Peter said gently, "I … I think that getting my hair cut must have been like erasing part of my face for you."

Gabriel's intimidating stance softened a little. "That sounds like a valid analogy," he allowed.

Peter swallowed and stepped back closer, caressing his lover. "I don't even own a hair dryer. I won't use Emma's."

Gabriel leaned in and nuzzled his hair wordlessly. Peter smiled. Gabriel relaxed more, bringing his hands up to touch Peter in turn. He dropped his nose to Peter's left shoulder and tugged back his t-shirt. "Mm. And yes, you have showered. Recently." He ran his hand through Peter's hair and smelled of it a third time. "You didn't wash your hair though. You're still using that unscented body wash you bought a month or two ago."

"You can smell that?"

"Of course I can. Unscented doesn't mean unscented. It just means … I don't know, but yes, I can smell it."

"Oh." Peter shrugged. "I got it for you." Which was kind of pointless if Gabriel could still smell it.

"That's nice of you." Gabriel smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek for the thought at least. Then he nosed around his face. Peter started to kiss him, out of habit mostly, because Gabriel's mouth close to his own was very kissable and kissing him was usually what he did when the other man was this close. Gabriel pulled back and said, "No," then he returned to his examination. "Emma," he murmured, his face touching Peter's. He licked the corner of Peter's mouth and then kissed the side of his upper lip, drawing it into his mouth and sucking on it.

Peter swallowed and brought his hands up to Gabriel's sides. It was hard to remained unmoved and he wasn't, entirely. He could feel Gabriel wasn't either.

He released Peter's lip with an audible pop and said, "I can taste her lip gloss on you – she gave you an open-mouthed kiss. Very hot - very involved. Oh, and here…" He moved to Peter's cheek and kissed him wetly, tasting him as much as anything. "You had sex with her," he breathed. "Just a few hours ago."

"You can smell that?" Peter asked in disbelief. "I took a shower!"

"This is deduction: you showered to wash something off, and you always shower after sex if you can. But you only wash your hair in the morning." Gabriel went to Peter's jaw and nibbled on it.

"Is this part of the examination?"

"No." Gabriel dipped lower, pulling up Peter's shirt and wallowing his face in it. "But this is. You cooked, or helped to cook dinner. It had oil. I don't know … Soy sauce?" Peter's brows went up. He'd made vegetable stir-fry and fried rice, but it wasn't like he'd gotten the food all over himself. "Chinese food maybe?" Gabriel dropped the shirt and kissed him hard. Peter swayed back but otherwise stayed still.

Gabriel pulled away and said, "Open," and Peter opened his mouth obediently. Gabriel plundered it thoroughly. By the end of it, he was breathing harder. Peter could feel the man's erection straining at the front of his slacks. "Something with rice and vegetables. I can't label all of them." He looked at Peter, his gaze heavy with lust. "I need you. Now." He almost growled it.

"Okay," Peter said cooperatively, a little surprised at how aroused this had made Gabriel. It certainly wasn't the smell of stir-fry - more the whole experience of drinking Peter in. Peter didn't know, but it had more to do with replacing Emma's scent with Gabriel's own. Gabriel wasn't really jealous of her, but he was human and Peter, and his clothes, literally reeked of his other lover. This was intolerable. It had to be remedied, and now.

Gabriel opened Peter's slacks and began to steer him to the couch. Peter tried to interrupt, "Wait … wait …" Gabriel didn't. He was panting in his hurry. "No," Peter said a little more strongly than he'd meant to, but it worked. Gabriel stopped immediately, winced and looked steadily at the wall. Peter glanced at the wall, confused, and realized Gabriel was trying to kill his ardor. "No, no. I just meant … the bedroom. You can have me in the bedroom."

Gabriel snapped out of it and after a beat, took Peter's arm and hustled him into the other room. He went for Peter's pants rather than his shirt and pushed him onto the bed. When Peter started to go to the middle, Gabriel shook his head and pulled him back, tugging off his pant leg. He said, "Here. At the edge. And leave your shirt on." He had every intention of lying on that shirt at some point so it smelled like _him_, not _her_. He threw off his own shirt, opened his slacks and pushed them down only enough to free himself. He moved towards Peter.

"Whoa," Peter cautioned. "Lube. _Slow down_."

Gabriel hesitated, his teeth set together, then put out his hand and called it from the nightstand. He squirted it liberally on his hand and tossed the bottle on the bed. Peter pulled his knees up and scooted to the edge. He reached out with a foot, hooked his big toe into Gabriel's waistband and shoved it down. "And take your slacks off."

Gabriel grimaced, looking from his hand sloppy with lubricant to his pants. They removed themselves. Telekinesis was useful that way. He wiped himself with lube and then Peter, swabbing it over the entire area. He moved one finger to his opening and pressed against it. He leaned over Peter, using his clean hand to support himself and kissed him deeply, thrusting his finger inside as he did. Peter grunted.

Gabriel brought the digit in and out repeatedly with the same vigor he used to attack Peter's mouth. Peter could feel his own excitement starting to build. Gabriel turned his hand, working the finger in a hooking motion. He added a second and Peter moaned softly into the mouth that was still pressed to his. Gabriel ran his fingers in and out a couple times then withdrew. Peter gasped out, "No. Three. Three fingers." Gabriel blinked at him and looked down at his dick in his hand. "Three," Peter repeated firmly. Normally he didn't need that much, but he expected Gabriel was going to take him fast and hard and he wanted the prep.

Gabriel nodded and slipped one into him again, leaning forward for a slower kiss. He added a second soon thereafter and then a third. Peter groaned at the third and to his delight, Gabriel didn't make the token effort he had with two the first time. Instead he pressed his body against Peter's and tried to consume his mouth, breathing hard with delayed need, but he seemed to have accepted that he had to get his partner ready too. He shifted his torso back and forth against Peter's. The shirt between them was caught in the motion.

He worked his hand back and forth, loosening the resistant ring of muscle as his tongue slid across Peter's and his breath puffed from his nose onto Peter's cheek. He hunched himself against Peter's thigh, smearing lube and precome across Peter's leg. He broke and said, "Now?" It was almost a whine. "I want you _so bad_." Peter didn't answer, but it was only because he was adoring Gabriel's expression of need and lust. "Please?"

Peter nodded. Gabriel positioned himself and Peter bore down as much as he could to ease the entry. As he'd suspected, Gabriel took him in one hard plunge, making both of them call out. Gabriel leaned forward over him, his hands digging into Peter's oblique muscles and jerking him backward into his thrusts. Their bodies joined vigorously, slapping together, Gabriel driving his length all the way in with every stroke. Peter yielded to him, wrapping his legs around the other man's waist, letting his heels rest on his flexing buttocks.

Gabriel was gasping and vocalizing every time he surged against his lover. Peter put his hands on Gabriel's bare shoulders to steady himself and just watched. Gabriel was in a transport of lust like Peter had never seen before, or perhaps he'd just never been in the position to see Gabriel really let himself go.

Now Gabriel's expression was much like when Peter took him roughly, except instead of being passive and blown away, he was active, reaching, driving towards that peak of total release. His mouth was slack, his lids heavy and his pupils so dilated with lust that his eyes looked black instead of brown. He was entirely lost to the moment and Peter could feel every barrier the other man had coming down as he neared his climax. Peter was swept along with the power of it.

Gabriel's face began to draw together as if the pleasure was almost painful and his thrusts started to lose their rhythm. Peter picked it up for him, driving his hips up against the other man and tightening his legs around his waist. He seized his shoulders, pulling him into himself, fucking him nearly as forcefully from the subordinate position as Gabriel had from the dominant. Peter felt the orgasm go through both of them, as Gabriel was making no effort to inhibit his mental projection. Peter's back arched off the bed as his muscles clenched. He wasn't near his own peak, but the telepathy tricked his body enough that he reacted like he was coming as well.

He felt every spurt and spasm of Gabriel's cock inside of him, the impressions layering from himself and Gabriel both. Peter blinked rapidly, gasping and trying to free his mind from the projection of Gabriel's post-coital haze. The other man sagged forward, barely holding himself up. A thin line of spittle hung from his lower lip. Peter watched it descend to wet his t-shirt, while he relaxed slowly against the bed, struggling to get control of himself again.

With an effort, Gabriel released his hold on Peter's waist and put one arm out to support himself. Peter still had his legs locked around him and Gabriel remained buried to the hilt in him. His ass clenched sympathetically one last time, as the last aftershock went through them both. They made almost identical mewls of pleasure. Peter grinned at him.

Gabriel bent forward slowly at the waist, keeping them together lower and putting one arm around Peter's back and one cradling his head. "_**I love you**_. Oh dear God Peter, I love you _so much_." His breath caught. "You're my little brother. You're my savior." Peter wrapped his arms around him in turn and pressed the side of his head against Gabriel's. "You're my friend. You're my _lover_." Gabriel squeezed them together, pushing Peter up an inch with a pressure from his hips. "You're my husband." He let his hand travel from behind Peter's head down his left arm, raising himself a little and bringing Peter's wrist to his mouth. He kissed the watch that Peter wore as a sign of their commitment. "_**I. Love. You**_."

Peter drew him down for a gentle, slow kiss and then touched their foreheads together. "I love you too," Peter said simply.

Gabriel smiled, partly a smirk, and kissed him again. When he parted, he reached a hand down to Peter's hip and said, "How should I finish you?"

Peter shook his head slowly. "No, I'm fine. I sort of dry-fired earlier or something."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I'm good." He sighed, satiated. "I got what I needed." Whatever that was, was weird, but he felt done and his erection had faded just like if he'd had a normal orgasm.

Gabriel kissed him again and Peter unhooked his feet from around his partner. They disengaged. As he withdrew, Gabriel lifted up Peter's shirt and sniffed it conspicuously. _Mission accomplished_, Gabriel thought. He grinned lazily as if something pleased him a great deal. He sank down on the bed next to Peter, rubbing his forehead slowly, letting the endorphins fade.

Peter turned to smile lazily at him. Gabriel reached over and put his hand on Peter's thigh. "I had a dream about you the other night."

"Oh?" Peter propped himself up on his elbows. "A vision?"

"No." Gabriel hesitated. "Well, it might have been." He looked up and down Peter's body suggestively. "We were making love. I guess I was saying your name a lot, but I really don't remember."

Peter smiled. "Ah."

"Anyway, I came. And I woke up. And Heidi's hand was on my cock." Peter blinked at that. "She said I'd started humping her in my sleep and kept moaning your name and it just seemed easier to hurry things along than to do anything else." He grinned.

Peter laughed. He raised his brows and said expressively, "You have a _good_ wife. You were saying _my_ name?" Gabriel smiled like the cat who ate the cream and nodded, chortling. Peter reiterated, "_Good_ wife. You better hang onto her."

Gabriel fell backwards on the bed. "I know. I took her out to dinner and gave her a really long foot massage when she went to bed. She has nice feet."

Peter flopped back on the bed too, scooting back a little where only his lower legs were hanging off. "So where did little Noah stay while you two were out?"

"With the nanny. She's gotten a lot better about that."

"I'm glad to hear it," Peter said softly. He reached out and touched Gabriel's arm briefly, just a light brush, and said, "I don't know if I've ever told you this, but thank you for being a good father to Nathan's children."

Gabriel started to object, "I … they're …" He shut his mouth.

Peter touched him again and said, "I know. They're _your_ kids. But Nathan wasn't … being the father you are now, back when he was alive. And I think it's a sign of how grateful Heidi is that she'd put up with something like that dream. She knows you're a good guy."

Gabriel sighed. "You say the nicest things, Peter."


	303. Kissing

Gabriel snarled at the computer screen and leaped to his feet, pacing angrily. His fists clenched and unclenched in tension. Peter looked up at him, but said nothing. They'd been working quietly in the dining room of Angela's house, profiling a special who was using his ability to sway others to become a media sensation. Gabriel caught the look and hesitated, then took one fast step towards Peter, almost like he was going to attack him. He pulled up short, his lids giving a twitch and his eyes a jerk as though he came to himself suddenly. He turned away instead and stood there stiffly.

After a beat, Peter asked, "What was that?"

"What was what?" Gabriel said, his voice dull and devoid of inflection.

"What were you about to do?" He cocked his head. "That wasn't Sylar."

Gabriel took a breath and released it, relaxing a little. He did it again, then a third time with a much deeper breath. He blinked several times and turned back to Peter. "No, it wasn't. I know… you'll let me do things to you – things you might not like, but you'd let me do them." He shook his head. "You deserve better than that from me." Peter swiveled his chair a little to face him, not saying anything.

Gabriel went on, reaching down to brush his knuckles across the back of Peter's forearm. "I wanted to grab your wrist." He slipped his hand softly around Peter's. "I wanted to yank you out of that chair." He gave a tiny tug, lifting slightly. Peter took the hint, standing. "And pull you against me." His voice was full of emotion by now, no longer blank. His hand slipped from Peter's wrist to his side and around to his back. With only the pressure of his fingertips, he urged Peter closer and his husband cooperated. "As hard as I could." Peter smiled a little, realizing how at odds with Gabriel's words his actions were, which was probably the point.

"I wanted to crush my lips against yours." Gabriel leaned forward and brushed his lips on Peter's, pulling back when Peter tried to kiss him. "I wanted to swallow you down, consume you, make you mine, remind myself that there was someone who I controlled utterly, whom I could do that to without complaint or resistance." He kissed Peter now, very softly, very gently, and Peter matched his tone with a cautious, careful exploration of Gabriel's lips and teeth with his tongue. Gabriel opened before him and sagged a little, letting Peter take the lead.

Peter did, bringing one hand up Gabriel's arm to his shoulder, then winding it around the back of his neck to bury it in Gabriel's hair. The other came to the side of Gabriel's face and caressed it, fingertips stroking the sensitive skin, trailing into the fine hair at his temple, curling around his ear and following the line of his jaw to his neck, then circling back up to his cheek and past that to his forehead, mussing his brow along the way just to do it.

Peter was distantly aware of a presence. He opened his eyes and turned slightly to see Maury Parkman standing in the entry of the dining room, a set of papers in his hand. He looked at them long enough for the scrutiny to be creepy before saying, "I'll come back when you're done," and walking off.

Gabriel started to turn and break away, but Peter tightened his hand in his hair and pulled him to himself more firmly. Gabriel made a soft moan in his throat and Peter growled into his mouth. Gabriel's hands were on Peter's hips, slowly inching around his waist towards his back, letting Peter direct him, hold him, and set how close they were. Peter turned his head so he could tongue Gabriel more deeply, eliciting another moan, not nearly so soft or quiet now. Peter dropped his hand from Gabriel's hair and curled it around his back, between his shoulder blades, pressing them together. Gabriel brought his hands fully around Peter's waist, so they touched at the small of Peter's back.

Breathing hard, they finally parted. Peter smiled, trying to drive off thoughts of doing something a lot more active and penetrative and stimulating right here on his mother's dining room table. That dream he'd had recently played briefly through his mind. Or he could always teleport them elsewhere to do it. He swallowed and got himself under control. His mother had accepted the inevitable, but it was still a very good thing that it was Maury who had happened upon them and not her.

"I love you," Peter whispered.

"Mm. And so," Gabriel continued from before, which seemed like hours ago, although it was likely only minutes, "even if you would let me do any of that, I shouldn't. Because you don't like it rough."

"God, I like _**this**_," Peter said with emphasis. "But if you want it rougher, you can have it that way."

Gabriel shrugged. They remained standing pressed against each other, both very happy to be touching.

Peter said, "Listen, being together is about compromise. If you want something, take it. If I can't handle it, I'll tell you. Okay?" Peter leaned up to kiss Gabriel's chin and the skin under his mouth. Gabriel pulled his head back, ducked down and turned to deny Peter that act and instead did the same thing in return. It was a submissive body language and Peter reflected he'd paired it badly by giving directions first. Peter leaned his head back a little and stood straighter. Gabriel made a small sound and stroked his side briefly, letting his husband know his efforts were appreciated.

When the other man stepped back, Peter said, "You have the most beautiful mouth, Gabriel. There's that little bitty space there where your lips don't meet. I love that space."

Gabriel raised his brows, which looked a little comical with one of them having hairs sticking in all sorts of different directions. Peter rarely complimented him directly. "Yours isn't bad itself." He raised his hand to trace the nerve-damaged left side with his thumb. "You could fix this."

Peter smiled a little. "I know." He shrugged. "It's me though."

Gabriel smiled and leaned in to steal a quick smooch. "Thank you for calming me down."

"What were you pissed about?" Peter reached up to smooth out Gabriel's brow, the right corner of his mouth still quirked up as he did it.

"I have no idea." He smiled. "And that's exactly what I wanted from you."

* * *

Gabriel reached over and hit the stop button on the elevator. Peter raised his brows but didn't say anything. With a smile, Gabriel turned to him, moving in close. "I only need a minute," he said softly, kissing Peter briefly on the lips. "No more."

Peter nodded, perplexed. He glanced past Gabriel at the bank of buttons, thinking that at this time of day, they were unlikely to be inconveniencing people much with the delay. He didn't get to think much past that because Gabriel kissed him, once again little more than a short smooch.

He kept his face close to Peter's this time though, lips moving suggestively. Peter's eyes went from them to Gabriel's. Gabriel was smiling slightly. He leaned back in to kiss Peter more lingeringly, then broke away after a few seconds.

Peter inhaled deeply and swallowed, blinking. He could definitely get into this, that was for sure. Gabriel kissed him again, mouth still closed, but he moved his lips on Peter's, prompting Peter to shift his weight a little and tilt his head. Gabriel broke the kiss again, waited a few seconds, and came back. Peter parted his lips slightly and Gabriel matched him, smiling for a moment, then relaxing back into the kiss. He mouthed Peter's lips, pulling the lower one into his mouth, sucking it gently and kneading it between his teeth.

Peter made a tiny sound deep in his throat, shut his eyes and put his hands on Gabriel's hips, pulling him against himself.

Gabriel released the lip, letting it go with a sucking pop. "Thank you," he said, voice husky. He smiled to himself, smug and self-satisfied. He stepped away and pushed the button to resume.

"What?" Peter said, blinking at him.

"That was all I wanted."

They stood there for a moment as the elevator got back under way.

Peter snorted suddenly as he figured it out. "Damnit Gabriel! Yes, I want you. Was that what that was? You making sure I still did?"

Gabriel looked at Peter out of the corner of his eye, gaze ranging up and down his body, pausing a moment on the slight bulge at Peter's groin. "Yeah, that's what that was. I _like _knowing you want me. I love that. Is that so bad?"

Peter took a deep breath and let it out, shaking his head and grinning. "No, it's not bad." He lifted his head and gave Gabriel an appraising look right back, even as the elevator doors opened. "Any time you need, I'll show you."


	304. Trying To Be Normal

Peter watched as they filed into the conference room – Kelly, Al-Walid, Micah and West, to join Gabriel and, of course, Peter himself. They were a committee to review abuses of power and identify possible candidates for increased Company attention. Peter wasn't part of the committee. He was only here because Gabriel was, and although Gabriel could legitimately include him because he'd been part of the research team, his real reason for being here was less definable. He was going to teleport Gabriel back after, but that didn't explain his request to stay for the meeting itself. Gabriel hadn't quibbled.

Peter's eyes tracked Micah, his mind playing through Micah's complicity with Molly's attacks on Gabriel. The cyberpath looked uneasy at first, then adopted an air of false casualness. Gabriel interrupted Peter's aggressive gaze to ask, "Peter, was there something you needed to get before the meeting?"

"What?" he said, blinking and tearing his eyes away with difficulty. He realized he'd been staring. There was nothing he needed, but that wasn't really why Gabriel had interrupted him. "Sorry," Peter muttered, studying his notes and keeping his head down until he calmed.

Once everyone was seated and arranged, Gabriel addressed them all. "Hello! We need to address the case of Jeffrey Reyes, otherwise known as the Clash King. I sent a portfolio to you earlier." He glanced around the table. Micah was surreptitiously watching Peter, who was watching Gabriel; Al-Walid was still scrutinizing his electronic pad which was, through Micah's services, giving him complete translation of Gabriel's words into Arabic; and West and Kelly watched him with polite blankness.

"I'll review the essentials in case you weren't able to read through it. Jeffrey Reyes is his birth name, born April 29, 1989 in Bettendorf, Iowa to mixed race parents, claiming primarily black and Latino ethnicity. He was an above average student and, until the eclipse, was attending college at the University of Chicago with a liberal arts curriculum."

"Advertising major," Peter said quietly.

Gabriel frowned at his notes. He wasn't a fan of liberal arts majors. He didn't comment on Peter's clarification. "He is 5' 11", 180 lbs., basically healthy with no known history of unusual trauma. No criminal history; a few minor transgressions on his school record, but nothing outside the norm."

Kelly interjected, "Is this that guy you mentioned who we'd sent two different teams to investigate and they came back with those strange, glowing reviews?"

Gabriel smiled thinly. "Yes. Exactly. His ability is to influence the perceptions of others around him, through emotional manipulation and long-term residual effect. He can make people like him, or fear him – we don't have evidence of other emotions but it seems probable he could cause them. Right now he seems focused on creating adoration, affection, appreciation, alliteration-"

"Does he make people love him?" West asked. Peter looked around the table. Micah had a subdued smile. Al-Walid was frowning at his translation. West and Kelly seemed to have missed the joke.

Gabriel shrugged, acting like it was all business. He looked at Peter. "Can you answer that one?"

Peter straightened. "It looks like he's had a variety of sexual partners and at the current time he has a circle of fans willing to do that - three or four, I think. Obviously, there have been no claims of rape or assault filed against him. I'm sure you can see how that's not conclusive. Nearly everyone who meets him wants to be his friend. They don't all climb in bed with him, but we can't tell how much of that is their choice to keep it platonic or his decision not to ask for it."

Kelly, whose power was to instill commands with her voice, cleared her throat. "He affects emotions directly, right?"

Peter nodded. "Right. It's not an explicit command. I expect if he pressed it at all, his target would accommodate rather than disappoint." _I turned on Gabriel and dumped him because Bandar told me not to trust him. I can't imagine what would have happened if he'd told me to actually __**hate**__ Gabe._ He added, "Within some limits for orientation and situation, but people can be talked around to all kinds of things without abilities, so I doubt there's much he can't get from someone if he really works at it."

The look Al-Walid shot around the table was almost a snarl. He spoke in Arabic. After a moment of lag, the electronic pad he'd been reading gave his words in English, "An honorable man would not abuse people like that." He lowered his face again to watch the conversation.

Peter frowned. Bandar had a long and known history of using his ability, which was similar to Jeffrey's, to influence people's religious views and essentially force conversions. Apparently that was acceptable to Halo. However, Peter had to admit, he'd never heard of any _sexual_ misconduct on Bandar's part. What Bandar had done to Peter specifically - Peter didn't blame him. It had been self defense and as emotional manipulation went, not even all that heavy-handed.

Gabriel spoke up, "Clearly he's used his ability and uses it frequently. He's twenty-one. It may be that he will respond well to guidance, or to threat. That's what we're here to discuss – what we should do about it."

West asked, "Other than making his own friends, what's he been doing with his ability?"

Gabriel said, "He came to our attention because of the media circus he's been building around himself. He started with a modeling career – he's convinced the best names in the Chicago area to tap their most skilled associates in California and New York to come meet him. Following that he had their assistance and endorsement to major media corporations. He's being touted as the 'hot new thing,' more or less. He doesn't have any outstanding skill, but he's in negotiations with casting companies and advertising firms for the rights to his likeness. I really …"

Peter said, "If he would just slow down a little, it wouldn't be a big deal."

West chuckled. "He wouldn't be the first pop star everyone loved who didn't have much in the way of real talent."

Gabriel smiled suddenly and perked up. "Those are _exactly_ my thoughts."

Al-Walid asked something. A moment later the translation was, "You said there was a long-term effect?"

Gabriel nodded. "Just like we see with our own agents sent to investigate him – once someone meets him, the emotional effect stays. Maury's going to see if he can extract it, but he hasn't had good luck with emotional effects like that in the past. If that doesn't work, we'll try excising the memory and seeing how that turns out."

Peter fidgeted with his pencil. He wasn't happy about the Company modifying their employees so cavalierly. It wasn't like they were harmed by liking a man they would probably never meet again. But as experiments went …. He sighed and said nothing. Gabriel's attempt to reverse Bandar's emotional manipulation on Peter had gone disastrously. Peter was glad to hear that option wasn't even on the list.

Kelly asked Al-Walid, "Is that going to be a problem?"

He answered, "Abilities are always problems. That's why we discuss them."

Micah made his first comment of the meeting, saying only, "Point." Peter barely restrained himself from glaring. Gabriel tapped on the table several times with his index finger, stopping when Peter glanced over at him. Peter reined himself back in, unsure of how much threat he was emoting. He and Jeffrey had something in common it seemed.

Kelly went on, "I think we should contract with the Haitian and send someone experienced with coercive powers to have a talk with him."

West said, "How about you?"

Kelly's brows rose. "Well, I …" She looked around the table.

Micah scoffed. "It's not my area. Totally not my area." This time Peter didn't react. He felt vaguely proud of himself, and a moment later a little depressed that what he was proud of, was of not acting like an unjustified ass. _I'm 'pleased' that I'm able, with effort, to act normal. What was that bullshit Noah was always spouting about not accepting low standards of behavior from Gabriel? Here he is sitting in a room full of specials behaving himself with the hunger ever-present, and I'm having trouble acting civil in front of someone who didn't even directly trigger me. Fuck._

Al-Walid said merely, "Language barrier."

Kelly looked at Gabriel, who said, "I'd rather not get into field work at the moment." Peter glanced at him. _And declining offers to go track someone down whose ability would make a great addition to his collection. _Peter wondered how much of his personal problems Gabriel had related. Was his acquisition of Rupesh's ability well-known? What about Molly's death and Peter's melt-down? Micah was staring off into nothingness, which normal enough behavior for him, just indicating that he was accessing some sort of information with his ability. No one questioned Gabriel's refusal, which really told Peter very little.

"Alright then," Kelly said. "It's me. I'll see if the Haitian is available. If he's not, can we tap Peter?"

Peter looked at her, a little surprised she wouldn't ask him directly. As a contractor, he technically wasn't tied to any specific director. Of course, news of their relationship had gone through the Company months ago, when Gabriel had been far too intimate with Peter in a Company cell, on camera. The tapes had been wiped after, but word had spread.

Gabriel answered, "I've got him tied up on projects. Push the Haitian. If that doesn't work, we'll negotiate."

Peter snorted. _I'm right here, you guys. Oh well._

The rest of the discussion revolved around specific tactics and objectives. While Peter should have found it fascinating, he spent most of his time trying to regulate his response to whatever Micah said and did. By the end of the meeting, Peter thought he had it pretty well under control. He walked up to the younger man as they were breaking up to go and said, "Hey, Micah. About what happened … I didn't want it to turn out that way."

It struck Peter that telling Micah he hadn't gone to visit Molly, or apologize, or anything else because he was afraid he couldn't control himself - it sounded so weak and flimsy. Micah wasn't going to understand. _Most_ people were not going to understand. They were going to see this as a failure of will, resolve and character on Peter's part. _And so Gabriel gave in to it and became a serial killer. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

Micah's distant expression told Peter he was right. The younger man's face twitched a few times as he thought of and rejected various things to say. His feelings for Molly ran deep - deep enough that he'd been willing to sacrifice himself to cover for her. Finally all he said was, "Sure," collecting the rest of his things and leaving.

Peter stood there tensely, chewing his lip and trying to think of what he could say or do here. Gabriel's hand came down on his shoulder, rubbing a little. Gabe had no words of wisdom to provide. Instead he accepted. Knowing that _someone_ understood and still supported him was an enormous help. Gabriel told him, "Come on, Peter. Let's go home."


	305. Nightmare

**A/N: Warning for sexual assault and emotional/domestic abuse.**

They'd had sex, but the details were a little fuzzy. Gabriel knew it had been wonderful for him, but Peter hadn't come for some reason. Now they lay together, Gabriel on his side turned towards Peter, who lay on his back. Gabriel asked him bluntly, his delivery and words sounding odd even to him, "Why are you always so inhibited during sex with me? You hold back. You can do anything to me. It's okay." He stroked the side of Peter's face. It was very smooth.

Peter looked distant and after a long moment he focused on his lover. "You really want to know?"

"Yes, Peter. I do." Gabriel still stroked his face, wishing he could warm Peter's cool countenance with the tips of his fingers. Something was very 'off' about Peter. He wasn't happy.

It was not just Peter's face that was cold, but his voice as well. "You raped me. You killed Nathan. You tried to kill my mother in front of me at Thanksgiving. You were going to make me _watch_ while you murdered her. And then you were going to kill _me_."

Gabriel's fingers fell away and he froze at the words, breathing more shallowly. So this was it. Peter was finally telling him what had to be in his mind every time he looked at Gabriel. Something caught in Gabriel's mind at that thought – something didn't make sense. It was like a gear slipping. Reality didn't seem right, but that just made him even more apprehensive.

Peter went on, "You killed Matt Parkman and David Wilcox. You tortured Mohinder. You flayed Claire and Paul. You killed _all_ those other people." He paused and glared at Gabriel, whose eyes were watering. "Do I need to list the names?"

"No. No," Gabriel said, almost a whisper. His chest was tight, painfully so. He didn't even know all the names and the idea that some of his victims were nameless and almost faceless, even to him, was so fundamentally wrong he couldn't express it. If Peter recited them and there was someone there he didn't recognize, he thought he'd throw up - a life he'd ruined and didn't even give the dead the dignity of remembering them. They had been nothing to him. He couldn't bear to hear who they were, even now.

"I ought to," Peter said accusingly. "I ought to make you listen to a tape recording of their names every day and every night for the rest of your life. Claire came to _help_ you. Paul was a hospice worker like me _helping your dying father_, and you killed him for no reason except he was there. You didn't even get a power out of it. You just did it, because you _wanted_ to. You are such a sick fuck, Gabriel." Peter's lip curled in disgust.

Tears leaked from the corners of Gabriel's eyes, falling down past his temples to get lost in his hair. Peter saw that and laughed callously. "You've never done a damn thing to help all those people you hurt, did you? You took away their loved ones, you ruined their lives, and you haven't done _anything_ for them. It's no wonder Molly can find people willing to die just to inconvenience you - they hate you _that much_. They're out there in pain and you're here fucking me. Fucking _**me**_ – the brother of one of the people you murdered. You took Nathan from me. You've taken everything from me. Then you fuck me and you can't even give me the respect of being with me alone. You've got to have Nathan's wife too."

Peter leaned in close to Gabriel's pained face, his eyes roaming over it, his breathing suddenly heavy. "I love it when you cry. It's _hot_. It turns me on to see you hurt and shattered apart, just so I can play the healer and gather all those parts up again." He smiled a little. It was creepy as hell.

Gabriel blinked and pulled back. He brought his legs together, his arms to his sides. His breath caught with half-stifled sobs. He wanted to apologize for everything he'd done, but the words were bottled up inside and couldn't get them out no matter how much he tried to speak. His tongue wouldn't work, leaving him unable to confess his guilt, unable to ask for forgiveness, even if he knew there was none. Peter was the person who had forgiven him the most and obviously it had all been false. To have him turn on him like this was wrenching; it was impossible; it was terrible; it was like his heart was being cut out.

Peter climbed over him, straddling him, sitting up on his knees. "I want you to think of all that blood on your hands, on your chest, in your _mouth_. I want you to think about how they scratched at you and clawed at you, how that one woman pulled your hair out when you took her and tried to gouge out your eyes before you got her hands and held her down." Gabriel's sob wasn't partial this time. His tears flowed more freely. Peter was stroking himself. He was hard and longer than usual. Another glitch - reality wasn't synching up. Gabriel couldn't focus on it. Too much else was happening.

"I want you to think about that woman's husband and how he felt when he found what you'd left of her body. You left enough so he'd know what you'd done to her. I want you to think about the Walkers and how you went to that house to kill a _little girl_ who had done _nothing_ to you. And you would have, if you'd been able to find her."

Gabriel was crying openly now, whimpering and mewling, shrunk back against the bed as much as possible. He wanted to roll over and curl up, but Peter was on top of him and he couldn't get away. And anyway, it was Peter. He deserved anything Peter dished out to him and he'd deserved this for a long time.

The lube was in Peter's hand and he was wiping it between the top of Gabriel's thighs, under his balls and then across Peter's own cock. Gabriel lifted his head, sniffling and confused.

Peter explained. "What, did you think I'd fuck you like we normally do? You might enjoy it. I'm going to fuck your body like this while you cry because I want you to associate this way of fucking with only one thing - and that's how much of a horrible person you are and how tired I am of putting up with you and your bullshit."

Peter bent, sliding his dick between Gabriel's thighs. He began to part them, but Peter pulled out and slapped him across the balls so hard it took his breath away. He tried to cry out, but his voice was muffled. All that came out was an inarticulate garble. "Keep your legs together - tight," Peter told him and he did. He was terrified.

Peter rose above him, fucking the seam between his legs, his now-bruised testicles rubbing along the top of Peter's shaft and hurting with each stroke. He didn't know why they didn't heal immediately. Maybe Peter had cancelled his powers. "Oh yeah," Peter crooned. "I'm such a fuck-up, Gabriel. You made me this way. Nathan was such a pervert. He turned me on all the time. He teased me, he groomed me, he spoiled me for anyone else. I know he jerked off saying my name. That incestuous pedophile! Now he's in you and you're using me. And Sylar…"

Peter shook his head, mouth open as he plunged into the lubed crevice. Gabriel's mouth contorted soundlessly in grief and horror and emotional pain. He was wracked with near-silent sobs, his lips struggling to form the words 'I'm sorry', but no one would listen to him. They cared no more than he had when he'd killed.

Peter didn't have any problem talking, though, and as much as everything Peter said was a knife to his heart, Gabe couldn't _not_ listen. "Out of all the sick shit I've done in my life, this has to take the cake. I'm going to get off to you crying over all the twisted shit you've done in your life. I'm going to tell you about it - all those brains, the blood, those broken people and lifeless bodies and it is _so hot_ that I'm going to come over it while I'm fucking you."

Gabriel shook with sobs at all of it - his helplessness, Peter's remorselessness, the memories of all those people and the nagging feeling that even now he wasn't remembering all of them. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't get away. He couldn't apologize and he knew those were just empty words anyway, just him begging not to get what he deserved. He didn't deserve anything but pain and death, which was what he'd given so many.

Everything he tried to say was choked off. His hair was wet on the sides of his head from his tears and snot was running down his nose. He shook his head back and forth, gasping roughly, trying to get a breath. He was choking on his own sobs and he knew that was only turning Peter on even more. He could hardly breathe and he could feel Peter's dick hot between his legs, oozing precome.

"Well, would you look at that?" Peter said. "You're starting to get off on this." He laughed. Gabriel wanted to tell him he was only getting an erection because he was asphyxiating, but he couldn't find the air. Peter wouldn't believe him anyway. The so-called empath said, "I should have known. All that depravity is still in there. Matt didn't purge all those sick thoughts." Peter hissed, "Still in there … Here," he cooed. "Let me help you out …"

Gabriel began shaking. What Peter was about to do would force Gabriel to participate on some level and take pleasure from what he'd done. He didn't want to feel that way. It was filthy and horrible and he didn't want to couple those memories with sex with Peter. He'd been hurt that way in the past by someone he'd trusted. The memories flashed behind his eyes like a horror show. He'd always been able to dissociate those experiences from being with Peter. Everything was breaking down and Sylar wasn't there to save him this time. If he didn't stop it, this would burn into his psyche and never come out.

He cried out loud as much as he could, but it was only a strangled keening. He mouthed, 'No, no, no' over and over but he couldn't act. Maybe if … this person? … thought he deserved to be violated like this then he should be. He was losing track of who was even doing this to him, the identity of the perpetrator layering and confused with another. His whole body locked up in protest. He felt like he was going to explode from lack of air.

He tried to scream when he felt the steady throb and thrum of telekinesis around his cock, but although his mouth opened, it was like he was exhaling no more than a death rattle. The force gripped his penis so hard it hurt. It felt like it was crushing him. Peter was fucking him hard, shaking his whole body, calling out his name, telling him to wake up. Everything was reduced to sensation and he was acutely aware that he'd stopped breathing some time ago. His body thrashed in an autonomic response to the impending death.

For the first time in what felt like forever he was able to pull in a great gasp of air. Peter was next to him, not on him, just beside him, hands firmly on his shoulders. "Gabriel?" His voice sounded concerned and frightened, but Gabriel could hardly see him in the dim light. _It's Peter, right?_ He wasn't sure, but the person was shaking him. Or maybe he was thrusting into him and the hands on his shoulders were pushing him down rhythmically while he fucked him.

Gabriel couldn't tell what was happening. His cock was so hard it hurt. Peter had made him that way. Peter wanted to violate him. He'd _been_ violating him. Peter's hands, even now, were on him possessively, gripping him. In a moment he would continue … Peter tried to turn Gabriel towards him, tried to urge him back down on the bed and in Gabriel's mind, this was so he could climb on top of him and continue where he'd left off.

He panicked and this time his body obeyed when he tried to get away. "No! No! No!" He covered himself and broke down completely in sobs, scooting away from Peter on the bed, clutching everything nearby and releasing it spasmodically. He didn't even notice when he went over the edge of the bed and fell on the floor. Having finally found his voice, he couldn't stop using it, saying everything he'd wanted to say before but couldn't. He kept yelping, "No, no, no. No, no, no. Please no. Please no. Peter please. Please no. Not again …. No. No. No…" The nightstand almost went over as he crashed against it, shouldered it out of the way in the dark and then crawled between it and the bed, huddling.

The lights came on as Peter used telekinesis to flip the switch. He jumped off the bed and rounded to where Gabriel had his head between his knees, his body drawn up into the tightest ball he could manage. Peter waited for a long moment, but Gabriel only trembled in utter silence now, his too-fast breaths being the only sound he made. Peter moved forward slowly and touched him on the shoulder. Gabriel's head snapped up with a look of sheer terror on his face. He pulled back and brought up his arms to ward Peter off … to ward off blows that weren't coming.

Peter pulled back immediately. He had the unmistakable impression that something like this had happened to Gabriel before. Gabe tried to hug his knees up to himself protectively, like a child might after they'd been molested. "No! No! No! I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Peter. Please. No. No. I can't. I can't. Don't. Please. Please, Peter. Please!" He cringed against the wall, tried to make himself as small as possible, shivering and trembling. "Nooo," he cried as if to himself. "Noooo. Please no. Please no. Please no."

Peter turned to the side and heaved, struggling to control his nausea as he caught too much of the intensity of Gabriel's emotion. His own eyes were wet as he'd realized what nature of nightmare Gabriel had had - at least some of it. He stood up and got back on the bed, trying to pull himself together. He ran a hand over his face as he tried to think of what to do. It was hard to give Gabriel his space when the man was sobbing in the corner. All of Peter's instincts urged him to go to his husband and try to comfort him, but apparently he'd had a starring role in whatever had played out behind Gabriel's eyes. This was clearly not a time to be touching him or initiating any kind of contact.

Gabriel did seem to be calming down somewhat. His breathing evened out a bit and he lifted his head a little. "What do you want me to do, Peter? I'll do anything. Anything. Tell me what you want me to do. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Peter said, making a soothing motion with his hands, staying where he was, sitting on the edge of the bed. "It's okay. I don't want anything."

Gabriel's eyes widened in fear and he started breathing faster.

"Hey," Peter said quickly, getting his attention again. "Do you want to make me happy?"

"Yes. Yes." Gabriel's tone was terrified, but solicitous.

Peter went over and collected Gabriel's pants and shirt. He brought them to the bed and set them next to his husband. "Get dressed."

"Y-You … You … You don't w-want me?"

Gently but firmly, Peter said, "I want you to get dressed." He avoided the loaded question. He remembered how much he'd wanted to cover himself after Gabriel had forced him. He assumed the same applied here.

He put on his own pants and started to put on the day's shirt. Then he put it down and picked up the t-shirt he'd worn during sex a few nights before. He'd thought about washing it, but had held off, thinking Gabriel might not want him too, since it had seemed so important to him at the time. The man had virtually wallowed on it during sex to scent-mark it. Now Peter picked it up and carried it over to Gabriel, whose shaking fingers were struggling with his shirt buttons as he sat on the edge of the bed.

Peter extended the t-shirt towards him, staying an arm's length away. "Do you remember this?"

"Yes?" Gabriel looked between it and Peter.

"Smell it."

Gabriel leaned forward, not touching it, and sniffed. He started crying again and pulled back like a delayed reaction to being hit.

Peter felt his own eyes tear sympathetically. His tone still gentle, Peter asked, "Do you want me to wear it?"

Gabriel's convulsive sobs slowed a little. "Yes," he said, his voice catching.

Peter pulled the dirty shirt over his head and moved away. From the other side of the room, Peter turned back and said, "It was a dream, Gabriel. I didn't … hurt you."

Gabriel hesitated a moment, blinking, then said, "You should."

"What? No. No. No, Gabriel."

Gabriel shook his head, new tears joining the multitude of old ones. "You should. I deserve it. You said so. Everything … I … I'm so sorry, Peter. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so-" His throat seized and he clutched at it, massaging it, struggling to breathe.

Peter stroked his forehead in agitation and said, "Oh my God, Gabriel." Not being able to assuage his lover's pain was an agony by itself. He wanted to go to him and hold him. He knew he shouldn't - not until the traumatized man invited it. "Gabriel? I'm going to be in the living room for a little while. If you need me, just call, okay?" Peter waited until he had a broken nod from his husband before he walked out, leaving the door partly open behind him. A minute passed, then another.

Gabriel came out of the bedroom, watching him furtively. "Can …? Will …?" He moved next to the couch and gestured at Peter.

Not entirely sure what Gabriel was trying to indicate, Peter said simply, "Yes," agreeing to anything and everything Gabriel might be asking for.

To Peter's surprise, Gabriel tried to climb entirely into Peter's lap. He curled up as small as he could get and worked his hands into Peter's shirt. He clenched them into fists and put his head down against them. He was all elbows and knees and long limbs that made the embrace awkward. Peter put his arms around him as best he could and patted rather than stroked. Gabriel didn't cry now. He rocked a little and was silent.

"It was just a dream," Peter said, trying to soothe.

"No. Don't talk." Gabriel's voice was half-normal. Peter followed directions and shut up.

After a while, Gabriel said quietly, "I … I …." He hunched a bit more, pulling on Peter's shirt so hard he was surprised the fabric didn't tear. Peter pulled him against him and felt Gabriel flinch back. Peter immediately released. Gabe relaxed a little and then, after a pause, leaned in to where Peter had tried to move him. He reached up and hooked both hands behind Peter's head, pulling the empath forward, but not for a kiss and Peter didn't try for one. Gabriel put their heads cheek to cheek and stroked Peter's hair. He moved his lips against the side of Peter's neck and then put his forehead down on his shoulder, whispering, "I'm so sorry."

Peter patted him and some of the tension seemed to go out of him. Gabriel worked his hands in Peter's t-shirt, bringing it up to his face repeatedly, smelling it. Gabriel said, "You love me."

It wasn't a question, but Peter answered anyway, saying, "Yes, I do. I'm so sorry too."

"You're good. You're good. I love you." Gabriel said quickly, too quickly.

"I didn't-" Peter cut himself off. Telling Gabriel, again, that he hadn't hurt him wouldn't help.

"_I know_," Gabriel said and there was something in his voice that told Peter that Gabriel knew it had been a dream. It didn't mean he'd calmed down yet because knowing it didn't flip a switch on his emotions. But he knew and that was a start.

Peter kept patting him. Gabriel didn't seem upset now about Peter talking, so he asked, "How often do you have dreams this bad?"

"Every couple of weeks. It's been a while since the last one. Used to be more often," Gabriel said, rubbing his face on Peter's shoulder. Again, Peter felt the urge to kiss him or hold him closer. He did neither.

"What does Heidi do for you when this happens when you're with her?"

"She turns off my powers and leaves me alone. I work it out. Once I'm safe, I'll hold the baby or go in the shower. Or both." He smiled a little at the very thought and took a deep breath. "If … If this happens again, I know you can regenerate, but be careful about waking me. Sometimes I'm … violent. Make sure you turn off my powers first." He kissed Peter on the cheek, pulling back quickly as if afraid Peter might return the affectionate gesture. He didn't, so Gabriel said, "I hurt her once. I cut her …"

Gabriel traced a line from the join of the collarbones up to the side. Peter's expression didn't change, but he observed, "You were trying to cut her throat."

Gabriel nodded. "I was still half asleep. Bad aim. Good for us. Though she could have been brought back."

Peter took a deep breath. Heidi had to deal with a lot from her husband. She'd never complained of it, which said a great deal about their marriage. She _had_ tried to warn Peter about the nightmares, and she'd urged Gabriel to talk to Peter about them. Softly Peter asked, "What was I doing to you, so I know to avoid that?"

"I'll be fine, Peter." Gabriel looked at his face intently and drew his brows together. He relaxed and straightened a little, reaching up to Peter's left eyebrow and smoothing it. The hairs were sticking out at ridiculous angles when he started. They were more well-behaved when he was done. He smiled at his work. He liked fixing things.

"But … I know. But what was I _doing?_ In the dream?"

Gabriel met his eyes briefly and then moved his hands to Peter's hair, brushing his fingers through it. He unfolded himself from Peter's lap and settled beside him. Peter held still. Gabriel began sorting and carding through his hair with his fingers. Peter doubted he was pulling memories from it. Even if he were, it was probably more soothing than thinking of the nightmare. Peter kicked himself mentally for even asking Gabriel to tell him, so soon after it had happened.

"You were …" Gabriel sighed. "You made me sad and you got off on it. That was all, really."

Peter looked down. That wasn't all - lie detection - but he dropped the subject. "How's my hair doing?"

"It's lovely," Gabriel answered quickly. "It's nice. I like it. Thank you for letting it grow out again." He smoothed his hand down the back of Peter's neck time after time and then down his back. He urged Peter to turn sideways on the couch and began to rub him, massaging his shoulders and back. Peter was silent at first, then made appreciative noises since that seemed to be what Gabriel wanted. It felt really nice, but at the moment, as much as he realized Gabriel took comfort in pleasing him, he would have rather he didn't. It felt weird to know Gabriel thought he'd been violating him earlier and was now … doing this.

"Lie down," Gabriel directed. "Lie down here."

He guided him face down and straddled Peter's hips, rubbing his back more effectively.

"Gabriel, you don't have to do this," Peter said, grunting at the pressure. Gabriel lightened his touch immediately, but he didn't stop. Peter grumbled something and just lay there. Whatever helped Gabriel cope, he suspected he needed to stop interfering and let the man cope.

Peter kept his mouth shut throughout the rest of the massage, which wasn't just his back. Gabriel worked down to his feet and then had him roll over and worked back up, avoiding his groin, but doing everything else. He worked on Peter's face with an expression of great concentration, giving meticulous attention to every part. It had become clear to Peter that Gabriel could hear the tension in his muscles, as he kept coming back to any part that didn't stay relaxed. He never suggested Peter strip or use massage oil, but he did an excellent job of it anyway. Peter felt like one rubbery, limp noodle by the end of it.

Gabriel snuggled down next to him, snaking a hand under the small of Peter's back to hug him closer. He worked his way under Peter's arm, putting his head on his shoulder. "Thank you for being so good to me, Peter. Don't ever go bad."

Peter curled his fingers along Gabriel's back and said, "No matter what you've done, Gabriel, you don't deserve to be hurt. You deserve kindness and respect, as much as anyone."


	306. That Ticking Noise

Peter lay jammed against the back of the couch with Gabriel's arm under his back and the man's head on his shoulder. Gabriel was on his side against him, both of them clothed. There was no room to move without risking backing Gabriel off the couch and so Peter lay very still, even though the position was far from comfortable.

Gabriel had rapidly wound down. As it so often did, emotional intensity followed by comfort and security knocked him out. The man was capable of staying on high alert for days on end without rest or sustenance, but if he felt safe and loved, then he'd give in and collapse. Peter was glad he could give this to his husband.

Gabriel projected for a while before he went to sleep, but it wasn't much of anything. It was an awareness of the exact motion of the gearings of their watches. He paid attention to it very closely, having cleared his mind of everything else. Peter listened to it as well. He supposed he could have blocked it, but Gabriel had said if he was projecting, then Peter could listen. At first he kept thinking there was going to be something else - a development, a conclusion, a segue. It was merely monotonous. Peter didn't find it soothing, but he could tell Gabriel did.

_Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, ti-_ Gabriel fell asleep. Peter smiled gently, warmly, and shut his eyes. He could still hear that noise though, like a song stuck in your head that wouldn't go away. _Dammit._

He opened his eyes again and studied the bookshelf, wondering if he could telekinese a book out of there and over to himself. The penalty of even a slight mistake was waking his partner. And Gabriel might wake merely from the tension that would run through Peter's body as he concentrated on manipulating the book properly. In fact, now that he considered it, Gabriel didn't seem asleep, exactly. Peter's brows furrowed. He thought the man had fallen asleep. His internal monologue, the ticking sound he was so focused on, had cut off so abruptly Peter had assumed it meant slumber.

One moment Sylar was lying there quietly feigning sleep and the next his hand was on Peter's throat. Fingers pressed, moved, and adjusted so as to cut blood flow to his brain if necessary. Peter held perfectly still. The grip did not tighten. Instead Sylar inhaled deeply. Wearing a shirt that smelled like sex, after Gabriel had had a harrowing sexual experience, might not have been the wisest course of action, if it turned out Sylar was a little confused or ignorant of what had happened. Peter hoped like hell Sylar understood the bad stuff had been a dream.

"What happened?" the killer growled.

_So he doesn't know. Crap_. "Gabriel had a bad dream - a very bad dream," Peter answered promptly.

Still, Sylar gave him the benefit of the doubt. His hand rose to Peter's cheek and then mouth, eyes intent and a little distant. He was pulling memories. Peter relaxed. This would prove his innocence. Sylar's hand dropped to his chest and he fondled the shirt briefly, then moved on to reach for Peter's hand. Peter lifted it, splaying the fingers and helping the examination. Sylar touched his palm, a ticklish sensation for Peter, and frowned heavily. He slipped his hand over Peter's when he was done and gave him a brief squeeze.

Sylar huffed, but for the moment had nothing to say. Peter wondered if he was going to move himself from the somewhat subordinate position. Instead, Sylar shifted slightly, extending one leg over Peter's and reaching across him with his free arm. The small change made the positioning possessive instead of submissive. Sylar put his head back down on Peter's chest. A few moments passed in silence. Peter scratched lightly at the other man's back. When that was received well, he leaned down and gave a kiss to the top of his head. In response, Sylar pressed his head briefly a little more firmly against Peter.

Sylar asked, "Did you see the dream?"

"No," Peter said. "Did you?"

Sylar didn't answer right away, but eventually he said, "No."

Peter sighed softly. "I woke up when he was thrashing. I guess he'd pulled away from me earlier." Which was not all that surprising, given the emotions he'd picked up. "I think he was … raped." Peter swallowed. "By me."

"Gabriel told me you upset him. Nothing more."

Peter mulled over that answer. _Sylar is not the same person as Gabriel, but he has the same memories. Maybe he could tell me more than Gabriel will_. "Can I ask you a question?"

A moment. "No."

_So much for that theory. _Peter held his breath for a second, then let it out with a chuckle. "Okay." He gave Sylar a little hug and acceded to it.

When it was clear that Peter really wasn't going to ask, Sylar said, "Fine. Okay. What?"

"Has Gabriel been molested before?" Gabe had asserted once, very defensively, that he wasn't 'damaged goods' as he put it. Peter had not pressed the matter. And the way Gabriel had been acting in the bedroom earlier … something about it didn't seem like the first time. He had expectations of how Peter would act. Gabriel wasn't shocked or stunned - he was anticipating, like he'd been through this before, even if his responses had been almost child-like.

Another moment. "Yes."

Peter shifted a little uncomfortably. He'd read Gabriel's file and although some things were inexcusably vague, he'd wondered about the part where Martin Gray was ordered to leave his family and never seek them out again. "Martin?" he said softly.

Sylar waited even longer before raising his head to gaze very steadily at Peter. "Yes," he said without inflection.

Peter gave one slow nod. After another beat, Sylar settled in again. Peter turned and kissed the top of Sylar's head once more. He felt the other man experience a spike of annoyance at Peter's gesture of affection. He was prickly, on the edge of defensive, and even more hyper-alert than usual. Peter took note, relaxed himself and stayed still. Sylar had just shared something profoundly personal, opening himself (and Gabriel) to Peter's scrutiny.

Sylar said, "You know how you can be petting a cat and everything seems fine for a while, until the cat turns on you all of a sudden and claws the hell out of your hand?"

"Yes," Peter said.

"Okay. Well, just so you know."

"Yep," Peter said. He tried volunteering, "I was always more of a dog person myself."

"I'm not your _dog_," Sylar growled.

"You're completely right," Peter said, tensing up.

Sylar waited, but Peter said nothing else. Finally Sylar huffed. "Peter, it's okay. You can calm down now," he said tiredly.

"Okay. Thank you for answering my question."

"It was a stupid question," Sylar asserted irritably.

"Okay."

"And stop agreeing with me!"

_Is he trying to pick a fight? He doesn't seem quite __**that**__ angry._ And so Peter took a leap. "Never."

Sylar jerked up, glaring at him. Peter smiled briefly, then let his face go neutral. Peter met his eyes and didn't look away. The two men stared at each other for a very long time before Sylar rolled and shifted, pulling himself upright and looking away. "Don't you have work you need to be getting to?"

Peter barely kept from smiling again. _I won that one! I just won one against Sylar!_ "Yeah, in an hour. I could use a shower first." He rested a still hand on Sylar's back. "I'm worried about how to handle Gabriel when he comes back." And he figured Sylar's presence here was because Gabriel was in hiding from him. Peter didn't blame him - running away was Gabriel's default for handling stress. He hadn't departed physically. Mental absence hadn't been covered, nor was Peter bothered by it. This was clearly one where getting some space was a good idea.

"He'll be fine," Sylar said. He turned and took Peter's chin, kissing him deeply and passionately for some time, leaving Peter breathless. Sylar was able to tap something in him emotionally that Gabriel never touched. Peter was blinking and trying to focus when the other man pulled away. Sylar looked smug. He patted Peter's cheek. "It's nice that you care. Really. But back off. You're smothering."

Peter nodded. "Okay. I'll go take that shower then." When he came out of the bathroom, Sylar was gone.


	307. Walk Ins

**A/N: The following chapter is not told in chronological order.**

Peter walked in first. The other man trailed along behind him, trying to kill the empath with the sheer force of his gaze. "Rita," Peter said, turning to indicate his companion, "This is Sylar. Sylar, Rita." He ignored the glare like it wasn't there.

Rita gave Sylar a quick assessing look that caused him to finally take his eyes from Peter. She said pleasantly, "Hello, Sylar. It's good to meet you. Thank you so much for coming today."

"This better be worth it," Sylar grumbled, throwing himself into a chair and sticking his legs out in an undignified sprawl.

* * *

Peter dried off and dressed, but Sylar was still gone. There was no note, although he'd seen that Sylar had left his notebook to Gabriel open and laid out on the nightstand on his side of the bed. It was a fresh page and said only "Sometimes I really hate you." Peter snorted and shook his head. He was pretty sure that was directed at Gabriel, not himself. Sylar was apparently not happy with the situation. And had no patience for Gabriel's problems. Peter made a mental note to be patient with Gabe. Peter suspected he needed someone who was, to balance out his alter.

He still had a half hour before he needed to leave for work. He pulled out his phone and dialed. Heidi answered on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Hi, is … uh, em." Peter shut up. It was stupid to have called. Gabriel couldn't teleport and it hadn't been long enough for him to get there by car or taxi. Plus, there was no certainty that he'd go _there_. If he were performing as Gabriel, then he'd go to the law firm or the Company. As it was, Peter had no idea where he might go. 'Japan' stood out sharply in Peter's mind as a possibility. He chewed his lip in worry.

"Peter?" Heidi asked, bringing him back to the moment.

He thought of a better reason to have called her than looking for Gabriel. "Oh, um, yeah. Gabriel had a really bad dream last night, one of those nightmares you talked about."

"Oh? Is he … are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. But …" He considered his phone, thinking now about Micah's ability and his penchant for eavesdropping, as well as his current motivation for tracking Peter and what was going on in his life. "Listen, can I come over? I'd like to talk."

"Of course."

* * *

"I am _not_ going to _**therapy**_, Peter!" Sylar spat out like the words themselves disgusted him.

"Yes, you _are_," Peter shot back, this time undeterred by Sylar's threatening tone. Gabriel rarely confronted him like this, but when he had, or Sylar had, Peter had always backed down. Peter wasn't doing that now. He thought he'd finally had enough of a glimpse at who Sylar was to know he didn't have to back off this time.

"I don't need therapy," Sylar said, his voice now something between a growl and sulking.

"This isn't about what you _need_, Sylar. It's about what's going to happen. You're going and that's that."

"Why the fuck should I go to fucking couples counseling?" Sylar, genuinely angry, was pretty unmistakable. This wasn't it, despite his raised voice and crude words.

"Because we're a couple?" Peter said, raising his brows to show that much was obvious.

"You're a couple with Gabriel, not me."

Peter laughed out loud at that. "That's ridiculous. We're married."

"We are not! Go fuck yourself," Sylar snapped.

Peter smiled broadly and shook his head. "Oh no. You don't get out of it that way. I married you back when you were still one person. Now you're two, or however many others, and you're a package deal. I'm married to _all _of you." He refused to entertain the worrying notion that Sylar wasn't … _with_ him. The killer was even still wearing his watch. (Though Peter had to admit that was hardly conclusive. Actually, it didn't mean anything at all, now that he thought about it. So, in true Peter style, he quit thinking about it.)

"Well I'm not married back." Now Sylar was definitely sulking.

Peter knew then that this was all just for show, which salved the doubts he'd been having a few moments before. "Fine. But you're still going. Whether you think we're married or not, we're a couple."

"What do _**I**_ get out of this? You can't _make_ me go, Peter."

_Ah, so now we're negotiating. That's amusing._ "I'll give you anything you want afterward."

Sylar snorted, acting superior again. "I get anything I want anyway."

"You don't go to therapy with me, then you're at least not going to get my enthusiasm."

Sylar narrowed his eyes at Peter.

* * *

"He had a nightmare about me raping him - I think - and then he stopped breathing. He was dying. I managed to shake him out of it. He woke up at least. Started breathing again."

"Oh my God, Peter." Heidi sat across from him at the bar, hands clasped around a freshly made cup of hot tea. "Are _you_ all right?"

He looked up at her in confusion from his own cup. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be? He didn't hurt me."

"Peter, it's not everyday you have your bed partner _**die**_ next to you!"

Peter opened his mouth briefly, then shut it. _I'm fine, really_. It seemed like a ridiculous thing to be concerned about, but one of the things they'd discussed in therapy was the low regard Peter automatically assumed people had for him. _Yeah, okay, I suppose it was kind of traumatic to wake up with Gabriel choking to death. I thought he was under some kind of mental attack at first_. "No, it's not. It was the first time. How often has that happened to you?"

She was quiet for a moment. "Just the once."

"You mean, once that he died?"

She sighed. "Yes. He had a nightmare about freezing to death."

"Ah."

"What happened after?"

Peter let his eyes slide to the side. He didn't want to get into details about Gabriel's upset. "He calmed down. Then he sort of crashed, like I've noticed he does when he's been really keyed up and he's pretty sure everything's going to be okay if he checks out. As soon as he did, though, Sylar manifested. He doesn't have any memory of the dream either."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I guess that's who he still is now, but … I'm worried. A few nights ago Gabriel talked about how he … how Sylar wanted to kill a guy in Japan who has an ability."

She blinked at Peter several times. "I don't think he'd do that right now."

"You don't think so?" Peter was inclined to agree with her, but he was still very worried. The cost of being wrong was high.

"Was he angry or hurt? Sylar, that is."

"No."

She shrugged. "I don't think he'd kill anyone unless he was antagonized or under a lot of stress."

"There's always the hunger," Peter pointed out, even though he had the impression it wasn't driving Gabe at the current time. The incident with Rupesh had been only a little more than two weeks prior.

"I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character," Heidi said. "I don't think Sylar is nearly as scary as he wants people to think he is. _Gabriel_ is much more frightening."

* * *

"So tell me a little about yourself, Sylar," Rita asked.

The man stared at the ceiling, disinterested. He addressed that canopy and distantly mocked the addiction counseling sessions Matt Parkman had gone to, saying, "Hi everyone, my name is Sylar and I'm a serial killer. It has been sixteen days since I killed anyone." He rolled his head to the side and looked at Peter. "Your turn."

Peter snorted and said nothing. Sylar grinned and said, "And this is my boyfriend, Peter, everyone. It's been six days for him. Today we will not kill anyone, through God's grace and the help of therapy. If I get the urge to kill someone, I will call my therapist who understands and will help me see the … oh, fuck it. I'm sure you get it by now."

Rita smiled and nodded. "I think that's an excellent analogy to make, Sylar. Many behaviors can easily become addictive, especially when we use them to solve our problems or remove stresses to our lives. The reward that those actions bring us creates a feedback loop." Sylar raised his head and looked at her, clearly not having expected her to treat his sarcasm seriously. She went on, "It's important to see that the short-term reward is not always worth the long-term cost we have to pay. So when we step back and rationally examine our lives, thinking about the kind of person we want to be and the sort of life we want to lead, it may be that we choose to find our rewards elsewhere and interrupt that feedback loop."

He shifted and sat up, suddenly engaged and very, very intent. "What sort of rewards do you think could substitute for that? Not the killing, really, because that's not the point. It's the integration of the ability. It truly _is_ addictive." He gestured at his head. "The dopaminergic neurons are strongly encoded to activate when my ability is triggered. I get a contact high just from being around targets." He gestured loosely at Peter. "Just beginning the process - a little bit of physical intimacy and control - seems to be enough to activate the sequence and calm me down."

_Wait, what?_ Peter thought, but said nothing. He blinked at Sylar. _Is that what you're getting off on when you scare me and I submit?_

Rita said, "Dopamine is usually countered by prolactin, which is released post-orgasm and has higher levels in men who are fathers and take an active role in child-care."

Sylar nodded, saying, "I've noticed, though I never made the connection with sex until I … until this spring, when I started getting a lot of it, after Heidi recovered from the pregnancy and Peter …" He shrugged and gave a happy, smug smile. "I've been getting laid a lot in the last few months."

"You're having sex with me to stave off the hunger?" Peter said, nonplussed.

"No, Peter. I'm having sex with you because I like it. But there are side effects to it and I'm not so stupid I haven't noticed them. I'm sure you have too, you just haven't thought of them clinically because your mind doesn't work that way. They're short term, but they're there. You recall, of course, after you took out the commands I countered the hunger directly and immediately by sexing you up?"

"Yes."

"That's it."

"Oh."

Rita asked, "Have you considered a prolactin regimen?"

Sylar reached up at scratched at his ear, grimacing. "That probably won't work due to regeneration and anyway, I've read about the side effects of it. The natural methods seem to be working fine." He smiled again. "They're certainly entertaining."

Peter shook his head. "Seriously? There's some truth to that old joke that if you don't get laid, someone might die?"

Sylar grinned now. "Yes, Peter. Every time you have sex with me, you're saving a life." He chortled.

"Okay, that's ridiculous. Masturbation ought to do the same thing."

Sylar calmed down. "Oh, I suppose it does, but it wasn't like I was rubbing them out all that often years ago. My attempts to make this condition livable predate you, Peter. All I could think of way back then was getting my next hit. I was disgusted with what I was. I probably went months without touching myself." He smirked. "Don't worry, Peter. I was joking. People's lives do not depend on you putting out."

"Have I ever denied you?" Peter asked.

"No, but you've been such a little shit at times I didn't bother asking."

Peter pulled back a little and said nothing.

* * *

Peter was waiting for Sylar at his car when the other man left Nathan's law firm. Sylar was walking along, head down, taking small strides. Peter could tell he was stressed and drawn into himself, worried and not dealing with things well, just by looking at him. The hardened killer looked afraid. He looked _young_.

Sylar glanced up and saw Peter, saw that in the otherwise empty parking garage, he wasn't alone. He straightened, relaxed and slipped into the costume of complete superiority. Peter smiled, thinking about how he'd disagreed with the man that morning and Sylar had backed down. There was a scared young man under all that bravado, someone who had been beaten, abandoned and abused by life _before_ getting saddled with the insanity-inducing compulsions of his ability. Sylar, Gabriel - he was an actor. Peter had realized that early and he was still struggling to get past the other man's defenses and get to know the real him.

Sylar strode up to him with long, self-assured steps, looking Peter up and down. "What are _you_ doing here? Technically I belong to Heidi until 9 tonight."

"We have an appointment at 5, remember?"

Sylar's composure slipped only the tiniest amount, but it betrayed that this alter didn't know any of the everyday details of Gabe's life since the split - only those that went before it. Covering for the lapse, he snapped, "I don't keep Gabriel's schedule. It doesn't apply to me."

Peter tilted his head. "What are you doing here at the law firm then, if his schedule doesn't apply?"

"Meeting with the partners and selling them Gabriel's share. You can tell him I took care of that for him when you see him next."

"He didn't know you were going to do that?"

Sylar scoffed. "He knew. He agreed. He was going to do it himself last Saturday at dinner, but then he got blown up and distracted at noon, so he canceled." Sylar looked around the parking garage, then back at Peter. "Failure of resolve. Not one of my problems. Maybe if I uncomplicate his life enough he'll quit having pathetic breakdowns like last night. Now shove off. I'm sure Gabriel will call you when he's _recovered_ enough to talk," he said with a curl of his lip.

Sylar making light of Gabriel's trauma pissed Peter off, particularly his insulting use of one of Gabriel's hot-button words. He stood up straight, no longer leaning on the new Mercedes Gabriel had bought earlier in the week (something about preferring German engineering to the ever-present Nissans). "No," Peter said decisively. "You're going to therapy with me." _Whether you want to or not._


	308. Substitution

Sylar, disguised as Nathan, reached to the side for his gold Cross pen, misjudging exactly where it was. It didn't help that he was trying to act right-handed and that wasn't working for him today. The pen fell from the table and he instinctively caught it with telekinesis. Jacobsen, the law firm partner sitting to his right, bent to reach politely for the fallen implement and stared at where it was hanging, unsupported, in the air.

_Damn,_ Sylar thought. He bent himself, reaching to retrieve it by hand and hissed at Jacobsen, "You saw nothing."

"Right," the man said blankly, sitting back up and blinking in confusion.

_How the hell did Gabriel manage this?_ Sylar thought in exasperation.

* * *

That evening, Sylar sauntered into the mansion that legally belonged to Nathan Petrelli. _I'm really glad I killed this guy. What a douchebag._ He was pretty sure Virginia's apartment would fit inside the master suite here. The very fact that there **was** a 'master suite' was ridiculous, what with the two spacious walk-in closets (not one, but _two_, because heaven forbid someone's _clothes_ might have to cohabitate), and an enormous bathroom with two shower heads in the marble-lined stall, a Jacuzzi, two sinks and a separate vanity area for the application of makeup and what-have-you. He'd say it was conspicuous consumption but it wasn't all that conspicuous. It was the freaking _bedroom_, for God's sake.

Instead it was simply assumed, like some package benefit for being a Petrelli. Nathan had done nothing to earn this except be born to the right family. He hadn't even been very aware of his privilege and that was why (among other reasons) Sylar had no regret whatsoever for wiping this bit of dog shit off the world's shoe. Peter, at least, had an _awareness_ of his entitlement and that mattered. It mattered a lot to Sylar as well as Peter's sincere, though clumsy and sometimes humorously naive, attempts to rectify the situation. At least Peter _worked_ for a living.

Nathan had grown up in wealth and power, gone to a Catholic school of the highest caliber, then to private preparatory school, military school, West Point, then the navy (where he finally had a small taste of the plebeian, but not much since he was automatically an officer and rose through the ranks quickly due to his "background" – read: more class privilege), then back home for college and law school. He was shown off regularly by his father like he was a prized show horse, ready to be put through his paces. His job with the city had been automatic, highly paid (not that he needed the money) and high profile (it was just training for his scripted political career).

Sylar sneered at the place, remembering the hollow expectations Nathan had had of having social gatherings here like his parents held and having his own sons follow in his footsteps. The man hadn't even really wanted that lifestyle, but it was what he'd been taught was good and just and proper and all that crap. And Nathan was nothing if not a suck-up to normality. He'd been fucking _gay_ and managed to hide it his whole fucking life. Just about everything he'd done had been a lie.

So why was Sylar here? Well. He was done with therapy. He wasn't supposed to join Peter until 9. Peter had told him to go home (not that he automatically did what Peter told him to – of course not … yeah, of course not). It was just that he had to go _somewhere_. He supposed it was a little pathetic that he was living out Gabriel's life anyway by showing up here (doubly so that Gabriel was living out Nathan's life himself). But at least he'd gotten rid of Nathan's law firm.

Or … well, it hadn't been as easy as he wanted it to be, so it wasn't really sold yet. They were all lawyers and no matter how attractive he made the deal, they weren't going to jump at it. Or, well, they _would_ jump at it, but they jumped at it like _lawyers_, which meant they wouldn't finalize until Monday. Maybe. They operated on their own timetable, which he found very frustrating. He'd restrained himself from just forcing them to buy the fucking share, which he thought was pretty damn generous of him.

He homed in on the sounds of domestic activity coming from the kitchen, finding Heidi cutting up a long loaf of ciabatta. He furrowed his brow. "Where's that maid you keep around here to do that?"

The woman looked up at him in surprise, then concern and maybe fear as she recognized him, before her expression settled down into calm. "She left on vacation with Dan." Her face told him that she was considering what to say next. He walked over to the counter and, after an awkward pause, leaned on it like he belonged there. It wasn't like he was going to let her run him off or anything. He had two hours to burn, after all. She said, "She'll be out until next Wednesday. Are you staying for dinner?"

He could smell some pasta hot dish cooking. He glanced over at the oven, then back to where she was preparing garlic bread. He looked in the direction of the dining room. He considered his options, shrugged a little and headed to the cabinet where she kept the plates. "Sure. I'll set the table."

"Thank you." She gave him a brief smile and went back to buttering slices.

"What are we having?"

"Lasagna."

"Ah. Did you cook it, or did you have Mandy prepare it before she left?"

"_I_ cooked it," she said, a little bit of affront seeping into her tone.

He smiled at that, collecting up the requisite number of plates and carrying them out. She was not the best cook, hence the sensitivity. It wasn't like he was a professional himself, but he knew his way around the kitchen. As he came back for the silverware (and actual _silver_ware at that - it was kind of surprising that it wasn't goldware), she said to him, "It's one of your grandmother's recipes, from that cookbook your mother gave us at the wedding."

He missed a step, experiencing a moment of vertigo as he struggled to place his suddenly shifting identity. His skin crawled and his muscles cramped.

"Nathan?" she asked in alarm.

"My name is _Sylar!_" he snapped, not nearly as forceful or certain as he should have been. He'd spent all day being called Nathan and it was really starting to get under his hide. He looked down at his hands. They were back to normal – long, slender watchmaker fingers, slightly paler than Nathan's skin tone. He scowled at them and went on his way to the table without looking at her. _That was embarrassing._ When he came back to the kitchen, he felt he needed to say something, so he grumbled, "That's nice to hear – about the cookbook. Glad to hear it's getting some use."

"You're in a bad mood," Heidi observed.

He scowled at her now. "It's been a long day," he allowed. Gabriel's life was too fucking complicated and he didn't like it. It was stressful and it was eating at him. He knew that if Gabriel were forced to live Sylar's lifestyle, he'd find it equally difficult to manage and mentally draining. He could adopt a persona and play it, but Gabriel's life required thought and care in keeping everything balanced – like not being able to get heavy-handed with the law firm partners, or trying to negotiate a semi-false identity with Nathan's family.

The problem was that he wasn't really able to live Sylar's life even when he _was_ Sylar. He supposed he could, but … he looked at the wine glasses he was now toting out to the dining room. He thought about the home-cooked meal he could smell cooking (and it smelled _good_). He thought about meeting Peter tonight and the 'reward' he had supposedly earned by going to therapy. There was something to be said for wealth, power and creature comforts. There was a reason, after all, why people accrued this stuff and spent so much effort trying to get it. Having lots of money was an ability all to itself.

"Things could be a lot worse," he said as he returned, watching Heidi put the bread into the second oven (yes, they had two ovens - and a warming tray! - another bizarre excess in Sylar's opinion, but he had to admit it was handy).

"Yes, they could be," Heidi agreed. "I'm glad we're all together."

"Who?"

"Us. Our family. You, me, the kids? Speaking of which, can you get the tea going and keep an eye on the bread while I go get Noah?"

"I can get the little-" _bastard. Er, wow, that's kind of, sort of, like, my kid. I don't think I should call him that._ "rug rat." _He's actually a pretty __**good**__ kid too, which is amazing. Maybe he'll grow up to be something other than a serial killer or a politician. Of the two, I think I'd rather he was a killer. My luck he'll have Peter's stupid rebelliousness and go off to be a florist instead of making something of himself._

"Yes, I know you _can_," she said as she left the kitchen. "Now get the tea going and watch so the bread doesn't scorch." He frowned after her, but made no effort to cut her off. She called back, "Make sure it's decaf!"

He huffed, grumbled to himself and went over to do as told. _I'm becoming domesticated. What ever happened to wild, untamed Sylar?_ he thought as he filled the tea container. _Feral, answers to no one, sleeps wherever he likes, takes whatever he wants, kills anyone who gets in his way … always on the run, sleeps __**alone**__, takes whatever he can get like some kind of pathetic scavenger, gets shot a lot … hunted, locked up in Company cells, gets mind-fucked and isn't even sure who he is … Hm. Is that really the person I want to be? _He left the water to heat and wandered over to squat in front of the oven, looking in at the toasting bread. It smelled great and made him salivate. _I could just stand up right fucking now and walk out of here, take off into the night and go wherever I want. I could go hit the Philly facility and take out Molly, then off to Japan for Hiro and probably nail both of them before Peter or anyone else could do anything about it. I __**could**__. Mm. That stuff really smells good. I wonder if it would be too soggy if I took a piece right now? Low temperature sensitivity has got to be good for something other than tolerating Peter's lousy-ass shower._

He opened the oven and reached in to snag a piece, noting his fingertips reacting badly to the heat. He didn't care. He shut it and started chowing, also ignoring the distressed sensation in his mouth from the hot butter. Yeah, okay, it was too hot, but it still tasted great. Regeneration took care of him. He set the bread down to finish cooling and went over to see to the tea. When he returned from leaving it to steep, the rest of the bread was done. He picked up his piece for another bite and opened the oven with the other hand. He floated the tray out with telekinesis and set it on the island, using the same ability to flip the slices into a bread bowl. _Look Ma, no hands._

Heidi walked in with Noah, putting him in his high chair. "How is it?"

"Pretty good," he said, walking over and looking at the child speculatively, examining his emotions for the kid. He had a few – he wasn't inhuman, after all, and the kid wasn't causing him any problems at the moment. Intellectually he knew he was supposed to show some interest and take care of the little squirt. Impulsively he handed the baby the last of the garlic toast he'd been eating.

"Is that still hot?" Heidi said with maternal concern.

"No." He hoped not. Otherwise dinner would be kind of tense if he started it off by burning the kid.

Apparently it wasn't too bad. Noah looked over the new food carefully, as if not sure it was edible.

"He might choke on that!" Heidi was still nagging about it though, even though he was standing there watching just in case there was a problem.

He frowned, not bothering to look at her. "Get over it. You coddle him too much. He's fine."

She huffed and said nothing, getting out the lasagna. He watched as she carried it out to the table, then called out for the boys to come down and eat. As she walked back he snagged her waist and pulled her to him. He looked down at her and murmured, "I think I can manage this."

She smiled a little and wiggled in his grasp. "You sure?"

They weren't talking about the same thing, but that hardly mattered. He bent to kiss her. "Positive."


	309. Bound and Gagged

Sylar slipped the ball gag into Peter's mouth slowly, watching his lips stretch to envelop it. Peter worked it around in his mouth for a moment before settling on a position for it. Sylar fastened the strap that made it impossible for Peter to spit it out. Well… he could if he resorted to his abilities, but that wasn't the point and Sylar wouldn't allow that anyway. He'd earned this, even if the session with the shrink had been less annoying than he'd expected. He could see why Gabriel kept going back, aside from his alter's propensity for pointless navel-gazing.

Peter was naked, blindfolded and tied, hands behind his back and bound at the ankles, sitting on one of the chairs. Sylar was still fully clothed. He stroked the side of Peter's face, feeling the bulge of the instrument keeping his mouth open. His fingertips played across the silk of the blindfold. Peter made an experimental noise in the back of his throat and shifted, testing his bonds. They were tight and had no give. Sylar assumed he was getting his knot-tying skills from Nathan's memories, but he didn't care much where the information came from. It worked - that was what mattered. Peter wasn't getting away unless he cheated, or Sylar let him. And cheating wouldn't be tolerated.

Sylar moved in front of him, leaning in, hands on his own knees. His breath caressed Peter's face and he watched as the empath responded to that. He whispered, "Give yourself to me," and Peter nodded enthusiastically. Sylar smirked and moved in closer to nose at him and kiss the side of his mouth. He licked along those stretched lips, tasting the ball gag and making Peter tense and breathe faster.

Peter made a sound of approval or pleasure. Sylar moved around behind him, snuffling in his hair and circling a little to kiss down the back of his head, changing to bites as he approached Peter's neck. Peter whined and shivered, leaning forward to expose the nape of his neck. Sylar chewed across his shoulder, licking and sucking. He started up the side of Peter's neck, leaving a trail of fading hickeys and marks, evoking small moans from Peter. Sylar reached his jaw and again Peter leaned to help him, stretching his neck to the side with another whine of pleasure.

"Mmm," Sylar hummed, kissing Peter's jaw. His nose brushed Peter's ear, causing a twitch. Sylar turned his head a little and brushed that too-sensitive ear with his cheek, making Peter flinch away with a disgruntled sound. "Come back here and submit to me, Peter," Sylar said softly. "That's what this is all about now, isn't it?"

With a deep breath, Peter brought his head back to where it had been before, tensing, prepared to endure the torture that came when anyone touched his ears. Sylar gave his ear a single firm press of lips to prove that he could, and then moved on to kiss his cheekbone. Peter relaxed and exhaled in relief. Sylar ran his hand into Peter's hair and through it, petting him, being careful not to disturb the blindfold or the gag strap.

"I like having you like this. This is wonderful." Sylar fell back to his haunches next to Peter and nuzzled his shoulder, rubbing his slightly-stubbly cheek back and forth on Peter's upper arm. Sylar ran a hand up Peter's shin to his knee, then up his thigh, over his hip … Peter mewled, tilting his head back and huffing around the gag. Sylar's hand stroked a large circle across Peter's chest, worshipping his body with his touch.

Then he took that touch away. Peter made an immediate disconsolate noise.

Sylar glided back and retreated to the couch, only a few feet away. He laid back on it and rubbed restlessly at his groin. He straightened himself within his jeans and watched while Peter tilted his head a little. Sylar sighed and flicked his fingers, using telekinesis to pick up a second silk cloth from the supplies they'd brought out to play with. He let the end of it trail across Peter's shoulder, causing a small twitch and soft sound from his lover. The smooth fabric floated lower, falling over his chest to flutter past Peter's sex and then caress his thighs. Peter pushed out his hips a little, inviting more of that.

Sylar rolled on his side, one hand touching himself through his jeans while the other tickled Peter's legs with the cloth, giving him a grazing touch and a near constant medley of sensation. He twitched his pinkie and smiled at Peter's abrupt stiffening. Sylar knew what he was doing, though there was no visual indication of the unseen touch drifting up and down Peter's penis. Peter groaned, putting his head back, experiencing nothing but the stimulation. He stroked Peter until the empath's breaths were coming out in quick huffs and he could hear the sounds of his body drawing together for climax … he stopped. Peter grunted, panting. He relaxed slowly and then slumped, making no complaint of Sylar's withdrawal. He'd get to come when Sylar let him.

Sylar laughed, low and husky with that velvety turn of voice he sometimes used. Peter shivered at the laugh and a line of gooseflesh prickled across his skin at the sound. Sylar said, "I think you're enough of a Boy Scout that if I walked away and left you here, you'd still be sitting there when I got back, hours later."

Peter exhaled softly and after a moment, gave a small nod.

Sylar let the silk drag slowly across Peter's organ, provoking a whine and another resurgence of faster breathing. He took it away, watching as Peter wound down again, although the empath's manhood stayed erect and rock-hard, the top wet with precome. Sylar rose and moved to him, kissing Peter's thigh near his knee, worrying the flesh lightly. "All mine." Peter mewled at the return of physical contact, spreading his knees, ankles bound together.

He chuckled. "I'd never leave you though. How could I leave you unmolested for even a moment?"

Sylar moved his mouth inward from Peter's knee, slowly progressing up his leg towards his groin. He stopped at his upper thigh and contemplated. "You know, you have a lovely looking penis. It's very … symmetrical. I enjoy that part of your body a great deal." He ran a hand possessively up Peter's front, up to his neck, which he caressed lightly, long fingers wrapping around it. Peter made a noise deep in his throat, like a growl.

"Do you want me?" Peter nodded. Sylar gripped for a moment, feeling the throb of Peter's heartbeat under his fingers. "Hmm. I'm not ready to let you have me yet. You know, I might not let you have me at all." Peter blew out air from his nose and tilted his head back. He whined. "Are you begging?" Peter nodded hastily. "Hmm. Maybe I'll reconsider. But first, I think I'm ready. I want you on the couch." Sylar stood and hooked a hand under Peter's arm, guiding him up and giving him balance. Then, with telekinesis, he moved him smoothly to the couch and deposited Peter facedown on it.

Sylar climbed over him and lay on top of his lover, which was probably painful given Sylar's weight and that Peter's arms were tied behind his back. Peter grunted once, turning his head to the side to huff out air. Sylar kneed Peter's legs open a little and slipped between them, putting most of the rest of his weight on one elbow to Peter's side. He bit Peter on the back of the neck and worked down his spine. Peter flexed against his bonds, shifting back and forth beneath him. Then as if he suddenly realized something, Peter's fingers began to move, snagging on Sylar's pants button.

Sylar kissed sideways to Peter's shoulder blade, giving his fingers time to work at the button and puzzle it out from the unfamiliar angle. He struggled with the zipper as well, but managed it. After that, he seemed stymied by underwear, but not defeated. He began stroking Sylar's hard member, little spots of pressure delivered as best he could under the circumstances. "Oh that's nice. Anything I want, huh?"

Peter gave a little mewl in response. Sylar moved up and down slightly, figuring out where he wanted to be for the best contact. Sylar rolled forward to kiss Peter's cheek, licking along the edge of his mouth again. When he withdrew, Peter tilted his head back towards him with a wanton sound. "Mmm," Sylar said. He reached down and pushed his underwear out of the way, exposing himself. Peter's fingers gripped him awkwardly, but the touch didn't need to be expert. It was enthusiastic and that was enough. He could feel the cotton ropes binding Peter brushing the head of his cock on each small, slow thrust he made, creating the up and down motion Peter couldn't simulate while tied.

Sylar bit him harder on the shoulder, teeth bruising, as he moved his hips a little faster. Peter made a plaintive sound and ringed Sylar's organ. He loved the idea that he was completely dominating Peter, tied, bound, helpless and yet still servicing him with what little mobility he had left. Sylar was getting close. He wrapped his hands around the tops of Peter's shoulders, elbows on the couch to either side and rode him until he came, his come on the ropes at Peter's wrists.

"Oh … Oh," he breathed out slowly. "God." He bit Peter hard on the back of the neck, making the other man arch under him. A moment later he rocked back on his knees, then got out from between Peter's legs and crouched on the floor. He leaned his head back against Peter's buttock and sat there quietly until his breathing had slowed back to normal and the post-orgasmic buzz had faded a little. Peter waited quietly.

Sylar rolled over and moved Peter around so his knees were on the floor and he was bent forward over the couch. Sylar bit his ass and then kissed it, going up over the crack of his butt and down the other cheek. He parted those cheeks. "You like this?" He kissed closer to the seam. Peter nodded enthusiastically, giving a whine and shifting his hips a little.

He spread Peter's ass, exposing the sensitive skin of his anus, and trailed kisses down to it and across. Peter shifted against the couch again, on it enough to get friction against his cock that way. Sylar came back to the center and licked cautiously, waiting a beat to decide if he was comfortable doing more. _Not that bad_, he thought. Peter was absolutely silent, probably not sure what he should do about this, but Sylar's squicks were not the same as Gabriel's. Sylar smiled at him, then bent to eat him out properly.

_You know, if someone had told me two years ago I'd be licking Peter Petrelli's ass and liking it about now, I'd have killed them for suggesting it. And thought they were insane._ Peter was breathing hard through his nose, panting as best he could with the gag in his mouth. He humped forward in small motions, not wanting to interfere with Sylar's attentions. Sylar spat on a finger and worked it inside, hooking it downward and finding the spot he wanted. He licked, sucked and bit the tender flesh that puckered around that digit.

This time he finally allowed Peter to finish. He came with a long, drawn out groan. Sylar stopped and put his cheek against Peter's butt, listening as the other man breathed hard around the obstruction in his mouth, recovering himself slowly. Sylar rested there before kissing that firm, smooth flesh. He raised the finger he'd used inside of Peter to slowly trace whorls and formless patterns on the skin of the other side of Peter's rear end. Sylar smiled and sighed softly. _Yeah, the Hunger is not one of my problems right now._

When the last of Peter's aftershocks had long faded, Sylar asked him, "Do you want the gag out now?"

Peter nodded. Sylar didn't move from where he was. His fingers flexed, the strap came undone, and Peter spat it out. After taking several deep breaths, he said, "I love you."

"Mm. Good."

"I didn't realize you'd …" Peter said, voice trailing off. He sounded very pleased, though.

Sylar kissed his rear end again and laughed. "Well, don't get used to me kissing your ass. Outside of sex, it's not going to happen."

Peter gave a satisfied smile. "It doesn't have to." He wiggled his fingers. "If you're done with this, untie me, let me know if I can take the blindfold off. I'd like to hold you."

Sylar was silent for a moment, then admitted, "I'd like to be held."


	310. Moving Past It

**A/N: An additional chapter was added, chapter 308, Substitution. To keep events in chronological order, I had to go back and insert it, then move out "Bound and Gagged" and "Moving Past It".**

Peter felt the personality switch this time. It wasn't fast, like before. Sylar's normal emotional baseline was strong and steady, like a healthy heartbeat. Gabriel's … it wasn't so much erratic, as complex. There was always a lot going on there, shades of meanings and partial responses, little nuances and emotional jumps that often seemed to mean nothing at all, perhaps a triggered memory that faded fast into nothingness without reinforcement. Peter found him hard to read on a moment by moment basis. Sylar was simpler. It wasn't that one was better or more fully realized than the other - they were just _different_.

They were lying in bed, snuggled up to one another, Sylar … well, Gabriel now, cuddled up inside the circle of Peter's arms. Gabriel turned his head up and nuzzled at Peter's neck, then gave him a small kiss, followed by a nibble. Speaking of those complicated emotions, a tendril of sexual interest went through the other man, quickly chased by fear and doubt, a counterpoint rise of anger, and then affection. He nibbled on Peter again.

"Gabriel," Peter said, not saying it as a question because it wasn't, but letting his husband know he was aware of his return.

"Mm-hm," he said, tucking his head back against Peter's chest, his interest lost in a welter of other feelings.

Peter stroked him, a gesture he had not pursued with Sylar as it seemed to annoy him after the third stroke. Instead he'd held Sylar firmly and that seemed to be what was wanted. Gabriel made a small croon for the caress. Peter kissed him on the top of the head - another thing Sylar seemed annoyed by but Gabriel enjoyed.

"What happened today?" Gabriel asked.

Peter sighed and looked off at the far wall, thinking. He noted absently that Gabriel was apparently well aware of the passage of time. Not surprising, given his ability. "Sylar," Peter said, "left while I was in the shower this morning. I don't know what he did until the afternoon, when he was at the law firm. He told me to tell you he had sold your share to the other partners."

Gabriel twitched and shifted uncomfortably. He settled back in a moment later. "Go on."

"I made him go to therapy."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. He and Rita talked for a while about dopamine receptors and … brain chemistry." Peter chuckled. Sylar had been really into the subject. Obviously, in addition to the hands-on experience, he'd researched it heavily. "And then the session went long as we talked about fatherhood and father figures." Peter stroked Gabe's back again. "He said you used Nathan's care of me when I was a kid as your main … uh, role model. Sylar doesn't seem to think he's anyone's father, personally." Which kind of worried Peter about Noah. "He, um, Martin …" He picked up the slight tense Gabriel made, followed by stillness.

Peter loosened his hold in case Gabriel wanted to pull away and said, "This morning, Sylar told me that Martin had molested you as a child." Gabriel did not move a muscle, but emotions flared to life, hot and bright. Peter wanted to jerk his hands away. He didn't, but it took an effort to temper the reaction in himself. When his thoughts turned, as if of their own volition to the fact that Martin still lived, and he could track him down and kill him for what he'd done, Peter finally pulled away. "Shit," he muttered.

Gabriel was in no frame of mind to help him, either. He rolled off the bed, eyes narrowed at Peter. "What else did Sylar tell you?"

"Nothing," Peter said immediately, staring at the sheets and fighting with his own misplaced desire to defend his partner from a wrong committed over a decade before. "No details."

"I wasn't a _child_. I was almost a teenager."

Peter nodded silently and shut his eyes. It was a meaningless distinction to Peter. The man was out there. He could find him. It burned in the back of his mind, scorching him inside. He knew there was one sure thing to quench that fire: blood.

"He doesn't even remember it," Gabriel said with a slight sneer. Peter heard him pad away to the bathroom, then the sound of the shower coming on. The knowledge that Martin had already suffered in some way and was truly ignorant of what had happened loosened the knot in Peter's chest. He thought he could manage it. He was exploring his own feelings carefully when he heard Gabriel make a choked exclamation, "Oh my God!"

Peter jumped out of bed and hurried in, welcoming the distraction. The other man was in the shower. "Are you okay?"

There was a moment of silence. Peter's hand went to the curtain and Gabriel bit out, "I'm fine."

Peter looked inside anyway. Everything looked okay. "What's wrong?"

Gabriel looked poised to say something, then shook his head. He began lathering a washcloth. "Get my toothbrush, put toothpaste on it. Hand it in here."

_Oh_, Peter realized. _Yeah._ He'd sort of been worried about that. He still was. Would Gabriel blame him for not stopping Sylar from rimming him? Peter had promised no rim jobs. Or at least agreed … or at least not _dis_agreed when Gabriel had said that was off-limits. But Peter hadn't asked for one from Sylar, nor had Sylar told him he was going to give one. And while Peter, even bound and gagged, had means to complain (a prearranged signal of grunting, or mental contact), he hadn't. At the time it was happening he'd been surprised Sylar would do it. Only later lying in bed did it occur to Peter Sylar might have done that act specifically to strike at his alter.

He handed in the toothbrush silently. He didn't like being caught in the middle of this, but clearly he was whether he liked it or not. Gabriel brushed his teeth copiously, spat often and expressed his less-than-thrilled state quite clearly without saying a word. Peter sat on the closed toilet and chewed his lip. This was, at least, a better thing to focus on than what to do about Martin.

Gabriel got out. Peter handed him a towel. Gabriel asked, "So. Any other unpleasant news I need to know about?"

"Em … no. Don't think so." Peter studied the corner of the bathroom, where the shower abutted the wall. _Getting mildew there. Or mold. Need to clean that._ He much preferred contemplating that than what was going on at the moment.

Gabriel surprised him by leaning over and kissing his temple. "It's okay. You're acting guilty. There's nothing to be guilty about. Keep Sylar happy; keep yourself happy. I'll just … clean up." He exhaled and turned to the sink, getting out shaving supplies. He usually shaved, then showered, but he also didn't tend to shave at night. Peter eyed his preparations. The more Gabriel scrubbed and scraped, the less psychometric impression would be left on his skin; the less scent he would carry.

Peter touched his forehead nervously, now realizing that not only did the man have the knowledge that it had happened, and had seen it, but he had to be feeling it in his very skin. "I am so sorry. Next time I'll stop it."

Gabriel looked at him out of the corner of his eye. With somewhat clenched teeth he said, "No. I would prefer you carried on as normal. It's not your job to police what he does. Nor mine, much as I want to. No one died, or was even hurt. You enjoyed it. He was willing. I don't factor into what you do with him any more than Emma pegging you."

Peter blinked. "What? You-" Of course he knew that. For the same reason he knew what Sylar had done.

"Peter, I've known about that since February. It's not a big deal."

Peter stared at his husband blankly, not sure at all how to take that - the most intimate moments of his life had been spied on by Gabriel for … months. His brain was seriously short-circuiting tonight. He had no idea how to react to this. Honestly it didn't seem critical enough that he should freak out and figure out how to react. It was still unsettling though. This seemed like an excellent time to take a shower, so he did.

When he got out, Gabriel had put on his usual shirt to sleep in. He looked between Peter and the bed apprehensively. "I'd rather not do anything tonight." It was almost a question, but not quite.

"That's perfectly fine," Peter said. "I had no expectations of anything. You had it rough last night."

Gabriel looked at the bed for a moment, then walked to Peter and cupped his face in his hands. He kissed him tenderly on the lips, then the cheek, the forehead, back down to his other cheek, and then his lips again. Peter pulled back, bringing his hands up to curl over Gabe's. There was too much insecurity in his husband (along with quite a bit of gratitude). Peter told him, "I love you," and kissed the knuckles of one hand and then the other.

Gabriel smiled faintly. "It's okay?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

They climbed in bed. Peter asked, "Do you mind me touching you?"

Gabriel hesitated, debating what to say, finally saying, "Your foot's fine. Or your hand. Don't get up against me though, alright?"

Peter nodded. They settled in.

"This isn't a big deal," Gabriel objected suddenly. "I'm not fragile. I'm fine."

"Yeah, I know," Peter said, fluffing his pillow, turning his back and reaching back with his foot to find Gabriel's leg. "Sylar wore me out anyway. I don't think I'd be up for anything." It occurred to him that might sound kind of cruel. He sure hoped Gabriel took that as teasing, which was how he meant it.

"He wore you out?" Gabe's tone was uncertain.

Peter felt Gabriel's fingers on his back, probably pulling for more memories. _Now I've done it,_ Peter thought. "Oh yeah," he said, playing it up. "I might not be able to have sex for days."

Gabriel snorted, giving his back a small shove. Peter chuckled. He heard Gabe mutter, "I'll show you 'wear you out.'"

Peter grinned and looked back over his shoulder. That's what he'd been hoping for. He rolled back over and snuggled into his pillow.

XXX

Hours later, Gabriel woke. The light was on, which wasn't unusual. Also normal was that Peter was reading a book. The empath tended to need an hour or so less sleep a night than Gabe did, under normal circumstances. Gabriel remained mystified and perplexed as to why, with all that extra time on his hands, Peter preferred to spend it abed with his lovers. Gabriel blinked several times, thinking about that precise thought … and what Peter valued most in the world.

Gabriel smiled, rolled over, and spooned up against his husband.

"Oh?" Peter said questioningly.

"Oh," Gabriel answered. He kissed him on the back of the neck and relaxed against him. He could use a little more sleep anyway.


	311. Live in Shadows, Crave the Light

Peter walked into Rita's office. He didn't like the idea of putting himself on a therapist's couch. He liked attention, when he got it, but he liked it for things he _did_, not what he _was_. But if he was going to make Gabriel go to a therapist, then fair was fair and here Peter was. "It's just me today," he said quietly, already wishing for Gabriel's time sense so he could count down the minutes until the session was over.

"Oh?" she inquired.

"Yeah. Gabriel had a baseball game. One of his sons, Monty, is playing." He'd leaned on Peter hard to go to therapy without him. Hopefully it wouldn't be too bad. Peter took a seat.

Rita sat too, and simply observed him for a bit. Peter was leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped lightly. His shoulders were a little hunched. He was drawn in on himself, waiting for it to start, even if he wasn't all that sure what 'it' was. He was in a defensive pose; Rita recognized that, and said nothing, perfectly willing to wait him out.

Seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Peter glanced at her a few times. She waited and watched, inviting him to speak by her body language and presence, but saying nothing herself. Peter was used to listening to people. He rarely started conversations himself, though he was perfectly fine at small talk. He wasn't here to make small talk, though. Peter tried to think of what he was supposed to say, because he knew he was supposed to use this time to 'make progress', whatever that meant. "We could talk about Gabriel," he offered.

"I'd rather talk about you."

He sighed as she immediately flipped it back on the topic he didn't want to discuss. For one thing, what was there to say? If he knew he had a problem, then he fixed it. He tried to take care of his own issues and not trouble other people with them. He'd tried the 'asking for help' route. It hadn't worked out all that well. His mind remained stubbornly empty, so in desperation and increasing discomfort from the expectant silence, he blurted out the first thing that came to him. "My father never believed in shrinks."

"Really?" she said conversationally.

_Well, that's a rude thing to say_. Peter had no idea where he was going with this, but it was better than silence and she didn't seem offended, so he continued, "Yeah. Kind of weird for someone who probably had telepathy." He shrugged one shoulder. "But on the other hand, if I hung out with Maury Parkman, I wouldn't put much stock in them either." He gave a nervous laugh. It was a stupid comment to make and he berated himself for it. She didn't know who he was talking about.

"Have you ever sought professional help yourself?"

He snorted like that was ridiculous. He'd been to one Critical Incident Debriefing at work and that was because he hadn't realized what he was walking into. Thankfully it had been brief, and group oriented, so he got to sit there quietly and listen without sharing. He'd made sure to avoid such things after that. But that didn't mean there wasn't public record of him getting 'help', spurious as it was. "There was a front page spread about my brother that mentioned me going to a clinic outside of Vegas for depression treatment after my '_suicide_' attempt," he scoffed.

She straightened a little. "Tell me about your suicide attempt."

Either she'd misunderstood his mocking tone, or she elected to take that word seriously no matter what tone it was in. He shook his head emphatically. "I did _**not**_ try to commit suicide." That was a sin and it was not what he thought he was meant to do with his life. Peter had always felt he had a mission in life, though what that was, was a mystery to him until he got his ability. Even then, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to _do_ with his power, but he felt obligated to do as much good with it as possible. "I was trying to fly."

She looked at him uncertainly.

"I _can_ fly." _I wasn't lying! I'm not lying now! I have an ability! Abilities …_ Still irritated at the idea that someone might think he'd tried to end himself, he stood up and demonstrated, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, while his torso didn't move. He just lifted his feet from the floor while his upper body hung in space. Her eyes widened slightly, but Gabriel had demonstrated extraordinary abilities as well. Some things she'd just decided to accept because they were too weird to reconcile with reality. He rested his chin on his knees and regarded her with angry, sulky eyes. "Believe me now?"

"Yes."

He huffed and drifted back into his seat. "Good." _At least someone does. I ought to make Gabriel look like Nathan and apologize for how he treated me back then - not believing me when he __**knew**__, when he could fly himself! __**That**__ would be therapeutic. Little unfair, maybe, but if Gabriel knew we were just role playing … Would _**I**_ know we were just role playing?_ He didn't like that line of thought, so he started talking again. Peter was nothing if not good at denying things he didn't want to believe, and believing in things he wanted to be true. "I didn't … I wasn't able to control my powers very well back then. So … I jumped off this building, trying to fly and … I woke up in a hospital."

"And then you went to that clinic?"

"What? No!" He shook his head, exasperated, but he realized he hadn't been all that clear. "The clinic was a lie. My … After the thing with the building, my brother told everyone at a big press conference that I'd tried to kill myself. I think that was the most humiliated I've ever been in my life. A lot of my parent's friends were there. And a lot of my friend's parents." _And Simone. God that was so embarrassing. Right after I make my move, here's Nathan: 'my brother's suicidal_.'

Peter exhaled slowly, trying to purge the old emotions. "So a little while later, a reporter was doing a big story on my brother's campaign, and Nathan had been seen in Vegas with some woman he was having an affair with, or just a fling - I don't know, but it wasn't the first time he'd done something like that. It came up while I was there and I told the reporter she ran a clinic for people with depression and suicidal thoughts, like, supposedly, me."

"Ah. You were protecting him - your brother?"

"Yeah." He looked away. Peter knew how the manipulation game was played. Nathan had stabbed him in the back with that suicide crap, so he returned the favor, blackmailing him by lending apparent support to his story and putting Nathan in his debt. Suck that, Nate. All the maneuvering hardly mattered now, with him dead. Peter hadn't been able to protect him in the end. Or … really, any of the various other times Nathan had almost died, and generally by Peter's hand. _Our father_. More uncomfortable thoughts. He said, "I owed him that much."

"Did you? For what?"

"What do you mean? He was my brother." _And we were, like, sleeping together sometimes, but talk about things not to mention to anyone ever …_

"You said he humiliated you in public, in front of people you knew. He had to know that would be hurtful to you. His affair doesn't sound like something you approved of either. Why did you protect him from the consequences of it?"

Peter was momentarily thrown. Repeating 'he was my brother' wasn't going to cut it and it was so much more complicated than that. "It would have ruined his campaign."

"Did you want him to be elected?"

"No, not really. _He _did, though. This was years ago. This doesn't matter," he said, trying to fend off the topic altogether. He didn't want to talk about Nathan.

She ignored his attempt to deflect. "And so why was that your problem? Helping him get what he wanted?"

He repeated his previous statement anyway, because like hell was he going to explain to an outsider the various forces at work in his life at that point, known, unknown, suspected and guessed at. "He was _my brother._"

"What did you want, back then, from him?"

He blinked and hesitated out of ingrained Petrelli caution. Honesty here wouldn't cost him anything though, so he said, "I wanted him to admit I had abilities, that I could be someone."

"And did he?"

Peter was silent for a long moment. He looked at her with narrowed eyes, feeling a stirring coil of need to defend Nathan, even though he was dead and gone. This whole therapy thing was working him up in ways he didn't want to be worked up. He answered though. "No." _Don't you dare ask me how that made me feel. _Nathan had cast a big shadow all his life. Peter had gotten used to living in the dark. Even now he was aware that he was living in Sylar's shadow - Gabriel, with Nathan's money and influence, with the Company position and power, while Peter worked as a paramedic and was restricted from using his abilities even at that. While he'd led the Resistance, and before, when they'd stopped Sylar after Nathan's death, people had looked up to him as a leader. How quickly that had changed.

Instead though, Rita went off in an entirely different direction. "Tell me who the first person was in your life who made you feel like you really were someone."

_My mother? Becky, the maid who used to give me macaroons?_ He was silent because even though people had shown him love, they hadn't built him up. It sure as hell wasn't Shelly in high school. Even though she'd had sex with him, it had been no more than a quick thrill for her, another belt in her notch, so to speak, and she'd moved on after adding another deflowered virgin to her collection of memories. It wasn't any of those others he'd been with, a long string of casual hookups because he didn't feel like he deserved commitment. It wasn't Simone - she'd stepped on his heart before he even managed to finish baring it to her. He looked down at the carpet. The answer came to him. "Charles Deveaux."

"Who was he to you?"

"He was one of my hospice patients." _He was also a telepath, but I didn't know it at the time. I wonder what he saw in me?_ "He really seemed to like me. He had a lot of … faith in me. He seemed to think I could do it - whatever it was I needed to do. He believed in me."

"You were taking care of him?"

"Yes, of course." He looked up at her. "Why?"

"Protecting people, taking care of them - it seems to be very important to you. You talked a lot about it when I first saw you a couple weeks ago. You were trying to find help for Gabriel. You care a great deal about him and you seemed very upset that you couldn't help him yourself."

"Yeah, that's important to me," he said softly. Of course it was important to him. It was his whole life, or at least, it was what he _wanted_ his life to be about. He wanted to help people and be important.

"Do you ever get tired of it?"

His brows pulled together slightly. "No. I get tired of having to fend off the rest of the world from them - from the people I'm helping. Things are complicated." _Saving the world - easier said than done._ So most days he settled for trying to save individual lives, working a job where people called and asked for help. It saved on tracking them down.

"You like it when someone you're taking care of looks up to you and appreciates what you do for them?"

His eyes narrowed, not liking where she was going with those questions. It made him sound selfish and self-aggrandizing, like he was helping people just to puff up his own ego. He growled, "I look for people who are hurt and need help. I do not _make_ them that way."

Rita held her hands up as though to fend him off. "I didn't say you did."

He took a deep breath and let it out. In a more normal tone he said, "Of course I like being appreciated. Everyone does."

"That's true. Do you feel you're getting enough appreciation now?"

_From you? No, that doesn't make sense._ "What do you mean?"

"From the people in your life. There's a lot of stress in your life right now and like you said, that can be very hard on people. It makes them hard on each other sometimes. I guess what I'm asking is: are you getting what you need in your relationships?"

He scoffed. "Of course I'm getting what I need."

She didn't seem to believe him. His answer was too easy, too unexamined. "And what is that?" she pressed. "What do you need?"

He was seized suddenly with discomfort and a desire to leave. The questions were making him apprehensive. What _he_ needed had never been important. He'd been raised, conditioned and perhaps even naturally inclined to look to others, not himself. He took a deep breath though and tried to face up to the question anyway. "I uh, I …" He thought back to Gabriel's rather embarrassing trick of trapping Peter into picking between calling him 'sir' or 'baby' and asking him why. "Um, I guess I w- er, need someone to take care of." He gave a brief nervous laugh. "I guess, uh, that sounds kind of dysfunctional."

"That's hardly dysfunctional, Peter. We 'shrinks' tend to be more on the lookout for people who _don't _care about others. There's a lot going on in your life. I suppose there are lots of opportunities to help the people close to you."

It didn't seem to be a leading statement, but instead an honest mistake in assessing things. Maybe that was what finally got him to relax and open up, to stop this defensive verbal sparring he'd been doing so far with her. "No, actually, I don't feel … I mean, I help Gabriel every way I can but I'm always standing back from him, letting him tell me when it's okay. I'm not comfortable with him like I want to be. It's even worse with Sylar. I'm afraid of him," he blurted out and he really had no idea why he was telling her this sort of thing. Maybe she could help after all. "I'm afraid I'll run him off. I'm afraid I'll upset him. And I do sometimes. I don't really know him, but he won't open up to me. We trust each other, but …" He looked down and away. _Stupid conversation_, he thought, putting the brakes on his suddenly runaway mouth.

"Have _you_ opened up to _him?_"

Peter blinked at her uncertainly, tempted by the idea there was something useful _he_ might be able to do instead of just standing by supportively while Gabriel worked through his issues. "Me opening up to him? He has Nathan's memories. He knows who … he spies on me _all the time_. He knows so much about me it's … it bothers me a lot. He's super-insecure, I guess. I keep telling myself he'll get over it once he … once he realizes it's okay and I'm not going anywhere on him. He's had a lot happen to him." Peter studied his feet. "A little insecurity I can deal with."

"But you just said it bothered you a lot."

"I **deal **with it." He gave her a harsh look, having no intention of explaining the negotiations between himself and Gabe. Gabriel had permission to do what he did.

"Okay." She dropped it. "Tell me more about what makes you uncomfortable with him."

He hesitated for a moment, considering what he was allowed to tell her. "There are a lot of unresolved issues between us. We don't talk about them." _Me opening up to him?_ It was still bouncing around in his head. He wanted her to shut up so he could think that one through, but it was too rude to ask of her.

Not knowing his wishes, she continued, "Are they important - these issues?"

He picked at the knee of his jeans. "Yeah. I think so. I think that's why he's insecure and afraid." _Would he be less insecure and afraid if I opened up to him? What would that entail? What sort of opening up should I do?_

"Peter, I don't generally tell people things that are told to me in sessions, but I think it would be okay to tell you that Gabriel has a lot of things he would like to talk to you about - about the past, between you and he."

Peter eyed her for a long moment, then looked down. _**He**__ wants to open up to __**me**__? I thought I'd been there for him. Does he think he can't talk to me? I want to talk to him, but he talks more here at therapy - about the important stuff - than he does anywhere else._

Into his silence, she said, "I think you're a very good listener, Peter. I've watched you in our sessions and I think you do a very good job of letting him speak. But it might help if you broached one of these subjects and prompted him. If you think it's an important issue … maybe you should tell him you're ready to talk about it. Tell him how you feel about it, nonjudgmental, and invite him to tell you how he feels. He might not be ready … but then again, maybe he is."


	312. A Conversation on the Balcony

Peter's phone beeped, signaling a text. He read it: 'Balcony. Join me?' and smiled. It was nice that Gabriel had worked out punctuation for texts, but it was really unnecessary, as was the capitalization. _Oh well_. He rose and tucked in Emma, laying a kiss on her forehead. She had fallen asleep on the couch while he watched TV. His program had just ended, as it was nine o'clock now. Gabriel's request was punctual as always.

He teleported direct to the balcony, expecting that Gabriel's message meant the coast was clear. It was. The man was leaning on the railing, looking off at the city. Peter wondered what he was thinking about – former serial killer, former senator, watchmaker, husband/father/brother, son, fugitive, penitent. Gabe glanced over at him, but gave no greeting, going back to his quiet survey of the urban landscape.

Peter walked over next to him and leaned on the railing likewise, looking to see what there was to see. There were lights from cars; a plane far overhead and satellites beyond that, stars beyond those; trees lined the street and cut off view of details, so although it was possible there were pedestrians, he didn't see any. He heard a dog barking in the distance; motors engaged and the constant spinning tread of tires; he couldn't hear anything else clearly. He could smell a barbeque and something else that reminded him of gunpowder – somewhere, someone had lit firecrackers, he presumed. The fourth of July was approaching soon. As a paramedic, he'd already been on two calls for fireworks-related injuries.

"What are you looking for?" Peter asked.

"Enemies," Gabriel said flatly, still studying the scene.

Peter was quiet for a moment, weighing that comment and taking a long glance at Gabriel's body language. The man was basically relaxed. Peter believed he could read Gabe well enough that if there were reason for alarm, he would detect it. Just to be sure, he asked, "See any?" Peter wanted to be critical of his paranoia, but the guy had been killed several times this year. It wasn't paranoia – it was vigilance. Peter scanned the night with a different eye, restraining his desire to pull Gabriel away from the edge and back to where it might be safer. Even under cover of night, they were easy pickings for a sniper, but they couldn't spend their whole life in hiding.

"No," the man said decisively. Gabriel turned to him, then reached out and began fussing with Peter's hair. Peter turned to face him, letting the man brush his bangs from his face (not that they were so long he really needed it, but that didn't matter for the compulsive grooming he was getting) and thread his hands through Peter's hair. His hands dropped to Peter's collar next, straightening it and making it perfect. Peter watched the expression of focus and absorption on his husband's face. He was overcome by an urge and rather than suppress it, he considered his confession to Rita about how often he held back. He reached up and seized Gabriel's face, drawing him down to him, turning his own head and kissing him hard and sudden.

"Mrm?" Gabriel said, tensing. He relaxed into it almost immediately though, now vocalizing more of a "Mm!" as he opened his mouth to Peter and wrapped his arms around him in welcome.

They kissed for long seconds, bodies moving closer together, feeling one another from head to foot. Peter massaged Gabriel's lips with his own, feeling emotions swirl through his lover - arousal, interest and desire built towards a peak and then suddenly pulled back. _Too much. Probably still upset about the nightmare._ They broke it off gradually, with Gabriel giving him several chaste kisses in succession before parting.

Peter looked away at the night, worried about many things at once. Gabriel kissed him on the cheek, being unusually solicitous in his affections. Peter said, "Sometimes I wish we could go somewhere that it was just me and you – the only people left in the world."

"Hm," Gabriel hummed, nuzzling his face now. "I think I'd get bored. And then I'd eat your brain."

For a second, Peter thought he should be shocked and offended. Then he just laughed out loud, pulling away a little. "You would not!"

"I might!" Gabriel pulled him back, kissing his temple and then snapping his teeth a few times next to his ear. "Mm, nummy brains. I'm sure yours would be the best I've ever had."

_Creepy. Seriously creepy. But he's comfortable enough with me to joke about it_. Peter kept up the light tone for Gabe's sake. "Now you're just being silly!"

Gabriel let his hands fall to the small of Peter's back and held him close, rotating in place a bit, rocking him with him. "Maybe." He moved his face along Peter's, snuffling into his hair. "You want to know another reason why I like the back of your head so much?"

_What? Oh shit._ He'd never thought about that. "What's that?" he asked guardedly, although he already knew the answer.

"Hm. You know. I can hear it – your realization. Which means you didn't know before. Interesting."

_Weirdo, _he thought, but close on the heels of that was a more affectionate mental rejoinder:_**My**__ weirdo. I love him, with all of his goofy, weird creepiness just the way it is._ "Tell me anyway so I can be sure."

"Okay." He spoke softly, reverently and explained, "That's where the seat of your power is – a little spark, a shining light, a spot of heat and sound and energy and everything I don't have words to explain. It's all right there, just an inch or two under the skin." Gabriel brought one hand up to caress the spot on Peter's skull that he spoke of. "This is the closest I can get to it without opening you up." Peter turned his head, because it seemed to be what Gabriel wanted and the man nosed at the base of his skull where he'd been touching a second before. "Right here." He inhaled deeply, then kissed.

"I'm all yours," Peter said.

"I _know_," Gabriel answered, and sounded deeply satisfied. "Even your brain."

Peter laughed again. "Even my brain," he agreed. "Now, how was your day?"

Gabriel parted from him, giving another quick smooch, before walking over to the lounge chair and sitting. He waved at the other and Peter joined him. "It was good. Let me tell you about the baseball game."

"Sure," Peter said, reaching out for the drink sitting between them. He snagged it, gave it a quick sniff check – tea, probably decaf at this hour – and drank.

Gabriel paused, ogling Peter as he helped himself. Peter lowered the glass, stuck his tongue out at him and took another drink, then returned it. "Huh," Gabriel said, looking from the glass to Peter.

"What?" _We kiss. We have wild sex. You're not seriously going to be grossed out that I drank out of your glass, are you?_

"I don't understand it, but for some reason that was really sexy."

_That … was not the reaction I was expecting._ "Huh," Peter said, copying Gabriel's earlier comment deliberately.

Gabe grinned at that. He settled back in his lounge chair and said, "Monty got a little bit of heat stroke today. So did some of the other kids. Even when … Can't protect them from everything."

"No," Peter agreed. He leaned back in the chair and looked up at the sky, thinking about how he couldn't save the world from itself. Nor could Gabriel. Gabriel started in on the fine points of the baseball game. Peter listened intently, asked questions and made comments. He'd followed baseball enthusiastically when he was younger and been fairly good at playing it. He had a lot of good memories of going to games with Nathan and talking over the plays with him. Nathan had also played when he was younger and was the one who taught Peter how to swing a bat, throw and catch. Gabriel knew all of that. Almost all of his knowledge of the sport was coming from Nathan's memories.

They talked about mundane issues for most of an hour, just hanging out with each other. Peter moved his lounge chair over a little closer and reached out to take Gabriel's hand, savoring the touch. They sat quietly for a while. "You're a good man," Peter said, a statement that made more sense given his contemplations of what he knew of his partner's nightmare, but had no reference to their previous conversation.

"Mm. Glad you think so," Gabriel said. "And I mean that on a lot of levels."

Peter rolled his head to look at him. Gabriel was … deep. "I know." He gave his hand a squeeze. "I talked to Rita today." He saw Gabe smile, but the other man was still staring upward, tracking the intermittent, blinking light of a commercial jet far above. Peter opened his mouth to say 'We need to talk' or some variant of it, then reconsidered. Those put the emphasis on Gabriel speaking. Instead Peter said, "I want to tell you about … our past." His lips thinned and he chewed on them briefly, feeling concern, curiosity and attentiveness through Gabriel's hand, while the man kept watch on the plane. Peter sighed. "Can I?"

"Yes," Gabriel answered very softly.

Peter felt more concern and a little fear coming from the other man. He turned and looked out across the city. "Well, um … where do you want me to start?"

Gabriel answered immediately and firmly. "Odessa. The high school. I know what you told Nathan, but you'd had Angela's ability for a while and possibly Isaac's. What did you know? What did you think you were going into? Did you know you'd survive when you threw yourself off top of the stadium?"

Peter blinked several times and barely restrained himself from turning to examine Gabriel's face. The only thing that kept him from it was that Gabe was still looking up into the sky. _He has a list of prepared questions? How long has he wanted to know this?_ If the curiosity burning through the bond they shared was any indication, pretty much since it had happened.

"Uh. Um, okay." He let out a breath. "I told Nathan the truth. All of it, really. Everything else I had was just feelings and glimpses. I knew I was meant to go there. I knew I was supposed to save her - Claire. A version of Hiro had come from the future to tell me it was vital I go there and save the cheerleader. I don't think he meant Jackie." Peter paused, bringing his free hand to his lip, rubbing it. "I didn't know I'd survive. In fact, I knew for sure I'd die. I hadn't seen anything past that."

They were silent for a moment. "Hm," Gabriel said. "That's typical with precognition - events past your own death are unreliable, if you see them at all." He gave Peter's hand a reassuring squeeze. Peter could feel hope rising in his husband. "Can I ask about other things?"

"Yes, of course." _He really __**does**__ want to know. Why the hell have we never talked about this? … Well, to be honest, I thought it would freak him out and cause a fit. And maybe months ago it would have._

Gabriel said, "You showed up to Kirby Plaza to stop me. What were you planning on doing to achieve that?" Now Gabriel turned his head to regard Peter, who shrugged.

"Really, I don't remember that I had much of a goal. I thought you were going to blow up the city."

"Yes, I know, but how were you going to stop me from doing that? Kill me? Was that on your mind?"

"No. At least, not really. I suppose I would have if it had come to that."

"Then what? Talk me out of it?"

Peter resisted the urge to pull his hand away. His voice went up a notch instead. "I don't know, okay? I don't know! I knew it was either you or me and I was afraid there was nothing I could do to stop it. I'd had nightmares about it for _weeks_. I wasn't … I wasn't really at the top of my game there, you know?" He huffed. "I panicked. I should have just gone out to the desert like I'd planned and let the others take care of you."

Gabriel shrugged. "Not really. You couldn't trust the others. Claire was too easily manipulated. Nathan would have tried to make a deal with me. Your mother was already orchestrating. Hiro … I don't know. Hiro had already had his chance and choked."

Peter shook his head. "I'm sorry, Gabriel. I really am, but I didn't have everything planned out. I didn't know what was going to happen. I was doing my best and-" he paused, because Gabriel was nodding actively.

Gabriel said with real interest in hearing more, "Yes, go on?"

Peter nodded too, letting go of some of the tension that had built up. _Maybe that's what Gabe needs to know - that I didn't have a big master plan for everything like my parents did. God, has he really been with me all this time thinking that maybe I planned for what happened? That I'd set him up on purpose in the past? That I had something to do with everything that happened to him?_ Peter blinked. "Okay, um, yeah. I didn't have a plan. I was just trying to do everything I could to stop New York from getting blown up."

Gabriel regarded him steadily for a moment, not a muscle moving except his left index finger, which tapped up and down one beat to the second in disturbing precision. Finally he said, "Okay. I can ask more?"

"Yes," Peter said. "Anything."

The floodgates had been opened. More of Gabriel's questions poured out, along with the occasional commentary. He wanted to know about everything. He wanted to fill in all the gaps between what Sylar and Nathan knew and what had happened in Peter's life. It was the same obsession to know that he showed about Peter's current life, but now the magnifying glass was turned on the past. Peter felt like one of Gabriel's watches, case opened and innards exposed to light, with Gabriel hunkered over him, poring over his mechanisms, tools poised.

Peter took a leap though and _trusted_. He took it on faith that Gabriel was going to do no more with the information than he did with anything else he gleaned from Peter - have it, know it, and nothing more. If he judged Peter by what he gathered through psychometry and private investigators and whatever else Gabe felt necessary to still his paranoia, his hunger or perhaps his rational self-interest in ascertaining that Peter wasn't a threat to him, he kept that judgment to himself. And even now, his face was not judging. The man's eyes were wide and intent, fixed on Peter as he asked and listened and asked again.

When Heidi came out dressed in her robe, Peter realized they'd far passed the allotted two hours. She asked, "Nathan, are you coming to bed?"

"No," he said. She made a faintly disapproving noise, but started to leave without making an issue of it. Gabriel added in a tone like he could scarcely believe it was happening, "He's _answering_ me."

She turned at the door. "Answering what?"

"Everything!"

Peter smiled a little at how pleased and full of wonder Gabriel was at that.

"Can I listen?" Heidi asked.

Peter let his eyes dart to the side, but he said, "Yeah, I guess so." He hadn't expected to have an audience, but they were all in this together. They didn't need to be keeping secrets from each other.

"Now tell me about the Stanton," Gabriel said, leaning forward with his hands clasped before him, as Heidi drew up another chair to join them.

_Ho boy_, Peter thought. _That time I __**did**__ mean to kill him._


	313. The Stanton Hotel

The Stanton Hotel. It was a place that loomed large in Sylar's, Gabriel's memory. He'd gone there disguised as Nathan, with the intention of saving the world. He'd tried that before, and got a katana through his guts for the trouble. This time turned out even worse. He just wasn't cut out for the hero business.

He hadn't known, at that point in time, what the hell Nathan had been up to. _Had_ he known, it wouldn't have changed his actions much, but he might have elevated the priority of killing one Nathan Petrelli a notch. Or maybe two notches. It wasn't like he hadn't had the opportunity. He'd just passed on it. His mistake.

Sylar understood how things worked. It was an inherent side effect of the wonderful, multi-faceted ability called Intuitive Aptitude. The same ability granted him a perfect time sense and an awareness of the abilities of others, as well as an unusual mastery of those abilities once he gained them. It did not grant him omniscience, infallibility or precognition (absent, of course, having gained precognitive abilities some other way). And so he was prone to making mistakes. Perhaps his mistakes tended to be different than those of mundane people, whom he privately (and sometimes not so privately) sneered at, but they were mistakes all the same.

He had made a mistake in pursuing his plan to get near the president without having killed Nathan _first_. He admitted that now, to himself. He should have researched better, planned more carefully, and shown more patience. Yet he had been arrogant (boy had that impulse ever been kicked out of him!), feeling there was no reason to waste his time with such nonsense when the direct route was easily available. Besides (and here was his main sin, that of pride), he wanted to snub his nose at the Petrellis, Nathan in particular. He couldn't do that if the man were _dead_.

It was Nathan who had prompted Sylar to set his sights so high, after all. He hadn't forgotten the first thing he'd painted with Isaac's ability, or the surreal, pulse-quickening vision he'd seen of the elder Petrelli in the White House. He'd known even then that it didn't have to turn out that way. Isaac's ability was an extension of probability determination and a sort of diffuse, mass telepathy. It was not actual time travel - not that Sylar understood how time travel worked. He had to possess an ability to know its secrets, which was another reason why he quietly lusted after a certain Japanese man's gift.

But although it didn't _have_ to be that way, it probably _would_ be. He'd seen how things worked - the Company, the government, the clandestine, semi-autonomous agencies run by scum like Danko. He had a pretty good idea of how _people_ worked. Shape-shifting had proven to be a strangely empathetic ability. There was nothing like walking a mile in someone else's skin to get an understanding of their point of view.

Nathan was his best bet to get to the White House and that was where he needed to be if he wanted to fix things. There were a lot of things that needed fixing. A desire to adjust, perfect and calibrate was not an attribute of Intuitive Aptitude. No, that predilection was uniquely Gabriel's, a trait spawned by no special ability, a feature of his basic nature. The same could be said of his desire for approval and power and recognition. The presidency would give him all those things, no matter whose face he had to wear to get it.

Specials were becoming an open secret and more importantly, they were building towards a sort of critical mass. Humanity had taken note and was beginning to turn on them - the immune system mobilizing against these foreign bodies. Sylar wanted his kind to survive. He was not Nathan who understood and identified with the mob mentality to destroy anything different from themselves. Sylar prized difference. He adored it. It was _magnificent_. (Of course he also coveted it and wanted to make it _his_, but that was the Hunger speaking.) Abilities were beautiful and marvelous things, nothing to be ashamed of.

He would fix things. He would become the president, using Nathan's form as a stepping stone. He would take control of the forces arraying themselves against those with abilities. He would stop the covert hunt being conducted against his kind. He would force toleration, if not acceptance, and he would save thousands, perhaps millions of lives by averting the war that was brewing. He would see people with abilities given the option to use them to the fullest and expand the understanding of human potential. He would be a _hero_.

Yeah. The last time he had that idea … sword. This time it was a syringe. Foiled again, god-fucking-dammit.

* * *

"Now tell me about the Stanton," Gabriel said, leaning forward with his hands clasped before him, as Heidi drew up another chair to join them. "I know what Nathan wanted out of all that," _to go down in a suicidal blaze of glory and expunge the stain on his honor with his own blood … and he wouldn't have minded killing me in the process, or even killing me and surviving but he had enough combat experience not to expect that_, "but what did _you_ want?"

Peter took a deep breath and looked down, letting it out slowly. Gabriel was hyper-aware of Peter's every twitch, wishing his lie detection was more refined, suddenly very pleased that Heidi had decided to stay. She wouldn't tolerate shenanigans from Peter. If her bullshit-meter started pinging, she'd speak up. That gave him confidence to push his questions further than he might have otherwise.

"I wanted to stop you," Peter said.

"From?" Gabriel turned his head to one side, but kept his eyes squarely on Peter.

Peter blinked repeatedly, usually a sign of shame or submission, but he wasn't making eye contact so deceit was still on his mind. "From becoming the president."

"Why would you care?" _It's not like __**you**__ wanted to be the president. Nathan, at least, hadn't ruled that out for his own career path, unlikely though it seemed._

_Now_ Peter looked up at him. _Now_ he made eye contact, but his expression was a mix of baffled and affronted. "You … you can't just _become_ the president."

"Sure I can. But you're not answering my question."

Peter's mouth hung open for a moment before he shut it and dropped his eyes, making a study of Gabriel's shoes. He pursed his lips and then replied, "The president has to be elected democratically. There's a process. You can't just … okay,_** I**_ couldn't let you assassinate the guy and take his place. If I can prevent even one murder-"

"Yes, yes, of course," Gabriel nodded, waving his hand dismissively and cutting him off. Peter … he was noble and all that and Gabriel adored him for it, but sometimes it was a little overdone. "But …" he sighed. "Really, that was it? You just … thought I was going to kill this one guy and so you flew halfway across the country, barged into the hotel room and started swinging … because of that?"

Peter looked up at him, mystified. "Yes?"

"Okay," Gabriel said weakly. It … it fit. It was the same thing Peter had done for Claire, back when all he knew her as was 'the cheerleader.' But really Gabriel had been expecting something more of a … a _plan_. Nathan at least had known what he was getting into. It wasn't like Peter didn't have a history of similar leaps. Really it was a wonder the man had managed to live this long. Gabriel had a slight shiver and a sudden urge to protect Peter from his own stupidity, if such a thing were even possible. Peter _did_ seem to have matured a lot in the last six months. Hopefully it was enough.

"Okay," Gabriel said again, rubbing at his face. "So you intended to kill me?"

Peter looked down and to each side. He shifted uneasily. "Yes," he said quietly.

Gabriel looked over at Heidi, who met his eyes briefly and then returned to watching Peter. Not that Gabriel had expected anything there - Peter's reaction was probably guilt over contemplating murder, not over having lied. "Why did you take shape-shifting?"

Peter drew his legs a little tighter together and looked up at his husband. "My mother told me to, at Coyote Sands."

"She told you to?" he asked softly. That she knew it was going to happen wasn't a surprise. That she'd taken an active role in pushing Peter so that Nathan's death came to pass - that was news. Gabriel turned that over in his head, not sure he could wrap his mind around it. He had come to accept that she had loved Nathan very deeply, and that even despite that love, she had allowed his death. But this - not just allowed it, but arranged it? It wasn't a huge step between the two. Gabriel chewed at his lip. He could certainly see her doing it.

Peter's eyes bored into his, scanning his face, reading him. "Yeah, she told me to. She said that the next time I faced you, Sylar, I needed to take shape-shifting. She said it was the only way. She said she'd _seen_ it."

"Ah." _So there was a plan. You just didn't know it. What else was part of the plan?_ "Are you leaving out anything important, that I should know?"

Peter blinked, then his brows drew together, but he didn't look away, nor did he eschew eye contact. "I don't think so. Not about this."

"Not about what?"

"About what happened at the Stanton."

Paranoia ran rampant for a moment. _Then … what the fuck are you hiding from me? _He loved this man though, so he didn't say that. Gently, in counterpoint to his feelings, he asked, "Can you tell me what it is?"

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, whatever you want to know, I'm going to tell you. There's, like, a lot to talk about."

_Vague, bullshit non-answer. But true. Of course if you'd known the plan, you wouldn't have gone along with it_. "Okay. Alright." _I'll just keep asking questions then. He's being honest. He loves me. I just need to be more specific. And realize that he might really not have the answers I want_. "During the fight, you took shape-shifting because Angela suggested it. Where did you go after that?"

"In the hotel?" Peter asked. Gabriel nodded and Peter went on, "Claire came in after you … after you and Nathan went outside. We looked out the window. We saw you both go in another window a few floors down. I thought it was three floors down; she thought it was four. We went down and tried to figure out where you were. When we couldn't hear any fighting, we started kicking open doors. There were people in the rooms. Things were a mess."

The image that presented was funny as hell. Gabriel could see why this portion of the story had not been retold to anyone. _'And then, while we knew Nathan was fighting for his life all by himself against Sylar, we were on the wrong floor rousting people from their beds.'_ The end of the combat, such as it was, had been _five_ floors down. "Mm," he said, suppressing his smile. "And so what did you do after that?"

Peter sighed. "We went to find the others. We found Noah. I told him I had shape-shifting and you were going after the president. He gave me the syringe. I told him I'd stop you. He said he needed to find my mother and she'd know where Nathan was. He took Claire with him."

Gabriel cocked his head. "And you - what did _you_ do with the president?"

"I told him the truth. I showed him my ability. I told him you were going to make an attempt against his life, just like Nathan had warned. All I wanted him to do was leave. He did. And he lent me some of his security and his main car so I could stage a diversion. I think he believed me."

Gabriel gave a wan smile. "Huh. And here I'd wondered if you stuffed him in a closet or something. You're such a Boy Scout, Peter." He laughed a little and rolled his eyes. He mocked, "_You told him the truth_."

Peter shrugged. "Hey, it worked."

"Yeah, okay."

"I didn't tell him I was Peter Petrelli."

"Oh?" Gabe's brows rose.

"I had shape-shifting." Peter didn't elaborate to explain who he had appeared as. It was immaterial though. At least he had _some_ sense. And that explained why he didn't have Secret Service crawling all over him afterward.

Gabriel touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip, peering at Peter. _How much can I ask? How much __**should**__ I ask? How much can I handle knowing? What if I don't like the answers?_ He looked at Heidi, who had been watching their exchange without speaking. She knew, generally, the circumstances of Nathan's death, but Peter's role in the fight was new to her. She had said nothing, which indicated strongly that Peter was telling the complete truth as he knew it.

Gabriel looked down, trying to summon the courage to ask what he really wanted to know. He'd mentioned it to Rita. He thought he could mention it to Peter. Now it was Gabriel drawing in on himself a little as he struggled to push his fear aside and figure out if there was anything to be gained from asking. Logically, there wasn't, but emotionally he wanted closure. He wanted certainty.

He also wanted to hug Peter and hold him close when he asked, so he could hide his face and ignore the answer. Just put the words into the air and leave them there so maybe Peter could answer later, or not at all. He wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

"What is it?" Peter finally asked.

"Anything?" Gabriel said. That made no sense, so he elaborated, "I can ask anything?"

"Yes. Anything," Peter affirmed.

"Why did you … why … they, you … the b-body …" He stopped to breathe and try to relax himself. _This is stupid. It's just words. What would Sylar say? How would Sylar say this?_

Quietly Peter said, "The body that we burned on the pyre? The … the shape-shifter that we thought was you?"

Gabriel stared at the floor, unable to look up. He nodded bleakly.

Peter misunderstood what Gabriel was trying to ask. Peter said, "That was a guy named James Martin."

Gabriel nearly exploded. He started to his feet, nearly shouting, "Goddammit yes! I know that!" Peter recoiled, scrambling back enough that his lounge chair scraped across the floor. Even Heidi flinched. Gabriel snarled, made a frustrated gesture and sat back down, breathing hard. He jammed his fist against his mouth, biting his knuckle to distract himself from another unwarranted outburst.

_Okay. Calm down. This tells me something. It tells me something I wanted to know. Peter thought that was me. He said 'the shape-shifter we thought was you.' He thought the body was me. It wasn't a lie. He wasn't acting for my benefit. He didn't know._ Of course Peter had claimed as much before - he was certainly sincere in his surprise, but Peter had largely kept his mouth shut when it came to actually saying who he thought they'd burned. His statements had been easy to misinterpret like 'look, assuming I believe any of that … what would it matter?' Oh yes, what would it matter whether Sylar was dead, snuffed out and ended? What would it matter to _Peter_, who was supposed to value human life so much?

After a moment of silence, Gabriel lowered his hand and said through slightly clenched teeth, "I want to know … why did you let them burn … the body. I want to know why you did that." He sniffed and got the words out, disjointed as they were. He stared up at Peter. "I want to know if you thought I was already dead. Why." He knew he'd mangled the question, but it was the best he could do.

Peter swallowed and settled his chair, sliding forward again and visibly trying to ease back down. He took a deep breath and let it out. More blinking, his eyes darted downward and he ducked his head for a moment before looking back up and holding Gabriel's gaze for the duration of his words. "I wanted you dead and gone, forever, so you could never threaten anyone, ever again."


	314. Another Point of View

Heidi was glad Peter was finally sharing. He wasn't saying much that _she_ wanted to know, but obviously this was information Gabriel was ecstatic to get. Peter might have long been considered the black sheep of the family, but Heidi just didn't see it. He was just like the rest of them, through and through, for all his superficial differences. And they _**were**_ only superficial. That had been always been clear to her, even before her ability.

For example, he kept secrets just like all the other Petrellis did. Stupidly, too. He kept things secret that he had _no reason_ to keep secret and sometimes, every reason to tell. It had broken her heart to realize how much Nathan had kept from her. The new Nathan was better. He still wasn't perfect and Heidi didn't need him to be, but he was a vast improvement over the old Nathan. If that needed an illustration, here she was listening in to a private conversation, the sort of thing where the old Nathan would have politely urged her to go on to bed and leave him to discuss out of her hearing. She hadn't missed that when she'd asked if she could stay and listen, it was Peter who had reacted with uncertainty and confusion, allowing her presence uneasily. Nathan hadn't cared (_her_ Nathan; the new Nathan, because the other one had never been hers. He'd always belonged to Peter. Perversely, even though this one was _married_ to Peter, he was still hers and he'd picked her over Peter twice now when the chips were down.)

She was glad Peter was shedding light on things too long left in the dark. Even the strongest truth etiolated and weakened in secrecy. She didn't want to see Peter shut down by Nathan's difficulty in dealing with an unpleasant truth. The expression on Nathan's face was not good – an angry, disgusted glare of such intensity that most people recoiled. She'd been amused when the salesman at the car dealership had actually fled. Peter fell silent and leaned away slightly.

Heidi rose and walked over next to him, putting her hand on Peter's shoulder and giving her support. She saw the pissed off, jealous glare Nathan shot at her hand, then turned his scorching gaze on her face. She gave him nothing, but her grip firmed on Peter's shoulder as much to get support from him as to lend it. Nathan looked away after only a moment, blinking and looking down and to the side as he mastered his less-attractive impulses. She raised one brow. He really was getting a lot better. He was so much more self-aware.

Peter looked up at her, grateful and curious. She rarely took his side. She gave him a proud smile and squeezed his shoulder, patting it a few times. She was glad to hear Peter confess to being a normal human being like everyone else, prone to hatred and anger and pettiness. She knew it was there, deep under the surface, but he almost never admitted to it. He preferred to go around selling an image of himself as perfect and sweet and benignant. It was that whiff of falseness that always grated against her nerves with him. Maybe this conversation meant he was willing to put that façade aside. He smiled back at her warmly and let go of some of the tension he'd gained when Nathan was giving him the evil eye.

Nathan had taken the opportunity to recover himself from whatever internal struggle Peter's last words had provoked. He was still looking at the floor though as he shook his head slowly and said, "Do you even see the hypocrisy in that?"

"I don't feel that way _anymore_," Peter said.

Nathan looked up at him, raising one brow and tilting his head. "Are you sure?"

Peter gaped at him in evident confusion. "Er … what?"

Nathan waved a hand dismissively and said, "That wasn't my point. We'll come back it. You flew across the country because you thought I _might_," Nathan leaned forward, raising both brows, "'_do something'_ to the president. You weren't sure I'd _kill_ him. But you were certain you were going to kill _me_."

"You were going to take his shape!"

"That doesn't _kill_ people, Peter." At Peter's scoff in response, Heidi smiled a little. Peter was getting braver to have made that noise, more sure that this was an argument and not a fight. Nathan answered the sound with one of his own. "You saw me on television as _Nathan_ and at that point in time, he was perfectly fine. His death had nothing to do with me taking his form."

"Okay, fine," Peter conceded. "What does this have to do with hypocrisy?"

"You came thousands of miles to jump in my shit," and here Nathan pointed an angry finger at Peter. Heidi felt Peter flinch a little and shift uneasily. She gave him another gentle squeeze to remind that she was with him. She wondered if she was more holding him in place so Nathan could get his licks in, or supporting Peter so he didn't cave immediately. Maybe both. Nathan went on, voice rising in anger, "And you did that over something you saw on fucking television! May or may not have been true, may or may not have been staged, whatever-the-fuck!"

Peter huffed. "That's not hypocritical!"

"You wanted me dead and gone forever, Peter. You were going to kill me because you thought I might kill someone else. If killing's so wrong, then why is it okay to do it to me, huh? Why right then? Why that moment? Danko had me on fucking speed dial! If Nathan wanted to get in touch with me, it wasn't that fucking hard!"

Peter blinked, startled. "I didn't know that …"

Nathan froze for a full second, staring at Peter. He eased back down in his seat and was quiet, wheels turning in his head.

"Nathan never …" Peter faltered, looking confused. He shook it off though and went on, "You'd killed a lot of people."

"Right. Of course," Nathan said sarcastically. "I'd quit doing that, by the way, not that you noticed. Or cared." He sulked.

"Gabriel, why would I have cared, back then? I didn't _know_ you!" Nathan stared at him levelly and Peter immediately amended, "At least, not real well."

Nathan swallowed and when he spoke, his voice was no longer even and self-assured, but raw now. "You knew I'd tried to be better. You _knew_ that. You've told me that you'd been to a future where I _was_ better." He looked away and down, pulling into himself some.

Peter tried to rise and Heidi pushed him back down. This was not the time to go climb all over Nathan. Nathan would put up with it and in fact he'd probably appreciate it. He'd use it as a distraction from the difficult topics they were discussing, shelving them in favor of letting himself be consoled and then leaving the important issues on the damn shelf for who-knows-how-much-longer. Nathan was doing well. There was no reason to coddle him at the moment. Peter sighed and stayed where he was then, asking, "When did you stop killing people?"

Nathan shook his head. "It doesn't matter." _Lie_. Peter snorted. Heidi didn't react even though she detected it more clearly than Peter. Not only was it a lie, but it was intentional and an attempt at deflection. Something about the 'when' of when he'd stopping killing directly challenged the line of argument Nathan was putting forward. Her lips pursed together a little. He was bull-shitting Peter on some level - that was funny.

Nathan went on, throwing the blame back on Peter, "But speaking of killing people, what had I done, as far as you knew at the time, to deserve being _burned_ to death? That's a really painful way to go."

Peter's voice was low and he looked away. "You weren't conscious. Noah said you were dead. Chemically, as far as it mattered … all of your body functions were arrested."

Nathan's mouth opened and then shut, his brows pulling together and head tilting. "You checked?"

"Yes, I checked. You didn't have- The body didn't have any autonomic responses."

Nathan looked down. "But you left me dead." He sounded almost lost, like he just didn't understand it. Heidi felt a pang of sympathy for both men as she figured out what was upsetting him so much. Nathan couldn't reconcile the Peter who loved and adored him now with a Peter who had hated and loathed him before. From his point of view, there had to be something wrong, something false in Peter because Nathan didn't see that he'd changed. Or maybe, as he was slowly shedding the adopted mannerisms he'd been using for over a year now, he was afraid that if Peter had hated him then, then Peter would still hate him now.

Peter looked up and bit his lip briefly. "Yes, I left you dead. I've already covered that. I can apologize, but it wouldn't mean anything because I thought I was doing …"

Nathan looked up at him under his heavy brows and said with quiet menace, "You thought you were doing the right thing to kill a man?" One brow quirked up. "That's against everything you've said you believe in: forgiveness, redemption, rehabilitation …?"

Peter sagged and mumbled, "It wasn't one of my better moments."

Heidi chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. Her reaction defused the rising tension in Nathan, who eyed her for a moment and then rolled his eyes. "Okay, maybe not. But why did my life matter so little to you? What did I do wrong?"

Peter gave him a confused look and opened his mouth, but Nathan interrupted, "And don't give me that 'going to kill the president' crap because I don't believe it. There was something about _me_. You forgave Mohinder and he's killed people, maybe a little more indirectly in most cases, but that's because he's spineless. I'll wager he's ruined more lives than I have. You forgave you father and …" Nathan shook his head. "I can't even imagine the scale of what he's done." He waved a hand vaguely at the sky. "That whole eclipse thing alone …"

Peter said, "Fine, you want to know? You'd killed people. You terrorized them. You were hunting specials, people like me. Like my brother. Like my mother. Like Claire. People I cared about. And that's not to say I didn't care about other people, but when you start threatening my family, that's _different_. You were impersonating Nathan." Nathan stiffened and straightened at that. Peter said, "That matters. Whatever you were going to do was going to reflect on him. Regardless of whatever you were going to do to the president, you were using my brother's reputation to do it. I didn't know you'd stopping killing …" Peter paused and regarded Nathan, making it clear that he too had noticed something 'off' in Nate's reaction to that point, but he didn't press it. "I didn't know that. You'd had your chances to be better …" Peter trailed off, blinking and looking aside.

"So have others whom you've forgiven, but … okay. You didn't like me."

Peter looked up. "That's not what I said."

Nathan rose and walked over to the balcony, looking off over the city. After a moment, Heidi patted Peter on the shoulder again and walked over to sit in Nathan's lounge chair.

"I like you _now_," Peter offered.

"I'm not different, Peter. I just pretend." Nathan's shoulders sagged. "You like who I pretend to be."

Peter's voice was certain as he answered, "I'd like you even if you didn't pretend."

"You've just said that's not true. You didn't like who I was then. You wanted me to die: dead and gone forever."

"No," Peter said firmly. "You're not listening to me. **That's not what I said**. I didn't like what you were _doing_. If you started threatening everyone I love, right now, and you were killing people and doing it under Nathan's name and making another grab at being president, then yes, I would try to stop you again. I wouldn't try to kill you though because … because I know you … aren't really that way. You were … that was a bad point in your life. I don't think that's the kind of person you want to be."

Nathan said quietly, "You don't know what kind of a point that was in my life."

Heidi settled back in the chair and watched as Nathan regarded the city and made one of his usual, somewhat paranoid, mostly protective sweeps.

"No, I don't," Peter admitted to his back, "You've never told me. But I've come to know you better than what little I did then. I didn't give you the benefit of the doubt before. I didn't ask; I didn't look; I didn't want to. I was angry. I was frustrated at how things were turning out and all the things Ma had been hiding from us. I wanted someone to pay for everything that had gone wrong and …" Peter's voice caught a little and Nathan turned away from the city to watch him instead. Peter said, "And all the people who were to blame were people I couldn't do anything to - Ma, Nathan, the government. It was so much bigger than I could do anything about. All the specials … the government was still after us."

Nathan tilted his head. "And so you thought if you brought me down and saved the president, that maybe he'd be grateful and call off the hunt?"

Peter shrugged. "I didn't really think about it at all. But I couldn't let you get in control of an apparatus that was that good at locating and capturing us."

Nathan snorted. "That wasn't why I was there."

Peter looked up at him.

"I didn't like the existence of that apparatus either. It was too efficient. I was going to dismantle it."

Peter looked at him blankly for a long moment, then barked a laugh. "Great," he said sardonically. "Just great."

Nathan shrugged. "You never asked."


	315. A Few Moments At The Pool

June 26, 2011 was a Sunday and as per the schedule they'd adopted only a month before, the men belonged to their wives for the day. That didn't always mean they didn't see each other anyway, as they did now. They were at the Harrison's house, three houses down from the Petrelli's. The Harrisons had a pool, along with two sons and one daughter. The kids were exuberantly playing in the shallow end, currently engaged in a game of marco polo, squealing, yelling and splashing continually. Not far away, under a canopy on the pebbled deck, Heidi, Emma and Debi reclined in lounge chairs, discussing whatever it was women discussed together. Every now and then Peter heard snatches of conversation. He was pretty sure they were talking about unemployment and the economy, or something equally boring.

Emma was holding little Noah, who looked unhappy with the arrangement. Earlier, he'd been carried around in the pool, but when the older kids had gotten revved up, the women had left for the chairs, bringing the baby with them. Gabriel (looking like Nathan) and Peter had left the playzone shortly thereafter. They were at the far end of the pool - the deep end - arms hiked up on the lip of the pool while they faced the kids and their wives, keeping and eye on things and discussing not much of anything at the moment.

For a while, the men had both played with the older kids, splashing and kicking. The children ranged from eleven and twelve (Simon and David) to eight (Monty and Baylee) with Terry in between. The kids had soon settled on a preferred game of ganging up on one or the other men, trying to drag them underwater and drown them. The mental images Peter had started getting from the kids were disturbing. They weren't exactly … premeditated on what they were trying to accomplish, but they _really_ wanted to drown him. Or Gabriel. There was no thought whatsoever as to consequences. It was just fun and a great idea to them to try to hold an adult underwater for as long as possible. It bothered the hell out of the medic and so Peter had soon withdrawn to deeper water, eventually followed by Gabe.

Gabriel wasn't saying anything at the moment, instead trying to get some water out of his ear, having been pulled under and dunked a number of times. The men leaned against the wall of the pool, both buoyed by flight somewhat more than they would have been by the water itself. It let them rest their arms more easily on the edge. The water lapped around them soothingly. It was a hot day, with the sun bright overhead. Gabriel finally gave up messing with his ear and settled back against the edge, his elbow nudging Peter's as he put it back on the ledge. Peter smiled warmly, keeping his eyes on the kids. Those little, discreet touches in public meant more to him than a full body caress in bed. It hit the right buttons for Peter on several different levels - as long as Gabriel didn't make it obvious, which he wasn't.

Under the water, invisible to anyone else, Peter reached over with his foot and stroked up and down Gabe's shin a couple times. Gabriel shifted position slightly, also watching the kids, but the motion moved his elbow against Peter's. Peter sighed happily and that got Gabriel to look over at him out of the corner of his eye. Gabriel smiled smugly, lifted his chin and went back to observing the chaos in the shallow end of the pool. The game of marco polo was dissolving amid claims of cheating, mainly directed towards Simon. They were probably true.

After a few minutes passed in silence, Gabriel said, "I'm sure we should be talking about something of great importance right about now, especially given last night's conversation."

"Hm," Peter hummed in response, giving a little sigh. He'd left shortly after the revelation that Gabriel's intentions with the president had been generally the same as Peter's. Peter wasn't naïve enough to think that Gabe still hadn't needed to be stopped. His 'means' were most likely to be evil, even if his 'ends' were good. Gabriel had, after all, made no attempt to open a dialogue himself; he'd mistreated Claire; and he'd killed Nathan. No matter how pure his goals were, there was no justification for why he had gone about it the way he had. It was what he was used to; it was what he thought he could get away with. But he hadn't been a cardboard villain. There had always been more there than appeared on the surface. Peter hadn't always looked.

"What do you want to talk about?" Peter asked after another short silence made it clear Gabriel wasn't going to do the talking.

"Nothing, really. I asked everything that was burning me up last night. I guess I'm still kind of digesting all that."

Peter smiled again. A wasp flew low over the surface of the water as if to land on it. Gabe waved his hand. It was some dozen feet from them, but a sudden sharp breeze blew it away. That hadn't been telekinesis, because that ability didn't stir the air - only solid objects within it. Peter's brows rose. "That was you?"

"Yeah."

"Huh," Peter said. It had to be the aerokineticist's power. This marked only the second time Peter had seen Gabriel use it. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He looked out at the kids, thinking muddled thoughts about the things Gabriel's ability had turned him to do and how the man had tried to cope. Peter thought about his own ability and the things he'd done, particularly the recent killing of Molly. His face turned introspective and broody. His eyes narrowed as he watched Monty go to the edge of the pool, coughing and sputtering from having been splashed in the face, while David tried to maneuver around him to splash him yet again before he could recover. Debi called off her son, who changed focus to his sister instead. Peter did not miss that the boy was targeting the youngest and smallest. _Children are cruel._ Peter sighed.

Gabriel reached out his foot and stroked Peter's shin this time, having noticed the turn of mood. Peter glanced at him. Gabe, having misread the cause of Peter's moroseness, said of his air-manipulating power, "I'm so sorry, Peter. I won't use it again." The first part was true. The second wasn't. Gabriel winced, probably because he knew that wouldn't ring true.

Peter gave him a crooked smile. "It's okay. That wasn't what I was thinking about. Use it whenever you want." Nearly every ability Gabriel had, had come at the cost of someone's life. If he couldn't use them because of that, then he wouldn't be able to use any of them and Peter knew that would not last long. It would impose an unreasonable strain that even Gabriel wouldn't be able to stand up under for long. Peter went on, "I realize maybe you've been holding back around me. You don't have to."

Gabe tilted his head and said, "Then what were you thinking about, if not that?"

"Molly. She's a year older than David there." Peter reached out with one hand and splashed the water away from him in a pointless, frustrated gesture, angry at himself. "It's been a week. I haven't even gone to see her … is she … how is she doing?"

"She's okay. She's been moved to the new Pinehearst facility where she's getting therapy. Micah's been to see her nearly every day. I went once."

Peter jerked his head around. Gabriel had said nothing of that and seeing Molly was important enough that he really should have. Of course, the last week had been eventful and stressful for both of them. This was the first time Peter had even mentioned Molly. Maybe, he thought, Gabriel hadn't wanted to bring it up because he was unsure of Peter's reaction. Even now, Gabe was looking away, blinking a little too fast, breathing a tiny bit harder - scared. Peter had scared him. Gabriel shifted position uneasily.

Peter took in and released a deep breath, forcing his way through the guilt that expression on his husband's face brought in him and toning down his reaction. He schooled his face to something milder and relaxed, taking another deep breath. This was why he hadn't gone to see her - he was still very emotional about it. He could hardly think about it without getting stirred up. Gabriel had done right in keeping silent until now. In a soft tone, Peter asked, "What did you talk about with her?"

Gabriel looked back at Peter, apprehensive at first, but then calming as he regarded Peter's expression, which was open and receptive. Peter was listening, not reacting, and there was a difference. Gabriel said, "I apologized for what I'd done to her parents. Maybe … maybe none of this would have happened to her if I'd told her that sooner. I've been a coward."

"Ha," Peter laughed hollowly. "You're _**not **_a coward." He looked back at the kids, remembering how he'd thoughtlessly suggested to Gabriel that he take in Molly months ago and Gabe had shamefacedly reminded him of what he'd done to her. Peter knew he needed to get over his own fear and shame and go see her. He looked back to Gabriel, seeing his face blank, his defenses up for some reason. Peter said what was on his mind anyway, wondering what he'd said to put Gabe on edge. "I need to go talk to her too. And apologize. Do you think she'd listen?"

Gabriel shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "I don't know. People can react strangely to those who have caused them pain and made them powerless."

Peter's brows furrowed. He didn't think Gabe was talking wholly about the girl. _Was it disagreeing with him about the coward comment? Or was it me laughing?_ "What's that supposed to mean?"

Gabriel was quiet long enough for Peter to be sure he'd meant that statement as much about himself as Molly, before saying, "You can't expect her to respond rationally."

"I don't," Peter said quietly, studying Gabriel and resisting the urge to reach out to touch him again. Peter thought back to a previous conversation, where Gabriel had told him he'd let the emotion win out in dealing with Peter, even though everything he'd been as Sylar wanted to kill him. "You told me before, thinking's over-rated. You gotta go with the emotion."

Gabriel looked at him for a long moment. Peter could see, only because he knew him so well, that Gabe's face softened and his expression changed subtly from guarded and neutral to loving and warm. From a distance, or to a stranger, his face was as blank as it had been before, but Peter knew what was going on there. Whatever had been bothering Gabriel had been smoothed over by Peter reminding him of how he'd given up on his hate and let himself fall in love with Peter.

Peter said, still quiet and low, "You said last night … that you think I'm in love with who you pretend to be. I don't think you pretend to be in love with me. I think you _really do_ love me. Maybe you didn't at first, but it's changed. When did that happen?"

Gabriel hesitated and looked down shyly. He reached out under the water again to rub Peter's leg with his foot. "When you married me. That's when it started to sink in that … that you were in … in this for _me_, that you were really going to give yourself to me. Completely. I'd always thought you had to be holding back, before then, because I was." Gabriel took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. His body language had changed from before and now he was angled towards Peter rather than away. "You're very nice to me, Peter."

Peter smiled sappily. He wanted to kiss him so bad. _Patience, Peter_, he thought to himself, because he could see Gabriel was still thinking it over from the expression on his face. Peter remembered Heidi's hand on his shoulder the night before. Sometimes, he needed to just sit tight and let Gabriel process, rather than react to the first little thing he did.

Gabriel went on finally, "I'm sorry I said what I did about the pretending." He looked down at the water. "I think you know me pretty well." He smiled slyly now, looking up at Peter from under his brows. "You've really gotten under my skin and past my defenses. If I pretend anything, it's that you haven't … but you have. You know me well enough to love who I really am and I know that. What I said last night … some of that was me being cruel. I'm sorry for that."

Peter nodded. "It's okay. Some things have to be said. I want you to know you can talk to me, ask me things, and I won't hurt you."

Gabriel shut his eyes briefly and nodded. A relaxed smile stole across his face. "Thank you, Peter."


	316. The Walls Come Tumbling Down

Sylar gave the sleeping Gabe a mental prod. _Wake up. You're needed._

"Wrr?" A hand was pawing at Gabriel's arm restlessly. He inhaled deeply. _Peter. Well, of course. Who else would it be?_

Sylar's voice in his mind immediately supplied, _Could have been Heidi, but this is the wrong night for her_. What night it was hardly mattered. Gabriel was still getting awake enough to consider details like that. Since Gabe was waking and willing to deal with something Sylar had already sussed out as being outside his areas of competence, the killer faded back into obscurity.

Considering that Peter slept an hour or two less each night than Gabriel did, the man really was a saint about not waking Gabe. He was a wonderful bed partner, quiet and usually very still even when he was awake. He read. And sometimes he just laid there. Gabriel didn't know what Peter did while he was next to him. It seemed odd that such an otherwise active person would just lie in bed with him, but whatever. Right now he wasn't just lying there. Peter moved Gabriel's arm and lifted it over his shoulder, cuddling up. It was closer than they usually slept, but Gabriel thought nothing of it until Peter hiccupped and Gabriel realized, _heard_ rather, how wound up he was.

Gabe breathed deeply again and this time he caught a second scent – saline, or salt – and a heavier, moist odor that usually accompanied crying. His arm tightened around Peter's shoulders and he reached out carefully in the dark, finding Peter's face. It wasn't wet, but the skin was damp with that tackiness that told him Peter had wiped the tears away recently. "Peter?" he asked, heartfelt and suddenly very concerned._ No wonder Sylar bailed._

Peter didn't make a sound outside of breathing, but his outer arm wrapped around Gabriel's chest and he laid his head against him, trying to breathe evenly. Gabriel could hear that Peter's breathing wasn't an easy, relaxed thing, but tense and modulated. He could hear the state of his body too clearly and it spelled distress. He didn't know why Peter bothered to try to hide it from him, but then it occurred to him that Peter's reticence had little to do with Gabriel and all to do with Peter.

_What happened? Was it a bad dream? A nightmare? Something I said? Was I too harsh on Saturday?_ He remembered the feel of the expression on his own face when they'd argued two nights before, or discussed rather, things that had happened long before between them. It had not been a good face. _I shouldn't have looked like that to him. Did I push him too much? Did I upset him? Why would he be upset now instead of then? Was it something that happened during therapy? Should I have gone with him anyway? Is this just a delayed reaction?_

Sometimes Peter cried. Yes, Gabriel knew that. He'd seen it. But even though Peter was very emotive, there were things he bottled up inside and left there. Showing weakness in front of Gabriel wasn't something he was prone to doing. Gabriel didn't know what to do with this. _Should I ask him if something's wrong? No, that's a stupid question. Should I ask what's wrong instead? That's stupid too. Shouldn't I already know that, if I love him? Maybe I should just try to comfort him and not say anything and he'll understand?_ He stroked Peter's back, Gabriel's own face pinched up in concern.

He suspected he wasn't doing the right thing, because Peter's respiration became more uneven and he started breathing out of his mouth. Gabriel rolled on his side to face him and finally had to speak. "Peter? What's wrong?"

Peter shook his head, which was still bowed against Gabe's chest. "I'm a fuck-up," he gasped roughly and his shoulders shook.

_Oh no,_ Gabriel thought, feeling like his heart was breaking. "No, no, no," he said softly, holding Peter to him. _It must have been something I said. I must have said something … I said too much. I shouldn't have said anything – just stay quiet and let things be good._ Peter sobbed twice, rough spasms that he seemed to fight to keep inside. _Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry, Peter. Peter?_ Gabriel rubbed his hands up and down Peter's bare back as the man took deep, careful breaths again, trying to keep it all inside.

Peter pulled back. "I'm okay. Thanks," he lied with a remarkable attempt to sound normal. He tried move apart but Gabriel snorted and thwarted that, hugging Peter to him.

"Don't be an idiot, Peter," Gabriel growled, holding him against him.

Peter slumped against him and for a little while, new, but silent tears wet the front of Gabriel's t-shirt. He stroked Peter's forehead, his hair and his back, trying to think of what others had done for him that was comforting. Virginia would touch his face, his hair and his back, but if he didn't calm down immediately she'd lash out. It was exactly what he was doing right now to Peter - minus the lashing out part. On the other hand, Peter hadn't been upset very long yet. The parallels of his own behavior chilled him. He sent his thoughts on to find a better solution.

He couldn't recall Martin doing anything for him on the rare occasion he'd even dared to cry in front of him. Arthur had … he remembered Arthur picking Nathan up when he was a boy, after he'd jumped from a tree and twisted his ankle. Arthur had beamed down proudly as Nathan had taken short, gulping breaths and tried to contain his sniffles. _Why did he look proud?_ Gabriel didn't know. He had Nathan's memories, and Nathan had understood it, but Gabriel didn't. It had something to do with pretending it didn't hurt all that bad.

Angela … she had been comforting many times. She would touch his face and chafe his hands at his bedside. That was about it, mainly because Nathan wouldn't tolerate anything more. He'd always tried to hold in discomfort much as Peter was trying to do now. It wasn't because such displays weren't allowed among the Petrellis. Simon was the same way, whereas Monty had no qualms about accepting hugs and soothing when he was upset. Both boys were raised the same, but they showed different attitudes. Gabriel - he'd been conditioned so thoroughly not to show upset that it took something pretty overpowering to move him. It was his bad luck to lead a life where that sort of thing happened with disturbing frequency.

Heidi held the boys (or at least Monty and Noah) when they were upset and he remembered how he'd held Peter when Peter had cracked a handful of months ago about Nathan's death. _Is this about Nathan? Am I not who he wants to be with? Did the talk we had on the balcony remind him of losing Nathan?_ He pulled Peter up a little more to be face to face and kissed him on the temple and forehead, trying to remember what he'd done for him then. It hadn't been much - he'd just been there for him.

"I'm here for you, Peter."

After a beat, Peter nodded. "I know. It's okay." _Not a lie_.

"Can you … tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." _Still not a lie_. "I had a bad dream. Then I woke up and got to thinking. It's … you're good." Peter sighed. "I … In the dream it was back when I first got my ability and I was up on top of that building. I'd been there all night and I called Nathan. Remember?"

Gabriel nodded, fishing out the relevant memory easily enough.

Peter scooted back out of the embrace. "Can you turn the light on?" Gabriel nodded and did it. They both grimaced briefly at the light. Peter reached out for a moment and touched Gabe's cheek, then blinked and went back to what he'd been saying before. "I jumped. Nathan flew up to catch me. But instead of just copying his power, I drained it. Then I dropped him, on purpose. He died."

_On purpose?_ Gabriel winced.

Peter went on, "He turned into you as he lay there. And because I'd dropped him, you said it was over between us and you left."

"I wouldn't say …" He thought back to his own nonsensical dream where Peter had raped him sadistically, with no small amount of mind-fuckery. "It was a dream. Just a dream. It doesn't say anything about what you or I would do. It's … just … your mind trying to cope."

Peter nodded, looking down. "I know. I'm sorry for what I've done to you. And Nathan."

"Peter, you are a saint!" Gabriel blurted out.

Peter's brows pinched together and he looked like he was going to start crying again. He shook his head weakly. "I'm a fuck-up. I've fucked things up time after time. If-"

Gabriel clapped his fingers over Peter's lips for a moment. "If you get to beat yourself up over the past, then so do I. Where's that going to get us?" He dropped his fingers away, letting his hand rest over Peter's heart.

Peter sighed and shook his head again. He pulled back, a sullen expression on his face now. "The world would be better off without … me." Peter said, rolling out of bed and heading into the bathroom.

_Why that pause? Did he intend to say better off without __**me**__, instead of him, at first? Of course it would be._ "Peter - no suicide." _Please? Are we to that point, or was he just talking?_

"No," Peter answered with a small snort. "I'm not going to kill myself." _Not a lie_. Gabriel relaxed, covering his face briefly with his hand and remembering all the various times when Nathan hadn't understood what was going on with Peter. _It's okay_, he told himself. _He's always been like this. Don't get excited. Let him be upset. Let him be. He needs that as much as I do. This is a good thing. He trusts me. He's opening up, just like Saturday with answering my questions. He doesn't like the answers any more than I did … do_. Peter saw to bathroom business and Gabriel was contemplative during that and Peter's subsequent washing of hands and face.

"So was it just the dream?" Gabriel asked when Peter walked back out.

"No. It was all the other mistakes I've made." Peter climbed in bed and scooted close again, wrapping his arms around Gabriel, taking it as a given that he was welcome. That small assumption warmed Gabriel's heart. Peter spoke in a complaining, almost whining tone that also made Gabriel smile softly, because it spoke of a familiarity and comfort with him that a more guarded tone wouldn't have. Peter said, "You're not a mistake. Emma's not a mistake. Her schedule's a mess. I don't know how she's going to handle the residency. It's been a few months since all that crap with Liliith. I keep expecting some new disaster to come along. Things have been so good lately. I'm … afraid of losing … what I have, of fucking things up somehow."

Gabriel kissed Peter's temple softly, beginning to understand that Peter's upset wasn't indicative of any great tumult. It was just stress and venting. He felt oddly privileged and very pleased that Peter would admit to his problems in front of him. So-called 'perfect Peter' was letting his guard down. Gabriel said, "Things _have_ been good lately. We've got each other, and Heidi and Emma and the kids. We'll make it work, Peter. If things get fucked up, we'll just have to fuck them down." He spoke very seriously, but his word choice had the desired effect - Peter grinned and giggled.

"I ... shouldn't that be 'unfuck' them?"

"No, of course not. When things are fucked, you unfuck them. But when they're fucked _up_, the only thing to do is fuck them back down."

Peter chuckled again. "Okay, Romeo. You've calmed me down. Things are good. Thank you. Let's get some sleep."

Gabriel reached out and brushed Peter's hair out of the way, wanting to take advantage of this rare moment. "Can I ask … something?"

"Sure."

"What other mistakes?"

Peter blinked at him. "What?"

"What other mistakes have you made that upset you this much, that keep you up at night?"

Peter flopped over on his back and covered his face.

"You don't have to answer," Gabriel said quickly, backing down. _Shouldn't have asked, damn it. Should've just taken what I had and left it at that._

"No, it's okay," Peter said and then groaned. "We need to talk, damnit, and I need to quit shutting you out." He swallowed and put his hands down, staring up at the ceiling. "Freaking out and almost blowing up New York. Trusting Adam. Looking the other way when he murdered people. Almost releasing that virus. Believing the wrong people. Participating in torture. C-" He took a deep breath and let it out. "Caitlin," he said through clenched teeth.

Gabriel cocked his head. _Who the hell is that?_

Peter went on, "Trusting Dad. Trusting Nathan. Trusting Ma." He laughed hollowly, bitterly, a sound that chilled Gabriel and he never wanted to hear from Peter's throat. "_You_ never betrayed me. Hell, even_** I**_ betrayed me. I went to the future. I saw you there, all … perfect, good, a father. I brought my fuck-ups to your house and it got your son killed."

Gabriel flinched. _What the hell is he talking about?_ There were whole new pages of the book of Peter Petrelli, the book he thought he'd already read from front to back, which were flying open to him - things he'd never known.

"I killed Nathan, there, in the future. But not until after you'd exploded and killed over two hundred thousand people because of me. Because of the fight I'd brought into your home."

"Wait, the- my son? You killed Nathan? Who-?" He sat up in the bed. _Is this a future that might still happen? But how'd Nathan get in it? Nathan-me, or Nathan-Nathan? How much has he been hiding from me all of this time?_ He'd always thought there was something there he didn't know, something important - _emotionally_ important to Peter - that he didn't speak of. It was part of Gabriel's paranoia with the psychometry and virtually stalking Peter, but no matter how hard he looked, he'd never seen it.

"It's …" Peter sighed. "It's complicated. But that's a false timeline now, just like," he turned his head away. "Just like Caitlin. Won't happen. It's all gone." His voice caught on the last word and he swallowed roughly, body tensing again.

Gabriel stared at Peter, suddenly realizing that with regeneration and apparent agelessness, as well as time travel, Peter could have spent years in another timeline, with a family, with … His mind boggled. He'd said over and over to Peter how Peter didn't really know him, but … Gabriel suddenly realized he didn't really know _Peter_. And he _didn't_. That was why the prying, the pawing, the clinging - he knew, inside, that something was missing, some important pieces of the puzzle weren't being shared. He'd seen Peter through his own rose-colored glasses and distorted by Nathan's preconceptions about him. He'd never seen the real Peter Petrelli. He'd never been brave enough to ask and it was just one more thing Peter kept bottled up and safely out of sight.

Peter shrugged, still looking away.

Gabriel reached out and put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Peter? You want to not shut me out?" Peter looked back at him. "_Then don't shut me out._ Tell me. All of it. Please." _Let me know who you are, where you've been, what you've done, who you've loved, what you've feared._

Peter pulled in a deep breath and shut his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, he said simply, "Okay."

Peter let him in. After all this time, he let him in.


	317. YKINMK and that's okay

Peter watched uneasily as Gabriel bounced lightly on the springy mat of the boxing ring, clad in a t-shirt, shorts and athletic shoes, along with boxing gloves. The other man was watching Peter with a predatory smile as Peter reluctantly climbed through the ropes, similarly outfitted. The regularity of their workout sessions had suffered for the last few weeks and while Peter was glad to be back at the gym, he wasn't thrilled at the idea of sparring again - especially without someone around to act as a buffer between them. Noah had his uses, but the older agent wasn't in either man's good graces at the moment. So it was just the two of them.

The last time they'd faced one another in the ring, Gabriel had acted very, very off. Apparently a lot of that was due to Maury Parkman's continuing mind-fuck, but that couldn't have been all of it. Peter was perhaps a little too aware that just three nights before he'd confessed his previous desire to blot Gabe out permanently after their adventure at the Stanton Hotel. Was Gabriel's sudden interest in boxing just an expression of his need for revenge, or to establish dominance?

_Well, if that's it … it's not like I won't heal. _Peter shook his head as he stood taller in his corner of the ring, stretching and rolling his neck. He wasn't looking forward to this. He was willing to allow it - whatever it was - but he wasn't looking forward to it. He reached up with a gloved hand and rubbed at his nose. "Just like when Noah was here - no abilities, okay?"

Gabriel nodded, still smiling that creepy I'm-going-to-kick-your-ass smile. The other man knocked his gloves together aggressively, like he knew he was really going to enjoy this. "Not even healing, unless you're knocked down and the fight stops."

Peter sighed tensely. Last time, Gabriel hadn't been able to so much as look him in the eye. Now his eye contact was so belligerent that Peter felt a little cowed to be subjected to that alone. He gave himself a shake and moved forward. _Let's get this started._

Peter got too close on his first approach and Gabriel let him know by abruptly stiff-arming him with his right and then lunging forward with his left. It was an all-or-nothing maneuver. Peter tried to dodge and punch him in the sternum, but Gabe was too quick and too accurate in adjusting for Peter's dodge. His fist crashed into the side of Peter's face and put him to the floor with what was arguably the first punch thrown between them.

Every bit of the starch was knocked out of him, but the wonderful thing about regen was that it restored all of that in seconds. Peter picked himself up a few moments later. It had hurt, but the moment he lost concentration, his regeneration kicked in and the pain faded fast. They weren't nullifying each other's powers, but relying on one another to turn the ability off.

Peter looked over to see Gabriel watching him with a critical eye and an expression that softened as Peter got to his feet. He noted that Gabriel was reasonably relaxed, standing in one place and not shifting around. He wasn't over here metaphorically hovering next to Peter like he'd been the first time he'd knocked him down in the ring, nor was he pacing in the corner stressing out like he had after the second time. He was just standing there, being normal.

Peter smiled a little at the improvement and reached up to rub at his cheek with the back of his glove. "That was good. I have _got_ to remember your reach," he said in a good-natured tone.

Gabriel smirked at him and raised his hands back to defensive. "Round two?"

Peter lifted his brows briefly and nodded. "Okay, round two." This time around the action lasted a lot longer. Every time Peter would get in close, Gabe would block and fade, and he made Peter pay for closing with him. Every. Single. Time. It was frustrating, like fighting with Nathan. That only made sense, considering the circumstances, but the last time they'd boxed, channeling Nathan's fighting skills had not been Gabriel's forte. Peter finally took one risk too many and got clocked up the side of the head. He staggered, weaved, and Gabriel's unhurried follow-up put him out of business.

Peter got his wits about him maybe a second later, with a nice close-up view of the mat. He came up to all fours and glanced over. Gabriel was standing off to the side as before, waiting for him to pull himself together. Peter shook his head - partly because it still felt funny and partly because he was suddenly wondering what the hell he was doing in this ring getting the crap beat out of him. Was this supposed to be fun? Therapeutic? Educational? _Why again am I putting up with this?_ He got to his feet, trying to pull his thoughts together about how to address this, because he wanted to address it before he got on even more familiar terms with the floor.

His thoughts were interrupted by Gabe raising a hand with his palm, or at least the inside of the glove, turned towards Peter. He walked closer. Peter backed up a step and stopped, because the expression on Gabriel's face pretty clearly said, 'wait' and nothing aggressive. Gabe put his hand on Peter's shoulder and moved in front of him, closing well past the 'I want to talk to you' range people kept between each other. Gabriel was watching Peter's face with a sort of hyper-alert scrutiny. The glove on Peter's shoulder moved to the base of his neck as Gabriel bent, tilting his head and obviously asking for a kiss.

Peter exhaled and looked away for a moment. This was a bizarre time to be affectionate. He looked back, trying to divine Gabe's motive. The man didn't look smug, but that didn't rule out him becoming so if a kiss was granted. He didn't look afraid, or even apologetic. If anything, he looked curious, asking, hopeful. But why the hell did he want a kiss _now_?

Peter's thoughts were busy, but with Gabriel's face so close to his own, telegraphing his desire, Peter was triggered on a semi-instinctive level. He gave him a quick peck on the lips because … well, he didn't know. It was Gabriel; he wanted affection; Peter gave it as automatically as blinking. _There. Now get back._ He tried to back away himself so his overly-conditioned reflexes were more under his own control.

Gabriel pressed harder with the glove on his shoulder, holding him in place. "Wait, please. Another? A real kiss?"

Peter sighed and rolled his eyes a little, feeling put-upon. But he was beginning to sense this was something Gabriel wanted and needed, so despite his issues, Peter provided it. Peter kissed him and after a second it became more than just putting their faces together. He melted into it. The feel of Gabriel's lips on his own, warm and soft and careful, never failed to reach him. Peter relaxed, putting his gloved hands on Gabe's hips and forgetting the fact that they'd been hitting each other a few minutes before.

They parted slowly. Gabriel whispered, "Thank you. I love you."

"Love you too," Peter responded. Questions nagged at his mind. "What are you doing, though? I thought you wanted to spar." _Does this … does hitting me make you horny or something?_ Peter wasn't as repulsed by that as he thought he should be, but that was probably because he'd been led up to the idea by baby steps. He was completely assured that Gabriel was very happy with what he already had. He might like other flavors of sex acts than they did, but that was no more actionable than admiring what someone was served at the next table at a restaurant.

"Not exactly," Gabriel answered, nuzzling Peter's cheek lovingly and giving the usual suite of behaviors to show that he adored his husband. He stood close, brushing him lightly with his body, breathed him in and let his breath caress Peter's face, he gave him light but sustained touches with his hands (even if they were muffled with the gloves) and he touched his face repeatedly to Peter's. "I wanted to prove something … to myself. Maybe to you, but mostly to me. That we can fight, and you'll still … love me." He nuzzled him again and kissed him.

Peter smiled softly against his lips, returning the affection in kind. He mimicked Gabriel's routine and played his expected role in it, which tended to be more receptive than active but he was no less engaged because of that. _Now it makes sense. All the opening up to each other, all the talking - he knows I can talk the talk, but he wants to see if I can walk the walk._ "Baby, I'm not leaving, whether we fight or not. That doesn't mean I want you _**hitting**_ me, though."

Gabriel stilled and tilted his head. Peter blinked up at him, wondering what was going through his mind. Peter elaborated, "I mean, sparring like this is fine. Practice is fine. You know, if we both agree to it, that's okay." Gabriel nodded, relaxing, and Peter went on, "It's just … when we argue, really argue and disagree … we need to stay low key. Just because we can heal doesn't mean it doesn't hurt - emotionally and physically." _Much more emotionally than physically,_ he thought.

Gabriel nodded silently and gave him a peck on the forehead.

"Are we done?" Peter asked, thinking the point had been proven.

"No," Gabriel said shortly, giving him another quick peck and then backing off. "We fight until you win one."

Peter frowned. "Why's that?"

"Because I know how you are. Like that time when Howie Kaplan beat you at the fifty yard dash. You're not going to let it go until you've had a win. I'm here; you're here. Let's settle it."

Peter snorted, but he didn't disagree. _At this rate though, with him two for two, we'll be here all night._ He exhaled sharply and rolled his shoulders. Giving up was not something Peter was prone to. _Might as well get it on, then._

The next fight went a lot longer. Gabriel did not get lucky right off the bat and Peter began actually thinking about the fight rather than trying to wade in and invariably getting slugged for it. If Gabriel was fighting like Nathan, then Peter could use that. He started laying back and making Gabriel bring the fight to him, for one thing. For another, he got more straightforward about his attacks and more determined about his defense.

Gabriel was not trying to throw the match, either. He fought in earnest. He tagged Peter across the cheek and in the mouth, causing Peter to cut the inside of his lip enough that the taste of his blood was a constant, minor distraction. He wiped his chin a few times when he caught it dripping. Gabriel's eyes seemed awfully attracted to it. Both of those were shots Peter was already jerking out of the way of, so although they stung, they didn't put him out of the fight. He got his licks in return, but Gabriel seemed unfazed by them. It was enough to make Peter a bit suspicious. The lingering glances he kept getting weren't helping either. He was getting irritated and unsettled.

Peter was getting worn down. They weren't taking breaks. The many glancing blows and effects of being on high alert for so long was taking their toll. When Peter had an opportunity, he didn't stop to think whether it was quite by the rules - the very nebulous rules they hadn't bothered to spell out - he just took it. Peter had done most of his fighting in whatever bastardized martial arts that Noah favored, so what was and wasn't a proper boxing move wasn't on his mind. He sidestepped and hit Gabriel on the elbow as the other man extended. Peter wasn't in a good position to do much of anything else and the blow hyper-extended the joint, which should have made the limb almost useless.

Gabriel pulled back with a grimace and a snarl, defending himself in case Peter pressed him immediately. Peter didn't, waiting to see if Gabriel would cede the bout. What Peter had done was a showstopper. Were they fighting for their lives, then of course a person would keep fighting, but in a sparring session that sort of blow should spell an immediate halt and first aid care (or in their case, abilities). But Gabriel did not admit defeat. He maneuvered, feinted, and tried for a jab using the same arm Peter thought he'd incapacitated.

Peter dodged to the side, his eyes flown wide. The human body did not work that way. In movies or on TV - sure. People took direct, crippling blows and got up a few seconds later, shaking it off. In real life - no. He knew exactly where he'd hit Gabriel and he was very certain he'd damaged the joint enough that it wasn't going to be back in fighting trim until Gabriel healed.

Healing was against the rules - and _that_ rule, they had laid out specifically. No one had fallen and the fight had not stopped. It occurred to Peter that Gabriel had a long history of being a cheater. There were several incidents, within the last few months alone that Peter had been witness to, where the man struggled with the very concept of a fair fight. The memory came up of Noah telling Peter, the last time he'd boxed against Gabriel, that he thought Gabe had been augmenting his blows with telekinesis. It would be even simpler to augment himself with a little healing. Simple … and _wrong_. Peter felt taken advantage of.

Peter's face conveyed all the frustration, disappointment and betrayal he was feeling, that while he'd been fighting a clean, fair fight, bleeding, bruised and winded, Gabriel had been declining to suffer the true effects of the combat. The expression on Gabriel's face told Peter the other man knew exactly what had happened and what Peter had figured out. Peter nullified his abilities a moment later and Gabe didn't object - he didn't even look surprised. Instead, his face showed dread.

Peter saw red. He attacked him fast and furious, entirely dispensing with his previous strategy. Had Gabriel been willing to fight back, that would have been disastrous, but instead Gabe fell back under the rain of blows, taking hits and staggering, eyes wide and face growing slack and flushed. Peter pounded him along the ribs and then decked him with one last roundhouse blow to the side of the head as Gabriel stumbled to the side, struggling to keep his feet.

Gabriel tripped and went to hands and knees on the mat. Peter stood over him, snarling. Gabriel was heaving for breath and after a long moment he raised his head to look at Peter with an expression that was pure lust. Peter was sure - he'd seen that look a couple times from Gabe, but only a couple. To see it now sent him staggering back a step, upending the rage he'd been feeling and throwing him almost literally off-balance.

_Whoa!_ Peter thought. _That's more than just being horny_. Shock flitted across Peter's face, along with a moment of disgust as he realized it was being brutalized that had turned Gabriel on. A host of memories came to mind - Sylar grinning up at him at Kirby, looking so strangely pleased at being hit and beaten; and again at the Primatech research facility, how Sylar had gone slack and stared up at him with an expression Peter would later characterize as 'blown'; the complete passion he'd had when Peter had given him the rough sex Gabriel had asked for; and the totally absorbed, lustful look Gabriel had given him when Peter had pulled out the slack on the choke chain they'd played with once. Yeah … getting hurt by Peter turned Gabriel's crank in a lot of ways.

Gabriel blinked at Peter's reaction, catching himself. He dragged his eyes away in shame and stared sightlessly at the flooring, getting himself back under control. He knew that was a pretty one-sided interest and so in general, he just went without and kept himself to what Peter wanted. Peter had a hard time even tolerating that confused mixing of pain and pleasure, subjugation and love, much less indulging him. It was just another thing about Gabriel that was broken.

_He's turning himself off, choking that down … because he doesn't think I can handle it_, Peter thought._ There's only been two or three times I've ever had him turned on enough to look like that._ Peter's mind skipped quickly over those times again, thinking about how much Gabriel wanted this but so rarely got it. Peter wanted to see that look on his face more often. _Shit. Opening up goes more ways than one._ Peter turned his hands and looked at his gloves, telekinetically yanking the laces loose as quickly as he could. He was stifled wearing these things. He couldn't _touch_ with them on and he needed to touch. He needed desperately to feel what was going on with Gabriel. It was important and he knew it.

By the time he had them stripped them off, Gabriel had risen to his feet with a well-practiced blank expression on his face. Peter had come to truly hate that look, because he knew that every time he saw it, it reflected Peter's own failing. Gabriel wasn't closing himself off for no reason at all. He was doing it because he didn't think he'd be accepted and he was usually, damnably, right. Peter didn't want him to be right this time.

Peter hugged him immediately, pulling a stiff and resistant Gabriel into an embrace. He put his arms around him and pressed his palms flat to Gabe's back, using his ability to read the man's emotions. Peter had a blanket permission to use his ability like this - it wasn't cheating. Front and center, Gabriel was feeling excruciating shame and embarrassment. What he was and what he liked at times was not acceptable to his husband, whom he loved, and there was nothing he could do about this except continue to censor himself. Gabriel felt unworthy; he felt filthy and stained. Peter took a deep breath. Beyond that emotion was fear and behind that was a simmering resentment. Peter couldn't allow this. He couldn't change Gabriel and he didn't want to. There was really only one thing to do about it and that was for Peter to get over himself and give his partner what he wanted.

He pulled his hands back and ran them up Gabriel's t-shirt clad chest to wrap behind his neck. Words were empty. They were long past that anyway. What he had to provide was actions. Peter looked up into Gabriel's guarded eyes, letting his own face shift to desirous. That wasn't hard to do. Gabriel was sexy; Peter wanted him and he hadn't had him for days, an objectively ridiculous fact that nevertheless had etched itself into the back of his mind. No matter how much Peter tried to ignore it, it had been _a whole four days _since he'd been laid by this man and even then that was Sylar. He had no idea why this seemed to matter so damn much, but it was beginning to worry him.

He was still quelling Gabriel's abilities - being in charge helped Peter focus and it helped him get turned on. For a long moment they simply looked at each other until Gabriel blinked a couple times and shifted his weight. He gave that small, mostly unconscious signal of submission. Peter pulled him down slowly for a kiss as a reward for that, tasting the blood in Gabriel's mouth from where his teeth had cut his cheek when Peter had knocked him down. Peter growled deep in his throat and pulled Gabriel against him more firmly. He would not let himself balk at the flavor.

He felt the caution fading in his lover as interest and desire perked up. Gabriel pulled back and Peter was pleased to see his face was no longer neutral and unaffected. His eyes searched Peter's face over and over again, looking for the truth of his change of heart, but not asking. Peter gave him a lop-sided, sultry smile. Gabriel gave a brief, nervous grin in return, not at all sure of how serious Peter was with this, or what it meant. They kissed a few more times - brief, careful touches of the lips while Peter stroked Gabe's sides now and the man relaxed. He swallowed and bent again to Peter's face, but when Peter tried to kiss him, Gabriel nosed his face to the side and continued to his objective.

Gabriel tongued the skin under Peter's lip on the left side, where earlier, before Peter had healed himself, he'd bled until it had dripped off his chin. Peter had wiped it from his jaw, but he'd unknowingly left a trail of blood between lip and chin, his skin too insensate there to let him feel it. Now Gabriel licked at it briefly, pulling back enough to see Peter's reaction. Peter exhaled softly and lifted his chin, offering himself up and making it easier. Gabriel licked him again and then sucked at his skin, cleaning every last bit off. Gabriel moved to his lips to kiss him softly, then harder as his passion rose.

Peter could feel that too, as well as the other man's very physical response. Gabe's shame was fading fast, muscled out of the way by hope and desire and fear. _Should I hit him now?_ Peter wondered, because he knew if he didn't initiate the violence, there wouldn't be any and he knew that if he wanted to signal total acceptance of Gabe's kink, then they had to actually do it. Gabriel wasn't about to move first, especially after Peter's expression earlier had shut him down. But the idea of just hitting Gabriel - not part of a fight, and without provocation - was hard to stomach. Peter struggled with it.

Gabriel mouthed his lips and used his still gloved hands to press their bodies flush. He gave a faint whine.

_I'm going to have to hit him, _Peter thought. He knew why Gabriel was whining - Peter was tense and getting wound up. He wasn't getting aroused and into it. Gabriel could hear that clearly and no doubt the dissonance was confusing. _He wants me to do it. If he doesn't want it, I'll stop. Just hit him once and see how he reacts. _Peter balled his fists uneasily. He put one hand on Gabe's shoulder and pushed him back, engendering uncertainty until Gabe's eyes lit on Peter's clenched fist. Then he looked back to Peter's face with slightly raised brows, hopeful and disbelieving.

Peter chewed his lip and cocked back. Gabriel's eyes darted between fist and face. The man was a little afraid, but not a lot and not at all angry. Anticipation was first and foremost. _I can't believe I'm going to do this,_ Peter thought. "You shouldn't have cheated, you bastard," Peter said with a flat delivery. He just couldn't get the right emotion into his voice at the moment. He hesitated for only a second more before swinging, hitting him on the cheek again. It wasn't that hard a blow. In a real fight Peter had no problems striking with everything he had, but this … this wasn't a real fight and his motives were all tangled up.

Gabriel's head snapped to the side and he made a pained noise. It was the same side of his face that Peter had hit before. He looked back and said, "Yeah?" as uncertain as Peter was. Peter was looking him up and down, trying to figure out if that had been the right thing to do. Gabriel reached out and shoved him. "Fuck you," he told Peter, but like Peter, his voice didn't have much emotion in it. Then when Peter didn't react to that, he shoved him again and spoke more strongly. "Go fuck yourself! You think you can push me around? Prove it." He reached out to shove him a third time and Peter slugged him a lot harder, hitting the other man's chin hard enough to hurt his hand briefly.

Peter grimaced at his hand and shook it as the pain faded fast. He looked up in time to see a blur of motion before Gabriel hit him in the temple, putting him flat to the mat. He scrambled up to his feet, a little scared, because Gabriel was on him and swinging, making him dodge. The man wasn't a good aim, which was either intentional or due to still being rattled by head shots. They traded blows several times, Peter shaking them off with regeneration (plus Gabriel still had gloves on) and Gabriel getting progressively less coordinated without similar advantages.

A minute later the man was swaying, bloodied and looked dazed. Peter held his hand out to the side, open, fingers splayed. Gabriel gave it a befuddled look. Peter moved the hand in, reaching for him rather than trying to strike. Gabriel tried half-heartedly to get away anyway but Peter grabbed him regardless and pulled him closer. He could feel a surge of a sort of primal surrender. Gabriel's eyes widened and he dropped every pretense of defense. He went limp, with the only tension in his body being what was required to stand.

"This what you want?" Peter rasped. "You want me to take you?" _God I hope so. I can't handle hitting him … more_. It was perfectly clear to Peter that Gabriel had only been fighting back to piss him off and make it easier for him to engage. If he'd been trying to defend himself, he wouldn't have left himself open to punch after punch.

Gabriel stared at him for a long moment, then took a stumbling step and embraced him, clinging. Peter supported him, wondering if he'd gone too far. "Let," Gabriel whispered roughly, "let me heal a little. Then … yeah, yes. _Please_ _… please._"

Peter gave him back his powers and the unsteadiness faded from Gabriel's posture, but the marks on his face stayed there - he'd healed a little, but not entirely. _He's playing by the rules __**now**__._ Peter didn't know what to think of that - good thing, bad thing, or just _a_ thing? He pulled Gabriel to him and turned his face to kiss his cheek where he didn't think he'd hurt him.

"Apartment?" Gabriel asked carefully around bruised and swollen lips. "Maybe?"

Peter nodded and teleported them there, straight to the bedroom.

Gabriel looked around and gaped, still trying to come to terms with Peter's cooperation on this. "You're … you're really going to …?"

Peter smiled slowly and smugly, strongly bolstered by Gabriel's surprise and hope. _Oh wow, I need to do this more often. He looks like he's about to get the best birthday gift of all._ "You want me to, don't you?"

"Yes, yes!" Gabriel nodded quickly.

"Then yeah, I'm really going to," Peter stated, reached out to hook his fingers into Gabriel's shorts and pull them down, exposing the erection that had been there for a painfully long time.

Gabriel stepped out of his shorts and climbed on the bed immediately, not waiting for shirt or shoes to be dispensed with. He presented himself for doggy style. Peter blinked, shook his head a little and got his own clothes and shoes off. He went to the nightstand and pulled out that collar from before. He held it out, looking for Gabriel's reaction. The other man's eyes widened and his breathing sped up. He looked from it to Peter and then nodded in case his other cues weren't obvious enough.

Peter grinned and got on the bed, hanging it around his neck and catching the other side, sliding the strap through the clasp. Gabriel was trembling and flushed. Peter took the chain and laid it over Gabriel's back, that alone earning him a groan of pleasure and a slight, rhythmic rocking. The man's face was in rapture.

Peter got behind Gabe and caressed his buttocks, looking over the body before him - lean, long and perfect. He could feel an unbearable tension building inside of his partner, as well as a quivering anticipation from deep inside. It touched Peter and pulled him along, fueling his own desire, something that was badly needed at the moment. He reached out and pushed Gabe's shirt up, exposing more bare skin. Peter scratched him, starting at his shoulders and ending at his waist, leaving red furrows and making Gabriel arch his back and groan loudly in response. Peter leaned over and bit him hard, getting a moan and a collapse after he let go, as Gabriel put his face and upper body to the bed, leaving his butt in the air. The muscles in Gabriel's thighs were shaking now, like it was a great strain just to hold still and let Peter touch him.

Peter tugged on the leash just enough to tighten it and then let it dangle over the crack of Gabe's ass. He reached down to cup his balls, noting Gabriel's immediate shift to spread his legs and the stifled noise he made into the pillow. Peter rolled them in his hand, feeling the man's scrotum retract and wrinkle in reaction. He reached past to let his fingers play up Gabriel's cock, wrapping them around it to stroke briefly. Gabriel made an inarticulate noise and a strangled intake of air, pushing back convulsively and then forward. His body jerked and his organ throbbed in Peter's hand, spurting, and Gabriel was done.

Peter blinked in surprise. They'd had lots of sex in the past and Gabriel had never had a problem with his timing before. _Whoa. Little early there. I didn't even get in him._ It wasn't a big deal - it was that much pressure not on Peter - but it still took him aback a little and reinforced how much of an absurdly intense turn-on this was for Gabe.

Gabriel gasped and panted, then shuddered as an aftershock passed through him. _Well, he came last time with the collar without me even having to touch him_. Peter bent and kissed Gabriel's hip gently, shifting smoothly to aftercare. He pushed the man over on his side, guiding him down and treating him like he was coming out of subspace, which seemed pretty damn likely. Gabriel went bonelessly, still breathing hard, complete putty in Peter's hands. His eyes were glazed and he seemed only marginally aware of what was going on.

Peter cuddled up behind him, tossing the chain in front of Gabe and wrapping his arm around his chest. He kissed the middle of his back and began to murmur endearments and encouragements, like he had on occasion to Gabriel while he slept. He wasn't sure the man could hear him now, or if he did, if he was comprehending. It made it easier for Peter to get the words out - things he knew he should say more often, but didn't.

They lay together for many minutes while Peter spoke. He could feel Gabriel's attention slowly sharpen, but the man continued to pretend to be dazed and so Peter continued to speak until he couldn't keep it up any longer. He buried his face against Gabriel's back, feeling his face burn with a blush for whatever stupid reason. He knew he shouldn't be embarrassed, but he was anyway. _I'm stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ He groaned inside, but it didn't help. His tongue was stilled now and no more tender words or heartfelt compliments were going to come out.

Gabriel understood. The scratch marks Peter's nails had made on his lover faded and vanished. Gabriel's boxing gloves unlaced themselves and the collar slid off by itself. Gabe turned in place, face healed, and kissed Peter softly. "Thank you. I'm sorry I … got distracted."

Peter smiled lazily at him and reached up to stroke the cheek he'd struck repeatedly earlier. It still concerned him - the violence. It _had_ to hurt. Peter understood certain forms of pain as sexy, especially in situ. But this … it was just out there, beyond what Peter could relate to. "It's okay. That was all about you. I love you."

"Hm," Gabriel hummed, nuzzling him and letting a hand drop lower, caressing Peter's hip and brushing further to his dark curls.

Peter shut his eyes, trying to think of something other than what he'd just done. If Gabriel was going to get him off, he'd need it. Gabriel's hand went back to his hip and Peter's eyes opened. Gabriel asked, "Not in the mood?"

Peter looked aside guiltily, but there was not much point in lying. "Not really." Something about punching the man he loved most in the world was a bit of a turn-off. There were aspects of it that worked for him and Peter made notes to himself about what to try next time and how to stage the scene to be safer and more engaging, but at the moment he couldn't shake the sickening feeling of Gabriel clinging to him, too battered to stand by himself and that way because of what Peter had done to him. It twisted in Peter's gut.

"S'okay." Gabriel took it fine, without seeming to read anything into it and for that Peter was grateful. Peter sighed and thought back to when he'd stupidly demanded that their sex always be mutual. And yet here he was, relieved that it wasn't. He grinned.

"What's so funny?" Gabriel asked.

"Thank you for putting up with me. I …" Peter shook his head. "I've been so naïve and you've always been so patient. Thank you."

"Mmf," Gabriel uttered as he kissed him again. When they parted, he said, "Peter …" and then paused for a long moment. He couldn't find words for everything that was in his head, so he just concluded with, "You're wonderful."


	318. The Good Life

They went back to the gym after a little while. Gabriel brought a book and a bucket of wet washcloths. He took care of the mess in the ring, ferreting out any stray drops of blood. It wouldn't do to leave the place dirty. Access was a privilege, even if they had to pay for it.

When he was done, he curled up on one of the inclined exercise benches with his book, whiling away the time while Peter got in a proper workout. Gabriel didn't feel like working out. He hadn't healed everything because frankly, he liked the way he felt. He felt … languid. His muscles had a bone-deep tiredness to them. His arms, his hands, his shoulders, his back, his hips, his thighs … even his face felt a bit odd and that wasn't because of the goofy grin his mouth assumed whenever he stopped concentrating on looking serious. He felt so thoroughly and well fucked that he didn't want to do anything that might dispel that sensation.

He'd kept the bruise on his cheek. He was particularly fond of it and kept reaching up to touch it, enamored of how the damaged flesh was a little hot and puffy. It hurt – yes, it _did_ hurt – but it was a memory all by itself of what had happened. That association made him feel good. It made him happy. It was a constant reminder that things were okay, they were good, they made sense. He_ belonged_.

He was ridiculously pleased with how things had turned out. Euphoric was probably a better term as he was still riding the drug-like high of endorphins he always got from intimate violence. Peter had hurt him, yes, but then he'd fucked him and that made everything good. Peter _could_ hurt him. He _had_ hurt him, a year and a half ago. Badly. Sundered his very identity. But _**now**_ he would hurt him and then take care of him. That was what Gabriel wanted. He wanted Peter to hurt him and _then_ love him.

He'd had the first part of the pattern over and over in his life - he'd love someone, they'd hurt him, and that was usually the end of the cycle. He was discarded, ignored, and maybe it would repeat again and again. There was no satisfaction in it for him, nor resolution. It was just a downward spiral of being treated as a commodity by those he loved most, those he depended on, sometimes the people he looked up to. What he needed was the pattern broken and that's what Peter was giving him. He wanted Peter to hurt him - that was a requirement, that first part of the pattern that Gabriel knew so well, so it would tap all those psychological issues that were too painful for him to even think about - and then heal him, pleasure him, care for him, prove he was invested in him, show him that loving someone didn't mean letting yourself get hurt without getting anything out of it. And Peter had played his part beautifully.

Gabriel shifted a little where he was resting on the bench. He felt _so_ good. Joy filled him up and overflowed, welling out constantly. He felt wonderful. He liked himself. He liked Peter. He liked the world. He reached up and caressed his cheek again. Oh, yes. He liked Peter a lot. His mouth fell open a little as he thought about his husband and his eyes left the page they hadn't been reading anyway to find him. Peter was doing shoulder press repetitions with a barbell that was probably weighted too heavily. He worked it with an aggressive determination that Gabriel found very sexy even if he recognized it was a sign Peter was not comfortable with what had happened.

Peter had done it though, comfortable or not, and that was the first step. Well, really it was more like the eighth or ninth, but it was _another_ step. Gabriel sighed softly to look at him. He _**so**_ wanted to go mess with the man. He wanted to play with him. He wanted to tease and poke him and maybe snap a towel at him. He wanted Peter to chase him. Gabriel would run for his life, dodging around equipment until Peter caught him, as he knew he would eventually (and Gabe would let him if it came to that). Then he'd tumble into Peter's arms and submit. Peter would kiss him tenderly and all would be right with the world. Right_er_, if that were even possible.

Gabriel made a small sound of desire. He wanted to touch Peter and supplicate and groom him. He wanted to rub his face against Peter and nip him and taste him. He wanted to hug. He wanted to kiss. He wanted to fondle. He breathed harder just thinking about it, his eyes glazing a little. It wasn't the sex (though that was fine and he'd take it); it was the intimacy and being cared for. It was someone being there for him. It was being safe and sheltered no matter what - that even if Peter hurt him, he'd still love and protect him. God he wanted to go over there and mess with Peter _so badly_. He wanted to wallow on him and get Peter's sweaty, bloody scent all over him and then never bathe again.

He tried to snap himself out of it. It didn't work all that well. His gut continued to feel like he was falling, reporting to his brain that sensation of constant butterflies in his stomach. He felt like he was glowing. His cheek was throbbing a little. He reached up to touch it again. Yes, Peter had done this. Peter who loved him. Peter who had made love to him afterward. Peter who _still_ loved him. He shivered and put his eyes back on his book. He was obsessing, big time, and he knew it.

He tried to read his book for the umpteenth time, but it was no more effective than before. He caught himself thinking about Peter's hair and how much he wanted to thread his fingers through it. He wanted to summon up memories from it and rewatch the fight over and over. He groaned and put the book down more forcefully than was called for. There was no reason to deny himself. Peter was emoting a sort of low-level hostility at the moment, but the evening had already proven Gabriel needn't be put off by that. He rose and strode over to Peter, who saw him coming and hung the barbell on the rack. Peter turned to face him, chin raised and stance just a tad defensive.

Gabriel walked up to him fearlessly, moving in front of Peter. Gabriel went to his knees, wrapping his arms around Peter's hips and burying his face against the man's stomach. Peter touched him immediately, putting a hand hot from gripping the bar on the back of his neck and probably reading his emotions thereby. Gabriel could feel Peter's tension bleed out immediately, which made him sure he was being read. Peter's fingers stroked delicately along the nape of his neck. His other hand cupped Gabe's shoulder.

Gabriel sighed, sagging against him, breathing him in and feeling so profoundly _complete_. Neither spoke. Peter began to slowly muss his hair affectionately, accepting his weird, impulsive display of gratitude without question or commentary. All of the hostility had left Peter.

Gabriel rolled his head with the motions of Peter's hand, exaggerating every small pressure. Peter cooperated, lolling Gabe's head from side to side and then back. Gabriel looked up at him with heavy lids as Peter smiled down at him softly. Gabriel groaned as Peter put his head back to Peter's stomach, pressing him in. Peter shivered and Gabriel smiled lazily at that. He could also feel Peter rather predictably rising to the occasion.

Gabriel pulled his hands back to Peter's hips and then ran them back and down over that perfect, muscular ass. He thought about how much power and energy Peter could deliver with those luscious cheeks. Gabriel looked up again, his expression going to lustful. Peter swallowed and blinked, then groaned when Gabriel gripped his rear end and pulled Peter's groin against him. Gabriel smiled up at him.

Peter exhaled heavily. "I'd rather finish my workout." He sounded very tempted, which was good enough for Gabe. He wanted to hear that it wasn't an easy choice.

"Think about me while you do it," he murmured huskily.

Peter chuckled and rolled his eyes. "You do this to me? There's no way I won't."

Gabriel nodded, using telekinesis to lift Peter's shirt and then biting his belly on the soft skin next to his navel. His scent was so masculine and heavy. It was intoxicating. Gabriel bit harder. Peter grunted and tensed, his fist tightening in Gabriel's hair although he made no attempt to pull him away. Gabe released him and kissed his stomach tenderly, touching his lips to the fast-fading mark his teeth had made. When it was gone entirely, he carefully rubbed the sore spot on his cheek against Peter's abdomen, feeling the moisture from his saliva against the over-sensitive skin of his cheek. Absolutions completed, he stood and stared deep in Peter's eyes for a long moment before looking down and to the side, then touching their lips together.

* * *

They got in bed and Gabriel snuggled up to Peter immediately, petting his chest with one hand and rubbing his now-healed cheek on Peter's shoulder. He nuzzled him and tried to get as much of his body in contact with Peter's as he could without literally climbing on top of him.

Peter laughed a little at his enthusiasm. "I could really get used to this."

"Mm," Gabriel hummed and settled back finally. "Can you tell me something?" he asked earnestly.

"Sure."

Now he hesitated, but after a moment, he forged ahead anyway. He wanted to know. It had bothered him for months now. "Do you ever think about … what I did to Nathan?"

He was pleased to hear that Peter didn't tense, or go still, or much of anything. Peter thought about it for a moment and then grimaced and shrugged. "No. Not really." He sighed. "Sometimes … I suppose I _should_. But mostly I just don't – don't think about it." He reached over and carded through Gabe's hair. "I've got you now. I've lost Nathan."

Gabriel cocked his head, watching Peter's face. It was sober and distant at the moment. "You miss him?"

"Yeah." He sounded unhappy, which only made sense.

_I took Nathan away from him, three times. Once I killed him, twice I let him see past the illusion that Nathan had never died, and thrice I dropped even pretending to be him and made Peter accept me as I am. And he has._ He tried and failed to wrap his mind around Peter's forgiveness. It was too big to comprehend. He'd never had a real sibling to lose and even losing his mother - it wasn't the same. Gabriel shifted up to kiss him softly. He didn't have to understand it to have empathy. "I'm sorry."

A strange tingle passed through him. He'd felt that before, twice. He knew what it meant immediately, even if he, for the moment, just stored that power away and didn't activate it. He drew in a long, slow breath and let it out.

Peter was oblivious. He stroked Gabriel's hair some more as his thoughts were clearly still on his brother. "It's okay." He gave a sad little smile and Gabriel settled back into bed next to him. Gabriel didn't know what to say, or if he should say anything. It seemed like an awkward moment to blurt out, '_Hey, I think I just gained your core ability_.' Peter gave him a pat and then rolled away, facing the other direction. A moment later he reached out with his foot to touch Gabe, like he always did. Not knowing what else to do, Gabriel shrugged and went to sleep.

* * *

Gabriel woke up hours later to an excess of touching from Peter, who had a hand on the side of Gabriel's face, stroking him. _Sylar? _ran through his mind as a question, expecting the presence of the other for some reason, but there was no answer. _Does Peter know how to wake me up without waking _him_ up? That would be really weird. And somehow very Peter._ "What?" he said groggily.

Peter kissed lips still unresponsive from sleep. "Want to make love to you."

"Sure, yeah." He pulled himself up, blinking awake and not in the least bothered by the request. He wanted to be needed. Maybe someday it would get old, but he didn't think so. "What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing," Peter said, kissing him again and this time Gabriel kissed back. Peter climbed between Gabe's legs for missionary. Gabriel felt the man's erection bump into his thigh and he relaxed back on the bed, raising his knees once Peter was between them. Peter chuckled. "Just don't snore too loud."

Gabriel grinned and hooked a hand behind his own neck. Peter already had the lube in his hand. He prepped him copiously and didn't touch Gabriel's still flaccid dick. Gabriel watched his husband in the dim light, in the warmth of their bed, as the man pumped away inside of him slowly at first, then later, faster as his end approached. Gabriel reached out to run his fingers up and down Peter's sides, making him keen and lean into the touch. Peter finally came with a satisfied groan, sagging over him. Peter started to shift off to the side to lie on the bed, but Gabriel pulled him down directly on top of him, kissing his forehead and hair, running his hands through it, and loving on him.

_I have such a good life now._


	319. Easy Chair

Peter popped into existence in the apartment he shared with Gabriel, only to be immediately, almost instantly in fact, flung forcefully against the door and pinned there with telekinesis. He gulped in air, struggling instinctively, which only earned him having his arms thrown out to the sides, immobilized, and his entire body lifted from the floor a couple inches to rob him of even that small leverage. Breathing hard, Peter tried to calm down.

Gabr-, no, Sylar, Peter realized as he caught sight of the man's steely gaze, uncoiled himself from a recliner chair that hadn't been in the apartment before today. One hand was extended to direct the power holding Peter in place. The other held a thick paperback book, finger placed in the middle of the pages. His eyes raked over Peter slowly, taking in every detail - Peter's faded jeans, messenger bag, and plain white polo shirt that had seen better days. Peter caught his heaving breaths and tried to make himself relax.

_How the hell did he do that so fast? Of course, he can catch bullets … and so can I_. Which Peter knew to be preposterous. The human brain wasn't equipped to track objects moving that fast over such short distances, but neither was it equipped to use telekinesis. It sufficed to know it could be done and Peter had seen it demonstrated many times. For example, his current situation.

"Call first next time," Sylar remonstrated curtly. Clearly Gabriel had been waiting on him and Peter's abrupt arrival had forced a switch. Peter had figured out quick that shock and fear was a fast-track to activating Sylar. He'd found it intriguing that it wasn't _anger_ that flipped the personalities. Peter had been planning on spending the evening with Gabriel, but he suspected he'd just flushed that option.

Peter fought with the force binding him enough to manage a nod. "I will," he promised.

"Good," Sylar snapped. Peter was lowered and released gradually enough that he got his bearings easily, and was oddly impressed with Sylar's care in handling him. The other man returned to the overstuffed chair, muttering, "_Someone_ told Hiro I might be after him." He opened his mouth for a moment to say something more, then shut it with a short shake of his head. He curled up on the chair, gazing at the book in his hand as though he'd just now noticed it.

Peter cocked his head, dropping his messenger bag next to the door and walking a little closer. His brow furrowed, but Sylar seemed to be taking no note of him. Peter was pretty sure he wasn't insinuating that Peter had tattled on him. "Who?"

Sylar's lips tightened and his eyes narrowed as he peered up at Peter for a few seconds, like Peter should know. "One guess. It's nothing I can do much about anyway."

_Gabriel_. "Ah," Peter said. _So, Sylar and Gabriel are still quietly duking it out. Huh. Thank God he's not asking me to take sides._ And it was reassuring to know that Gabriel was taking steps to protect others. Peter eyed the new piece of furniture. It was enormous, as recliners went. Changing the subject, he said, "That thing looks like it could seat two."

Sylar tore his eyes away from the book and now regarded his chair. He ran his hand up and down one of the arms silently and then said, "He had it delivered. It's from one of those places that specializes in furniture for fat people."

Peter's mouth jumped at the pejorative, but he didn't say anything about it. Instead he strutted over and said bossily, "Scoot over then. Let's try it out." The last couple times he'd spent much time with Sylar, the other man had been surprisingly responsive to Peter giving him orders. Now was no different - he immediately moved to the side, creating space for Peter to spoon behind him. Peter joined him, curling his body to cup Sylar's and noticing the very faint rumble of approval as he slid into place. Infinitely warmed and touched by that, Peter snaked a hand around the man's waist and rested his forehead against his back. _You're so sweet_. He didn't say it though. This was Sylar, after all.

Sylar reached back a hand to stroke slowly up and down Peter's thigh. They rested together like that for maybe a minute before Sylar twisted and shifted, turning to bring his face to Peter's. Peter raised his head for a kiss, but Sylar avoided him deftly, bumping his face against the side of Peter's head, grimacing, and then burying his nose in Peter's hair. _I should have known,_ Peter thought, turning his head down to facilitate it. The fixation with scent was not a Gabriel-only trait. Sylar inhaled deeply, nuzzled him once, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before turning back to an approximation of his previous position.

Peter leaned away with his back against the other arm of the chair. He watched as Sylar frowned heavily at the paperback, flipping idly through the pages. "Whaddaya reading?"

"Good question." Sylar turned to regard the cover. "Stephen King's _The Stand_. Sounds okay," he said with a frown. When Peter had come in, the book had been about half open in Sylar's hand. Now the man was back on page one.

Peter rolled his eyes and barely suppressed a laugh at that. Sylar was going to read the same freaking book all over again. He shook his head slightly, very slowly and resumed his previous position of cuddling close.

"I guess I should have asked," Sylar said, still reading. "Do you want to do something else?" He reached back with his free hand to stroke Peter's thigh again.

"No, not right now. I had a big plate of alfredo and then ice cream for dessert. I'm a little carb-overloaded right now." He felt full and lethargic now that the adrenaline of his rude welcome had worn off. He wiggled a little, squirming closer and getting another faint, happy rumble from his partner. "Just laying here is nice for right now." The chair began to rock slowly and Peter smiled at the mundane uses of telekinesis.

"Good." Sylar continued reading and Peter continued lying next to him, an arm slung loosely around Sylar's waist. Minutes passed and pages turned. Peter breathed in the man's warmth, feeling the even, settled baseline of Sylar's emotions. It calmed him as well - 'nothing to worry about, move along there' - it was deceptive of course. Sylar reacted faster than Gabriel by a long shot but maybe that was because he didn't lose time to second-guessing.

Into the silence, Sylar said, "This book … it's familiar."

"Hm?" Peter hummed, raising himself a little to see Sylar's profile.

"It's like I've read it before."

_Um, yeah … _Peter stared at him, but he didn't think Sylar was trying to make a joke. He seemed very serious. "Gabriel was reading it earlier."

Sylar exhaled in an exasperated snort. "I know that! That's not what I meant. I mean it's … never mind," he finished sullenly and turned away more firmly.

Peter jumped in immediately, asking, "Did you read it as a kid, or a teen or something? You know, if it's a shared memory …"

"No." Sylar stayed turned away, but his breathing had stopped for the moment like he was considering his words. "It's like I can remember some of what Gabriel was reading."

_Ah!_ Something in Sylar's tone turned Peter's understanding of what he was getting at. Sylar did not normally recall events during Gabriel's time, nor vice versa. Hence the touching of the chair to figure out where it came from and the rereading of the book. Yet he was saying that he knew something of Gabriel's memories, maybe a slight access, and that must be a difference from how it usually worked.

"Well, um," Peter started, "it's the same brain, processing, like, the same information …" Maybe it was like a sort of memory after-image?

"Yes, that's my point. I'm processing the same information."

Peter pursed his lips, not sure exactly what Sylar was getting at. "What's that mean?"

"It means … It means I'm starting to reintegrate." He put the book down and stared off at the far wall.

Peter felt the wave of cold fear and dread that passed through Sylar, even if he gave no physical sign of it. Peter snugged his arm a little tighter around the man's waist. "Do you have to?"

"No." He sounded distracted and distant.

Peter was quiet for a moment, trying to think of what he was supposed to do or say. The books he'd read did not put reintegration forward as a quick process, nor even in all cases as the desired outcome of therapy or increased self-knowledge. People with DID did not 'get over it', though they might transition on to other phases of their lives. They might remain a multiple forever, happily coping with being a little more clearly multi-faceted than most people were.

However, the normal sequence (assuming there was one, which for DID, there really wasn't - the presentation was virtually unique for every patient) might not apply to someone with regeneration, telepathy and intuitive aptitude. "How long does it take?" Peter had an unsettling fear that it might take only a minute or two, or already be finished by the time he even asked the question.

Sylar shrugged. "As long as I want it to, I suppose." He looked back at his book and made an attempt to go back to reading. Peter moved his head and pressed his lips to Sylar's back in quiet support of whatever happened.


	320. Gay and Catholic

"How do you reconcile being gay and Catholic?"

"I'm not gay," Peter responded immediately to Sylar's somewhat out-of-the-blue question as they sat together on the ridiculously oversized easy chair.

Sylar looked back at him, eyes narrowed. Peter met his gaze and said, "I'm bisexual. There's a _difference_," he said with a rise of his brows to emphasize. "All of the women I've ever been attracted to? I was _really _attracted to them, just like the men."

"Okay, fine," Sylar conceded, looking away. "How do you reconcile having sex with a man and being a Catholic?"

Peter shrugged. "Same way I reconcile all the other sins I commit. No one's perfect."

"Isn't that kind of a big deal as sins go?"

"No," Peter said firmly, with just a hint of 'that's stupid' in his voice. As a sin, homosexual behavior was right up there with eating shellfish and getting a tattoo in Peter's opinion. By the letter of Old Testament religious law, he was a non-stop sinner, just like everyone else he knew.

Sylar pursed his lips and stroked the pages of the paperback pensively. It was an odd gesture for him and would have been more in place for Gabriel. Peter leaned out a little to be sure of what he was doing. "How do you figure?" Sylar asked finally.

"Why do I think it's not a big deal?" Peter asked, making sure he knew what Sylar wanted to know.

"Yeah."

Peter settled back in the chair. "I figure God will understand love. If He understands anything, He'll understand that. And if He doesn't, then I don't care much what He considers a sin or not."

Sylar looked back at him for a long moment, his gaze steady. "I think I can live with that," he said softly. He went back to reading his book.


	321. Green Eyed Monster, part 1

"Hey, you want to go clubbing?"

"Sure," Peter answered, glancing over Gabriel's face. _Yep, Gabriel._ Sylar had remained a little off all night - other than letting Peter spoon against him even in bed, there hadn't been any action. Peter looked down at himself. He was in an old t-shirt and jeans - perfectly fine for running a few late night errands, which he'd been doing. Not so good for going places where he'd be seen. He had a suspicious-looking stain near his knee. "I'll need to go back for clothes."

"No, you don't," Gabriel chided. "Come here and open your mind. I'll show you what to wear, assuming you're okay with me dressing you."

Peter smiled sheepishly and looked down, but he walked closer. Gabriel was referring to an incident months ago where Gabriel had tried to suggest Peter's clothes and Peter had reacted poorly to it. He lowered his defenses and Gabriel fairly fell into his mind, a little disoriented to find Peter so transparent. But that was Peter - most of the time.

The other man got his bearings and showed Peter what he had in mind, which wasn't much of a departure from what he already had on. He changed the shirt to new and obviously artificially aged. Now it was grey with an abstract blue and white design on it. His jeans went to dark blue, with a better cut, better fabric and tighter fit. The shirt was tighter too, now that he noticed. His shoes also improved, but his watch stayed the same.

Peter shape-shifted himself to match the projection and looked down at himself. The outfit showcased his assets, even if it felt like the jeans rode up his crack a bit. It clung to him in all the right places, showing off the physique Peter had worked so hard to achieve in the last two years and hadn't quite lost yet.

Gabriel went for a short-sleeved button down with blue and grey pin-striping, dark blue jeans and matching shoes. Their shirts were different, as were the cut of their jeans, but they color coordinated, complimenting one another. Peter felt an urge to do away with the clothes and get to the usual business of their evenings together, but that very compulsion was a good reason to go out and mix things up.

"So where are we going?" Peter asked. He found himself eager to get out once he shoved aside the more intimate possibility and thought about it. He'd been pretty active in the scene back in his first few years at college, when he'd thought he was going to be forced to be a lawyer and didn't care how much self-destructive behavior he indulged in on the way. A lot of it had been a ton of fun, even if it was now one of those embarrassing phases of his life he tended not to mention.

"I don't know. Pick a trendy gay bar or something."

"You mean you don't know where we're going?" Though really, that hardly surprised Peter. Gabriel had been a straight-laced hermit and Sylar was looking for something that wasn't available in the standard club. Even if it was, the crowds had to be something of a minus for a killer on the hunt.

"No, I have no idea. I just want to go out with you, Peter. This might be the last night off you have for a while. I figure our schedule's going to change when Emma's residency begins, and that's tomorrow. So while I have the chance, I want to show you off instead of have you closeted away."

Peter laughed. It was a nice sentiment and warmed him. "Okay." Peter picked a place. The last time he'd even tried to go out had been in London and he'd been distracted by Claude and his mission before he could carry through. Before that had been … years. They took a cab, with Peter gradually relaxing and starting to tell Gabriel about the times he'd been to the district before. As Peter had suspected, Gabriel didn't have any party-hardy stories to relate in turn, but he seemed to enjoy listening to Peter. The place Peter had remembered was closed, which was disappointing, but they paid their cab fare and took to the streets on foot. It was an active neighborhood and there were plenty of other options within walking distance.

They walked up to a place that was garishly painted black and purple, with a bass so loud you could feel it in your bones every time the door opened. Gabriel turned to Peter, his eyes bright. "I want to go in!" It was almost like he was asking, which he probably was. Peter nodded - it was what they were here for, after all, but Gabriel's face was so full of joy that he was like a kid at an amusement park. Gabriel laughed as their eyes adjusted after walking in. He was scanning the crowds and the people. Peter could practically feel the other man amping up on energy. He began to wonder if perhaps it was not a good idea to dive into this quite so directly.

It _was_ a trendy gay bar, which wasn't strange given the area. Gabriel fairly drug Peter to the edge of the dance floor, looking around the place in excitement. It had a moderate crowd, mostly male and mostly on the prowl. Some, like them, were just here for the entertainment, having already settled on partners, for the evening, or forever.

A new song came up - Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Peter had never thought much about the song other than that it had a catchy beat. He'd hardly even listened to it. Mainstream music wasn't really his vibe, but Gabriel's face lit up even more. He said something of which Peter only caught, "… tutor … danced … this last year," over the opening lines of the song. And with that Gabriel strutted away from him, swinging his hips in a provocative, rhythmic fashion that left Peter staring at his ass and wondering where the hell that had come from.

_Ra Ra-ah-ah-ah_

_Roma Roma-ma_

_GaGa  
Oh la-la  
Want your bad romance_

Gabriel spun, lowered his head and pointed at Peter, who was some ten feet away from him now.

_I want your ugly  
I want your disease  
I want your everything  
As long as it's free  
_

Gabriel closed on him quickly, lip synching the "Love, love, love, I want your love" as he danced directly in front of Peter, dropping his hands to Peter's hips, eyes only for him. Peter grinned and blushed at the attention.

_I want your love  
Love love love  
I want your love_

_I want your drama_  
_The touch of your hand_

Gabriel picked up Peter's hand and put it to his cheek.

_I want your leather studded kiss in the sand  
_

Then he dropped it to his throat and threw his head back like Peter was choking him. Then he got back in his face again for the "Love love love, I want your love." His lips brushed Peter's with the last words and Peter felt his breath taken away. A shiver ran down his spine and he felt a sudden spike of _need_.

_I want your love  
Love love love  
I want your love  
_

Gabriel lip synched again for the near-spoken lines, then seized Peter's hips and gave him two hard pelvic thrusts on "I want it bad." Peter clutched at his shoulders, still uncomfortably caught between a desire to answer and participate, and the embarrassment of others watching. Somewhere, deeply buried, Peter's never-satisfied kink for public sex stirred to life.

_You know that I want you  
And you know that I need you  
I want it bad  
A bad romance  
_

Gabriel spun away from him, moving his feet, his hips and his whole body to the song, leaving Peter trying to catch his breath and figure out what an appropriate reaction was. Gabriel put his hands in his hair and then waved them to the music, gyrating enough that he was clearing a section of the dance floor. People were watching; they were watching both of them, Peter realized, flushing.

_I want your love and  
I want your revenge  
You and me could write a bad romance  
I want your love and  
All your lover's revenge  
You and me could write a bad romance  
_

Gabriel pointed at Peter and hooked his finger at him, but his antics had drawn a lot of attention, a little laughter and more appreciation. He was athletic, thin, well-dressed, and good-looking. His confidence came off of him in waves and he was a _good_ dancer. Peter had always known Nathan was and he'd seen at the wedding that he was still good, but this was a totally different style. Peter stayed rooted to the spot, ashamed that his body's idiotic, biological response to stimulation and a kink he'd never indulged might get obvious if he did anything … and although he could dance okay, there was no way he was going to make a fool out of himself trying to follow _that_ act.

_Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh  
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh_

_Caught in a bad romance_  
_Ra ra-ah-ah-ah_

When Peter shook his head, too embarrassed to join him, Gabriel's eyes swept the people nearest him and he beckoned to several of them. To Peter's dismay, two accepted. To his shock, he found himself combating a surge of irrational jealousy to go along with all the other tumultuous feelings he was having. The two were a whipcord Latino and a muscular blond.

_Roma roma-ma  
GaGa  
Oh la-la  
Want your bad romance  
_

Gabriel danced with one and then the other, putting great energy and boundless enthusiasm into his motion. Peter began to seethe.

_I want your horror  
I want your design  
_

He looked over at Peter and laughed tauntingly as mock-caressed the Latino dancer. Peter clenched his teeth. He could feel a deep thrumming within himself, threatening to burst forth. It reminded him of the feel of Ted's radiation power. He balled up his fists and tried to suppress it, but his emotions were running riot.

'_Cuz you're a criminal  
As long as you're mine  
_

Gabriel danced with one man for the first "I want your love" and then switched for the next, both times making mock thrusts to them, pantomiming sex. Peter tore his eyes away, feeling his heart hammering in his chest like it was going to break his ribcage.

_I want your love  
Love love love  
I want your love  
_

Gabriel paced towards Peter, his expression animated and for just a moment, he was chanting "Love love love" to Peter. Gabriel's expression twitched to concern, his brows pulling together for just a moment as he reached out and stroked Peter's cheek. The touch was like cool water, calming Peter in a second. He looked up at his husband gratefully. Gabriel grinned and went immediately back to his routine, leaving Peter feeling confused and deserted, wondering if Gabriel really hadn't noticed how much trouble Peter was having.

_I want your psycho  
Your vertigo shtick  
_

Gabriel took a step back and mimed stroking his penis, imaginary and oversized, for "Your vertigo shtick" (or was it "your vertical stick"?) and then spun, walking away and looking over his shoulder for the rest of the stanza. Peter stared at him, thinking, _He really doesn't know. All that sensory stuff, too much noise, too many other people … he has no idea what's going on with me. Hell, I don't know what's going on with me! Get a grip, Peter. All he's doing is dancing!_

_Want you in my rear window  
Baby you're sick  
_

Gabriel had happily gone back to dancing with his other two partners, who were starting to really get into it, especially given that Peter was just standing there looking alternately overly emotional or sick. It looked possible to them that their entertaining dance partner might dump the man he'd showed up with for one of them. It didn't hurt that they'd definitely attracted a crowd of onlookers, who were starting to clap and cheer. Peter was trying to fend off thoughts of murdering one or both of them.

_I want your love  
Love love love  
I want your love_

_You know that I want you ('Cuz I'm a free bitch baby)_

Gabriel pointed back at Peter again, arm and finger extended just in case anyone nearby wasn't clear who he was dancing for. Peter grimaced and made an abortive gesture for Gabriel to come over to him. Gabe glanced back at the two he was with and then headed back over to Peter, smoothly incorporating the walk into his dance routine.

_And you know that I need you  
I want it bad romance  
Your bad romance_

_I want your love and  
I want your revenge_

And with that line, Gabriel reached Peter and slapped him, hard.

"Ow!" Peter yelped, putting his hand to his cheek in surprise. Gabriel laughed at him and danced away, backwards, back to the other two men. Peter felt himself begin to shake. He took several steps backwards. _I've got to get out of here. I'm not leaving without him. I've got to stop watching this. He's got to quit touching them!_

Several people on the sidelines made catcalls, boos of disapproval or hoots of support. Peter rubbed his cheek and staggered back, finally able to tear his eyes away by force of will. He moved off blindly, taking deep breaths. He thought back to the irrational rage he'd felt when he'd woke up to find Gabriel and Emma chatting amicably - about threesomes, admittedly - but his emotion had been out of place then and it was out of place now. He found a chair and dug his fingers into the back of it, trying to let the music wash over him, trying not to imagine what Gabriel was doing.

_You and me could write a bad romance  
I want your love and  
All your lover's revenge  
You and me could write a bad romance_

_Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh_  
_Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh_

Gabriel continued to really groove to the music, dancing with each of his partners in turn, who had by now figured out the pattern. They'd accepted Gabriel's invitation because they were each confident of their ability and looking for their own opportunities to show themselves off. So far it was a smashing success. More than half the club was paying attention to them.

Peter could hear the crowd cheering the three (another threesome, his mind noted unhelpfully) on, clapping and cat-calling. One thing was for sure, he'd at least gotten the sexual component under control, though the rage was still overwhelming. He wanted to lash out. He very carefully bottled it up.

_Caught in a bad romance  
Ra ra-ah-ah-ah_

_Roma roma-ma_  
_GaGa_  
_Oh la-la_  
_Want your bad romance_

_Walk walk fashion baby work it  
Move that bitch c-razy  
Walk walk fashion baby work it  
Move that bitch c-razy  
Walk walk passion baby work it  
I'm a free bitch baby  
_

The song was going on an absurdly long time. _How fucking long is this fucking song?_ Peter fumed, wishing for nothing more than an end of it so they could leave, or at least so he could get Gabriel away from those other men.

_I want your love  
And I want your revenge  
I want your love_  
_I don't wanna be friends  
_

_Je veux ton amour  
Et je veux ta revenge  
Je veux ton amour  
I don't wanna be friends  
(Want your bad romance  
I want your bad romance)  
Want your bad romance!  
_

A sudden resolve filled Peter. _I am going to go over there and drag his ass off the dance floor if I have to use abilities to do it!_ He turned, teeth bared and looking murderous, and paced back to the dance floor. People parted before him even if they hadn't been looking his direction, quailing back like he was radiating danger.

Gabriel's hand was rubbing down the blond man's back, where Peter couldn't see exactly how low it went or how firm the contact was. He could see the other man's face and it was flushed, lightly beaded with sweat and looking entirely too taken with Peter's husband. The Latino was backing off just like most of the crowd was, eyes wide.

Peter surged forward and grabbed Gabriel's arm. Gabriel had seen him coming (how could he not?) and he spun into Peter's arms gracefully, like it was choreographed. Peter grabbed at him suddenly as Gabriel started to fall. The crowd gasped and Peter barely got him, jerking Gabriel against him. For a second, Peter stood frozen, confused by getting what he'd wanted, by Gabriel falling into his arms. He didn't know what he wanted to do - get Gabriel, deck the blond, teleport out, or stay and try to act normal. _Act normal. Be cool. Calm down. What's normal right now? What should I be doing?_

_I want your love and  
I want your revenge  
You and me could write a bad romance  
_

Gabriel pulled himself back up to his feet. Peter hung onto him, looking around wildly. Gabriel's brows drew together again. He took Peter's face in both hands, leaning forward. Gabriel paused as Peter turned his full attention on him. Fear was on Peter's face and realization followed a moment later on Gabriel's. Gabriel kissed him slowly, sliding his hands around to the back of Peter's head, sinking his fingers into Peter's hair and pulling them together. Peter breathed in deeply and moaned, feeling that kiss douse all the fire inside of him, restoring his sanity in one long rush. He didn't even notice as the song ended.

_I want your love and  
All your lover's revenge  
You and me could write a bad romance_

_Caught in a bad romance_

The crowd cheered loudly. Gabriel broke away and put his fists in the air in triumph. They cheered again. A couple guys slapped Peter on the back, apparently convinced that his displays of emotion and wrath had been part of some staged routine. Gabriel gave a high five to each of his dance partners (making Peter twitch again - an actual, literal jerk) and leaned in (leaning over with a respectable dead space between them - Peter was gratified and much mollified to see this even if his breathing was speeding up again) to thank each of them for their performance.

Then Gabriel sauntered back over to Peter and offered to put his arm around his waist, looking over Peter's face with even more than his usual level of attention. Peter just nodded. He felt like he was going to fall down. _Is being here a good idea? Do I need to see this sort of thing to get over whatever this problem is I have? Is this like Gabe being exposed to specials and learning to control himself? If he can do it, I can do it_. Peter put on a weak smile.

Gabriel led Peter to a table. Several more guys patted him on the back and told him he'd done a great job. A few gave wolf whistles. They sat down as the next song came up. Peter took a deep breath and said dryly, "You know how to make an entrance." He looked up and gave a small smile, trying to reassure Gabriel's too-intent focus on himself. Apparently it worked, because Gabriel grinned back at him after a few moments. He puffed up and looked very proud of himself. He also looked sexy - flushed, his skin slick with a light sheen of sweat and his chest still rising and falling deeply from the exertion. Peter's eyes absorbed the scene of Gabriel truly happy, as pleased as he'd ever seen him. _I don't want to ruin this for him. How many guys ever do something as cool as what he just did and get cheered by a whole club?_

Watching Gabriel only, Peter didn't notice when the blond, and more determined, dance partner came up to the table, having followed them from the floor. "Hey, that was awesome!" The stranger extended a hand. The man was in his mid-twenties with hair that was blond on the tips and russet-colored at the roots. Peter stared at him, his mind suddenly going blank. His body had gone still and cold. It felt made of lead.

Gabriel leaned over and shook the man's hand. "Yeah, thanks. You were great. I couldn't have done it without you two. That added a lot." He looked pleased by the attention. Once again, it had distracted him from Peter. _Too many people here,_ was a thought that went through Peter's head, failing to connect with anything meaningful. Somewhere in his subconscious, he was planning, but he wasn't letting the rest of himself know what was going on.

The guy looked back at the crowd, which seemed aimless at the moment as if hoping someone else would spontaneously entertain them all for another song. "I hope someone recorded that. My friends don't believe we didn't plan that out!" Gabriel just grinned and shrugged. He looked over at Peter, a puzzled look on his face. The blond man followed Gabe's eyes as if he'd just now realized Peter was there. He addressed him, "Oh, hi. My name's Carl. What's yours?"

Peter blinked at him. He felt literally unhinged inside. He said nothing at all, just staring like Carl was a freak, or an alien. Or a person who wasn't dead quite yet.


	322. Green Eyed Monster, part 2

**Warning: Dubious consent to sex and relationship violence. Also, I consider all forms of dub-con to be rape. If consent is in question, then you are not having consensual sex.**

One minute, Gabriel was happily chatting up Carl, not paying more than cursory attention to his husband because there was a raucous club scene of a couple hundred people to distract him; and the next Peter had grabbed the back of his neck in a grip like a vise and was frog-marching him towards the back door. Gabriel made a few choked sounds of surprise and objection, unable to get anything coherent out. Disinterested and frightened faces passed by as they went and as he had been able to before, he could feel the power boiling around Peter, coming off of him in waves. Gabriel hadn't known what it meant earlier; he still wasn't sure now. They were outside fast and Peter didn't bother going more than a couple steps from the door before throwing Gabe at the wall. He stumbled on a discarded liquor box, catching himself against the brick.

_Okay, obviously I should have paid more attention when he was acting weird in there. Maybe we should have left. But we're outside now. _"What the hell, Peter?" Gabriel started to turn back, but Peter grabbed the back of his jeans and yanked them down so hard the button popped off and there was a ripping noise. Despite the resistance of the tough cloth, Peter got them down around Gabriel's thighs.

_**WHOA!**_ That was far more than 'what the hell?' Startled and shocked into silence, Gabriel looked up and down the alley. They were almost right under a street light, placed here to illuminate the back entrance and the dumpster only a few feet away. The place smelled noxious. He didn't see anyone. _What happened to Carl? Who saw us leave? What if someone comes back here? What's Peter about to do?_

"Peter?" he managed, his voice small.

"Yeah?" Peter's voice was challenging and angry. He whapped Gabriel sharply on the back of the head. "Glad you know it's _**me!**_ Do you wish it was that other guy?" He shoved Gabriel forward, bending him over. His other hand worked at his own clothing. The sound of his zipper dropping was strangely loud.

_That other guy? He thinks … what? … Did I do …? What did I …?_ "C-carl?" Gabriel stuttered out. Sure, he'd danced with him, but that was it. It was public, fun and meaningless. _Or … maybe not, to Peter._ Molly's murder flashed through Gabriel's mind. _Oh shit._ Peter was well and firmly triggered. _How far is Peter willing to go? How threatened was he by that dance? Would arguing or fighting with him set him off more? _Gabriel's breathing sped up, his mind racing, considering Sylar's excited reactions when his victims fought him and trying to figure out how much of that was Hunger-induced and how much was personality. And then there was Peter's personality to consider.

"Yeah, Carl Fuck-face," Peter snarled as he fairly rammed an exploratory finger into Gabriel's ass, making him spasm suddenly. "You gonna let _Carl _do this to you?"

"Urg!" Gabriel was afraid and confused, not sure what he needed to be doing.

"Are you?" Peter demanded, twisting his hand back and forth in a painful mockery of prepping him. The abrupt pressure made Gabriel pant harder. It made his cock stiffen and his knees felt weak. It was an old and conditioned reaction to sexual violence. He shook his head violently since he couldn't seem to get the word out. It was such a simple word. He could hardly remember what it was - it was a word he wasn't allowed to say.

"Yeah? Well Carl Fuck-face _can't _do this to you! You like it rough, I'll give it to you fucking rough!" And with that, Peter spat on his hand, slicked himself and lined himself up. He shoved inside of Gabriel, using his thumb to guide his shaft and force his way in.

It hurt. It hurt like hell. Gabriel went forward against the brick before he managed to get his arms up to take some of the pressure and protect his face. Peter grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him back, arching him. "Are you thinking about him?"

"Nn… n-no, P-peter. Only you," Gabriel said, voice shaking. He made sure to tack Peter's name on there, just in case Peter had any doubts that Gabriel knew who was taking him. Always before, their rough sex had been very explicitly consensual. It had been loving. It had been careful, for what it was, and Gabriel had felt protected and safe. He'd felt validated, not violated. Right now he was frightened out of his mind. Gabriel was beginning to wonder if he should try to fight Peter off and stand up for himself, but the man was already fucking him and for some reason Gabe just _couldn't …_ His muscles were locked up as thoroughly as his thoughts.

Peter shoved Gabriel's head forward and into the rough brick, pushing him against it hard enough to scrape and gouge at his face. Even though he healed immediately, it was that final pain that did it - Gabriel opened and loosened around Peter's dick, suddenly submitting completely. It was a survival instinct of a sort. He shuddered, breathing deeper. Everything was unreal. He wasn't there. He wasn't sure who was. He felt very detached, beside himself, watching while his body pushed back into Peter's thrusts and his cock rose to full mast.

"This is making you hot," Peter accused. "You think Carl would do you like this?"

"No, Peter," and now his voice was lustful and deeper, relaxed, like there was nothing more important in the world than letting Peter use him. "Only you."

"Yeah. Only fucking me! Does anyone else get to have you like this?"

"No Peter, only you," he repeated like a mantra, deep and even, a velvety tone to his words. They sounded sexy, even to him. He felt a vague satisfaction, like he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.

"Does anyone else get to _**fuck you**_ in the ass like this?" Peter was speaking through clenched teeth, punctuating his words with hard thrusts, using both hands to brace the other man's hips.

"No Peter, only you." Gabriel stopped trying to meet Peter and just let the other man handle him. It was easier that way. He dug his fingers into the brick, taking a moment to be interested in the way the grit wedged itself under his nails. _This is a really old building, probably constructed before 1900. I wonder if it's on the register of historic places?_

"You _**ever**_ gonna let anyone else fuck you?"

_Oh. Yes._ Peter was still fucking him. Doing a good job of it too. He suspected he was going to come soon. _I should probably sound excited about that. _"No Peter, only you. Oh God, only you. Only you…"

Peter plowed into him relentlessly and ruthlessly, the noise of their coupling loud in the alley. Gabriel held the wall and tried not to be shoved into it too forcefully. His ass hurt. In a very clinical fashion, he was aware that he was being bruised. His body was being jarred too fast and hard to heal completely. He didn't complain. _I can't complain. I want this. I've always wanted it. I flirted with Carl to get this. I wanted Peter to hurt me. _A strange litany of thoughts ran through his head, as though intentionally chosen to drown out what was actually happening and overlay it with a fantasy. Long past abuses had embedded odd coping strategies. He gasped for air as he felt Peter finish with a final slam into him. Gabriel whimpered, not sure who it was that was feeling the passion he could hear in his own voice. "Only you, Peter. Only you."

"_**Only**_ fucking me," Peter growled, satisfied at last. He pulled out and refastened his clothing. The whole episode had been one of the fastest fucks Gabriel had ever had. Gabe glanced back warily over his shoulder, not sure if he should dress himself. He'd come at some point. He felt dirty. A juvenile sense of shame pervaded him and he covered himself with his hands. Peter directed, "Pull your pants up. We're going home."

A moment of indecisive homicidal mania clouded his vision. _Peter dead … killing him … it's over … might as well … no, wait … this isn't him, wasn't him, I triggered his hunger?, he's not himself … but it's me - it might not be him but it's me … it _**is**_ me; I don't have to … kill, end anything … just don't … don't_. Gabriel managed to reach down and pull up his jeans. He couldn't fasten them, but Peter touched his elbow before it was an issue and a moment later they were in the apartment.

* * *

Gabriel held his pants up and stood there silently, simultaneously feeling like he was twelve again and yet also far older than he really was. He watched Peter. Peter blinked a lot and looked around the apartment like he wasn't sure where they were. Peter took a few milling, confused steps before swinging around to look at Gabriel, his brows drawn together. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. Peter walked over to the couch and sat on it slowly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He raked his hand through his hair. "What the hell just happened?"

Gabriel cocked his head slightly, shape-shifting rapidly to fix his clothes back to pristine. He could at least _look_ perfect, even if he still felt like a stranger in his own skin. "What do you remember?"

Peter stared at the floor, then up at Gabriel, his expression bewildered. "Everything, I think." A change came over his face suddenly, from perplexed to frightened. "Oh my God, are you okay?" He rose and Gabriel fell back a single, short step. Peter stopped instantly. Peter's mouth opened in an 'oh' shape. Horror etched itself into his features and Gabriel felt, oddly, a pang of sorrow as he thought of what Peter must be feeling right now. At least it seemed odd to him that he, Gabriel, should care under the circumstances. But he did care. Peter fell back on the couch, staring at him, but the empath's eyes were wide and sightless.

_Interesting. I became a monster when my power manifested. He's just devastated … but he's still him. I became a separate person, drove it all inside. He's … what is he? What is he now? How does he feel? How do I __**think**__ he feels?_ And after a moment, he thought, _How would _**I**_ feel?_ Gabriel blinked a few times, thinking about how overwhelmed he'd been after raping and almost killing Peter, less than a year earlier; how he'd felt after sneaking off and setting it up so he could kill Rupesh, only a few weeks before. The memories were muddled of both incidents, but he recalled the prolonged feeling of detachment and freaking out so badly. He had felt embarrassed about it more than anything else, like his clumsy attempt to cope was shameful, like he should have done something more dignified, he should have been able to handle it, he shouldn't have caused a problem, he shouldn't have needed help. Maury Parkman had helped him with the first; Peter with the second._ And back when I had no help at all, that's where Sylar came from._

He walked very slowly to the couch and sank down on the end. He put one leg up along the back, leaving the other hanging over the edge. "Come here, Peter," he said very softly and quietly. He didn't want Peter to go through the same anguish he had. He loved Peter. His mind shied away from what had just happened between them and he focused instead on what he could do now … to help. And to help both of them. The thing Gabe needed most right now was to know that Peter still loved him back and to be sure this was the same psychological aberration of Peter's ability that had already driven the man to some very un-Peter-like behavior. Gabriel needed his lover, his husband, his mate and his friend.

Peter looked at him, unbelieving. A pair of tear tracks had formed in the last few moments. Gabriel put his arms out in invitation and repeated, "Come to me." After what seemed like a very long time, Peter scooted and crawled down the couch to him, touching him only gingerly, uncertain as to what contact Gabriel was welcoming. Gabe pulled Peter against his front, groin to neck, not flinching from the touch of a man he'd had so much comfort from. He wrapped his arms around Peter as Peter curled up in a fetal ball against him. Gabriel hooked his leg around Peter, as well, tucking his chin in so his nose brushed Peter's fine, silky hair.

They stayed like that for the rest of the night.


	323. I Was Wrong

"I was wrong. Every step of the way, I was wrong," Peter moaned, still curled up in a ball in Gabriel's arms.

"Shh," Gabe shushed him firmly. First off, he didn't want to listen to Peter whining and secondly, he, Gabriel, was trying not to think about what had happened. It had happened, that was that, and Gabe thought the best thing they could do was figure out how to go on with their lives like before. He was inclined to pretend it didn't matter because that was the coping strategy that had worked for Sylar for so many years. But still, even without that, as the shock wore off, it just … didn't seem to matter.

* * *

"What do I smell like to you?" Peter asked very quietly. The night was passing in minutes and hours. So far, neither of them had shown any inclination to move from where they sat together on the couch.

"Peter Petrelli," Gabriel answered.

Peter made a tiny huff and said, "No, people say other people smell like certain things. What does my scent remind you of, besides me?"

"A warm spot in a soft bed," Gabriel answered softly, "with the covers pulled up around me and someone hugging me in the dark." He kissed the top of Peter's head. "And temptation - a golden prize just out of reach. I'm so lucky you bring yourself to me, because for so long I wanted to force you to be mine - but not anymore. Now I'm happy just being with you." His lips quirked up in a small smile as he added, "I don't need what you have. I have what I need."

* * *

"Did you want that? What I did to you?" Peter knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Gabriel.

There was a very, very long silence. Peter could feel the roiling emotions in Gabe's heart. Finally, he answered simply, "No."

Peter began to rock, pressure crushing his chest, smothering him._ I gotta go, I don't deserve him, I can't be trusted- _He tried to rise but Gabriel clung to him, snarling, "If you leave me now, I will _never_ tell you the truth again. _**Ever**_."

Peter froze for a moment, thinking of the situation from Gabe's point of view - Peter had abused him, raped him, and was now threatening to abandon him. No matter how horrible Peter felt about what he'd done, he would make it no better by leaving, unless that was what Gabriel wanted. He sank back against Gabe, shoving aside his own feelings for those more important.

* * *

Peter plucked at the fabric of Gabriel's shirt. _We're still color-coordinated, I see. Seems odd. We ought to clash. I fucked things up. I fucked__** him**__ up. Not hurt - not physically. Regeneration and healing. But emotionally hurt. Trust. He still wants me here. At least there's that. I'm a fuck up. I knew better. I felt it coming. I should have left, teleported out, called back and explained._ He sighed and stroked his fingertips up and down, feeling Gabe's warm skin under the fabric, feeling the swell of his pectoral muscle. It was a nice feeling and he cherished that Gabriel would still let him touch. The emotions he was feeling from Gabriel weren't nearly as traumatized as he'd expected and he wasn't sure what to make of that. _Dissociation, maybe. Can a person really have that happen to them and not be scarred for life?_

_I suppose it's possible. There was Mike, after all, when I was in college. Asshole. __**That**__ sure taught me a lesson about drinking and taking drugs in combination. But I don't really consider myself all that scarred for life._

_Gabriel is such a nice guy. You wouldn't think it of a serial killer, but he __**is**__ a nice guy. I'm pretty sure I don't deserve a nice guy. Me and my fucked up family, fucked him up too. If I don't need to roast in hell on behalf of my last name, then at least what I should have done was follow the family tradition and been a lawyer, settled down with some rich woman who didn't like me. Fake tradition. Made up. Dad and his lies. Genealogy._

_Gabe used to like the rough stuff. Will he now? I think I've robbed him of that. He loved it so much._ Peter's chest tightened and his throat spasmed. Gabriel stroked slowly up and down his back, alert to Peter's changes. _He liked going to the club. He looked so happy! He won't go again - not with me. Christ, he __**shouldn't**__! That would be stupid. He shouldn't even be __**here**__;_** I**_ shouldn't be here. He ought to … be with Heidi and stay away from me. I'm dangerous. I need to be locked up for a while until I get this under control. First Molly, now him!_

"Gabe … if you need to be away from me, that's okay. We can just take a few-"

"Shh," Gabriel shushed him firmly again, settling his arms around Peter and hugging him tighter until Peter relaxed in the embrace. Gabe relaxed then as well, going back to holding him comfortably.

_No words. Actions, not words. And he doesn't think very much of that suggestion. So just shut up, Peter, and give him what he wants._ Peter turned his head up and gave Gabriel a tiny kiss on the chin. Gabriel made a soft sound in his throat and tilted his face down to offer a kiss on the lips. Peter met him, chaste, lips only, feeling the swell of affection and hope and good feelings within Gabe. It still floored Peter that Gabriel didn't seem angry or devastated. Gabriel broke from him, smiling warmly, gave him another briefly tighter hug and sighed happily.

_Happy, of all things. Well … okay. I guess … I didn't kiss him in the alley. At least that isn't … contaminated. Rear entry probably is though._ Peter put his head down on Gabe's chest, thinking about Gabriel forcing Peter most of a year before. _I don't think we've ever had sex since that time with me against the wall, or with both of us upright and facing each other. No, wait - there was that time when he shoved me against the wall and got off on me being afraid, but I wasn't … that was him, not me. He just jerked off on me. It still messed me up some. Doggy style wasn't my favorite anyway and it's not like I top all that often. _Another memory came to him. _But that was also the first position I used with him. First time. When I didn't want to look at him and think about how he might not be Nathan._ Peter shuddered a little, getting another round of soothing strokes up and down his back.

* * *

Peter looked at the time on his watch, then smoothed his fingers across the face of the timepiece. _Glad to have it. Kinda like that it's a watch. It's different. Special._ He smiled at that thought, then gave a brief, dry chuckle. _How did I end up married to _Sylar_, of all people?_ He sighed and tilted his head back, rolling his shoulders and a little and stretching. He was a bit stiff even through the regeneration. Sylar kissed him, as it was obvious Peter was inviting that. As before, they pressed their lips together chastely and left it at that. Passion wasn't something they were up to yet, but it gave Peter a thrill to have the expression of affection and acceptance.

Peter had felt Gabriel's pain, so strong at first, ebb through the night to where he couldn't feel it at all. He knew it had to be still there, a wound easily reopened, but for now, to Peter's shock, it had faded to invisibility. "Hey," he started, waiting a beat to see if he'd get shushed again. Gabriel just looked at him to see what he had to say. Peter went on, "Emma begins her residency in a few hours and I had expected to be there this morning to see her off." Peter had picked his words carefully, not saying he was going to leave or even that he wanted to leave. He waited for Gabe's reaction.

Gabriel gave him a nudge. "Go be with her. It's okay."

Peter searched his face, but he seemed genuine and unbothered by the idea of parting now.

"We'll see each other tonight," Gabriel added.

Peter pulled in a long breath. "Are you really going to blow this off?" _Act like it didn't happen and nothing has changed? Well, if you act like nothing has changed … then what's changed?_

Gabriel blinked at him slowly. There was a little offense there, like Peter was insulting him. "Yes, Peter," he said, his tone making clear that what Peter was sensing from his emotions was accurate. "I'm going to blow this off. You've always had trouble controlling your abilities. This is hardly the worst you've ever hurt me, even accidentally."

Peter blinked in response, his brows drawing together. "Accidentally?" He hated to say it, but he did anyway, "Everything that ever … happened between us was … intentional."

Gabriel snorted. "Did you intend to irradiate me nearly to death and leave me in such agony that they had to keep me in a drug-induced haze for months?"

_What? I never irradiated Sylar. Oh!_ Peter twitched. _He means Nathan! Wait … he thinks he's … Yes, Peter, straighten up. He thinks he's Nathan. That's never been in question, he just doesn't bring it up much. He identifies as Nathan at least 75% of the time he's not around me. And probably __**because**__ of me and how I act about it. _Peter forced himself to nod. He saw the momentary blank expression that passed over Gabriel's face, triggering a feeling of dread and anger at himself for Peter. Gabriel's expression passed quickly though and he raised his hands to Peter's hair, combing it away from his face.

Gabe ran his fingers through it silently, face intent, then let his hands drop to Peter's collar, where they adjusted it.

_It's a t-shirt collar, Gabe. You don't need to adjust it._ But Peter didn't speak. He just smiled with soft amusement and wished he'd been wearing a dress shirt so there was more for Gabriel to fuss over. Gabriel tugged on the shoulders of his shirt, making sure it was settled evenly. Peter could feel the satisfaction and affection Gabriel had with the impromptu grooming. _God. He's so happy with me, even now. How am I supposed to feel about this?_ "Thank you," he said. "And no, I didn't intend to burn you. But what I did last night … that's different."

Gabriel's brows rose slightly and he let his hands fall to his sides. "Do you think you hurt me last night?" he asked neutrally.

"Yes."

Gabriel reached up with one hand and cupped Peter's jaw. "Then let me be the judge of how big a deal it is." He patted his cheek, a gesture straight out of Nathan's playbook. Peter suppressed a shiver at the similarity. _Not sure if he's hiding behind Nathan's persona, or it's being triggered by me being such a fuck-up and him feeling he needs to 'big brother' me, or if it's just because he's thinking about Kirby. _Gabriel leaned in and kissed him softly, saying quietly, "I know you love me. And I know you didn't mean to do that. Things happen. I think I'm okay with it. I understand if you're not." He stroked Peter's cheek with the backs of his knuckles.

* * *

Gabriel was shaving himself slowly when Peter got out of the shower. Peter's skin was mottled red where he'd nearly scalded himself with the water. Gabriel raised a single brow and looked him up and down, noticing. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," he said, turning back to the mirror that he'd had to wipe down several times to keep clear enough of fog to see what he was doing. "Perfect Peter, imperfect. Pardon me if I find that amusing."

"What?" Peter said, mystified.

Gabriel thought to himself, _That confuses him, but doesn't offend.__** I'd**__ be offended by that, but this __**is**__ Peter. _"Like you said, Peter. You did something wrong. You're all busted up about it and it's not even all that '_bad'_ wrong."

Gabriel watched while Peter's lips twitched. Clearly Peter _so_ wanted to say something to that, but ultimately he pulled a towel loose from the holder and started drying himself without speaking. Gabriel finished up and rinsed his straight razor, turning to reach out and touch Peter briefly on the shoulder. Peter looked up at him silently. Gabriel said, "We're in this together, okay?"

Peter blinked a few times and nodded.

Gabriel told him soberly, "If you need help today, tomorrow, anytime – call me. Don't keep it inside. That was our deal, right?"

Peter nodded and looked down, chewing his lip. "That's the deal."

Gabriel nodded in return and got in the shower. Peter called to him over the sound of the water, "What are you going to tell Heidi?"

Gabriel was quiet, thinking that over. It was one thing to relate violence and temper to her. Sexual misconduct was another thing entirely. People often reacted more viscerally to rape than they did to murder. He didn't want to turn Heidi against Peter, but on the other hand, his shielding of Peter was partly the cause of the rift between the two. He sighed. "The truth," he called back with resignation.

But Peter was not done with the subject. "What's that, exactly?"

Gabriel turned off the water and put his forehead against the tile, watching while the water dripped off his body. He used telekinesis to grab at a few drops, but liquids were really difficult to manipulate with the ability. They slipped through the field of force he was trying to hold them with. _And I'm stalling._ He sighed. "I made you jealous and you … um … I, uh, I don't know."

"That's the story, huh?" Gabriel could hear the tone of triumph in Peter's voice. Peter went on, "Somehow I don't think 'I don't know' is going to go over well."

"Yeah, well, I'll think of something."_ I always do._

In a tone that was more defeated than triumphant, Peter said bluntly, "Just tell her I raped you in a filthy alley because I saw you shake another man's hand and I couldn't control myself."

_Angry at yourself, aren't you, Peter? _"Okay," he answered cooperatively. He heard Peter snort and leave the bathroom. Gabriel finished his shower shortly and emerged. He looked over at Peter, who was clearly sulking and pouting. _That's almost cute, though I really should take him seriously._ "I think I'll leave out the part about the alley being filthy. I don't think that mattered."

Peter shot him a sullen glare and then caught himself, looking away and putting his hand over his eyes like he was holding back tears. _Shit - I hurt him_. Gabe went to him immediately, touching his shoulders lightly. Peter swallowed tensely, getting control of himself. Gabriel whispered, "I love you."

Peter nodded and whispered back, "You _must_, Christ. Thank you." He sounded very, very grateful and almost unbelieving.

Gabriel ran his finger along the top of Peter's shoulders and up his neck. "You're kind of fun sometimes." He flicked the back of Peter's ear lightly, making Peter flinch away from him and glance back uncertainly. Gabriel smirked, then patted him on the back and went to get dressed himself. "It's going to be okay, Peter. Just give yourself a little time."


	324. Practice Run

"Thank you for seeing me on short notice," Gabriel said softly as he came into Rita's office. He took a seat, leaning forward and placing his palms together very precisely. He adjusted the set of his fingers, one hand relative to the other, as Rita sat down across from him.

"You sound different," she observed neutrally. And he did. He sounded distant and removed, his voice soft and low. It was an appealing, soothing tone of voice, but the words themselves didn't match up to the intimate, comforting tone.

He looked up at her with a withdrawn, somewhat hollow look, giving her a faint smile like that was the best he could manage. He started to sit up straighter, then gave it up and slumped back. He didn't need to be strong for her, like he did for Peter. He shook his head slowly. "Something happened. I have to tell Heidi. I don't know how. That's why I called."

"What happened?"

He sighed. "Peter raped me."

"Oh, Gabriel!"

"It's not really that important but-"

"It is** too** important!"

He glared up at her. "_**I get to decide what's important!**_" he snarled, summoning every bit of his anger that was available to him at the moment. _It's __**my**__ life, my body, it's not anyone else's, it's not Peter's and it's sure as hell not __**yours!**__ If I want to blow off what he did, I can! All I want to know is how to tell Heidi without her having the same stupid reaction you're having!_ He ground his teeth and looked down, saying none of that.

She quailed back, but when he said nothing else, she insisted quietly, "Gabriel, that's **always** important."

_Everyone thinks that. Every fucking one of them thinks that._ He deflated again, unable to stand against such a simple disagreement. _If it's them or Peter, I'm going to pick Peter. They don't understand. They won't unless it happens to them._ "I didn't fight him." _If it was important, I would have fought him._

Rita straightened, brushing at her slacks a little as she composed herself and gathered her thoughts, mentally chastising herself for having strayed into dictating his experience to him. It was one of the more important rules of therapy. People coped with rape in a variety of ways. Obviously Gabriel was clinging to what little control had been left to him - the ability to control how the violation was defined and what it meant to him. She focused on his last point. "Does that matter?"

"Yes. Sort of." He frowned at the floor, distracted by her internal monologue and how painfully, transparently true it was. He hadn't been able to influence Peter during the rape, so he was trying to influence how everyone reacted to it now. He blotted it from his mind and focused on himself. "Yes. I don't … I don't get to fight back."

"Ever?"

He shrugged. That particular issue of his went way back, further than he wanted to explore today. He'd been trying to get at it in little bits and pieces with Peter and some of the rougher behavior, but he suspected that had been put on hold again. "That's not what I'm here for. I'm here because I don't want to tell Heidi, but I have to. I don't know what to say."

"What do you want her to know?"

He said the first things that came to mind. "That I love Peter. That I don't want her to be angry at him. That I don't want her to be angry with … me."

"Why would she be angry with you?"

"Because I hadn't … told her." _Well, I'm going to tell her. Probably. Trying to figure out how. Hence being here._

"But … you've said you _have_ to tell her. Do you think you _should_ tell her?"

"Yes," he answered immediately.

"Why?"

"Trust. She has to trust me. I have to … be able to trust her. I … want her to still be friendly to Peter."

"Are _you_ friendly with him? Now?"

"Yes." He opened his mind again to her thoughts, concerned that he might be turning _her_ against Peter as well. _It can hardly be avoided. Can't I just pretend it didn't happen? But no. Peter won't allow that either. No one will, once they know, and that's the problem. I liked how things were, before. Things were so good._

"Does he know you're here?" she asked with concern.

"No." Gabriel didn't feel any guilt over that. This was not a betrayal, in his opinion, and he strongly doubted Peter would think it was either.

She said nothing, considering what a delicate position she was in with these two strange men. The exploding car and Molly's reported 'death' at Peter's hands came to mind. Molly was alive now, or so they said, so Rita remained unsure as to how to take much of this - if it was real or metaphor - but the car had definitely exploded and there had been a dead young woman who wasn't metaphorical at all.

Gabriel tried to allay her fears by saying, "I'll tell him. You're not in danger." _At least, I don't think so._ "It's not a secret. I just … I didn't think to … I couldn't think of what to tell Heidi and I wanted to talk to someone. You're … safe."

"I think it's very good that you recognized this is something you needed to talk about. Even if all you can talk about is telling your wife. It might be easier to tell her if you practice telling me first." And Rita wanted to know what had happened. She was trying to find way of getting to that, since he didn't seem keen on telling her directly.

He nodded, still scrutinizing the floor, giving her a complete lack of eye contact aside from his brief outburst earlier. _I … should … probably tell her. I've told her other things. Peter and I told her about Molly. She knows Peter isn't … always … good. But he __**should**__ be. Why do I persist in thinking he __**should **__be?_

Rita prompted him. "You said you wanted her to know that you loved Peter and not to be angry with him. I'm sure she'd want to know what happened. What would you say?"

Gabriel shut his eyes and slowly raked his hand through his hair, moving it in an oddly sensual motion, feeling the brick against his cheek and the grout under his nails. He looked at his fingernails, but they were long since clean, despite the vividness of the memory. "I … I have a hunger that drives me to kill. Peter's … he has one too. It's not the same. Apparently he gets jealous, or possessive. Maybe protective, if I wanted to call it something that doesn't sound so negative."

"Go on."

"We went to a club. I flir- A guy flirted with me. I …" His eyes wandered across the floor as he thought about the dance and his own culpability in things. What Peter had done had felt like it had come out of the blue, precisely because Gabriel hadn't recognized that he was doing anything wrong. In retrospect … he wasn't sure if it was right or wrong, but he knew what he'd done. "I flirted, too. And then Peter took me behind the building and fucked me."

"You didn't want him to." Her tone was definite; her thoughts were more questioning. Not skeptical - just wondering if he'd asserted himself in a way that Peter had understood and wondering if Peter validated Gabriel's experience of the event, or denied it. That Gabriel was already speaking of it … well, she couldn't draw conclusions about that, given his other unusual issues.

"No, I didn't. But I didn't tell him no, either. I didn't say anything." He chewed his lip briefly, gently, carefully. "I didn't want to say no, because I knew he wouldn't stop. If I didn't say no, I wasn't forcing him to rape me. He was just having sex with me. And I hadn't said no." It was a convoluted logic. He saw in it again his tenuous effort to exert some control over an uncontrolled situation.

"Do you think he knows you didn't want it?"

Gabriel huffed a laugh. "Yes, he knows." He sighed and touched the side of his face that had been pressed to the wall. "He and I talked about it a little, last night. He knows. He's too empathetic for me to keep something like that from him." _He had to have known while he was doing it, too. But if he did, then why would he ask afterward? He asked last night. Maybe … I don't know. It's not like me knowing someone didn't want to die ever stopped me from murdering them._

Rita thought, _Why did Peter do it? He seemed so nice, but that doesn't always matter._ "What did he do?"

Gabriel blinked up at her, taking a moment to parse what she'd thought from what she'd said, and then try to frame a response that answered both without being overt about the telepathy. "He's upset. He's broken up. He didn't mean to do it. He's had some problems a couple times lately - the worst was with Molly. He's not dealing with it well." _'It' being both Molly and his ability._ "I worry about him," he concluded softly, thinking about his own failed efforts at coping with what he'd become, and a closet stained with pleadings to an indifferent god.

She drew in a long breath. "When you say 'he didn't mean to do it' … most of the times when I hear that from trauma victims, they're trying to excuse the inexcusable."

He started cleaning under his nails compulsively, as his voice took on a stronger tone. "I mean it literally. He didn't mean to do it. He didn't_ intend_ to do it. He wasn't sane. He wasn't thinking. He wasn't completely in control of himself." Gabriel was talking faster, and louder, beginning to get agitated. "He didn't know. He didn't know what would happen. He just knew what he had to _have_. That's all. Just what he had to have. He had to have it _right then_. And there it was …" He blinked and shuddered, trying to figure out if he was talking about his own Hunger or Peter's.

"So, you think he was in one of these fugue states you've mentioned before?"

_No, yes, maybe?_ "Yes." _Not really. It's not the same thing. How the hell do I explain this? I don't know how to explain it to __**myself**__ and it's happened dozens to me dozens of times! And even if I could explain it, that's just what's happened to me. I don't know if that's what's going on with Peter. Not for sure._

"What do you think you should do to keep yourself safe?"

"Be with him," he answered immediately.

A moment of confusion crossed her features as she thought, _Do you mean have sex with him? Or stay in a relationship?_ What she said though was, "How will that help?"

He took a deep breath and let it out. "I think abandonment will fuck Peter up worse than anything." He shook his head vehemently, imagining how broken Peter would be if he'd been cast out, alone and scorned by everyone, like Gabriel himself had been. "No. _**No.**_"_ I won't do that to him._

She folded her hands in her lap. "Then let me ask again, Gabriel: What do you think you should do to keep _**yourself**_ safe?"

_Oh. Yeah. That was what she asked. Still - same answer_. "I think I should stay with him and help him through this." _Like no one did for me_. His mouth opened to speak that, but he didn't say it. After a beat he went on with, "I love him. If he's … losing control like this, then he needs help and I know how understanding the rest of the world is, or would be, for what he's going through."

She cocked her head. "You're still not answering my question."

In an even quieter voice, almost a whisper, he said, "Yes, _**I am**_. You're not hearing me. He matters to me and I want him in my life. If I help him, I might get to keep him in my life. That will keep me safe. _**He**_ will keep me safe. I _need_ him." He exhaled slowly, still staring at the floor. "If I don't help him," _then I'm lost, I might as well be Sylar, Peter will be lost, everything will be fucked, maybe I can make him kill me, maybe Arthur will, or maybe I can lock myself into a dream where Peter and I are still in love and together …_ His eyes watered and he sniffed. _Think of other things. That's not going to come to pass. Think of other things._ "If I don't help him, then he won't be in my life."

Matching his quiet tone, she asked, "Do you think you're safe with him?"

"Yes," he said definitively. He thought about holding Peter all night long, how devastated Peter was by what he'd done. "Absolutely. I think he will work with me to make sure this never hap- … to make sure we're doing everything we can so this never happens again."

"Have you been to see anyone else about this?" She meant someone in authority, like the police. She pondered how his healing factor applied, if at all.

"I'm fine, physically. I'm not going to tell anyone outside our marriage and you about this." _Maury can fuck himself, even if he probably finds out eventually. If he's smart, he's over here reading your mind every now and then just to keep tabs on me, and you wouldn't even remember letting him do it. _He sat up a little straighter, even if he was still keeping his eyes down. "I think I should tell Heidi and … I should tell Emma. God, I hadn't thought of that. She starts her internship today."

His eyes went distant for a moment, thinking of all the new people Emma would meet and how Peter frequently read her mind by accident. It had already been mentioned many times that she was not unaware of the sexuality of other people. _How sensitive is Peter's trigger? Is he going to be set off if she just thinks about someone else, or fantasizes? I wasn't __**doing**__ jack shit, really, and he freaked the fuck out. 'Only fucking me' is what he said._

Gabriel nodded decisively. "Yes, I have to tell both of them. Together, I think. They have to understand this isn't … Peter's not a," he quailed again, suddenly feeling a hurt inside as he peeled a scab off a wound that had never healed right. "He's not a bad person." He swallowed and looked away, then decided to blurt out his abruptly emotional thoughts on the matter. Maybe Rita could help, or maybe it would help to say it rather than keep it to himself.

"I don't know if I'm so upset because he's … done something bad and I'm sorry about how this must be making him feel, or if I'm afraid that they'll think that if Peter can do this kind of thing, and he's so strong and so good, then," he put his hand to his brow, over his eyes, not understanding - not wanting to understand - how emotional he was getting about this, "then how can they ever trust someone like me who's fucked up so much in the past." He sniffled. "They'll see. _They'll see!_ If it fucks **him** up like this … I don't think they understand how fucked up I really am. I think … I always thought … Peter knew, or if he didn't, then he was at least wiling to stay with me anyway, no matter what and I believed him, that part about 'no matter what', I believed him when he," Gabriel was starting to tremble but he kept talking anyway, "when he said '_until the end'_, when he said '_forever_' …" He started to cry. "I believed him. I believe him." _I do. Oh, God, I do. Please be there for me, Peter. Don't leave me over this! Don't hurt me like this and then throw me aside and be done!  
_

Gently Rita said, "There are tissues on the table next to you."

He reached for one, not saying anything else while he tried to get control of himself again. Even then, his words were disjointed. "I believe him. I believe _in_ him. Even now. We're going to … We'll work this out. He'll stay. He didn't mean to." He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling wryly. "I'm not making any sense."

Rita smiled softly, palming a tissue she'd snagged from a box on her desk while he was recovering. She was not unmoved by his distress. "You're making perfect sense, Gabriel. You're a very strong person and you understand that you have limits. You called me for an emergency session because you knew you needed to talk this out and work it out for yourself before you talked to Heidi or Emma or even Peter again. Does Peter know you're upset?"

"I'm not upset," he said reflexively.

"Okay."

Gabriel started laughing at himself. _No, of course I'm not upset,_ he thought sarcastically. _I'm just crying my eyes out over something stupid. He fucked me. It was a little surprising the way he did it, but whatever. God-damn sexy under other circumstances. I bet I'll have a hell of a time getting something like that out of him again, but … I can live without it, if it means we're still together. I need to get that flogger for Heidi. No, I'm going to do that __**today**__. Weird day to do it. I think maybe I should hang onto it for a little while before giving it to her. 'Here Heidi, Peter raped me last night and I need you to whip me because I feel pathetic.' _He snorted and exhaled heavily, looking up at Rita, who was quietly letting him process.

Gabriel wiped at his eyes again. "I'm not upset about what he did. Exactly. My feelings are hurt. I thought I could trust him. And I know that I _**can**_ trust him - Peter - but I …" He shook his head. "I hadn't realized maybe how much I was … no, I knew how much of a burden I'd been asking Peter to take on with me. That's … that's part of why I love him. He's never acted resentful or angry or anything that he had to take me as a complete package. If anything, he's always-" Gabriel's eyes watered again. "Dammit." He sniffed and sighed. "He's always been there asking if he could carry more of my load, trying to make things better for me, trying to get to know me, trying to help. Just … out of the goodness of his heart, I guess. I don't deserve it! … Or him."

Rita told him, "You each provide a great deal of support to one another. That's what people do when they love each other."

Gabriel nodded. "He loves me. I want to … support him through this and I was … I'm just concerned that telling this to the … but they've got to know - Heidi and Emma - they've _**got**_ to."

"I agree. This is important, very important. If it is as outside of Peter's control as you said, then …" She floundered, not sure what to suggest.

"I have an idea," Gabriel offered. "Tonight, I'll talk with him and work out exactly what we're dealing with. I … we have to know that so we know what to do about it."

"I'd like to see Peter tomorrow, or both of you."

He nodded. "Saturday. We were going out to the beach house. Angela and Maury were going to come over." He sighed and raked his hair back. Emma might or might not be there - she had yet to know her schedule as a resident, but the odds were that she'd be unavailable. They'd planned, as a family, to make a long weekend of it at the beach, fooling around, and when Emma was free, the plan was that Peter would teleport her in and out. They'd invited Claire and Gretchen for party on the 4th. He couldn't remember if she'd accepted or not. No invitation had been extended to Noah. Uncle Tim had been invited, but they'd left the obnoxious brother-in-law Danny off the list along with Noah.

_It seems surreal, that double life I'm leading, having a family and … trying to have relationships …_ He sighed and looked at the floor. He was defeated and his sham discovered. _Nathan's life._ He swallowed. _But no. Peter married __**me**__. Heidi married __**me**__. Not Nathan for either of them. It's __**my**__ life now. It's my family, my relationships. It's not fake. And if I tell them the truth about what's going on, then … then it won't be fake. It won't be a lie. _He rubbed at his cheek.

"I'll have to find out when Emma gets off work, then talk to her and Heidi together about Peter. I'm going to tell them what happened and that … it's … it's the same problem I have, like with the killing … murders." He sighed, looking away for a moment. "Then when Peter gets home I'm going to work out with him what's setting him off so we can figure out how to … manage it."

"Do you know what sets _you_ off?"

He shrugged. "Pretty well, yeah. Helpless people with abilities - especially the ones I want, and the ones I can get away with taking. I think I have a fix for that though." He reached up to touch his lips, remembering the tingle he'd felt when he'd gained Peter's ability. _Funny that it came with a kiss._ He looked back up to Rita. "I haven't had the chance to test it. I'll have to wait until the Hunger is really strong, then see if I can fulfill it some other way."

"A way that doesn't involve hurting people?"

"No," he said, with a sardonic smile. "No one will be hurt." _Peter's ability doesn't hurt people. Only mine. Wait …_ The smile fell from his face. _I'll have his fucking side effect too! Dammit. Well, I haven't activated the ability yet. I guess I'll have to think on it a little more._ "It might still need some work though, as a plan." He put that side for the moment and thought about the more immediate issue of communicating to the wives. _Planning … need to plan …_ "I'll talk to Heidi a little first and see if we can have the boys out of the house while we talk." He nodded. "I can do this," he said decisively. To Rita, he said, "Thank you. This helped me."

"Do you want to talk more about it?"

"No," he said, rising. He looked around for the trash can and tossed his tissue in it. "We'll be back tomorrow. Maybe … maybe it will make more sense then."

Rita nodded and he took his leave.


	325. Molly's Journal

_June 20, 2011_

Hello. My name is Molly Walker. I've been told that I should start keeping a journal of what I think about and how I feel. Because that's something they want me to do. So this is my journal of what I feel about what I think about.

…

…

…

I don't have anything else to say. Goodbye.

* * *

_June 21, 2011_

Hello. My name is Molly Walker. This is my journal. I'm supposed to write in it every day, so this is me writing in it. I'm thirteen and I live in a jail cell that they're not letting me leave even though I didn't do anything wrong. They should all be locked up but they don't want to hear that.

That's all I have to say.

* * *

_June 22, 2011_

I'm Molly Walker, journaling, blah-blah-blah. Right. I don't know what they expect me to write here, because everything that's happened has happened and they know what happened. Some of them are the ones who made it happen. Why do they want me to write it down? Sick fucks.

* * *

_June 23, 2011_

Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker. Molly Walker.

* * *

_June 24, 2011_

The first letter for my last name is the upside down version of the first letter for my first name. My first name has five letters and my last name has six. Someone used to call me Molly Doll.

* * *

_June 25, 2011_

Why am I writing this? I ought to flush the journal down the toilet and stop it up. I ought to shove it under the door and jam it. I ought to hit that old man with it when he comes in here. I hate him. I hate all of them. Do you hear me? I hate you!

* * *

_June 26, 2011_

I don't think people need school. It's just another jail cell. It's a place to be trapped where the teachers hunt you and demand that you get good grades or else they give you detention and your parents beat you when you get home. My parents are dead because Sylar killed them. They never beat me. They never would have. I wish Sylar were dead. I don't want to go to school. I don't want to study. They're making me study in here. I liked how I was learning stuff before, with Micah and Rachel and Taylor and everyone. That was way more fun. This is boring and lonely and I wish they'd let me out.

…

I can type and write fine and I can read and do math. What else do people really learn in school anyway? I can read stuff on my own and learn what I need to learn. Nothing really matters when you have abilities anyway. I can still use my ability no matter what I know so I don't see why I need to do all this studying.

* * *

_June 27, 2011_

They're trying to work out a plan for when I can get out again, but it doesn't involve me. They're not asking me what I want because they don't care what I want. They think they get to make all the decisions about me. They're wrong. They'll never get to make all the decisions. They can make all the decisions they want and I'll smile and go along and then I'll do something else and they'll be so mad because they didn't control me. That's all they want - control. They think they can control everyone. Why didn't they control Sylar? Why didn't they control the German? Why didn't they control the airbender?

They couldn't control them and they can't control me.

* * *

_June 28, 2011_

I told Maury I wouldn't live with him. He's a sick pervert and he looks at me too much. I'd rather live with Mrs. Petrelli, but she doesn't want me. No one does, I guess. I'm not talking to Micah anymore. He won't get me out. All it would take is for him to tell the security system to make a diversion, then open my cell and I'd just walk out. I threw my water on him when he came to see me. I think I hurt his feelings. He hurt mine too.

Maury said I'd have to stay here until they decided what they were going to do with me. He said they kept a lot of people with abilities in cells and some for a really long time. I wonder how many of them were kids?

* * *

_June 29, 2011_

I read what I wrote yesterday and realized I hadn't mentioned Mohinder. He's come by four or five times now, almost every other day. He eats dinner with me and told me the apartment was lonely without me there. I think he's thinking of going back to India where there's other people he knows. I told him he should, because they're not going to let me out because they think he's a bad parent. He said he was a bad parent and I started crying and I told him to leave and never come back and he did. Yesterday. I know he's still nearby. He went in to work today. I can catch glimpses of him with my ability. I think he must be sad, but men aren't supposed to cry. I wonder if he cried when Matt died?

I've been crying a lot.

* * *

_June 30, 2011_

I don't know what I'm going to do. I need to do something with myself. I've got to figure out how to get out of here and where I want to go and what I want to do. I've either got to go out on my own without anybody or I've got to … I don't know. They want me to do things. They want me to write this journal and study and figure things out for myself. They want me to talk about things that happened a long time ago and talk about what's going to happen in the future.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE! That's a totally different ability. I don't have that one!

I don't know why it matters to them that I need to think about the future. They're the ones making decisions and deciding, not me. But maybe I need to think about it anyway. I'm not going to die anytime soon and if I do, they're just going to bring me back as long as I die where they can find me. So … maybe it's something I need to think about.

* * *

_July 1, 2011_

Peter came by today. He hates me.

Maybe sometimes we hurt the people we love.

I'm going to start talking to Micah again. And ask Mohinder to come back.


	326. Broken Parallels

_July 1, 2011_

Peter sat in a swivel chair in the security center of the Company's Philadelphia facility. Occasionally he glanced at the monitor that showed Molly Walker's room. There was a tutor inside with her at the moment, going over social studies and New York state history. Molly's entire school life had been in turmoil, uprooted from California to New York, then to India and back to New York. She had yet to complete a single year of study in the same school system, and in many cases, she hadn't gone to school at all. Despite that, she was still a very intelligent girl, an avid reader with a strangely good grip on politics and current events, as well as, of course, a supernaturally good understanding of geography.

Her emotional development was not as good, which wasn't surprising given what she'd been through. She'd had both of her parents murdered, if not before her eyes, then at least within earshot. She'd been hunted. She'd been threatened repeatedly with death. She'd been mentally assaulted and used as a pawn in a game of power plays time after time. She'd had her hero turn against her and had the nightmare man morph into her guardian. Sylar had been the bogey-man, briefly her champion (though she was probably unaware of that), and was now her victim. It was a very, very complicated world.

What she knew of that world was largely self-taught. Banning her from the internet, a decision made as soon as it was revealed that she'd used that medium to solicit assassins to target Gabriel (and his family), had been a terrible blow to her. It wasn't just that it kept her from learning (or staging hits), but it had also cut her off from her friends - what few she had. Foremost of these was Micah, who had recently given her a cell phone with texting ability that could transmit to him alone, so she wouldn't be completely isolated in her cell. Peter was familiar with the process and as uneasy as he felt about continuing to allow Micah to talk with her, since the cyberpath had colluded in her plots, Peter admitted it would be unconscionably cruel to take _everything_ away from her. _She's already lost so much._

He closed her file and stared blindly at the screen, not seeing it. _This is what makes people mean - her life story. It's what makes them bad, vicious and hurtful. Everyone she's depended on has turned on her - even Micah, really. She probably feels he betrayed her too. Probably doesn't believe him that he didn't tell me it was her. She's so … alone._

There was a parallel to Gabriel Gray's youth to be found here - parent(s) murdered or deserted, inability to trust or rely on authority figures, social isolation, restrictive control and a high stress, traumatizing environment. Peter rubbed at his chin. The story of Gabriel's childhood had a lot of gaps in it, but if Molly's wasn't worse, then it was at least in the same category of horribly bad. _If I can find sympathy and empathy for Sylar, after all he's done, then I can for her, too - attempts on Gabe's life notwithstanding._

That was the tough part - battling down his continuing drive to defend and protect his people. Right now he was trying to slowly pull his subconscious around to seeing her as someone he needed to protect and not so much someone who those he loved needed to be protected _from_. His eyes focused on the monitor, watching as the tutor gathered her things to leave. It was easier to put aside his wrath when he looked at Molly as she really was - a girl, a very young woman, trying to find her way in an impossibly difficult world. It was easier to summon his compassion while he looked upon her, than when she was some distant, faceless threat responsible for an exploding car, a sniper and other mayhem.

He rose, closing her file, and slipped it into his satchel. It would be safe there while he went down to talk with her. Peter had made sure to clear his visit with Maury and Micah both. They'd accepted his reasons. Neither were in a position to be there with him; both had wanted to be; Peter had offered to teleport neither. He wanted to talk to her by himself, even if he hadn't really worked out what he needed to say.

His footsteps echoed down the hallway as he walked. Hard, non-porous flooring was easy to clean and terribly sterile. It was not a comforting environment for anyone, much less a child. He'd seen on the screen that Molly had one of the level 2 cells, with a rug and furniture. Quite a few personal items had been brought to her as well, probably by Mohinder. Peter had checked her visitor log.

He knocked and then opened the door, not giving her the opportunity to refuse him. It was rude. It was invasive. He knew that. He also didn't think she'd see him unless he did it. Most of her visitors didn't ask either, but nearly all of them knocked - that was the rule with a level 1 or 2 cell. She was sitting at her desk, looking up at the door as he entered. She didn't make a sound, but she bolted to her feet and retreated the all of five feet that she could. She had the option to hide behind the screen around the bathroom area, but she didn't go that far – not yet.

"I just want to talk," Peter said softly, feeling a horrible twist in his gut that someone's honest, rational first reaction at seeing him was to flee in terror for their life.

Molly looked him up and down, reading a lot out of his posture and expression. "I don't want to talk to you," she said diffidently, aware that he wasn't emoting much in the way of threat, but not very confident that he'd leave if she asked.

Peter looked off to the side. "I … yeah. That's fair." He swallowed. He was going to ignore what she wanted, which didn't do anything to make him feel better about things. _There might be a reason why I feel like such a bastard._ "I should have come to see you earlier, but I was scared. I was ashamed. I still am."

"You're scared … of me?" she interrupted.

Peter laughed a little. "Yeah, yeah, I am. You have the power to make me feel like the lowest form of life on the planet."

She walked forward to her chair, standing behind it. That appealed to her - having power over him - as he'd expected it would. "I do?"

"Yeah, you do. I shouldn't have done what I did to you. I shouldn't have attacked you. I'm sorry for that. I'm so sorry." He stared at a fixed point on the floor, having debated whether to make eye contact or not and deciding to go with 'not'. He stood contritely.

A bitter tone crept into her voice. "If you came here thinking I'd forgive you, you're _stupid_."

His face made a depreciating smile. "I didn't think you'd forgive me - it's never that easy - but that doesn't mean I'm not stupid."

She crossed her arms and eyed him, then pulled her chair out and sat down in it. Several seconds passed in silence before she said uncertainly, "What … what else are you here for?"

He chewed his lip. "I hurt Gabriel last night. I hurt him bad. We're having trouble, but we're going to try to get through it."

Her brows pulled together in successive waves of confusion. "Why are you telling _me_ that? Are you … do you think that's going to make me happy?"

Peter grimaced. "Not … not really. I think you know I'd do anything for him. And … I wanted you to know, that what's wrong with me, what caused me to kill you, it's caused me to turn on _him_, too, and you _know_ that I love him. I didn't … hurt you … because of **you**. I hurt you because there's something wrong with me. I'm going to fix it, one way or another," he said with great finality, raising his eyes to hers.

She stared at him levelly for a while, then blinked slowly and said, "They should get rid of you. You should get rid of _yourself_. You're a danger. Your _ability_ is dangerous. _**You**_ should be locked up, not me."

His brows rose at how much her words echoed Nathan's from years before. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, thinking about Nathan's plan to incarcerate all of them, the taser, the smell of that crap they had to inhale that killed his abilities and scattered his thoughts … Maybe it started with 'the dangerous ones', but at the end of the day, all abilities were dangerous in some way. His own he would deal with, in as final a manner as necessary, but he didn't intend to do anything rash. He mattered to too many people. _If I can find a way for Gabriel, then maybe I can find one for me too._ "I disagree," he said quietly.

She snorted and said sarcastically, "Of course you would. Like you said, you'd do anything for him. If you go, he goes, and you can't have _that_."

"It's not that simple."

"It should be!" she exclaimed shrilly, getting to her feet again.

Peter didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

Molly snapped, "There's only a dozen or so of you in the world. I can find all of them." She pointed at him emphatically. "The Company can take them down. Problem solved!"

"Dozen of … who?"

"People like _you!_ With a lot of abilities."

He blinked. "There's that many?" _How do they manage it? Have some of them found a way to deal with it?_

She rolled her eyes. "They're not as powerful as you and Sylar, but they _could_ be."

"How do you know this?"

_Micah,_ projected from her so clearly he heard it without even trying, but what she said was, "I know things. And I know that you can be taken down and ended, if only people were willing to see."

Peter pursed his lips and looked around the cell._ Okay … so much for lobbying for her to be let out. But … there's got to be a way to help. They can't just keep her here. Well … actually long-term incarceration is part of what the Company exists for, in the rare cases it's needed_. He reached up and stroked his forehead. All of the solutions he could think of – memory erasure, mind control, emotional manipulation – all of them were a basic abridgement of self and integrity. He couldn't endorse any of them, no matter what venom she was spewing. _She's not insane. She's just … damaged, like Gabriel, and just like I can't heal him of everything that's happened to him, I can't heal her._

His contemplative silence was broken by Molly asserting, "Peter, by your own admission, you _**hurt**_ the person you love most. There's something _wrong_ with you. Look at what you've done!" She took a step towards him and he backed up into the door. She looked pleased at his retreat.

"I'm sorry, Molly. I'm really sorry for what I did to you." _She isn't like Gabriel. Gabriel __**wanted **__to change. She doesn't. Not yet, and maybe not ever._

"No, you're _**not**_ sorry!" the girl said viciously. "If you were, then you'd _**do**_ something about it!"

"I will, Molly. I promise." _I gotta get out of here before I lose my temper, and it won't have anything to do with my ability_. Peter passed his badge along the reader next to the door and walked out. _Well … at least I got to apologize. That's something. I don't know if that meant anything to her, but maybe it will._

* * *

Molly stared at the door for a long time, minutes perhaps, before sinking down into her chair. _He hurt … Gabriel? Why? What did Gabriel do to him? __**I**__ didn't do anything to him, to Peter at least, and he still hurt me. Maybe there's something about these abilities that make us hurt people? They've always said it was Sylar's ability making him kill people and not __**him**__._ She pursed her lips and traced a lop-sided circle on the desk using her fingertip.

_Why did Peter even come to see me? He wanted to say he was sorry? He knew I wouldn't forgive him, so why bother? Why does anyone bother with me? They keep telling me that I've been using my ability to hurt people. That's why they say they can't let me out, because I'd hurt people. Have I been hurting anyone who didn't deserve it?_

Frowning, Molly pulled over her journal and read through the few, short entries very carefully, then made an even shorter entry for today.


	327. The Birds and the Bees

_I didn't expect her to find it right away! Maybe she might stumble on it in a few days, yes, but not minutes after I walked in the house with the damn thing!_Gabriel looked over from where he was exchanging his daily hellos with little Noah to see Heidi hefting the flogger, a curious and perplexed look on her face.

"You went through my bag the moment my back was turned?" he snapped, his embarrassment translating into anger.

Put out, she answered with exasperation, "I asked you to pick up toothpaste while you were out. I thought this was it! Why else would you carry a bag into the bedroom instead of dropping it off downstairs?"

_Oh, yeah, she did. And I forgot to get it. _As he recalled, he'd been a bit numb and distant on the phone with her, listening with one ear until she was done and then giving instructions on getting the kids out of the house so he could see her and Emma for the evening.

Speaking of which, Heidi asked with a voice that was fast turning angry, "Is this for me and Emma tonight? Just what the hell do you have in mind?"

Noah squawked indignantly and waved a fist energetically. Heidi glanced at the baby, still in Gabriel's arms, then back up at him, eyes blazing. That expression on her face, the tone of her words, the accusation, the misunderstanding … everything crashed around him. Something turned off inside of him like a switch had been flipped. He went to the bed and sat on it, staring sightlessly at the floor, a puppet with strings cut. He couldn't process. The room was silent for most of a minute, aside from the gurgles and half-formed words of the child he still held, a little ball of warmth and pleasant emotions that only partly penetrated his suddenly fogged consciousness. He felt out-of-body and partly numb for the second time in 24 hours.

"What …" Heidi attempted finally, having dropped the whip to the floor and walking around so she could see Gabriel's face, "what did you have in mind?"

He shook his head slowly and spoke with a dull, expressionless voice. "That was for you and I, later. Alone."

"Okay." She watched him. He watched the floor, not even blinking, barely breathing. There was a continuous buzzing in his head. _I should have remembered the toothpaste. The toothpaste - that was the key. Such a small thing_. Heidi walked over and knelt in front of him, putting herself directly in his line of sight, but he just stared through her. She rested her hands on his knees. She said, "Nathan? Tell me what's wrong."

He tried to make sense of her command. He had no idea what she was asking for. It seemed like some sort of existential interrogatory. '_What's wrong?' What is '_**wrong**_'? As opposed to, 'what is_ right_'? How do any of us really know? She wants me to tell her that? I don't fucking know! _He felt helpless in the face of an unknown far bigger than himself. _No, that's not what she means. Something is wrong. Something is not how it should be. I can't fucking think! What the fuck is wrong with me?_ "I'm overwhelmed," he said blandly.

She rubbed his knees. "I see that. I agree. And I'm thinking that whatever it was that you wanted Emma and I together to talk about must be pretty important and very serious. I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier. I made the wrong assumption." She was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to handle the apparent breakdown. "What were you going to tell us?"

"I was going to tell both of you." Together. At the same time. He couldn't remember why, though. He sounded like a robot, even to himself. That troubled him, but the sense of disturbance was too far under the surface for him to touch it.

"I know. But can you tell me _now_? You can still tell both of us later. I think I need to know, especially if you're shutting down over it."

He focused abruptly, a genuine feeling of irritation and fear passing through him and chasing away some of the numbness. _I want to do things __**my**__ way, not yours!_ He drew in a deeper breath and tried to pull his thoughts together a little more before answering. He dropped one hand from Noah to lay it atop one of hers. She turned hers and held his hand, giving him a squeeze. It seemed to help. "Peter …" _What the hell was I going to say?_ He sighed. _I practiced this even, over and over in my head._

She stood and gave him a kiss on the forehead, leaning in to give him a loose hug with the baby between them. Then she pulled back. "Did he leave you again? Did you leave him?" She was studying his face.

His brows pulled together. _Why would she think that? Well, it did sort of happen just a few months ago._ "No, no. No, not at all." He blinked, feeling the stupor from earlier fading as normal emotions came back to him. "We're … Peter and I … we're good. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

He grimaced and shrugged. "As good as … well, we're good."

"Okay."

He sighed again and gave himself a shake. _That was weird – that whole 'spacing out' thing. Seems to have passed. I should probably go ahead and tell her_. "I …" Some of his rehearsal came back to him. "I want you to know that I love Peter, a lot. He puts up with … a lot from me." He chewed his lip, losing track of the speech only two sentences into it. "We have problems, he and I. Abilities, and problems." _I don't think I'm making much sense._

"Did he kill someone else?" Heidi asked in a hushed tone.

"No, no! He didn't. Everyone's fine." _I hope Carl's fine. I don't think he hurt him, but the memories of that whole evening seem fuzzier than they should be. No, not fuzzier – just strange._ "Um, the problem … he fucked me …"

Heidi blinked at him a few times, then nodded. Gabriel was trying to put together exactly how he had intended to relate the non-consensual portion, while staying true to the facts, when Heidi asked, "So you're the man?"

Gabriel's thought process arrested. "What?"

Heidi looked uncertain and confused. "Well, if _he_ sexed _you_, and that's what's wrong, then I guess you're the man? Because whatever he did, it has to be something unusual or it wouldn't be upsetting you." At his incredulous expression she hastily added, "I- I don't know. I never asked these things! It wasn't my business. I don't know what you do with him!"

He coughed, struggling between laughing and being completely taken aback. "The … man? So Peter's like … a woman?"

"In the relationship. That's what I meant." She nodded, somewhat bolstered by him understanding her and seeming … cheered? "But I'd always kind of thought you were the woman and he was the man, but if he did something strange then it must be the other way around."

"Oh my God," he said, deadpan, completely floored by her complete and total misunderstanding of the sexual side of his relationship with Peter. But she was right, he'd never discussed it with her and she'd never asked. Gabriel and Heidi had talked about all manner of things that were intimate and personal, but he'd never discussed his time with Peter.

"What? Is that not it?" she asked.

"No … no, that's not it. But in any case, honestly I'd sort of forgotten how far into the closet Nathan was. So very proper …"

She frowned at him. "I don't understand."

"Yeah, yeah." He rubbed at his forehead. "Um … wow. I just … Yeah. You don't even … You need to watch more porn." Heidi hadn't even done anal until recently and that was still on the 'fingers' stage anyway. A lifetime of very 'proper' vanilla did not prepare her for the sort of relationship she was in at the moment. He relaxed, letting his shoulders droop as he looked at her with a warm smile. "Heidi, I love you. Every now and then you say things that remind me of how tolerant and accepting you've been with me … and with all of the complications I've brought to your life."

She snorted and pulled up the rocking chair from the corner. She settled in. "Explain it to me, then."

"Explain it? You mean me and Peter?" he squawked.

"Yes. You and Peter. I'm not going to watch porn – that's wrong. So if 'I don't even', then _you _tell me what normally happens between the two of you and then you can tell me what's happened recently that's different."

His brows climbed his forehead and he held his breath for a moment, but she had _that look_ – that determined look that she got sometimes when she wouldn't be put off. "But, um, I don't … maybe he … I …"

"Does Emma know this stuff?"

"Uh …" Gabriel tried to think of what Emma did and didn't know. He knew most of the details of her sex life with Peter, via psychometry, which indicated that she was pretty liberal in the bedroom. She was far more adventurous than Heidi, but as far as that went, Peter was more adventurous with Emma than he was with Gabriel – something Gabe wasn't all that pleased about, but he figured Peter had a right to take it slow when he was dealing with a man who'd killed him more than once in the past. "I … I think she does."

"Then I want to know it, too."

He blew out air. "Oh-kay then. Sure. Um …" _When a man and a man love each other very much … Good God. No wonder Nathan had affairs! Of course, if he'd invested more with her, then he wouldn't have needed to look elsewhere to get his kink off. Okay, where to start …_ "Alright, gay sex. So, uh, we, uh, we …" He pulled in a deep breath and let it out. "Well, okay. There isn't a man and a woman. That's just right out. We're both men. We don't always have anal sex, either."

He paused again, this time stalling by messing with Noah, who was staring avidly at the floor and wriggling to get free. Gabriel slid off the bed and settled to the floor, letting Noah roam free. Gabe pulled up his long legs and crossed them.

"So what do you do, then?" Heidi prompted.

He looked up at her and chewed his upper lip nervously. He flashed her a brief smile, which she returned, but mostly her face was serious. "Well, um," he looked up at the ceiling, thinking about having Peter before him. "Well, we kiss. I like kissing. So does he. We touch each other a lot - on the face, the neck, chest, hands … and, yeah, dicks. Sometimes we jerk each other off. We'll stand facing each other and kiss for a while, then when we get worked up," he swallowed and glanced down at her, but she was still listening intently. He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

Gabriel went on, "So when we get worked up, he'll start masturbating me and I'll do the same for him. Or maybe we'll just sort of hump on each other, or kind of rub together. That's called frottage - to frot is to rub. So we'll frot each other, or maybe he'll take both his hands together and make an o-shape," Gabriel demonstrated, "and we'll …" he paused to laugh nervously.

"This is fascinating. Please continue."

"Um, yeah. So, uh," he made an up and down motion with his joined hands over his groin. "One of us will hold his hands there while we both fuck the hole together. That's … we do that. Or he'll be facing away and I'll stand behind him and give him a reach-around. He might reach back to stroke me too, but it's awkward. The human arm doesn't bend right to do much stroking that way, so all he'd be able to do really is touch." He shrugged, getting a little more relaxed talking about it. "But that doesn't matter so much. It's usually me standing behind him because when _he_ stands behind _me_, he's not tall enough. His eyes are like right at shoulder level if we're both barefoot.

"When I'm behind him, I can bend and kiss him on the neck," his voice softened. Gabriel wasn't looking, but Heidi smiled gently. "Or on the cheek. And he can turn his head and kiss me back. He'll reach up and touch my face …" Gabriel blinked several times. _Getting into it a bit too much there._ He looked over at Heidi apprehensively.

In response to his look, she offered reassuringly, "You really love him."

He looked down and sighed a little, his chest easing to see she wasn't getting upset to hear the affection in his voice. "Yes. But I'd be talking the same way about you if it was him asking."

"Does he ask about … us?"

Gabriel smiled a little more. "No. I've told him a few things that just sort of came up in conversation, but nothing like this." He looked over at Noah, who was clinging to the bottom of the crib, pulling on it like he wanted to pull himself up. Seeing no danger there, he pulled his thoughts together and went on, "So, yeah. And we might do that laying in bed too, face to face, jerking each other off, or one of us will spoon up behind the other. If one person does a reach-around and doesn't get off themselves, then the other might turn and we'll reverse, or maybe move onto some other kind of sex, like oral.

"You know about oral sex. Peter sucks me, or very rarely I'll do him. I have to use a condom when I do him though because I can't … I don't want him to come in my mouth and he doesn't want me to throw up on things." He chuckled a little. "So, uh, condom."

"Really? I never thought of that."

"Yeah, Peter's idea, actually."

"Huh. Would you let me try that with you?"

"Uh …" He wasn't that wild about the reduced sensation, but on the other hand, if it encouraged her to give him head at all … as they said, a disappointing blow job was still a blow job. "Sure. I'll get some and we can experiment."

He collected his thoughts a bit more. "Then there's anal. Usually we do missionary, because … we like to look at each other. We like to kiss. Missionary is best for that, but you can't get very deep if you're bent over him, unless he has his hips cocked way up. We're both pretty flexible. If we're getting to kiss each other while we fuck, a lot of bending becomes worth it. One of us will jerk the other off and that might be the one who's topping or it might be the bottom doing himself, just depends on what else you happen to be doing with your hands.

"We'll also do it where he's lying on the bed and I'm standing. Or where I'm lying on the bed and he's sitting on me - cowgirl. Or like before I mentioned spooning up behind him - we can fuck in that position too, if he lifts his leg and I don't mind going shallow, which is fine. Most of the time I'm the one penetrating - I'm topping. But sometimes Peter tops. It's like 80% me topping and 20% him, or maybe 90/10. I haven't really thought about it or kept track."

"Why does he top?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Dunno. He wants to sometimes. It's kind of like, why do you like certain positions sometimes but not always?"

"Does it mean anything, like he's dominating you or feeling more in charge?"

"Not that I've noticed. If he wakes me up to have sex, then he's going to top because it's the more active role. But … I _will_ say I usually feel a little different, mentally, if I'm getting it than giving but … there's a whole lot of reasons why that might be that don't have anything to do with Peter or … whatever."

"Like what?"

His eyes slid off to the side and then back to her. "Let's … not complicate this. There's things I can't talk about. Let's move on. It doesn't have anything to do with Peter or you or Emma." She nodded cooperatively. "Anyway, sometimes I want to be fucked hard, but most of the time I want to do the fucking. We might fuck hard or slow and that … _that_ usually depends on how we've been feeling lately, whether we're trying to comfort each other or just having fun or releasing tension.

"We've done doggie style a few times." He shifted and looked away, feeling suddenly uncomfortable and not immediately being able to identify why. He stretched out and retrieved Noah, pulling him over closer, touching the baby and getting that familiar sense of serenity. "And, uh, I suppose there's other positions. I don't remember every time we've had sex, but I don't think we've done anything really weird." _Aside from shape-shifting and stuff. That's pretty weird._

"Are there kinks?"

"Like … what?"

"I don't know. Do you tie each other up? Use whips and chains?" She made a hand wave in the direction of the flogger. "I've heard people talk about wax."

"Erm, he's … Peter's let me tie him up twice." _Let Sylar tie him up, but whatever. I got to watch the instant replay_. "I don't think he's ever tied me up, exactly. We used a leash a few times, on me. We've done a little choking, but we've only done that a time or two." _Depending on how you count it._

"Is there poop?"

He blinked at her. "What … what do you mean?"

"After you have anal sex, is there poop?"

_Ah._ "Well … most of the time, no. But when your chances of getting laid might depend on knowing your body's cycle, you get kind of motivated to figure that out. Sometimes there is though and we just clean up and don't mention it. There's tissues next to the bed or we go take a shower."

"Have you considered wet wipes, like we use for the baby?"

He blinked at her again, surprised at the suggestion. "Um … no. But that's a good idea. I think I'll try that."

"Do you have oral sex after anal?"

"Absolutely not," he said firmly. "I don't know what other people do, but I … no. And Peter's never suggested it."

"Do you have oral sex before?"

"Yeah, sometimes." He shrugged. "We have regeneration. Physically we could probably keep popping off every few minutes for hours, but usually once is enough and then we're all happy and snuggly."

She grinned. "You snuggle with him, too?"

He smirked and looked away, blushing a little. "Yes, I snuggle with him, too."

"What about feet?"

"What _about_ feet?"

"Do you obsess over his feet like you do mine?"

"Oh. Um, no. I obsess over his hair."

"His hair?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I have no idea. Just like I have no idea why _your _feet are wonderful, but _his_ … they're fine, they're part of him, but they're no more interesting to me than his elbow."

"Does he obsess over your hair in return?"

"No."

"Does he obsess about anything?"

"Um …" Gabriel thought about that one. "He likes kissing me. He touches me a lot. But no, he doesn't seem to have any particular obsession-sort-of-thing going on. I … think he's pretty normal." _Other than being willing to be with me. And the Nathan thing_. "I'm the weirdo."

"I don't think you're very weird."

He smiled, but gave no response.

Heidi asked, "Do you turn into other men for him?"

"No," he answered immediately. "No. I tried shape-shifting once, turning into a woman, and freaked him out pretty bad. We still did it, but he couldn't deal with it very well and I've never gotten around to seeing … you know, what else we could do."

"Okay." She nodded and thought for a moment. "Does he see anyone else?"

"You mean like Emma?"

"Yeah, but like … anyone else?"

"Do you mean, is he having sex with anyone else?"

"Yes."

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely." _And someone might be finding out what it felt like to regrow his balls if he ran around on me after promising me … wait, did Peter ever promise to be exclusive?_ His brows drew together. _I'm pretty sure he did. For a long time there he wouldn't, but I'm pretty sure that was just because of Emma._

Heidi saw his doubting expression and said, "Maybe?"

"No, I am absolutely sure of who Peter has been with for the last … seven or eight months and he's had no partner other than Emma, myself, his hands and my pillow a couple times." _I was so flattered it was __**my**__ pillow. I am such a pervert_. "I'm positive. Even when we were broke up. Far as I can tell, he never so much as _looked_ at anyone else." _Which is more than I can say for myself - shut up, inappropriate-interest-in-Abbas, or random gorgeous bank tellers. But I might need to ask Peter what exactly he thinks the parameters are, especially with … last night._

Gabriel gave himself a little shake. He was feeling much better, overall, though sitting around thinking positively about sex was bound to cheer him up. "Do you have any other questions?"

She smiled with a very pleased, relaxed expression. "You know, you let me ask about things that …" She shook her head. "This is very educational. Thank you. Okay, well, how often do you do it?"

"Once a day maybe."

"Once a day?" she asked in surprise.

"Yeah," he said, nodding and giving her a self-satisfied smile. "We get it on a lot." He chuckled. The frequency had dipped a bit lately, but a lot had been going on.

She looked torn. "Should we have sex more?"

"If I ever act like I expect a forty-some-odd year old mother of three to keep up with a thirty-some-odd year old man who has doubled regeneration and as of yet, no kids, then you have my permission to shoot me for being an arrogant, entitled, self-centered asshole." He huffed. "We have plenty of sex - you and I. Though I'll admit I love having the outlet with Peter. He's a lot of fun and when we're alone we crawl all over each in what's probably a pretty embarrassing fashion, but given all the other things I could be doing with my time," _like hunting and killing people, _"I think screwing around with Peter is swell." _Certainly keeps me happily distracted_.

"Do you talk dirty to each other?"

"Uh … sometimes, a little. Mostly we just encourage each other. If you mean like, 'oh, Peter, you dirty little slut you …'" He paused to laugh. _I might have to try that sometime! _"No, we've never said stuff like that to each other."

"'You dirty little slut, you'," she repeated with amusement. "That's funny. Now then – what happened that was different?"

His smile froze a little on his face. "Oh, wow," he said slowly, "look at the time!" She looked over at the clock. And yes, it was a few minutes short of when he needed to leave to go pick up Emma from work.

Heidi gave him a tight but indulgent smile. "Okay, I get it. You're all worked up about it and you want to stall, right?"

"Right," he said, picking up Noah and standing.

She rose, too, walking over to take the baby from him. "Fine. But just answer me one more question …"

He tried to think of what the worst thing she might ask would be, but nothing too horrible came to mind. "Okay."

"You're not pregnant, are you?"


	328. Victim Bashing

They sat down at the dining room table. Gabriel was at the head of it with Heidi to his right and Emma to his left. He'd told Peter to stay out of it, which seemed fine with Peter. Peter was the king of denial and all. Missing the explanation would allow him to pretend for just a little bit longer that no one else knew. For the moment, that attitude suited Gabriel's purposes. Something Nathan-like told him that controlling who knew what was important.

"So," Gabriel began, facing Emma so she could see his lips clearly. "I want you both to know that I love Peter a great deal and that hasn't changed. Peter had another problem last night, like he did with Molly, but this time no one's dead." Both women were listening attentively. "Last night, Peter and I went out to a club. It was a gay bar. There was …" He glanced up at the lights, remembering it a bit too clearly and trying to stay focused. "I danced. I flirted with a couple guys. Peter … got really angry."

His carefully planned spiel was derailed almost immediately as Heidi cut in with disbelief, "You were flirting with other guys right in front of him?"

Gabriel looked at her, a bit thrown off and for the moment, unable to see why that mattered. "I … know I shouldn't have, but …" _I thought it was harmless. Fun. Wait, am I getting blamed here?_

Yes, he was. Heidi told him, "I'm not surprised he got really angry. You deserve that." She looked disgusted with him.

He stared at her, his mind arresting, gears locking up and refusing to budge. When they did, all he could think were questions. _I __**deserved**__ that? You don't even know what happened to me and you think I __**deserved**__ it? I didn't do anything wrong … did I? I wasn't going to do anything with those guys. I wasn't! _His brows drew together._ Peter knew that. Didn't he?_ He'd touched them. He'd danced with them. He'd attracted an entire club's attention to him pantomiming sex with them and grinding in their direction, sometimes even brushing against them. He'd pointed at Peter, embarrassed him, called attention to him. He hadn't asked Peter's permission. He hadn't given any warning about what he was going to do. He'd … just acted. He'd acted on what amused him, what he wanted to do, like he was free, or should be free. Like he could do whatever he wanted, when he wanted. _That was okay, wasn't it? Wasn't it?_

Emma cut through the confusion with a simple question: "What happened?"

He glanced at her, then turned on Heidi as all of his repressed anger and uncertainty suddenly and viciously found a target. Rather vindictively, he said it much more bluntly than he'd intended to. "He dragged me out of the club and into the alley, where he raped me against a brick wall."

Heidi blinked rapidly, the judgment falling from her face to be replaced with shock. She and Emma spoke simultaneously, with Heidi saying, "He did _**what?**_" and Emma getting out, "What did you just say?"

He turned to face Emma so she could see his lips more clearly and said, "He got really angry at me and raped me in the alley behind the club." He spoke between clenched teeth, getting more and more incensed at the idea that Heidi thought his flirting meant he _deserved_ what had happened next. It was as if she was saying it wasn't okay for him to do as he wished, that he didn't have any freedom, that it was all an illusion that worked only so long as he played his carefully constructed role. While he knew, in the back of his mind, that was how life was (especially his), at the same time he rebelled against it, wanted to lash out against everyone who had ever tried to shove him into a box or a cage of their own making. He wanted to belong to **himself**, to define himself, not to be defined by others.

Snarling, Gabriel said, "He knew I didn't want it. He did it anyway. He was real clear he was _punishing_ me." He looked back at his wife. Very slowly and angrily he said, "Because he thought that I _**deserved it**_ for the crime of dancing with other guys."

Heidi looked him over and swallowed, unimpressed with his childish defiance. She leaned away from him and said levelly, "You shouldn't have been dancing with other guys."

A sudden desire to kill her flashed through his brain. He felt the lightning start at his temples and shoot down his arms to crackle and buzz between his fingers. He clenched them into fists. Tiny arcs snapped between his hands and the table. His lip curled. Heidi's expression was curiously blank, giving him nothing. An instant later, he felt the emptiness of her ability settle in him as the power vanished from his hands. _I could still hit her. Slap her. Backhand her. She 'deserves' it._ He trembled with rage.

Emma had her hand over her mouth, looking between the two as they regarded each other in a silent battle of wills. Neither was willing to back down. Both were fighting over something altogether different from the issue on the table. Gabriel's rage came from a lifetime of being manipulated and Peter's punitive sexual assault just being the latest torment designed to make him toe someone else's line; Heidi had a long history of being the victim of adultery, lying, deception, and abandonment from Nathan and Gabriel both, and this most recent, guiltless admission that he'd gone out seeking more opportunities to do the same just brought all of that back to the surface. Emma, though, tried to keep them grounded in the now. She interjected, "No one deserves _**that**_. Right, Heidi?"

It got the other woman to break eye contact with Gabriel and look over at her. Heidi thought about it for a long beat and shook her head a little. "No. Not that."

Gabriel wasn't done glaring at Heidi. His fingers twitched slightly. His mind struggled to reconcile the supportive, understanding and tolerant wife he knew her to be with someone who would imply he deserved any imaginable punishment for flirting with others.

Emma addressed him now, her voice that of forced calm. "Gabriel, is Peter still angry with you?"

He exhaled heavily, almost a snort, and tore his eyes from Heidi to look to Emma. Dimly, he was grateful that she was trying to defuse things, even if another part of him was raging and a separate part was deeply wounded. He knew Nathan had cheated on Heidi repeatedly and she'd hated him for it. He knew that he, himself, had deceived her about his identity for nearly a year. He still wanted to take out every bit of anger he had about what had happened the night before on her.

_But I didn't do anything __**wrong!**_It was a mental voice he wanted to label as Nathan's, but that would be self-deception. Gabriel had said that to himself from the earliest days. The only thing that had ever answered it was putting aside the question and killing everyone who got in his way, retreating into Sylar and taking what he wanted, when he wanted it.

"No," he said in response, his voice flat and distracted as he tried to process the turmoil in his own head.

"Okay," Emma said with more actual calm than forced calm. "What do you want us to do?"

His head was buzzing with confusion. _Stick to the plan? Abandon the plan? Change the plan? I don't know what to do._ He remembered luridly, psychotically scribbling over and over in a closet. He remembered drowning himself in liquor day after day, not shaving, barely dressing, most of the time hardly able to connect two sentences coherently and being grateful at his own loss of connection with reality. Life hurt. It just hurt. _Sylar, what do I do? Peter hurt me. Heidi hurt me. Emma doesn't understand. I'm so fucking alone. I can't be the one to fuck all this up though. Not for Emma, or little Noah, or Monty or Simon or anyone! Hell, even Maury and Angela deserve better from me than just flipping out right now and ending everything. Sylar?_

He looked down as his hand extended to Heidi, palm up. She looked at it suspiciously, then sighed and slipped hers into it.

_What the fuck am I doing?_ That was **not** the response he expected from Sylar, if it **was** Sylar.

_You're forgiving her. Now be a man and stop whining like a little kid who didn't get the toy they wanted at Christmas. _

He stared at his hand in confusion for a moment, watching as his thumb rubbed slowly back and forth across the back of Heidi's hand. Her skin was soft and thin, so delicate that it made him feel guilty that just moments ago he'd thought about striking her - it was the skin of his children's mother, the skin of someone who still loved him. _I still have everything - people, friends, loved ones. What Peter did - it was just an accident. I can figure it out. And if I can't, we can figure it out together._

Heidi sighed again and started to speak. Gabriel cut her off. "No. No. I'm too upset to listen right now. About … anything. I needed to tell you and I did. Now I need to calm down. I'm going to go see Peter and … I'm going to find out why he did what he did and how we can keep it from happening again." He looked over at Emma. "To any of us."

Her eyes widened sharply, as if she only then realized this was a problem that might affect her even more directly than it already had. "He …?"

Gabriel swallowed and said roughly, "It's not just me. I have an ability I can use to find out what's setting him off and then we can … all four of us … we can work together to make sure it doesn't happen any more." _Because I'm not losing Peter to the same thing that happened to me._

He gave Heidi's hand a gentle squeeze and walked quietly out of the dining room.

_Thank you, Sylar._


	329. Echoes

Peter was sitting in the middle of the couch, elbows on knees, staring blankly at the phone held in his loosely joined hands. Emma had texted him that Gabriel was on his way over. She and Heidi were talking things over. Peter sort of wished he'd been there, sort of was glad he hadn't been. 'Embarrassed' was not an appropriate term for how he felt. 'Ashamed' came a little closer.

He remembered treating a man who had been driving a delivery truck that hit a bicyclist. The bicyclist was dead on arrival, injuries inconsistent with life. The driver knew it. Peter had not discerned who was at fault for the accident - that wasn't his job - but he recalled the man's shell-shocked face and the look of utter desolation. He kept murmuring, "He was just a kid" about the 19 year old cyclist. Peter understood the emotion, but he also understood he had to get past it and start reconnecting with people. That was the only way to recover. Staying shell-shocked helped no one.

The front door was not locked, but when all the mechanisms made a faint rattle at the same time, he knew who was on the other side. The door opened a second later, this time by hand rather than telekinesis. Gabriel walked in looking impeccable as usual. Peter gave him a wan smile, wondering how things were between them now. Gabriel had had a day to digest. He'd made quite a point about requiring Peter to let him set the tone of things between them. Peter was in complete support of that.

Gabriel walked over, sliding out of his jacket with a long sigh, but not a word. He tossed it on the arm of the couch. Peter rose to his feet, not sure about the lack of dialogue. He decided he would let Gabriel be the first one to speak. Gabriel closed the small distance between them, reached up to put the tip of his index finger under Peter's chin, and turned his head so Gabriel could kiss Peter's cheek. Peter was silent, thinking over what he was supposed to do: Respond normally? Wait for direction? Let himself be handled? He decided to go with waiting as Gabriel pressed a second kiss an inch down, and a third an inch down from that on the edge of his jaw. Peter put his hands on Gabriel's sides, just touching - nothing more.

His lover paused there as if waiting for a response. Peter hooked his fingers into Gabriel's waistband, but did nothing else. Gabriel resumed, nuzzling him briefly, rubbing Peter's cheek with his nose. He paused again. Peter pulled back and looked, but he couldn't figure out what the moments of hesitation were about. Gabriel's emotions weren't a big clue. He felt tired and distant, affectionate but sort of removed.

A moment later Gabe raised his hands, putting one on the outside of Peter's shoulder and the other on the back of his head, turning it so he could bury his nose in the hair over Peter's temple. Peter sighed to feel Gabriel's breath hot against his scalp. It felt wonderful and soothing and was a return to normalcy. Gabriel pulled back for another series of small kisses with another apparently requisite pause. This time he seemed frustrated. The hand at the back of Peter's head gripped his hair tighter for a moment before falling away. Gabriel bent entirely to put his forehead down on Peter's shoulder, a strange gesture he'd never done before. He sagged as if defeated.

Peter winced and shifted his weight, feeling the depression settling over his husband. Obviously, Peter hadn't done what was needed. _What was I supposed to be doing? Damnit! Kiss him back, I guess?_ Given the events of the night before, Peter was just so unsure about touching without permission or invitation. He grimaced and turned to give Gabriel a tentative peck on the cheek in return, not knowing what else to do.

Gabriel stiffened slightly and Peter worried even that had been wrong, but the other man stood straight again and surveyed Peter neutrally - not blankly, but just neutral. There was a tiny bit of hope there, too. He leaned in and gave Peter a single, matching peck, watching him all the while. _Did he just copy me?_ Peter repeated the small kiss; Gabriel repeated giving it back. _He did!_

Peter swallowed and looked between Gabriel's eyes and his chin, tilting forward to give a tiny nip to the taller man's chin. The corner of Gabriel's mouth quirked up and he bent to echo the gesture to Peter, nipping his chin in turn. Peter smiled now, certain of what was going on and realizing this was a game he could play. He kissed the corner of Gabriel's mouth and paused for Gabriel to answer on the corner of Peter's mouth. Gabriel did so and then immediately nuzzled Peter's cheek like he had before, and like before, he paused. This time Peter responded right away by nuzzling him back and then kissing his cheek softly and lingeringly.

"Mmm," Gabriel purred, touching foreheads and rolling his back and forth against Peter. Peter tilted his head and chased Gabriel's nose until he bumped it with his own, hesitating so Gabriel could mirror the gesture back to him. Gabriel stroked Peter's shoulder, smiling and warming, almost beaming. Peter raised his hand to stroke Gabriel's opposite shoulder. Gabriel moved his other hand to cup Peter's cheek. Peter echoed it by cupping Gabriel's cheek.

For many long minutes, they played this game, each duplicating the motions of the other in one caress and gentle touch after another. It felt forced at first, but then Peter felt himself getting into the pattern, letting himself relax, watch and wait. It was a simple and fulfilling expression of bonding. In a strange way, he was re-learning to be responsive rather than shutting away his feelings behind a wall of uncertainty and fear. For a while one led, then the other, as they traded control back and forth along with which one of them was 'leading'.

"Thank you," Gabriel said finally. He ran his hands over Peter's hair and shoulders and Peter cursed himself for tensing again. Strangely, he was very certain it was the words that had caused the return of tension as his mind raced ahead to be apprehensive about what they might talk about now. Gabriel made a faint grumbling noise.

"Can I give you a massage?" Peter offered, putting forward his own method for re-establishing intimacy after a rift. Perhaps discussion was still premature.

Gabriel grinned suddenly. "Yes, Peter. You certainly can."

They retired to the bedroom, where Gabriel stripped down to his briefs matter-of-factly. Peter noticed the momentary, uncertain glance his way before Gabriel resolutely shed that garment as well, then climbed on the bed and laid face-down.

"Face-up is okay if you'd rather."

"No. Had a nightmare that way."

Peter pulled up at the edge of the bed. "A nightmare about a massage?" he asked in alarm.

"No, about sex. Weird sex. And your dick was too long." Gabriel sounded affronted by it even if he had his face mostly buried in the pillow. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay." Peter looked down at his equipment. _My dick was too long? Huh._ He padded out into the living room for the massage oil and returned. _Weird sex that's face to face? But it's not missionary, because we've done that recently and he seemed fine. Unless he took a nap today and had the nightmare then? No, wait, he had that nightmare where I raped him! Oh … yeah. One guess as to why that might be on his mind, Peter._ He felt like a dunce for not getting that right away, but he moved on with the massage.

He slathered on the oil, starting at Gabriel's shoulders and working his way down what was really a superb back. Wishing to avoid any possibility of arousal, Peter recited the various muscle groups and bones in his head as he ran his hands over them. He went gently and smoothly at first, then again and again with pressure, then softly one last time before moving on. He moved down to straddle Gabriel's legs, putting his buttocks next in line for manipulation. Quietly he asked, "Do you want me to skip over any areas?"

Gabriel turned his head to the side and considered, then answered, "I don't want to be fucked, but touch everywhere you want." After a pause, he added, "I'd rather not be teased, either."

Peter re-oiled his hands. "What's that mean?"

"Well," Gabriel swallowed and huffed. "Don't … you know … stroke me. Like, my dick."

"Ah, okay. Got it." Peter put his hands to Gabriel's lower back, gradually working his way down, attentive to Gabriel's emotional shifts while he did it. He worked his way down to his feet and then back up his body, finishing on Gabriel's arms and finally hands. He swung off to the side as Gabriel rolled over and settled himself. Something about the motion caught Peter's eye, like Gabriel was laying himself out for Peter to work on his other side. "You … want me to do your front?"

"Yeah." Gabriel looked at him. "Please?"

"Sure."

His husband's brows drew together for a moment, then he figured out the reason for Peter's reluctance. "Earlier, I just meant I didn't want you to start on my front. I'm okay."

Peter nodded. _Of course you are. That's why I can feel your anxiety spiking right now - because you're totally fine about all of this! Ha. I would have thought you'd have been more upset about me touching you from the rear though than from the front. Maybe he __**is**__ going to just blow this off._ Peter thought about trying to talk it over now. He consciously decided not to, choosing to honor Gabriel's apparent wishes for physical gestures of reconciliation rather than discussion. He carried on with the massage as normal except that he went very, very slowly. He ended with Gabriel's face, still going very slowly, repeating everything several times. The anxiety had faded. Gabriel was breathing deeply and evenly.

Peter was unsurprised when Gabriel pulled Peter against him, rolled them in the covers and promptly fell asleep. Well, the falling asleep part sort of surprised him, but given that neither of them had slept the night before … it didn't surprise him very much.

_And … it's good between us again? No, I don't think so. But it's better. It's getting better. Just let it get better, Peter. Follow his lead on this. We're reconnecting. Both of us are reconnecting._ Peter drew his pillow over, kicked the bottle of massage oil out of bed, and let himself drift off to sleep.


	330. The Impossible Dream

_July 2, early AM hours, 2011_

Peter woke in the night, slipping out of bed to use the bathroom. Upon returning, he saw that Gabriel was awake and pulling himself up to sit with his back to the headboard. The lights flipped on by themselves, so Peter sat on the edge of the bed, facing him. He assumed Gabriel wanted to talk. When he didn't say anything right away, Peter asked, "How did the conversation with Heidi and Emma go today? Or, yesterday I suppose."

"Mm," Gabriel groaned a little and stretched. "Heidi and I discussed me being pregnant."

"What?" The word tumbled out of Peter's mouth. _Did I hear that right? What the hell?_ "Wait, what - who? You?"

"Yeah. Me. It was kind of surprising to me, too. But you and I did have sex as man and woman not too long ago. I suppose, with abilities, it's inevitable."

Peter was blinking at him continuously, like there was something in both eyes. _I am not possibly awake enough for this conversation. I have __**got**__ to be having a nightmare. This can't be real._ "You have got to be shitting me."

"Abilities are pretty weird," Gabriel said with an unbothered shrug. "Me getting pregnant like that - it's something I didn't expect, at all. I thought it was impossible."

"You have _**got**_ to be shitting me," Peter repeated. "God-fucking-damn-it, I used a _**condom!**_" _This is a nightmare. This has got to be a nightmare. He's not even lying! My lie detection would be going off like crazy if this was real life!_ "This can't be happening!" Peter stood up, agitated, and despite his certainty that this wasn't real, his mind insisted on asking him how he planned to reveal this little development to his mother. _But I used a condom …_ He knew full well the failure rate for those things and while, percentage-wise, they were hugely better than nothing, they weren't perfect.

"Oh, come on, Peter. Are you saying you wouldn't want to have a baby with me?" Gabriel's tone was one of mock hurt. "I suppose I could always get an abortion, but that seems kind of immoral for Catholics, don't you think?"

Peter's eyes were flying between Gabriel's face and the man's pronounced lack of female genitalia. _There's no way he's pregnant. Why am I even believing this?_ His mind buzzed with all the unknown manifestations and possibilities that came with abilities. Peter shook his head vigorously, both to clear it and in denial. "No. No. This is a dream." Peter pointed a threatening finger at Gabriel. "This is a _**dream**_, and you're fucking with me." He wanted to be angry, but given recent events it seemed like a bad idea to pull out all the stops on the angry train. Instead Peter just breathed heavily and tried to mentally force Gabriel out of his head. When that didn't work, he tried to force himself to wake up. He strained, but nothing happened. _This is real._ His eyes flew wide and an expression of helplessness spilled across his face. _Oh my God, this is real!_ "It's not a dream?" he whispered.

Gabriel, enormous grin in place, began laughing. He extended his arms as if for Peter to come to him for a hug. Peter was frozen in place, though, staring at him in horror. "Come on, Peter. It's not a dream. I'm not pregnant. And I am fu-, was fucking with you." He waited, arms still extended, until Peter finally shook his head and climbed on the bed to let himself be hugged. "But, oh man, you should have seen your face! That was priceless!"

Peter remembered that odd little ear-flip Gabriel had given him that morning. Something had shifted between them - there was a little more give and take, a little more flex between them. Gabriel was poking fun at him and pushing at the boundaries. Peter smiled slowly, trying to imagine the horrified face he'd been making. His stomach started clenching, and a moment later he was laughing, too.


	331. Simulations, part 1

Gabriel leaned against the headboard, legs crossed. Peter lay on his back before him, his head resting on Gabe's crossed shins and supported by the pillow under his shoulders. Gabriel toyed with Peter's hair while Peter got comfortable.

"This good?" Peter asked once he was settled.

"Yes."

"You know," Peter said, "you don't actually have to touch my head for this power to work."

Gabriel smiled softly. "I know." He continued sorting Peter's hair methodically. He didn't have to touch Peter at all to use telepathy, but the ability didn't have a thing to do with it.

Peter sighed and shut his eyes, leaving Gabriel to his examination of what Peter had done that day, because he knew that was what the man was doing. He had 'that look' on his face. _He's probably looking to see if I had a breakdown today or flipped out._ Peter had been on edge and felt tired, even through the regen (and that was emotional strain rather than physical), but that was it. After Gabriel's little joke about pregnancy, they'd given each other the high and low points of their day before Gabriel had explained a little of his 'plan' for finding out what was triggering Peter.

Peter felt uncommonly soothed by the ritual, feeling his hair mussed and checked over. He smiled a little, imagining Gabriel as an ape looking for lice on some troop-mate. He could still remember when he'd been annoyed by what Gabriel was really doing with his hair, but Peter could now easily see that there would be a future time when he sought out the petting and minute attention. He and Gabriel were building up a collection of ways to comfort each other and deepen their bond. Peter loved Emma, but he wasn't having to go through trauma time after time with her and work out how one of them could lead the other back out of the darkness. Heidi and Gabriel, though, had something of it. They'd had their own rough experiences to work out between them that Peter largely hadn't been part of. All things considered, he thought Emma was probably better off for it.

Several minutes later, Gabriel was ready. He rested his fingertips lightly on Peter's temples and said, "I don't expect this to be comfortable for you. Or for me, really. Please don't try to turn it back on me, or else I'll freak out, too." Peter nodded briefly. Gabriel said, "Safeword is 'red'." Peter nodded again, took another centering breath and let his mind drift, all defenses down.

A moment later he was back in the club, surrounded by the crowd, Gabriel standing next to him, grinning. Peter's mind raced forward, anticipating a complete replay. All the emotions from the night before were instantly dredged to the surface, terrifying him. He grabbed Gabe and yelled, "No!" over the music, shoving the other man towards the door. 'Towards the door' turned into 'towards a wall' and they were suddenly alone. The crowd and the club vanished with such abruptness that his ears hurt from the silence. Gabriel turned his back to the wall and Peter, still reeling from the change in scenery, stumbled into his arms. Gabriel caught him and kissed him immediately. Peter gave in for a moment, then struggled free, looking around. The tension in his chest eased.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked, confused. _How did we get out here? Where did the club go? Did I make it disappear or did he?_

"Calming you down. Come here," Gabriel said matter-of-factly, drawing Peter back into a simple embrace. Peter relaxed in his arms. "This better?"

Peter waited a few beats before answering, "Yeah, of course." It was just the two of them and a brick wall. The rest of the world didn't seem to exist. There was nothing threatening or distracting going on. Peter felt himself calming rapidly, getting back under control. He still felt a little intimidated by the flexibility of the world, though.

"Good." Gabriel stroked up and down his back briskly. "Then let's go walking. I didn't know … I didn't mean to set you off that fast. We'll try something more sedate to start with."

Peter nodded and swallowed, letting Gabriel lead him away from the wall they'd been leaning against. "You really think this is going to work?" He eyed the territory in front of them. It looked like any of hundreds of generic sidewalks he'd walked down. The street, off to his left, seemed poorly defined until he thought about it, and then it quickly became more detailed. _Creepy._

"For what I'm trying to do, yes. All I want to do is find your limits and what's setting you off, as exactly as I can. This is a good environment for it. Everything's fake. Mostly."

_Mostly?_ Peter filed that away for later. "You don't seem very bothered by what happened night before last, at the club." _Behind the club._

Gabriel snorted. "Peter, I've thought it out. If I had the slightest doubt that maybe you'd done that intentionally, then yes, I'd be messed up by it. But if you _had_ done it intentionally, even a little, _**you**_ wouldn't be so messed up by it. Yet you are messed up, so there's my answer."

Peter mulled that over for a few paces. He also noted that Gabriel walked taller here in the landscape created by their joined consciousness. He seemed more confident and comfortable here than he was in real life. That was … intriguing. Peter's eyes swept up and down the man's form. He would have expected, if he'd thought about it at all before, that Gabriel would have been more cautious here, withdrawn, insecure and armored. Peter remembered the less inhibited, more relaxed Gabriel that he'd run into when using dream walking. _Huh_, was all he could think, not sure what to make of it.

Gabriel went on, "You and I have so much going on in our heads that the human brain is only barely evolved to handle. It's no wonder the more complicated abilities get a few wires crossed at times. Now what we've got to do is locate which wires are crossed and avoid using them."

"You're not going to fix it?"

"Do you like your ability?"

Peter was silent for a moment, considering that. He said, "Yeah."

"I like mine, too. So, no, I'm not going to fix it. What's different about you doesn't need to be fixed. It just needs to be managed." Gabriel gestured. "Ah, here's a restaurant. Do you want to go in?"

Peter eyed the place suspiciously, then nodded. He wasn't sure what he was suspicious about, but Gabriel had created the place out of his imagination for a reason. They went inside, were seated, ordered drinks and food, and relaxed. Gabriel stretched and put his arm across the seat back, looking around the place. "Boring, huh?"

Peter followed his gaze to the other patrons. There wasn't anything interesting to see here. "I guess. Should we be talking something out over dinner?" he asked, trying to guess why they were there.

"No. Oh! I see someone I know from work. I'll be right back."

Peter frowned briefly, wondering how Gabriel could get distracted by work in a shared dream, a fictive environment, but he didn't stress about it. He thought about his own dreams. He got distracted by details in them all the time. He supposed this was representative of a wandering thought Gabe had had. His food arrived and soon enough, Gabriel returned.

"So that didn't bother you either?"

"What?"

Gabriel repeated, "That didn't bother you? It's not that I pay attention to other people, or am around other people." He gestured at the restaurant.

Peter smiled slightly, getting it now. _Ah - that's the test. _"No. This doesn't upset me at all."

The manager came by asking how their food was. Gabriel smiled up at her and purred, "I haven't tried the food yet, but something around here is certainly wonderful."

Peter's mouth fell open and he sputtered. "Okay, **that** upsets me." He turned to the manager and barked, "Get lost!" and then turned to Gabriel with a _What the fuck are you doing?_ on his lips. He held it in, barely. The woman rolled her eyes at Peter's response and walked off, swaying. Gabriel leaned out to admire the view and Peter kicked him in outrage. "Hey!"

"Ow!" Gabriel grinned at him. "O-kay. Jealousy. Check. And I note you are immediately moved to being rude _and_ violent - two traits that I would be safe to say are normally out of character for you."

"I've kicked you before," Peter said grudgingly, the sudden anger still simmering inside of him.

"Yes, but you were trying to get me to change the subject, not punish me." He raised his brows and looked piercingly at Peter. "Why did you kick me just now?"

"You … you were looking at her. Right in front of me." Which wasn't too different from the time when he'd kicked Gabriel under the table when they'd been out with Claire, but then Peter had been trying to get Gabriel to move along before Claire noticed and things got really awkward. And he hadn't kicked him as hard.

"Punishment, or guidance?"

Peter scowled and didn't answer because he didn't like the answer. He looked down at his plate and picked at his food sullenly.

Gabriel picked up his fork and ate quietly. When they were done, Gabriel asked, "So if you and I go out to a club and we dance, you and me, do you think you would have any problems?"

Peter exhaled a long breath and put his mind to thinking through that, trying to be aware of his emotions. He'd figured out what Gabriel was doing here. He was setting up one situation after another to nail down which ones were causing the reaction. In telepathy, it was much safer and a more forgiving environment than if they'd been forced to explore it in real life. It had taken him most of the meal, but he'd put aside his anger over Gabriel's ogling at the manager. "No," Peter said quietly, after going through the mental exercise of imagining dancing with Gabriel in a nightclub.

Gabriel leaned forward. "Now imagine Heidi shows up, and I dance with her. Is that okay?"

Peter nodded, eyes mostly shut as he envisioned the pair. What came to mind was Heidi in her wedding dress and 'Nathan' in his suit at the reception of their renewal of vows just a few months before. It was a nice memory. He liked it. There wasn't a shred of jealousy in it.

"Would I be allowed to take a turn with Emma?"

Peter frowned, but he was getting the gist of what Gabriel was doing. Something negative stirred in him at that suggestion. Very slowly he answered, "If you asked my permission … then that's fine. But if I looked up and you two were dancing … that would bother me."

"Ah," Gabriel sighed. "So you can okay it." His eyes darted over to the manager, who was talking to people at a different table. "You see her?"

Peter opened his eyes again and looked, nodding.

"You know she's not real, right?"

Peter nodded again.

"Can you give me permission to go over there and make out with her? Like it's just a fantasy, and you know she's not real?"

Peter looked between her and Gabriel, who wasn't moving or even showing any interest in moving. It seemed theoretical. Peter thought about that. That Gabriel might think about other people didn't bother him. Actually, as Peter thought about it, that was kind of flattering - that Gabriel might fantasize about others but stay with Peter, never straying despite temptation. He shrugged. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess."

"Okay. So if I get up and go over there to her, that's okay with you, right?"

"Yeah," Peter said a little dully. He was unenthusiastic about it, but whatever. The way Gabriel was putting it, it was reminding Peter that none of this was real and that nothing he did here was unfaithful.

Gabriel stood up though and with that action, Peter felt a stir of uncertainty. He fiddled with his drink as Gabriel walked off. Peter didn't watch. Voyeurism had never done it for him. He could hear her giggling and the low tone of Gabriel's voice when he pitched it to be seductive. It made Peter feel irritable and gripey. He tried to focus on how he'd told Gabriel it was okay and how this was really, truly, just a fantasy. It was just Gabriel thinking about someone else, and not even a _real_ someone else.

_Are you okay over there?_ Gabriel's mental voice intruded on his thoughts.

_Yeah, I'm fine. This is just kind of like you jerking off or something. It's not a big deal._

_What if it __**was**__ real?_ Gabriel's mental voice intruded on his thoughts.

_It's not, so stop it_, Peter answered, annoyed by the whole thing, but he did recognize that this was annoyance - not homicidal mania or destructive possessiveness.

_Let's say that you really gave me permission to be with someone else._

_Why would I do that?_

_Because maybe I have a cuckold fantasy and I want you to fuck the shit out of me when I get back. I don't know - the reason is immaterial._

That … actually struck Peter as possible about Gabriel, but more likely the other way around. Peter had noticed how turned on Gabriel got about Peter and Emma having sex, but Peter had confused that with jealousy. Actually, it was more of a kink. He poked at Gabriel's mind, looking for confirmation and suddenly everything ceased to exist. Peter floundered in the absence of everything. A second later, he got his bearings. His head was in Gabriel's lap and he was blinking up at his husband.

"Don't do that," Gabriel said softly, apprehension on his face.

"I'm sorry," Peter said, reaching up slowly to grasp the hands that still touched his temples. He'd transgressed. Gabriel had been very, very clear of his boundaries and Peter had put his toe over them. Or maybe his whole foot. He gave Gabriel's hand a squeeze, staring up at him. Gabe squeezed back, reassuring him that it was okay and he wasn't freaking out over it.

Gabriel cleared his throat and said at a normal, but quiet tone, "But just theoretically, do you think you could give me permission to be with someone, and then handle it?"

Peter's brows pulled together for a while as he struggled to visualize that. It was easier to do and easier to feel his emotions from it while in the mental construct. "I think so."

"So if I found Carl again … and he wanted to dance with me … and I turned to you," Gabriel stroked Peter's cheek, looking down at him very intently, "my sweet husband," he smiled at Peter, "and asked if you would let me … do you think you could do that?"

Peter swallowed and sighed. "If I said yes … and I didn't have to watch … It was, that time," he shifted, tense and unhappy at the memory of the trio dancing. "It was that you were touching him! In ways I didn't want you to touch him. You … you looked interested. You were … Jesus, Gabriel, afterward you were all flushed and beaded with sweat like you'd fucked him!"

Peter started to get up. Gabriel tried to hold him, but without much pressure. Mostly he was just pushing and releasing, trying to suggest strongly that Peter lay down rather than forcibly restrain him. "Easy, Petey. It's okay. Lay down. Think about something else. Daisies, okay?"

Peter stopped trying to sit up. "Daisies?" He wanted to fight Gabriel, but each time he'd shrug off the man's hand, Gabriel would release him. Then annoyingly reach back in to tug him back down again.

"Yes, daisies. Think about daisies."

"Whatever," Peter grumbled and lay back down. It worked, though. Gabriel stroked his forehead. Peter batted his hand away. "Stop that."

Gabriel desisted and murmured, "I'm here all alone with you. I want to be with you. I married you. I love you. I'm with you."

Peter sighed and calmed, reaching up to take the hand he'd knocked away. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It gives me a chance to work out how to turn you off once I've got you going. Soothing touches - not helpful. Reminders of commitment - helpful."

Peter chuckled. "You make it sound so mechanical."

"That's me, figuring out how the gears mesh. So, I've got another scenario, but I think I want back in your head for it." Gabriel touched gently at Peter's temples.

Peter pulled in a deep breath and reached up to put his hands on Gabriel's knees. He breathed out, then repeated. "Okay. Okay. I'm good. Thank you for doing this with me, by the way." Peter looked aside for a moment, then back up at Gabe. "Rather than, you know, just getting pissed at me. Telling me … I need to get over it. Or … that … you wouldn't be with me until I got it under control on my own."

Gabriel's face softened and he moved his fingertips to caress Peter's lips. "Peter - you are reaping what you've sown, here." Peter's brows twitched in concern, because that was phrase usually reserved for very bad things. Gabriel went on to explain, "I have watched you and you have taught me how to respond to when your partner is having a problem like this. You have showed me how to be patient and not to give up on people. You have demonstrated that when someone I love hurts me, it's possible to forgive them." He carded gently through Peter's hair. "And that doesn't mean I'm pathetic. It doesn't mean I'm weak. It just means I love them."


	332. Simulations, part 2

This time when Peter opened his eyes, they were in Mercy Heights, both outfitted in white doctor's coats. "So what now?"

"Well, I'm a doctor." Gabriel pointed at his nametag. "I'm a gynecologist, actually."

Peter snorted at the absurdity of the idea. Neurosurgeon he could buy from Gabriel. Gynecologist? Not so much. They walked into what was supposed to be an examination room. For a moment there was a passing sensation of vertigo as Peter's subconscious sense of realism duked it out with Gabriel's. Gabriel had very little idea what a normal examination room in a hospital looked like. What glimpses Nathan had had were easily outweighed by the far more barbaric and inhumane medical experiences Sylar had received. His only other reference point was Nathan's military background and things he'd seen in war zones, which honestly fell closer to Sylar's knowledge - practical, direct and outdated, with little interest for patient comfort.

Peter, though, knew better and after a momentary glitch, the room settled into what Peter recognized as a more realistic situation. There was now a female nurse, the patient was draped, and the disturbing viewing window and surgical apparatus had gone away. Peter tried not to think about why Gabriel thought a full surgical suite with _viewing window (!) _would be present for a routine gynecological exam.

Peter coughed a little as he put aside that hitch in reality and moved to the patient out of both habit and inclination. He went to her head where she could see him and put his hand on her forearm reassuringly. Gabriel immediately went between her legs, where they were already up on stirrups. Gabriel pulled away the drape without so much as a 'how do you do?'

"This is straining my suspension of disbelief," Peter said to him blandly as the patient and nurse did not object.

"Well …" Gabriel looked down, presumably at the exposed female anatomy.

Peter wasn't at an angle to see. He looked back to the patient and told her, "Ma'am, he's only going to be a moment. He just has to check a few things." He had no idea what this particular scenario had to do with anything, so he played along and hoped it would all make sense eventually.

Gabriel did things. Undefined things. Things that made his patient squirm uncomfortably. Peter felt bad for the imaginary patient and mentally retracted all the times when he'd thought or said that Gabriel would make a fantastic doctor.

"All right," Gabriel said finally. "I think we're done here."

Peter looked over. Gabriel's gloved hands were bloody and a shock ran through Peter's body. _Oh my God!_ "Jesus Christ, Gabriel!" _What did he do to her? Was I supposed to have stopped him?_ Gabriel's face looked completely normal, not batting an eye, like there was nothing unusual whatsoever with having his hands covered in someone else's blood. Certainly he didn't seem to think there was any cause for alarm. _Serial killer,_ ran through Peter's brain. _He's a serial killer. He doesn't understand … oh my God, he doesn't understand …!_

Peter struggled out of the phantasm, nightmare, whatever. _It's all a dream. That's all it is. Just a dream. No one was hurt. _He reached up and put the heels of his hands over his eye sockets as he lay in Gabriel's lap. That was one glimpse into Gabriel's psyche Peter could have done without. The bizarre thing was that what Peter was reacting to seemed completely incidental.

"Did I do it wrong?" Gabriel asked with trepidation. "I did something wrong, didn't I?" Peter could feel the self-blame in that. There was really nothing Gabriel could do about his past. The things he'd done and endured were over and gone, but they'd left a mark - a deep one that came out sometimes in his weird, morbid humor.

"You are not a doctor, and you don't play one on TV," Peter said, shaking his head. A moment later he asked, "What was the point of that?"

"Well, for _that_, we're going to have to go back."

"You are not playing doctor anymore. You _**will**_ give me nightmares, and I have enough of those as it is." Peter tried very hard not to think about why Gabriel's honest opinion of medical services was like … that. _Maybe I need to take him around with me as a paramedic again. Jesus. What kind of twisted impression of medical science does he have? No, no. Don't think about that. Daisies. Think about daisies._

"I won't be a doctor. We'll just watch this time."

Reluctantly, Peter let Gabriel pull his mind back into the hospital. He thought about all those pages and pages of entries in Gabriel's Company file from when he'd been held in Odessa - little notations of surgeries and procedures, clinical and tidy, using a shorthand Peter wasn't familiar with, nor had he investigated. He'd found out what they were in a general sense and moved on, having not really processed what sort of impact that might have made on his lover. _Daisies. Beautiful daisies._

They were back in an examination room, standing off to the side in smocks that showed them to be interns or trainees. A young man wearing a patient gown was bending over the examination table. The convenient part to the rear of the gown revealed his posterior. With a start, Peter realized Emma was the man's … doctor. And she was proceeding to do a prostate exam.

Peter blinked repeatedly, trying to reconcile the stage of her training and residency with this, but after a few seconds he gave it up. Whatever. As long as this, too, didn't turn out to be a horror show, Peter would be okay. Gabriel was showing him this for a reason. He watched. She talked to her patient, did the exam, disposed of her glove and took some notes while she talked to her patient again. The patient covered up, she excused herself, and the scene faded - simple as that. Peter found himself, and Gabriel, in the hospital cafeteria, sitting across from each other at a tiny table, Styrofoam cups of bad coffee between them.

"So," Gabriel said, "that didn't bother you?" He sipped at his drink and gave it a horrified look.

Peter figured his personal and realistic impressions of hospital cafeteria coffee had flavored Gabriel's drink. He understood that look and so didn't bother to try the dishwater in his cup. "The break room coffee is a little better," he offered. "But no. If you're checking to see whether or not I'm touchy about you or Emma doing your jobs - no. That doesn't bother me."

"What if her patient had flirted with her?"

"Then I would have lost it," Peter said simply.

"You're sure?"

Peter shrugged. "Yeah, I think so." Everything else seemed to point to that so strongly that Peter didn't even want to think about her flirting with people she might meet at work. That way lay disaster and he knew it, so he refused to think about it.

"What if she wasn't receptive to it?"

Peter hesitated on that. Obviously, Gabriel was going to make him think about it whether he wanted to or not. Peter frowned and considered trying to tell Gabriel to drop the line of questioning, but Peter had been the one who had flipped out and Gabriel had a legitimate interest in working this out. Peter toyed with his cup of coffee and said, "Like if he flirted, she kept it professional and that was it?"

"Yeah."

He looked off to the side, forcing himself to think that through and consider how it made him feel. _Emma being flirted at … someone other than me thinking she's sexy … and her turning them down. _"No. Not a big deal."

"So the jealousy is me, or Emma, paying attention to someone else-"

"No, showing **interest** in someone else. The _wrong_ sort of interest. Intimate interest."

"Sexual interest."

Peter shrugged, not agreeing or disagreeing with the terminology. Sex didn't have to be involved, just a straying of interest that seemed likely to be acted on.

"Okay," Gabriel said. "Emma or I doing something that makes you concerned we might be or shortly become unfaithful."

"Yeah."

"Hm. Do you care about anyone else's faithfulness?"

Peter blinked a few times. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, let's say that Maury, who seems pretty attached to your mother right now, developed something on the side. Would you care?"

"No." He barely had to think of that.

"You don't care that your mother would be cheated on?"

Peter snorted and laughed. "Um … no." _Hardly the worst thing she has coming to her._ He tried to chastise himself for thinking that way. He knew he should feel sorry for her getting her heart trampled on and he supposed he would, if it really happened, but this was all theoretical anyway. "I'd … care, you know. But not the 'track Maury down and beat his face in' caring."

"Hm. And the unfaithfulness that sets you off can be mitigated with your permission. Which is probably why you haven't been previously triggered off by me being with Heidi."

Peter shrugged. It hadn't even occurred to him that he might need to be upset about that. "No, but the idea of you with Emma certainly set me off," he pointed out.

"Mm, yeah. Do you believe me when I say I'm faithful to you?"

"Yes."

"Completely?"

"Yes."

"Do you mind that I may have entertained lustful thoughts about … other people?"

"Not as long as you're not going to act on them."

"What if I don't know if I'm going to act on them?"

"Don't act on them."

"Hmpf."

Peter moved things along to another subject before this one caused an argument over nuance and what-ifs. "I think we've pinned down jealousy. There's also protectiveness. Or, over-protectiveness."

"Yes." Gabriel stood. "For that, let's go take a walk."

Peter nodded and fell in stride next to him. It didn't take long to leave the hospital and find themselves walking along the street. They came to an alley. In it, two men were scuffling. Gabriel glanced at Peter, raised a brow, and then turned to walk towards the two men. Peter hung back, reminding himself that none of this was real and he didn't necessarily need to be trying to stop the fight. He let Gabriel handle that, as the taller man interposed himself between the two, shoving them both back.

"Hey, cut it out!" Gabriel commanded, but his interference prompted one of the pair to pull a knife and thrust it forward, fast. Gabriel got his forearm up and took the puncture to his arm silently, as he tended to do when fighting in earnest, rather than the slightly more demonstrative that he was when sparring or fooling around with Peter.

Peter jumped forward, but the two men darted away, running down the alley. Peter grabbed at them with telekinesis, tripping the two men up, but Gabriel told him, "Let them go, Peter," while reaching over to put his hand on Peter's wrist.

Scowling, Peter let himself be distracted from the two men, who picked themselves up and skedaddled. Instead, Peter looked at Gabriel's arm. "Are you okay? You can heal that, right?"

"Sure." He lifted his hand from the injury and it sealed itself before Peter's eyes. The blood remained, though. "You don't feel like you need to track them down and kill them?"

"No. They just stabbed you. You're fine."

"Ah. So an immaterial injury doesn't matter?"

Peter re-examined Gabriel's arm, assuring himself again that the wound was gone. "No. I feel fine. A little concerned and upset, you know. You got stabbed - I'm not happy about that - but I'm fine."

"Interesting," Gabriel said as they turned to leave the alley. But blocking the end of it was a nondescript white van. Between them and it was Noah Bennet, dart gun extended. A strange ringing noise burst through the alley, amplified by the natural acoustics. Peter grabbed at his ears, as did Gabriel. Other noises rang out while they were incapacitated by the strange tone. Darts slammed into both of them.

"Get Gabriel. Leave Peter," Noah barked out as the ringing sound dispersed. Both of them were already falling to their knees, paralysis from the darts swiftly overtaking their bodies. Panic surged through Peter, along with a peculiar level of distress. He could barely breathe. He was struggling to find his abilities and tap them. There had to be something he could do …

"Wake up. Wake up, Peter." Gabriel patted him on his cheek, jostling him as Peter managed to finally move and get his eyes open.

He felt hot. The air smelled strange. _Ozone?_ He looked up at Gabriel, calming. _Just a dream. That's all. Just a dream. He staged it. It was his idea. It's okay. He's okay. I'm okay._ Panting, Peter asked, "How do you tell the difference between a reasonable desire to kill someone for hurting a loved one and … an unreasonable desire?"

"Good question," Gabriel admitted. "Maybe that wasn't a good test." He plucked at the scorched sheets. He'd nullified Peter's abilities fast enough that his husband hadn't managed to catch the place on fire, but it had been a near thing. He released the nullification now.

Peter blinked at the damaged linens. "Huh. Um … sorry?"

Gabriel chuckled. "It's nice to know you'll do everything in your power to come to my aid. When you hung back and didn't do much about the guy who stabbed me, I sort of wondered."

"Just a guy with a knife." Peter sat up, rubbing at his shoulders and sitting a little apart. "No danger to you, really. But Noah … obviously a danger. Especially with that sort of situation."

"Too bad that spiraled out of control," Gabriel mused. "I wanted to see if you'd be able to hold a civil conversation with him later."

"Same problem - if someone genuinely hurts you …"

"Okay, fine. I have a different idea. Let me take you under again."

Peter relaxed, centered himself, and let it happen. They were standing in the hallway of Mercy Heights. Peter felt some apprehension about the location, hoping this wouldn't draw on Gabriel's apparently twisted ideas of medicine. He was quickly distracted, though, by Emma arguing with another resident. Peter didn't catch what they were arguing about before the man she was having the confrontation with slapped her. Peter lunged forward preternaturally fast, grabbed the guy and slammed him against the wall. A moment later Emma's attacker had his throat crushed and neck broken.

"Hm. Well, I'm so glad this is all mental," Gabriel said dryly. Emma gaped at Peter and a code alert for security went out over the loudspeaker. Gabriel said, "That seemed like a little bit of an overreaction. What would you say?"

Peter ignored him, going to Emma and touching her face. He healed her, making the red welt vanish. "I love you," he mouthed to her. He glanced up at the security walking down the hall towards them - three large, beefy guys accompanied by Nurse Hammer. Peter took Emma's hand and teleported.

"_**No!**_ Peter!" Gabriel stared at the empty space in the hallway for a moment before it all faded away. He was left sitting alone in an empty bed. "Peter?"


	333. Realism

_July 2, 2011, 5 am_

Peter sat on the couch in the apartment he shared with Emma. Or rather, that's where it appeared he was. He wasn't sure, actually, if he'd teleported anywhere at all. It seemed possible that he only thought he'd used his ability, just like Emma hadn't really been there for him to use healing on. He was trapped in his own nightmare, or maybe it was just a dream. Peter had a good idea of how to get out. All the training and practice with Gabriel on how to resist his father, or Maury Parkman, meant he wasn't too worried about being stuck here. At the same time, he wasn't in a big hurry to leave. He had some things to think about.

But first he toyed with his surroundings, making them lavish or Spartan at his passing whim. He wondered if he could overlay this altered awareness with real life, going along seeing things as more beautiful and lovely than they really were. Would it be moral to do that? Healthy? To be lost in a fantasy life … Or he could just stay here, he mused, if all he wanted was a fantasy. He wouldn't hurt anyone here. The world might be safer without him. Gabriel had become so much stronger than he used to be, so maybe he could cope alone. He had Heidi. He'd take care of Emma, too, because he was generous and good, which was such a startling turnaround from how he used to be … from how Peter had thought Sylar _**was**_.

Peter sighed. To just be lost somewhere, no memories, no past, no future, no obligations … on a certain level, it was very attractive to him. He'd tried it before, unintentionally of course. To say it hadn't worked would be an understatement. Reality was relentless in making its needs known unless you were actually dead. Nathan had tried to check out that way, more than once. Peter wondered if the desire for suicide, blotting out the world, was genetic or just something endemic to their circumstances. He tended to think the latter, because Gabriel had admitted to buckling under the strain several times himself, even before he had any claim to being a Petrelli.

Life was not easy. It was unfathomably complicated. As much as he might need the occasional break, as much as Peter found it difficult to admit he _needed_ the occasional break, he was not done with it yet. There were still people who needed him. He thought about Gabriel. He thought about Emma. He thought about his mother and Claire, Simon and Monty and little Noah, the people he worked with, the people he worked for. He smiled a little. Peter Petrelli so badly wanted to matter in the world, to make a difference, to be his own person. He was, finally in his life, carving out a niche for himself rather than being put where someone else's plans had placed him.

He looked around the fake reality and stood up. A part of him still didn't want to leave. He wanted to hide where he could never hurt anyone again; where he wouldn't kill little girls or rape his husband or have insanely violent responses to imagining Emma getting slapped. Peter shut his eyes and sighed. He knew he was a good person, or at least a decent one. He knew he had a place he should be that wasn't here. He had people who would miss him, who wanted him, who needed him. He had to let go of the idea that he could run away from his problems. He had to stop the denial. He had to accept what he'd become and deal with it.

He opened his eyes and this time the apartment was real.

A moment later his phone buzzed like it usually did when someone had left him a voicemail. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked. _Gabriel._ He didn't bother listening to the message. He just dialed.

Gabriel answered immediately. "Peter?" He sounded alarmed.

Peter said calmly, "Yeah, it's me. Everything okay?"

There was a slight pause, then with an unaffected cool so remarkably different from his previous worried tone that Peter nearly laughed, Gabriel said, "Sure. Everything's fine. I'd appreciate it if you could come back. You're my ride over to Heidi's and I'm sure she's going to want to make an early start of it to the beach house."

Peter ran his hand over his face, blinking. _God, life really just does not stop going, does it?_ "That's … today, yeah. I forgot … Yeah."

"You've had plenty to distract you, Peter. And honestly, I think a distraction from what's been distracting you lately would be good for both of us. Let's just go have a weekend with family, not worry about anything else and … just get over it."

This time Peter did force a laugh. "Okay. Let me go check on Emma first, while I'm here."

"Where are you?" Gabriel asked as Peter was already walking into the bedroom of the apartment he shared with Emma.

"I'm …" The bed was empty and still made from that morning. Uncertainty threatened to become fear until Gabriel spoke next.

"Emma stayed at my place last night in the guest room."

'_My' place?_ A part of Peter's mind noted, picking up that Nathan and Heidi's place had become 'my place' for Gabriel. It used to be 'Heidi's place' whenever Gabriel spoke of it. Even earlier in this same conversation it had been 'Heidi's', but Peter still felt warmed by that small, so-far one-time transition. He let out the breath he'd held since seeing the unoccupied bed. "Okay. Yeah, I'm at my apartment." His brain moved along to something else: "How do you know where Emma stayed?"

"You weren't the first person I called, seeing as how it seemed unlikely that you would be in a condition to answer your phone. Which is why I know people over there are awake now and probably won't go back to sleep."

Peter frowned and sagged a little in guilt. _Okay. I get it. Because of me, everyone was woke up. I guess this is how Gabriel felt after we all started studying DID._ He recalled how he'd tried to tell Gabriel it was okay and that no one minded - they all wanted to help him because they were all in this together. He supposed the same mentality applied to himself now. It had been so much more pat and easily said when it was Peter saying those lines to Gabriel. _Just … damnit, just go along with it. Besides, they're awake already no matter what. Deal with it._ "I'll be right there."

Before them lay the July 4th weekend. The family had plans that had been in the works for weeks. They were to retire to the beach house and stay there until returning on the 5th, grilling, eating out, playing in the sun and the sea, playing board games and card games, watching movies and hanging out. They would be joined by Claire and Gretchen for most of it, Angela and Maury for part. Emma would be free the morning of the 2nd and all of the 3rd, but none of the 4th. And despite, or because of, recent events, Peter was inclined to agree with Gabriel that a family holiday was a good idea.

Peter gave one last look around the apartment, thinking about and dismissing the lure of escapism through the dream-state. Life wasn't about to stop. Safe or not, neither was he.


	334. A Different Kind of Renegade

**Title: **A Different Kind of Renegade**  
************Notes: **Random product placement. Written for heroes_contest Drabble Challenge #29: Renegade.**************  
****Setting:** Shattered Salvation, July 2, 2011**************  
****Summary:** Gabriel and Peter enjoy a day at the beach. Okay … well … at least Gabriel does.

* * *

Gabriel floored the gas pedal, feeling the well-calibrated machine surge forward in response, kicking up a spume of sand behind them as the engine roared. Peter, in the passenger seat next to him, paled and clutched the grip on the door in one hand and the edge of his seat with the other. They were bouncing over the dunes outside the Petrelli beach house, putting the new Jeep Renegade (Nissans were _**so**_ last season) through its paces. Gabriel had no intentions of telling Peter how he'd managed to get hold of a concept car. Even if it wasn't cutting edge this year, it still made for a killer dune buggy. He almost wanted to drive slower so Peter could keep trying to pry the information out of him - almost.

They veered around a clump of salt marsh grass, tires spinning and leaving a rooster tail behind him as they cut a donut, circling at least a dozen times before coming to a sudden, lurching stop. Peter made a tense grunt and Gabriel was thrilled - that was Peter's 'I'm really unhappy about this but I'm not going to complain about it' noise. He cut the tires back straight and they shot off towards the surf, swerving away from the water at the last possible moment. Peter made that wonderful sound again and Gabriel grinned maniacally in response.

It was odd how much more exhilarating it was to perform all these maneuvers in a vehicle rather than flying under their own power. Maybe it was because they were experiencing the g-forces so much more directly this way. _Oh well_, Gabriel thought. _No reason why I can't use abilities to kick it up a notch._ Once upon a time, he'd used telekinesis to flip an entire swat van. Manipulating the Renegade would be easy peasy by comparison. He glanced over at Peter's nauseous visage. _I wonder if I could actually make him sick, since he regenerates and all._ Flashing a wide grin that was all teeth, Gabriel took aim on the nearest dune and set to find out.


	335. Grilling

_July 2, 2011, 6 pm_

"Do you," Peter hesitated, choosing his words as Gabriel looked over at him from where he was leaning against the porch railing. "Do you ever want to talk?" He knew he wasn't saying it right.

"Hm," Gabriel looked off through the windows of the beach house, watching the activity inside. "About what?" His tone was neutral enough, but he was drawing conclusions - correct ones - about Peter's lack of specificity.

Peter looked back to the burgers he was tending. "About anything that's happened to you. Everything, I guess." He poked at the searing meat with the spatula, finding this whole burger business a bit barbaric. Heidi had been the one to volunteer him for the duty, which Peter was certain was meant to be punitive in some way. Not that he didn't think he deserved some punishment - a hell of a lot more than he'd gotten so far, for sure.

"You mean something recent?" Gabriel said, still looking off into the house, apparently watching some interaction between people. Maury and Angela were inside, along with Heidi and baby Noah, Claire and Gretchen. Emma was back at work. The boys were outside - Peter could see them throwing sand clods at each other down at the waterline.

"No. I just meant … ever." He huffed, flipping the rather nauseating congealed masses of ground animal tissue that his omnivorous companions were going to be consuming soon. Being a paramedic had only reinforced his vegetarianism. He turned the vegetable skewers that were sitting off to the side. They were so much easier to manage. He suspected he wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing for the burgers. He frowned at them.

"You might want to put some steak sauce on those," Gabriel suggested.

Peter obeyed, of two minds as to how he wanted the meat to turn out. If they were charred, badly done and inedible, then maybe people would see that they shouldn't be eating this stuff. Or at least they wouldn't ask the non-carnivore to cook the burgers again. But if he failed, then it looked like spite and incompetence. It bothered him that his desire to protect his reputation was more important than his (other) principles. He brushed the sauce on the patties anyway. He had to admit - it smelled kind of good. No, definitely good. He looked over at Gabriel, having noticed the complete lack of answer as to whether Gabriel wanted to talk. Rita had said he might want to open up, which was why Peter was trying to create an opportunity.

Gabriel met his eyes for a moment before turning to look in the direction of Simon and Monty, who had fallen mysteriously silent. The two boys had found something in the sand to examine, and were crouched over it - nothing to worry about. He looked back to Peter. "Not really. Not with you."

Peter blinked, a flash of hurt on his face before he looked down again at the food. He was silent, processing that and trying not to take it personally. He and Gabriel had such a convoluted history together. Full disclosure just might not be in the cards.

"I will if I have to," Gabriel offered, and Peter knew that was an offer - a legitimate offer, one Gabriel would carry through with if Peter asked for it. Just like the one night when he'd promised to answer whatever questions Peter posed. Gabriel had a weird sense of honor that way. It wasn't emotional blackmail or passive aggression. He was serious.

"You don't have to," Peter said quietly. He didn't feel he'd transgressed, though. He felt he was getting to a place with Gabe that they could say things that might otherwise be emotionally laden without the two of them reacting poorly. "I wanted you to know that you could, though. If you wanted to."

"Hm." Gabriel straightened and stepped over next to Peter, stroking his forearm as he looked at the burgers. Softly he said, "I'd kiss you and tell you it's all okay, but we're in public."

"Is it?" Peter asked. "All okay? Between us? Even after … the club?"

"Yes." Gabriel moved back to the railing, eyes going over the people inside again. He breathed out deeply. "If it eases your mind, I talk to Heidi. And … sometimes I talk to Rita." He looked up at the porch ceiling. "I've found myself doing test runs with her - talking things out with her that I can't really talk about anywhere else yet. Thank you for encouraging me to go to someone, for finding her." He smiled slightly. "It's probably not a benefit for her."

_He talks to Heidi, but not me. Well … it's probably that history thing. Or something else._ Peter tried to shrug it off. It wasn't jealousy he was feeling, but inadequacy. "Are these done?" He poked at the patties.

"The burgers?"

"Yeah."

Gabriel inhaled sharply and considered, not bothering to look over at them. "Yes. Medium rare." He turned to look at where the boys were. "Simon! Monty! Come inside! Time to wash up for dinner." In a normal tone meant for Peter's ears, he said, "I should have called them in earlier."

Peter started removing the burgers to the platter. "Didn't Maury say he wanted his 'cooked to death'?" Peter left one on top of the fire and moved the vegetable skewers over to their own plate.

"Yep." Gabriel took the platter, pausing to give Peter's forearm another stroke. He leaned in and purred, "I love you."

Peter smiled suddenly and blushed hard. He felt it from head to toe - that 'I love you' - and he was thrilled that those three words still moved him so strongly. It gave him a shiver. Gabriel's answering grin and suddenly puffed out chest let Peter know the reaction was entirely noticed and very much appreciated. Peter chuckled and Gabriel, with a little bit of exaggerated swagger, carried the platter inside so people could get things ready.


	336. Your Attention Please

Heidi slid into bed with her husband, who was, at that moment, reading some news story on his iPad or whatever it was the Company was issuing these days. After dinner, he'd gotten into an argument with Maury about exactly how many times one of the important political figures of the day had been accused of misconduct. Heidi hadn't listened too closely; she'd been much more interested in listening to Gretchen talk about her indecision over her major in college. It had been an engaging, busy evening and she was still wound up from it.

She rolled onto her side, scooting closer to Nathan, sending her hand over his chest to unbutton his shirt. The electronic device disappeared with gratifying speed, hustled off to the nightstand. "Mm," she purred, pleased at how quickly he shifted his attention to her. Even if he was just lying still, as he was now, she knew she commanded his mindfulness.

"Mm?" he asked as an obvious inquiry, gauging what she was up to.

"Change for me," she said, and after a moment of hesitation, he did: taller, leaner, but more importantly to her at the moment, hairier. She smiled and pushed the shirt aside, running her fingers back and forth through the curly hair now gracing the top of his chest. "I like this," she said, pinching her fingers together to trap the hairs, pulling up on them slightly.

"Heh," he said, a noise that preceded a broad grin.

"Mm?" it was now her turn to ask, making the same 'penny for your thoughts' sound he'd used.

Nathan chuckled. "I used to be … kind of embarrassed about the way I looked - weird hair everywhere - thought I needed to wax or something to be attractive. I thought you preferred me looking like Nathan." That last wasn't quite a question, but she recognized a request for reassurance when she heard it.

"Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. You know that," she said, scratching at his chest and refusing to be pinned down. "_**You**_ are attractive no matter what you look like," she added, granting what he was fishing for. He gave a small, gratified sound and a little wriggle. She grinned. _Most_ of the time, she did like him looking like Nathan. Most of the time in bed, especially. But she liked different things at different moments and she'd been absolutely thrilled to discover she had a husband who could indulge her curiosity and her whims. She sidled a little closer and raised her leg over his, sliding her knee up his pajama-clad thighs until it nudged at the slight bulge of his groin. She nudged it again. That bulge wouldn't stay 'slight' for long.

She leaned in to kiss his jaw, crawling up over his shoulder while he slipped his nearer arm under and behind her waist, fingers trailing up and down her back. "Oh, I love you," she purred and he smiled, turning to find her lips with his own. She slid over him, straddling him as he scooted a little during the movement to put them closer to the middle of the bed. They kissed with delicious leisure, mouths moving against one another. Her hands on either side of his head supported her. His were unfastening the front of her pajama top, then easing inside to fondle her breasts.

She made an inarticulate, but very interested noise as he lightly pinched one nipple, then the other. Her hips ground against his, feeling his hardness between them. For a while, they played, slowly building momentum until she was impatiently slithering off him to rid herself of the thin pants of her sleepwear. He did the same, ready for her as she climbed back on. She teased herself by taking only an inch or two inside of her and he obliged by holding his thrusts to shallow prods.

"I love you, Heidi," he murmured, nuzzling at her throat and nipping. "I love you so much."

"God, you are so sexy," she answered, throwing back her head to expose herself even more to his roaming mouth and skilled hands. "You are so patient. And you have such good timing." That made him chuckle again. It took him doing that to remind her of his previous occupation. She laughed, too, then, arching her back to present her breasts to him. Gracefully, he cupped one and brought it to his mouth while his other hand went to the small of her back, pressing down as he maneuvered himself carefully so as not to fall out.

He growled as he suckled and she could feel the edges of his teeth, the sensation sending sparks shooting through her, making her tighten and moan. She wanted more. Whimpering, she finally pulled back, sinking down on his member and at last taking him fully inside of her. He lay back, both of his hands teasing at her nipples as he adopted easy, regular thrusts. A moment later, she felt the unseen manipulations of his telekinesis tantalizing her ass. It slid across her cheeks like a caress and then firmed to knead at her muscles before finally pushing so fabulously at her anus.

Her moans turned to cries for a moment, stifled a second later as she bit her lip and tried to remember Noah in the crib, much less the other occupants of the beach house, which was not nearly so soundproof as their own home. Nathan pinched harder, thrusted faster and began to ease her open with telekinetic prods and nudges, stimulating her so thoroughly that she was fast becoming senseless, awash with energy. She shifted her weight, sending down one hand to find her clitoris as the glowing ecstasy inside of her flashed to brilliance. She came.

Her body shook and she took her hand away, eyelids fluttering, breath coming fast between parted, swollen lips. Nathan's hands went from her breasts to her hips as he released the telekinesis. "May I, Madam?" he asked sweetly. Heidi grinned indulgently, satiated, and nodded tiredly. She sat up, changing the angle as he started pounding her harder, his expression no longer one of careful concentration on her pleasure.

All of the pressures of the day faded into obscurity as he took her. She hoped he found the same peace in it that she did. She wondered if he thought of Peter or someone else or perhaps no one at all while he did her. She couldn't claim to have been focused much on him during most of their love-making, thinking of herself and everything she was feeling more than about anyone in particular. She spread her legs a little further, letting him bury himself as deeply as possible, watching as his face relaxed and flushed, as his mouth fell open. He stared up at the ceiling at his moment of release, letting the whole world fall away for that moment of rapture.

She smiled a small smile to herself, because she knew that no matter who he fantasized about, she'd been the instrument of bliss for him. It was her he cleaved to; her he obeyed; her he answered and favored and pleased. That was what mattered.


	337. Gretch and Claire

"And I thought _we_ were pretty racy," Gretchen said as she climbed into bed. She and Claire were sharing a bed – very unusual for them – because of the limited accommodations at the Petrelli beach house.

"What do you mean?" Claire asked, slipping into her nightgown.

"Your uncle and … his _brother_?" Gretchen said, voice rising suggestively at the mention of Nathan.

Claire made a subdued groan and rolled her eyes. "He's not _really_ his brother." She'd explained that. Why did she need to keep explaining it?

Energetically, Gretchen rolled in place and propped herself up on her elbow. "I know! But he's _pretending_ to be! That makes it even naughtier!" She grinned at the ridiculous sexual dynamics of Claire's 'family'. Claire, for her part, buried her face in her pillow. Gretchen laid out her case. "He's _choosing _to be that way. You know, it's one thing if they were brothers and getting it on - that would be nasty, I agree - but it wouldn't be as naughty. It's the whole 'nasty versus naughty' situation. If they were really brothers, I'd be saying 'ew!', but since they're not … that's really hot."

Claire groaned and hit the pillow next to her head with her fist. She lifted her head and flopped over on her back, sighing dramatically. "Gretchen, you do know that craziness runs in my family? Every single person that I am blood-related to is crazy. Completely. Even Peter. You know that, right?"

Gretchen smiled serenely at Claire, letting the air leave her lungs in a long, yearning exhale. "I know," she said simply.

Claire turned sharply to look at her, seeing Gretchen giving her the doe-eyed 'I am so in love with you that nothing else matters' look. Claire smiled and blushed, looking away shyly. The attention was embarrassing for how earnest and sincere it was. It made her feel guilty for all the difficulties she brought into Gretch's life. "You need to know," Claire said determinedly, "I'm not normal."

Gretchen merely smiled, brushing back some of her long, straight hair. There were some things that Claire repeated over and over to her that confused Gretchen. Not that the subject confused her - it made perfect sense. But why did Claire keep repeating it? Gretchen shrugged it off. "That's okay. I'm crazy, too," she said, snuggling into her pillow while still staring at her lover. "Crazy in love with you."

Claire laughed now, yanking her pillow out from behind her head and whapping Gretchen playfully with it.

"Ah!" Gretchen cried, sitting up. "Partner abuse! Domestic violence! Woo-hoo!" She grabbed her pillow and hit back with it, trading blows until they ended up in each other's arms, as always.

Afterward, they cuddled together. Claire murmured, "I kind of like this one-bed-thing."

Gretchen shrugged one shoulder. "I think you'd get tired of it after I kicked you for the umpteenth time."

"Mm," Claire hummed in agreement. It wasn't like the kicking hurt, but it sure kept her from sleeping peacefully.

"So what do you think of them, anyway? Your …" He wasn't her father - Claire was quite clear on that - and Gretchen wasn't even sure if she should call him Nathan (as he'd been called all day) or Gabriel (which Claire said was his real name) or Sylar (which was what Claire usually called him, but not to his face). "Um, uncle and all of that?"

Claire tensed a little, because her fantasies about the situation between Sylar and Peter were something she'd never discussed with Gretch and never wanted to. "What do I think about what?"

"Well," Gretchen said with a short, forced exhale, "Do you think they can make that work? It seems awful complicated."

Claire thought about it. She thought about her own family, torn apart by lies and stress, but ultimately by not being part of one another's lives. When she'd come to that realization, she'd finally given up on trying to exclude Gretchen from the dangerous, Company-oriented parts of her own life. If she wanted to keep Gretchen in her life, then she had to keep her in her life! She couldn't pick and choose which parts Gretchen had access to. She had to share herself or not. It wasn't a matter of prioritization or having Gretchen work with her, but she had to let Gretchen in on the important things going on in her life … if she wanted Gretchen to be one of those important things.

She thought about the relationship she'd seen between Peter and Gabriel, Heidi and Emma. She'd listened to what was said and not said and it had been clear to Claire that they were not hiding things from one another. The guys seemed a little touchy about the other guy being with the first guy's wife, but from what Peter had told her at the wedding, that wasn't part of the relationship. But still - they talked. They did things together. They seemed to trust each other. They laughed together and Claire didn't know of any big secrets being kept. She'd made sure that Sylar's past was known (which had earned her a death glare from Peter and a cold shoulder from Heidi the rest of the evening), so there wasn't even that.

Finally she said, "Yeah. I think they might. It might be complicated, but they seem to have all the simple stuff down."


	338. A Variation of the Socratic Method

Angela filled a second glass of wine, having caught sight of Maury outside. It was a warm night, and clear. She pushed the door open, walking outside into the warm, sweetish scent of cigar smoke. "Hello there," she greeted him, handing off the extra glass and settling herself in a lounge chair next to his.

"Hi there, Angel. Couldn't sleep?"

"No."

"Dreams?"

"No." Which wasn't entirely true, but it was nothing immediate or relevant. She didn't see a point in sharing her information until it made a little more sense. Maury respected her judgment; if he knew she was lying, he didn't challenge it. He just drew a slow puff on his cigar, reddening the end of it. "And yourself?" she asked.

"Mm. Not dreams, just thoughts."

She knew he was less able than usual to screen out the minds of others when he slept. A house with five adults other than himself and three children must have been like trying to sleep in a movie theatre. She said, "When I was younger, I used to schedule my visits to the Company facilities to coincide with Rene's presence." She gave a tired, thin smile. "I would catch naps in the room with him."

"You and that black bastard, eh?" he asked, leering at her knowingly.

"He was a teenager, Maury," she answered with the slightest reproach.

"Are you telling me you're above robbing the cradle? Say it ain't so!"

She laughed and sipped her wine. "Well, if you must see it like that, then know that he brought me a great deal of peace and happiness. Such lovely, dreamless slumber."

"Yeah? You ought to try sleeping with Heidi then."

"I fear she would smother me in my sleep."

Now he chuckled. "That she might, dear. That she might." He took a small sip of the wine, moving his mouth a few times to taste it, acting like it was disagreeable. Of course, he followed it with a larger drink. "You know, Peter has the same ability. I'm sure you could arrange something with him."

She scoffed. "I do not believe he has any interest in bringing me 'peace' or 'happiness'."

"You don't think so?" Maury inquired, glancing over at her in the dark, trying to be surreptitious about the visual checkup.

"I know my son. He's not the same man he used to be. That is largely my doing and he knows it. It was years back when I knew they would never forgive me. Many years." That had been such a bitter dream, coming on the heels of poisoning Arthur - her ability showed her that she'd poisoned the hearts of both her sons. If there was an antidote, she had not yet found it. "He's changed so much."

Maury grunted and looked out at the distant ocean. He toyed with his cigar. "He's having some issues adjusting to those changes."

The air between them was quiet and still. She knew Maury wouldn't mention that, in that tone of voice, unless it was important. She thought back over the last few days. Peter was not proud of himself as he usually was; Gabriel was over-sensitive; and Heidi and Emma were both covering for them. She'd noticed, but the tension could have been coming from anywhere - Emma's new schedule, a spat based on something trivial or grand, disagreement on how to parent the children, arguments over next month's wedding. She hadn't known, but she was definitely curious. "The sort of issues that keep you up at night?" she hazarded.

"It's certainly been on my mind," he murmured.

"Who else's mind has it been on?"

"Emma's."

"Hm." It could hardly have been anyone else. She supposed Claire was an outside chance, but Angela stayed well abreast of her granddaughter's associations. Claire didn't see Peter much, Gabriel even less, which comforted Angela. _So Peter is having issues again with his ability. _Her face twisted like she'd sucked on a lemon. It was hardly the first time he'd struggled - exploding and burning Nathan; time traveling and then trying to cut into her skull; losing his abilities and becoming, if not suicidal, then at least unbalanced; regaining his core ability and immediately falling in love with Gabriel; and she assumed whatever trouble he was having now was a consequence of switching to Arthur's manifestation of draining.

She sipped her wine, considering Arthur's personality shifts through the years. He had never had Peter's empathetic ability. He'd never been anything but the driven, ambitious, jealous man that he still was. It had so much to do with his role in the Company, constantly pushing for leadership, for control, for obedience. It was so vital to him that his favorite son's life was forfeit when Nathan put himself at odds with Arthur's plans for him. Defiance … deviance … was not allowed. She'd always wondered why her own infidelities had been tolerated. Arthur had been no happier about it than the stereotypical cuckolded man, but it hadn't incited him like certain other things did. Although, now that she thought about it, her dalliances had never threatened Arthur's plans.

Arthur always had a goal in mind. Those who thwarted that goal were met with irrational overreaction on his part. "What is Peter's goal, I wonder?" she speculated aloud.

"Hmp," Maury grunted. "That's a good one." He puffed for a bit, pondering it, as they looked out at the ocean. "I don't think he's changed as much as you think. He's still the same passive-aggressive, demonstrative little brat hanging on your apron-strings, waiting for the world to take notice of him properly."

She raised a brow at Maury. He had a tendency to paint everyone with the worst possible brush. And to be damnably accurate while he did it, so she didn't dismiss what he said out of hand. Another silence settled between them as she considered his words. _Peter has not changed. His goal is the same as when he was a child. Would that be attention? Waiting for attention. Is that the same thing as _wanting_ attention? Waiting for something isn't the same as wanting it. Anticipating, perhaps preparing for it. What else did he say?_ "You'll have to remind me of when he last hung on my apron strings. I must have missed it."

"Aren't you arranging his marriage?" Maury said immediately.

Angela started slightly, having not contemplated that angle. "His _second_ marriage," she clarified.

"Mm. You pretty much arranged his first, too."

"That was hardly my intention!" she snapped. Maury shrugged. "You could have told me they were getting involved," she said irritably.

"Could have. Didn't."

She huffed. Of course not. She and Maury had been business associates at that point and he had no special loyalty to her. She turned back to her earlier thoughts, setting aside the annoying reminder that he'd actually _facilitated_ Peter and Gabriel's relationship. Slowly, she said, "He thinks he is gaining my approval by allowing me to handle the logistics of his wedding to Emma?" She wasn't doing it single-handedly. She and Emma's mother had quickly come to an accord. Everything was going through them, with Emma getting input on trivial matters, or as a tie-breaker.

"If he had no intention of bringing you happiness, why would he let you be in his life at all? After everything you've done to him?"

She frowned. She thought about that long night in the cathedral, sleeping against the warmth of his side and shoulder after being on the run from Homeland Security. He'd saved her. Angry even then at her (of course - how could he not be?), he'd insisted he'd done it for answers, but then he'd posed no questions. Instead, he brought her dry clothes and hot tea, helped her rest and stood guard over her. He was such a good son that it perplexed her. She didn't understand his devotion. He said it was because of love, but there was no reason for him to feel that way. As she'd said then, '_unconditional love isn't really love at all._' Another line came back to her from years before: _'I look in Peter's eye, I see compassion, empathy, but most of all, I see hope. This world won't be saved on strength. What it really needs is heart — and that's Peter. _Not her words - Charles Deveaux's.

_What is Peter's goal? What does he want out of his life? What does he hope for?_ She tried to think back to when she was younger. She'd wanted to change the world. She'd even thought, so arrogant and naïve, that she could save it. Peter seemed so much like her at times. _Arthur's drive and my dreams - such a dangerous combination._ Another sip of wine. _'Waiting for the world to take notice of him properly'. 'Demonstrative'. 'Aren't you arranging his marriage?_' "He wants my attention!" she said suddenly, the words blurted out as she thought them.

"That he does," Maury said, murmuring around his cigar again.

"But _why?_" she said. "As you say, after everything I've done to him?"

He nodded. "_Especially_." He drew the word out as he said it.

She blinked and felt a coldness settle inside. "My relationship with Peter is none of your business."

He drew in a deep breath and shrugged one shoulder dismissively. "Maybe not. But if you don't want to help your own flesh and blood, then are you at least concerned about your prize fighter, Gabriel?" She stared at him steadily. "Ah, that has your attention, hm?" He finished his wine and said, "Peter's difficulties in transitioning are endangering your instrument of choice."

"Then Peter needs to spend more time with his wife and less with … him." Only a month before, she'd tried to warn Peter of the threat of following Gabriel's path too closely. Gabriel was the one who needed to follow Peter's lead, but as with most of her foretellings, it was almost hopelessly metaphorical.

"Angel," Maury looked over at her, giving her exaggerated puppy-dog eyes. "Do you really think that will work?"

She scoffed. No, of course it wouldn't. As Charles had said, Peter had heart. He would go where his heart led, because that was his goal. Her brows lifted slightly. It was such a formless goal, to love and be loved, but so were all the others, like hers of saving the world, Maury's of understanding people, or Arthur's of controlling things. _If that is his goal, then what might he be moved to do if he is thwarted in it? _She knew about Molly's death and revival. She knew the reasons for it, though why Peter would kill her had been a mystery at the time. Now it made sense. As did Maury prodding her to strengthen her relationship with him, to show him a mother's love.

"Is Gabriel breaking free? I thought you said that would take months."

Maury ran his tongue along the outside of his teeth before answering. "That's what I've been thinking about. It's not taking months - that much is clear."

She drew in air. "We need to bring him back to heel, then."

"The temper on your blade is fine as it is. The more you heat and quench it, the more brittle it will be."

"He's almost uselessly so as it is!"

"You might want to think about that then, before you go trying to retrain him." Maury shrugged. "At the end of the day, you're dealing with human beings here. You and Arthur never seemed to _get_ that."

She tightened her lips, shooting back, "That's why we had you and Charles."

He said nothing, giving her a long look with a single raised brow. She understood what he was saying without him needing to speak. "Fine," she said. "What is your advice?"

"I've already given it."

She smiled, finishing her own wine. "Of course you have. Now I will have something to think on."

He chuckled and struggled up out of the low chair. "Great! Just what I needed. A bed partner with too many thoughts going on in her head!"

"It's all your fault," she said calmly, rising more easily.

"Yes, of course. It's always the Parkman's fault. They bungle everything!" He leaned over and kissed her offered cheek before heading inside, lowered voices continuing in friendly banter as they went off to bed.


	339. Disgusting Subjects

**A/N: Squick warning - bodily fluid discussion.**

_July 3, 2011_

"What is it about fellatio that you don't like?" Peter asked. He had the feeling that Gabriel had always put more work in on the relationship, probably out of guilt. Now that Peter had hurt him so badly, Peter was left struggling to find ways to make it up and there weren't many. Gabriel had made the sacrifices between them and in general, refused to give them up. Peter suspected giving him head was one of them.

"The part where I'm not getting it," Gabriel answered flippantly.

Peter laughed. "Okay, yeah. What I _meant_ was what part do you not like about giving it to me?"

Gabriel eyed him for a moment, then looked away at the rolling surf. They were lying in lounge chairs outside of the Petrelli beach house. "Don't like the latex taste," he said brusquely, sucking at his tongue and grimacing in memory.

"What about … without it?"

"Without a condom?" Peter nodded. Gabriel reached up and rubbed at his face, looking away. He opened his mouth for a long moment, obviously debating what to say. Finally he said, "I don't want to."

"I wasn't asking you to." Gabriel gave Peter a narrow-eyed look, to which Peter responded, "Hey, you're always on me to listen to what you actually say, not what I think you're saying. Do me the same favor here."

Gabe grunted and looked at the ocean again. After a bit he said, "I don't want … anything that comes out of your dick in my mouth."

"Okay."

Silence held between them as Gabriel was probably waiting for the usual follow-up of 'why?' and for Peter to insist he justify or explain his aversion. Peter didn't ask. He had his answer - Gabriel didn't like doing it without or even _with_ condom. Period.

After a while though, Gabriel said, "You don't mind?"

"Don't mind what?" Peter's thoughts had strayed as he watched the boys industriously digging near the waterline further down the beach. He looked back at his husband.

"Um … sperm? Mine?" He swallowed nervously.

Peter smiled a little. "No. It's not something I'm wild about, but if I want to get you off, then it's gonna happen. It doesn't bother me."

"Oh."

"Did you think it did?"

"I don't know. I never asked."

Peter smiled a little. "What would you have done if I'd said yes?"

"That's why I never asked."

Peter laughed. "Lawyer."

"Yeah." Gabriel joined him in chuckling.

"You go down on Heidi, though, right?"

"Yeah."

"That doesn't give you any problem?"

"No. She's a woman."

Peter's brows rose at the disconnect. "Okay."

"Well, I mean, she is."

"Oh yeah, yeah," Peter said breezily. "I suspected that. I've never checked, but I'd suspected it for a while."

Gabriel laughed now. "But … seriously though, that doesn't matter to you?"

"No." Actually Peter _enjoyed_ giving head, quite a bit, which was part of why he'd never pressed about Gabriel's reservations. He had no idea how he'd manage turning the guy away next time, or if he should, or if they should talk about it first.

"Huh."

"Yeah, well, it's just a thing. You ever ate your own?"

"My … what?" Gabriel viewed him with thinly veiled disgust at what he thought Peter meant.

Peter gave a tight, uncomfortable smile and confirmed Gabe's suspicions. "Your ejaculate."

"No," Gabriel answered immediately, lip curling. He looked away again.

Peter studied his own feet self-consciously, wiggling his toes and feeling not just inadequate, but reviled.

Gabriel's head snapped around. "_You_ don't, do you?"

"No," Peter said, waiting a beat to see if that passed lie detection. Gabriel nodded a little and relaxed. Peter was pretty sure that meant it had. Knowing that, he of course felt compelled to be completely honest. "Not anymore."

Gabriel's eyes jerked back to him. The tight, humorless smile pasted itself on Peter's face again. "Why?" Gabriel asked him, his tone revolted. It was a level of judgment he might not have been so free with only a week before - before the incident.

Peter shrugged, not sure if he was asking why he'd do it in the first place, or why he didn't anymore - given Gabe's tone of voice, it was probably the former. He didn't really have an answer for either. "Dunno. People swallow saliva all the time. It's just another fluid."

"I don't think of it that way," Gabriel said curtly.

"I know," Peter responded, looking out at the ocean, Gabriel's expression of disgust preying on his mind. _He said everything was okay. But he's still on me, still angry. Is it just that he thinks everything is okay and it's not?_ Peter felt depressed and sad, not sure what he needed to do to fix things, wanting desperately to.

Gabriel shifted uneasily, then sat up on the side of his chair facing away from Peter.

If he was going to say something, Peter didn't wait for it, jumping in with, "Do you want to go swimming now?"

"No. No, I need to go check on things with Heidi." Gabriel started off, then looked back. "Can you watch the boys?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course," Peter answered, listening to the sloshing tread of Gabriel's feet as he headed back towards the beach house. He sighed, feeling dismissed and not worth spending time with. He sat there moping for a bit before getting up himself and heading down to where Nathan's sons were digging. "Hey guys. You wanna bury someone in the sand?"

The two kids looked up at him expectantly.

Peter forced a grin and said, "Bury me deep enough and maybe I'll drown when the tide comes in. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

Simon grinned back much more genuinely in all his eleven year old glee. "Sure!" Monty looked less sure, but the smile on Peter's face persuaded him. Peter found a good spot to flop down, shaking his head and not knowing how to take their enthusiasm in burying him alive. _At least they're honest_.


	340. Duds

_July 4, 2011, evening_

Peter watched the fireworks by himself, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. Gabriel, Simon, and Monty were having great fun lighting them off on the beach. Emma was back at work. Heidi was sitting with Gretchen and Claire on the lawn chairs, oohing and aahing at the display with baby Noah. He didn't know where Angela had gotten off to, nor did he care. Maury had had Peter teleport him to the Pharmatech facility in Billings for an investigation into an unexpected fire. Anti-Company provocateurs were suspected. Now he wished he'd stayed with Maury.

The weekend had gone well, he supposed - no one was dead. The worst that had happened was that he'd needed to use healing on Monty and Simon for overexposure to the sun. He'd lectured them about staying out too long at a stretch while rubbing more suntan lotion on them. If either of them noticed the magical disappearance of their symptoms, they would hopefully attribute it to the lotion, not to an ability.

Last year, he'd spent the whole holiday working doubles. He'd been happy then. _Too bad I couldn't get away with doing that now._ His main barrier was lie detection. That and the continuing hope that things would get better; maybe he'd misunderstood the growing hostility he kept sensing from Gabriel. He'd talked more to Heidi today than to Gabriel, and not much to Heidi. With everyone else around, he didn't feel he could discuss anything private, so the important things remained unsaid. He'd kept himself busy making beds, washing dishes, picking up after the boys, and fetching last minute things from the store. He'd changed his first dirty diaper, though all of the entertaining and heart-warming baby care had been performed by the women.

A sizzle and a flash of light drew his attention back to the display.

"Dad! Dad, Dad!" Simon yelled in agitation. A gushing fountain of golden sparks had fallen over and was slewing crazily across the sand.

Peter moved his hand and the tube stopped, spraying harmlessly a few feet short of the rest of the fireworks. A second slower, and the grand finale might have come a bit early. He felt the brush of another telekinetic power settling over his as Gabriel got turned around and oriented on the problem. Gabe didn't even glance in his direction. Peter released his hold as Gabriel squatted and reached for it with his hand.

"No, no, no!" Monty called out with the vigor of an over-sugared, over-caffeinated eight year old. "It'll burn you, Dad!"

Gabriel set the fountain back upright, sparks flying everywhere - everywhere except onto himself. He firmed it in the sand again and backed away.

"Your hair! Dad, your hair!"

"My hair's fine," Gabriel reassured them, lowering his head for the boys' inspection.

"You said not to touch the fireworks while they was going off," Simon said, sounding displeased.

"And you shouldn't. Only adults can do that."

_Only adults who can heal,_ Peter thought. He didn't know how hot the tube was, or even if Gabriel had actually touched it, but handling it wasn't something he would want anyone else doing.

Emma, for example. He tucked his chin against his knee, worrying about the schedule she was going to have to keep at work for her residency; worrying about how long it would take before he snapped at someone in administration and caused problems for her, too. He resisted the impulse to duck his head as he heard his mother walking over unsteadily on the shifting sand. How she'd found him out here in the dark, he didn't know, but there she was, sitting down a few feet from him.

He heaved a quiet sigh, not looking forward to another reminder that something he didn't know how to change about himself didn't meet someone else's standards.

"Hello, Peter."

"Hey," he said, hoping his tone conveyed his lack of desire for company.

At first, he thought the message had been understood, because Angela was silent for several minutes, watching the next series of brilliant, sparkling explosions burst high overhead. Then he heard her voice, heavy with nostalgia. "You used to enjoy it so much when Nathan would take you out to see the fireworks."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Ma." _And Nathan's dead,_ he so, **so** wanted to tack on bitterly. _Thanks for the reminder, Mom. You left him dead on purpose; gave me the advice that got him killed._

The next rocket went off, blossoming in purple with silver stars shooting out from it. "No," she said. "You have grown up to be a wonderful man whom I am deeply proud to call my son."

His head snapped around, coming up, but the moment of elation at the compliment was quickly chased down and beaten into submission by the realistic fear of what she hoped to accomplish by telling him that. Words were never empty with her - cloak and dagger, velvet and steel. "What do you want?" he asked coldly, when he thought he could trust his voice.

She sighed and looked up at the stars, the sky momentarily pristine in its natural, eternal glory. "I want to be your mother again, and not your enemy."

"You're still my mother," he said sullenly.

"Thank you for not cutting me out of your life, Peter."

"What is all this about? Huh? Why are you …" His eyes narrowed as he looked at her closely. She didn't look well. "Are you drunk?"

"That doesn't mean I don't love you, Peter."

He breathed out heavily and looked away, trying not to think about how that made him feel. She moved ungracefully closer and put her arm across his back. She didn't reek of alcohol, so he doubted she was too deep in her cups. Her inhibitions might be down, but she almost certainly knew what she was saying. "I'm sorry," she whispered, heartfelt.

He glanced back at her, wishing he could trust his notoriously unreliable version of lie detection. He could feel her emotions, projecting loud and clear, raw and open, and they synced up perfectly with her words. But was she that good an actor, or telling the truth? "Why did you kill your other son?" he asked baldly.

"Oh, Peter," she said softly, looking down. "I thought I was saving the world."

"Just like when you tried to have me blow up New York?"

"Yes," she said simply, voice small as she let her arm fall so they merely sat next to one another. She put her hands in her lap, lost in a bleak sorrow.

Peter let out his breath slowly and put his arm around her narrow shoulders, reversing their pose. She felt fragile to his touch. After a moment, she leaned on him. His voice finally starting to thaw, Peter asked, "You really thought you were doing the right thing?"

"Yes."

He gave her a gentle squeeze, appreciating more than he could say that her answers were simple and unqualified. "I've … fucked up, too," he confessed, wondering if she'd get onto him for his language.

"Not as badly," she said so quietly he had to strain to hear.

He swallowed, lifting his head to look out at Gabriel, who was watching as Simon lit off the next one. Peter wondered what would happen if he couldn't heal this breach he'd torn between them. The frustrating thing was how it just kept getting _worse_. "I don't know about that," he murmured. _Unforgivable sins seem to run in the family._


	341. Covert Aggression

_July 5, 11 pm_

He had to admit - it wasn't passive aggressive. Nope, this was pretty overt. Peter had lots of time to think about things, because it wasn't like anything else was going on to distract him. He was on the bed, naked, on his knees. His butt was up in the air; his head and shoulders were down on the bed. Each ankle was shackled to the matching wrist by a short enough chain that he was forced to keep the awkward, exposed position.

Of course, he would have kept it without the tethers, upon request, just as he'd been told not to speak and was keeping his mouth shut. He was uncomfortable, but not in pain. Regeneration was useful for so many things. But he was upset and there was no solace in sight. Everything he had to think about, he didn't want to think about. For the umpteenth time, he resisted the impulse to sigh and draw attention to himself. He suspected that even the small catch of his breath prior to the averted sigh was discernible to his captor, which in its own small way, made him so frustrated that he wanted to cry - the idea that he was _trying_ to be obedient and compliant and failing even at that. _I am such a fuck-up. I told him that. I told him that and I don't even remember what he said. Pretty sure it was something about how we'd face problems together and fuck them back down. Together._ He turned his face into the comforter, trying to will himself to patience.

Gabriel, for his part, seemed plenty patient. Peter was glad he didn't have Gabriel's time sense to track how long he'd been on the bed. Instead, he just had the sound of pages turning from time to time, as his husband progressed through the book he was reading. Earlier in the evening, Gabriel had kissed him briefly and given the barest of greetings before he'd asked Peter not to speak, ordered him to the bedroom, had him strip, chained him up … and left him there.

_Punishment_. Gabriel had followed this by dragging a chair from the kitchen and settling himself in with some thick book he'd been reading recently. Peter didn't know what it was. He wished he did. He cursed himself for not paying enough attention to what mattered to his lover. Last week, Gabriel had been reading The Stand, but this was a new book. Was it another King? Peter didn't know; Gabriel hadn't mentioned it. Was that because Gabriel didn't want Peter's attention at that level, or because he wanted it, but didn't expect it?

Peter swallowed roughly. He thought he had worked out some of what Gabriel liked - and he had. But then he'd stopped doing those things the moment they were back together. _How many times will it take before I learn this lesson? The scents, even! I have the bottles in the pantry. I haven't used them. It's been one thing after another and I haven't thought … I don't even know what book he's reading. __**He'd**__ know if I was reading a book. He'd fucking know what page I was on, even, better than I would. Psychometry. Am I supposed to do that to him? __**For**__ him? I don't know if I can do that. I really don't. That's not who I am. I don't know if I can be the sort of person he wants. I don't even __**know**__ what sort of person he wants! He won't tell me! _

Peter moved his forehead back and forth slowly, wiping the moisture from the corners of his eyes. He was so frustrated! One of the chain links clinked. He stopped instantly, breathing out slowly and holding his position. His heart was breaking. He was trying not to be angry. Being held at arm's length and intentionally punished - withholding attention and affection, the constant disapproval from someone who loved him … whom he hoped loved him - was tearing Peter up. He'd gone through this shit with his family for his whole life, the pattern embedded in him deeply enough that he'd just thought that was how people interacted with those they were close to. He'd thought he was so good in being better than that, but now that he looked, he could see the same behaviors (smaller, admittedly) littering the way he interacted with his lovers. Being 'better' than the rest of his family meant nothing, really. He swallowed again, squeezing his eyes shut against the burning in them.

Gabriel shut the book. That small sound was loud in the otherwise silent room. The deviation from simple page turning brought Peter's head around, noisy fetters be damned. He'd been told not to speak, not to maintain perfect silence. He'd been doing it earlier because … well, he thought it was what Gabriel wanted. Gabriel set his book down on the nightstand and turned to the bed. He saw Peter looking at him and gave him a small smile. Peter's heart jumped, even though as smiles went, it wasn't much.

Gabriel reached out and touched him - two fingers on the small of his back on the right side. Peter made an immediate small groan, adjusting the set of his shoulders and impatiently shifting his feet. Gabriel's fingers circled, then there were four of them smoothing across the cool, bare surface of his rump. The hand was hot against his skin. He was patted a few times and then Gabriel withdrew.

Peter scrunched his eyes together again as hard as he could, turning his face back to the uncomforting comforter topping the bed. He imagined Gabriel leaving now, maybe going to get a snack or make a phone call in the other room. If Peter thought this was a _game_, something well-intentioned, then he'd have been all for it. The frustration would have been fun. But this wasn't fun; it wasn't a game. He heard the purposeful shuffling of cloth and twisted his head back, lifting it slightly and opening his eyes. Gabriel hadn't left; he was just undressing. Peter's heart leapt.

A moment later, the bed rocked slightly as Gabriel climbed on behind Peter, both hands now stroking over his buttocks. Peter groaned again, wishing there was some way he could see Gabe's face. He didn't like the emotions he was getting through the man's hands and so Peter deliberately turned off that otherwise-constant detection. He ignored the bond between them. It was only bringing him misery anyway. Listening to those conflicted feelings would turn what Gabriel was doing to him into a torture, instead of a pleasure. He tried not to wonder how Gabriel meant it. If Peter could have, he'd have turned off every higher function he had and just experienced the moment.

It wasn't a bad moment. Gabriel's hands knew Peter's body and all the responses of it. They caressed and kneaded his glutes, a stray thumb brushing over his exposed anus. Hands lower down nudged his scrotum and then cupped it carefully, gently rolling his balls before moving on between his legs to softly stroke his flaccid penis. He warmed Peter up slowly, just the way Peter liked. Gabriel pressed his own hot flanks against Peter's ass, leaning over to tousle his hair, massage his shoulders briefly, and then trail his fingers along Peter's spine from neck to sacrum. Peter shuddered, making a desirous noise deep in his throat as Gabriel methodically pressed one button after another.

Gabriel chuckled. The massage oil flew through the air from the nightstand, smacking into his hand. A moment later, he capped it and tossed it on the bed next to Peter's left arm. Half a handful of the oil dribbled along the top of Peter's ass and down his crack, where Gabriel smeared it slowly, carefully, and very thoroughly. Peter, panting, flexed backwards. Fingers swirled around his opening, as though tracing it over and over. Peter grunted and shifted, wrists pulling on ankles through the connecting chains. He wanted more, but at the same time, he loved the anticipation. The pad of a single index finger settled right in the middle and Peter stopped squirming, poised tensely, waiting.

Gabriel bent and kissed his taut butt cheek, then bit him, finger sliding inside as Peter groaned. Gabriel didn't let go, though. He chewed slightly, working his jaw and forced another finger inside, causing Peter's next noise to go up in pitch. Gabriel withdrew then, kissing the bite mark away as he flexed his fingers down immediately, stroking Peter's prostate right off. This time Peter's jerk against his bindings was hard enough to jog his whole body. He bit his lip, feeling Gabriel's other hand steadying him on the hip as two well-oiled fingers strayed from that pleasure-spot to explore elsewhere inside of him.

Peter rolled his head back and forth restlessly at the welcome invasion, pressing back in short motions, shifting his hips so he was fucking against Gabriel's hand. He loved the feel of the man's curled knuckles against his hole. The massage oil moved again, then returned, apparently all by telekinesis as Gabriel's fingers were never removed from Peter's body. Gabe moved his knees, putting one on either side of Peter's left leg, and leaned forward somewhat. Gabriel's left hand, slippery with oil, wrapped around him to slide up and down Peter's stiffening organ, slicking it. Within a few moments, the fingers in his ass were hooking down again, now in tandem with regular, hard strokes along his shaft. It was a combination that made Peter's eyes roll up in their sockets. His fingers writhed, but there was nothing to touch. He was being pleasured ruthlessly and continually, with no way to return it. Nothing to do but feel it, sense it, be awash in it, drown in it. He moaned wantonly, letting it take him.

Peter felt his orgasm coming from a long way off, building with a relentless certainty. There was no way to resist it. Gabriel's grip shifted to his tip, squeezing and manipulating it expertly as the fingers in his ass switched to three and then stretched him wide to all four. Peter cried out, feeling the whole world fall away. There was nothing but the sensation of being filled nearly to breaking, without ever giving up on that perfect rhythm. He was whimpering and shaking, his breath catching raggedly between whines and mewls. He was almost to it, feeling all of his muscles tighten, as Gabriel leaned over and bit him hard on the back above his left kidney. Pain shot through him and Peter arched like a bow, spurting in his release.

Gabriel stroked him very slowly, gently, as Peter wound down, still seeing stars in his blissed out vision. He wasn't completely down from his high when Gabriel borrowed the oil one last time, then lined himself up behind him. Peter made a pleased purr. He wanted Gabriel in him. He wanted Gabriel to come in him. He wanted Gabriel to want him. He moaned in fulfillment as the other man slid his full length into him in one solid push - a hot, hard length filling Peter up. It felt perfect, like a key in a lock. Gabriel started rocking into him with long, easy thrusts that quickly became faster and harder.

Minutes crawled by as Gabriel thrust into him in a pattern that started off lustful and eventually became nothing but mechanical. Gabriel's fingers dug painfully into Peter's hips as he fucked him, fucked him some more and tried to keep fucking him as he began to lose his erection. He fell out at last, snarling and making an angry chuff of expelled air. He shoved Peter over on the bed with a hard, abrupt push. Peter lay motionless, eyeing his husband in apprehension, not sure what was going to happen next.

Peter wasn't surprised at the lack of performance. What he was more surprised by, really, was that less than a week after being raped by him, Gabriel was willing to try to have sex with him and had gotten as far as he had. When it was clear that no immediate attack was forthcoming, Peter relaxed a little and turned his gaze to the bedspread, waiting quietly and submissively.

Gabriel made another angry, dismissive noise and turned away, sitting with his legs dangling off the side of the bed, one arm on the metal railing of the footboard. He raked a hand through his hair several times and sighed. Peter shifted slightly and the jingle of chain brought Gabe's attention. Peter froze. Gabriel made a complicated gesture in his direction and the cuffs released from both wrists and ankles. Peter stretched slowly, feeling a subdued revelry at his freedom. Gabriel looked away sulkily, turning so the back of his head was to Peter.

Peter waited a few beats before turning on the bed. Staying low, he crawled over to his lover and eased his head onto Gabriel's thigh, near his knee. Gabriel exhaled heavily, moving his legs slightly as if to shift his weight. Peter kept his eyes down. If he hadn't been afraid that Gabriel would freak out and kick him away for groveling on the floor, he might have tried it. This was … intermediate. He felt horrible about everything (especially himself), and was terrified by the treatment Gabriel was giving him.

Gabriel didn't offer any reassurance. Peter curled his body a little, getting comfortable. He was at least being allowed to touch and that was a luxury he wasn't taking for granted at the moment. Very cautiously, he raised one hand, resting it lightly on Gabriel's thigh. When that, too, wasn't rebuffed, he relaxed it into place, sighed and shut his eyes. He had no idea what he was supposed to do.


	342. Overt Aggression

"Can we go somewhere?"

"Ye-" Peter's mouth snapped shut, mortified that he'd almost spoken. _I can't follow even the simplest of fucking directions! But then why is he asking me questions? Oh, wait. It's a yes/no question, stupid._ Peter nodded, lips sealed.

Gabriel looked down at him for a long beat, then cupped Peter's cheek. "You can talk." Gabe shut his eyes, his hand cradling the side of Peter's face a little more firmly. Peter shut his eyes, too, and gave the man's leg a squeeze. When the pressure lifted from his face, Peter sat up, still silent. Gabriel rose and went to his orderly assortment of clothes.

Peter followed his lead and got dressed. When they were both ready, he finally spoke to ask the necessary question, "Where do you want to go?"

"Somewhere where I don't have to see people."

_Okay. That's weird_. Peter reached out and linked hands (a grip that was returned only half-heartedly), teleporting them to the long-since cooled lava field in Greenland. Gabriel turned, looking around them. There was no visible vegetation for hundreds of yards, the landscape covered in pocked, fissured black rock with occasional islands of native grey stone. The sky was hazy with thin clouds and the sun was a healthy distance above the horizon. "What time is it?" Peter asked, a little disoriented by it being day.

"Three forty-two, AM, Greenwich Mean Time." There was a pause, and then, "I'm assuming we're in Greenland near where we were last time."

"Yeah," Peter answered, dismissing his confusion. Day and night became fuzzy concepts closer to the poles. "You want to be somewhere else?"

"No, this is okay." Gabriel vented a heavy sigh, wandering over to a nearby outcropping of smoother grey rock and sitting down on it. "I just wanted to be away from everyone. This is quiet."

"Do you want me to go?" Peter asked, walking over slowly to join him, watching his face and trying to judge things. Feeling Gabriel's emotions, even listening to what he said or reading his expressions were no good in predicting what he was going to _do_.

"No." Gabriel shook his head. "Come sit by me." Peter did, and Gabe put an arm over his shoulder, pulling them together. He kissed Peter above the ear, then rested his forehead against the side of Peter's head.

Peter put his hand on Gabriel's knee, saying quietly, "I don't always know how to show it, but I want you to know that I love you."

"Mm," Gabriel hummed, rubbing his head against Peter's. It was uncomfortable; kind of painful. Peter grimaced, gave Gabe's knee a squeeze and a pat. Gabriel stopped pressing their skulls together and tilted his head up, whispering into Peter's ear, "I want to fuck you."

_Again? Here? What?_ "Okay," Peter answered cooperatively. The sex that they had was not fun, fulfilling, or even all that sexy, as Peter soon found out. Gabriel was not careful where he put Peter. The rock was hard and unforgiving; Peter had to use flight to stay off jagged parts and then telekinesis for leverage. Peter was used to using some abilities in bed with Emma, but only one at a time that took any degree of concentration. He was fortunate that Gabriel had used massage oil earlier in that he was still greasy, but as before, the fucking went on and on without climax. Gabriel switched him in position several times, preferring rear entry and avoiding the kisses, caresses, eye contact, and other sources of stimulation Peter got off on so much. He didn't even offer a reach-around this time.

Peter couldn't imagine what Gabriel thought he was doing - discharging a duty, thinking if he worked at it hard enough that the problems between them would vanish just through the magic of sex, or what. But Gabe started getting increasingly rough, ramming him harder, grunting, fingers digging in viciously. Peter's insides were no more made of iron than anyone else's, and despite regeneration, it still caused pain to get hurt, one thrust after another. By the end, the oil had long since been spread too thin to be of any use. His ass burned with every plunge and withdraw. Peter's teeth were gritted and his body tensed against every motion Gabe made.

His eyes scrunched shut, Peter shifted his emphasis from any sort of participation to mere endurance. He tried to detach his thoughts from what was going on. Gabriel had talked about doing that. The books on dissociation implied it was just automatic at times. But it wasn't happening. Maybe this wasn't the right sort of acute trauma. In any case, he couldn't block it out even as he tried. _Is this just another punishment? Is he … trying to rape me back?_

Peter wanted to ask, but he didn't risk speaking. He let himself be put to whatever use his partner wanted, even as every touch and penetration felt like degradation, chipping away at what he was. It was like Gabriel didn't care about him. How could he, to be doing this? Peter wondered if he himself was complicit in this travesty by not stopping it. Was that his role? Was that what he was supposed to be doing? He had his powers and quite aside from that, he had a voice and he could fight. At the thought of fighting Gabriel, he felt sick and weak, letting himself sink down further. He was a mess inside, fraying at the edges and starting to tear at the seams.

Gabriel pulled out, making Peter wince and grimace, expecting yet another change of position. Instead, Gabriel hit him full force on the buttock with his open palm. There might have been some illusion of it being a sexy spanking, but it was way too hard. Peter looked back to see Gabriel snarl at him, ball his fist and swing to punch him in the hip. Peter didn't dodge, but went limp, letting the painful blow bowl him over, sharp rocks digging into his back. He threw his hands up in surrender, palms empty and open, fighting with himself not to pull up his knees to defend his belly. What had seemed like abuse had very definitely become so.

Gabriel, his face a mask of fury, climbed on top of him, straddling Peter's body and pressing him against the rocks underneath.

"Gabr-" Peter got out as his throat was seized in both of Gabriel's hands.

"YOU WILL _**NEVER**_ DO THAT TO ME AGAIN!" Gabriel yelled into his face, voice shaking and high with the edges of hysteria. Peter's powers clicked off en masse as Gabriel nullified them, and less than a second later, all blood flow to his head stopped. It wasn't just Gabe's hands - he was using telekinesis, his fingers directly over the delicate structures in Peter's throat that he wanted to affect, making it easy for him to get a total lock. Peter had but a second or two of consciousness to decide what to do - nullify in turn, but then he would still be pinned and strangled against an opponent with several inches reach on him.

And did he really want to fight Gabriel? Did he deserve what he had coming to him - whatever punishment Gabriel saw fit to deliver, whether that be ostracism, psychological torment, brutal sex or even death? Gabriel knew what he was doing - he was making rational, thought-out decisions at each step. Turning off Peter's abilities was proof of that. Even in his snap decisions, Gabriel was a thinking man. Peter didn't have time to think. He went with his gut. His hands came to Gabriel's forearms, but he didn't squeeze or pull. They just rested there, as he opened himself to feel every emotion coursing through his lover, everything Gabriel had kept bottled up for a week, denying how he felt and only now letting it out explosively. A second later, there was nothing.


	343. Broken Trusts

Peter woke, feeling cool and sluggish. He'd been dead a while. The sensation of fluid in his lungs drove him to cough. Warm, attentive hands, familiar with the process, helped him to roll over, resting lightly on his body while regeneration restored him. As soon as he was breathing normally, there was a small kiss on his shoulder. Gabriel was sitting behind him, still naked. Peter's clothes were in a neatly folded stack next to him, having been gathered up from the haphazard removal he'd suffered earlier.

_Suffered._

Peter couldn't look up. He stared at the black, pock-marked rock in front of him, struggling to focus on it. He felt like some part of his self hadn't finished healing. He felt raw, naked, as if his skin had been stripped away. Everything was too visceral, like he had not a defense in the world. He was infinitely fragile - a single harsh word might shatter him. He shivered and then shook, cold inside. Gabriel started touching him with rapid, concerned strokes. The tenderness was so jarring compared to what had come before.

_Before._

All Peter could think about was teleporting, escaping, going elsewhere. _Away_. But he would be alone - alone forever. He was trapped by his ability; trapped by what he was. He'd never be free of his problems and urges any more than Gabriel was. Peter felt like he had no options. For all his power, he felt powerless. For all his ability to understand emotions, his own heart was a riddle. Gabriel was giving him small pecks on the shoulder and back, nosing him and touching his side and arm. Steady, continuous, concerned - and underneath there was a roiling, sickening terror that consumed Peter's soul so thoroughly that he couldn't tell if it was something he was feeling or something he was reading from Gabriel.

_Sick._

He leaned forward and threw up in an abrupt heave that caught him by surprise. The world spun crazily around him and he'd have fallen into his own emesis if Gabe hadn't caught him. Peter choked, unable to breathe for a moment. The tightness in his throat brought an immediate rush of adrenaline as he flashed back to the strangulation. He fought off Gabriel's hands, kicked out at him enough to hit some portion solidly, then scrambled away, scuffing and slicing his palms, his bare knees and sock-clad feet on the sharp, volcanic rocks. He kept going until there was stone between him and the other, blocking his sight for the moment. Peter pawed at his throat. There were no ligature marks to be found despite the phantom sensation. He curled himself up, trying to think at least two coherent thoughts, one after another.

_Think!_

His feeble attempt to concentrate was broken by Gabriel finding his poor excuse for a hiding place. Gabe approached with eyes as downcast as Peter's own. Seeing that finally allowed Peter to look higher than the ground. He stared at Gabriel with an aggressive intensity, allowed since it was Gabriel now who was emoting submission. Peter huddled himself a little tighter, even as he felt a burn of hate in his chest. Gabe came closer quietly, then sank slowly to the ground in full prostration. A few seconds passed in silence before Gabriel said, "Please forgive me." He swallowed roughly and continued, "There's no reason why you should. There never has been. But I ask it anyway. Please … Peter … I love you, too."

_Go fuck yourself._

Peter was pissed. He pulled in a long, slow breath, trying to center himself. He let it out and tried another. The fear he'd felt earlier - definitely coming from Gabriel, not himself. Peter thought about all the things he'd contemplated in the hours previous, when he'd stewed over his own faults - the neglect and inadvertent contempt he'd laid on Gabriel's shoulders. All of it was so much less intentional and deliberate than what Gabriel had done to him in return, and Gabe knew it or else he wouldn't be so afraid of Peter's reaction; he wouldn't be facedown on the ground in a traditional posture of supplication. He'd hurt Peter _on purpose_ and Peter didn't know what to do about that, but he wasn't going to ignore it. He put the heel of his hand to his forehead. He thought about trying to dictate to Gabriel how things would have to be between them, what Gabriel would do to fix this, that he'd have to talk, that Peter wanted promises that Gabriel would never pull this shit again … it left Peter feeling tired. None of it mattered anyway because this wasn't something he could do by himself.

_Pointless._

"You-" Peter paused to cough and clear his throat. "You _know_ what it is to be good. You _know_. You know you did wrong." Gabriel turned his face to look up at Peter, unshed tears growing in his eyes. Peter sighed. "I trusted you." His voice caught on that sentence, breaking over the middle word. His trust was as paper-thin as his voice. "That wasn't an ability. That wasn't a mental command or a compulsion. You were _angry_," Peter swiped at his eyes, "and so you _hurt _me. I _**felt**_ it."

_Vindictive._

Gabriel paled and put his head down for a long moment, then sat up, crossing his legs. Seeing that no amount of posturing was going to make this better, Gabe abandoned it and in doing so, made it clear that being facedown was just a ploy in his attempt to emotionally manipulate Peter. Gabriel chewed the inside of his cheek and looked back and forth on the ground as though he might see some object he might offer in placation. This wasn't a flowers-and-a-box-of-chocolates mistake, because it hadn't been a 'mistake' at all.

_Intentional._

Lip curled, Peter asked, "You're the one who's so big on actions instead of words. What do your actions say about how you feel about us recently? Or me?"

Gabriel fidgeted. "You raped me," he mumbled, but enough of the sound got through for Peter to understand what he was saying.

"I did not. Intend. To do that. And you _know it_," Peter said angrily, really getting a head of steam going because if Gabriel thought that getting accidentally hurt by Peter gave him permission to be punitive in retaliation, then he had another thing coming. Gabriel shrank back and Peter didn't give a shit if he was scary. _Be intimidated! _"I was fighting that every step of the way. As soon as I started feeling it in the club, I tried to think of other things. I tried to tell myself that what you were doing was no big deal. I thought about teleporting away. I tried to calm down. I tried not watching. I even walked off for a little while!" He shook his head energetically. "I thought I had it under control! Until I **didn't**." Peter looked away, breathing hard and gnashing his teeth in frustration. "I didn't mean to …"

"There had to be some …" Gabriel said quietly. Peter's gaze snapped back to him. "Some part of you that …" Gabriel whispered, his attitude meek, but his words were an accusation.

"Oh?" Peter asked sharply, suspecting what the rest of that sentence was. "Like there's some part of you that thinks it's okay to murder people and take their abilities?" He stared at Gabriel, whose eyes came up to his for a long, level moment. _There is. Huh. You think that's okay. Fuck me._ It wasn't a total surprise, but it always jarred because it was so opposed to Peter's own morality. He didn't stay thrown for long, rejoining with, "Let's say there is some part of me that thinks it's okay to rape the people I love most. Fucking over family is a Petrelli trait, so maybe you're right. _But I didn't mean to do it._ I was trying NOT to do it. I would have given anything to have done something ELSE! I didn't want to hurt you. You tell me," Peter challenged, "you tell me that you didn't _mean_ to kill me." Gabriel looked away, unable to answer. Peter went on, "You tell me you didn't hurt me because you _wanted_ me to feel pain. You tell me you didn't tie me up and leave me on that bed because you wanted to make a point that you could refuse to touch me, to pleasure me, and that you might do that to me or worse if I _ever_ hurt you like that again!"

Gabriel's lips moved, but he said nothing, damned by his own actions - yet what other ones ever truly damn us?

Peter went on, "I have forgiven you for all sorts of crap. For _one reason_. It's not because you're sexy, or good in bed, or because you have a lot of abilities and you're powerful. It's not because I feel guilty about what my family did to you. It's not because I felt sorry for what a pile of shit life dished up to you." His voice rose sharply as he said, "It's not even because I love you!" Peter paused, taking a deep breath and looking away. "Even though all of that's true, it's not why I forgave you." He looked back, meeting Gabriel's eyes. "I forgave you because you promised to do the _best _that you could not to hurt people anymore." Peter blew air out his nose. "Was what you did to me for the last … what, three hours? Was that the _**best**_ you could do?"

Gabriel cringed and licked his lips repeatedly. He looked like he was in pain, but to his credit, he didn't leave; he didn't run off. All he did was quail back and look incredibly distressed. Peter thought about how he'd feel if he'd found out Gabriel had tortured someone else like that, just for kicks, because they'd pissed him off, because they'd hurt him, for whatever reason - the reason didn't matter. Nor the who - a stranger, Heidi, anyone. He would be so angry, because it was so unjust, so petty, so small and mean and wrong. He'd let Gabriel do it because Peter loved him, but that only made it all the worse that Gabriel would do it.

"I want to forgive you," Peter said, his tone dropping to normal, sounding soft due to the contrast. "I really do. I want to pretend this didn't happen and it doesn't matter. But it happened, and it matters."

Gabriel looked up at him in shock, lips moving but no words coming out. He looked like he'd been sucker-punched.

Peter stood, looking off in the direction of his clothes and blinking away tears. He wanted to comfort the guy so badly, but it was too soon and Peter's feelings were still in a snarl. He looked back at Gabriel. "I'm going to get dressed. I'm going to go home. I'm going to think about things … talk to people." His eyes swept over Gabriel, remembering Noah ranting at Gabriel only seven months before: _'You will not throw temper tantrums … You will show some respect for the lives and property of others ... Just because you have a problem doesn't mean you get to inflict problems on everyone else. Just because you __**can**__ push people around doesn't mean you __**should**__.'_

_You know, the guy might have known what he was talking about._


	344. Overachiever

Peter flew over to his clothes, picking up his stack and the one that belonged to Gabriel that was a little further off. He returned with them to see Gabriel still sitting, looking completely zoned out. Peter put the man's clothes down next to him and patted his shoulder.

"Thank you," Gabriel said, struggling to pull himself out of the fog he'd lost himself in.

Peter nodded and took a few steps away for space as he put on his clothes. "Come on," he said gently. "Get dressed and I'll take us back home."

"Us?"

"Yeah. I'm not going to strand you here."

"Oh." Clearly, Gabriel had expected that. Not that it would have been a huge problem for him. He could always fly back under his own power. Gabe looked down at his clothes, arranged them loosely against his body, and a few shape-shifts later, was fully dressed.

Peter smirked at that, and finished putting his clothes on the old-fashioned way. When he was done, he extended his hand to his husband, who rose and took it, giving Peter a marveling look. Peter gave him a small smile. Gabriel turned Peter's hand and touched the watch still on his wrist, then looked up at Peter with a question on his face. Peter reached out to stroke Gabriel's cheek. "I'm not going to do anything rash," Peter said quietly. "I'm done with this 'reacting before I think' and 'jumping off buildings hoping I can fly'. Or at least, I'm trying to be done with it." He dropped his hand from Gabriel's face and gave his other hand a squeeze. "Here we go."

Gabe nodded and a second later they were in the apartment. Peter let go of his hand and patted his shoulder. "I'm kind of done in for the night. I'm going to take a shower, then sleep on the couch."

"The couch?"

"Yeah," Peter said firmly, thinking he was completely justified to leave the son of a bitch and go sleep at Emma's. But just because he was mad didn't mean he should reject the guy completely. "I'm going to sleep on the couch." He knew he was important to Gabriel and he wanted to stop the cycle of incident - false forgiveness - anger - incident. It was a relationship roller coaster he had no interest in riding. He strode off to the bathroom, feeling dull inside as the emotional rush of the evening slowly subsided. Peter put himself under the water while it was still icy, letting it shock his senses and give him something else to feel aside from the unnerving tingling on his neck, knees, palms and asshole. He scrubbed, hard. The regrown skin didn't feel as weird.

Dried, he went to the dresser to put on a grey t-shirt and loose, black boxers. He didn't usually wear a shirt to bed but he felt like one tonight. Before he left the bedroom, he moved to the nightstand and looked at the dark cover of the book Gabriel had been reading - _The Last Werewolf_. Peter picked it up, seeing that the notebook under it, the one Gabriel and Sylar used to communicate at times, had a full page of new scribblings since the last time he'd noticed. Peter ignored them, opening the book and reading the blurb inside the jacket cover. He'd gotten through that and started the first page when Gabriel came to the door.

"What are you doing?"

"Snooping," Peter replied calmly, putting the book down. It wasn't the sort of thing Peter liked to read, but he could see the appeal for Gabe, who was much more taken by imaginative and unattainable fantasy than Peter was. Not that Peter didn't have his own love of melodrama, heroics and unlikely adventures. _Or maybe it's just that I don't think as much as he does. Or read as fast._

"You can read it if you want," Gabriel offered.

"Nah, not my speed, but thanks." Peter gave him a crooked smile. "I just thought, you know, that maybe I should be paying more attention to what you like."

"Oh."

Peter headed out of the bedroom, with Gabriel fading back out of his way. While Peter had showered, dressed, and read, Gabe had tucked a sheet into the couch and spread a blanket over it, complete with pillow. Peter picked up the pillow. "This mine from the bedroom?"

"Yes. Of course."

Peter put it to his nose and inhaled. He smelled nothing that made it distinctive to him. "Do you mind if I trade?"

"What? Pillows?" 

"Yes."

"No. I don't mind."

Peter nodded and switched, thinking that if his read of Gabriel's fragile emotions was right (not that Peter's were in much better shape), that it might help him to have something of Peter's scent in the bed, since Peter himself wouldn't be there.

"Why are you being so nice?" Gabriel asked, which told Peter he was right - Gabe at least understood the gesture.

Peter chuckled and pushed back the blanket to sit on the couch. "Two reasons. First, you slapped me up the side of the head with how I hadn't been holding up my end of things, all aside from the problem at the club. In fact, I think I …" He exhaled and looked away for a moment, then back. "I think I want us to take a moment, at least once a month, where you make me keep my mouth shut and do nothing but think. Meditate, whatever. But that … it was rough, but I needed it. I needed that time to really think about things. And second, just because we have a problem does not mean one of us gets to be mean to the other one. If that applies to you, then it applies to me just as much." Peter ran his hand through his hair, then tucked his feet under the blanket and lay down.

Gabriel stared at him for a few moments before turning out the light and quietly heading into the bedroom to see to his own nightly routine. Peter didn't go to sleep right away. He had far too much on his mind. He shut his eyes, tried to relax, and let it wash over him. He wasn't sure how long it was before he heard Gabriel approach him in the darkness.

"Hey," Gabe said. "I know you're not asleep. Can I … can I talk … to you?"

"Yeah, sure." Peter roused himself a bit as Gabriel sunk down to sit cross-legged on the floor next to him. He reached out and touched Peter's chest cautiously with his fingertips. Peter leaned in immediately after to offer a chaste, but warm kiss. Gabriel breathed out heavily as they parted and turned to rest his forehead on Peter's chest, then the side of his head. He gave Peter an awkward hug, then started to climb onto the couch with him. Peter prevented him with a few short pushes. "No. Not now."

With a grumble, Gabriel sank back down. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Peter said, reaching out to tousle Gabe's hair. "That's why I want to get this right."

Gabriel nodded and turned, facing away now, but tilting his head into Peter's hand enough to convey that he wanted that touch to continue. Peter adjusted himself so he could more easily pet him. For a few long moments, that was all they did - sit, touch, be together. Peter felt the swell of love within himself, no matter what else had happened in the last few hours. He needed this intimacy and reconnecting. _He wanted to talk? _Peter wondered._ Or did he just want me to reassure him that I still loved him?_

Gabriel began. "Rita thinks that I'm trying to control what happened to me by controlling how people define it. Including … myself, I guess." Gabriel shifted over a little so his head was even more under Peter's hand. Peter listened. "So I said at first it didn't mean anything. I want to be in control of it." Gabriel's voice sounded petulant, sulky and immature on his last sentence, a grown up version of 'it's just not fair!' He swallowed. Peter carded his fingers through the silky hair. "And I told myself it was okay. That it was just something that happened, like if … like me with Rupesh, or Matt, or the accident with Wilcox. But none of those were me doing it to **you**, and the one time I did … well, and I killed you, but then I didn't deal with you for a couple weeks. And last year, when I … against the wall, the sex, a rape I guess … I don't know. I don't like the word. I understand now why you just wanted to say I'd forced you."

Gabriel reached up and caught Peter's hand, pulling it down on his shoulder and leaning his head over to put his cheek against the back of it. "I got to be away from it those times, away from you. No one knew about the r-rape, not ever except for Maury and that was over a month later. And you, but you … I didn't see you until Thanksgiving." He stroked Peter's hand. "Those were all things I did to **you**. This was something you did to **me**. And you've never …" He sighed, rubbing his cheek hard against Peter's hand, abrading it with his bristles. Peter grimaced but said nothing.

"You haven't hurt me like that before, that I haven't asked for it, or we weren't … enemies, I guess. You haven't forced me to do things. Even all of those times when you get in my head and push a little too far, you always retreat the moment I push back in return. I kick you out and you go without a fight. So I'm getting more and more to thinking it's okay and that maybe all I need to do is say, 'stop it, Peter', and you would, instead of me having to overreact." To Peter's amusement, Gabriel put Peter's hand back on his hair. It reminded him of a dog rooting under someone's hand, begging for strokes. Peter provided them.

"Maybe I should have told you to stop. I don't think you would have, but maybe I needed to tell you. I didn't want to, though. Now, I don't know what I wanted. I'm confused. I keep getting more confused and it makes me angry and I … took it out on you." Gabriel sighed. "You know, I'd like to have sex like that again - hard, fast, uncontrolled." Peter's hand missed a beat, then continued. "Yeah, I know," Gabriel said in response to Peter's surprise. "It doesn't make sense. I want you to take me and then hug on me like you did after we boxed." Gabriel rolled his head back and forth under Peter's hand. "That's what I want and it doesn't make any sense so I hurt you."

Peter thought about offering responses, commentary, his own input, suggestions or fixes. Ultimately, he kept his mouth shut and listened. He was so glad that Gabe was talking to him like this, even if it was sort of stream-of-consciousness, perhaps _because_ it was stream-of-consciousness. Gabriel wasn't editing or censoring. He was showing a level of comfort and trust that made Peter feel truly privileged and special. After the shut-down a few days ago at the beach house, Peter had resigned himself to just not being included in Gabriel's inner life. But maybe that had changed? Gabriel turned and looked up at him, tilting his head and leaning in as a clear indication of what he wanted at the moment. Peter met him for a slow, easy kiss. Gabriel put one arm around him, Peter hugged him with both, and they held each other until Gabriel finally slipped down to sit on the floor again.

"I like this," Gabriel continued after a short silence. "Being with you. And Heidi. It's a lot better than being alone. Things used to happen to me and … there was no one. I'd go on to the next target, or whatever I happened to be doing, whatever goal or project or whatever. Nathan might drink if he couldn't get to sleep, or go out and hire someone. Sylar would just lie there. There were some little mental tricks he had that helped. He had an ability early on that let him control his body - shut off fight or flight, go to sleep on command, not bleed or go into shock, or to die when it was convenient."

_When is it ever convenient to die?_ Peter wanted to ask, but didn't. Sylar had a number of times in his history where he should have died, but didn't. Maybe there were also points where he wanted to die, and did. _We've had such strange lives._

"It seemed trivial, not worth having, at first. But it helped me cope. I needed it. Though the world might have been a better place if I hadn't been able to handle it all." Gabriel sagged. "It's not like I handled it very well even with it. If Nathan had just had a nervous breakdown after Kirby, had gone on medication and stayed uninvolved? If he'd gone back to Heidi and lived quiet instead of making problems? All he could do was fly. That was it. What if he'd been a better brother? Or the father he was supposed to be? Instead of that 'saving the world' crap that you Petrellis seems so taken with?" He snorted softly.

Gabriel rolled his head back to look up at Peter. "You've given that up for me." He smirked. "I know it's only been a few months since your last hero gig, but you're not even out looking. You're not watching the news, reading the newspaper, obsessing about whatever. You're paying attention to **me**, and Emma, and Heidi, and **us**. Your work. Your family. I don't know what to make of that. It seems so out of character for you. It's like you really care about me."

Peter literally bit his lip not to say anything. Gabriel smiled suddenly, a flash of white in the dark. "I know. You really do care about me. That's great." He sighed. Peter rubbed Gabe's shoulder affirmatively, then ran the backs of his curled fingers along the side of Gabriel's neck. "Mmm," the man purred. "Incredible, even. I was taking it for granted. I can't do that. It's stupid. I'm not stupid. I know what I … want in my life and I'm going to do whatever I need to do to get that. I have … goals. One of them is you."

Peter's brows rose slightly. It didn't surprise him that somewhere between Nathan's mission objectives and to-do lists, and Sylar's targets and acquisitions, that Peter had been categorized as an accomplishment to be checked off. The same probably applied to Heidi, the kids, the Company and whatever else Gabriel had on his mental 'hit list'. Peter sighed and tousled Gabriel's hair again - affectionate and exasperated with the guy. _All the experts say you have to work at love, schedule time for it, set dates and prioritize correctly. Maybe he's just way ahead of the game. _Peter smiled to himself. _Over-achiever._


	345. Make Up Masturbation

Peter shifted position, then blinked and looked around the room, disoriented to wake in the living room, on the couch. _Oh._ There was Gabriel, snoring softly, on the easy chair. Peter smiled and stretched. _So much for sleeping apart._ The other man had a light blanket and a pillow, which was probably the one Peter had given him last night. It was terribly sweet and made Peter _ache_ to be with him. It was too soon. He knew that, rationally. His morning wood had a different idea.

"Mm," he hummed to himself and adjusted the blanket over himself. His left hand crawled inside his boxers and stroked up and down slowly. Peter shifted his shoulders, squirming into the couch a bit, while his right hand scratched an itchy part of his stomach. He sighed, sending that hand higher up under his t-shirt, rubbing over his nipples and chest while his other hand stroked a bit faster. His eyes were shut. He couldn't help the small noises the back of his throat persisted in making. He switched hands, buttocks flexing a little with the motions. Now his left fondled his balls while his right rubbed harder up and down.

A noise, a shift of clothing, reminded him there was someone in the room with him - a fact that he had somehow spaced for a few minutes. His head snapped over to see that Gabriel was quite awake and watching. He'd just adjusted his groin, in fact, under the blanket. Peter put his head back, staring at the ceiling, not sure what to do. "Like the show?" he asked after seconds had passed quietly, neither of them daring to move.

"Uh … yeah." Gabriel was quiet for the moment.

Peter's fingers shifted around his shaft, still awkwardly tenting the blanket. He hadn't lost his erection. He was wondering if Gabriel was waiting to be invited over. He didn't want to invite him over. _So what's the proper etiquette here? Should I go take a shower and finish there?_

"I thought you had a kink for public spectacle," Gabriel said.

Peter's cock twitched, entirely by itself, making the creases on the blanket rearrange themselves. He looked over at Gabe again. _He's not … He's just going to watch? I don't need to worry about him? That's … HOT._ Peter's breathing sped up.

Gabriel was perfectly aware of that. He arranged himself sinuously across the chair, cupping his chin in one hand. He raised the other one, two fingers extended in Peter's direction. The blanket jerked a bit and paused. Peter giggled, so excited, all in a rush, that he felt giddy. Gabriel purred an interested, "Hmmm," and the blanket slithered off, leaving Peter bare.

Peter swallowed and raised his hips. A moment later, telekinesis pulled down his boxers, revealing him proudly at attention. He stared at the ceiling, stroking himself again, squeezing his tip over and over. The idea of eyes on him, watching him, judging him … he moaned as his hand stroked his now-harder-than-ever organ.

"Oh, yes," Gabriel breathed.

Peter's whole body was taut, his imagination flooded with all the times he'd been turned on, quite inappropriately, in public. He'd worried people knew. He'd worried they'd seen. He'd always been so damn sensitive to people's emotions and cycles and unconscious, subconscious invitations that he'd gone around high school with a boner more often than not. He bit his lip, chewing it as his back arched. All of those frustrated urges, carefully denied and forced back inside, never consummated, came rushing through him. His mind completed the adolescent fantasy of jerking off in front of his whole class, everyone watching, just like Gabriel was watching now, a rapt audience.

He moaned with abandon. Everyone could see him - he was right out in the open, exposed. No need to keep it in. His hand worked furiously at the head of his cock while his other roamed up and down his body - balls, abdomen, nipples, chest. His thighs trembled as his balls tingled. A moment later, hot come spurted and dribbled between his fingers as he gave one last, guttural cry.

"Fuck," Gabriel whimpered and Peter heard him shift. He looked over at the man, who was looking away, probably battling away his own arousal. Peter watched him with heavy lids, his brain addled by endorphins and not thinking straight. He felt lovely and wonderful, and very generous. There was Gabriel, probably horny as hell, and so considerately staying away from what he hadn't been invited to participate in. Gabriel was no monster.

Peter breathed heavily and moved on the couch, putting his back to the rear of the furniture. "Come here."

Gabriel glanced back at him furtively and Peter repeated himself. Gabriel was out of the chair and to his side quickly. Wearing only a shirt, his state of want was obvious.

"Climb on here next to me, facing me," Peter directed, as Gabriel was waiting for specific commands, making no assumptions about what Peter would allow. It made it so much easier for Peter to allow more that way. Gabriel arranged himself, lying on his side. Peter kissed him immediately and warmly, at the same time curling his hand around Gabe's shaft, smearing him. Gabriel whimpered again, nosing at him energetically and submissively, kissing with a frantic edge to it. "I love you," Peter mumbled between eager, lip-swallowing kisses.

"Yes, yes, yes," Gabriel whispered back, his loins shifting back and forth to fuck into Peter's hand. More kisses were exchanged, all probing tongues and hot breaths. Peter squeezed him hard, suddenly remembering a few things about pleasing his partner. He broke his face away to move to Gabriel's neck, where he bit him - not just once and nothing like a love bite. He was savage and if he was breaking the skin - that was possible - he didn't care. Gabriel's voice changed instantly - deep, insistent, breath catching as his hands could do nothing but cling to Peter, nails digging in passionately. Peter matched that, bringing both hands into play on Gabriel's dick - one to hurt him and the other to work the tip. He slung his leg over Gabriel's, holding him down. Teeth, nails and body pressure sent the other man over the edge at a dizzying pace. Gabe bucked, coming with a throttled, huffing noise.

Peter leaned back, tasting a little bit of blood on his lips. Gabriel licked and kissed him clean a few seconds later. _I'm not sure how I feel about that,_ Peter thought woozily of the blood. _The sex was good, though. Oh, hey. We're having sex again. Mutually_. Peter chuckled, burying his head under Gabriel's chin and snuggling close to the guy. He felt happy and buzzed, post-coitally pleased with himself and the world. "Warm and fuzzy," he slurred.

Gabriel kissed at his hair, smelling of it and running his hands up and down Peter's back in joyful little strokes.

"Mmm," Peter hummed contentedly. Gabriel echoed him immediately.

They lay tangled together, doing nothing at all, for long minutes. Gabriel's phone went off in the other room. The ring tone spoke of work. They ignored it. A few minutes later, Gabriel began snoring. Peter grinned. He didn't bother trying to get up. If he tried it, Gabriel would wake. Instead, Peter stretched as much as he was able, wiped his hands off on a corner of the blanket, cuddled up, and thought.

_I thought I wasn't going to do that for a while - the sex thing. Guess I didn't actually **say** I wouldn't do it. Just that I'm … unhappy with what he did yesterday. He's turned it all around again - now he's not pushing me around anymore. Now he's all solicitous - Mr. Nice Guy. I'm back in charge. Was that it? He felt like he was in charge for a bit there and so he had free rein to be an asshole? Is there more to this 'yeah, everything's okay; wait, now it's not' than just this time? _

_He says he's confused and doesn't know what he wants. He's talked about not even knowing if he's into men. If I'm in charge, then we're fucking - and he's into men, or at least me. But if he's in charge, and he doesn't know what sort of relationship he wants … He's said in the past that he wanted to beat me up. He's told me that straight out. There's a part of him that still wants revenge for everything._ Peter stroked Gabriel's forearm quietly and murmured, "Love you, baby. I really do. I'll be there with you as much as I can, and as much as you'll let me. We gotta find a way to work this out."


	346. Indefensible

"Hi there," Rita greeted Gabriel as he walked in. "How was your holiday?"

He shrugged. "It was okay."

Her eyes looked over him keenly, immediately (and internally) assessing that things were not good. "Why don't you tell me about it?"

He smiled. _Empaths - why do I gravitate to people who see through me? _Gabriel's eyes shifted to the side as he considered that. _Probably because my relationships with those who don't are shallow and manipulative. Hm. That's … interesting. Interesting in a 'pick at the itchy scab over the half-healed wound' sort of way._ "The vacation itself went fine. Saturday was nice; we had fun. Sunday … I spent a lot of time with Heidi. Peter irritated me. Just being around him. He was moping. I wanted to fight with him. I really did. It was weird because he wasn't doing anything and I wanted to fight with him about that, too. So Monday rolled around and I … didn't talk to him. Stayed away from him. I was boiling inside and he could tell."

Gabriel sighed and leaned back in the chair, covering his face briefly and then staring at the ceiling.

_There's a blow-up coming,_ Rita thought grimly, waiting for Gabriel to get over his reluctance to admit to misconduct and say it.

_Yes, I'm that transparent and predictable. Just like everyone else. Not special at all. Or maybe … just as special as they are._ It seemed to be the day for uncomfortable revelations. He sat up. "So Tuesday evening, Peter and I were together. I …" _really don't want to give details of my sex life here._ "Jerked him around, treated him wrong ..." His voice quieted. "I hurt him. He got angry about it. And he was totally right."

"What happened?"

Gabriel glanced at her. She meant the fallout, not the sex. Slowly, dragging the words out of himself, Gabriel recounted, "He said that how I treated him was a reflection of how I felt about him. And that he was going to think about whether he wanted to be with someone who hurt him like that, on purpose. He said … he'd forgiven everything else because he didn't think it was intentional, but this time, it was. And he knew that, and he wasn't going to just ignore it."

"How do you feel about that?"

Gabriel blew out air. "Devastated. Frightened. Irritated. Angry."

"Angry at him?"

_Myself, mostly. But him, too._ "He shouldn't have put up with me this long."

"You think he should leave you?"

"I think I deserve it." He held up a hand. "No, I _have_ deserved it. I'm not … if he doesn't leave me over this, and I don't think he will but that's not the point, then I'm not going to deserve it anymore because I'm not going to do it."

"Do what, exactly?"

"Hurt him."

"Is that something you can avoid?"

"The intentional stuff? Yes."

"So what happened over the vacation that you should have avoided?"

"It wasn't the vacation. It was last night."

"But you said you wanted to fight with him on … Saturday? Sunday? Why? Wasn't last night just the first time you couldn't avoid interacting with him?"

Gabriel looked blankly at the floor for a long moment. "Okay … yeah."

"So if you're not going to deserve him leaving you, then you need to identify exactly what it was that happened. That way the next time it starts happening again, you can stop the process before you do anything you'll regret." She looked at him intently, trying to judge how he was reacting to her challenging him. Pushback on him was something she'd largely avoided until now, as he'd seemed to need support more than guidance.

He glanced up at her, face blank. But behind that was the realization that she had been handling him, manipulating him, and doing it as so much of a routine that even his constant mental monitoring hadn't turned it up. A couple years before, he would have been pissed off and reacted in violence. A year ago, he would have been annoyed and walked away. Six months ago, he would have been suspicious and probed for any other agenda she might have. Right now … he tilted his head slightly and considered that he had hired her for her to manipulate him, mentally, maybe emotionally. That was what he was here for – to be guided. His memory recalled Maury telling him a mundane therapist couldn't help him directly, but they could help him help himself. He gave her a slow blink.

"Tell me about the last time when you felt loving towards Peter over the weekend."

He let the blankness fall away and followed her lead, a little surprised at himself that he didn't feel diminished for doing it. "Saturday, before dinner. He was grilling the burgers. I felt like things were going to be okay. I told him that."

"What changed?"

"I told him I didn't want to tell him about myself, my past, and he let it slide. I … I sat there through dinner thinking that I wanted him to ask. I wanted him to demand that I tell him. I wanted him to look up my file or dig into my past or whatever."

"Why?"

He winced. "I don't know," he said in a small voice, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He hadn't been able to figure it out at the time, either, which had just made him angry and resentful of Peter. The impulse reminded him of how Peter had told him it was okay to take the ability of the energy dampener and Gabriel had spun that single, limited comment into a rationalization to kill the airbender. _Peter's not the cause of this. _**I**_ am. And … actually, this is why I started coming to therapy in the first place. To stop killing; to stop fucking up my life._

"Was there a reason why you told him you didn't want to talk about yourself? How did that come up? Was there something specific he asked about?"

Gabriel shook his head. "No. He asked … just in general. Said, you know, that if I wanted to talk, he was there. And … that he was listening." He leaned back, making an exasperated noise at his own foolishness. "I didn't want him to fucking _listen!_ I wanted him to … _**make**_ me."

Rita's thoughts rang out, _Like he made you have sex before? Do you think him forcing you to do things gives you the moral high ground? Would you give that up to tell him things without him demanding them from you?_ "Do you want to tell him?"

He was silent, but gave the barest nod as he leaned forward again and mulled over her thoughts.

"What do you think you'd get out of being forced to tell him something you already want to tell him?"

He sighed. _Yes, the moral high ground_. "Deniability. It's not my fault. And I … I know he knows a lot of stuff about me, but there's stuff not in the files that he doesn't know." Gabriel put his hands over his face once more. He knew he was metaphorically hiding and it was an impulse of body language that he had mixed feelings on. Nathan never had a problem with it, only the man who had grown up in Virginia's house.

"You think he'll think less of you if he knows?"

"Yes. No." Gabriel grumbled the contradiction, putting his hands down. "He should. But he probably won't." _He's dumb that way._ Gabriel frowned._ But I love him for it._

"Let me see if I understand – he asked if you wanted to share about yourself and you said no. He respected that and that made you angry. Then you hurt him. Is that what happened?"

Gabriel scratched at his brow and looked away sullenly. _I sound like a moody, immature little brat. So undignified_. "Yes."

"You said you weren't going to do this again. What are you going to do to change?"

"Other than _change_?"

"_How_ are you going to change? It doesn't just happen because you want it to."

He frowned. Abilities made all kinds of things happen due to nothing more than his intention and will. Changing himself was a bit harder, yes. He recalled Maury's implication that such a change could be forced with an ability. That was the lazy way out and frightening. _The hard way then. Actually facing up to my fears instead of running away until I'm cornered and then attacking? How to change? Stop running. Stop attacking. There's no secret to defend if he already knows it._ "I'll tell him."


	347. Rapprochement

"It was good of you to call, Peter."

Peter gave Noah a polite look as the other man slid into his chair at the bistro. The place wasn't very busy. It was after Peter's work tour had ended and an hour or so before the dinner rush would start. Peter would be eating with Emma later, when she had her break, which left him with a couple hours to kill. "Yeah, what's it been, a month?" In the grand scheme of things, it was such a short time, but it seemed like longer.

"About that." Noah nodded. "What's on your mind?"

"Been thinking about what you said a couple years ago." He smiled a bit in response to Noah's interested expression. "You've always had some really good advice and I remember it, think about it, even if I don't say much. You said something about the need to keep people in a person's life, to have connections." Peter waited a few seconds, remembering his empty apartment … and being warmed by how Gabriel had slowly been filling it up. But back to Noah. "This weekend we took a vacation to the beach house. Claire was there."

"Don't worry too much about whether I see my family, Peter. I didn't spend July 4th all alone, eating cereal and watching the fireworks on TV. I flew down to see Lyle … and Sandra." He waited a significant pause while Peter's brows rose slightly in question. "It went well."

"I'm glad to hear that," Peter said softly, knowing how much family mattered to the older man. On that, they were in agreement.

Noah nodded. "One of the things the anger management classes have gone over a number of times is the need to evaluate what a person has lost from their life due to the anger. I've thought about that." He leaned forward a little, putting his forearms on the table. "It's not just anger for me. It's fear, too."

Peter's eyes widened a little. First, although he wasn't surprised that Noah was in anger management classes, and certainly he probably needed it, but Peter hadn't known. Second, Noah was admitting to being afraid of things? That was new.

"My fear of what-if has led me to hurt a lot of people in my life. You included."

"Is that one of the steps in the process? Apologizing to everyone you've hurt?" He asked seriously, not in jest. Peter wasn't sure if that was limited only to the 12 step substance abuser programs.

Noah shrugged. "They mentioned it. I've been told not to talk to you by people in a position to tell me that sort of thing." Noah left that hanging in the air as their waiter came by and took orders for drinks. Peter pulled in a slow breath, realizing something profound in that - Noah had agreed to come meet him in direct defiance of (probably Angela's) orders. It showed a deep respect, along with how much the tables had begun to shift from the old generation to the new.

After the waiter left, Peter said, "Thank you for coming. The connection I was talking about was between you and me." Peter didn't care if he hacked off his mother, though he was sensitive to putting Noah in a difficult spot with his boss, regardless of the balance of power. Peter looked down at his hands, his eyes catching on his watch. "Gabriel asked that you not come between us. I echo that. I'm still mad about what you did. Maybe _I_ need some courses on managing anger. What you said to Gabriel, if my understanding of it is right, was completely out of line." He looked up at Noah, aware that he was glaring. It had the expected effect of making Noah shift uncomfortably.

"I need to apologize to him, too."

"Yep," Peter said flatly. There was no negotiation on that point and he was glad that Noah recognized it.

"Is he the forgiving sort?"

Peter shrugged one shoulder, lightening up on radiating threat. "He's with me. Which means he's having to learn that. What really matters is whether you're going to keep working against him, or against _us_, or if you can stick with your resolution before when you offered to help us."

"What's going on right now that you need help from me?"

Peter shut down the inquiry. "Everyone needs help. That's the point of connections and family. I'm asking if you want to be a part of ours."

"That's … quite an offer."

"I'm not in a position to offer. I'll have to talk to the others. But I wanted to know if you were interested before I did that."

Noah thought about that for a long moment as the waiter delivered a pair of iced teas and was waved away for meal or appetizer. "When you say being part of your family, do you mean in the way that, say, Maury is?"

"Yes." Peter thought about his wording and realized that Noah might have interpreted that as an offer of … well, polyamorous marriage or something. _Quite an offer, alright. That's not what I meant, though._

They sipped their drinks, both men watching each other. "I'm interested. And for the record, Peter, I think what I said to Gabriel was out of line and," Noah winced a little to say it, "wrong."

"You don't think he's a monster who deserves being mistreated and who manipulates people into falling in love with him?"

"No more than any of the rest of us."

Peter sighed and leaned back. "We're not monsters."

"Speak for yourself."

"We're _not_. Monstrous means deformed, dangerous, or … something you revile. That doesn't have to be the way any of us live our lives." Peter hesitated for a moment, tilting his head. "Wait, are you saying he's a monster and I'm not?"

"No. No, not at all," Noah said with gratifying alacrity. "I was saying he's not that different from myself."

Peter waited a few seconds to feel his way through that, then decided to challenge Noah on it further. "How so?"

"Well, um," Noah looked off to the side, thinking. "We both have a lot of killing in our past, things we've done intentionally. That … willingness to pull the trigger isn't something everyone has. Not because I think some people are better than others, but it's something you have to get used to. Most people never do it to get comfortable with it - even soldiers and police. He's comfortable, even if he's not always happy about doing it. It takes a special kind of person to commit murder without losing their cool." Noah fiddled with his drink for a moment, aware that wasn't a trait Peter likely appreciated in either himself or Gabriel. "We're both trying to put our lives back together. His more than mine, though it looks like he's had more luck." Noah smiled slightly. "I think I'm jealous."

"Huh," Peter grunted, deciding that was a good enough answer that didn't lay blame or find fault with Gabriel. He changed the subject. "How's work?"

"It's been good. They're going to have me lead some firearms classes starting in the fall. You ought to enroll."

"I'm a contractor."

"I know you can afford it."

"I'm not sure I can afford the time." Which wasn't entirely true. Although he'd be married to Emma by then, the baby would still be months off. The real reason was that he didn't like guns and didn't like anyone using them, Company or not. Throwing chunks of lead through the air was dangerous at best. But Noah wasn't making the suggestion as small talk. Peter frowned and looked up to Noah from his somewhat slouched position. "Why do you think I ought to enroll?"

"So that you're not so shaky and argumentative about the subject."

Peter barely caught himself from immediately arguing about that. The skin around the corners of Noah's eyes wrinkled at Peter's momentarily outraged expression even though his lips stayed impassive. Peter huffed. He'd been caught; Noah was right. "I'll think about it."

Noah nodded and took another drink, looking off to the side casually. Peter smiled and lolled back somewhat. He'd seen this before. Noah was slipping back into the fatherly role he'd taken on with Peter before – nothing at all like Arthur, or any other of Peter's father figures like Nathan, but it was what Peter imagined a father should act like. Noah asked, "Are you still working out?"

"Little bit. At home. Not much."

"You should. It's a good routine for you. Seemed to help a lot last year, when you were trying to pull together after … everything."

_After losing Nathan._ Peter took a long drag on his drink. Working with Noah had given him a lot of structure during a time of his life when he'd felt very lost and deeply betrayed by all of his blood relations. He'd cut back on his hours with the hospital in order to partner with the man on Company missions. Both the sense of purpose from the missions and Noah's mentorship had helped Peter deal with the feeling of being blind-sided by what had happened to his brother. And given him an excuse to pore over the surveillance data and the files on Gabriel, something that Noah had invited him to do for much the same reason he was encouraging him to take the weapons classes. 'Get to know him', Noah had told him, thudding down a thick file in front of Peter, getting the corner greasy from the pizza he'd set it down on. 'You get to know someone inside and out – and it's hard to be afraid of them after that.'


	348. A Keeper

"How are things?" Emma signed to Peter as he sat down to join her for dinner at the hospital. Even though he was getting better at cooking, it was easier to eat here while Emma was a resident. At least, that was what Emma told him. It was either that, or she preferred hospital cafeteria food to what Peter fixed. He'd decided not to inquire too closely and double-down on practicing recipes on his own. She wouldn't be off-shift until much later in the evening.

He shrugged. "They're okay. Gabriel and I are still working out … repercussions from my screw up last week."

"What kind of repercussions?"

Peter shrugged and looked away. On the one hand, he wanted to make sure she knew anything important going on. On the other, he wasn't sure where he and Gabriel stood on things at the moment. Was it important enough to need discussing or could it wait until he was clearer on what was going on? He wasn't sure, so when he looked back, he signed, "He's angry at me."

"He seemed okay over the weekend."

Peter rubbed at one eye and sighed. "Yeah, you weren't there much. He was fine on Saturday. I think maybe he just got more and more pissed off every time he had to see me."

"Are things okay?"

Peter fiddled with his fork and thought about that – Gabriel's righteous fury when he'd throttled him, his abashment after, quietly sitting next to the couch and talking honestly about things, and the cautious, unassuming arousal with him later. Was it enough? Was Gabriel's attraction to him and desire for Peter's approval and respect enough to persuade him to express his emotions rather than act on them? "I think so." Peter hoped he wasn't being overly optimistic, but one thing he knew Gabriel wanted for himself, very badly, was to be regarded as a good person. He was almost as obsessive about it as Peter was.

Speaking of people trying to be better, Peter said, "Hey, I saw a guy earlier today that I need to talk to you about - Noah Bennet. We had that issue with him last month, when he said those … things to Gabriel. Things Gabriel doesn't need to be hearing."

She nodded, having been told all the details.

Peter went on, "He wants to apologize to Gabriel and I thought-"

Emma shook her head, cutting Peter off. "No," she signed adamantly. "He should apologize to _all _of us."

He blinked at her and then looked off to the side, thinking about the impact that Noah's words had had on all of them, and what it would have meant to the family if he'd managed to drive Gabriel all the way over the edge like he'd intended. A small voice in the back of Peter's head labeled the man a danger to his family, with all the emotions that brought with it. Peter shut his eyes, trying to focus, block it out, and stay sane. Going berserk on Noah at this point was ridiculous. Long seconds passed before he got himself under control. He looked to Emma and said, "You're right. He will before I let him get near any of you." He paused for a moment, then said, "And I'm going to make sure he understands … that we stand together now."

Emma nodded, very seriously.

"Are you willing to hear his apology?"

"Yes."

Peter nodded. "Are you willing to accept it?"

She sighed. "Are you _asking_ me to accept it?"

"No." He glanced away, then back. "I … He used to be my friend. I had trouble with Gabriel and I wanted to go talk to him and … I couldn't."

Emma tilted her head and signed to him, "Peter, the next time you have trouble with Gabriel, go talk to Heidi."

He blinked again. "Heidi?"

"Yes. You want us to stand together? Work on building your relationship with her."

Peter stared at her, speechless because that was such stunningly good advice. Heidi didn't like him and that was no secret, but what was in his head was when Gabriel had told him about the Stanton Hotel, while they'd sat out on the balcony of his house, and Heidi had put her hand on Peter's shoulder to stop him from going to Gabe. It had been the right move. Heidi had a sense for Gabriel's nature and what he needed that was preternatural - not surprising given the nature of her ability. He thought about the casual closeness Heidi had shown with Gabriel over the holiday. He nodded slowly. _I feel like an idiot. No, I __**am**__ an idiot._ He smiled ruefully. _She'd probably like me better, too, if she was giving me advice._ Peter knew how that worked.

"But," he said, "Gabriel doesn't want me so much as alone in the same room with her."

"Then take me with you. Or talk to her on the phone."

"Oh. Okay." _That's, uh, yeah. Simple solutions. Yep. Idiot. _Peter sat there quietly, stewing in his feelings of inadequacy for a moment. It was easier when he just carried on like he knew what he was doing, but recently he'd decided to change. That opened the door on failure and the fear of failure, and gave up the moral high ground that he was doing the best he could and was therefore blameless. Guilt and insecurity were things he usually kept very, _very_ deeply buried. _This is going to be hard._

In answer to his earlier question, Emma signed, "I'll have to see what Noah says. I know he was very close to you and obviously Gabriel trusted him or else what Noah told him wouldn't have bothered him like that. What does Gabriel say?"

Peter fiddled with his food. 'Bothered' was kind of an understatement for the open wound Noah had given Gabriel. "I haven't asked him yet. I will."

She nodded and went back to eating for a while before signing, "They installed some new equipment today in the obstetrics ward. We got to do some testing to make sure it was working right."

"Oh?" Peter brightened at the new topic. Her pregnancy was something that worried him a lot, but that was precisely because he cared about it so much. She gave him a sly smile and waited, drawing it out. He smiled bigger, knowing something good had happened. Finally, he broke and signed, "You're killing me here! What happened?"

"It's a girl."

Peter got up, rounded the table and hugged her exuberantly. She'd wanted a girl; he hadn't cared which they ended up with although he'd had a sneaking suspicion that being a Petrelli, it would be a boy. Of course, he knew that two girls and a boy had been predicted for them, but that didn't say which was when. Nor did he know how reliable Lilith's foretellings were. "Emma," he breathed into her hair. "I'm so happy." He could feel the same emotion flowing from her – and he was thrilled with her.

He returned to his seat after a loving kiss and enthusiastically signed, "Do you want me to change the colors in the nursery?"

She shook her head, laughing a little. When they'd moved to the new apartment a month earlier, they had set aside a room for a nursery. He wasn't sure how much they'd be using it. Heidi had virtually insisted Emma move in with them after the baby came to take advantage of multiple sets of hands and arms, as well as more experienced baby-wranglers than Emma and Peter. Peter wanted to do that, but was waiting for Emma to give her input. Regardless of what she decided, they had the room. It was empty so far, but Peter had painted the walls a tiled pattern of yellow, green, and blue. Emma had wanted the room and the new apartment, but she'd put on the brakes when the topic of furniture came up.

"Now I can tell my mother," Emma signed, "and she can tell your mother, and they can go scheme about it."

Peter looked at the sharp motions of her last phrase and tilted his head. "Do you want to just run away for our wedding? There was that chapel on Hawaii you looked at …"

"No," Emma signed, smiling in amusement at him.

Peter thought about Emma's situation. For the last few months, her life had been hurtling forward with so many pressures on it – Peter's issues with Gabriel, her mother and mother-in-law-to-be planning the wedding, the baby on the way, and the crushing work schedule she'd adopted. Peter was trying very hard to make his part work, but he also … felt like he didn't know what he was doing. He was good at many things, but managing a long-range plan wasn't one of them. He didn't think he made a very good husband – not to her, or to Gabriel – not as good as they needed. The best thing he could figure out to do was to ask, to listen, and do what they said.

"Do you?" Emma asked.

"They say it's the bride's day. I want you to be happy. I don't want my mother shoe-horning you into something you don't want to do. I know how she is."

Emma ate a few more bites, mulling over something. "What kind of wedding do you want, Peter?"

His eyes widened; lips parted and then sealed back together. No one had asked him that – not anywhere in this whole process. He had been _told_ what others had decided. Gabriel had asked him about their situation, but it was so different. The enormity of the promises he had made to people hit Peter in the gut as it had before when he'd contemplated it too deeply. He was so afraid he couldn't hold up his end. "Um." He _did_ want a wedding. "As far as I'm concerned, we're like, we're married now. But I want the announcement," he added quickly, feeling nerves rising. "I want it to be public, you know?"

"We're married now?"

"I promised. That's … that's what counts, right?" He cringed inside, wondering how a perfectly happy conversation had dunked him into hot water. _Am I saying the wrong thing? It's not the wrong thing, is it?_

"What if we didn't have a wedding?"

"No, no, I want- I want a wedding!" _Is she saying she doesn't want to marry me? _That pain in his gut transformed into a falling sensation as fear washed over him.

Emma put out her hand and Peter took it immediately, grateful for the unintended consequence of feeling her emotions. She wasn't upset. He wasn't saying the wrong thing. He tried to calm himself down. Eventually she let go to sign, "We're going to have a wedding. But are you saying that you feel like we're married already like you and Gabriel are?" She glanced around for her last bit of signing. Not many people could sign-read, but she was careful nonetheless.

Peter nodded. Emma warmed and signed, "I hadn't realized you felt that way." She thought for a moment and then signed rapidly, "You married me before him!" She looked ridiculously pleased by this discovery, and genuinely amused.

Peter opened his mouth and then shut it, looking down at his mostly-finished plate. He'd gotten the watch well before he proposed to Emma and kept wearing it even when he knew that meant an enormous amount to Gabriel. Did that count? Gabriel had not felt like Peter committed fully to him until their own exchange of vows, which came after he'd proposed to Emma. But Peter felt the proposal was the promise and the only way he wouldn't fulfill it was if Emma refused him, so … He decided it was confusing and beside the point. The most important thing was, "I love you."


	349. Love is a Battlefield

The locks cycled on the door and Peter was distantly aware of the noise. He tried to pull himself out of the relaxation he'd put himself into, struggling awake and upright as the limbs he'd so determinedly told to go inactive while he was resting remained heavy and clumsy as he woke. By the time he was blinking up at Gabriel, the other man had his head cocked slightly and was regarding him with arrested curiosity.

"You were asleep?"

"No. Meditating."

"Any particular subject?"

"The jealousy stuff. I was," Peter sighed, rubbing at his face, "running through different scenarios in my head, like the stuff you did with me mentally the other night." His reactions to those were why he'd made such an effort to keep himself lying still on the couch. He shook his head, trying to clear it from lingering phantasms of a nameless gunman whom he was trying to convince himself to capture rather than kill.

Gabriel was still looking at him like he'd grown a second head. "You were … trying to fix yourself?"

"Yes." Peter's brows drew together. He wasn't sure if he should be insulted or ashamed by the surprise in Gabriel's demeanor.

"By yourself?"

Ashamed it was, then. Peter blew out air and rubbed his face again, disappointed by how others saw him. "Yes. I can lock myself into a ni-, uh, dream, on my own." He had telepathy just as much as Gabriel did. "I've got to get better. That's really important. If there's a threat, I have to be able to react to it intelligently." Peter was trying to leverage the compulsion against itself. Reacting in mindless violence to an attack made _**him**_ a danger to his people, just as much as the jealousy would surely destroy any love others felt for him.

Gabriel was still standing near the door. "So is that what you do at night? I know you don't sleep as much as I do, but you don't get out of bed …" Gabriel trailed off on the statement like it was something that he'd been wondering about for a while.

"I like being with you," Peter said with a deep pang of insecurity and discomfort. He didn't like the implication that he should be doing something more productive with his time, because he really, really liked just being there with someone (_watching them like some sort of creep …_). He'd done the same thing as a hospice nurse, but his patients seemed to think it to be attentive and nice if they even noticed. The few bed partners he'd been caught doing it to had immediately revoked his opportunity by kicking him out of bed.

Peter cleared his throat. "I … sort of meditate, yeah. Sometimes I read. Most of the time I'm just …" _Lie detection. Damnit._ Not that Peter wanted to mislead his husband – he just felt that what he actually did in bed there was stupid, embarrassing, and lazy. "I think about you. The things I ought to tell you. I like having you there." He didn't want to be run off or forced out from that habit. Emma never noticed, but she slept for a couple hours longer than Gabriel did and Peter usually got up after a while and did things, like clean the apartment or that painting of the nursery he'd mentioned earlier.

He waited a few beats, but Gabriel was just watching him, as if waiting for him to say more. Because Peter was wildly insecure about this particular thing, he went on, "I listen to you dream. You said that was okay, if you were projecting …" Peter gave Gabriel an uncertain look, but Gabe gave him a single nod so Peter elaborated, "I don't _do_ anything. I don't put myself in your dream or anything like that. I just listen. Um …" He trailed off, realizing that he'd exposed a vulnerability and painted a bulls-eye on it. He chewed on his lower lip. _I sound like an idiot. A fuck-up. Some sort of weird sleep-pervert like that vampire dude in the movie._ He knew better – depending on one's definition of 'better'. 'Better' had been defined for him as being perfect and denying anything that might look like a fault (or if denial wouldn't work, correcting himself, immediately). Admitting to something he knew (or thought) he did that was wrong and had never changed to do it right was … yeah, a weakness. Something he should give up, be stronger, get his ass out of bed and do something useful, responsible, helpful-

"That's sweet," was all Gabriel said of it, walking forward a few steps before stopping and moving his head through the air as he inhaled. "What's that?"

"Juniper," Peter said, brightening. He could pretend the sleep thing wasn't an issue _and_ change the subject to something he'd done for Gabriel. Double cool. "Do you like it?" he said of the spicy woodland aroma.

Gabriel started to take a step, stopped himself and said, "Yes, I do," and then moved forward quickly to Peter, leaning down to kiss him. His hands on Peter's shoulders steered Peter back into the warmth of the couch where he'd been laying before. Gabriel climbed over him, exuding happiness and passion in a sudden, rising rush.

"Umf!" Peter said, rolling back with it._ Scents – big hit. Learn this!_ He kissed back enthusiastically, his hands sliding along Gabe's forearms.

Between kisses, Gabriel said, "I'm learning to use my words. Did you see that?"

Peter laughed, chewing at the point of Gabriel's chin. _Like your actions weren't crystal clear!_ "Yes, I saw that. This is a lot more fun than talking, though."

"Hm, I have a lot to tell you," Gabriel said between smooches up Peter's cheek to his temple, sniffing along the way to figure out exactly where Peter had dabbed the essential oil. He'd put it on the teeth of his comb before running it through his hair, thinking that with Gabriel's fascination with his hair, that would be the best place.

"I love the way you use words," Peter said with a smile, kissing Gabriel's neck, which was now before his lips. Gabriel ground his lips into Peter and breathed hotly into his hair. "And phrases," Peter added, assuming this was some literary allusion to making out.

"Agh," Gabriel groaned, disengaging and flopping over to wedge himself between the back of the couch and Peter. "Enough. No more. If that continues, I won't end up talking to you at all."

Peter turned his head to face him, scooting his body over as much as he could without falling off. "I liked the conversation we were having there." _Not an allusion, metaphor, whatever? You really want to talk? Thought you said …_ Peter shut up his internal monologue to listen.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "Last night you slept on the couch. While you didn't actually say we weren't going to be intimate, that was a pretty big flag for it."

"Kay."

"You seem perfectly willing to be with me, though, even given," Gabriel tilted his head, looking off to the side as he remembered with distaste, "my behavior the other day, and events last week."

"I love you. I'm not going to reject you."

"That's not what I'm getting at. A year ago, from what I can tell, you had a fairly normal sex drive. I think you were dating Emma. Was it even sexual?"

Peter frowned, not terribly thrilled with the line of questioning, but more unsettled by what Gabriel was getting at. In the last few months, everything had turned topsy-turvy on him. He knew he needed people. The two weeks that Gabriel and Emma both had dumped him had driven that home, hard. He'd have been in less misery then if he'd given up eating. "Yes, it was, but … fine. Yeah. Okay. I'm hoping you don't reject _me_."

Gabriel gave him a very long look, reaching out to cup Peter's cheek. "You need it, like a hunger?"

"I don't know." _This is what you wanted to talk about? Fuck!_ Peter winced with discomfort. He didn't like the idea of his desire for intimacy being put under a microscope. It was also uncomfortably close to the previous sleep-watching topic, although that one had been more life-long. He remembered Nathan flipping out one morning when he woke up to Peter's watchful, four-year-old eyes staring at him over the edge of the mattress, inches away from his face (_'What the hell, Petey?' 'You told me not to wake you up. So I was just waiting … but you're awake now!'_) Afterward, Nathan had started turning the lock on his bedroom door. It left Peter feeling dejected and even more clingy, insecure that the main (and sometimes it seemed only) person in the house who cared about him was shutting him out. After that, he would go up to the highest window in the house and stare out at the yard all alone until the rest of the household woke up.

Gabriel's hand on his cheek rose to run through Peter's hair. "There are worse hungers to have."

"How do you tell the difference between a hunger and just being weird? Or a hunger and a character flaw?" It was something he'd wondered with Gabriel, but after seeing and feeling how hard Gabriel struggled against his compulsions, Peter had shelved the ethical argument insofar as Gabe was concerned. Gabriel was acting in good faith and that was what counted. When it came to Peter's own conditions, though, setting aside blame wasn't as easy, especially as he knew he'd had this trait in different flavors all his life. That his ability might have exaggerated it didn't mean he wasn't responsible for it being there originally.

Gabriel shrugged. "Hardly matters. Treat it symptomatically and behaviorally, and ignore the part about judging you as a bad person for having it."

Peter's eyes finally found their way back to Gabe's. Peter knew Gabriel had never been able to apply that logic to himself. It made him feel a little better.

Gabriel added, "Perhaps it would be more appropriate to label it as a 'drive'. They all seem pretty basic – hunting, loving, eating, possessing, understanding. All people have them to one degree or another. Certain powers seem to key into them and enhance not just your abilities in that area, but the related natural human drive as well. Kind of like how Emma is good at music without ever having been trained. I don't suppose creating beautiful music is really a 'drive', but you can't deny that her ability didn't come with a related effect. You and I have a lot of abilities. That's a lot of related effects to handle."

Peter leaned over and kissed Gabriel softly, wondering when it had happened that Gabriel was the one comfortable in his skin and Peter not. It seemed to have been a product of the last week, with Gabriel getting pushy and dominant with him. _Maybe that's just a see-sawing thing while we get to a new equilibrium?_ Peter liked the effect, on Gabe at least. In his own case, he'd been thrown squarely on the defensive and was having to redefine himself. The person he'd seen himself as before would have never killed a little girl, or raped a lover, but since he'd done both, he obviously wasn't who he thought he was. "I've been thinking that I don't treat you right."

Gabriel scoffed. "That's hardly unique, Peter. You're the best relationship I've had. You and Heidi."

"Both of us? I thought you would have said she was the best."

Gabriel shrugged, combing his fingers through Peter's hair some more. "I don't know. She and I are well defined. I fill a role for her. She wants the public appearance that she's still married to Nathan Petrelli. She wants a respectable father for her children and a partner in bed who acts privileged to be there. I give her all of that. Otherwise, we're just good friends."

"That's what love **is**," Peter said with emphasis, finding it weird to be defending Gabriel's relationship with Heidi against Gabriel himself.

"Yes, but what I have with you is a lot more passionate and desperate. You make my blood boil and my pulse race." Gabe smiled lazily, letting his hand fall to Peter's chest. "She's a good solid meal and you're an exotic, indulgent dessert."

Peter laughed, deciding to take the food analogy as a compliment and not try to read anything deeper into it. It didn't sound like Gabriel was denigrating what he had with Heidi – just staying he got different things from each of them. Peter could handle that.

"You can't tell if you're keeping the right time unless you have something to compare it to." Gabriel leaned against the back of the couch and looked up. "My … one of my first relationships was with Elle. She saved my life. I thought she was an angel." He smiled wistfully. "She seemed awkward and sincere and innocent. She didn't judge me. I was good enough, just as I was. For a little while." He lost the smile. "Then she wanted me to kill." Gabriel's expression turned to a frown. "Later, I found out just how badly she'd betrayed me, and why." Gabriel looked down. "Later still, I … I let her kill me, over and over again until she was done with it. She showed me how to use her power. It was the first time I felt I understood someone else without having to take them apart. Maybe because so much of her was on the surface right then."

Peter was listening raptly, amazed that Gabriel was actually speaking of his past. Peter knew the contents of the file, but that wasn't the same. All interest in sex had faded. He was completely focused on Gabriel. He had wondered what had happened with Elle – it seemed obvious that Sylar had murdered her, but no one was sure of the details. They only knew that her charred body, complete with severed skullcap, was found on the beach after Hiro had taken her and Sylar from Noah's house.

But Gabriel was not ready to disclose that at the moment, moving on to another failed relationship. "I did things with Maya, right after I'd killed her brother." Gabriel's statement was something of a blurt, accompanied by a few rapid shifts of his eyes and a surge of discomfort.

_Um, what?_ Peter wasn't sure what was going on in the conversation – Gabriel was sort of all over the place here, grilling Peter about intimacy issues, being kind, divulging about Elle, and now about Maya? It was confusing, but he kept quiet, sensing that Gabriel was trying to get out something important. Gabriel gave him a raised brow, probably reading something into Peter's physical tension, but Peter just said, "Go on."

Gabriel looked past Peter's head as he spoke his next piece. "Then there was Danko. I was in a really bad place then." Peter could feel the tumult and insecurity that came with that statement. _Is he implying he had a romantic relationship with Emile Danko? That doesn't make sense._

Gabriel gave a very long pause, his distant stare away broken only once by a brief, insecure glance at Peter's face. Peter waited, having realized this was a confession of sorts of prior relationships. "Then there was Lydia, but that wasn't much of ... I don't know. It was like a consensual version of some of the things I did to people while I was hunting." Gabriel looked back at Peter, eyes narrow, judging. If Peter understood correctly, and the list was chronological, then he'd reached the end. Peter laid his hand over the one on his chest, looking back steadily, without judgment.

Finally, Gabriel breathed out deeply, relaxing. A moment later, he continued. "Now Nathan." He shook his head. "The memories are spotty. His … my first was Kelly Houston. I don't know if it was love or not, or even if we had sex, because Angela had the memories taken away. I think it must have been. I've seen the events … I know Nathan was there when she died. It was an accident." He sighed. "After that, I had trouble relating, always wondering if the next person I loved would disappear on me for no reason. When I was in pilot training, I fell again, but I wasn't so much in love with the woman as with the idea of a family. Meredith. And I lost that, too."

Gabriel leaned in suddenly to Peter, kissing him warmly as he sought comfort. Peter could feel the echoes of emotional pain in the other man.

"Told my parents, and she was gone, with the money and the baby. Then there was the fire. After that, it was mostly men for me. They were easier. I didn't have to worry. And I wonder if something about Ma and Dad's commands or erasing the memories or whatever didn't play a role. I did some stuff in the military, but they fell behind the curtain of 'don't ask; don't tell'. Then there was you." He smiled softly, but it faded fast. "And a few months later, I was married to Heidi and I didn't even understand why."

Peter gave a slow nod. There was a lot about this telling that helped him put together and process the different things that had happened in his own life as much as Nathan's. It was letting him see his only sibling in a very different light. Rather than the bigger-than-life, perfect-appearing-but-rotten-inside brother, Peter was seeing the events that had broken him early and that Nathan had never healed from. He'd known them separately, but now he saw the pattern.

"I don't … remember … ever loving a woman as Nathan. But other than you, I never had anything meaningful with a man, either. Nathan chased a lot of skirt and tail. It seemed like the thing to do. I had urges. Heidi was … not what I wanted. Not then. I mean, yeah, I had kids with her but …" He shrugged. "I kept trying to connect with people, but it never really worked. Except with you. You were always there for me."

Peter smiled softly, though his feelings about it were bittersweet. He had been perpetually Nathan's trampoline, a rebound mat and safety net for the better son who couldn't be allowed to fail. He'd known he was being used, but he'd done it anyway. He loved Nathan and that was what lovers did, right? Nathan would have an affair, it would work out badly, and he'd end up in Peter's arms every time. Put back on his feet, Nathan would reject Peter, walking away from him because incest and homosexuality was wrong and he couldn't risk getting caught. Or at least, that was what he said.

Every single time, it twisted Peter up inside – maybe if he could just be 'right' enough, Nathan wouldn't leave (maybe his father would respect him, maybe his mother would put him first for once, maybe people would see him as who he was rather than a Petrelli – maybe, maybe, maybe). Of course, it had never worked, but the deep impression that he was wrong inside and wrong for other people had only intensified Peter's determination to do the right thing, to be perfect, and his desperate efforts for recognition of that, through any means necessary. Flinging himself off buildings wasn't too big a step – anything to prove that he was worthy.

He reached out and touched Gabriel's face wonderingly. "You married me," he said, feeling tears in his eyes. "That's the first time," he sniffed, "the first time Nathan didn't leave me."


	350. Intro to Sykology

"Nathan was a dick."

Peter chuckled and looked away, wiping his eyes before looking back. There weren't many people he'd let get away with that sort of comment, much less take it with good humor. "Yeah. Yeah, he was," he said sadly. "But can I ask a question?"

"Sure."

Peter read the tension in Gabriel's form and hoped he wasn't overstepping whatever boundaries were in play here. "Danko?"

Gabriel made a growling noise and pushed himself up off the couch. Hoping he hadn't upset him, Peter reached out as he went, feeling for the man's emotions as his fingertips skimmed along Gabriel's side and the back of his hand. He could do it through clothes, but skin contact was better. He sensed shame and fear instead of the anger and defensiveness he was concerned about. Gabriel got to his feet, but pulled up short and reached out, taking Peter's hand before he could pull it back. There was no irritation. He was just waiting.

"What?" Peter asked after several seconds of hand-holding passed.

"You wanted to read me."

"Oh." Peter extricated his hand, embarrassed at being caught. "No, it's okay. I don't need to know. It's no big deal."

Gabriel snorted and walked off into the kitchen. "No, it _is_ a big deal and you _do_ need to know. By the way, I don't mind you reading my emotions. I read yours, or at least the physical manifestations of them, all the time, without even touching you." He disappeared into the other room.

Peter sighed, staring at the ceiling. Gabriel did a lot of things that seriously walked the razor edge of being a hyper-controlling asshole. He was disturbingly like the obsessive boyfriend who couldn't stand to not be allowed to read each and every text message you sent, who checked your e-mail, watched your bank account and questioned each transaction, and wanted lengthy verbal reports on every conversation or interaction you might have when they weren't there, no matter how meaningless or not-his-business it was. Even when Gabriel **was** there, he was still taking notes on every nuance of emotional reaction Peter might have to something. Peter did not _intentionally_ read Gabriel's emotions very often. He did when he didn't understand what was going on and felt he needed to know, and he did when they got intimate or close. It activated automatically with a lot of skin contact and took more concentration than seemed worthwhile to shut it off. Although, had Gabriel ever once said he minded, Peter would have made that effort.

As a habit of Gabe's, it made Peter nervous occasionally. Every time he'd run into that behavior in the past, in anyone else, it had meant trouble. Gabriel was the first person he'd ever been with whose voracious and obsessive curiosity seemed to be just that - curiosity, completely disengaged from a power trip. Or maybe the information was the power trip all by itself. But whatever was going on, Peter had to admit that months had passed and Gabriel had done nothing objectionable with all the stuff he knew – not even when their relationship had fallen apart. It was one of the many things Peter trusted him on, putting his faith in Gabriel ahead of and apart from his experiences with others. Gabe didn't get treated like anyone else in Peter's life because he wasn't _like_ anyone else in Peter's life. That inability to predict left Peter floundering at times though when dealing with his lover.

From the kitchen, Gabriel called out, "You want some coffee?"

"Going to be a long story?" Peter guessed.

"Yep."

"Sure," Peter said, sitting upright and snagging his comb out of his back pocket to help him tame his tousled hair. A few minutes later, Peter was shifting his hot cup of java. Gabriel settled into the huge easy chair across from him, hot tea in hand. The rich scent of the coffee mingled with the more delicate aromas of the tea and juniper, combining delightfully even to Peter's nose. He inhaled deeply and made a pleased hum.

Gabriel smiled and joined him in a few moments of olfactory appreciation. Then he turned more serious. "You asked the other day if I ever wanted to talk. I don't know if I do, but I think I should." Peter looked over at him with widened eyes, trying to think back to exactly what he'd said to Gabe, trying to track if he'd pressured him to reveal things his husband didn't want to share. Seeing his expression, Gabriel held up a hand. "And before you say anything, just don't. I think I need to tell you this. I'm so much closer to Heidi in some ways and it's because I feel like I can talk to her without … well," Gabriel shrugged, "she certainly judges me anyway, and I'm not always happy about that, but I don't take it personally. That's my problem with you – I take the way you _breathe_ personally. Everything you do. I need to get past that. You … clearly don't find me lacking or you wouldn't be with me. Not _still_, at least." Gabriel made a semi-disgusted snort.

Peter itched to tell Gabriel he didn't have to tell anything he didn't want to share, but at the same time, Peter _really_ wanted to know. There were a lot of things he wasn't curious about – powers, the future, what his lovers did when they weren't with him – but the gaps in Gabriel's life had bothered him from the first time he'd read the files. He couldn't understand the person Gabriel was without that information – the most critical parts were absent, leaving Peter to fill them with speculation and assumption. Empathy required knowing someone's circumstances, at least a little. You couldn't make a connection with a void. As long as Gabriel kept the mask up on Sylar's past, Peter was left guessing and occasionally stumbling in the dark. He said nothing – all ears.

"Well then. Story time." Gabriel leaned back in the chair, looking upward for the moment. "Once upon a time, there was a young man named Sylar …"

Peter settled back in the couch, coffee in hand, listening raptly.


	351. Sylar on Sylar

**A/N: **Warning for rape and murder. Also, this chapter has been recounted before as a stand-alone, although I have made a number of changes to it.

* * *

_Wednesday night, July 6, 2011_

"_The Garden of Eden,_" Gabriel explained. "That's where it started. It wasn't just the name of the nightclub. It ended up being a little more symbolic than that - temptation, distraction, anything that might lead me away from what I'd set out to do. And that was to prove my father wrong. He accused me of taking the easy way out, avoiding challenges, running from the bigger predators. That … those things … were why my life was empty and unsatisfying. I hadn't accomplished anything worthwhile, no matter how many powers I had. I resolved that I would succeed where my father had failed. I would gain real power, real authority, something meaningful. But not just to see if I could, like he'd said. I knew I '_could_'. I wanted to make things better." He brushed restlessly at the arm of the easy chair.

"So that's what you did?" Peter asked.

Gabriel shrugged one shoulder. "Not exactly. First I had a lot of fucking myself over to get through." A wry smile twisted his lips as he began his story.

* * *

_Friday, June 5, 2009_

Sylar didn't have much experience with nightclubs. That whole lifestyle of going to parties and having fun was something he'd never taken part in. As the dutiful, repressed, and only son of a neurotic shut-in, having fun out and about town wasn't an option. Once he'd become Sylar and thrown off those shackles, he'd been too busy. Plus, as something that hadn't been in his life, it hadn't even occurred to him that he was missing out. Potentially missing out, that is. Not until the option of having fun was held up to him like a bright red, juicy apple.

He stood near the entrance as his eyes and ears adjusted, having allowed Danko to pay an offensively high cover charge for the privilege of his company. The place was packed with people – attractive, well-dressed, and _available_ in a way he'd only ever seen on television and in movies. Just to sweeten the deal, somewhere in this mob was a special with an ability to change his shape that Sylar was itching to have as his own. It would do so much to enable his goals.

They walked in, wading through the jarring beat of techno-pop as Sylar tried to sift through all the people. His target liked power and he liked flaunting it. He wouldn't be at the bar – even Sylar knew that was where losers congregated, poised like predators near a watering hole, waiting to spring on the next victim who approached. And he wouldn't be on the dance floor – the guy wasn't interested in earning his lauds. No, he'd probably be … Sylar's eyes scanned past the tables to the booths, settling on a familiar face. His mouth gaped in amused surprise. "Guess who's here!" he called out to Danko.

"Where?" Sylar didn't answer, so Danko added, "Which one?"

"I suppose that fits the pattern – a position of power, authority, significance. I think you'll recognize him." With that, Sylar turned his head sharply and looked directly at their objective. Danko's eyes followed, as intended, seeing a version of himself huddled close to a pretty girl, obviously in the middle of making a play. Sylar turned back, not wanting to miss the expression on Danko's face when he saw that James Martin had chosen **him** to duplicate. Shocked, stunned, offended – and then an odd sort of responsibility settled over his features. Sylar glanced back, seeing that Martin had moved on to kissing, though it didn't look like the lady was enthusiastic about returning his affections.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Danko was on the move. It was a rash decision, but Danko had shown that tendency. Sylar snagged the guy's arm before he got too far. When he was having to herd Luke around, at least the kid had the excuse of being, you know, a kid. Danko should know better. When the balding man looked back at him with the start of outrage, Sylar said, "Remember what happened last time you chased him?"

"What's he up to? Why me?"

"He's after power. He thinks that's something you have." Sylar gave a disbelieving, mocking look to Danko like this was hard for Sylar to believe. "He's trying to convert the power into love." Because even Sylar knew what the real goal of life was. His father was an idiot if he didn't see that. His stated intention to get power just to have it would lead to just as empty and meaningless a life as before. The real key, Sylar thought, was making a difference in the lives of others. That's why he was infiltrating Homeland Security. And as long as he was here, he might as well pick up any useful skills like shape-shifting that he came across. He looked over to see the young woman was kissing back now, eager and attentive. "Doing a pretty good job of it, too. He's a better you than you!"

Danko looked over at his doppelganger with a pained expression. It was obviously difficult for him to rein himself in from doing something about the imposter right this very second. Sylar captured Danko's attention, saying, "What we need to do is lay back. Let him have his fun. When he leaves, we'll-"

At the mention of Martin's departure, Danko glanced back, then around in alarm. "Where'd he go?"

Sylar looked and sure enough, Martin was rabbiting. _We're standing out in the open like idiots._ They'd been made. This sort of thing never happened when Sylar operated alone. He was still trying to work how to be a team player, because despite his natural aversion to it, he was starting to realize tolerating other people was a requirement to leading them. Now if only they weren't so damn annoying all the time ...

Danko hurried across the room, cutting through the dance floor and making an unnecessary scene. Sylar followed more slowly, trying to work out the logistics – how much time unwatched Martin had had and where he could have gotten to within that time. There was no way the man would leave the building looking like Danko. He'd switch, but to who? If he turned into someone else, then it would likely be random. Most likely, also, he'd need somewhere private to make the shift. _Bathroom, maybe? _Sylar sheared off from Danko, heading for the facilities, confident that the one person he didn't need to watch was Danko himself.

The men's bathroom had the usual assortment of guys in it, none of whom seemed in the process of changing their faces. Not that Sylar had yet pinned down how the ability worked. That would come after he got his hands on it. But no one was acting odd or was loitering in any of the stalls, so Sylar headed back out without sparing a thought to how his search must have looked to the men at the urinals and sinks. He skirted the perimeter of the dance floor, looking for more nooks and crannies – looking for places where _he _would choose to be.

He was looking for anomalies, letting his true, core ability have free rein. His eyes nearly skipped over Danko leaving out a side door – the man was unimportant given the improbability of Martin trying the same disguise twice – but they caught on the form accompanying him. Sylar had no idea what he looked like from the rear, but his ability put together the identification instantly. Fast strides brought him up behind Martin, who was in the process of drawing a gun.

_Where did he get that? I'm not carrying a gun._ They were almost out the door and the false-Sylar was bringing the weapon to bear. Sylar grabbed him by the scruff of the neck with one hand and snatched his gun hand with the other. Danko spun, his own weapon drawn, and showed remarkable restraint (in Sylar's opinion) by not plugging either of them.

Under the subduing presence of Danko's gun, Sylar quickly drug the imposter into the nearby alley. For an alley, it was relatively clean. Martin made a whimpering noise that Sylar found to be absolutely delicious. Sylar pulled him into the darkest shadows and paused there, looking at the pistol he'd stolen. It was a perfect copy of the one Danko held. He threw it aside with disdain.

Danko, who had followed at a slight distance, asked, "You going to take his ability?"

Sylar looked at Danko and chuckled, holding the mirror image of himself against the brick. "Maybe. Now go back to the mouth of the alley and keep watch. I don't want to be disturbed, no matter what you hear." He leered at Danko to make sure the other man got the message, then looked back at the shape shifter, desire marking his features.

Danko chuckled knowingly and purred, "Take as long as you need."

The two Sylars watched Danko leave, then the more timid asked, "Wh-what are you going to do to me?"

The real Sylar looked at his mouth for a long moment. _I have nice lips. I wonder what they taste like?_ He smiled, then pursed his lips slightly, then smiled again, letting his mouth hang open slightly.

"Oh," the one against the wall squeaked. It wasn't that hard to figure out, after all.

_I wonder if he gets smarter because he's in my form? _Sylar sidled closer, thoroughly invading the man's space. "I ran into someone once with an ability very, very much like yours and she made me the most," he leaned in and breathed his words into the other man's ear, "interesting offer."

The man against the wall nodded, breathing harder himself. "Yeah … yeah."

Sylar leaned back enough to see his own face looking back at him, no longer nearly so frightened. This was something James could deal with, and that was what Sylar had so hoped to see. "Yes?" he asked.

The shape shifter nodded, but his eyes darted to the entrance to the alley. "What about him?"

"Make me happy enough and I'll deal with him." He wasn't promising anything. He was just implying and leaving it up to Martin to fill in the gaps - inaccurately, most likely, but Sylar didn't care - not as long as he got what he wanted out of this. He wasn't naïve enough to expect that his power would grant him love, but momentary satisfaction? Ah, now _that_ was attainable.

And it certainly looked like he would get it. The shape shifter reached out and touched Sylar's sides, sliding his shirt out and then running hesitant, exploring fingers underneath. Sylar grinned, watching himself … seduce himself. He couldn't stop smiling, even when the other version of him stood up a little straighter to match him and kissed him, hard and sloppily.

He pulled his head back and said playfully, "Hey, I'm a better kisser than that! Watch, and learn." Or at least, he _could_ be a better kisser than that. He'd never paid the least attention to how he kissed other people – not that he'd kissed very many of them – but he wasn't going to let himself (any version of himself) be incompetent at this. He took a deep breath as he thought about what he needed to do – what was hot, what was good. He brought his head in more slowly, slightly tilted, and brushed his lips. Sylar finally got rid of that manic grin and relaxed his mouth, which softened his lips. The other man started to kiss back - again, too hard, too fast - and Sylar pulled away, saying, "Uh-uh."

_This isn't that hard to figure out._ He repeated - another brush of lips, then a little firmer, moving his mouth to massage against him lightly. _It's nice. I like this._ He brought up his hands and ran one behind the false Sylar's head and used his other hand to caress his stubble-graced cheek, reveling in the feel of having someone compliant and cooperative under his hands. Now, he was really starting to sex himself. He pressed his lips more firmly against a mouth that should have been familiar, but was like no one he'd ever kissed before. He tasted the same though - slipping his tongue out to probe against the other man's lips proved that. It also proved that Martin really liked it, because he moaned deep in his throat and ran his hands around to Sylar's back, drawing him closer against him. _That's even nicer_.

It had been the whimper that had turned Sylar's thoughts this way, earlier. Hearing that sound come out of what looked so much like his body had made him suddenly wild with the desire to hear other sounds. What did he sound like when he came? What did he look like? What did he feel like, clenching around someone's shaft? There was a power in being sexually attractive and wanted by others. This was hardly the first time Sylar had wondered about how he came off to others and what he could do to make them his.

He kissed more passionately, grinding his pelvis against the other man. Both were hard, breathing fast as hands started to roam elsewhere, pulling out clothes, unfastening jeans and pushing them down. Sylar wasn't sure what he was going to get here, but a moment later his alter-ego dropped to his knees and pulled him out. Sylar put one hand against the rough brick and ran the other into the man's hair. He was about to get sucked off looking into his own face. _Oh, how I want to remember this forever!_

Sylar, himself, didn't have much experience giving head. In fact, if you didn't count that embarrassing incident when he was a kid, none at all. James Martin, on the other hand, was proficient and enthusiastic. He sucked in Sylar's rigid cock, tilting it down and pulling it into his mouth. He let the head rub against his palette while his tongue worked the underside, eliciting an immediate, lusty growl of approval. _Oh my God, that feels good!_

Martin wrapped one hand around the base of the organ while his other hand began to stroke his own dick. He was good at it, but nothing beat the sheer fucked-up pleasure of looking down and watching yourself polish your own knob. Sylar worked his fist into that hair, feeling it silky under his fingers, thinking this was what his lovers would see if he ever took a man as one, and if he deigned to get on his knees for one of them. There was a certain humor in the fact that his first male/male encounter as an adult would be with _himself_. Of course, it wasn't like he would have risked such a thing with anyone he might have to deal with later. James Martin's skilled tongue was driving him mad, keeping him very much in the now. He jerked the other man back, watching him wince and listening to him grunt. Sylar wouldn't have minded coming in his mouth, but he wanted the combo platter tonight - not just a single entree.

"Get your pants off," he said huskily.

The other man looked up and down the alley apprehensively.

"My friend's keeping us private. _Pants off,_" he said with a warning edge to his voice, reminding the shape shifter which of them was in charge. Martin nodded and stripped. Sylar said, "Good. Now, you have a power - and I have a power." With that, he brought his telekinesis around the other man's thighs and buttocks, lifting him, tilting the legs, supporting his weight and letting him hang in the air in front of him, only a few inches higher than he had been.

"Whoa," Martin said nervously, hands slapping behind himself to brace against the brick.

Sylar might not have done this before, but he had a good understanding of the mechanics. He spat on his fingers, then presented his hand to the other. "Spit." He did, and the combined expectorate was smeared around Martin's hole and over the top of Sylar's shaft. He worked a couple fingers within him, watching as his own face reacted to the stimulus - mouth falling open, brows lifting slightly, face relaxing. Sylar couldn't stand it - he leaned in and kissed him again, hard and demanding, just like the probing of his fingers, working the other man open. The one against the wall groaned.

Sylar lined himself up and pushed inside. He didn't think Martin was completely ready, but he didn't care and he wasn't sure how to gauge such a thing anyway. He wanted to see the reaction; he wanted to feel himself tight around his own cock. It was incredible. 'Go fuck yourself' took on a totally new meaning ('Thanks, I already have. It was great!') He took the man's hips and started to thrust, watching him react and squirm and wriggle in the grip of the telekinesis - uncomfortable and unfamiliar with it, but not quite complaining as Sylar slid himself home.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, not sure if he cared about the answer. No, on second thought, he was sure he didn't _care,_ but he was curious.

The shape shifter replied tensely, "You could have waited a little longer."

"I don't see any reason to be patient," Sylar said with a smirk and a tilt of his head. He started pushing harder, pulling out and slamming back in. TK was great for keeping Martin right where Sylar wanted him to be. The other man put his hands on his shoulders to ride him, figuring out how to rock into the motions even with the odd ability holding him up. Martin wrapped his long, lean legs around him, drawing them together with every stroke. Sylar - the real Sylar - took the other's shaft in his hand and started pumping. That made up for everything else, erasing the unhappy look Martin had been wearing. Now the man bit his lip, trying to quiet himself.

"No! Let me hear you. I want to hear it all!" Sylar pounded into him faster. Martin obliged by being vocal, moaning as Sylar jerked him off and rammed it home within him at the same time. He watched as Martin's eyes rolled up, as breathy, gasping moans sounded loudly in the quiet of the alley. Sylar fucked him hard, fast, and roughly, delighted to see the expression that his own face might wear when plunged into ecstasy. Martin came with a drawn out "Ahhh!" Sylar followed a few strokes later with a growl and a final snap of his hips.

They sagged against one another for several long seconds, until Sylar ran his hand into the other's hair and pulled his head back, immobilizing it. Lids heavy, completed sated, Martin did nothing – if he even noticed. Sylar grinned loosely at him. "There's just one more thing I want from you…" Cock still buried in his own ass, he leaned in, the intensity of his expression becoming overwhelming as he probed inside the other's skull, avoiding the usual cut across the forehead. Sylar didn't want to see his own face disfigured that way. _Now_ Martin noticed. He struggled. He flailed with his legs, grasped and then clawed with his hands, but none of it mattered. Sylar got to hear several more fascinating noises ripped from that throat before he was done, casting the body to the side just like he'd done with the gun earlier.

As Sylar walked out of the alley, Danko turned and gave him an assessing look. No doubt he'd heard the whole thing, from cries of passion to noises of agony. Sylar's chest puffed up. Danko slouched a little, giving him a patronizing expression. "So," the bald man asked, "Are you a good lay?"

"I am a spectacular lay, as a matter of fact," Sylar said proudly. He reached out and clapped Danko on the shoulder, his fingertips brushing his neck. Danko pulled back warily, and then a moment later there were two of them. The new Danko waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Now let's go back to your place and find out just how good _you_ are in bed."


	352. Date Rape

**A/N: **Warning for another rape, this one more triggery than the one last chapter.

* * *

_Wednesday night, July 6, 2011_

Peter's brows rose at the tale. Gabriel was certainly not stinting on the details. While Peter hadn't known about the sex, that Sylar had killed James Martin was no surprise.

"I had what I wanted," Gabriel said matter-of-factly. "For right then, at least. I was high on the ability. I said some things that were ill-advised. Danko didn't even dignify my offer with a response, and so we stuffed the body in the trunk and drove to Taco Bell to get something to eat."

"Taco Bell?" Peter asked with disbelief.

"Yeah. It was late. They were open."

Peter blinked. It wasn't the idea of there being a Taco Bell around, but that of Emile Danko, the feared and reviled Hunter, accompanied by Sylar, virtually the grim reaper of specials himself, hanging out together at someplace as mundane and public as a Taco Bell. With a dead body in the trunk. It was like something out of a movie or the start of a joke; so incongruous as to be jarring. He shook off the dissonance and asked, "What happened next?"

Gabriel's eyes slid out of focus a bit as he remembered, then he gave a slight jerk. His expression shifted to being more present and aware as Sylar took over. He tipped his head down and leaned forward with threatening degree of interest in his audience. "So you're _listening_ for once, hm? What a novel opportunity. I don't want to waste it relating a bunch of boring conversation made over nachos on black plastic plates. Let's fast forward to the good parts," he said with a lewd grin and a lofting of his brows. Peter leaned away a little, but he didn't object.

Sylar lolled back in the easy chair, setting it to a light, steady rocking with telekinesis. "I'd never realized how easy sexual conquest was. Sure, I knew how easy it was for someone with my abilities to force someone down and take them, but getting them to want me, even for part of it, was another matter. You see, I'd bought into that fantasy, that illusion, that _lie_ I'd heard from my mother, from television, and from the church." Sylar's smile fell away as his lip curled in disgust. "They never said it in so many words, but it was there louder than anything else: _love_ was the path to sexual gratification. There was to be no other way to get your rocks off than to give some bitch a rock. But any man with his cock in his hand on a lonely Saturday night knows different in his heart, even if his brain is busy parroting that bullshit to him.

"I had shape shifting and Martin as a role model. I never did any of this crap that I didn't have someone else show me the way first. I was obviously getting distracted from my mission, but at that point I wasn't thinking about it. I just thought of it as the routine testing I usually do after getting a new ability. After Danko and I settled the particulars of our new working relationship, I went out the next night, back to _The Garden of Eden_. It was still an apt name, but this time, I was the snake ..."

* * *

_Saturday night, June 6, 2009_

Not five minutes inside the club and he'd already found what he was looking for. A woman near the bar angrily told off her male companion, who retreated in the face of scorn and public shame. She ordered a drink, voice still harsh from high emotion. Sylar slid in beside her, all blond hair, blue eyes, tanned and decently muscled rugged attractiveness. He made a mental note to establish a better 'stable' of choices to shift into, but given he'd only had the ability for a day, he was doing damn good. This man was certainly an eye-catcher and the woman reacted immediately.

"Who the hell are you?" she said with a sneer.

It might not be the _best_ possible reaction, but at least Sylar wasn't being ignored, nor rejected.

"I'm your next date for tonight. I'm going to help you forget that loser you showed up with." Sylar leaned against the bar and oozed confidence that he felt from head to toe. If James Martin, that idiot, could do this, then it couldn't be that difficult. And if it didn't work, Sylar could just change faces and try again – no consequences.

Her lips twitched with the beginnings of a refusal, but he didn't flinch. He didn't run away like the man whom she'd spewed venom at earlier. He had virtually nothing at stake here, after all. She looked him up and down, took the colorful drink the bartender presented her with and knocked half of it back in a single gulp. She swirled the liquor around her mouth thoughtfully, looking off over her shoulder to see where her previous date had gone to. Whatever she saw (or didn't see) seemed to decide it. "Why not?" she said to him with false casualness. "Let's blow this joint."

Sylar nodded, reaching in front of her to take her drink in a bold, possessive gesture. She backed up a little, thrown on the defensive already. He downed the remainder, lips wrapping over the glass where her lipstick had stained it, conspicuously sucking the crimson mark off with a swipe of his tongue. Her taste was faint under the tequila, orange juice, and grenadine. He liked it. It was a good combination, if a bit weak. He looked forward to having the flavor straight from her mouth. "Come on," he said, sliding the empty glass onto the bar along with a large bill carelessly snagged from his wallet.

They didn't make it any further than the parking lot. They didn't need to either – not for what they both wanted. It was a warm June night and the lot was well-lit. Apparently that gave the woman the misapprehension that she had some control over what was going to happen. Sylar could barely contain the grin he gave against her lips. No one ever knew what they were going to get with him and he adored the moments before he struck, where they thought the encounter was going to go some other way entirely.

His hands roamed over her shirt as she sat on the hood of a silver Lexus that was convenient to their needs. He tugged up the fabric as he kissed her, his tongue sampling the stronger piquancy of her essence mixed with citrus and alcohol. Her perfume and the lingering tang of hair product mixed with her very human scent against the background of the city smells, filling his nose with a symphony of aromas. He changed to her neck, biting and sucking like a vampire as she dug her fingers into his shoulders and rubbed her knees encouragingly up and down the outside of his thighs.

They had no words; there was no reason to speak. She wanted a release, as did he, and they were both determined to get it. She unfastened his slacks and drove her hand under his briefs, seizing him as they kissed. He wasn't the best endowed in this form and that inadequacy lurked in the back of his mind. She didn't comment on it, a turn of politeness that perversely pissed him off rather than soothed him. He stopped kissing and bit her lip, then her cheek, not caring where he marked her. His aggression was working for her, though. She arched her back and didn't even notice that his hands were fully occupied (one with with the small of her back and the other at her breast) when her pants unbuttoned and unzipped on their own.

He shifted them down so he could cup her ass as his telekinesis freed it from the denim. She was commando, which was helpful. He kneaded her butt cheeks, reveling in the sensation of soft, smooth skin and briefly entertaining the thought that this was would have been a complete fantasy scenario for poor Gabriel Gray only a few years before. Sylar had had a handful of women since then, mostly just to prove that he could. It was a simple matter with telekinesis or violent, immediate threat. Having someone engage with him willingly was still rather new.

He brought one hand around to her front, to her female area, as he settled her back on the painted fiberglass of the car. He wasn't sure what to do with this part. There was a clitoris in here somewhere. And a vagina. He really hadn't had the opportunity, with Elle, to do much exploring and never had the inclination with any of the rapes. Elle had touched herself a lot here while he'd fucked her. _Maybe I should have paid more attention …_

The memory was threatening to take him out of the moment, so he abandoned it and went with what he knew – penis goes in vagina. That was so instinctive that even those retarded in brain development could figure it out. Intelligence did not erase the urge either – it just gave him more imagination in how to address it.

He lined up, found the right spot, and thrust into her, burying himself with a groan. She moaned, grabbing at his forearms. Her long, painted nails pressed into his skin like talons. He bared his teeth, wanting more of that. He wanted her to fight him, to claw at him. He bucked into her, drawing muffled groans and gasped curse words, but it wasn't the level of resistance he wanted. He wanted her unhappy. She shouldn't be satisfied with this any more than she should think his small dick was acceptable. She should have higher standards. She should demand that he be special.

He'd show her _special._

The crotch of her jeans was pressing against his lower abdomen. It was in the way, so he reached down, swiping his hand over the cloth. With a faint snick, it sliced apart, letting her legs fall to his sides. Her head jerked up, body tensing. "What? What did you just do?" She reached down, an exploring hand feeling along her damaged clothing and trying to make sense of it. Sylar kept fucking her, getting really turned on by the play of expression on her face – impotent outrage was the last one and it made him laugh.

"You fucking bastard! You tore up my jeans!"

It's really, really hard to fight someone off when they're between your legs. It's a cruel joke on the female sex that for all their choosiness in selecting sexual partners, they were ill-suited and poorly designed to reject an advance from someone they didn't want. She didn't immediately start to scream. First it was just, "Stop it! Get off me!"

Sylar laughed and held her by her hips, jerking her against him. Her squirming was delicious as she reached around on the hood of the car for anything that would give her traction. The vehicle's aerodynamic design gave her nothing.

"Stop! I told you to stop!" she hissed at him, now trying futilely to get her feet up to kick him away. He just batted her knees down and leaned forward over her, making her task that much more difficult. She kneed him hard in the ribs, but the glancing blow was hardly incapacitating. He could almost taste her conflicting desires to yell and perhaps attract some hero du jour, or to just end this as quietly as possible. It seemed that she didn't want to make a scene. That was too bad. Sylar wanted the attention.

She went limp, staring off to one side. It seemed likely that this, too, was a form of fighting, passive though it may be, rather than her genuinely checking out. It was a form he particularly disliked. Just like the rest of this, he was here to win and have his way, not to indulge her whimsical notions of free will or personal autonomy. He leaned even closer, granting her the opportunity to head butt or bite him, but she was firm in keeping to her dead fish routine. In the distance, Sylar heard male laughter and what was clearly a reference to the two of them coupling. He heard something about 'touchdown' and some other rude sports term. They had no idea what was actually going on.

Telekinesis brought her head around to face him. She glared – no, she was not broken yet. _Good_. He didn't like it when they gave up. Her hands flew up to catch his face, nails slashing at his cheeks. He jerked himself back enough to preserve his eyes. The next moment, he pinned her hands with his own, the old-fashioned way, as he kept pushing inside of her. Her eyes widened. There was easily enough light for her to see the bloody scrapes close over and vanish. Sylar felt a thrill shoot through him at her realization. It ran from scalp to cock – he very nearly came from that alone, from that recognition of how extraordinary he was.

He panted, rocking inside her more slowly, savoring it.

"Let me go," she whispered, "and I won't call the police."

He snorted. "Like they'd do anything." He looked down at her. "Who would you tell them did it, anyway?" He traded blond hair and blue eyes for a shaved head and Hispanic features. He grew appreciably between her legs as well, but her freak-out was more likely due to what she could see than what she undoubtedly felt. "Or maybe you could tell them it was an Asian guy?" He shifted again, rock hard and ready to burst no matter the form. After they'd dropped off Martin's body where it could be found and ID'd as Sylar, Danko had taken 'Agent Donner' around to meet the people in his office. Sylar had shaken a lot of hands today.

Two more shape-shifts consumed his attention, the rippling and stretching and morphing of his body seeming impossibly erotic. She tried to scream. He choked her, having to rely on muscle because his concentration was stretched thin between sex and shape-shifting. He was gasping, breathing hard, his hips moving in only the most rudimentary manner. The sex was an afterthought, but that did nothing to abate his arousal. He was entirely self-absorbed in that moment and her recognition of his power, the ability shuddering through him and his crawling skin disgusting her so thoroughly that she wouldn't even touch him.

The crescendo was fast, shaking him to his marrow as he released in a blinding spasm that left him choking for his own breath above her. Sensing his distraction, she managed to finally shove him away. He went, staggering back a step to the side. She fumbled herself off of the hood of the car, but arrested then. She tugged at the separate legs to her jeans. While she might have largely kept her composure during the rape itself, the damage to her clothes seemed to be the final blow. She fell to her knees and began to cry.

"Huh," Sylar said, utterly devoid of compassion. _That was a pretty good fuck. One thing's for sure, the person she remembers from tonight won't be her loser boyfriend. It'll be __**me**__._ He adjusted his clothes, double-checked the face he had on, and turned to head out. There, not twenty feet away, was a man coming closer hesitantly, peering between the openly sobbing woman and Sylar's obvious lack of concern. The horrified expression on the man's face showed that he had just figured out what had happened and that what from a distance had appeared consensual was anything but.

Sylar raised his hands, fingers outstretched. Doyle's puppetry held the man immobile as Sylar sauntered towards him. At a flick of Sylar's finger, the man's right hand flew upwards. Sylar smacked it in an enthusiastic high-five, laughing at the consternation on the guy's face. A few moments later, Sylar released him without even a backwards glance. Even as the confused man went to comfort the woman, a mirror image of him strutted away, grinning.


	353. Solo Time

_Wednesday night, July 6, 2011_

"I … uh, Sylar … stop. I need a break. Some fresh air. A moment." Peter swallowed roughly, feeling decidedly nauseous from the retelling. "I'm going to go up on the roof." He paused to get Sylar's acceptance of his plan and make sure he wasn't bailing when Sylar needed him to stay. The lean, dangerous man gave him a penetrating look, brows drawing together slightly. Then he looked off to the side as an acquiescence, his expression contemplative.

Peter teleported. It was night, in July, a hot and clear evening. Peter pushed the hair back from his face with both hands, holding the sides of his head. Sylar's story was horrific and told without a trace of empathy. Peter's hands balled into fists, tangled in his hair. _This is why he's never told me. He thought I'd hold it against him. Why he doesn't talk about what he did before, being Sylar – killing, raping, destroying anything that got in his way, stealing whatever was convenient, living a lie. It's not the way he wants to live. Not the way he thinks a person __**should **__live. That's why he changed. He __**has**__ changed That's why he's telling me. He's trying to be honest. _Peter let go of his hair and shook his head, finding the low wall around the edge of the roof to sit on. It was tough not to hold it against the man, not to think about how this was his lover, who had treated him so gently and carefully in bed, who was capable of carrying out the callous violation that he'd described in such vivid detail. He didn't know why the nameless woman's plight seemed so much worse than that of James Martin, but it was.

Peter wanted to do something about this terrible wrong. But what? It was just the tip of the iceberg, he knew. And Peter _did_ know. He'd read the files. Sylar had related to him a single, non-lethal act – it faded in importance when put next to the cruel and sometimes bizarre murders or heinous, fatal tortures he'd inflicted on people. The woman Sylar had raped had lived, but Peter still wanted to lash out. He wanted to _protect._ He … was confused.

Minutes passed before the door for roof access opened. Peter had expected Gabriel, for Sylar to have detected how repulsed Peter was and to have retreated like the coward he had shown himself to be before. Instead, it was still Sylar who walked over in slow, measured steps, hands at his sides, ready for whatever Peter did. Which was nothing besides watching the approach. Peter schooled himself to patience, to tolerance, and to working this out – letting Sylar, or Gabriel, tell him about himself. Peter had told the guy over and over that he wanted to know the real him and that he'd accept the real him. He had to listen to do that.

Another minute passed, feeling all the longer for happening silently between the two of them. Peter had no idea what to say. His emotions were still roiling inside of him, despite the calm expression he was doing his best to wear. Eventually, it was Sylar who cracked. In a small voice, he said, "It's not a simple story where you know who the bad guy is." Sylar shifted his weight, his face twitching briefly in grimace. "Well, maybe it is. But ..." He looked at Peter more raw and earnest than Peter had ever seen the persona of Sylar do. "But that person was _me_."

Peter gazed into his eyes. There was enough ambient light to see one another easily. Sylar was trying to tell him something. Hell, Gabriel had been trying to tell him something for months now. He recalled the man saying he wasn't a victim of his ability. Peter might not have understood what it was Sylar was trying to show him with this story of his past, but he could tell so clearly that Sylar wanted to be understood. Gabriel didn't want that part of him to have to live in the dark anymore. Neither did Peter. _I have to learn to understand this._ Peter nodded slowly, shallowly. "Go on."

The corners of Sylar's mouth turned up in a hopeful, simple smile before settling back to serious. He sat on the wall a comfortable distance away. "The next day, I didn't hurt anyone ..."

* * *

_Sunday, June 7, 2009_

Sylar laid out his implements like a craftsman preparing to work on a device, but the object of his study was himself this time around. Functionally, he knew how to use his newest ability. He knew, mechanically, what it did. But there were so many implications of the power he wanted to explore.

To start with, he stripped naked. He was a tall man, with dark brown hair, wavy, thick, and a little long for the stereotypical masculine haircut, yet not so long as to look feminine. It fell into his eyes a lot these days, but every time he considered a cut, his pride revolted. Last time his hair had been cut was when he was incarcerated by the Company. No one got to do that to him again. His skin was pale where it didn't feature a thick scattering of dark hairs. He wasn't muscular, but he was lean and fit. He frowned over his body, looking at it in the floor-length mirror of the hotel room. This was the skin he'd been born to and grown into, but like everyone else, he harbored insecurities about it – he was too pasty-white, too hairy, too skinny, nose too big, eyebrows like caterpillars, face too angular, limbs too long. But now … now maybe he could fix all that.

He changed form, watching the transformation. It was obvious – that was good to know. He'd gathered as much from the creeped out way Danko had reacted to his playful changes outside the Taco Bell. Speaking of Danko, it was that man's form he was in at the moment. It wasn't attractive – balding, fiftyish, shorter, and now that he looked at himself in the mirror, scarred. He leaned close to the reflective surface, realizing this allowed him a closer examination of someone else's body than he was ever likely to get under polite circumstances. Including, of course, the nakedness. After a brief look at the scars across his torso and abdomen, Sylar took a better look at the eyes and then the nose. His own nasal protuberance was fairly large. He squeezed and manipulated this one. It felt different. He looked at his hands. _Which is more different: my sense of touch, or my nose?_

He shelved that thought for the moment and moved his hands down Danko's wrinkled neck and across the flatish chest. Grey hairs tickled under his fingers. For a moment he paused to tug at them. He had the oddest flash of something like vertigo, like intense deja vu or a kind of out of body experience. It was like he wasn't _him_, like he wasn't Sylar. Like, somehow, for a moment there, he was really Danko. He tugged at the chest hair again, but the unexplained psychological step to the left didn't repeat. He didn't like that. It was unsettling. He should have thought more about it because it was the most important difference wrought by shape-shifting, but he didn't.

Instead, with a slight shrug, he went on with the physical examination. He tried to get a better look at the scars along the bottom of his ribs, feeling the knotted tissue under them. This had not healed well. There was a third cut on the side of his stomach, but it was fairly clear and precise. It looked like a surgery scar and was different from these other two – one for each side, ragged and evidently poorly stitched. Sylar wondered if Danko had done this himself, while wounded. It would explain the sloppiness. Such a mystery!

The man was an outie. Sylar poked at the slightly protruding navel, having another, less intense feeling of not being himself. It was so easy to slip into the role, to give up seeing himself as Sylar and accept himself as someone new. There was a mole on the inside of Danko's right thigh. It was inflamed, a little sensitive, and looked like it might be spreading. _That's not good,_ Sylar thought, amused at this small weakness of Danko's person. His hand brushed over phallus and pubic hair with a prickly fascination, his thoughts going to how James Martin had looked while Sylar fucked him, how his dick, with him in Sylar's form, had felt in his hand. He had little in the way of homoerotic experience – hell, he hadn't even masturbated all that much in his life. The idea of jacking off with Danko's dick?

_Hot!_

That was a surprising reaction, but he didn't question it. Instead, he leered at himself, dragging a chair in front of the mirror and retrieving the complimentary lotion from the bathroom sink. He was staying in a nice hotel. No reason not to, when he could turn things into gold. They had things like complimentary lotion. Settling in, he filled his hand with white cream and rubbed it over someone else's part. The dimensions of the member were only trivially different from Sylar's own, but it felt so odd as he stroked, gradually bringing it to hardness. The nerve endings weren't quite the same. Overall, it wasn't as sensitive, he realized with a little disappointment that turned into smug satisfaction as he realized that meant he was 'better' than Danko. He tightened his grip, getting rougher with himself and feeling himself slowly respond. Looking down his body and watching as a hand not his own abused himself … it was trippy - autoscopic. With only the briefest reluctance, he let the role take over, imagining himself _**as**_ Danko, doing himself, watching himself in the mirror, seeing it all for the first time. It was like the world's most interactive porn.

He watched the strained expression on the foreign face, responding and changing at his whim. The pinkish cock slowly ripened to red in his hand, calloused fingers scraping enough to make him wonder if it was Danko's rough hands that had desensitized it. Sylar wondered how often Danko spanked the monkey or if he hired hookers to serve his needs. Yeah, Danko struck Sylar as a hooker kind of guy. No time for a real relationship that might get in the way of his work, but too highly sexed to go without. It wasn't the power Danko wanted. Sylar could … sense that. His consciousness currently housed in a working model of the man's brain, Sylar could suss out a lot of things about the man Danko was. He explored the neural pathways, wondering which ones would light up pleasure centers the most.

A fantasy came to him of a happy, stable home life with a loving woman. Would that be what Danko would imagine while it was some pay-by-the-act whore handling him? Would he think it was his wife's affections hardening his erection? If the way his cock was starting to twitch was any indication, that was precisely the case. "Mmm," Sylar crooned, leaning back and shutting his eyes, letting his mind wander down lover's lane to a modest house with primroses climbing the arbor and the smell of freshly baked bread hanging rich in the air. And there she'd be, with long, dark hair and a charming smile that would seduce him all over again, the ache in his heart and the fluttering in his stomach reminding him of how lucky he was that she loved him. She'd reach for him, wholesome and virtuous, warm, welcoming arms sliding around him as the cares of the world fell away …

He jerked with the orgasm. It came as a surprise and a rude one at that. Sylar blinked, looking down at the unmistakable fluid dribbling over Danko's weathered hand. That had to be one of the weirdest fantasies he'd ever gotten off to. There were none of the markers of Sylar's desire – no power trip, no dominance, no fear, no begging, no recognition of his unique supremacy. _**Romance**__ trips his trigger? Astounding._ But somehow it all fit and that was only because Sylar was inhabiting Danko's brain at the moment. He would understand it less once he shifted.

Beaded in sweat, he telekinesed a towel from next to the sink and cleaned up, more than a little unsettled by what he'd discovered, because Danko didn't like 'different'. It unnerved him, so Sylar was unnerved. He stared at his hands, now clean, for several long minutes, trying and failing to process the change that being Danko had wrought on his thinking. Finally, seeking the comfort of intellectual engagement, he returned to his 'tools', starting on a taste test – salt, sugar, raw broccoli, coffee, milk, and an omelet, now cooled since delivery by room service somewhat earlier. He tasted each in turn, considered it, and swapped shape back to Sylar.

The first time he did it, he had another bit of vertigo as his thoughts adjusted, but after that he seemed to get the hang of it. He tried other forms as well, going through a score of them, focusing solely on perception and ignoring the perspective that came with funneling the sensations through different grey matter. After all, Sylar told himself, the ability didn't change him. Only his native ability had done that and _that_ was only an enhancement and uncovering of what was already there. This - this shape-shifting – was only something he'd added. It couldn't change him profoundly – something that was easy to believe as he stood there in Sylar's form.

He repeated his experiments for color perception, watching the television, testing his reflexes and strength, burying himself in the minutia of how the ability worked. The upshot was that truly, not all people sensed things the same way. What one person saw as red, another saw as almost burgundy. Likewise, one form might find broccoli foul while to another it tasted delicious. There were similarities and the cataloguing of differences was fascinating enough to keep his mind off anything more troubling. One of his forms was even moderately color-blind. Another made him confused, reordering his thoughts and scrambling them like he was looking at himself in a funhouse mirror. That was a gross version of the changes that every shift brought to him, but he didn't realize the significance of it at the time.

He was disappointed to find the change was all-or-nothing. He couldn't retain Sylar's height with Danko's body, for instance. Nor could he keep one person's rugged good looks when he shifted into someone else - not even their hair color. Things he **could** control included makeup, tattoos, and clothing. A few seconds after each change, his regeneration kicked in for the new body. It didn't remove scar tissue or a variety of other ills, but Sylar assumed it would thwart the development of new problems. It was interesting by itself that he got the old problems. The shift wasn't merely DNA – it copied chemistry, moods, and so much more, including basic psychological states.

The mystery of james Martin's gun was answered, having been created when he changed form to Danko and probably set aside when he shifted into Sylar, being picked back up after. It meant that duplicated items were also durable. A discarded shirt remained even if he shape shifted into a different form. The clothing in Martin's closet took on a different meaning. They were not disguises for him to change into – they were trophies of what he had been. Sylar's lips curled up as he gained that bit of understanding.

He shifted back to himself and spent the rest of the day studying. Two days before had been Friday, the night they found and took James Martin. The next day, Sylar had impersonated a forensics expert to officiate over the identification of Martin's Sylar-esque corpse. After that, Danko had taken him to Building 26 and introduced him as the newest member of Homeland Security, recruited from another agency whose identity was unsupplied. Sylar had picked the name, 'Steve Donner', experiencing some disappointment when Danko had no reaction to the last name.

It was odd to imagine himself as a leader of anything. Elle had led him; Noah; Virginia; even Luke. Yes, a teenage boy had led him around by the nose. Sylar, powerful and mighty, arrogant and proud, wasn't very happy about that, but he wouldn't deny the obvious pattern. Most of it had turned out badly, but that was no different from the rest of his life. Elle had led him into evil; Noah tried to kill him; Virginia wouldn't see him as who he really was; Luke … well, honestly, Luke wasn't that bad. Maybe that was why Sylar had let him live. Now for the first time, Sylar was going to be in charge of others. Team Six was his to command.


	354. A Few Good Men and One Bad

_Thursday (early AM), July 7, 2011_

Peter thought about saying something of this bit of insight into Sylar's psychology. It was weird to hear these observations coming from the man himself. He wanted to say it didn't seem all that accurate of Gabriel, but Peter made a single, silent nod as it clicked for him – Sylar, at the time of dealing with Danko, had none of Nathan's traits. The personality alter Peter knew as Sylar largely fit the description, though. He was frightening and quick to violence, but when Peter bossed him, he rolled over quickly and easily, like all was right in the world. _He doesn't want to be making these decisions. I think he knows, deep down, that he's making bad ones. All of that violence and fighting with me … defensive, because he thinks people are going to take advantage of him. Or that I might, you know, find out about this stuff and turn on him. I get it. _He focused on Sylar again, asking, "But I thought you said that you wanted to become a leader? That was your big goal, right?"

"I wouldn't say it was my 'big goal'," Sylar answered with a sidelong look, "but it seemed like the only way I could see to get it. What's that saying - 'No man is a revolutionary without a revolution'?"

"So," Peter said slowly, tilting his head, "you were tackling something that was profoundly difficult for you." He wondered if Sylar had a dominant bone in his body. _Part of why the guy's such an asshole might be because of having to fight his own nature all the time._

Sylar gave him a wry chuckle, seeming to genuinely relax a little from his usual aloof defensiveness. "Maybe that's why it fucked up in the end. But yes, working with people was … something I really didn't know how to do. Single, watchmaker, no friends, no dates, not much family, tried to stay out of church, no college classes or other chances to meet and greet … I guess that's why I ended up following Danko's advice so much. He … I know he didn't like me, but he was honest and he actually talked to me. Like, talked to the _real_ me. Even knowing I was a killer and a p- pervert and," Sylar shifted uncomfortably like this was the greater sin, "and a freak. But he still talked to me like I was okay."

Peter nodded, listening as Sylar resumed the story while the nighttime sounds of the city played out around them.

* * *

_Monday, June 8, 2009_

The next morning, 'Donner' made the acquaintance of some basics in leadership. He had stood in rapt fascination, staring at the target board, for a suspicious length of time before Danko hauled him off to the side and gave him some guidance. He was given directions – meet with each team member, get to know them, ask about their strengths and weaknesses, tell them about his own. Sylar was taken aback. He was supposed to _tell_ people of his weaknesses? Just, like, blurt them out? And Danko seriously expected these people to willingly confess the same to Sylar? Sure, Sylar could detect lies, but they didn't know that, so why would they tell him the truth? Danko read his somewhat lost expression, looked amused, and told him to keep it to fifteen minutes each – ten minutes for them to talk, five minutes for him to talk, and Danko would sit in. That his lapse in confidence had gained him a babysitter was galling, but Sylar was secretly relieved. He'd found someone new to give him orders.

Five men. They were just names to be memorized, pawns to be used: Roy Wilton, Dwayne Staton, Jason Klaussen, Harry Pulscher, Alex Blumbaugh. Each of them had different strengths, different weaknesses, and to Sylar's surprise, they mostly told him the truth. Roy was afraid of spiders. Dwayne was good at memorizing numbers, but bad at handling confrontation. Jason had an impressive and wide-ranging background in science and was comfortable with the idea that there was more to life than that. Harry was a fitness nut with a superman fixation. Alex had never been laid.

Not that they admitted to these things straight out. No. Alex had very strong religious views and a purity hangup. Roy kept looking nervously at the tiny arachnid that was creeping along the wall. Even Danko noticed the looks and finally put the man out of his misery by crushing the little bugger (the spider, not Roy). Dwayne got irate when Sylar blithely insisted that the 15th digit of pi was eight. He knew it wasn't – he just wanted to rattle the man's cage and he succeeded. Jason and Harry seemed like good, solid team members, but that didn't mean Sylar knew what to do with them. Not being able to immediately find a glaring weakness just made him suspicious.

He trapped Danko in the room after the last of his new team was ushered out, demanding to know what he was supposed to do with these people. Danko gave him a level stare for a long moment before looking away. Normally, breaking eye contact was a surrender. Danko followed it with an insult. "You're still pretty new to this 'assumed identity thing', aren't you?"

Sylar snorted. "Hardly." He'd been on the run for years now, living as Sylar and occasionally moonlighting as other, less consequential personages. But aside from his pretense of being Zane (and he gave that one a bye given how dense Mohinder was), he'd never had to keep a persona for more than a few minutes – half an hour tops.

With Sylar blocking the door, Danko took a seat once more at the small conference room table, relaxed, sideways, his feet up. "Your identity," Danko said slowly, glancing up at Sylar every couple of words, a pattern that Sylar found disturbing and unsettling, "needs to be deeper than the cardboard cutout you're running right now, or else the question won't be what you're supposed to do with your team, but what your team is going to do with _you_. Because they'll be on to you and don't even begin to think _I'll _cover your ass."

Sylar sneered. They could do nothing to him – just a bunch of normals. But more to the point was that he might fail in the mission he was still feeling out for himself. If he couldn't get five people to do what he wanted – people who were assigned to him and _supposed _to follow his orders, then how was he going to control the hundreds of them in Homeland Security itself?

Danko pivoted in the chair, putting both feet on the floor and facing him. Sylar's attention came back to the man. "Steve Donner needs to be a real person. He needs real flaws, real strengths – not that cookie cutter, flavorless pablum you tried to feed to them."

_Pablum? Where did Emile Danko learn a word like 'pablum'?_

But Danko was still talking. "Donner is an expert on fir trees and interested in collecting stamps. You enjoy reading Civil War autobiographies and you lost your nephew to a motorcycle accident. You recognize that you have a weakness with getting obsessed with details and sometimes you don't see the big picture as a result."

_I do not!_ Sylar thought angrily, even as he realized that actually, that one wouldn't be hard to fake. Or did Danko pick it because it was so accurate? Had he already pegged Sylar that well? He'd even had a stamp collection in a couple shoeboxes and philately folders in his closet back home – it was a quiet, engrossing hobby that Virginia had approved of, similar in a way to her snow globes. Some of his fondest memories of her involved sitting together at the dinner table, poring over the stamps she'd scavenged off envelopes at work for him. How did Danko know these things? Were they just guesses? Sylar had no interest in fir trees, after all, nor a deceased nephew. _Cold reading,_ Sylar realized. _Things common enough that most people can relate, but they seem so individual. He's __**good**__._

Danko went on, "You need to tell them that you're new to this leadership thing and that you need them to help you out and give you advice even though your word's final. Make Roy the driver – he's got a good record and he's conscientious. Put Dwayne in charge of communications – that memory of his is good for more than numbers and there's nothing you want less than a guy in charge of the phone who misremembers the orders you want him to relay. But you'd better heal that breach you've already created there. That was stupid. Don't needle your guys. Keep Jason next to you or behind you, where he can answer questions. I don't care how smart you think you are – he knows a lot and you need that. Put Alex and Harry out in front."

Sylar blinked. "Because they're expendable?" _So you don't like their extremist views either?_

"No," Danko explained patiently, "because they're going to want to be out there _anyway,_ both of them. So let them. The guy in charge shouldn't take point anyway."

_Oh_. Sylar nodded, introspective. _It sounds like good advice. Someone is giving me advice – good advice_. He felt grateful, but still suspicious. He remembered the last time he'd tried to work as a team with someone. Noah had tried to have him murdered. Of all the people to save his life, apparently Claire had argued against Noah's vengeful action. It had not been a good collaboration – yet another of the long string of betrayals Sylar had felt with others. He looked up piercingly at Danko. There was no _reason_ to trust him, was there?

A small chime sounded and Danko glanced down at his phone. "Noah Bennet is in the building." His brows drew together as he looked up at Sylar. "Don't you have some history with him?"

* * *

Why Emile Danko would have some manner of tracking device on Bennet was a question Sylar definitely intended to investigate, but he would do that some other time. For now, he hastened to the make-shift morgue. That's where he expected Bennet would go and it was no coincidence that was where the biggest danger to Sylar's self lay. It was also where Sylar's 'other' self lay, quite literally. He arrived only a few minutes after Noah to find the man sniffing around James Martin's disguised corpse, just as he'd expected. Sylar had already adopted Danko's form as his cover, shifting in the elevator. Now he took on the man's swagger as well.

He pushed aside the plastic curtains, sauntering inside and speaking in Danko's mild, passively-threatening manner. "No pulse. No body temp. If you can believe it, Sylar's dead."

Noah glanced up from where he was examining the butt end of the spike in the corpse's head. "Impressive work. I never did catch how you did it."

Sylar shrugged dismissively. "Four inch pocket blade. Replaced by a six inch metal spike." He'd seen and experienced his own death and violation often enough that there was no effort required to make his delivery convincingly unconcerned. The only emotions in his voice were amusement and gloating – appropriate ones, put there deliberately as Sylar enjoyed playing the role in front of an unsuspecting Noah. Oh, the things he could do with this power ...

"Metal's a good choice. Last time it was glass. Killed him just fine until it melted in the Primatech fire."

_Oh? Is that how you think I escaped there? _That was truly amusing. And so preposterous that he thought Noah must be putting him on. _I'd have been charred down to the bone before that glass melted._ No, it seemed more likely Noah was fishing, maybe testing the limits of what Danko knew. Sylar evaded with, "Hm, trust me. He won't be getting up again."

Noah looked down at the body with something that looked like relief. It seemed too open a display. Sylar didn't believe it. Noah said, "I've been chasing this one for a long time."

No, Sylar didn't think Noah was convinced. Just to make sure, he took a cheap shot: "Funny thing. You're on the hunt all these years and I show up and bang, he's dead. Maybe you didn't want to catch him."

"Or maybe you're just better at this than me."

_Nope, Noah definitely isn't letting this go. Obsessive bastard. Oh well. It will only be that much more fun to mess with him._

Some woman parted the plastic, interrupting their ill-humored banter. "Bennet, you have a visitor downstairs. Says she's your wife."

Now Noah looked genuinely startled. "My wife is here?"

Sylar's brows climbed. _Oh, this might get fun._ "Send her up."

* * *

Sylar eavesdropped as long as he could, gathering that Claire had vanished and Noah and Sandra were having a failure to communicate. He filed away the information on Claire, but paid much more attention to the dynamics between husband and wife, moving forward with small, slow, gradual steps. If you avoided quick motions and stayed out of line of sight, people (especially people busy arguing angrily with one another) tended to tune you out. To his surprise, it was the wife who noticed him first. He remembered her offering him iced tea when he'd come to her house looking to kill her daughter. She'd been nice … at first. Most of them were like that, busy wearing their own masks until you got too close.

Sylar moved forward, hand extended. "You must be Sandra. I've seen your picture."

She answered him frostily. "From the surveillance cameras watching my house?"

_Ah, much more to this than I already know._ Sylar gave a dip of his head and backed away. He had what he wanted, anyway, which was the brief touch of her hand. "Nice meeting you." He walked off, mind putting together the many things he'd learned of Noah and Danko's interactions. He didn't need to bother driving a wedge between them. The fissure already present was big enough.

* * *

Alaine Giddens slid a hip over the edge of Noah's desk, crooking her knee enough to create a distractingly large triangle of shadowed space under her otherwise business-like skirt. Sylar smiled down at Noah Bennet with a sympathetic air. "I know how hard married life can be for people in our line of work," she said softly.

Noah's eyes lingered on the stretched, gapped clothing no longer than necessary, looking up at Sylar's latest false front with an unimpressed expression. In the few hours since Sandra had departed the building, Sylar had discovered that the strained relationship between the Bennets was no secret around the office. As Sandra had said, they had round-the-clock observation going on the Bennet household, with a team poised to strike within a few minutes notice. It seemed like an absurd waste of resources from Sylar's point of view, but it wasn't his call to make. No, when it was his turn to call the shots, Claire's free pass would be into _his _bedroom, not back to her own.

"Uh-huh," Noah said, telegraphing his disinterest very clearly.

The come-on wasn't working, so Sylar switched gears, "Maybe I could talk to her, and explain how complicated our line of work is."

"While I appreciate your concern ..." Noah paused as if searching for her name. Sylar didn't help. "My wife and I are doing just fine. We'll get it all worked out."

"Of course you will," Sylar said innocently. "I just thought I'd offer you some help … before it was too late." With the faintest smirk, Sylar slid off the desk and sauntered off.


	355. Low Hanging Fruit

_Monday, June 8, 2009_

Within a few hours of crowing to Danko about his new goal of destroying Noah, Danko distracted Sylar with a different one. To make sure he took it, Danko had told Sylar he wasn't ready for an assignment like this and Danko didn't expect much out of him or his team. "In fact," Danko had said with an evil smirk, "why don't I just give this file to Agent Foster with Team Four and let him get started on it, hm?"

It was a glaringly obvious tactic that Danko was making not the slightest attempt to hide, but Sylar had snatched the file away from him anyway. It wasn't the first time Sylar had been offered a special, nor the first time he'd taken it. He scanned through the papers. It wasn't an ability that jumped out at him as useful – the power to emit nerve gas. It sounded nasty. Sylar's mind went directly to speculation about whether it manifested as knock-you-dead bad breath or silent-but-deadly farts. No, he didn't think he wanted the ability, especially as he'd sated the Hunger just days before. But … it was a dangerous ability. It could kill someone, especially a normal.

While Sylar didn't have any affection for the members of Team Six, they were _his_. Or at least, he wanted to think of them as his. If he didn't lead this mission, then clearly Danko was going to take his toys away from him before he'd even gotten to play with them. He growled with frustration. He hadn't come here to Building 26 to deal with Noah, so what seemed like a distraction was actually Danko getting Sylar back on target. He'd come here to get in charge, and that required learning the ropes and gaining some credibility as someone who could keep his mind on task for more than a few hours at a time. His plans for Noah would have to wait.

* * *

The target was Bernadine Baxter, a middle-aged woman who worked at the electric company in accounts payable. She lived alone with her cats and volunteered frequently at the animal shelter. Sylar frowned at the file and not because Homeland Security would go after such an inoffensive person, but because it gave no indication of how they knew she was special. There was no report of an attack or a mistake with her power. Just that she had one and that mere fact made her a target. He had no sympathy for her being cursed with an unpleasant ability or singled out by the government, but it troubled him that there was valuable information missing. Valuable particularly to him, because if they could identify and track _her _without a reason, then _he_ would never be safe. Not until he had all the secrets of Homeland Security for himself. He had to learn more about how they operated. To do that, he had to gain Danko's trust, which required mission success.

His team wanted to go in uniformed, full armor, guns blazing. "She's too dangerous to take alive," Roy asserted after Sylar had assembled them in a briefing room.

Sylar tilted his head to one side and gave him a long-suffering look. "She can control her ability. She's not going to use it accidentally."

"How do you figure that?" Dwayne challenged.

"Cats are even more susceptible to nerve gas than we are. Unless she's getting new ones every week, she's learned control."

"Then how do we take her out?" Alex asked.

"We walk up to the door and ask her to come with us," Sylar said. "It's that simple." He flipped through the thick dossier he'd been given on Bernadine. It included everything – medical records, credit card statements, analysis of spending patterns, lack of gun registration, parking tickets … even which sports teams she backed and which charities she gave to. It was impressive in scope, striking Sylar as being the sort of thing that should have taken an absurd degree of manpower to develop, and given how up to date it was, this wasn't something that had been compiled years or even months ago. It had entries from last week! Another thing he set aside in his mind – he would need to look into how Danko was getting his hands on data like this. Sylar didn't like the implications when it came to his own past. He'd tried to be careful when transitioning from Gabriel Gray to Sylar, but he still wanted to check.

"What if she fights?" Roy asked, still thinking of the dangers.

"We could gas her," Dwayne offered.

"That won't work," Sylar interjected.

"Why not?" Dwayne returned. "She's got to breathe just like the rest of us." Several others nodded.

"If poison gas could affect her, she'd already be dead," Sylar pointed out.

"That's nerve gas," Dwayne said. "I'm talking about nitrous oxide or chloroform or something else."

Obviously, Dwayne was reaching and still looking to disagree with Sylar on a knee-jerk level. Danko had been right – the man had a grudge now and Sylar's stomach sank a little at how petty and useless it was. He sat up, trying to deflect the impending attack with general information. "Most specials are immune to their own ability and to anything similar to it. Bernadine isn't going to be taken down by gas and I don't think we'd make much progress trying to suffocate her, either. It's just like you can't bring down an electrokinetic with a taser. Or like you can't bring down a telekinetic with bullets." He leaned back a little, raising his hand in an unconscious imitation of his own gesture when stopping projectiles. "That much concentrated kinetic energy? A telekinetic will _feel _it. In most cases, their ability will start working before their conscious mind even senses the threat. A sword … or a knife … maybe even a baseball bat," _or someone throwing me off a building, or hitting me with a rolling blackboard,_ "they won't sense those automatically. It's too diffuse. But a bullet? Every time, unless the point of origin is so close the telekinetic can't affect it."

They were silent for a moment, digesting that. Harry piped up for the first time. "What, like the barrel of the gun right to the temple?"

"Or the middle of the forehead," Sylar said dryly, remembering Mohinder's wrath.

Jason said, "You've taken down a telekinetic?"

Sylar smirked. "Yes. It was my first ..." _kill_ "mission." _If the Company knew, then I suppose it could be characterized as my first assignment by them. Would have helped if they'd __**told**__ me about it._ Darker, formless thoughts swirled about the attempted suicide that had followed.

"How'd you do it?" Jason asked, a trace of admiration in his voice.

Sylar's smirk faded, but it was still there. "I hit him in the head with a rock while his back was turned. Worked like a charm." Crystal, actually, but whatever. They didn't need to know the details, despite how much he enjoyed bragging about it.

Alex said, "There was that Travis girl that Team Four went after. They tried to use a sniper on her, but she could move through solid objects. They found out solid objects just moved right through her, too."

Sylar gave a single nod. "What happened to her?" he asked, hoping he wasn't betraying ignorance of something he should already know about. There was some long-standing rivalry between teams four and six that he'd already picked up on.

Alex shrugged. "She got away. Either that, or killed herself. She phased down into the ground and no one ever saw her again."

Sylar wondered how long, continuously, a person could use phasing. Some abilities could be used actively for hours. As long as she had some awareness of the location of the surface – and there seemed to be no reason why she would not – Sylar suspected she could move that way for a great distance. Now **that** was an ability worth having. He wondered if they had a file for this phasing girl as thick as Bernadine's. He'd have to check, which would be a nice way to research how they managed to compile such thorough records.

* * *

The mission itself went off without a hitch, which surprised Sylar because he didn't even do anything. Well, he did one very important, almost-certainly critical thing – he refused to let them go in like the SWAT team they were trained as. Those tactics worked fine on normal citizens who couldn't fight back. They were exactly what Samson had talked about – overwhelming a defenseless prey using surprise, psychological terrorism, numerical superiority, and assault weapons. People were terrified of SWAT teams, as well they should be. They were the ultimate bullies of the normal world and heaven forbid you weren't actually guilty, because if the cops were pulling out that much firepower to come after you, then they'd make sure you were guilty of **something** before they were done.

But Sylar wouldn't allow that. Not out of any moral objection, but simply because it was an impractical solution to someone who could take out an entire city block if agitated. "Adrenaline fuels most of these powers," he'd told them. "The more you frighten her, the more potent she becomes. Tell me a different way." He had lots of ideas himself, but Danko had told him he needed to let the team feel like they were contributing. He needed to let them give suggestions. So he told them to come up with a plan and they did. It was a plan that didn't involve him, either, which he thought was odd, but acceptable. He'd go along and watch. And he did. It was amusing how similar it was to his own stalking of specials.

Alex posed as a social worker. He'd been a religious missionary before in his life, so the idea of cold-calling a stranger was something he was comfortable with. He told her he was with the government, they knew about her power and had a program to help. He appealed to her regard for her neighbors, her pets, and society in general. He could lay down a pretty good line of bullshit, Sylar thought. Once back in the van and en route, when she became nervous, he even managed to talk her into letting Harry give her an injection. The calming sedative that was supposed to make her feel good and maybe a little high knocked her out immediately, not that she was aware of what had _really_ been in the syringe. Alex and Harry simply lied about it. And that was it – case closed. She was brought in, neutralized, and congratulations were passed out all around. No muss, no fuss, no property damage or news reports. Bernadine had even called her neighbor first to arrange for care of her cats while she was gone.

'Agent Donner' went out with his team that night to celebrate their easy victory. Most operations took at least a week. They'd closed theirs the same day it was opened, which to Sylar's great pleasure had earned approving words from Danko himself. They hit the bar, drank heavily, cheered each other, and gave high fives. Harry told Sylar in great detail about his racing bike and his most recent acquisitions – a carbon fiber water bottle holder with titanium screws and a camelback that didn't leak even when turned upside down or put under pressure. Sylar told him about his love of fir trees (_thanks, Danko!_) and asked if Harry thought bristlecone pines or sequoias were the greatest living things to ever exist, and why. Alex joined in with absurd opinions on the age of the Earth as it related to pine trees, which Sylar, in a show of great restraint, did not argue about. That gave Sylar a segue to take Dwayne aside and admit that he'd been wrong intentionally on the eighth digit of pi, just wanting to see how Dwayne handled being around people who claimed things that were patently false. The way Dwayne looked from him over to Alex and then back again gave him a lurch in his stomach. It was almost like he'd gained a friend.


	356. Totally Going There

_Thursday (early AM), July 7, 2011_

"Sounds like you really had a good time that night," Peter observed.

"Yes, I did," Sylar said wistfully. He gave a half-hearted, bitter smile. "I felt like … one of the guys, like maybe it would all work out. For a little bit, I even thought that maybe there wasn't a point to getting in charge of everything and I could just lead this one team ..."

"Why didn't you do that?"

Sylar grimaced and sighed, being more open with non-angry emotions than Peter had ever seen him. "What I found out the next day. After all the drinking, I gave the team the morning off for Tuesday, which I thought would give me a chance to do some research. Instead, it just meant I was the only one there to handle all the paperwork that came with bringing in Bernadine." He rolled his eyes briefly and sullenly at the unaccustomed realities of office work. Peter, who had to complete run forms on each and every EMT call, understood. "So it was afternoon before I could do anything and the first thing I stumbled across was Noah's request for a DNA test on James Martin's corpse. I handed off the last of the paperwork to the team and took off to do some 'research' before addressing Noah's inappropriate curiosity."

* * *

_Tuesday afternoon, June 9, 2009_

Sylar reclined in his hotel room, sliding his fingers down the lotion bottle to the base, then flipping it on its cap and repeating. Long, feminine fingers manipulated it slowly as Sylar sat, lost in thought, considering _all_ his options. The mind-fuckery involved with seducing Noah was almost too good to pass up. But Sandra was a mature woman who'd been married to Noah for nearly twenty years. Despite the wealth of information available on Mr. Bennet (Danko had apparently pulled out all stops in research on him, although Sylar hadn't had time to do more than skim the records), Sylar didn't think he could pull off the act as her – not to Noah. Mostly, he didn't think he could pull off the _sex_. He'd assumed the form of a women several times now, but he hadn't made any extensive exploration of them.

_Hm_, he thought, glancing back down his current body. There was, among other things, his uncertainty of where the goddamn clitoris was, that supposed holy grail of female gratification. Sandra would know. Noah would know. Sylar … didn't. As he had nothing else to occupy his time until Noah was settled into his apartment that evening … perhaps instead of seducing the man directly, he could violate him some other way.

Sylar stretched out on the bed, looking down his curvy, soft form and grinning. He knew what Noah's wife looked like naked – that by itself would fuel a hundred knowing smirks. In a few minutes, he'd know even more about her. She was good-looking, he supposed, although looks had never been the thing he'd clued to especially. Female, fertile, not fat – that was pretty much it as far as his requirements. After that, it was things like the power dynamic and their vulnerability that did it for him – mainly how much attention they paid him. He wanted to be important and special and approved of. Since the last was eternally off the books, he played harder to the first two. Terrifying the crap out of them usually worked fine.

He ran a hand down his borrowed form. The skin was soft and tender. Compared to that of his natural body, it was virtually hairless. The beige, unassuming, ultraconservative bra was cut free and tossed aside. Nipples pinched – oh, that was good, better than just about any of his male forms. He massaged, kneaded and gripped his breast. It was surprisingly unarousing – only the nipple itself was erogenous. _Note to self: don't get distracted by the rest of the melon. _He tweaked them again – hard, soft, rolling them between thumb and forefinger. _So this is what Sandra likes in bed, what turns her on? I wonder if Noah knows? Certainly he won't know as well as I will._ The nubs perked and stayed that way and he noticed he felt … different … between his legs.

Underwear came off. A finger shoved straight in was yanked right back out with a hiss of displeasure. _Okay … that hurt._ He looked at his painted, medium-length fingernails, which he blamed for the problem. Regeneration took care of any cut or tear he might have clawed into himself, but he learned the lesson anyway – be _gentle_.

He looked down at himself, seeing what he presumed to be the clitoris right off. What looked like a tiny tongue of flesh protruded from the top of the … slit. _There's a word for that slit. Vulva? Or is that the entire area? I think __that's the entire area. Labia majora … pussy lips. But there should be some word for the seam itself, right? Like the lips define the mouth. Pussy mouth? That sounds kind of … well, wrong. Whatever. It's weird though that the clitoris is right there. I've always heard it was tough for guys to find and even some women had trouble. Hm._ He touched it with a careful, exploring finger. It didn't feel like much of anything. Certainly not the mind-blowing, you-must-find-and-tickle-THIS spot that he'd heard about. He pinched it lightly – not very interesting. He flipped it back and forth – not very interesting either. He frowned at it in disappointment. _No wonder women don't like sex much. Seriously, this is it? This is the pinnacle of female sexual feeling? This sucks._

_I suppose if you'd never felt anything else that you could maybe trick yourself into thinking this was sexy … Maybe it just takes a while to work?_ He spat on his finger and sent it back down, intending to rub from the base of the little flange and see if that helped. The pad of his finger stroked over something MUCH more sensitive. _Whoa! What the hell was that?_ He parted the folds and stretched the flesh, discovering that the bit he'd mistaken for the clitoris was just the tip of one of the inner lips. _Oh. So there's more to it than that, huh? Interesting!_

If he ever found himself in bed with Sandra, he would soon know exactly how to please her. That fantasy made him grin broadly. It would be such a double-blow, this unintentional adultery on her part. Though from what he'd seen of their interactions, Sandra had no interest in performing her wifely duties until Noah started stepping up to the plate properly as a husband. Oh well. Sylar would take care of that obligation for him. His grin widened wickedly as he stroked his finger up and down over that spot. It really was grand.

* * *

_Thursday (early AM), July 7, 2011_

Sylar paused in his oratory. Peter had buried his face in his hands and was shaking his head. "Peter?"

"No, no … go on. It's okay," he said faintly. But he still didn't look up.

Sylar worried for a moment. Was he overloading Peter with all of this at once? Was it a bad idea just on the face of it? Would he have been better off not sharing his past? It was Gabriel who had made this decision, deciding to risk everything on the depth of Peter's heart. It was a huge gamble. He was stripping away a lot of the illusion that let Peter love him. Peter liked the wrapping, but was he going to like what was underneath? Peter had said he would, but the reality was rather different and here Peter was, hiding his face, choked up by what he was hearing. It seemed a little late to stop …

Peter looked up, dropping his hands. He looked a bit flushed, but otherwise his expression was hard to read. 'Exasperated' was the look, Sylar finally decided. Peter said, "You … _Sandra?_"

"Yes." Sylar said nothing else, still questioning the wisdom of this entire disclosure of his past.

"Okay," Peter said, shaking his head. "Okay. That's ..."

"Disgusting?" Sylar hazarded, filling in the word to save Peter the trouble.

"No. Just … wow."

"I can skip on to when I met Noah that night ..."

"No. No, please. Actually ..." Peter swallowed and looked away, embarrassed now. "Actually this is probably something I should do myself some time. Just to … you know, with Emma and all."

The image of Peter shape-shifted as Sandra pleasuring Emma branded itself in Sylar's brain, even though the more likely scenario was Peter shapeshifting into a random female and checking under the hood. Sylar managed a polite smile, concealing his thoughts with a skill born from long practice. "Of course," he said vaguely.

"So, go on," Peter said, blissfully unaware of the filth of Sylar's dirty thoughts. "I … I think I want to hear this."

Sylar exhaled a little, wondering if that statement meant that Peter hadn't wanted to hear any of the rest. But this wasn't really about what Peter wanted … it was about what they both _needed_. Sylar, and Gabriel, needed to know that Peter accepted them as they were and this wasn't going to be a repeat of Virginia, loving the safe, wholesome image of him that he'd helped her craft while concealing the real person he was underneath – dangerous, nuanced, complicated, sometimes even crazy. He needed to know if Peter was in love with the real him, or the fantasy. So he continued.

* * *

_Tuesday afternoon, June 9, 2009_

He was dry and that was unpleasant. He'd brought the lotion abed with him and now uncapped it. The stuff refused to make an appearance, so he telekinesed it out. _Hooray for abilities!_ He thought, in a very good mood about this whole exploration. He stretched across the comforter, very pleased with himself. He smeared a big dollop of lotion across his female parts, getting most of it in the curly hair. Sandra was not a believer in shaving. Sylar had never given it any thought – not Sandra's habits (not that he'd ever had cause to speculate about her specifically in any case), but women in general. Like any basically heterosexual male, he was fascinated by the variety, but unlike some men, the fascination was about it for Sylar. He had no fixation on a particular pattern. This, he found though, was a bit messy. Then he figured out that it worked a lot better if he applied the lotion directly to the clitoris and the entrance of the vagina rather than the outer labia.

_Ah. Learning things already. This was a good idea. Thank you, Noah, for lending me your wife for my studies. I'm sure she doesn't mind. You don't mind, do you, Sandra? I'll give you a better time than Noah ever would. _He chuckled to himself, shuddering as he ran his finger from top to bottom of the slit, this time able to carefully dip inside without much difficulty. It felt nice. Good. Tingly. _He_ felt nice, in a dreamy, oh-please-come-fuck-me sort of way. There was a yearning and a wanting involved that was so different from being himself or even Danko. He spread his legs a bit more and not because he needed the access, but because it felt _right_. He felt _receptive_. His core ability translated that as an instinct, or as close to it as humans got, being the semi-rational actors they were. He returned to the clitoris because that was where the action seemed to be. He wondered if playing around with the vagina was analogous to playing with his balls. On his normal body, he didn't touch there much. When he masturbated, it was quick, furtive, and penis only, gotten over with as fast as possible due to conditioned shame. Balls didn't seem important.

He played with his clit until he felt something liquid run down … well, down. He fingered his vagina again and this time his hips bucked. _Oh! That's good __**now**__! _And it hadn't been so much earlier. Female parts apparently went on and off arousal, which was perplexing. He hoped there was a pattern here to figure out, but for now he satisfied himself by probing within with a finger. His other hand joined in, taking over where the first had left off on the clitoris. His hips pressed upwards rhythmically as he shut his eyes in bliss. This was really great. But he wanted something … bigger.

He didn't have anything … dick-like. He looked at the lotion bottle. It was woefully small for what he wanted, but bigger than his fingers. He maneuvered it down there, sliding it in slowly as he gripped the slightly ridged top. In, out, oh yeah, he liked that. That was good, especially the in and out part. Okay, so size wasn't everything, but somehow his body had known the finger wasn't cutting it. He threw his head back, stroking faster on his clit and moving the bottle in and out rapidly. He was slick, wet, dribbling … and so hot and needy that he shifted his hips back and forth on the bed wantonly, setting aside the bottle for the moment.

He just wasn't getting there, as frustration began to eat at him, so he tried to do the same thing he'd done when in Danko's form. He thought about Sandra fucking Noah – it was a surprisingly easy fantasy to get into, considering it was a man taking him (and Noah at that). Maybe it would be Noah's thumb on her clit just like Sylar's was now, while his other hand tweaked nipples, just as Sylar's did, getting her ready for him to mount her. Gradually, Sylar imagined each stimulation as coming from his phantom lover, letting whatever preferences were hard-coded into Sandra's brain set the parameters. One thing was clear – her stimulation was very dependent on the mental visualization of a partner being involved.

Sandra would be lying back and Noah would be settle between her legs … the hand that had been on his nipples swapped to tease at the entrance of his vagina, thinking about how a few split-slicked fingers would be used to check her. With Sylar's fingers right there, it was fairly easy to call on telekinesis to penetrate the enveloping folds, imagining it as Noah's dick. He groaned in lusty satisfaction, because that sensation stroked something inside of him in a purely emotional or instinctive way. His body said, '_YES!_' as he was opened and slowly fucked with his own ability.

He shuddered, his other hand dancing on his clit as he imagined Noah leaning over him, holding himself up as his excessively uptight ass drove him inside of Sandra over and over in slow, full pulls and thrusts all the way in and then all the way out. Sylar's eyelids fluttered and he took things a step further, which should have been a harder place for him to go than it was. In his mind's eye, Sandra would hook a hand over Noah's neck and pull him into a kiss, urgent and hot, sloppy and passionate. Her legs would spread even further, heels pressed to the flexing small of Noah's back.

And Noah would tell her how beautiful she was, how much he loved her, how much he loved doing this to her, and in response, Sandra would moan. He'd speed up the pace, rocking so deep inside of her. She'd have her one of own hands between them now just like Sylar had seen Elle do when they'd had sex, stroking her clit in time with the thrusts. Her peak burst over him like a flower opening on a time lapse camera – one moment a swelling bud, and then a sudden motion and sensation bringing beauty and color and life. He whimpered – Sandra's vocal tones sounding musical to his ear. He committed that sound to memory and laughed – this time it was a husky, evil, foreboding sound, all the stranger for coming from Sandra's throat.


	357. Tasmanian Devil is in the Details

_Thursday (early AM), July 7, 2011_

Peter was embarrassingly turned on by that description. Gabriel had talked dirty to him a few times in the past, telling him fantasies while jacking him off or having sex. It had always been maddeningly hot. Right at the moment, though, Peter felt oppressively guilty for having been aroused by the idea of his friend's ex-wife getting … well, however one should label what Sylar had done. He didn't have words or even thoughts to describe it, but he had an aching boner that he was staunchly telling to go away.

"We could go back downstairs," Sylar offered, treading carefully because he didn't know how Peter would respond. It wasn't like he was unaware of Peter's state.

Instead, Peter got to his feet and paced. "No. Just …" He stopped at the edge, leaning over and looking at the cars moving up and down the dark streets. "No."

"We could do something here, then." Sylar cocked his head. "I seem to recall that you have a thing about being out in the open-"

"Shut the fuck up," Peter snapped, glancing back over his shoulder, tone hard. "You said you wouldn't take … advantage. And you're not going to." Sylar manipulating him by hitting his hot buttons might have been sexy, but Peter found it a little scary at the moment. He would hate himself if he got off to the idea of Sylar semi-sexing as Sandra to the idea of being screwed by Noah. It was perverse. Peter wouldn't let himself do it. He took in a deep breath and let it out.

Sylar stood, walked over slowly, and slid his hand from the small of Peter's back up to his neck, holding it and shaking it slightly. Peter had twitched at the first touch, then relaxed as it continued, letting himself be shifted and moved by Sylar's hand, able to trust that he'd set a limit and Sylar wasn't going to break it. When Sylar proved that trust by doing nothing else, Peter exhaled deeply again and leaned into him. "Sorry for jumping on you like that."

Sylar dipped his head and followed a familiar route of kissing Peter's cheek, nuzzling his temple, and then inhaling at the back of his head. His hand fell to the middle of Peter's back and he patted to reassure. Peter's hard-on was a thing of the past, which told him how definite Peter had been in his refusal. Diplomatically, he suggested, "Let me jump forward to something less … provocative."

"Kay," Peter agreed gratefully, turning to give him a quick kiss in thanks.

Sylar gave him a small smile. "You don't have to agree with what I've done. I don't need that, expect it, or even want it."

Peter nodded. "I know. At least, I think I know. I love you."

Sylar gave him a single nod back. "I see that." Before Peter could respond to that meaningful, but brief, comment, he continued took a seat on the roof and continued his story. "The next day ..."

* * *

_Wednesday, June 10, 2009_

Team Six had a new mission. They could have had the whole week off, but Sylar couldn't resist getting back into the hunt after how easily things had gone with Bernadine. The team was eager to go as well. Their new target was dangerous and largely unknown, having manifested his ability for the first time just a few days previously. Even in that short a time, Homeland Security had somehow compiled a disturbing amount of information on Josh Hightower, but they still knew precious little about his power.

That didn't matter – they had to stop him before he became even more of a public menace than he already was. Sylar would prove that his team's success with Bernadine wasn't a fluke and that he wasn't a coward always picking out the easiest prey. The man they were after was a tall, lanky, wild-eyed 20 year old from Kentucky, dark-skinned and last employed as a runner for a construction company. No word yet if he was still employed, but it seemed unlikely. He could summon a destructive whirlwind that shredded everything in a radius – ten to twenty feet based on reports, but they didn't know what he was capable of – only what had been guessed from the evidence. He'd torn up a house and a convenience store, and was now on the run from the law.

Team Six would get there first.

After an uncomplicated landing on the remote, rural airstrip, Sylar stood out on the tarmac, talking into his phone and looking important. It occurred to him, as he listened to the report of the local police, that his importance wasn't just an appearance. He actually _was_ important. This wasn't like the job at the bank during his brief partnership with Noah Bennet, when he'd been manipulated, disrespected, and humiliated. He'd been so frustrated and angry about that that he'd taken it out on one of their prisoners, killing the man right in front of Bennet. He'd gotten a kick out of not only making a point of what he might do to anyone who annoyed him, but also of how powerless Noah was to stop him.

But this was all different. Danko was using him, but it was either aboveboard and admitted to, or so transparent as to not even qualify as underhanded. And the guy had given him something Noah never had – trust. Even knowing Sylar was the 'freakiest freak there is' (Danko's phrase for him while they'd been at the Taco Bell), he'd trusted Sylar with a mission, with guns and equipment, with information, and with this team, whose job was to follow his orders. Noah hadn't trusted him with driving, the radio station selection, or even coffee – the asshole.

Sylar's eyes tracked over his men as the detective on the other end of the phone finished his spiel. Jason and Dwayne were standing to the rear of the two SUVs they had rented, watching while Alex and Harry fastidiously rearranged the equipment for some optimal balance of what was in each vehicle. Roy was sitting in the driver's seat, looking at a map that had come with one of the trucks, getting familiar with the area. They were waiting for him, Sylar realized – quietly and _respectfully _waiting for him to give directions.

It was so novel. He stood straighter, prouder. Was this what it would be like when he got in control of everything? He dearly hoped it was. It made him feel so wonderful inside. He signed off from the phone and slipped it in his pocket, striding over. "We're in luck," he announced. "The police have a sighting of our target's car at his uncle's house. I'm told it's out in the country, on eighty acres." He hoped one of his people knew how big that was. Sylar, a city boy, measured things in blocks, and although he could easily translate those into metric equivalents, asking him the size of an acre was as likely to get an answer as asking him how many pecks were in a bushel. But that was the glory of working with a team. Right in front of him were five additional brains who might know the information. Several of them nodded comfortably.

"If he gets the drop on us, he's lethal." Sylar's eyes raked over his people, thinking about how easily Sylar himself had taken out two of these teams. "It's your lives on the line," he said, managing not to put any emphasis on 'your'. He knew regeneration would protect him, but they had no such protection and that was something he felt a small, but surprising, amount of concern about. "I want to hear some ideas on how we should bring him in."

"Dead," Alex offered immediately. Roy and Harry chuckled.

Dwayne pointed out, "Orders prefer them alive if at all possible."

"Might not be possible," Alex said with a telling shrug. Obviously, he didn't mind if they killed specials. Sylar took silent note of that. Not that he was judging, but it was important to know who might be more of a danger to him than not. Part of why Alex had done so well with Bernadine was that he didn't give a shit what some special thought about him. He could lie to her easily and stress-free because she didn't matter to him at all. That whole us-versus-them mindset of religious fanatics was something Sylar was becoming increasingly unhappy about. He'd grown up with it, and it had played no small role in his ability to internally justify killing those who didn't deserve their abilities. But now seeing it from the other side (and remembering his father's galling words), he had a better sense of how petty and small-minded it was.

Jason said, "I think we should smoke the place up, then go in and tase him. He can't destroy what he can't see."

"Tear gas," Roy threw in. Some of the others nodded and they began to plan in earnest. An hour later, after consulting satellite maps for layouts of the farm and the surrounding terrain, putting forward and rejecting several other options, they returned to Jason's basic strategy. Through most of it, Sylar had remained silent, just as before. He threw in the occasional observation and suggestion, but mainly, he let them do the heavy lifting. It was their asses on the line, anyway, plus they were trained in this kind of thing and he wasn't. He suspected Danko would be proud of him. It was a nice thought. One thing was certain – his people weren't second-guessing him and they weren't working against him. It was incredible.

They made it to the farm directly enough, driving right up into the front yard and bailing out of the vehicles like a bunch of serious badasses. A couple bluetick coonhounds bayed at them from the right, largely ignored by Jason and Harry who swung that direction, guns out. Alex and Roy went to the left. Sylar and Dwayne took the middle, firing gas canisters through the windows, heedless of the damage. No where in their mission statement was the minimization of collateral damage. All of them were in full gear – combat fatigues, tool belts, extra ammo, comm equipment, weapons, and gas masks.

Sylar kicked in the door, augmenting it easily with enough telekinesis to make the heavy, locked barrier fly inward like he was Chuck Norris in his prime. The door would not defy him again. He smirked under his gas mask as he strode inside fearlessly. Unfortunately, there was nothing to fear and no one other than Dwayne to witness his awesomeness. The front room was empty aside from the hissing of no less than three gas canisters. Jason's voice on the earpiece announced they had two people trying to exit the back of the house. Sylar moved forward quickly.

There was a bit of yelling – something about a gun, something about a line of fire and Roy calmly saying he had him, Harry saying something about the dogs – and then there was a sudden roar like a jet engine had cycled up to speed. Sylar made it to the back porch just in time to see their target vanish, transforming himself from a man into a whirling dervish of destruction. His ability was not to summon the cyclone, but to _become it,_ and that fact threw their carefully laid plan in disarray. If he'd conjured the attack like telekinesis, then it could be easily undone by taking him down. Yet now there was no 'him' to take down. Even Sylar was left staring, frantically trying to think of an ability that would allow him to harness the guy. He had nothing.

His team tried anyway – taser darts and bullets were launched into the vortex to no avail. The other young man who had been in the house dropped the rifle he'd picked up on the way out and ran off to the side. The dogs followed him, conveniently removing several distractions at once. Roy peeled off to track them anyway. Their real enemy, Josh, launched himself first at Harry, who was forced to dive out of the way, and then at the back of the house, where Sylar and Dwayne had arrested. Sylar immediately guessed the reason – Josh needed weapons, debris to slice through the air. Without it, he was just a bunch of angry wind.

Sylar raised his hand to defend himself with lightning, hoping that a more direct application of electricity might get through. He didn't have to look though to know that his entire team, save probably Roy, was looking at him. He would out himself and lose everything he had with them. In the fraction of a second while he considered that, Dwayne grabbed him by his harness and yanked him backwards. Sylar recognized the action for what it was – an attempt to save him, to get him out of danger. He stumbled and tried to cooperate as Dwayne pulled him out of the back porch and into the kitchen, while the porch itself was obliterated, transformed into flying debris.

For a moment, the menace followed them, but then made a sudden course change, fleeing the house and getting out into the clear again. Sylar blinked, getting his balance finally as Dwayne released him. He looked around himself, not sure why their enemy would destroy the porch, but quail from entering the kitchen. The kitchen that was still filling with tear gas, Sylar realized. Indeed, even from the small moment he'd entered the room, the dervish was wavering unsteadily. Sylar could imagine him staggering from the effects, struggling to keep his ability active. The air was a vital resource to him – polluting it struck him even more strongly than most people. He was vulnerable.

Sylar grabbed the canister with his gloved hands, carrying it out and fluidly jumping off the jagged remains of the porch. His foe steadied, then began to dart away, confirming that he wanted nothing to do with toxic gasses. Sylar threw the can, using telekinesis to guide it unerringly to its goal and then keeping it there, refusing to allow Josh to eject it from his tornado of destruction. Within seconds, the young man collapsed to the ground holding his throat.

Harry fired his taser immediately, not willing to risk letting him recover. Alex was of the same mindset. When Josh's taser-induced thrashing included a brief resurgence of his ability (which Sylar suspected was an involuntary reaction to the electricity), Alex fired his gun. Large caliber, close range, probably hollow point bullets blew the left side of Josh's head open, ending his life and his threat. Sylar frowned. Not that he'd really wanted that ability (nor could he take it with the team around), but Alex's indifference to the lives of specials was really starting to annoy him.

Alex looked up at him with a careful, measuring look to see if and how much trouble he was in for the impetuous killing. Sylar plastered on an indulgent smile. Dwayne, at least, had tried to save his life and that wasn't lost on Sylar. The rest of the team, looking back and forth between them, relaxed from high alert. The bad guy was down, they'd worked together, no one was hurt, and their leader was happy. Mission accomplished.

* * *

_Thursday (early AM), July 7, 2011_

Sylar stretched. It was a natural break in his story. He'd been talking for quite a while, with Peter listening avidly, thoroughly calmed down from his earlier issues – repugnance at the rape and excitement about the masturbation.

Peter raked his hair back and asked, "You were really happy, weren't you? Doing that, being an agent?" It reminded Peter of the camaraderie he'd felt with Noah when they'd worked together, although their results had always been less bloody.

Sylar shrugged, standing to continue his stretching into a full body motion – cat-like and fluid. "Yeah, it was good. It was like hunting, but legitimized, with … friends." After a moment of reflection, he added, "It was fantastic. Hard to believe it was really happening." It was a high he'd ridden for the entire plane trip back to Building 26. What came after was less sanguine. Peter was leaning back and shifting a bit, too, flexing and stretching less overtly. Sylar wasn't eager to tell the next part, though he knew he would have to. But first - "Let's go back downstairs."

"Yeah. I need to freshen up," Peter said, rising.

Sylar snorted. "Sure. You do that. I need to take a leak."

Peter chuckled at Sylar's refusal to sugar-coat it. They returned to the apartment, took care of their needs, and Peter made some hot chocolate. Sylar fussed over the large marshmallows, cutting them into small pieces with an absurd degree of focus (and telekinesis). "You know," Peter said, "I could have just bought little ones to start with."

Sylar said nothing, absorbed with getting the 'right' size and number of marshmallow bits in each cup. That was absolutely necessary at the moment as he let his normal personas fade and the watchmaker part take over. Contented and supportive, Peter sighed and slid his hand over Sylar's shoulders as the other finished, running his fingers up into Sylar's hair and pushing his body lightly against him. Task done, Sylar took control again and turned to his lover, looking Peter over appraisingly. He suspected Peter knew what had just happened and was completely unbothered by it. Peter pulled him down for a kiss – faintly marshmallow flavored because Peter hadn't resisted snagging a couple while making up their drinks.

The kiss deepened rapidly, turning passionate as hands roamed and Peter ground against Sylar several times. He toned it down, then. Sylar was responding but … it was apparent from his mood that he had other things on his mind. Their impromptu make-out session wound down with smooches and pecks and a few whispered endearments from Peter. After they parted and he'd taken up his mug, Peter said, "You're nervous. Is it about what happens next in the story?"

Sylar took up his drink with a bitter expression. He cut straight to the chase. "Noah kills me."


	358. Death and then Dishonor

_Thursday (early AM), July 7, 2011_

Peter settled into the couch with his hot chocolate while Sylar took up the recliner. "So," Peter said into Sylar's uneasy silence. "Noah killed you. Tell me what happened."

"Well, first, a part that I skipped over earlier," Sylar said, paying extra attention to his drink. "My entertainment with Sandra's body didn't end in the hotel room. She- I mean I went to Noah's apartment and served him divorce papers. As her." Peter noticed Sylar faked taking a sip, sneaking a look over the rim of his cup to see the reaction. Peter gave him a nod and a disappointed shrug. It wasn't surprising news. He'd been told Noah's version of the incident some time back, at a point in time when listing the reasons why they hated Sylar had felt therapeutic for both of them.

Sylar exhaled gradually, easing back on the tension. "Okay. Then you'll understand if this was not Bennet's finest hour." Peter frowned. He really didn't want to hear Sylar crowing or gloating about how he'd snookered Noah, which probably had a lot to do with why Sylar had skipped over the initial deception. As if using telepathy, Sylar moved on now as well to the parts Peter hadn't had a chance to hear about.

* * *

_Thursday morning, June 11, 2009_

"I didn't have a lot of options," Danko said in the calm, bland tone he might use in talking someone through defusing a bomb. "I had to direct him somewhere. This seemed … the safest choice."

A bomb was not far off target. Sylar was _so _pissed as he got to his feet. Something about the shape shift and the regeneration put the bullet in his throat. He heaved, carefully now, trying to get it out without vomiting his breakfast of two bagels with cream cheese all over the floor. Successful, he spat the object into his hand. Icy rage led him to raise the smashed slug high before dropping it theatrically. "You almost got me killed," he growled. It had only been the timely and fortuitous act of Dwayne trying to knock Bennet's gun away that had saved Sylar's life. The man needed a medal, even if Noah's finger had been too quick on the trigger to avoid Sylar being shot. It had changed the effect from 'brains blown out = final death' to something marginally easier to deal with – but only marginally. "You could have said I was Agent Foster!" he snarled.

"'cept if Bennet shot Foster, Foster'd be dead," Danko said mildly, giving him brief, unchallenging eye contact. Sylar glared death at Danko, smarting from a feeling of betrayal. He didn't give a shit about Foster, the leader of Team Four whom he'd already had some issues with. Acting unthreatened but cautious, Danko looked down at all the blood and said musingly, "I didn't know you could bleed like that."

It was, in a weird way, a concession, an implication that Danko had been worried about him, maybe worried that he was really dead. Sylar felt the slightest bit mollified. "I squeezed it all out extra, for show," he said with a deadpan that was more effective than any sneer. He continued staring the other man down, but the edge was wearing off. He'd already considered the magnitude of what he'd lost, but the impact was still hitting him. Just moments before, Sylar had been high-fiving his men, encouraging them, reveling in their victory. There would be no more of that as Donner; no way to thank Dwayne for saving his life twice over. Not only was that particular mask broken, but Sylar had the peculiar aching feeling that someone really had died, and not just in the eyes of people who mattered to him. A little snow globe reality had been cruelly smashed and there was no way to recover what he'd lost.

Danko walked over to the body of Josh Hightower, opening the body bag with casual interest as he spoke. "You've been very useful to me in such a short time. It'd be a shame to lose that." He glanced over at Sylar, who stood taller at the compliment. Inside, Sylar was ridiculously pleased to be found useful, the compliment making a deeper mark than usual given his current feeling of loss and dissociation. He knew he was being used, but it sounded so much cleaner in Danko's mouth than it had in Angela's or Arthur's. Maybe it was because no one here was spouting any hypocritical nonsense about it being for the greater good, or promising love and family in return for his services. All Danko promised was approval, recognition, and acknowledgment, which he hadn't been stinting on delivering. It was a lot like respect and Sylar was desperate for that. Danko looked over at him, waving his hand in a general way at Sylar's torso. "Can you … clean that up?"

Sylar gave a put-out sigh and shifted in and out of his form, ending up as himself again, but clean now and wearing street clothes.

"Where'd the gear go?" Danko asked, brows drawing together a bit.

"It went into the extra-dimensional pocket I keep tucked between my ass cheeks," Sylar said with an expression as flat as his voice.

Danko blinked twice, which was the only reaction he gave. "Did it?" he deadpanned back. Sylar's eyes lit up slightly at the returned joke, some bit of humor passing between them and lightening the heavy mood. Danko gave a jerk of his head. "Come on."

A few minutes later, Danko parted the blinds in his office so they could see into the rows of workstations outside. "See that agent over there?"

Sylar hardly bothered to look, eyes focused on Danko. He was trying to figure the guy out and decide what it meant that Danko wasn't tossing him aside as soon as his cover was blown. Danko had picked _him_ over Noah. It was the only interpretation that made sense. "What about him?"

"To work with us, you'll need a new identity. Agent Taub is the perfect choice. His life … is now your life."

With one last suspicious narrowing of his eyes, Sylar turned from Danko to look into the room. "What do you want me to do with _him?_" Sylar asked.

Danko looked at him sharply. "_Nothing_," he bit out in a stronger tone than anything he'd used yet. Sylar turned a curiously blank face to him. Danko exhaled slowly and explained, "I'm sending him with a team to California to get Matt Parkman's son."

"We're going after children now?" Sylar asked without judgment, making a quick calculation of Parkman's years and the age range that left for his progeny. Not that Sylar was guiltless on the topic of snatching children – there was a certain eight year old girl he'd tried to take once and although the experience had rattled him deeply, he'd still fully intended to carry it out.

"He started it," Danko said, his voice dipping to a rough growl of emotion. "I don't care if Taub comes back with the baby, the mother, or _bodies_. Matt Parkman crossed a line." He shot a look at Sylar as if in warning.

"Oh," Sylar answered, all innocence, even though he burned to know the sordid details. Apparently while he'd been distracted with Noah and the adventures of Team Six, other interesting things had been happening.

Danko walked back around his desk, looking more tired than usual now that Sylar noticed. It looked like the guy hadn't slept recently, making the hollows under his eyes even more pronounced. Danko waved his hand emptily at Sylar. "His name's Arnold Taub," he said, declining to elaborate on the business with Matt. "I'll call him in here, you can do your thing, and he'll be leaving on a jet in an hour. Then you'll have your 'life' back."

"I _liked _being Donner," Sylar said, trying not to sulk about it.

Danko gave him an odd look for a moment, then shrugged dismissively. "You'll like being Taub." It consoled Sylar about as much as being told he could get a new dog to replace the one that had been hit by a car. He glared again, but Danko was already dialing for the agent to come in.

* * *

_Thursday (early AM), July 7, 2011_

"The rest of the day and the next were boring," Sylar said, putting aside his finished drink by levitating the empty cup to the end table next to the couch. "Nathan came in that afternoon, though. He was a complete bastard."

* * *

_Thursday afternoon, June 12, 2009_

Everyone was called together in the largest room they had, which was a poorly furnished conference room a floor down. Sylar wasn't in a big hurry to hear what Petrelli had to say, so he was one of the last to enter the room. That left him standing at the back with a score of other people, well after the few chairs had been filled. Nathan's voice projected well enough for everyone to hear him, though. At the moment, he was lighting into Danko.

"-and in addition to the budgetary issues, I hear that just this morning you stood by while Noah Bennet shot one of your best team leaders!"

Sylar frowned. It was nice to have his fledging skill as a leader recognized. It was not nice to see Danko getting blamed for it, even if Sylar himself had made that charge. That was between him and Danko and some interfering senator who didn't know the half of what was going on had no right to criticize. Danko, who was leaning against the wall next to the door, didn't react to Nathan's outburst any more than he did to Sylar's threats. But whereas that act always put Sylar off balance, it only encouraged Nathan.

"Maybe he was mind controlled, or under telepathic orders. You don't even know!" Nathan went on. "You're losing your grip, Danko."

_Mind control? Telepathy?_ Sylar glanced around without moving his head. He could hear a few uneasy shifts from different people. Noah's claims that Donner had been a shape-shifted Sylar weren't a secret in the department. All of Team Six had heard it and Danko (who did seem to be losing his grip) hadn't suppressed it. Jason had even noted that Donner's corpse didn't end up in the morgue, which had fueled the rumors enormously. However, apparently no one had seen fit to inform the senator, who was far more disconnected from the daily activities of 'his' people than he should have been. As an example, Sylar had never even seen him before – at least not clearly (and bleeding out at Kirby didn't count). On the other hand, Sylar's face time with Danko was extensive, as it was for everyone here. Danko met people, he talked with them, he knew them, and he kept tabs on what was going on. Nathan seemed to think he could fly in occasionally, squawk loudly, shit on everything, and fly off without repercussion, like he was some kind of god-damned sea gull.

No one spoke up to inform him. Danko might be losing his grip, but Nathan didn't have one at all. Sylar wondered if he should take the senator aside and gain a few points.

Nathan's next barrage eliminated that possibility. "The sad thing is, Donner was one of your better leaders and he'd just botched his mission. He came in with a body. A _**body,**_ Danko! Specials are not … target practice. Your teams are careless, they're sloppy, they're attracting media attention, they're costing money, and they're killing people! The best you have are murdering people for no reason at all! If the deaths continue, the missions won't. I'll freeze them."

Sylar's eyes narrowed. His mission had not been 'botched'! Even if Alex's shots were preemptory, Sylar had to admit Josh had still been moving and to someone who rightfully thought every twitch might be dangerous, he was still a threat. Nathan didn't know what he was talking about, how much people were taking their lives into their hands on missions, or how much a second of hesitation could make the difference between life and death. Bringing in specials was _dangerous_. Bringing them in alive was even more dangerous than killing them outright. And while yes, teams had lots of advantages, a certain level of casualties was going to be unavoidable as long as they were trying to accomplish this ridiculous goal of rounding specials up and incarcerating them in secret. And whose goal was that? Who had gone to the president and started all of this? Oh, yeah - _Nathan_.

Everyone in the room knew that and most were having a similar reaction to Sylar's. The hostility was palpable. Danko continued acting zoned out, like he'd quit listening to Nathan about three words in. Whatever Matt had pulled on him had really fucked him up and that only amped up the desire of his people to defend him (and themselves). A low murmur of dissatisfaction began. It seemed to get through to Nathan that he needed to wind this up and get out while he still could. By his own accusation, he was in a room full of murderers and loose cannons. He pointed at Danko, concluding, "You're going to rein these people in, Danko, or I'll do it for you."

The grumbling got louder. Danko perked up a little, glancing over the assembly, which quieted down at nothing more than his look. Nathan stalked out on that note, not sticking around to see if his message did any good.

"Well," Danko said with a dry smirk after the senator left, "you heard the man."


	359. A Chu

**A/N: Adrian Chu is the title character of one of my stand-alone stories, "The Nameless". In Heroes wiki, he is 'The Analyst'. He shows up in the episode 'Shades of Gray'. Also, special thanks to dancingdragon3 for beta work, without whom this chapter would have been a mess.**

_Thursday (2 AM), July 7, 2011_

Sylar covered his face with his hand, thumb and forefinger along his brow. He leaned forward a little, body language shifting in an instant as Gabriel took over. Peter downed the rest of his hot chocolate and set his cup on the end table next to Gabe's, waiting for the other man to look up. He did, finally, with a sigh and stretching his neck. "Sylar's … told you a lot."

"Yeah," Peter answered, leaning forward. The battered old mantel clock at the top of the shelves gently dinged the hour with two bell tones. "I think it's been … really good. For him to share that. For me to know." Gabriel was watching him intently, so Peter went on, trying to reassure, "Your ..." He hesitated, not sure of the implications of what he was about to say. Rather than think them out though, he simply said it. "Your memories make you the person you are. They're important. They shouldn't be just blotted out because they're inconvenient."_ Yeah, I know, I'm guilty. _"I think it's wonderful that you're able to tell me about them." He swallowed. "You don't have to keep them walled off in different personalities. Not if you don't want to." Peter thought that a lot of what was being related seemed inconsequential, but it told him more about the man he was in love with, which meant it was something he wanted to know. He was getting to hear about the whole person he was dealing with.

Gabriel sighed slowly, letting lie the uncomfortable reminders of Peter's past villainy, just as Peter tended to ignore Gabe's. As for the implication that all these disclosures would impact his fractured personality, even Gabriel didn't know what difference that would make. But Peter was probably right that it _would_ make one – a big difference. Gabriel was opening up doors in trust and for once in his life, not having them slammed in his face. It encouraged him. Emboldened, he went on. "After Nathan's amazingly demotivational speech and Danko's failure to speak up in his people's defense, everyone was demoralized. Friday was quiet. No one did any work. By the end of the day, I was really tired of being Taub, of being an agent, of everything. I went out as a woman and started hooking up with men."

Peter cocked his head. "Can- … can- … but ..."

"But what?"

"You were having sex with _men_."

"Yes."

"This was before Nathan …" Peter's brow furrowed in that cute way that it did when he was confused by something. Gabriel had always asserted himself as primarily straight before integrating Nathan's personality and memories, but on the other hand, he'd apparently been fine with fucking James Martin ...

Gabriel chuckled. "Yes, but I was doing it as a woman. I wanted to see what it was like. You can think of it as research if you want, but really it was more … feeling lost and pointless after Donner died. It's not like I was all that attracted to them – the guys. Being that doesn't mean I can't play a role. I got laid … I don't know, a half a dozen, maybe a dozen times. I don't know how many."

"All on Friday night?" Peter said, impressed by that. The logistics were boggling.

"No – the whole weekend." He sighed and frowned. "You might imagine it was sexy and hot, but really it wasn't. It was empty. It wasn't anything like being with Elle or ..." He fell silent, thinking about how even making out with Maya had been more engaging and honest. Later, he'd been with Lydia, but at the point in his life he was discussing, being with Lydia was still in the future. "They didn't know it was me. They didn't care. They weren't … I kept doing it all weekend thinking that maybe if I just found the right guy, used the right line … I mean, women did this, right? People go to clubs, pick other people up and go fuck, right? I thought there had to be a _reason_ for it." He rubbed his forehead again. "They were just as pathetic as I was. Part of why," he said bitterly, "after I got out of Omaha, I went for Nathan's life. He _had_ one."

Peter nodded slowly. "So what happened?" Gabriel shook his head, looking away. Peter surmised the real reason for Sylar's departure and Gabriel's return was his discomfort about the weekend. He wasn't proud of it. "Tell me."

"No. It's … it really didn't matter. I just … I wasn't myself. Literally. When I was someone else, it was so easy to lose myself, forget who I was and dissociate. It felt so good, like a vacation from everything I'd ever done wrong and a get-out-of-jail-free card to do whatever I wanted, both at the same time! I was spiraling out of touch with who I _really_ was and what I wanted to accomplish and that weekend was just … symptomatic. I was in a pretty low place come Monday morning. Danko wasn't any better. He told me to do what Chu assigned me and Chu gave me a bunch of incredibly boring facial recognition checks to do."

"Chu?"

"Yeah. He was the top analyst. It was busy work and … well, I _thought _it was busy work. At the time. Now, I can see the point. Whatever feeds they were using to get all that camera information would take the faces and match them to databases that held the features of known specials. When they had a match above a certain probability, it would file that as an action item for a human being to take a look at. Because sometimes the computer would get fooled on things – glasses, hair, glare spots, whatever. Or it would identify someone in New York whom we had good intelligence that said they were in Oregon – and teleporting or super-speed wasn't their power. People do look the same from time to time and when you're crunching through that many faces with different film resolutions, different angles and lighting and obscurement … yeah, you need a person double-checking. But I didn't want to be that person."

"I can understand why. Sounds like you weren't being, uh, well-utilized."

"No, I wasn't. But I couldn't bitch too much about that because I was Taub and Taub's team was in California. Most of the office thought he'd been held back from the assignment as punishment for something unmentionable, so they weren't even nice about it." He sighed. "And Chu … there was something about Chu ..."

* * *

_Wednesday, June 17, 2009_

It took until Wednesday before it finally clicked for Sylar. He was sitting there steaming from Adrian Chu's latest reprimand, torn between thinking he didn't have to take this and wondering how it was that Chu caught him _every time_ he paused in his work to try to investigate potential victims, or Danko's past, or how Homeland Security compiled so much information on their targets. It was that last that pulled it all together. Sylar raised greedy eyes from his computer monitor, looking across the room at the analyst. Sylar turned to face the security camera that covered the room (yes, even this one) and gave it the finger down where Chu couldn't see it. He glanced over. Oh yes. He had Chu's attention now, even though the man blinked and looked back at his screen after being caught.

Sylar stood up and sauntered over. Adrian pushed his chair out and rose, squaring his shoulders and thinning his lips like he expected a fist fight. He was bulky enough that he might stand a chance, but if Sylar were reduced to his hands in a fight, then he'd already lost. Sylar paused a console down from him, leaning his hip against the desk nonchalantly. "I should have known," Sylar purred. "All those cameras, all those security systems – they aren't networked. Most of them aren't even compatible."

"What are you talking about?" Chu demanded, relaxing a little and unclenching his fists.

"You have a … _gift_ with technology, don't you?"

Uncertainty marred Chu's features, followed quickly by an attempt to distract. "That's what they hired me for. And what they hired _you_ for is to go back to your station and do your work. Now."

Sylar smiled slightly, not moved in the least. "Oh," he said quietly because a few other people had turned to look at the tone of Chu's voice, "What sort of trouble would you get into if what you can do was discovered?"

"Less trouble that you're going to get into for insubordination, _Agent._"

"_Anal-_yst," Sylar said back tauntingly, as long as they were parrying with titles. Chu was only Taub's boss because Danko had said so. In the normal chain of command, agents didn't answer to computer jockeys. He leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially, "I know your secret. Now either you-"

Danko opened the door to his office, poking his head out. "Taub. Need you in my office. Now."

Chu, his back to Danko, gave Sylar a shit-eating grin. Blank-faced, Sylar walked past him into Danko's office. The blinds were shut and no one had gone in or out, but Sylar saw the screen on Danko's phone dim, some recently received text message explaining how Danko knew to interrupt. Danko took a seat. He looked just as bedraggled as he had earlier in the week, maybe worse. Sylar wondered if the guy had slept at all. Danko ground out, "Listen, I know this isn't your idea of a dream assignment right now, but-"

"No, this is fine," Sylar said, leaning against the doorframe, door shut behind him. "I hadn't realized it, but there are targets right here. It's very convenient."

Danko stared at him like he was trying to make sense of that. "What?" he asked finally.

"Your 'do-everything-mook', as the others so-snidely call him, has an ability just like the people you're hunting."

Danko stared at him with such a perfect poker face that even Sylar couldn't tell what was going on behind that mask. "Really?" he said with just the right blend of apprehension and surprise to leave Sylar guessing.

"Yes. He's a technopath," Sylar crowed. "He's how you've been getting those huge files of data on all the targets; how you've been able to coordinate so many different surveillance systems." Sylar paused with a tilt of his head. Without Chu, most of Danko's operation would fall. He watched as the slightest facial tic told him that Danko had to be thinking of the same thing. Abruptly, Sylar realized this wasn't going to work. Danko hated specials, but if he was willing to use Sylar to strike out at them, then there was no reason why he wouldn't also be willing to employ Chu.

Very slowly and carefully, Danko said, "I don't think you have any proof of that."

Sylar pulled in a deep breath. Since losing Donner, he'd been feeling like he was no longer Danko's favorite child. This just cemented that feeling. _You can't do this to me,_ he railed inside his head. _I won't let you get away with this!_ "You're right. Maybe I should go get some photographic evidence to persuade you."

"What?"

"I'm taking the afternoon off."

* * *

_Thursday, June 18, 2009_

Danko stared at his computer screen, lips slightly-

* * *

_Thursday (AM hours), July 7, 2011_

"Wait, it's the next day already?" Peter interrupted. "What happened that evening? You said you were going to go get photographic evidence that Chu was a special."

"No-" Gabriel cut himself off with a frustrated noise. "How would I have gotten technological evidence that a technopath had an ability?"

Peter's brows drew together, making a little vertical line over the bridge of his nose. Gabriel watched, wondering how long Peter would cogitate on that. The answer: not quite eight seconds. "Well, then what were the pictures for?"

"I didn't care about _Chu_. I cared about influencing _Danko_."

"Oh."

* * *

_Thursday, June 18, 2009_

Danko stared at his computer screen, lips slightly pursed as he watched the video clip Sylar had provided. Again, Sylar was witnessing that poker face of truly legendary proportions. Danko leaned forward at the end and Sylar would be damned if the guy didn't look slightly aroused. His pupils were definitely dilated. What he asked confirmed it. "Do you have more of this?"

So - Operation Blackmail Danko had somehow turned into Operation Give Danko Wank-Off Material. "That's you on the film!" Sylar burst out, completely detached from the fact that the real Danko had no role in creating the video.

In a very level tone, Danko asked, "It is?"

"Right there!" Sylar gestured at the flash drive where the file was stored, currently plugged into the side of Danko's laptop. If he could show Danko how easy it was for him to get damning evidence against him, then maybe the man would take him seriously.

"So you're going to release this … to my men?" Danko looked up at him intently.

"The moment you hit 'play', Chu saw it, too," Sylar said smugly. He didn't have to release it. Danko had done it for him. And now he had to deal with the fact that Chu was witness to some things Danko undoubtedly didn't want him to know about. Fake or not, it was embarrassing, perhaps even humiliating, and very difficult to explain.

Danko glanced past Sylar at the door to his office, then back at the screen, frowning and probably considering how much he could trust his analyst.

Sylar went on, "Every phone conversation, every text, every email – he knows about all of them. Every weakness you have – he could exploit any of them, at any time. Do you really want the success of your mission to depend on him?"

"So this is about Chu, then?"

"This is about _**ME!**_" Sylar snapped, slamming his fist down on the table.

Danko blinked at him a couple times. They stared at each other until Sylar looked away, having trouble believing he'd been so obvious. Danko sighed. Sylar braced himself for the expected conclusion because he'd fucked up, he knew it, and he falling apart inside. Every other time this had happened, violence had occurred – he'd killed someone. But Danko was just sitting there. Instead of even giving him a lecture or dismissal, the man said apologetically, "I know I've been off my game. It's costing me. Maybe it's costing me you. Chu helps hold this organization together. Without him, I can't use you. Without you, I can still use him. But I'd rather not lose either of you. What can I give you that would take care of this?"

Sylar slumped. It was the first time in days that anyone had talked to him, knowing it was him, like he was a real person. His head was spinning with how Taub or Danko or Sylvia or Donner would answer Danko's question. They drowned out what Sylar might have wanted to say and left him speechless. He rubbed his forehead slowly, feeling dejected. _What the fuck is happening to me?_ Danko's honesty was surprising. "What do you need me to do?" he asked, ignoring Danko's question. He didn't want to take things. He wanted to _give _them. He wanted to be useful. As much as it disappointed him to hear that Chu was more useful than he was, he could see Danko's logic and it didn't mean Danko didn't still need him.

Danko said, "I just need you to hang around and be cool. We're finding new targets all the time. When one comes up that's a good fit for your abilities, I need you where I can find you." He paused for a moment, then added, "And don't kill my analyst. He's the one finding the targets I need you to go after."

* * *

_Thursday (AM hours), July 7, 2011_

"But … what did you go _do?_ What happened? What was on the film you showed Danko?"

Gabriel looked away uneasily and spoke without making eye contact. "I went out and did the … as Danko, it was _Danko_ … the most degrading thing I could think of that I could set up in an evening."

Peter tilted his head. "You've … You know, you've been telling me a lot of things. Why not this?"

Gabriel made an embarrassed, choked noise before bursting out, "Because it was the most degrading thing I could think of, Peter! And at the time, it was Danko doing it. I shape-shifted into him, and it was _him_ doing it. So I didn't care!" He gestured strongly, raising his voice. He exhaled a few angry breaths, calming himself before continuing, "_Now_ … I can't believe I did that. It was a very confusing period of my life. I didn't even have all of the memories until I integrated six months ago. I was really fucked up. You need to know this, though, so you'll understand how … how becoming Nathan was like finding an anchor. Getting turned into him wasn't by choice the first time and it wasn't right, but I'm trying to explain to you why I'm him _now_."

"Nathan is an alter?" Peter asked dubiously, because Gabriel had made it crystal clear to Peter that he, Gabriel, was the person and Nathan was just a role he played. Although to complicate things (they could never be simple, could they?), Gabriel was a gestalt of Nathan and Sylar's personality and memories. He was no more Nathan than he was Sylar, but Sylar was an actual alter so ...

"No." Gabriel shut his eyes for a moment. "Well, yes. But ..." He sighed. "It's _real_. You know that, right?" He looked up at Peter, eyes as intent as Peter had ever seen them.

"Yes." Peter nodded. "You are … Nathan. But ..."

"But?" Gabriel said, tipping his head to the side warningly.

Peter was trying to tread so carefully here. He struggled to find the right way to express an idea that he didn't even have fully verbalized in his own head. "When I had sex with you, that first time ..." He ran a tense hand through his hair, getting wound up because of all the bad consequences that could result with just a few bad words. "It's all connected, isn't it? The … the rough sex that you like? The … the … some of the identity stuff … I don't know! I'm sorry - I don't know what I'm talking about. For a moment there, it sort of all made sense."

Gabriel relaxed as Peter sat silently now, looking despondently at Gabe's shoes even while Peter was thankful there was no angry outburst. They'd come a long way together to have that be possible. After a while, Gabriel huffed and nodded. "Yes, it's all connected. It's all _me_. Alters, not alters, doesn't matter. Fucking me when I was Nathan pushed me harder into Nathan's persona. The more we did it, the more serious our relationship became, the more desperate it made me to break out of it and have you see me as who I was. Even though," Gabriel licked his lips uneasily, "even though I _was_ Nathan, _am_ Nathan, and was _being_ Nathan when I was away from you, I needed you to … validate that I was someone else, a whole person, not just that facet. See me as Gabriel."

"Is that what we're doing here?" Peter looked at him penetratingly.

"What?"

"Right now. Is this … getting validation for Sylar?"

Gabriel looked at him blankly and not from any attempt to hide his emotions. He looked like he honestly hadn't considered that. Finally, he smiled a little. "I … I think you might be right."

There was silence between them for a few more moments before Peter prompted, "So you tried to blackmail Danko and it didn't work, right?" Gabriel nodded. "I know you. It didn't stop there. What happened next?"


	360. Masquerade

**A/N: More thanks to DD3 for beta work. She's a peach for putting up with at least four drafts of this chapter.**

* * *

_Friday evening, June 19, 2009_

Sylar sauntered into the hotel bar like he owned it. His goal for the evening was seated at the bar alone, drowning his sorrows in a slow deluge of alcohol. Sylar smiled slowly and headed straight over, putting a seductive sway into his stride even though Danko wasn't looking his way. Had he been, he would have seen an attractive brunette with shoulder-length hair, wearing a short, thin sleeve of a dress (seriously – the flimsiness of the fabric was ridiculous), very high heels, and pink lipstick that Sylar had to resist the urge to lick off. Danko had been distracted and self-absorbed at work, mind elsewhere until Sylar was determined to find out where that 'elsewhere' was, by any means necessary.

* * *

_Thursday (3 AM), July 7, 2011_

"You were jealous," Peter interrupted again, leaning forward and being very engaged in the story.

"I was ..." Gabriel's voice cut off with a frustrated growl because it was true. He'd wanted Danko's attention, felt marginalized, and had become obsessed with getting the regard he felt due. Blackmail hadn't worked (and bizarrely, hadn't even earned him _negative_ attention) and so he'd moved on to another tactic. "Yeah, okay. Just stop interrupting. I'm trying to tell a story here."

Peter flashed him a cheeky grin, provoking an answering smile and an indulgent sigh from Gabriel. He gave a small shake of his head and went on.

* * *

_Still Friday evening, June 19, 2009_

Danko was about halfway into his cups, but not so far gone that he didn't notice Sylar's entrance. He didn't look, but it was his distinct _lack_ of noticing that told Sylar Danko was paying attention to him. Sylar's hot, feminine form slid onto the neighboring barstool, making eye contact with the bartender when she glanced Sylar's way. "Tequila sunrise, short," Sylar ordered, having determined the probable name of the drink his unwilling partner of two weeks before had enjoyed. Danko tilted his otherwise downturned face just a little, surreptitiously scanning over Sylar's svelte body.

Playing the game, Sylar ignored him in turn even as he knew he was being evaluated. If his previous weekend had taught him anything (and it had – many things), it was that he held the power in this situation. He had the product - he _was_ the product – and hopefully Danko would elect to be a buyer. If he wasn't, then Sylar would try something else – maybe men, although it seemed unlikely that was Danko's main kick. Confidently, he tossed his hair, flicking it back in one of those signals of interest and availability he'd read about in his recent bouts of research (Chu had stopped lording it over Sylar after Thursday morning – Sylar wasn't sure if that was an order from Danko or a result of the blackmail film – but in either case, it gave him extra time to find the information he wanted even if it had little to do with his overall mission).

Survey complete, Danko pulled out his wallet, thumbing through it casually. When the bartender arrived with Sylar's drink, he tossed out a bill to cover it.

"Thank you," Sylar purred.

Danko gave an unaffected shrug. "Come here often?" Somehow, in his mouth, the trite line seemed normal rather than overused. Sylar admired that for a second, trying and failing to put his finger on how exactly Danko managed it.

Sylar took a sip of his drink to cover his contemplations. "No," he said honestly. "But you look like you do."

Danko gave a wry lift of his brows. "Often enough to have a room upstairs on the monthly rate. Want to see it?"

He was certainly direct. "Love to," Sylar said, pleased that Danko had taken the bait. Now he just had to figure out how to reel Danko in, make him vulnerable, and reveal his secrets – and no one was so vulnerable as when they were intimate. Sylar knew that Danko's apartment was a couple blocks over, so the room here must be something the department kept for agents while they were traveling. It made sense. And since Danko had just recently dispatched a team to California, it was also likely some rooms were empty.

Sylar hung back after they'd gone up the elevator to the room, letting Danko find the right keycard to get them in. Inside was a nice but uninspiring room with a single king-sized bed adorning it. Sylar trailed fingers over the wall, pulling out memories and wondering if this room happened to have belonged to Taub. It didn't, he saw, which was a disappointment. It would have given him more background on the man. As it was, the identity was a disturbingly empty shell that Sylar still didn't care for. Again, he resented Noah killing Donner as though the man had killed a friend of his.

"So what brought you to this particular hotel?" Danko asked as he made a casual tour of the place, as new to the room as Sylar but trying to conceal it.

"I was looking for company," Sylar said, taking a brief peek out the heavy curtains, on the off-chance that he might later have need of knowing the layout outside – window construction, how many floors up, that sort of thing. It would be embarrassing to blow out the windows for a quick escape only to discover the hard way that there was a pillar in the middle of two windows instead of one large one that spanned the whole area.

"Yeah?" Danko cleared his throat slightly. Sylar turned to face him. Danko had put several large bills on the end of the dresser closer to Sylar. "Were you thinking about staying for a little while … maybe an hour?"

Sylar looked at the money, fighting off a complicated mix of feelings. For one, that was a lot of money for an hour, but he had little reference for how much prostitutes went for. Was he supposed to haggle? Bargain? Ask for more? And lastly, even though he was pretty sure he should be flattered by the amount involved, he still felt cheap to be taking money for this at all, even if it was a required part of the role. The feeling of being used wasn't new – he had a history of people trying to buy him, although straight cash was a new angle. He arched a brow. "What did you have in mind?"

Danko glanced at the money and put another hundred down. "The girlfriend treatment." He studied Sylar's face, seeing something there that prompted him to explain, "Let me kiss you."

"Of course," Sylar answered, realizing that perhaps the innocent, confused amateur act was something he should play up rather than try to cover. He was no stranger to faking intimacy, as Maya could attest. And the weekend before, he'd been with a lot of guys, so the sex itself wasn't an issue. In fact, he got a huge thrill out of breaking moral boundaries so thoroughly. But none that of addressed the confused mire of emotions he had from being with someone he wanted approval and attention from – something he'd handled very badly in the past and this was no different. He tried to focus on what would make Danko happy. If Sylar's stint of looking at the world from the inside of Danko's skull was any indication, the man wanted the mundane. He hunted and destroyed mysteries, but he wanted to come home to something more comforting. Normal human vulnerabilities might be right up his alley.

Danko moved to the other end of the dresser, pulling his gun from the belly band holster he'd had it in and setting it aside. Taking his cue, Sylar moved to the end of the bed, unbuckling the high heeled shoes this particular form had come with. Muscle memory was not something he gained when shape-shifting, but heels hadn't been too difficult to manage after a bit of private practice up and down hallways.

Danko started unbuttoning his shirt. "What's your name?"

Sylar shrugged, standing now to slip out of his dress and trying not to feel weird about stripping in front of the man. "Is that important?"

Danko smiled, wanly. "It's something I like to know. How would I ask for you again if I didn't have something to call you?"

"Sylvia," Sylar provided. It was an identity he'd used the weekend before, in the same body. He opted to leave on his lacy bra and underwear. He didn't want to get into the issue of phone numbers and Facebook identities – both things men had asked him for the previous weekend that he hadn't been able to provide, so he blurted the first question that came to his mind: "What's going on in your life that brought you here?" It was far too intrusive and totally inappropriate to the role he was playing here. He could tell from the small glance Danko shot his way. Sylar looked down, drawing in on himself as an act and looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked," he said meekly, even if it was the main thing he wanted to know here.

Danko slipped off his shirt and draped it over his gun. "That's okay," he said after a pause, buying Sylar's act. With a bitter tone, he continued, "There's _nothing_ going on in my life right now, which is why I was looking for someone like you."

Sylar didn't hide his reaction to that. His chest rose, back straightened, and expression shone. Even if it was trite and possibly fake and being said to an illusion of him, it was so close to what Sylar wanted – someone who wanted him, someone who wanted a connection with him. Still wearing his pants and socks, Danko stepped over to him and gently cupped the side of his face, taking a moment to relish the soft skin and watch the play of emotion across Sylvia's face. Again, it wasn't hard for Sylar to look authentic. Danko was not treating this as business, it wasn't a cheap conquest like the men in the bars or the frat house, and it wasn't rote like the philandering husband Sylar had ended up with once. It was … God, it seemed almost genuine and Sylar's eyes widened in surprise at that, and at the feeling of slowly rousing happiness inside of himself that someone might touch him like this.

Danko kissed him slowly, lovingly, savoring it. Sylar had been expecting the act itself to be as insensitive as the others – a rush of hands where he didn't want them, whiskey or beer-tainted breath, and getting a kiss or any attention to his own arousal being a tedious struggle that was a killjoy in itself. No, this was different. This was what Sylar had been trying to get the weekend before, when he'd bedded guys for nothing. Now he was getting money _and_ seduction, but he credited the target rather than the technique. Whatever this 'girlfriend treatment' was, Sylar was totally on board with it, his brain fuzzing out under the effects of a tender touch.

They found the bed in moments, Sylar finding his mind and body both responding fast to a gentle and attentive lover. If Danko's mind was elsewhere, if he was still distracted by whatever had been bothering him at work, it certainly wasn't showing now. The two of them tangled together across the bedspread, acting and reacting, finding one another's buttons and pushing them. Sylar remembered what he'd learned by assuming Danko's form and used a heavy hand on him, gripping his groin and massaging firmly. It pulled a lusty, needy groan from Danko's throat and moved the older man to finish undressing.

They tussled in earnest. Sylar stroked him hard until he was hard, then looked down at the dick in his hand. The next step in the usual porn script would have him sucking Danko. And yes, he'd sucked cock as various women already, but … those were meaningless. Entirely meaningless. Even though this might be, too, he hesitated, transfixed and confused. It was those women who had done it, not _him_. Not the him who was right here and now. No one he'd been with before had given a damn about what he wanted. Maybe that was different now?

"Come here," Danko whispered, drawing him close again and beginning to rut slowly against his hand. "Have you ever even done this before?" He spoke with a tender, knowing smile, watching Sylar's face and beaming at it. Danko had his own fantasies he was trying to fulfill here, Sylar realized. The idea of a shy, inexperienced lover who would cleave to him and treat him like a cherished, faithful lover was apparently among them. But that wasn't what Sylar was and he ached to be seen for the person under the mask, rather than the illusion.

Sylar sighed, directing misty doe-eyes back at the man as he slowly twisted and tugged at his root. "Not really," Sylar admitted, shape-shifting back into himself just inches from Danko's face.

* * *

_Thursday (AM hours), July 7, 2011_

"Whoa … whoa, what? Right in front of him? In bed with him?"

Gabriel sighed at Peter's interruption of an otherwise very intimate moment. It was a warm memory that, honestly, he perversely treasured – even if it had kind of gone to hell after that.

"Why?" Peter asked insistently after none of his previous questions were answered.

In a low voice, Gabriel answered, "For the same reason I'm telling _you _all of this. I thought … I got conf- I was feeling … love, I thought, and I wanted him to know who I really was." He studied the floor, feeling chastised.

Peter was silent for long enough that Gabriel looked up at him. Peter said, "And that didn't turn out well, which is part of why you've been so careful in revealing yourself to me, right?"

Gabriel swallowed and declined to answer. "Danko didn't freak out as much as I'd expected."

* * *

_Yes, this is still Friday evening, Peter, June 19, 2009_

Danko took finding himself in bed with Sylar a lot better than he might have. His eyes widened in shock and one hand jerked downward to grab Sylar's wrist. Perhaps Sylar having Danko's dick in his hand had something to do with the lack of immediate and instant withdrawal. Disappointed, confused, and hurt, Sylar let him go. Danko released Sylar's wrist in slow motion, the alarm and horror on his face shifting to disgust as he figured out Sylar wasn't going to kill him immediately. He backed off the bed like Sylar was a snake coiled to strike.

"So that was all fake," Sylar sneered as the man went. "Just something you do with prostitutes to get your rocks off, huh?" He knew now how stupid he'd been for thinking that when Danko looked at him, he was seeing him, the person, instead of a bundle of assumptions and self-serving preconceptions. Danko was just like everyone else, just like Virginia, just like Elle and Angela and Noah and all of them, he thought bitterly. From Sylar's point of view, the skin he was wearing shouldn't make a difference. As Sylar or Sylvia, someone with abilities or not, he'd still been kissing Danko passionately only seconds before. That Danko reserved affection for one and disgust for the other meant it was all false – just a masturbatory fantasy while using whatever body Sylar was wearing. There was nothing real about it.

Danko grabbed his pants and yanked them on as Sylar stretched and sprawled. He was still wearing the same bra and underwear of his previous form, shape-shifted to fit his now-larger frame. He was sure he made quite an image. The cups of the bra were empty, topped by his darkly-haired chest, and the panties failed to contain his testicles, which were spilling out on either side. The discomfort was erotic by itself. He lifted his hand, inhaling it obviously, taking in the musk of Danko's precome. The man's scent stained him, semi-tangible evidence that he'd wanted him only moments before. Sylar would have loved it if Danko's desire wasn't so fickle. As it was, he knew that if he were still Sylvia, he would look terribly sexy doing this. Danko stood frozen, pants not yet buckled, staring at him. Sylar asked in a sultry, teasing tone, "Am I to draw any meaning from you going for your pants before your gun?" _Noah would have definitely gone for the gun,_ Sylar thought.

"You're insane," Danko said quietly.

Sylar gave him an unmistakable 'And your point?' look.

"You're a freak!" Now Danko was showing anger.

"Old news," Sylar responded as if bored, rolling onto his back and bending one leg at the knee, with a provocative roll of his hips that was more feminine than the tall, rangy male form he'd been born to. Danko finished fastening his pants and finally went for his weapon, though whether he intended to use it or just wear it was unclear. It was moot. The smallest flip of Sylar's fingers sent the firearm careening off into the corner of the room. Danko then surprised him by jumping on him – coming around the side of the bed and trying to pummel him. Sylar let himself get hit time after time, focusing on healing and making sure he didn't suffer anything too rattling. Danko withdrew after a handful of punches, snarling impotently. Sylar laughed at him, "Feel better with that out of your system?"

"Fuck you!"

"I _was_ offering," Sylar said with false sweetness, spitting out a fragment of tooth.

Danko stuffed his feet into his shoes, grabbing up the rest of his stuff from the dresser.

"I'd have never gotten as far as I did, Emile, if deep down you weren't as desperate inside as I am." Sylar's eyes were on him intently, the reality of the rejection beginning to set in. The urge to beg for acceptance was beginning to lurk at the edges of his mind.

"Yeah?" Danko shot back, snatching up his shirt. "I'm not the one fucking strangers for cheap thrills!"

"You're hardly a stranger," Sylar said, sitting up. Pain was flaring up deep inside – pain at the realization that Danko was going to walk out and leave him here, alone and pathetic.

"Is your life so meaningless that you're reduced to pimping yourself out then?"

Sylar surged off the bed, noting the careful step back Danko made. "You _should_ be afraid. _Very_ afraid. I am not 'meaningless' and you will not throw me away like all your other women." Not that he saw himself as a woman (bra and panties be damned), but he couldn't find a better way to phrase it on the fly, with his emotions running wild. He'd kill Danko right now if he didn't think that was an admission of how powerless he was to get someone's attention.

Danko fell back, looking confused now and stricken far more than Sylar would have expected. "She wasn't meaningless … she wasn't!"

A single brow climbed on Sylar's face, followed a moment later by the other one as he divined that Danko wasn't talking about Sylvia. There was someone else he'd lost. It all clicked into place. "Matt Parkman stole your woman." Danko's expression confirmed it, even if he said nothing. "He used his ability and turned her away from you." Danko looked down, sagging. "Now you're alone." Sylar knew how that felt – at least the alone part. Only a few minutes earlier, he'd thought he was feeling a connection with Danko. Too soon, he now knew. If he was ever so lucky again in his life, he'd wait until he was sure it was reciprocated before putting all his cards on the table. "And now you're alone because you won't see anyone else as they really are," Sylar pronounced, shape-shifting again to assume clothing. He walked out, dignity intact.


	361. Repetition Compulsion

**A/N: Warning: References to child molestation and a canon suicide attempt.**

**Beta credit to dancingdragon3.**

* * *

_Thursday (AM hours), July 7, 2011_

"I spent the next couple days doing not much of anything. I was trying to decide who I wanted to be. It wasn't anything I'd ever thought about before. 'Sylar' was who I was, not Gabriel. I'd … given up that identity, shoved it away, tried to lose it. I didn't think it was an option. And I still didn't, but shape-shifting had changed the game. The more I thought about it, though, the more it wasn't a game I wanted to play. I wanted to be … me."

Gabriel rubbed at his forehead. "Monday morning, I woke up as Taub. Not me, but _Taub_. When I shifted back, I had an extra tooth in my mouth." He sighed. "I guess that's what I got for finding his apartment and moving into it, but I didn't want to be _him_. He was a _nothing!_" Gabriel hissed that out, unhappy about Taub's nice job, supportive parents, big, lavishly decorated apartment – his perfect little mundane life that he got to lead while he was hunting down specials for the crime of existing in the same world as people like himself. The more Sylar had gotten to know the guy, the more he hated him. Arnold Taub lived obliviously inside the box Virginia Gray had tried to confine Gabriel in. Arnold was happy about it; he _fit_. The fact that someone else could live that life just made Sylar feel even more dysfunctional and inadequate.

"Danko tracked me down. I hadn't gone into work. I wasn't even sure what I was going to do with that – the whole Homeland Security thing. Especially after how the encounter as Sylvia had worked out. He didn't sell me out, though." Gabriel gave a brittle smile. "That was nice to hear. He didn't even try to manipulate me. He just told me how things were and left the decision up to me. It was … I think that was a first."

"It didn't solve the problem. I didn't know who I was or who I wanted to be." He furrowed his brow at Peter. "There was no one … for what seemed like the first time in my life, there was no one telling me what I had to be. There was no one forcing me to make decisions. I wasn't being driven by the Hunger, or a need to get my powers back, or even really a desire for revenge. I wanted to change things, be special, be significant, but I wasn't sure how to do that. Danko, for all his connections and authority, had just been dumped by his girlfriend and I probably would have killed him if it hadn't seemed so worthless." He leaned back in the easy chair, making a controlled gesture of frustration with one hand.

"Speaking of which, I killed a guy. I … I don't know. I was thinking I would set Danko off and he'd push me over the edge enough to kill him, too. I was thinking I was Sylar and the defining trait about Sylar was the taking of abilities … and lives." Gabriel shrugged and looked away in disgust. "It was stupid. He was just a … a harmless old man. He had an ability that could kill on sight, pretty much, and he was scared when he heard that Homeland Security was coming for him." He sighed. "I was … mean. Petty. Small. Killing him was beneath me. But I did it anyway, like raping that woman in the parking lot. I could, so I did."

He was silent for a while, so Peter prompted gently, "But it sounds like you were beginning to realize that wasn't enough. You wanted to be," Peter tilted his head, leaning forward with elbows on knees, "better than that."

Gabriel nodded, looking down and smiling faintly at the memory of that day. "I must have pissed Danko off really bad, and yet he didn't do anything to me. He put me off-duty for the rest of the week and that was all." Gabriel laughed hollowly at how he'd been expecting this showdown between him and Danko and got instead … a reprimand.

* * *

_Friday evening, June 26, 2009_

As Sylar walked slowly down the hallway of the apartment building, packet in hand, he contemplated the supportive words Danko had shared with him a few days before: 'eight identities over five years; finding an anchor, something that makes you, you; something that takes you home.' That last bit echoed. Sylar didn't want to go home; obviously Danko did. But it wasn't a big leap for Sylar to work out what made him feel more like himself than anything else, and it wasn't squatting over 1970s linoleum with his fingers in a man's brain matter while the taste of his hot cocoa dissipated slowly on his tongue.

The first night and even the second after being benched, he'd expected the agents to storm into Taub's apartment and take him in. Nothing had happened. And so on Friday, Sylar had gone out and gathered up a few supplies, spending the day lingering in clock repair shops that he knew by reputation from years before, but had never had time when he was working to drive around and visit them. Especially not ones all the way down in DC. But it was a good market here, with politicians, lobbyists, and enough fat cats to support some really high end places. It felt like a lifetime since he'd been inside one of these places, even though he'd been in Martin's only a few months prior.

Martin Gray, his uncle, but the man he'd believed until recently was his father. He was a stain on what might have otherwise been a good period in Gabriel's life, as he became a teen and should have been learning what it was to be a man. He'd learned what it meant to be broken, instead. He'd had such high hopes, too, thinking that at last he had the opportunity to please his taciturn father-figure who always acted like Gabriel was an imposition on his life – another mouth to feed, always underfoot, under-developed, stupid.

It had started when Gabriel had managed, through stubbornness and passive aggression, to refuse to return to the church where the other children were making a game of pretending to sodomize him. The bullies hadn't worked themselves up to taking it further than pretense, making him kneel and kiss their odiferous pee-pees, but even as naïve as Gabriel was at that point, he was smart enough to see what was down that road. Virginia, though, had been livid about his accusations of the 'good boys' at church. He'd received what was perhaps the worst beating she'd ever given him over that, but he'd held his ground and eventually, Martin Gray stepped in to stop her.

Oh how Gabriel had wished that interference was out of concern for his well-being. At the time, he'd thought it was. He'd felt victorious when Martin took him to the shop and gave him work to do. The bruises and welts Virginia had left were like battle scars. He wore them proudly as a sign that he'd stood up to his mother and indirectly, to the bullies. He wouldn't have to go back to a place where he wasn't safe. Or so he thought.

But there was Martin. Now he sometimes wondered if Martin thought what he did to Gabriel was okay because of some mistaken idea that Gabriel had already been soiled by others. He still didn't remember the particulars – not in any identity. He didn't want to. The snapshots and scenes he did remember were bad enough, like clips taken at random from a cherished film you might find in the darkest recesses of a pedophile's closet. The clearest memory was the feeling of violation and defeat, of worthlessness and self-loathing. He didn't remember the pain although he wanted to desperately. He wanted to be hurt and taken back to that moment so he could understand it, process it, and finally work out why someone who should have protected him might abuse him so badly.

He stopped in front of Danko's door, knocking politely. Danko didn't have any obligation to protect him, but he'd acted as a mentor several times now and declined to cast him aside when his usefulness was over. That was new. Even now, on leave for the murder of Tom Miller, Danko had not hunted him down. Could it be that he had found someone who would actually help him? Could he, perhaps, 'groom' Danko into being the … the … he didn't even have a word for what he wanted, but it was something like a father figure, a partner, a _friend_ … and if he had to give sex to get that, then he'd willingly employ any tool at his disposal to draw Danko to him. Sylar saw no motion behind the peephole, but the door opened anyway.

Emile's eyes looked him up and down, lingering briefly on the small case he was carrying. It was Friday night and Danko wasn't in a bar this time. He was staying in. It suited Sylar's intentions. "May I come in?"

Danko didn't budge. "What are you here for?" It wasn't like Sylar hadn't been in Danko's apartment before, dropping off the rabbit and Doyle. Though there was a difference between uninvited and welcomed. He wanted it to be the latter.

Looking down, Sylar intoned, "I thought about what you said – about the identity crisis." He raised his dark eyes to look straight into the pale ones of the other man. "There are things that I can do for you that no one else can."

Danko's brows rose slowly. He swallowed. "Oh?" he managed in an admirably even tone.

Sylar smiled slightly, knowing that even if Danko didn't admit to it, he was on board. His reaction in seeing the video of himself had hinted that he might be open to doing something with a man – at least it wasn't such a shut door that orientation alone would make Sylar's proposal impossible. Sylar had other ideas first, though, that would give him more time to gage Danko's mood. He lifted the package he was carrying. "Let me fix your watch."

* * *

Sylar bent over the exposed innards of the mechanical device, finishing the reassembly. Danko stood nearby, listening and contributing to the small talk. But mostly he listened. Sylar hadn't had a chance to talk shop with anyone in years. "The Swiss do the best work by far for accuracy and space efficiency, but I've always liked the Soviet timepieces better." He smiled up at Danko, a genuinely pleased expression that begged for the opportunity to please in return. "They're always just a little different from the standard." He looked back down at the piece he was working with, replacing the backing. "Their design is a bit out of step, but properly maintained, they'll keep perfect time."

He offered the repaired chronograph to its owner. "All it needed was cleaning and oiling." He dipped his head to the side. "And the new seals I mentioned when I put them in."

Danko nodded, regarding it for a long moment before sliding the precious touchstone back into his pocket. "Is that really why you came here, to fix my watch?"

Danko's tone was a little teasing. He'd warmed over the lengthy repair session, being friendly and relaxing. It was a good sign for Sylar's other plans for the evening. "I came to find myself," Sylar answered. "And offer you … someone that you'd lost."

"I didn't say anything last week," Danko said, straightening and being defensive. "You made guesses. Nothing more."

Sylar gave a slight smile as he leaned back in the office chair. "Emile … or shall I say, Anthony?" Danko's face froze. "You just handed me the thing you've carried since your father gave it to you at graduation. Every … day … of your life … since then." Sylar tilted his head to the side. "One of my many abilities is to read the history of objects, to see scenes the object was present for, _everything_ that happened or was said around it."

Danko swallowed, head lowering at the perceived threat.

"I'm _offering_, Danko," Sylar cut in firmly. "What you need. What you want. My ability ..." Sylar sat forward a little, looking down as his words momentarily faltered. "My original, _real_ ability – to understand how things work. I know how this works, Emile. When … an identity is torn away from you, when you lose what gave you meaning." Sylar wasn't an empath, but he could work from what he'd experienced himself and see parallels, even if they were somewhat crooked. Hell, Sylar had nearly been in tears in Danko's office on Wednesday. They had something in common, here.

Haltingly, as if confused as to why he was even considering this, Danko said, "What do you need for this … offer?"

Sylar sat forward entirely, moving on the opening. "DNA. Maybe something of hers? A comb? A piece of clothing perhaps?" He'd know when his fingers passed over a viable sample. Something like wool fibers or cashmere wouldn't confuse him as the ability didn't encompass animals.

"I have a lock of her hair."

"Perfect."

* * *

Sylar shuddered through the change, taking on the form of a willowy blonde with pouty lips and wide set eyes. He resisted the urge to look down at himself – it would damage the illusion that he was, in full, Alena. Even though Danko knew who it was under the appearance, or at least he did intellectually, Sylar wanted to tap into all those emotions Danko had for her.

"You look so real," Danko breathed out, his gaze turning affectionate.

"Anything for you," Sylar offered hesitantly, wanting that tenderness so badly. He wasn't sure what sort of line would work to lure Danko in, to make him care, to make him approve, and maybe give Sylar something in his life other than watches and murder.

Danko smiled and moved close, then closer, sliding a hand along Alena's sweater-clad waist. "Do you have her memories?"

"I know what I need to, Jakob," Sylar murmured in the husky voice that came with the form. The accent he had to manage more intentionally, but faking accents was something Sylar had a talent for. Her hair had held a few disjointed memories. Better ones had been with the watch, which Danko had obliviously watched Sylar pore over for more than an hour.

Danko looked from lips to eyes a few times, then asked, "You're okay with this, right?"

"I was okay with it last week," Sylar pointed out plainly. "You were the one who ended it."

Danko came forward the few inches, gently brushing lips as his middle finger twitched and curled against Sylar's waist. Sylar raised his arms around Danko's shoulders, touching the short hairs on the back of his head. They were kind of velvety. He cupped Danko's head as the man tilted his head for a more determined kiss. Sylar made a noise in the back of his throat as he felt a tingle between his legs. Desire flared fast for this form.

The love-making was sweet and moving. Whatever Danko purred to him in Russian was immaterial – the tone and his expression conveyed the tender meaning better than knowing the language. Sylar felt like he was coming apart inside and it wasn't the orgasms. It was the intense emotion, crashing through him like he was an overly dramatic teenager. To get the love he wanted, it seemed that he had to be someone else entirely – erase everything he was and let it be overwritten by this new identity. He wanted to let that happen so badly, but he just couldn't snuff himself out like that. He just couldn't.

He began to cry, covering his weakness with the role he was playing, telling Emile lies about how afraid he'd been that he, Alena, would never see him again. Danko held him, stroking his hair, murmuring warm assurances of protection and comfort. He remembered Elle doing something similar for him after he'd tried to hang himself. He wondered if Sylar had been born then and there in her arms. He wondered if he was going to become Alena whether he wanted to or not, nestled in Danko's.


	362. Sykodrama

_Thursday (morning), July 7, 2011_

Peter was really, intensely, into the story. He was leaned forward, eyes wide, completely focused and totally engaged. He was right there with Gabriel, hardly believing his ears that he was finally, at long last, getting a better idea of the childhood trauma Gabriel had suffered, explanations about why he liked and wanted Peter to be rough in bed with him, all in addition to the past with Danko. So many things, little and large, were echoes of things Gabe did now, or had done with Peter. The sort of relationship he'd been looking for, his willingness and unwillingness to let his identity be stripped away … Gabriel had been telling the truth when he'd said it all started with shape-shifting and not with Matt Parkman's abomination in the hotel.

"You good?" Gabe asked, checking in with his audience.

"Oh yeah. Great," Peter said, straightening. "This is telling me so much about what you need … what you need me to be. And _why_. Thank you. Really, seriously – _thank you_ for telling me this."

_You won't be thanking me at the end,_ Gabriel thought bitterly, but Peter's words were helpful nonetheless. They gave him courage to go on even though the story became even more twisted and crazy. With anyone else, he'd be humiliated to explain the new part. "I met my mother the next night."

Gabriel waited while Peter worked through that one. "Your … um … what do you mean?" Peter asked tactfully. He'd read Sylar's file, which cut down on the available living maternal figures his husband could be talking about. Gabriel explained.

* * *

_Saturday, June 27, 2009_

Sylar shut the door after receiving Danko's message for Taub, but instead of moving to ready himself to go after Rebel, he just leaned against the door and slid down to the floor in a slow collapse. His gaze was directed at the coffee table, where there were two boxes delivered less than a half hour before. Some of the contents were sitting out – a couple snow globes, a pair of scissors, and a bloody, tan sweater that smelled of Virginia. Sylar couldn't see the stuff from the evidence box clearly though. His vision was blurred, first by eyes slid out of focus and then by tears.

He felt confused, hot, and frightened by the salty water that was trickling rapidly down his cheeks. _Why? Why? I _**killed**_ her. I don't get to cry over her. I don't. Never. Ever. I killed her. I don't get to cry over any of them! _He wiped savagely at his face, upset by his unwanted emotion and perplexed that he'd been unwittingly shapeshifting back and forth into her before Danko had interrupted with his message. _Why am I still crying?_ Sylar leaned over and retched as nausea rolled over him and his head ached like it was going to explode. _I don't get to cry. I don't get to cry. I don't get to cry,_ repeated over and over in his head like a mantra. He felt like he was falling down a hole, with the stable, understandable reality he knew receding behind him as he plunged into insanity and distress.

"Gabriel, baby, it's okay," Virginia's voice soothed him, her hand on the top of his head as he bent over. "You can cry if you need to."

"It was never okay before," he croaked out, his throat fighting his attempts at speech. He'd been beaten for crying as a boy. _'I'll give you something to cry about'_ was a phrase he was well familiar with from Martin Gray. Virginia had always been on board with it, telling him, _'My special little boy doesn't cry. You want to be my special little boy, don't you?'_ The guilt trips didn't end just because the sensitive child of so few years couldn't handle the overwhelming situation he found himself in after … everything. Being sold at the diner, abandoned by his real father, witnessing his mother's murder, his whole world being upturned to live with Martin and Virginia, having to learn the new role he was supposed to play, the new name, the new identity as Virginia's 'special little boy'. "Why is it different now?"

"A man can cry over the death of his mother. Everyone knows that," she scolded gently, brushing the hair from his suddenly sweaty forehead as he looked up at her.

"Then why didn't you let me when-" She slapped him then, hard and sharp, going from comfort to assault in the blink of an eye – a pattern he was well familiar with, never being quite sure if he was safe or not with her. He hardly flinched from the stinging blow.

"There is no reason to cry over things that never should have been," she hissed. "You were always **my** little boy – no one else's. I loved you more than anyone else. I raised you as my own when no one else would take you in! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

_It just means I'm worthless,_ Sylar thought miserably, huddling on the floor. _So worthless no one would have me but an abusive … _"I loved you," he whispered. "I tried so hard to love you."

"And you succeeded," Virginia crowed, effortlessly snapping back to being sweet and caring. She lifted him to a sitting position, hugging him lightly. The smell of the blood on her sweater was almost fresh. He sniffled, wondering how he was smelling it at all, with his nose so stuffy. So much of this was playing out in his head and even though he knew that on some level, he found himself powerless to stop it. He wanted so badly for it to be real. He felt so alone, so dreadfully alone. "Now you need to pull yourself together, Gabriel. Your country needs you." She held him at arm's length and beamed at him. "Go take down this Rebel and make Mommy proud."

* * *

_Thursday (morning), July 7, 2011_

"That's how you met Micah," Peter said after Gabriel turned away his offer of tissues. Peter could feel the emotions simmering inside of Gabriel, but it didn't feel like the right time for Gabriel to confront them. The grateful and eager way he jumped at the change of topic confirmed it.

"Yes. Obviously, I didn't kill him. I found him, protected him from Homeland Security, took a fall for him." He sighed. "He was … just an orphan like me, with a power bigger than he was. But," Gabriel sniffed, grimaced, and waved his hand, telekinetically yanking a tissue out of the box Peter had carried back to the couch with him. He blew his nose in an ungraceful honk and continued, "instead of killing people, he'd been doing something decent with it, saving people. He wanted me to … He said I could save _everyone_." Gabriel pulled over a few more tissues. A few moments passed as Peter fought with his instinct to go to Gabriel and try to comfort him. Heidi had stopped him the last time he'd been in this position, teaching him that there was a time to give people space to process and a time to smother them with support. This was not the latter.

Voice soft, he whispered, "That's really all I wanted to do, Peter."

* * *

_Tuesday, June 30, 2009_

"And you," Danko said, "need to become Agent Taub again. I'm moving to take the rest of them down. You should be part of that."

Sylar stood in Nathan's office, the senator unconscious at his feet with two of Homeland Security's instant-drop tranquilizer darts buried in him. "Taub," he said softly. All of Nathan's accusations – that he was a psychopath, a nothing, pathetic – were still ringing in his ears. They were so similar to what his father had said to him. He wanted to be himself, but he saw so clearly that Danko couldn't accept that. In Danko's eyes, he was a freak. Perhaps a useful freak, but still a freak. Sylar saw in that moment there was no role he could ever assume – Donner, Taub, Alena, Sylar, Gabriel, no one – and have the man's real approval, any more than he'd ever been able to have Virginia's. In the end, he was still a monster that both of them would rather see dead. He turned, heading for the narrow door to his right.

"Where are you going?" Danko demanded sharply.

"Bathroom," Sylar said curtly, walking in and shutting the door behind him. He had no real need of the facilities, but he needed privacy to deal with the roiling thoughts and disorienting emotions within himself. He looked in the mirror and into his own soul. It was a black, malformed, cheerless place, empty of meaning for him because nothing resided in it that had worth to anyone. He was useless, a waste of skin, a fetishistic object for others to live out fantasies with – the perfect son, the dangerous boyfriend, the cardboard villain, the useful tool, the substitute lover.

He drew in and let out a long breath, trying to force his features to Taub so he could be what Danko wanted. The shift would not happen. Something inside of him rebelled, demanding recognition and refusing to submit to the will of another. His lip curled in frustrated rage as he tried to shift into anyone at all. He wanted to run, to flee, to be someone else, anyone else, because he couldn't be _him_ anymore. He'd never _been_ himself, he'd just been playing a role his whole damn life, one person after another and the shape-shifting had thrown that in his face and made him see it like it was at long last.

With an angry snarl, he slapped his palm flat against the mirror, pressing it over the reflection of his face and blotting it out. He bared his teeth, lips pulling away in silent rage, channeling telekinesis and who knew what other powers down his arm and into his fingertips, willing it to tear apart his own identity. The glass spiderwebbed with a sharp crack, turning his reflected being into a hundred fractured components. He pushed harder on the mirror, feeling the shards of glass shift under his hand, stabbing into his flesh until blood ran down his wrist and disappeared into his shirt sleeve. He pulled his hand away with a rough sob, head hanging as tears trickled unheeded down his cheeks, as ignored as the blood that stained the glass.

_'You could save everyone.' _Micah – Micah had said that. But had Micah even seen him as he was, or had he just seen a few similarities and decided Sylar would make a good substitute for his mommy? _'Mommy …' _The vision of Gabriel's mother's body, rudely shoved out to lie in the dust of the parking lot, swam through his mind. That thought was followed by the face of his father, aged and dying but still sneering at his son with the same callous indifference he'd shown as a younger man, mocking the powers Sylar had accumulated, calling him weak and cowardly.

Sylar drew in and let out another breath. Because of his father's words, he'd gone to Homeland Security with a plan. It was a good plan and even if his fulfillment of it had taken a round-about route, he was so close to accomplishing it. He would stop the government's persecution of specials. He would save people from facing the life he'd lived. He knew how things worked. That was his ability. He'd get in control. He'd fix everything. He might not mean anything to anyone, but what he could _do _mattered. And he could do a lot.

His expression hardened as he put himself back on course with destiny. He washed the blood from his hands and the tears from his face, opening the door and emerging while still drying his hands. With disgust, he looked away from Danko.

Danko had been waiting outside the door with an expression of unsettled alarm at the odd, incoherent noises he'd heard inside. "What are you doing?" he asked insistently. "I told you. I need you to be Taub."

"I'm not interested in what you need." Sylar walked past him, ignoring him entirely. He would not be the man's tool any longer.


	363. Building Bridges

_Thursday (morning), July 7, 2011_

Silence hung in the air for many minutes as Gabriel stared fixedly at the floor, obviously reliving the events in his head.

"What happened next?" Peter finally asked, his voice low.

Gabriel drew in another deep, steadying breath. He'd had to take several to stay on track so far, but his ability to stay immersed in the story was falling away. "I … framed … Danko for the murder of some of his men … and then I went to the Stanton Hotel." He was quiet for another long moment, still staring at the floor before he said, "You know how that turned out."

Peter swallowed. He'd known the story was heading here. Not wanting to think about Nathan's death, he said, "So that was it between you and Danko?"

"Not exactly. It seems one of the first things I did as Nathan was to inform Tracy of how to find Danko and a lot of his men who had … hurt her. She killed them. It might not have been as satisfying as doing it myself, but Nathan never was one to get blood on his hands." He smiled viciously. "He had his own reasons to want Danko dead, but what I did was something the old Nathan would have at least felt bad about."

Peter looked at that smile – the sort of thing that would be right at home on Sylar's face, but looked so out of place on Gabriel's. His stomach rumbled rudely, an unintentional interruption that finally lifted Gabriel's eyes from the floor. "There's a word for that," Gabriel said, letting the cladding of Sylar fall from him.

"What?"

"Borborygmus – it's the technical term for stomach sounds."

"I thought that was peri-something," Peter said, trying to remember the word from his medical classes. "Peristalsis, maybe."

"Peristalsis is the process. Borborygmus is the resulting noise."

"Huh. 'Kay." Peter took a moment to absorb the totally unnecessary vocabulary lesson before rising to do something about it. "What would you like for breakfast?"

"Come here and hug me."

Peter complied immediately, climbing into the huge easy chair, straddling his lover's lap to wrap arms around him. He'd been wanting to for some time, as the last legs of the story had become so deeply emotional that Peter couldn't help but be right there with Sylar's thought processes, seeing why and what he'd done, understanding how that had led to the unnecessary death of his brother. It all made sense now. Gabriel buried his face against Peter's shoulder, then the shallow curve of his neck between collarbone and jaw. "I love you," Peter murmured, stroking him.

"I'm sorry I got so angry at you. You didn't deserve it."

Peter snorted a little at the use of the word 'deserve'. So rarely did anyone deserve what they got in life. But he wasn't sure what Gabriel was referring to. "You mean at the Stanton?"

Gabriel squeezed him tight before relaxing his hold to something lighter. "No. I mean last week. I did … hurt you on purpose, just like you said I did. And I shouldn't have. It was petty and mean and wrong. I did it because I thought I could without losing you. I won't do that again. Not because I'd lose you, but because I _love_ you, and that's not how people who love each other treat one another." He pushed Peter back to look at his face. "Heidi … she told me that a few months ago, about how I treat you … that I wasn't treating you right. People who love each other don't _kill_ each other, powers or not."

"I provoked you-" Peter said, but Gabriel cut him off with a stern shake of his head.

"Peter, don't make excuses for me. Hold me … to those standards you mentioned to Noah. He's not wrong all the time. Remember what I said to you last year that we had to be able to get angry with each other and still be safe?" Peter nodded, eyes widening a little. "I love you," Gabriel said, "and if you provoke me, even if you hurt me accidentally like you did, I do not get to hurt you back. We have to be safe. To the extent we can control ourselves, we have to treat each other right. I'm going to do that. I know you already have been. You're clumsy at it sometimes, but you're really trying and I," Gabriel paused to sniff again, "I can really see that." He petted Peter's hair, stroking it back from his face and being grateful the bangs had grown out as much as they had.

"Things are going to work between us," Peter said as a simple statement of fact, and Gabriel felt like that certain faith in him opened a door in his heart. Gabriel smiled brokenly, sniffing again as tears refreshed themselves on his face and he held his husband tightly to him. It had been an emotional tale, coming on the heels of a hard week between them. It had been a mere seven days since Peter had taken him in the alley behind the club and only a month since he'd murdered the airbender and gave rise to Sylar. He'd had worse periods in his life, but never any that had featured so much growth instead of suffering.

"Toast with butter, or that cream cheese spread if we still have any," Gabriel said quietly in answer to Peter's earlier question. Peter gave him a lingering kiss before scooting off and leaving for the kitchen. Although he usually helped (hell, he was usually the one doing the cooking and care-taking after Peter), Gabe took the time to sit quietly and think things through, absorbing that he'd told his story without recrimination, fallout, or loss of love. Peter had known how it would end and he'd known that all through it. Gabriel's fears of a blow-up or angry outburst at the end were unfounded. All was good.


	364. The Untold Prequel

**A/N: The incident with Heidi's neighbor is recounted in more detail in the stand-alone story, "Collateral Damage".**

_July 9 (Saturday), 2011_

"I'm not the storyteller that you are," Peter started off, giving warning that the rich detail and scene immersion Gabriel and Sylar could manage wasn't within his skill set. He could tell a tale to great effect, especially an EMT-related one with a punch line, but that was playing his audience and very short term. It was like stand-up comedy and not that far from the rhetoric and conversational skills his father had insisted Peter (and Nathan) take classes in. What Gabriel had done a few days before in talking about his time with Danko was to put aside his own ego somehow and tell it like an unfolding drama, engaging his audience like a bard of old.

Gabriel gave him a small nod, leaning forward in silent interest.

Peter sighed. _Okay, here goes._ "After you left Mercy Heights, you went over to Heidi's and killed her neighbor. Heidi didn't have any abilities then and she didn't know that was you, shape-shifted, who came over and talked to her." Peter looked away and to the side, grimacing in distaste at how he'd lied to his sister-in-law in a way that could have easily compromised her safety if things had gone wrong. "We covered up the message you left. She was under the impression it was just a random murder, maybe something personal in her neighbor's life."

Gabriel gave one small nod, making Peter wonder what Heidi made of that now that she knew of Sylar's past. Had Gabriel come clean about it with her? Peter wasn't sure what Sylar had been trying to do, either. He assumed Sylar had been trying to make a statement – but which one? That he couldn't bring himself to kill Nathan's family? Or that he intended to slowly terrorize the Petrellis until he was stopped? At the time, Peter had assumed the latter without hesitation.

_In any case, let's stay on target here._ "Noah and I teamed up – that wasn't a first. We'd done it before for Jeremy and Edgar. We started trying to track you down. Noah had a lot of experience in skip-tracing and stuff." Not that Peter was all that sure what skip-tracing was, but Noah had talked confidently about it. "He said that there were two things you could do – go to the known, or the unknown. And since the unknown was such a- so many different options that we couldn't track without someone who had a probability power, we'd be better off putting our work into tracking the known. He said most people, like nearly all of them, did that anyway. So we put in security stuff all over DC and New York, wherever we thought Sylar or Nathan had a connection. The Company, what was left of it, had enough resources to monitor for one special and you were priority one. Well, actually, you were the _only_ priority."

"Uh-huh," Gabriel said encouragingly.

"There was one place we couldn't check like that because it was off the grid, and both Sylar and Nathan had been there recently. That was the carnival. That … that turned out to be where you'd gone. I had a tattoo on my arm, magical one, that led us straight there." Peter laughed a little. "Real convenient, just like how those paintings of Isaac showed me I needed to save Claire. So I had this … feeling. Like it was fate again." He paused to mull over how he'd felt, then realized his audience might really need to understand that. "Well, uh … I thought … I made the same mistake my mom did. I thought this was how we were supposed to get Nathan back. I'd heard what she said at Thanksgiving and I thought that it had to be true – if she had a dream where she saw Matt save you, then Matt was going to save you. It was that simple." He looked up to see pain on Gabriel's face. "I'm sorry," Peter whispered.

Gabriel drew in a deep breath, relaxed from the tension he'd been building up through Peter's words, and nodded. "Go on. I want to hear it all."

"So. Like I said, we went to the carnival. And there you were. You'd shown up right after Hiro exposed Samuel for killing Joseph, for trying to kill Mohinder, and for stranding Charlie, a friend of Hiro's, in time and trying to blackmail him. Which had something to do with the death of Arnold, another member of the carnival who could time travel. No one there really cared about Mohinder or Charlie, but Samuel's guilt in doing in Joseph and Arnold was a big deal. They were, uh, I think they were kind of rioting when you got there. You took over. You had some kind of showdown with Samuel and cast him out …" Peter paused, burning with curiosity about that. "Why didn't you kill him and take his ability?"

"I don't remember." He shook his head. "I don't have my memories about this, even now, which is why I asked if you could tell me about it. Bits and pieces are coming back to me as you talk." His eyes bored intently into Peter for a long moment, then he rubbed his forehead. "I know I had already decided I needed to stay away from gaining new abilities for a while, until I stabilized. Maybe that was it."

"Okay." Peter nodded. That made sense. "You didn't kill him, but he didn't just go away – one of the other carnies was making him invisible and he was still there. Some of them still sided with him, a bunch who thought you were an interloper and didn't trust you, and Lydia had told them that I was going to show up and rescue them."

"She did?" Gabriel asked hesitantly.

Peter nodded. "She'd … seen it. With her ability. So I was getting a lot of reinforcement that this was where I was supposed to be. And I think you were really frustrated that the people you were trying to lead weren't falling in line like they were supposed to. Right before I got there, you strung Doyle and Lydia up in the middle of the camp and cut them in front of everyone, saying you were going to leave them there to bleed, infect, and die of exposure unless everyone started recognizing you were the one in charge whether they liked it or not."

"I … what?" Gabriel looked aghast.

"Uh … yeah," Peter confirmed. He swallowed. "Sylar … you know, he was, um, you know, that wasn't the first time he'd tortured people."

Gabriel looked down, nodding, remembering the agent he'd tied up and cavalierly tormented in front of Luke and his mother. And he'd been perfectly willing to turn his wrath on the two innocents if there were the slightest advantage to it. "Lydia … I guess that was because she was telling them about you. And Doyle … I'd already had two run-ins with him in the past. I can see why he'd be working against me."

"Yeah. He was Samuel's biggest supporter, or so they said. Anyway, I showed up. I helped Amanda and the Bowmans cut them down. Everyone else had been too afraid of what you'd do to them if they did it. I gave them first aid. Then I went to find you."

Gabriel gave a slow nod. "I see," he said softly. "And by doing so, you gained the support of both factions and joined them against a common enemy."

"Yeah. You … well, you didn't have much of a chance after that. The others were afraid to face you directly, but I wasn't. I just walked up to you and threw down. The others distracted you, helped me get close without you noticing."

Gabriel's lips curled. "How ironic, that with all the powers at my disposal and you surrounded by a multitude of abilities to choose from, you took me out by hitting me with your fists."

"Actually, I had a tent spike," Peter corrected.

"Oh." Gabriel had seen those. For the pavilion tents of the carnival, they were metal, three feet long, an inch in diameter, pointed on one end and hooked or knobbed on the other – a wicked and easily lethal weapon, but so was a two-by-four to the back of the head, something else Peter hadn't shrank from. Sylar wasn't the only one willing to go to inhumane lengths to achieve his goals. "I'm surprised you didn't kill me."

"I … well, I did. I hit you in the gut, then the head." He'd bashed Sylar's brains out (metaphorically, not literally) in the most gruesome killing Peter had ever done, but there was no need to be graphic about it. It was like the X-rated version of the R-rated fight at Mercy Heights. Not one of his finer moments, in his opinion. "You went down and before you could heal completely, I injected you with tranquilizers until Noah could get Matt there."

"Out of curiosity, what ability _did _you have?"

"Ha," Peter smirked, knowing why Gabriel was asking. It wasn't mere curiosity, but more like competitiveness. If Sylar had been bested by a better power, like Rene's, that was one thing. But it wasn't the case here. Peter was proud to answer, "Flight."

"Flight," Gabriel repeated. "That doesn't change it. It's still the most powerful special in the world, taken down by a pissed off guy with a club." His tone was a mix of admiration and disgust.

Peter tilted his head briefly. "I guess all those lessons Nathan gave me on how to swing a baseball bat paid off."


	365. Let It Be

_July 9, 2011, Saturday_

Peter was growing bored with the book. It was dry, repetitive, and not nearly as engaging as he'd expected. He'd thought he was getting a rousing, first-person account of a volunteer fireman and instead it had turned out to be more like a political tract. The author had an axe to grind, not a light to shine. He supposed he should continue trudging through it, though. He and Gabriel were reading, trying to keep things low-key and quiet after the story Peter had told. They only had a few hours alone together on Saturdays anyway. If he stopped reading, then Gabe would too and that was unfair. Still … nothing wrong with making it a little more enjoyable.

"Hey," Peter said, "can you put your feet up here?"

Gabriel blinked at him, then replied, "Sure," and swung them up, turning himself lengthwise along the couch. He watched silently as Peter stripped his feet of socks and began to rub them casually with one hand. With the other, Peter picked his book up and resumed reading with a happy smile. Peter wasn't rubbing in any organized fashion, but that didn't matter. Gabe relaxed, sighed, and slumped against the other arm of the couch with a gratified sound.

Peter paused. He had specifically **not** intended to interrupt his husband's reading, but Gabriel looked really happy. He _felt_ really happy, too. "I didn't know you liked foot rubs that much," he said, setting aside the book and putting both hands to it.

"I don't," Gabriel said, eyes shut and head thrown back. "But I like your attention that much."

Peter chuckled and shifted Gabriel's feet, climbing over the other man until he could kiss him – a long, passionate, involved kiss that had Gabriel growling and running his hands behind Peter's back to hold him close. When they finally parted, Peter hugged him fiercely. "You have my complete attention," Peter murmured into Gabe's ear.


	366. Tease

_July 10 (Sunday), 2011_

Yeah, Gabriel knew Peter had become distracted from whatever book he had been reading, but Gabe certainly didn't mind. Not when the thing that had distracted Peter was Gabriel himself. Or at least his body. They lay together in bed, both nude although neither had felt motivated for sex. They were still taking it easy with one another. Gabriel started to put down aside his book only to get an exasperated chuffing noise from his husband.

"Go back to reading," Peter had admonished him. "I let you check me out all the time. I want to check _you_ out for a change."

Raising a single, doubting-but-intrigued brow, Gabe settled back in. He stared at his book, but he wasn't reading. How could he when feather-light touches started just under his right nipple as two fingers, then three, then two again made the smallest strokes across his skin. Peter leaned in so close that Gabriel could feel his hot breath dance over his skin. Apparently Peter had had enough with 'taking it easy'.

Certain parts of Gabriel's body twitched and his skin tightened in gooseflesh. Peter pulled back and Gabriel whimpered. This was not how he usually 'checked out' Peter. That exploration was much more … matter-of-fact, as he seriously and actually wanted to understand and know the territory.

That wasn't Peter's style, though. He didn't know things just to know them. For Gabriel it was all about the destination; for Peter, it was the _journey._

And now a new expedition was launched, a bit lower this time, as a single index finger slowly … slowly … slowly circled his navel. Gabriel keened softly.

"You're supposed to be reading," Peter purred, leaning over him.

"My eyes have not left the page," Gabriel promised. A moment later he groaned aloud and shifted his hips as Peter's clever tongue probed into his belly button, once, twice and then a third very long and lascivious time.

"Read me a line," Peter breathed over him, making the wet areas alternately warm and cool.

_Oh God_, Gabriel thought, trying to make sense of the letters he'd been staring at for so long now. "Um … yes. Um …"

Peter's fingers, index and middle, parted in a V-shape, dragged ever-so-gradually downward, one on each side of his treasure trail. "That's a very strange line," Peter mused. "I happen to like this one right here quite a bit more."

"Mm?" was all Gabriel managed. He curled and uncurled his toes restlessly as Peter poised over the inevitable goal at the end of his travels. He was a scant inch away, so close that the warmth of his face was discernible on Gabriel's taut, sensitive flesh. But again … for Peter it wasn't about scoring. It was all about playing the game. He pulled away.

"Arrrggh!" Gabriel cried out in frustration.

Peter just gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled over, reaching for his book again. "Nah, I guess I'm done after all."

Gabriel managed an inarticulate choking noise and seized a now-laughing Peter from behind. "Like hell you are, you little tease! You started me up so I'd finish it, right?"

Still laughing, Peter turned in his arms, rolled them over so Gabriel was on his back, and straddled him. "Hm, mostly I just wanted to make sure you still wanted me. I seem to recall you pulling that stunt on me in an elevator a couple weeks ago." Peter leaned in, brushing his nose against Gabriel's and avoiding his lips teasingly. "Turnabout's fair play when it's pleasure for pleasure, isn't it?"

"Definitely," Gabriel growled, pulling Peter close so he could kiss him.


	367. Nuts

_July 10 (Sunday), 2011_

"Your father told me once that you would be the leader of my church. If I understood him correctly, I was to be, or am still going to be, a god." Gabriel delivered this news soberly, the post-coital buzz lifting slowly. He still hadn't decided what it all meant, but he wasn't about to dismiss it out of hand, when it was information that came from a man who could tell the future.

"My father was a nut," Peter said, casually dismissing the whole thing as he snuggled with Gabriel's arm.

Gabriel blinked at him a couple times. First off, he was still rather hopeful that he'd get to be a 'god' someday - that sounded like no end of cool, even to him. Secondly, he'd spent a lot of serious thought on this matter and to have it disparaged was insulting. _Then again, this is Peter._

Gabriel smiled. "Come here, my little cashew." He rolled over and slipped an arm around Peter's waist.

Peter looked up at him with brows raised. "'Cashew'? What is this, some kind of 'takes one to know one' thing?"

"Yes, exactly." Gabriel gave Peter a smooch on one of his very excellent cheekbones. "I think your father must be a walnut - more brittle than they appear and although they have lots of fans, I never particularly liked them."

"What would my mother be then? A hazelnut or something?"

"No, I was thinking more like an avocado," Gabriel proposed.

"An avocado? Why an avocado? I thought we were talking about nuts here."

Gabriel took on a scholarly air. "The root word for avocado is actually derived from an Aztec word that means testicle, so in a way, an avocado is still a nut." Peter snorted at the linguistic sophistry. Gabe went on, "But my main reason for why Angela Petrelli would have to be an avocado is that at the center of every one of them is a huge pit."


	368. Spoiled

_July 11 (Monday), 2011_

A profound sense of loneliness permeated Peter, sinking into his very soul. He was utterly isolated. There was no one for him, no one who knew him, no one he could listen to, no one he could look at, no one he could touch. It was a torture. He ached inside. He'd been deserted and he carried a deep feeling of guilt because of it. It was all his fault, but he wasn't sure what he'd done. He looked around at the city, trying to discern if there had been an explosion or an epidemic or some other disaster of his doing. Depression and self-blame began dragging him down as he imagined a dozen futures where he'd brought the Apocalypse through stupidity or accident.

Peter struggled against the negative emotions. This was a common dream for him – not quite a nightmare, really – but just a fear taken form. It was familiar enough that he recognized it as unreal. With great difficulty, he wrested his consciousness from his conscience, shrugging off the tattered wisps of illusion and partly waking. He still felt alone, though.

He moved his arms restlessly on the empty parts of the bed next to him, then kicked out to the side. A sudden intake of air met his ears as his foot struck a body. He immediately moved to the source, grabbing Sylar's left arm and hugging it as the other man remained immobile. A few moments passed, but Peter felt disquieted and unsettled. The stillness of his partner left him unsatisfied. He shifted closer, rolling his face into the seam between Sylar's arm and body. A second after that, he pulled back, wrinkling his nose with an unhappy grunt. He hadn't meant to stick his face into the guy's armpit, but his thinking was still muzzy and thick from sleep.

He cast his arm heavily across his lover's chest, his fingers scrabbling for a moment on the fabric of the soft, white t-shirt, wadding a little ball of it into his hand. It wasn't enough. Peter crawled under Sylar's arm and laid his head on the man's chest. That was better. Sylar's fingers curled slightly on Peter's bare back, just above the waistband of his boxer shorts. Several breaths passed before Peter squirmed again. He was no more sure of what he was trying to achieve than he had been with any of his previous wriggling around, but it was cut short by Sylar rolling on his side and gathering Peter up in his arms, embracing him fully. Sylar pulled him in tight and held him to his breast.

Peter froze at the sudden grapple, momentarily coming fully awake. He felt guilty for having kicked and pawed and disturbed his bed-partner, but at the same time, he felt a wonderful sense of peace for being allowed to indulge his selfishness. He hadn't thought out his need for comfort and soothing, but he'd felt the hurt inside of him and reached out blindly, fumblingly, for affection and marvelously, it had been granted. Wrapped in his lover's strength and warmth, Peter pressed his face against Sylar's chest. He took a deep breath of his partner's scent and let it out, settling against the other man with a slow, languorous snuggle, crooning softly in sybaritic pleasure.

Sylar kissed the top of his head and said softly, "Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you."

"Hm?" Peter murmured. Now satiated, he was fast being pulled back into slumber.

Sylar gave him a small squeeze. "Then you remind me."


	369. Shape Shifting Questions

_July 12 (Tuesday), 2011_

"What do you think would happen if I shape-shifted into Emma?" Gabriel asked him as they climbed into bed. "Would I be her, or her-pregnant?" Peter gave Gabe the expression of someone who was mildly grossed out to even consider that. Gabriel went on, "My theory is that I'd just be Emma."

"Okay," Peter answered slowly. "Yeah, I suppose, the DNA …"

"Let's find out!"

Peter tried to say 'no', but all that came out was, "Nerp!" as he cut himself off as soon as the first sound passed his lips. Because Gabriel _liked_ experimenting with abilities, and this was truly quite harmless. The only thing being hurt was Peter's sense of propriety, so he battened down on that and watched as Gabriel cavalierly invaded the privacy of someone Peter felt very strongly about.

Shorter, female, and unmistakeably NOT Gabriel, Gabriel lay beside him in the stolen skin of Peter's fiancee. Peter stared, trying to wrap his mind around this. Shape shifting always gave him fits, reminding him of things he didn't like being reminded of and people not being who they seemed to be. Gabe gave Peter a careful look that was a second too long, then apparently decided that Peter's discomfort was okay. He set about examining his own abdomen. "Hm," he said as he prodded himself. "Nope. I think it's just me." He glanced back up at Peter with a smirk that was out of place on Emma's face. "I guess you're not this kinky," he said with a lewd, inviting gesture down his new body.

Peter's brows rose at the challenge. "No, it's not that," he said archly. "It's just that I prefer Heidi."

Gabriel stared at him in frank disbelief edged by anger for a few seconds, before breaking out into laughter as he shifted back to his native form.

* * *

A little while later, Peter put his pill book aside and asked, "Do you think shape shifters can be organ donors?"

Gabriel looked at Peter blankly for a moment, then answered indirectly, "Regenerators can be organ donors. Though no doctor worth their training in modern medicine would use an organ procured that way without a lot of testing. Given the amount of time that would take, you might as well go with Healing."

Peter frowned. "No, that's not what I meant. I mean … if you have a shape shifter, and his wife needs a new kidney … and like, his brother is a doctor and would be willing to do the operation …" Peter trailed off, because the situation sounded pretty far-fetched even for a hypothetical.

"Go on."

"Um … yeah." Peter rallied at Gabriel's sign of interest. "So the shape shifter turns into his wife, see? And the brother does the operation. Since it's genetically the wife's kidney, it'll have no chance of rejection."

"_Low_ chance of rejection," Gabriel interjected.

"Sure," Peter conceded. "But a lot lower than anyone else's." Gabe nodded. "Now my question is, when the shape shifter turns back into his normal form, he'll have both kidneys again, right?"

Gabriel pondered that briefly. "Yes."

"So shape shifters could be organ donors," Peter concluded.

"Well, yes, but you're forgetting something."

"What?"

"When he turned into his wife, she had a bad kidney."

"Oh. Because the one she'd need would be the one that … Crap."

"I'm glad you're thinking about this," Gabriel said encouragingly. He was really invested in cultivating Peter having an open mind about these things.

Peter was still stewing over his thwarted idea. "What if only one of her kidneys was bad?"

"They don't do organ transplants as long as you still have a functioning system."

"Yeah, but what if they decided to do it anyway and only her left kidney was bad?"

"Can you really use the right kidney on the left side?"

"I don't know. I'm a paramedic, not an organ transplant doctor."

"Yes, Peter, and I'm a psychopathic politician. I'm not omniscient – I just say I am at press conferences."


	370. Lies Have Good Publicists

_July 12 (Tuesday), 2011_

"What is truth? Tell me that, Maury."

The old telepath had no answer for Angela Petrelli. He took a long drag on his cigar instead as he waited for her to continue. Clearly she would. She was certainly liquored up enough. They sat on the back porch of the Petrelli mansion, enjoying the small garden and the evening aroma of the white and pink roses Arthur had taken such pride in tending.

Angela said boozily, "Of all the possible pasts and contingent futures, of all the ephemeral dreams and hazy paintings, how does anyone know what's about to happen? Or even truly, what **has** happened? My past could have been rewritten a hundred times by a dozen time travelers, each seeking to mold the future to their desires." She took a deeper drink than she needed, then waved her hand dismissively. "It's all metaphor and symbol anyway. One thing is substi- substi … toot … able with another. How was I to know what it meant? When I dreamed it, it might have been literally true that he'd still be my son, but now …"

Maury shrugged. "Now he's your son again. Son-in-law, anyway, through Peter."

"That wasn't the truth I wanted," Angela moaned, drowning her frustration with a shaky refill of her glass from the bottle of red wine that sat between them.

"That's the thing about truth," Maury said. "It doesn't have nearly as good a publicist as the lies we want to believe."


	371. Consistency

_July 13 (Wednesday), 2011_

Gabriel set aside his book and gave voice to a question that had been nagging at him enough that he was having trouble reading. "How can you forgive me for everything I've done with even a shred of moral consistency?"

Peter looked up from his project and cocked his head at his husband. Gabriel really perplexed him sometimes. "Why do you think me forgiving you had any moral consistency to it?"

Gabriel opened his mouth to speak, then shut it instead, looking discombobulated.

Peter went back to his sketchpad, saying, "Love isn't consistent, or else I'd be married to everyone."


	372. Perfect Love

_July 14 (Thursday), 2011_

Gabriel didn't know why he hadn't seen it before. Peter was … not the only person in the world who he could be with. Peter was thoughtless … insensitive (odd for an empath, but so it was). He was dumb, maybe even stupid. Reckless (although that went with the 'dumb' part). If Peter understood better the consequences of his actions, he wouldn't take so many risks. He had tunnel vision a lot of the time, becoming fixed on an objective and not always realizing the larger context. Which was also where his insensitivity came from – that fixed, mission-oriented thinking prevented him from considering all the ways his actions would affect others. He was stubborn, erratic, and hypocritical (also probably all results of his overwhelming desire to accomplish things and limited intellectual capacity to plan and achieve them). Peter … was not perfect, and Gabriel saw that clearly at this moment.

But …

He was also kind-hearted, giving, forgiving, large in character, industrious, helpful, generous, and loving. Gabriel's eyes watered because yes, Peter was loving and the idiot loved _him_. Peter had _chosen_ to love him, allowed himself to love him, and found it inside of himself to love the screwed up person Gabriel was through one of the rougher periods of both of their lives. He hadn't just fallen for Gabriel head over heels, letting his dick or even his heart make the decision for him. Being with Gabriel was likely the most mature and cerebral decision Peter had ever made. That was sexy. _Peter_ was sexy. He was friendly and patient and honest. And maybe Peter did get a little over-focused on things – that was hardly something Gabriel didn't do himself from time to time. Maybe Gabriel could be with other people, but he didn't want to be. Peter was perfect to him, imperfections and all.


	373. Just What I Wanted To Hear

Peter took that lower lip between his teeth and ran his tongue back and forth across the trapped swell of flesh. He tasted and sucked and pulled at it, skillful lips of his own adding to the mix. Gabriel groaned aloud and ground his hips forward against a different swell of flesh, his hands clenching on Peter's buttocks. When he was released, Gabe breathed, "Oh, Peter. You are a saint. You are perfect. You are everything. Oh God …"

Peter grinned, his mouth now against the man's neck.

"I want you," Gabriel concluded huskily.

_Just what I wanted to hear._


	374. Dream of Letting Go

_July 15 (Friday), 2011_

Peter was on his knees struggling over Nathan's corpse, trying to give him chest compressions for CPR despite the fact that Peter knew it had been he, himself, who had shot Nathan. There was blood all over his hands, up to his elbows. His hands kept slipping on Nathan's chest. A score or so of people were standing around from the press conference, waiting patiently and not for Peter to get done so Nathan could go on with the important business of revealing specials to the world.

"This is a dream, Peter," Gabriel told him, shouldering a few of the useless bystanders out of the way. He paused to scowl at Matt Parkman, who muttered some excuse and walked off.

"Nightmare," Peter moaned, fighting to save Nathan's life. He knew he wasn't doing the right things - he needed to stem the blood loss, start an IV line to introduce fluids and keep the blood pressure up. He needed to do all kinds of things but he was panicked and flustered. He looked up at Gabriel and begged, "Do something!"

"Fine," Sylar said with a dismissive roll of his eyes. He raised a hand and slit Nathan's throat.

Peter flinched away from his brother's body, staring at the lethal wound. He looked up at Gabriel, feeling a lot less aghast about the death blow than he thought he should have. "I asked for _help!_"

"No, you didn't. You asked me to do something," Sylar said petulantly. He drew up an office chair as the spectators wandered away in disinterest now that Nathan was dead. "You should have been more specific," Sylar added. "I never liked him anyway."

"You're jealous of what he and I had!"

"Yeah. So?" Sylar gave a jerk of his head. "Come on. He's dead. Let's get out of here and go flying or something."

Peter stared at him silently for a long moment. _This is the man I'm married to_. He thought he ought to be angry, but instead he just felt sad for Sylar, for Gabriel, that they didn't understand. Peter turned back to look at Nathan, who was now the corpse he'd seen in the storage unit when a faux-Nathan was with him. Peter was standing beside the box they'd found him in. He looked back at the person with him, who looked like Gabriel. Gabe had his shoulders hunched and his hands stuffed into his pockets. He looked unhappy to be there and he was. This wasn't **his** dream, after all. Peter had sucked his husband's consciousness into the dream and now Gabriel was along for the ride. Peter turned back to the corpse, touching Nathan's face even though his hands left bloody smears on him. He ached for what he'd lost.

Gabriel and Sylar stood there uncomfortably in the same body, feeling awkward and put upon. All of his intentions and goals ran around in his head busily defending himself against … what? There was no attack here, no blame really. Peter was grieving and no matter where he tried to lead Peter away to, Peter's heart would stay with Nathan. Gabriel sighed. He didn't miss Nathan and he knew, better than Peter did, that the part of Nathan within himself seemed to have found peace with his own passing. He was tired of mourning his death and was ready to move on. Peter, who was so strong in standing by him, supporting him and forgiving him, was still grappling with it … in his dreams and unguarded moments, if not when awake.

Gabriel moved over next to him and put an arm around Peter's shoulders.

"Don't you dare pull me away from him," Peter hissed.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Gabriel answered and just held him, letting Peter feel the emotions Gabriel had for him - acceptance, steadiness, love, and validation.

Peter turned into his arms and pressed his face to Gabriel's chest, his hands twisting into his shirt. Gabriel did not miss how, by supporting Peter instead of trying to tear him away, Peter had turned from Nathan to him. They stood together as the storage unit faded away and became unimportant.

Peter roused from sleep with a sharp breath, his lashes wet from unshed tears. He was disoriented for a moment, shedding the tendrils of sleep like water. He realized his mind was entangled with Gabriel's, but whereas Peter had woke, Gabriel was slipping fast into a deeper, dreamless sleep. Peter rubbed his face and considered rolling away from his lover. He thought about it, and rolled towards him instead, reaching out under the sheets to take his hand. There was a moment of concern and awareness from Gabriel - Peter's mind was still open to him and sensed the partial waking - but it dimmed and vanished as unconsciousness claimed him again.

Peter thought about what he'd seen in Gabriel's mind, because he'd known all of the other man's thoughts during the dream. He retained them even now, turning it over in his head. Gabriel was right. It was okay to move on. Sylar might have put it harshly, but it was true. He had to let Nathan go.


	375. Shaping Up

_July 23 (Saturday), 2011_

Peter and Emma were on the couch, watching Ocean's Eleven. A part came up where the characters were donning disguises to infiltrate the target casino. Emma said verbally, not taking her eyes off the captioning on the screen, "Shape-shifting is better than that."

"Yeah," Peter replied, but she didn't see him. She looked back after a moment and he repeated himself.

"Does it change everything? Even your fingerprints?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"How long does it take to change?"

"Usually just a few seconds," he answered. He'd seen a few of Gabriel's transformations to Nathan's form take nearly a minute, and looked awfully painful to boot, but Gabriel had issues and probably wasn't a good example.

"Can you show me?" she asked, hitting pause on the DVD player and turning to him.

"Yeah, sure." He tried to think of who he'd touched lately. He wasn't really sure. He'd had a lot of patients, but she didn't know them. He shifted into Hesam. She knew him and so it would be easier for her to tell how accurate and complete it was.

Her mouth made a silent 'o' shape and then she said, "Hesam?"

He smiled and it wasn't a crooked smile. It was straight and normal and on Hesam's dark features. Peter reached up and touched his hair. It was coarser than his own and curly. He couldn't remember ever touching Hesam's hair and even though it was a pretty public body part, it felt wrong to be touching it now. He scratched at the short, neatly trimmed beard. Emma scooted over closer to him, leaning in, studying him intently.

She took up his hand and looked at it. Peter smiled shyly, remembering his own early exploration of Gabriel's form had started with the hands. At least, his _exploration_ had started there. As he recalled, his first real contact had been a kiss. Emma wasn't far behind. She leaned closer, lips twitching and Peter had a sudden epiphany, a moment of startling understanding of why Gabriel had been so upset that Peter saw him as Nathan.

If she kissed him, although she was kissing Peter, she was also kissing Hesam. Her lips would be against Hesam's and she'd know what he felt like. She'd know what he tasted like. She should feel his breath even now, smell his skin and the heat of his body. Peter's mind might be inside, but she was seeing the man he worked with. The next time she saw him, she was going to think about how he'd felt when she'd kissed him. And even if she didn't, she'd at least _know,_ and it wasn't something she _should_ know, because they didn't have that relationship.

Every time Peter had dealt with Gabriel while he was in Nathan's form, Peter had been bringing everything he knew of Nathan's past into that moment. Every glance, every touch, every penetration, had been colored by the relationship he'd had with Nathan. That first time when he'd explored Gabriel's form was telling - he'd had to explore him. He'd been tentative and careful and Peter had startled easily, and yet he was touching the same person he'd been kissing passionately minutes before, without so much as a second thought. The shape made a difference - a huge difference.

He pulled back. "No."

She looked at him questioningly and he asked, "If you kiss me, are you kissing Peter or Hesam?"

"You're… Peter." She looked uncertain about what he was getting at.

"So it doesn't matter if I look like Hesam or not?"

Her brows drew together. "I want to know what it's like to kiss Hesam." She was honest at least, even if Peter felt a sharp pang of jealousy. His control was better than it had been only a few weeks before, but Peter was well aware that it had been only a few weeks.

He stood up abruptly and changed back to Peter's form. He didn't want her to know what it was like to kiss his work partner. That was… _wrong_. It didn't matter that Hesam wouldn't know about it - and somehow that just made it worse, like he was betraying Hesam, too - it mattered that it would be in Emma's mind. It was exactly what Gabriel had been complaining about all along, Peter realized. He'd been bothered because Nathan was in Peter's mind - Peter's memory of Nathan, of a person whole and entire and not Gabriel at all - whenever Gabriel wore that shape.

"We don't have to if it bothers you," she offered.

He nodded quickly. "Yeah. It bothers me. I didn't know it would. Let's just watch the show."

She shrugged, settled back down and picked up the remote. "You're more handsome anyway," she told him reassuringly.

* * *

Later that evening he was with Gabriel and asked, "Can you… change to Nathan?"

Gabriel looked at him for a beat and said, "Sure." He did, the change taking him several seconds longer than the switch to Hesam had taken Peter. Peter looked him over, trying to keep in his mind the image of Gabriel - taller, longer boned, leaner, heavier eyebrows, pinker skin. He walked forward, put his hands against Gabriel's chest and kissed him. After a moment, Gabriel said, "Mm!" and raised his brows in surprise.

Peter stepped back, turning his head to one side. "What was that?"

"You kissed me like I was Gabriel."

Peter blinked and looked at him full on now. "I even _kiss_ different depending on who you are?"

"I'm the same… yeah." He wiped his mouth.

Peter walked away and flopped on the couch, dejected and feeling bad about himself. He shook his head, staring at the floor. "What do I do different?"

Gabriel said, "When I was Nathan, you'd have put your hands on the tops of my shoulders, maybe slid one around behind my head and over my neck. Sometimes you'd touch my face and you'd be sliding your hands under my clothes already. When I'm Gabriel it's different. You're a lot more passive and less dominant and I prefer that, except you're a lot more restrained and… uh, inhibited." He looked worried at using that last word. Peter was looking up at him, elbows on knees now.

He exhaled. He'd noticed he'd acted very differently when Gabriel had taken the form of a woman. It had lurked around bothersomely in the back of his mind for a while, until he forgot about it in light of more urgent, recent events. The whole sex-change thing had been more immediately disturbing at the time. "That's… that's just… really weird." He looked up at the other man. "I am so sorry, Gabriel. I hadn't realized."

Gabriel shrugged one shoulder. "Do you need me to stay like this?" He gestured at Nathan's form. Peter shook his head and he shifted. It was nearly instantaneous. "So," Gabriel said, "You were just checking?"

"Yeah." He thought about explaining showing the ability to Emma, but decided against it. "It just occurred to me that there _was_ a difference. And I've been thinking about how much you said you liked using shape-shifting in bed … I thought I needed to work on my issues with it." After a pause he said, "I'm more inhibited?"

"Yeah. When I was Nathan you just assumed I'd do what you wanted. You'd been with him for years, so it made sense. You reacted to him like he… like I belonged to you, with you. I liked that. With me you're more cautious, like you're af-… well, not afraid, but aware, I guess, that I might not like something. You've been getting less so as time has passed. It's okay. It's not like I expect or deserve or need what you had with Nathan. We're building our own thing. I like that too."

Peter chuckled a little. "Good."

"But I do kind of like playing around, with the roles."

Peter gave him a slow smile. He was pretty sure he could bring himself around to doing this, if they approached it carefully and patiently. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"We can do something like that. The woman thing wasn't too bad."

"Oh?"

"Pretty hot, really." Peter shook his head.

Gabriel grinned. "Then I have this great idea for next time…"


	376. Switching It Up

_July 24 (Sunday), 2011_

This time, Peter opted to teleport into their apartment. A minute before he was supposed to be there, he popped into the living room. He hadn't thought about how silent and abrupt that sort of entry was. There was someone else in the living room with Peter, but it didn't look like Gabriel. It was a little hard to tell, as the other person was facing away, stretching to dust the bookshelves - which was an odd activity for a stranger.

Peter figured it wasn't a stranger, but the form was familiar somehow. Male, definitely, but not Gabriel. Cute ass, he noticed right away. About Peter's own height. Same hair too. Come to think of it, even the outfit looked familiar. Apparently it **was** Gabriel – he heard Peter even though he was standing there silently, and also because when he turned around Peter was certain he was shape-shifted. The person looking back at him was a mirror image of himself. Peter (the real Peter) took a step back involuntarily, because _that_ was a bit freaky. _I was scoping out my own butt. There's something wrong with that._

Gabriel smiled Peter's own somewhat crooked smile and Peter suppressed a shiver at that. They'd taken each other's shapes once before, a couple months back, but they'd only spent a few minutes with each other at the time and the closest they got to sexual exploration was an attempted – and failed – kiss. It failed because neither of them could quite bring themselves to do it. So this, obviously, was the idea Gabriel had mentioned, but not fully explained, the night before.

"Erm," Peter said and watched as Gabriel leaned back against the bookshelves, putting his arms up and behind him to grip either side of it, dusting wand waving lazily in the air. _He doesn't look half-bad_, Peter thought. He jerked his brain away from that thought instinctively and went on more articulately, "We tried this before. We couldn't even kiss each other."

Gabriel was still smiling. "You know, Nathan really thought you were hot. So do I. It's a little more cerebral now, but I still have the feelings." He looked Peter up and down, checking him out slowly. The dusting wand tapped on the side of the shelves. "The urges."

Peter cleared his throat, wondering if he was always going to be the one backing off here and Gabriel always the one pushing the boundaries with him. Now that he thought about it, there had been times when Peter had been the one pushing, but… he quit thinking about it and morphed into Gabriel. "Is this what you want?" He realized his natural form really wasn't very tall, now that he was in Gabriel's form, looking down on Gabriel, in Peter's shape.

"That's not strictly necessary," Gabriel said, tilting his head in one of Gabriel's (or even Sylar's, because Nathan didn't use that motion) gestures. "You can remain you if you want."

"That's…" _sick? Any sicker than doing myself while looking like Gabriel?_ "That wouldn't be fair." He stood tall, relaxed and straight rather than the slouch that Gabriel seemed to prefer most of the time. And Gabriel was still slouching a little bit as he walked forward now, but he stopped that and stood straighter as he approached, as if becoming more conscious of the nearly half a foot of height difference between them. Gabriel looked a little disconcerted by that. The corner of Peter's mouth quirked up.

Gabriel slid a hand around Peter's waist and it felt so different and weird to see his body making at a pass at himself that he backed up abruptly. Gabriel lifted his hands a little to show they were empty and then put them to his sides. Peter took several deep breaths. He reached up and felt of the face he was wearing. His nose was bigger. He had more stubble, and in different places. It went higher up his cheeks and further down his neck. He felt of his heavier eyebrows, then his flatter forehead. He ran his hand back through his hair slowly, then touched his ears. They weren't as unbearably ticklish.

Everything felt different. Even his hands. He opened them in front of himself and studied them - long fingers, pale skin that was softer than his own hands. He rolled his eyes up to look at Gabriel without moving his head, giving Sylar's trademarked glower. The other man smiled a little uncertainly.

Peter straightened and tilted his head, trying out Gabriel's mannerisms. He walked slowly around him, trying to remember how he walked. He added a little swagger and slouch, not sure he was doing it right. Peter said, "You know, I used to think I was really open about sex, game for a lot more than most of the people I was with… but somehow you manage to make me feel like a prude." He laughed. He sounded weird and goofy and deeper-voiced to himself. He supposed he sounded normal to Gabriel… or rather, he probably didn't, given that Gabriel wasn't used to hearing his own voice from someone else.

Gabriel smiled and _blushed_, which really caught Peter's eye. It looked lovely on him… _me,_ he thought. _I ought to do that more often. God, I'm giving myself pointers. _

Gabriel said, "Yeah, that's me: Gabriel Gray the slut." He laughed at himself. "Of course, with some of Nathan's memories ..."

"Hm," Peter said, finally closing with the version of himself in the middle of the room. Gabriel held still for the examination. Peter touched his shoulder tentatively. "The top of my head only comes up to the bottom of my nose. Wait… that doesn't sound right. The top of… you know what I mean." He ran his hand across the other man's shoulders as he walked behind him to the other side.

"Yeah. I'm trying not to make short jokes here."

"Thanks," Peter said, caught between sour and amused. He let his hand drift down Gabriel's arm and lifted his forearm. Gabriel remained still. Peter said, "Here. Let me look. Is this okay?" He looked at the hand of Gabriel's form and compared it his own.

Gabriel nodded and said quietly, "As long as it takes for you to get used to it. And if you can't, then that's all right. We don't have to do anything more than what we're doing."

Peter shrugged. He was getting more comfortable with the idea as the minutes ticked by and Gabriel didn't do anything weird. Which was, of course, Gabriel's intention. "It's just strange." He looked at the face Gabriel wore, watching as expressions that wouldn't normally grace Peter's face occupied it. It made Gabriel's body language all the more evident to see it divorced from his body and projected onto Peter's.

Peter swallowed and leaned closer, very slowly. He expected Gabriel to meet him, but he didn't. So Peter kissed him lightly on the cheek. Gabriel didn't react other than to shift his eyes at Peter and smile, so Peter did it again, emboldened. He moved in front of Gabriel, putting his hands on the other man's hips and dipping his head to kiss lower on what was eerily his own face.

Gabriel finally turned to kiss him and they had a perplexing moment of dodging one another's faces, as each had an agenda that didn't allow the other's.

"Don't-"

"Let me-"

"Peter?" Gabriel went back to holding still as Peter began to pull away.

After a beat, seeing that Gabriel had stopped, Peter leaned back in. "I want to kiss you like you kiss me. See what it's like." What it was like was frankly awkward. He had to stoop and bend an awful lot more than he'd expected. It was actually _uncomfortable_ for Gabriel to kiss him the way he did, which Peter had never given any thought to.

Peter had had lots of experiences now with Gabriel's standard, initial foreplay. It was usually the same. He came to Peter's front, kissed him on the lips a few times and then trailed off to one side or the other, heading towards his neck where he kissed, licked and nibbled for varying lengths of time, with occasional forays across Peter's shoulder, down to his collarbone, to the back of his neck or returning to his lips.

Gabriel rarely went above the lips. He almost never kissed Peter's forehead or the crown of his head even though those were a lot more accessible at his height. All of his attentions were focused on an imaginary horizontal line from the bottom of Peter's nose downward, to an inch or two below his collarbone. Peter had given some thought before to how submissive it was as a pattern. Gabriel always responded to it strongly when he turned the tables and did it to him in return.

He reached out and cupped the side of Gabriel's face, noticing the heel of his hand rested against the side of his chin while his fingers easily reached past his temple. He stroked his fingertips through the fine hair. It felt nice to the touch - another thing he'd never given thought to. He ran his hand through the other man's hair for a moment, then intentionally brushed down across his ear.

"Hey!" Gabriel jerked his head aside, bewildered by the unexpected degree of sensation. He reached up and touched his ear as if uncertain. He fingered it lightly, grimacing. Peter smiled slyly at him. Gabriel rubbed it firmly and straightened, putting his head back in contact with Peter's hand. Peter feathered the other man's hair through his fingers again, but stayed clear of his ears. He thought he could do this.

Peter dropped the hand to Gabriel's shoulder and said, "I want you to touch me like I do. Um, like Peter does. Does that make sense?"

"Not just the form, but the role," Gabriel said.

Peter nodded. One side of Gabriel's mouth quirked up and he stood straighter, his expression cleared and he looked down at Peter's hand long enough that Peter pulled it away, concerned it offended him. They stood there quietly until Gabriel smiled and said, "If we're going to do that, then you need to be all over me, aggressive, maybe a little pushy, and I'll stand here and let you, encouraging the things Peter likes and discouraging the others by not responding to them. I assume you'll want to top?"

Peter exhaled a single laugh. "We're that predictable?"

"Everyone has patterns, Peter. And why wouldn't they? You figure out what works for you and so you keep doing it. There's nothing wrong with it." He moved his hand to Peter's waist, sliding his fingertips into the waistband of his slacks and working them back and forth.

Peter smiled and let him.

"Like that. If Gabriel does that to Peter, Peter stands there to see what Gabriel's going to do next, just like you're doing now. But if Peter does that to Gabriel, Gabriel takes it to the next step. I'd reach over and pull Peter's shirt out or start unbuttoning it. I'm usually initiating - I'm acting and you're reacting - unless I'm in Nathan's form or that time when I was a woman. You _tend_ to act first when I'm Nathan and you _definitely_ did when I was a woman, once you got over the shock. Do you see?"

"Yeah." Peter's brow furrowed. He reached out and pulled Gabriel's shirt out, touching the warm skin beneath with his fingertips. "I don't think I can do this."

"You want me to shift back?"

"No. No, it's not that. I mean I don't think I can... I don't know, focus on whatever it is you do and do that. It's too scripted." He kissed Gabriel full on the mouth suddenly, demanding in his motion and spontaneous in execution. He slid his hands around the smaller man's waist and pulled him against him, turning his head to deepen the kiss.

Was this something Gabriel usually did? Peter had no idea. He'd never paid that close of attention, but apparently Gabriel had. Gabriel loved playing roles, aping body language and sliding into someone else's persona. He was sensitive to the minute details of how people acted, which made it a supreme irony that Peter, the empath, was so easily thrown off by people's appearances.

Peter had never had to pay attention to how people acted. He could feel their emotions. He saw how they felt on their faces and in their body language and he felt it himself as a sixth sense, through his ability. It was like lip-reading. Peter could hear the words, so he'd never had to learn to read lips. But someone who was deaf had to watch carefully and could only understand by picking up on those cues.

Peter wrapped his arms around the other man, noticing the size difference, wondering distantly how much that had to do with their roles. It probably wasn't very much, as the one calling the shots in the relationship, ultimately saying who topped, who bottomed, if they were going out or staying in or accepting the risk of trying out another kink - that was Peter.

That Gabriel was the active partner was perfect, as it let Peter lay back and make decisions without being autocratic. Gabriel gave him choices; Peter chose. If Gabriel had been more passive, then it wouldn't have worked. Or maybe, Peter thought, he himself would have taken up the slack. He didn't know. But he knew they _worked_ together and that was what mattered.

"Bedroom?" he asked, because it was usually Gabriel who did.

Gabriel, looking like Peter, kissed the middle of his chest, over his sternum and said, "Yes."

Peter wondered what he would have done if the other man had said no. He supposed that was the risk of having to ask. You were always hoping your partner would go along with it, allow, permit, _let_. "Will you let me top you?"

"Yes." Gabriel grinned and sat on the bed, looking up at him. Peter felt like he was towering over him. The perspective was weird, so he went down on his knees and leaned in. It put his head at the level of Gabriel's chest, as the top mattress of the bed was roughly waist height (it had been pointed out to Peter that this was a perfect height for fucking - any other mattress level was "inefficient" and prudish). When he was on his knees in Peter's form, it was the perfect height for a blow job. This was still doable, but he'd need to bend a little more.

"Come on. Help me out here. Get some clothes off."

Gabriel's form blurred and shifted right under Peter's hands, prompting him to jerk them back. He phased through a couple shapes and settled back in Peter's form, stark naked - except for his watch and wedding band. Peter laughed at the sudden compliance. Gabriel answered by reaching out and running his hands through Peter's hair, nails curled to scratch at his scalp.

"Oh… _wow_, that feels good."

"Yeah? I know. I want you to do it for me sometimes." He put one hand on Peter's forehead to stabilize him and used the other to scratch his entire scalp. "I think you might need to grow your fingernails out just a tiny bit more. Heidi does this for me." He stopped and bent to kiss Peter on the lips. "It's just a little thing. Like I never knew your ears felt… like _that_."

"Maybe _you're_ the one who needs to play around with your abilities more," Peter murmured, enjoying the feel of a good scalp rub much more than he'd expected. He filed away this bit of information for later use.

Gabriel snorted. "There are certain forms I tend to stay away from for… I don't know, privacy concerns."

"Huh." Peter looked down at what looked a lot like his own crotch. The perspective wasn't that different here, but his ability go down certainly was. He glanced up at Gabriel, then reached in and ran the back of his knuckles across the silken, sensitive skin.

He was half-hard. Gabriel leaned forward and hugged him briefly. "Oh, Peter. What do you want me to do for you?"

"Let me explore." He dipped his head down and paused to say, "Tell me how this feels."

Gabriel spoke immediately. "It feels nice. Your body is very sensitive. I can't really say what's… oh!" Peter licked the side of his penis, making it twitch. "…what's… um… mmm."

Peter sucked him into his mouth, noticing he tasted different than Gabriel did. He supposed he tasted like himself. _Well, some people auto-fellate themselves and that's not wrong, just unusual, so… I really can't tell how perverse this is. It's Gabriel who's feeling it regardless._ He pulled off briefly to say, "Talk to me."

Gabriel ran his hands through Peter's hair and around his ears and face as he sucked him, telling him each and every thing he was doing, how it felt, when he wanted it harder or softer, faster or slower. Peter wrapped his hands around the other man's waist and brought him off with his mouth, pleased to do it.

When he was done, after a period of nuzzling and hugging and caressing, he stood up and pushed Gabriel down onto his back. He got out the lube, stroked it up and down himself, then leaned over his lover and started to kiss him. Gabriel pulled his head back. "Um… no?"

"Ah… Yeah. Sorry." Peter moved his attentions down to Gabriel's neck and chest. The other man didn't like to kiss after he'd come in Peter's mouth. Peter wasn't wild about the converse either, but he usually just focused on something else and tried to ignore it. Right now he laved his tongue over Gabriel's chest, intrigued at how relatively hairless it was when he was in Peter's form. With his right hand, he explored between Gabriel's legs, fondling his balls with a lubricant-smeared hand, feeling him shiver under him. He rubbed his fingertips over his anus, hearing him moan softly.

"I love you. I love hearing you. I love fucking you. I love to know that I can be with you and fuck your brains out and you're interested in me and thinking about me and doing this for me…" He slid in a finger in a series of short prods. Gabriel whined and bucked his hips slightly. Peter went on, "I love what you do for me, that I matter to you, that of all the people you could be or be with, you want to be with me."

He lined himself up and pushed in a little, watching the expression on Gabriel's face: more wanton than usual, vulnerable, a little surprised. Peter asked, "Is everything okay?"

Gabriel nodded rapidly. "Feels better, with your body. I guess… I always thought it was all in my head."

Peter hesitated, trying to work that out. How could enjoyment of a certain sex act not be only psychological? But on the other hand, it wasn't psychological that his ears were ticklish in his own form but not in this one, that he had enjoyed having his scalp scratched in Gabriel's form but never cared in his own… "Huh. Okay." He smiled and pushed in a little more, moving in short thrusts. Once he'd adjusted, Peter screwed him hard and long, long enough that after he came, he began to stroke Gabriel off with his hand while he was still in him.

Gabriel looked up at him, mouth hanging open crookedly as he panted - watching a mirror version of himself bring him off for a second time. Peter grinned, knowing what he was looking at. It had been bizarre to watch himself - himself! - on the bed getting fucked. He slid his hand firmly up and down Gabriel's shaft and said playfully, "I love you, _Peter_."

Gabriel blinked, a little startled. "I love you too… Sylar." He tightened his legs behind Peter.

Now it was Peter's turn to hesitate. _Sylar?_ "Pete," he teased back. He leaned forward, stroking faster.

"Gabe."

"Petey-pie."

"Nate!" Gabriel groaned, coming across Peter's hand and his own gut. He reached down and stopped Peter immediately. "No more, no more, please."

Peter took his hand away. "Sylar, huh?"

"You look like him."

Peter laughed and disentangled himself, grabbing a towel off the nightstand to wipe himself up. When he was done he tossed it to Gabriel and climbed on the bed. "Come over here and snuggle with me, okay?"

Gabriel snorted softly but was more than happy to comply. They lay together and talked quietly of nicknames and identities and shape-shifting until it was late in the night. They fell asleep against one another.

* * *

"Sometimes I wonder which was the worse: Nathan or Sylar."

"Mm," Peter said, moving his head slightly on Gabriel's chest. They'd switched back to their normal forms and pulled the sheet up over them.

Gabriel was just talking, for the most part, but Peter had no intentions of discouraging him. Gabriel rarely opened up, but their relationship had changed in the last few weeks – it had deepened as they'd come to trust one another more than ever. "You see, Nathan… he had a lot of failings. He slept with all kinds of people, including you, his own brother. And that's… wow, that's just hard to handle." Peter swallowed, keeping himself from saying anything defensive. Or anything at all. "Then there were the things he planned to do to our kind, the hypocrisy… it was just endless. Now on the other hand, Sylar, Gabriel, whichever, was virtually a monk before he got his ability and he didn't hurt anyone. Lived a very quiet, clean life if you don't count a little porn. But once he had his ability, he was… he killed a lot of people."

He sighed. "And Nathan would have disapproved of that a lot. A whole lot. Even while he was dropping bombs on Serbia or signing orders that saw scores of specials rounded up and imprisoned. You know, if you count the military stuff, Nathan probably killed as many people, or more, than Sylar did."

There was a pause. Peter didn't know what to say, but Gabriel seemed to be waiting for a response. "Really?"

That was good enough. Gabriel went on, "Yeah. Sylar wasn't a hypocrite though. He never tried to say he didn't do it, or some kind of 'the Hunger made me do it' bullshit. Nathan would have said, 'oh yeah, that was war, I was just following orders.' Well, fuck just following orders. He had a responsibility to own up to his own actions. He was weak. He was weak there and he was weak in the flesh. He was weak in lusting after _you_." He huffed.

Peter smiled suddenly and ducked his head.

"What? What about that is funny?"

Peter chuckled. "Um… you do realize, don't you, that you're jealous of one of your own component personalities here, right?"

Gabriel snorted. "There's no reason why I can't be jealous of anyone you've ever been with. It's just kind of dumb to get too worked up about it, under the circumstances."

"Hm."

"And besides, why do you think I'm jealous? I just disapprove of his choices, that's all. And if anyone would know, _**I**_ would."

"I can feel your emotions, dork."

Gabriel was silent for a while. Finally he said, "That's cheating."

Peter sniggered, hugging his contrary, peculiar lover.


	377. Hair

_July 25 (Monday), 2011_

Peter ran his hand idly through Gabriel's hair as he read. It was getting rather long. Peter had wondered from time to time why the man wasn't cutting it, but he'd never asked. Besides, it was nice to run his fingers through it. His hand stilled as he got to an interesting part in the story he was reading. A moment later, Gabe shifted his head under Peter's hand like a dog wanting to be petted. Peter blinked and looked over.

"I liked that?" Gabriel said quietly in a tone so hesitant it was a question.

Peter smiled and started fondling his hair once more. Gabriel gave a soft sigh. Going by sound alone, it was merely contented, but Peter could feel the emotion behind it and that was more like _desire_. Unexpressed, though. Or maybe not, Peter considered, given how, now that he looked, Gabe had sunk down in the bed to make the motions easier for his partner. The way he was lying looked awkward. Peter put down his book and sat up, thinking about how much he'd enjoyed the scalp rub the other day when they'd switched forms.

Gabriel made a vaguely disgruntled noise and sat up too, misunderstanding Peter's motion. Gabriel reached for his own book to resume reading, propping it back up from where it had fallen over. He hadn't been looking at it at all, Peter realized. Now, with a disappointed look, Gabriel began to apply himself.

He didn't need to be disappointed for long. Peter ran his hand up Gabriel's back, across the nape of his neck and spread his fingers into the man's locks. The book fell back over immediately. Peter made a fist. Gabriel gasped, breathing harder. Peter tugged, just a little and his partner moaned, eyelids fluttering. _Oh, wow, yes, _Peter thought. He could feel the flood of lust and want and desire that ran through his husband.

Peter adjusted his grip, bringing Gabriel's head back and to the side, exposing the length of his neck. He leaned in and moved his lips against that pale flesh, pulling a deeper groan from the man. Peter nibbled; Gabriel whined, panting now. He reached around to unbutton Gabriel's pajama top, scratching his fingers through Gabe's chest hair, provoking an "Ah!" followed by a bitten lip.

Peter could feel the arousal running through them both. Gabriel was hot, he was ready, he wanted him. Peter turned his lover's head further and leaned around to kiss him, sucking that confined lower lip between his own, tasting it and rolling it between his own teeth. Gabriel's hand stroked Peter's face, touching him at the temple delicately, then brushing down across his cheek to follow the line of his jaw, stroking Peter lightly around his mouth as they kissed. Peter growled and parted from him, giving Gabriel's lower lip one last lick.

"Get up," Peter whispered, giving Gabriel's hair another tug before releasing him. Gabriel got out of bed immediately. Peter shoved off his boxer shorts and yanked off his t-shirt. Gabriel followed suit. Naked now, Peter came to him, resting one hand palm down on his chest while the other went to the small of Gabriel's back. They kissed, lips flush against one another, tongues tickling each other wetly. Peter's hand slipped down so his thumb could rub back and forth across Gabe's nipple. The other hand rose up his back, scratching the whole way, evoking a long mewl.

Peter stepped away and got the lubricant from the nightstand. He slathered it on one hand as Gabriel watched him with eyes dilated by lust. Peter turned him to face the bed and Gabriel bent over, bracing his hands on it. Peter ran his clean hand, fingers splayed, up the man's back to his neck. He grasped him there. Gabriel breathed harder again and arched his back slightly, pushing his rear end back at him. _Oh yeah_, Peter thought. He tightened his grip slightly and Gabriel spread his stance.

Peter ran his wet fingers into the seam of his lover's ass, finding the spot he wanted and probing at him. Gabriel vocalized softly with each breath now and Peter shifted his hand from his neck into the man's hair, carding through the silky strands. Gabriel whimpered and bunched the sheets under his hand into fists. Peter plunged a finger inside of him, feeling him hot and open. A second finger followed swiftly. Gabriel pushed back against him eagerly with each motion Peter's hand made. He wanted more. Peter wiped what was left on his hand onto his cock and gave him more.

He nudged his way in, the hand in Gabriel's hair tightening to a fist, Gabriel's voice rising to a breathless whine of need. Peter pushed inside – it wasn't difficult; he was so open. His body was begging to be filled. Peter pulled on his hair and Gabriel arched his back, spreading his legs yet again, shoving his ass back against Peter, taking the whole of his length, burying Peter inside of him. Gabriel brought one hand up to his own organ and began to stroke shakily. He was _so_ close. Peter started slamming into him hard, trying to catch up.

Peter's motions jerked Gabriel's head back with each thrust and he released him, only to get a guttural complaint. Gabriel grunted and said, "No! Don't … please?" Peter worked his hand back into his hair immediately, getting a softer, "Oohhh," in response. Peter pulled him back, making him arch, feeling the rising tide of sensation. Both of Gabriel's hands were off the bed now, one on himself and the other reaching back to brush lightly at Peter's buttock. Peter sent his own free hand forward to smooth across Gabriel's exposed neck, stroking the vulnerable skin, teasing at the idea of choking him. The man's breath caught at the touch, eyes rolling back. He came a moment later; Peter seconds after.

Peter waited several hard breaths before disentangling his hand. He petted the tousled back of Gabriel's head. The other man put his hands back on the bed and leaned against it for support. Peter bent over him and kissed his back tenderly. Gabriel groaned again and flopped on the bed, curling his body loosely. He looked at Peter and let his tongue loll out briefly to show how blown he was. Gabriel grinned after. Peter climbed on next to him and settled in, pushing an abandoned book out of the way. "Mm," he hummed. "You are _so_ good. That was unexpected. Why didn't you tell me you liked having your hair pulled?"

"Didn't know," Gabriel slurred, relaxed. "Always kept it short before." He sighed. "Might never get it cut again."

Peter grinned too, snuggling up to him.


	378. Attachments

_July 26 (Tuesday), 2011_

"Wow," Peter said.

"What?"

Peter was still facing Gabriel's rear end and had been stroking the small of his back, following the lines of the muscles around his sacrum, toying with the top of his crack. Now his fingers were doing something else there. "It's… wow, just… weird."

"What? What is it?" Gabriel tried to turn around, but Peter pushed him back.

"No… wait, I lost it. Hang on."

"That… what are you doing?" It felt strange.

"There it is. Got it."

"What?" Frustration seeped into Gabriel's voice. "Is something wrong with me?" There had been a tiny, sharp pain at whatever Peter had 'gotten.' He was as much bent back to look as he could manage without turning.

"You have a hair here that's got to be three inches long. Maybe four. Look at this." He held up his prize.

Gabriel sighed and flopped down without looking. "Peter…"

"No, really. This is amazing."

"I get it. I'm hairy. You don't like it."

"I didn't say that, Mr. Insecure." Peter laughed. "Come on, man. This is cool."

"Cool? What's cool about it?"

"Well, for starters, you could shave all this off and make a toupee for bald men and cancer survivors."

Gabriel tried to be indignant, but ended up laughing instead. "Peter! You're evil. I'm sorry, okay? Do you want me to wax?"

"It's your body. You do what you want with it."

"Is that your passive-aggressive way of saying I need to wax?"

"No."

"I'll wax if you want me to."

"I'm not asking you to."

"But do you want me to?"

"Gabriel, that's not a fair question. I'm pretty sure I'd be equally happy with you either way. I don't have a preference. I'm not trying to talk you into waxing."

Gabriel was silent for a moment, then asked, "Do you dislike my body hair?"

"No."

"Are you telling the truth?"

"You tell me. I'm trying to give you really clear answers here. Lie detection doesn't work on things you say yourself, just on what other people say."

"Not true. I caught myself lying once."

"What?" When Gabriel didn't answer, Peter went on, "I've lied before and it never detected on me. How is that possible?"

"Well… erm… Let's go back to debating waxing off my ass hair, okay?"

"Is that a more comfortable subject?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Peter kissed his lover on the butt and stroked up and down his hip. He burned with curiosity, but he left it alone.

"I'll wax if you want me to, you know?"

"Do you want to?"

"If I did, I would have already. But now I'm self-conscious."

"Naw, you were self-conscious before, too." Peter kissed him again. "I like you the way you are, the way you want to be. That's what I like. If you're happy in your skin, then I'm happy with it too. Even if it comes with a few four inch long butt hairs attached to it."

"You said it was only three!"

"I said it was _at least_ three. It's more like four."

"Well, hand it over and we'll measure it."

"I don't have it anymore. I dropped it."

"You dropped it?" Gabriel laughed a little. "I might have been growing that thing for a year and you dropped it? Jesus, Peter. Show a little respect here!"

Peter giggled and bit him hard on the cheek. Instead of swatting at him or being upset, Gabriel groaned and arched his body. Peter bit him harder, then let his fingers go lower along that delicious seam of his husband's body.

"Yes," Gabriel breathed, spreading his legs and allowing himself to be played with. "Oh, fuck yes," he growled.


	379. No More Sylar

**A/N: Warning for gore and disturbing imagery.**

_July 27 (Wednesday), 2011_

Peter felt the dark turn of Gabriel's somnolent thoughts as the random background static of REM sleep solidified into a narrative - and not a good one at that. He turned, brow furrowing as he watched his lover in profile. Gabriel was sleeping on his back. In the dream, which was being projected enough for Peter to pick out some particulars, Gabriel was small and young, hiding in the watch shop he'd grown up in. Someone was coming for him, to hurt him, violate him. Gabriel worried over the form of the attack, thinking that if he only knew what it was, he could prepare against it, but he didn't know. Were they coming to beat him? To rape him? To sodomize him? To cut open his head and take his brain? To blot out his identity and make him different? He tried to figure out who was coming. He could hear the keys in the lock at the door. Did that mean it was Martin? He could hear their steps through the store. Maybe it was Noah? Or Matt? Or Peter? Or Nathan? Or Sylar? Maybe he'd gone evil and taken Hiro's power and traveled back from the future to kill himself?

Peter blinked at that one, trying to wrap his mind around it. But dreams didn't necessarily hold any logic, and anyway, the fear was ratcheting up. Gabriel wedged himself between a couple cabinets, desperate to hide himself. He was just a kid and very aware of how unfair it was to have these adults after him. The threat was coming closer, noising along in the darkness of the shop. He could hear the other's hands brushing across the counter tops, feeling their way closer. He could hear their heavy breath while his own rasped too loud in his ears, giving him away. He held his breath. Maybe they'd leave. Maybe they'd think he died. He'd read a story about a woman in Nazi Germany who suffocated her baby to keep it from crying when the Nazis searched the house for them. Death was better than letting himself be found, anyway.

Peter reached over to Gabe's still form. It was one thing to have a bad dream, or even a nightmare. It was another to let Gabriel suffocate himself into death or unconsciousness with it. He shook him lightly, one hand on his shoulder. "Gabriel? Ga-"

That was as far as Peter got before the mental scene cut off like a switch had been flipped. His lover jumped upright and slashed sideways at him. Peter was knocked backwards, a sensation like a line of ice starting under his jaw on the left side, crossing his throat and ending on his right upper chest. A half second later, heat followed it as blood poured out. He'd just been cut.

_Sylar!_ The only sound Peter made was a gurgle. Sylar descended on him, grabbing his chin in one hand and digging his fingers into the open flesh over his collarbone with the other. He jerked Peter's head back and Peter instantly realized the intention to rip his head entirely off. He tensed all over with supernatural strength, hands gripping Sylar's forearms as he cut off Sylar's access to his abilities. They froze there for several seconds while Peter's arterial blood spurted copiously from his stretched neck. Pulled taut like this, his regeneration couldn't seal the wound.

Sylar let out a long breath and released him. Peter let go, jerking his chin down and letting himself heal. Sylar waved at the light. Nothing happened. "Let me have my powers," Sylar growled threateningly at him.

After a beat, Peter stopped canceling them and Sylar turned on the lights. Peter would have rather left it dark. The human heart was a very efficient pump. In even a few seconds of agitated activity, it could spray blood everywhere. Sylar's face was more red than pale and the ceiling was a mess. Sylar slumped down on his haunches next to Peter, looking at the scarlet-coated fingers of his left hand, the one that had dug into the flesh over Peter's collarbone. He languidly raised them to his lips and sucked on two of them together in a disgusting parallel to the motion used to wet fingers during sex.

Peter could have handled the violence. It had been fast and he'd been able to respond to it effectively, so he felt … well, capable, competent, emotionally stable maybe. But that was _his_ blood everywhere and seeing it got to him. Seeing Sylar treat it like a fucking aphrodisiac traumatized the hell out of him. His gut clenched in a heave that he barely managed to clamp down on. He looked away, breath coming fast and hard, utterly revolted. Sylar was no help at all. He leaned over, pushing Peter flat so he could lick a wide swath up Peter's bare chest. Peter shut his eyes as tightly as possible, beginning to shake as his ability to process what was happening started to break apart. He was hyperventilating, seriously freaking out. He wished he could go unconscious, hide, retreat … another warm lap up his chest. Voice trembling, Peter got out, "You're hurting me."

Sylar stopped. Peter prayed. He thanked God. He tried not to think of what was going on. He tried to breathe, but the smell of blood was thick in the air, heavy on his tongue. Too many other instances of his own death flashed behind his eyes … and Sylar licking his fingers with an expression of lazy pleasure …

"Peter?" Sylar's voice was level and questioning. When he got no answer, it shifted to worried. "Peter?" Peter reached over and touched his leg, but he didn't know what to do. Comfort him? Comfort himself? Clean up? Try to talk? He just wanted away. Sylar said, "Peter, Gabriel's not here right now. You're stuck with me."

Peter rolled over in time to vomit over the side of the bed. There was a put-out sigh behind him and a hand on his shoulder pulling Peter upright. He didn't fight it.

"Can you teleport?" Sylar asked. Peter nodded shakily, letting himself be guided onto his feet. He wanted to wonder why he was such a mess about a little blood, but every time his mind skimmed the subject, his gut tied itself in another knot. Sylar pulled him close, filthy as he was at the moment. "Take us to the master bathroom of the beach house. Now."

It took a few long seconds for Peter to get the focus necessary, but then they were there. Sylar held him closer, folding him in to a proper hug with one hand free to gesture at the controls for the room. The lights came on, and then the water. Sylar held Peter for a few moments more as Peter just stood without motion, not even returning it. He was getting his bearings. Being in a different place was helping. Sylar doing helpful things was helping. The other man parted to undress. Peter took the hint and dropped his boxers while Sylar was busy stripping. Peter stepped into the big shower stall; Sylar followed a moment later.

Peter looked at the falling water cascading over his chest, then at Sylar's horrifically blood-spattered face. He reached up to grab the man by the back of the neck and thrust his face into the streams of water. Sylar let himself be manhandled without an objection, just as Peter had earlier. Sylar's skin rippled under Peter's hand and Peter jerked away. A couple shape-shifts later and Sylar was spotless. Peter let out a deep breath. He supposed he could do the same, but he didn't want to. He leaned against the wall of the shower and let his mind drift.

Sylar waited a beat, then got out a loofah and sudsed it with shower gel. He started stroking it over Peter's body in a thorough, practical manner. Peter wanted to kiss him, but the memory of Sylar putting those fingers in his mouth was still there. He leaned in and rested his forehead on Sylar's shoulder instead. Sylar stroked the back of Peter's neck gently. "Gabriel was having a nightmare?"

"Yeah," Peter said, straightening again. The small gesture of affection helped.

"You were trying to wake him up?"

"You quit breathing. I mean, he quit breathing." Peter sighed and tried to take the loofah from Sylar, who swatted his hand away. Peter rolled his eyes briefly and didn't argue about it, letting Sylar turn him to work his back. "What should I do when that happens?"

"Cut my powers, I guess," Sylar said, scrubbing down to Peter's waist and coming back up. "Which you did, but too late. Do it as soon as you realize I'm having a bad dream."

"But should I wake you up or just leave you alone?"

"Wake me. Maybe try calling my name at a distance. Throw a pillow on me. I'm almost certain to wake up fighting. That's just how it is."

Peter nodded. "Okay. That's what I'll do next time." He moved to wash his hair. Sylar fiddled with the loofah and watched with a small smile on his face. Peter glanced over at the odd expression. It wasn't a leer. He put the shampoo back, unused, and turned to face Sylar directly. "Taking my head off - that would have killed me permanently, wouldn't it?"

Sylar tipped his head down, keeping eye contact in a defensive glower. "Yes. Though if I understand how regeneration works, I could have put it back anytime in the next minute or so and you'd have survived."

Peter felt another wave of nausea at the idea of his partner actually _dismembering_ him. Something in him snapped as he looked at Sylar's threatening mien and the just faintly smug expression hovering at the upturned corners of his mouth. _He's doing this on purpose. Fuck! He did it __**all **__on purpose!_ Hotly he said, "If you're rational enough to think that shit through when you wake up swinging like that, then I don't buy that you're not rational enough to know it's me!"

Sylar lifted his chin slightly, brows coming up in surprise at being challenged.

Peter continued, "You do not have a carte blanche to attack me just because you're scared or pissed. I was trying to wake you the fuck up! I was trying to _help_ you! Next time this happens, yeah, I'll cancel your abilities, I'll throw a pillow on you. Maybe you'll come up swinging. But that does _**NOT**_ excuse you from murder!" Peter pointed in emphasis. Sylar's eyes flicked to the digit uneasily. "If you have enough conscious thought to think out exactly how to hurt me in the worst way possible, then you have enough thought _not_ to do it." Peter's face contorted with anger. "And that blood-licking shit?" He shoved Sylar against the tile hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs. Sylar's hands went down and his head up, face impassive in an attempt not to set Peter off any further. That was his fear response. "You did that _on purpose_ to get to me. You did that _**on purpose!**_" Sylar blinked repeatedly, flinching back as much as he could. "No more, Sylar," Peter growled. "No. More."

Peter glared at him, fuming in the limited confines of the shower. He wanted to wash his hair, but he didn't want to do it right at the moment, with Sylar an arm's length from him. So instead he stepped out of the shower, rippling through shape shifting similar to Sylar's earlier cleaning method. It left him dry and, he supposed, clean. It was at least passable. He grabbed a towel and made swipes at himself anyway before stalking off through the house to find a set of clothes. He had some in the other room, he was sure.

As he was dressing, Gabriel came to the doorway. "Peter?"

Peter snapped up, about to chew on Sylar some more, and did a double take. "Gabe?"

"Yeah … What are we doing here? Your blood's all over my shirt …" He had the t-shirt Sylar had discarded in the bathroom. Of course he was able to discern Peter's blood from anyone else's, by scent alone, but apparently he had yet to search the cloth for memories.

Peter looked at Gabriel for a long moment, then decided not to hold back. "Yes. Sylar was being an asshole and I called him on it. I see that true to form, he bailed, leaving you to clean up his mess!"

"Oh," Gabriel said in a small voice.

"Yeah, '_oh_'. You had a bad dream. I woke you up and he tried to murder me. And not something reflexive, but intentional, because-he-thought-he-could-get-away-with-it bullshit. That doesn't fly anymore. I don't buy it. It's not allowed. It's **over**!"

"It's over?" Gabriel's eyes flew wide. "What's over?" His voice was laced with fear.

Peter turned to face him straight on, realizing he'd used the wrong phrase, or at least not been clear enough. "Him getting away with it is over. No more free pass. He has to act like a responsible adult as much as anyone else. I had a moment there when I could have fought back, hurt him, whatever. I knew it; he knew it. And I didn't, because that's _wrong_. If I can make that sort of decision in a split second, then so can he. I'm calling him on his bullshit. No more. He can control himself. He does it all the time - no one's more careful with how they react and use their powers than you and he are. _I am __**not**__ a punching bag_," Peter said. He glared at Gabriel, who had calmed as Peter vented, because there was nothing Peter was saying that he didn't agree with.

"No. Of course you're not."

Peter sighed, feeling better for having gotten that out and received some validation for it. "You need to get dressed. We've got a nasty mess to clean up."

A few minutes later, they arrived back in the apartment. Gabriel's eyes widened further, nose wrinkling in disgust. He looked around at the blood absolutely _everywhere_. "This is all yours …"

"Yeah," Peter said in a clipped tone. "How much of it has _ever_ been his or yours, huh? You or he have killed me how many times? I'm done with it! If there's a next time, you don't love me, and I'm going to fight back with everything I've got. You tell Sylar that."

Gabriel said nothing, his wide-eyed look shifting from Peter to the ceiling, where the blood spray was the most obvious and where his ability allowed him to tell exactly where Sylar had been relative to Peter. His expression morphed into grim determination. Wordlessly, he went to get the cleaning supplies with Peter.


	380. Sylar No More

_July 28 (Thursday), 2011_

"Sylar? We're going to talk again." Gabriel shut his eyes, speaking in his own mind as he sat in the easy chair alone. Peter had left for work and Gabe had canceled his morning appointment at the Company so he'd have time to hash this out. It was important. The amount of blood in the bedroom had been positively horrifying, even for a man who had a past as a serial killer. The stench of cleaning products (even though they'd used very mild ones) and blood was going to taint the room for weeks. At the moment, they had the windows thrown open, fans going, and air conditioner running at full. He still didn't know if it was going to be enough. But what bothered him more than that was thinking about how patient and understanding Peter had been about so many things, and _this_ was the way he was treating him as a result. If someone else had done that sort of thing to Peter, there would be no 'talking'.

"What?" Sylar snapped grumpily from within his consciousness, surfacing much like how he'd channeled Virginia back in his even crazier days.

"Sylar, there can be no more of this abuse of Peter. None whatsoever."

"I got the message," Sylar said, trying to ignore him and fade back into somnolence.

Gabriel exerted his will, having gotten stronger and better over the last month. Being currently consumed by his seething anger over what had been done probably had a lot to do with it, too. "I'm not kidding," he enunciated firmly in his head. "If it comes down to a choice between you and Peter – you need to know this - I'm picking Peter."

"You can't do that," Sylar bluffed, but Gabriel had his full attention.

Gabriel had not a quiver of equivocation on this. "I'm better off without _you_ than I am without _him_. You know that."

Sylar swallowed, nodding slightly. "Got the message," he said faintly, and _now_ Gabriel let him go.

XXX

"No, I'll take care of it," Gabriel assured the man he was seeing out of his office at the Company facility. "I'll talk to Laura in Accounting and get the money taken out of the contingency account. Next time, use the 5532 code on the claim and it won't get denied."

Bruce nodded, thanked him, and went off down the hall. Gabriel shut the door, heading back to his computer rather than down to Accounting. He couldn't just talk to Laura and have it all wrapped up. Bureaucracies, even the wildly efficient Company bureaucracy, weren't that simple. First, he had to find the right form for the exemption and he was pretty sure it was somewhere on the shared drive. He opened the right program and tried to figure out where the file was. Was it in the Accounting subfolder? Forms and Documents? General Folder? It was times like these that he wished he had Micah's ability and could just demand the computer produce the form for him without him having to go hunting for it.

"You have become_ so _domesticated."

The unexpected deep, threatening purr made Gabriel jerk slightly, mostly because it was basically his own. Sitting in the guest chair on the other side of his desk was Sylar, feet up on his desk. Gabriel touched his own face, because this wasn't a trick of shape-shifting. That meant it had to be …

"I'm a mental projection," Sylar provided unnecessarily. When Gabriel didn't say anything, Sylar brushed his hair back, grimacing a little like he wasn't that thrilled to be here. "I've been thinking. You say you don't need me-"

"That's not what I said," Gabriel snapped, uncomfortable at being confronted by his alter like this. His anger was rapidly bubbling back to the surface.

Sylar stared him down for a moment before continuing, "If you'd pick Peter over me, that means you don't think you need me anymore. And if you don't need me, then I'm as good as dead because I'll never get out. I'll never _grow _as a character … like you have."

Gabriel opened his mouth, then shut it because, well, yes, that was true. Bluntness and uncomfortable truths had been more Sylar's forte than his own. The compliment was nice, too. And if Sylar was going to be this sort of threat to his loved ones and life, then the idea of Sylar being on eternal house arrest inside his mind was a good one.

Sylar's nose wrinkled briefly in distaste. "I'm not interested in dying, or in being some neglected, emotionally retarded fragment of your personality forever." He put his feet down and leaned forward, his dark eyes intent on Gabriel. "I've come here to make an offer, like all those negotiations Peter tries to have with us, to like how Nathan would strike deals with criminals when he was an assistant DA."

One of Gabriel's brows twitched upward at the insulting implication that he was the criminal, but he let it slide. More interesting was that the great and mighty Sylar was asking for a compromise. "An offer?" he asked coldly. "If we're talking negotiation, then it sounds like that's just your starting position and you have other offers that might come up if I refuse the first one. Why not just cut to the chase and put it all on the table?"

Sylar's brows rose slightly. "You're right – my first offer is just my first offer. But it's the one I think is best for both of us – the one that will appeal the most to you. You won't like the other ones as much."

"Try me. I like to make informed decisions," Gabriel said, leaning forward with stalwart determination to match Sylar's predatory intensity.

"If you don't take my _first _offer, then my second is to hurt you until you do - and I know all of your weak spots." He tilted his head slightly, but Gabriel didn't flinch. He just watched and waited. Sylar sighed and gave up trying to intimidate Gabriel. The man was right – he really was leagues stronger than he used to be, he'd healed so much on the inside. It made Sylar's teeth hurt because he wanted that strength so bad for himself. He swallowed. "My offer, is that we re-integrate."

Gabriel blinked in surprise, then leaned back slowly, eyes sliding out of focus a little. That was a good reaction and Sylar knew it. The man was thinking it over. Sylar waited. He wouldn't have made the offer if he hadn't thought it would be attractive. But it was a limited time deal. If Gabriel kept growing at this pace, then soon he would entirely outgrow the need for a personality like Sylar. He was already learning to compensate for the missing traits. But if he declined, then it would be war, because Sylar didn't intend to die easy, or alone, unloved, and forgotten by everyone. Even if Sylar didn't win, he might manage to fuck up Gabriel's life irretrievably.

Gabe nodded slowly in agreement. "You, and the watchmaker both." Because Sylar wasn't the only alter in there, and he knew it. He'd reintegrated before and the feeling of being whole had been one of the best things in his life.

Sylar nodded, knowing the process and what was at stake. "Then you have to bring Virginia in on this, too."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. She was an alter who hadn't surfaced since the dissociation after the airbender, but they both knew she was there, just waiting for a reason to emerge. "You have to bring Marty. Peter does _not_ need to deal with him. We're lucky he was too fucked up to notice when he came out behind the club."

"You're not getting rid of us," Sylar said sharply. "We become _you_," with a liberal hint of threat.

"I know," Gabriel gave a single nod. "But once we're back together, I can settle a few things … react as one person. I won't be compartmentalized."

Sylar was quiet for a moment, considering the arrangement. It was what he wanted, overall. Much as he had things he wanted to do with his life other than be 'domesticated' by the Company and his family, he understood the allure of the feeling of purpose and belonging. He understood it so much that when he'd found himself in the driver's seat for their shared body, he'd taken efforts not to upset that life too much. He wanted it, too, which was why he was going through with this. (And in a tiny, cowardly part of himself he wouldn't admit to, he didn't know how he'd ever face Peter again as Sylar.) He nodded. "Deal." When Gabriel gave his agreement, Sylar stood and started around the desk, intending to do it right away.

Gabriel shot to his feet, hand coming up, fingers splayed. A moment later, Sylar found himself rudely shoved back into his chair. Outraged, he snarled up at the dominant party, who held a single finger upright in a signal to wait. Gabriel told him, "I haven't grown this much without learning a few things. We're not doing this alone."

XXX

Peter and Heidi watched as Gabriel lay back on the bed in Nathan and Heidi's bedroom. Emma was holding baby Noah as she stood out in the hall, watching them through the open doorway. She was out of the way and could see down the hall to make sure the older boys, who were supposed to be in bed and asleep by now, didn't interfere. Also, although she couldn't create a field of silence, she could manipulate any sounds that might come out of the bedroom and reduce them to white noise. Heidi was actively neutralizing her husband's abilities. Peter was armed with all of his powers. Together, they waited while Gabriel shut his eyes and turned his attention inward.

None of them, even Gabriel, had known for sure what the process entailed, but he expected it to be fast and simple once he achieved the right state of mind and internal willingness to allow it to happen. That willingness had been the stumbling block until today. On a certain level, he _liked_ his alters. They were _him_, even if he might fight with them at times. Integrating them meant blotting them out as distinct personalities. It was something he'd done before much more slowly as he'd struggled to reverse the damage Matt Parkman had done to him. He knew that the loved ones in his life accepted who he was, all facets, in full. That was the key to making it all work.

The only outward sign of the change was a sigh and a little shudder, although Heidi pulled her head back, turning it slightly, and saying, "That … he's different." Peter gave a single nod. He didn't see it the same way she did, but he shared a tight enough emotional bond to feel it. It felt good, like the small surge of happiness that came with a good memory suddenly recalled. Gabriel sat up, swiveling slowly and smoothly to get up off the bed, making an effort not to alarm anyone. Heidi and Peter watched him closely, pretty sure all was safe, but ever wary after all they'd been through. He smiled weakly at them, taking a step forward and extending his arms to his two spouses. As one, they hugged him in return. He held them firmly, then lifted his head to give Heidi a peck on the cheek, then Peter a brief kiss on the lips, then one on Heidi's lips, then he rubbed his cheek against Peter's and embraced them both tightly again. Emma came to the door, smiling in at them.

They parted, still touching supportively. "It's done," Gabriel said as he turned to face Emma.

She nodded. "What now?"

Heidi chuckled and said, "Well, after all that build-up, let's just go downstairs and have some Rocky Road ice cream. There's enough for all of us." She rubbed her husband's shoulder supportively as Peter patted him on the back. Gabriel relaxed into it, knowing that he was home – all of him, was home.


	381. Homophobia

_August 2 (Tuesday evening), 2011_

Peter and Gabriel were walking down the street, holding hands, thinking nothing of it. Dinner had been nice. So had the late night comedy show. This was the third 'date' they'd had out together, slowly and carefully easing into a public life together. So far, it didn't involve dance clubs, but they'd agreed that was an eventual goal. Peter was determined to regain control of himself. He refused to be a walking bomb, potentially set off by the actions of others. While the pair could have found somewhere discreet and teleported directly home, the night was mild and they were enjoying the walk.

Peter realized later that the group coming up on them from behind had said the word "faggot" three times before he noticed. He'd heard the words, but he hadn't processed them. He'd been discussing cars vs. public transportation with Gabriel and really not paying attention to anything but the man next to him. He'd been dimly aware that a group of guys were walking behind them, occasionally being boisterous. There were six of them. It was a big city and he wasn't concerned.

He should have been.

One of them lunged forward and shoved him hard. He sprawled across the ground, registering laughter, a whoop and Gabriel loudly saying, "Hey?" As they always did in fights, things happened so fast after that. Peter wished he had super-speed, because there were only so many things he could do at once. As he got to his feet, his eyes flew to Gabriel. The man had killed for as little provocation as he had now - attacks or even just threats to Peter galvanized him and all Peter could imagine was that someone was about to be murdered for knocking him down.

Right on cue, Gabriel made a gesture and one of the men fell backwards, clutching his chest. It was probably the one who had shoved Peter, but really he had no idea. One of the other men yelled, "He's got a knife! Get 'em!"

Three of the men shoved Gabriel against the wall. They had already swarmed around him, following up on their friend's attack on Peter. They grabbed and pinned Gabriel's hands and although they were empty, restraining them foiled his telekinesis effectively enough. Gabriel didn't have Peter's enhanced strength to throw them off immediately. One of the other men seized Peter's shoulder, yanking him back as he yelled, "Gabriel, no!" Another circled on his other side but hadn't yet engaged. The last of the six was the one Gabriel had flung on the ground, who was still trying to figure out what had happened to himself.

There were a few blows thrown, enough to keep Gabriel from concentrating on anything. Peter whirled on the man holding him and said, "Let me go!" He was unhanded immediately. When he turned back, the three on Gabriel staggered back together and even Peter felt the minor shockwave of force energy that burst forth from Gabe. In the moment of uncertainty as the three regained their balance, Peter surged between them and grabbed Gabriel, who was bringing up his hands, unfettered now.

"No, no!" Peter hissed, now trying to do what their attackers had done and get hold of Gabriel's hands again. He grappled with him and to the others, it must have looked like an embrace.

Behind him, one of the guys called, "Yeah, start making out, you faggots! Suck his cock and we'll leave you alone!"

Another one yelled, "Yeah, you can suck me after!"

"Cocksucker!" "Faggot!" "Man-cunt!" "Little girl!"

Gabriel was shaking, but he wasn't attacking. Peter's blood was boiling. Even though he knew Gabriel was fine, he himself was fine, and the only people at risk here were their attackers, he was still having to fight not to murder all of them. He turned and ordered the nearest, "Get out of here!" To another he said roughly, "Leave us alone!" Those two shuffled off immediately. Another had finished helping up the one Gabriel had hit first, who had blood all over his hand. _Shit_, Peter thought. This was getting messy; people needed help; and it was all Peter could do not to kill them himself. Feeling the rage coursing through Gabriel was causing fear in himself – fear that he'd lose control like he had less than a month before.

"He's bleeding, man," the helper said. "Travis, help me."

Gabriel growled, "I should have killed him," and Peter stayed where he was, his body pressed to Gabriel's, literally holding him against the wall and out of the conflict – holding both of them there.

"Please," Peter whispered. "Please, Babe ..." Gabriel didn't respond directly, but he did stop moving for the moment. It helped.

The other two men were wavering, uncertain of what to do. One of them went to support their hurt friend on the other side. The last started to surge towards Peter and Gabriel, snarling, "You hurt him. You're gonna pay!"

He pulled up short and looked startled, clutching at his neck at about the same moment that Peter whipped his head around and shouted, "Leave!" Then Peter turned and scrambled for Gabriel's hands, interfering with his telekinesis enough that he let the man go. The fellow staggered away, holding his throat and yet still managing to insult and curse as he left. Part of Peter noted that meant Gabriel hadn't crushed his windpipe - something easily within his ability. Peter shot a glance at the other three, the wounded man and his two compatriots, but they were moving away too, being faster at it now that their friends had left them. Obviously, they didn't want to be in a situation of what might appear to be fair odds.

Peter bit his lip and spun to face Gabriel again. The other man's chest was heaving and he was shaking harder. "I want to kill them," Gabe muttered. This was as much a test for him as it was for Peter. Both of them had been through much and changed greatly. Could they withstand a mundane challenge to their equilibrium without lashing out to maim and cripple? Peter hoped so, desperately, because he didn't want to be the sort of person who couldn't.

He tried to reassure his husband, "No, no. Gabriel, I'm fine. They just pushed me down. It's okay. It's okay. Let them go."

Gabriel put his arms around Peter protectively and glared daggers over his head at the retreating figures. Peter was thankful it was dark, the men had been drunk and the action had been fast. It seemed unlikely that any of them knew what had happened. Let them think Gabriel had had a knife and that was the cause of the one's injury. Peter was thankful he'd been the target of the initial assault. He didn't think he would have been as restrained as Gabe – a simple slash would probably heal with no more than a scar. There were things Peter might have done that weren't so fixable.

"Faggots," Gabriel said, disgust in his tone. Whether he was calling their attackers that or just mockingly repeating what they'd said was unclear.

"Shh," Peter hushed him, but Gabriel was still worked up and it was making it impossible for Peter to calm down. He was still teetering on the edge of homicidal mania.

"God-damnit, Peter!" He shook him off and Peter let him, wrapping his arms around himself and stuffing his hands in his armpits. Gabriel paced and Peter fell back, leaning against the wall and staring at the ground, reaching desperately for the mantras and visualization exercises he'd been practicing daily. He thought of all of them – himself, Gabriel, Heidi, Emma, and the kids – sitting around the big dining room table in Gabriel and Heidi's house, eating and talking and enjoying themselves. All safe, all more-or-less happy. He reminded himself to breathe and then turned his attention to calming his husband. "They didn't even hurt me, Gabriel. They just pushed me."

"They attacked you, Peter!" Gabriel got in his face, yelling, venting his frustration and upset on the only available target. Peter pulled back against the wall. Gabriel recoiled, upset about having made the outburst at Peter. His face hardened and he looked down the street.

Peter jumped between him and the direction the men had gone. "No!"

"Peter…" Gabriel went back to pacing in agitation.

"We're perfectly fine, Gabriel. We can regenerate. No matter what they were going to do to us, we were going to be okay."

"That doesn't matter! They touched you. They don't get to do that!"

Peter exhaled slowly, realizing that if they'd both made it this far, then they were probably okay. Peter stepped up behind Gabriel and touched him tentatively. As he'd expected Gabriel jumped and shifted away from him. He looked back at Peter, then hugged him suddenly, murmuring "I love you" over and over against Peter's hair. Peter stroked him and felt his lover finally start to calm down.

They were in the middle of the block, between streetlights in the darkest part. Peter looked up and down the sidewalk and although there were other people, they were distant. He teleported the two of them to the apartment. Gabriel broke from him immediately, reaching out with telekinesis to flip on the lights. He paced, hands clenching and unclenching in unreleased tension, then flopped on the couch and put his hand on his forehead, shaking his head slowly. "You're okay?" he said, head coming up as his eyes searched Peter's face.

The question had nothing to do with his physical state. Peter had superpowers. He would heal any injury, was incredibly strong and could convince people to do what he wanted with a thought. But being assaulted had still shaken him. If Gabriel hadn't been so wrapped up in his own response, he might have realized that Peter was as much of a loaded gun as he was. Sometimes, like now, Peter felt like he didn't even have a safety. "Kind of," he answered truthfully. He went to get a bottle of water from the fridge.

The frustrating thing was how unprovoked it had been. They'd been doing nothing but walking together, holding hands. Obviously had they not been showing their orientation, the six men would have passed them by, seeking out some other unfortunate to harass, or perhaps going home without bothering anyone.

He took a sip of the water, noticing his hand was trembling. He sank down on the other end of the couch. Gabriel's eyes darted to him quickly and then like second nature he scooted down the length of the furniture to wrap an arm over Peter's shoulders and pull him against himself.

Peter reached up and kissed him, which was returned passionately. When they broke, Gabriel rested his forehead against Peter's shoulder. Peter slipped his bottle of water to the floor and held the other man. Gabriel murmured, "Thank you for stopping me. I love you. I'm… I'm not sorry, but thank you for stopping me."

"It's okay," Peter soothed. "They're assholes."

"They're lucky to be alive. I still want to kill them." He leaned back against the couch, slipping out of Peter's arms. "I'm amazed … you didn't?"

"I didn't kill them?"

"Yeah."

Peter rolled his eyes briefly and looked away. "Not for lack of wanting to. Trying to hold you back was a good distraction." He swiped his hand through his hair with more force than necessary. "But if I had, I'd have murdered six people and for what? Getting pushed around and called some names?" He snorted in disdain, but yeah, he wanted to kill each and every one of them just for pushing them around and calling them both names.

"We don't have to put up with that," Gabriel said coldly, in a tone that eerily reminded Peter of his father's callousness and arrogance.

Quietly he said, "No one _should_ have to put up with that. But it's not an offense that warrants death." Not wanting to find himself defending the assholes, he changed the subject by asking, "What was that shockwave you threw out?"

"Telekinesis." Gabriel eyed him for a moment and realized he was again sniping at Peter because Peter was there. Wisely, he let the argument die.

"I thought you needed your hands for that."

"No. Only if I want to do anything focused or manipulative. I just wanted to get them away."

Peter nodded and leaned over to steal another quick kiss. "That was a good idea. I was afraid you'd start calling lightning."

Gabriel smiled slowly. "It did run through my mind, yeah." He tilted his head back and sighed. "I think you and I … are safe to be in the world."

"You mean, you think the world's safe from _us?_"

Gabe ran his hand from Peter's hip up his back to his shoulder in a long, slow stroke. "Yes, I think so. Now come here and let me kiss you some more."

Peter smiled and turned to cuddle into Gabriel's arms. They found comfort in one another and later, joy.


	382. Pre-Wedding Jitters

_August 4 (Thursday), 2011_

Peter and Gabriel had both taken the day off so that later, they could go out together and try on suits for Peter and Emma's wedding. Not that they'd be buying outfits, but since neither of them were clothing designers in their spare time, it helped to look at actual articles before trying to replicate them through shape-shifting. Emma and Heidi had made suggestions; Angela and Emma's mother had made their decision and issued it like an edict. All relationships were a delicate balance.

Peter rolled over in bed, finding the bunched blankets not to his liking for cuddling. Certainly not as much as the man behind him. He snaked arms around his husband, feeling Gabriel start a little as he woke. The guy still startled sometimes at things like that – it was a reaction Peter expected to continue for some years, maybe forever, but hopefully he would eventually heal out of it as the trauma lost its grip on Gabe's mind. Already, at least, he didn't wake as Sylar anymore. Peter felt his lover's emotions dip briefly into Sylar's clear-cut, fight-or-flight, simplistic mentality for a moment, then just as easily flow into the more nuanced and richly layered Gabriel who saw things in shades of grey rather than black and white.

Peter rested his head on Gabe's shoulder, dozing happily. They didn't need a whole day off to go try on a few suits. But he wasn't going to pass up the excuse to sleep in and Gabe certainly hadn't argued. Gabriel's fingers stroked slowly over his forearm, waking more rather than falling back asleep. After a little bit, Peter shifted his head to watch the gradual progress of the caress, smoothing down his arm hairs, petting him tenderly.

"Are things going to be different after you marry Emma?"

"No," Peter said softly. He was surprised and not by the question. It was basic and human and normal, but on the other hand, he hadn't realized Gabriel felt (or might have felt) threatened. He was wondering what sort of juggling he ought to do, or offer to do, and what kind of reassurances he could offer, when Gabriel went in a different direction than he expected.

"Do you love her?"

"Of course." Peter lifted his head and looked at Gabe – confused, not outraged.

Gabriel hooked the hand not stroking Peter's arm behind his own head, tilting it up to see better. "Would you and Emma be getting married if she weren't pregnant?"

Peter grunted, not at all happy about the turn of questioning. "She _is _pregnant; I _am_ marrying her. And I proposed well before I knew she had my baby. She didn't accept until after _she_ knew, but that doesn't matter. I love her; she loves me; we're getting married and that's final." He managed to say it without the heat he felt stirring inside, the disquiet he felt at having his choices challenged and insulted.

Gabriel laid his hand over Peter's forearm. "I know you love her. I know that's the truth. But ..." he swallowed, then asked, "is it right to marry when it's just circumstances that made you do it? What if she doesn't really ..."

Peter couldn't keep the outrage from leaking into his expression this time. "What? Should she have stuck it out on her own when she needed me the most? What about you, when you went to Heidi after that stupidity I did to you at the carnival and then locking you up in the Omaha facility? Was it wrong of her to let you date her? Are you seriously saying she should have held out until you _didn't_ need someone helping you? That maybe you weren't worthy to be helped because you needed it so bad? Or are you saying that the love between you two is less because there was a lot of shit going on?"

Gabriel's brows drew together slightly. It wasn't often that he ended up being the one who felt naïve and stupid, but he definitely saw the parallel Peter was drawing.

"When someone needs support, they are not diminished by taking the help that's offered! She doesn't _have_ to marry me. She almost _didn't_." Peter swallowed, eyes watering suddenly. "I'm thrilled she's going to let me help out. I'm happy she lets me be part of her life. I love the fact that she's going back to be a doctor and maybe it's me that's making that possible. Just … just like I'm so glad I'm helping _you_. You are not less because you let me help you, Gabriel – you are _**more**_."

"Okay, okay, easy," Gabriel soothed, realizing now that he'd really cut Peter to the quick by insinuating he wasn't marrying for the right reasons. He also hadn't known when Peter had proposed. He'd assumed it had been at the renewal of wedding vows, just after finding about about the pregnancy, but they'd never talked about it. Even if they had, it wasn't like Gabriel would have pressed Peter for a timeline or a date stamp.

Peter shook his head, still worked up and now going off on tangential accusations Gabriel hadn't even made, but had been preying on Peter's mind. "She doesn't _have _to be with me," he insisted. "I'd help her without that. It's not contingent and I've told her that. I just thought this was what she wanted, that she wanted to be with me. She said it was, what she'd wanted all along, before she was pregnant." He exhaled heavily. "We were dating for almost two years. She wanted commitment. I … I never felt … There was the thing with Nathan and then I joined the Company and I was really depressed and then there was you and ..." Peter sat up, shrugging his arms to either side uselessly. "I didn't think I was any good. I was a fuck up. I wanted to be with her, but I couldn't … couldn't commit, couldn't do that to her. Not until you … and the watch … and my dad threw it all in my face ..."

Gabriel sat up as well, saying quietly, "The commitment to me … I know circumstances played a big part in that, too. I didn't mean to say there was anything wrong with that."

"There's always going to be circumstances," Peter pointed out. "_Always_." He took several deep breaths. It seemed silly to be nervous about an event – the wedding – which had been coming for months now and wouldn't represent any change in level of devotion or even living arrangements, but he was jittery anyway. Circling back to the insecurity which was the root of Gabriel's question, Peter asked, "You know I'm not leaving you, right? After the honeymoon, we'll go back to the same schedule and all ..."

"I know." Gabriel reached over to stroke Peter's forearm with the back of his fingers. "And I think you and Emma should really think about Heidi's offer that you move in, after the honeymoon rather than after the birth. We have a guest room, Mandy could teach you how to cook, we could renovate my study into a private living room for the two of you and later into a nursery-"

"We've already got a nursery set up in our apartment," Peter said.

"And I'm sure you have a bedroom and living room there, too," Gabriel said. "Peter … I'm offering you help, because of the circumstances."

Peter snorted and laughed at getting his own words thrown back at him. "And … are you afraid that I'll go off with Emma and you'll never see me again, is that it?"

Gabriel blinked, his eyes darted around, and he shifted uneasily.

_Uh-huh_, Peter thought. He scooted close and hugged the other man tightly. _I'm not the only one whose jittery._

"Just think about it," Gabriel murmured. "You'd have a maid, Heidi, and me to help out. Plus," his murmur got quieter and almost unintelligible, "yeah. I don't want to lose you."

"Not gonna," Peter told him firmly. "All four of us, sticking together. Maybe even in the same house."


	383. The Compromise

_September 6, 2011_

They'd had to talk about it first. The problem was that much as Gabriel wanted violent, painful, degrading sex, Peter was completely turned off by it and couldn't perform. It seemed like a non-starter, like this was just one of those compromises people made in the course of love. But then Peter had an idea.

A single, quick smear of lube was enough to make sure the oversized strap-on dildo didn't catch against his skin and abrade. A moment later, Peter was plunging inside of him in a hard, searing thrust that lit Gabriel's entire body on fire. There was no rest either, no opportunity to adjust and after only a couple seconds of the torment, he was trying to get away. Peter would have none of it, though, grabbing his hair with one hand and his hip with the other, supernatural strength letting Peter pin their bodies together.

Gabriel cried out something inarticulate, pained and passionate and fast heading towards submission. His scalp ached from where Peter wrenched his neck back, Peter's grip on his hip was unyielding, and his ass spasmed around the fat intrusion that plowed him over and over in sharp, snapping motions. In and out it went, shifting and opening him, pushing inside and violating him despite his body's resistance. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Gabriel's legs stiffened out to the sides. His fingers curled into the bedspread. His breath caught over and over as he gasped and struggled just to breathe under the onslaught of sensation. His powerlessness overwhelmed him. He had to let it happen. He had to stop fighting. He didn't get a choice. That huge dick was going to fuck him no matter what; it _was_ fucking him. And he _wanted_ it.

His voice turned to whimpers and broken keening as Peter leaned forward, shifting position a little and shoving Gabriel down. Eagerly, he lowered his head and chest to the bed, reaching forward to grip the metal bars of the headboard. He submitted – no more trying to escape. "Oh God," he barely managed to get out as Peter found the right spot with that huge sausage of a dildo. It felt like it was ripping him open, ruining and despoiling him, which was exactly how he wanted to feel. Gabriel wanted to feel brutalized, hurt, turned on and overpowered – he was getting it.

Both hands now free, Peter took hold of his hips and made quick, darting probes, hitting that spot over and over again now that he'd found it. Gabriel peaked almost immediately, but the orgasm was continuous. All of that stimulation took him straight over the edge, but it just kept coming. Peter didn't stop and let him savor it. He just kept it up, prodding and hammering. His balls emptied and dick dripping, Gabriel's orgasmic cries suddenly pitched louder. He was still getting fucked, hard, fast, and merciless. The arousal was painful, dancing along his nerves like the burning of acid. He felt like he was on fire. Every tortured breath he could draw came back out as a yell, Peter's name mixed with expletives and invocations of divinity. No doubt the neighbors and probably everyone on the floor heard – he didn't care.

"Oh, fuck, yeah!" Peter said enthusiastically, fingers digging into Gabriel's flesh and jerking him back against him. Trapped, taken, fucked out, and used – he was transported. Gabriel felt like he was literally flying. The room didn't exist, nothing existed, even the pounding of his ass was distant, though pleasurable sensation. Much more present was how his whole body was alive, glowing with an ecstasy so strong he felt almost nothing else.

He came to rather dimly, aware that Peter was trembling and cursing, draped over him – maybe inside him, maybe not, he couldn't tell anymore. There was alarm and fear in Peter's voice, but Gabriel couldn't find it in himself to care. Nothing mattered. He just wanted to exist, to float, no boundaries between him and the whole world, at one with everything and feeling so, so good. He was pushed onto his side and a blanket was drawn up over them – now they were cuddling under it, lying facing one another. Peter was crying. A pang of worry went through Gabriel, but he couldn't hang onto it. He dozed instead, skimming consciousness as they lay together.

Most of an hour later, Gabriel blinked away glazed-over eyes, focusing on the face in front of him. _Peter._ "Thank you," he breathed to him. That was the most intense, erotic experience he'd ever had. He'd thought he'd get what amounted to therapy out of doing this, taking him back to the past and letting him cope. He hadn't thought it would metaphorically blow his brains out like this. "Peter?" The man hadn't responded.

Sluggishly, Peter looked up at him. Dried tear tracks stained his face, but the first thing he did was to check on Gabe. "Are you okay?" Peter's fingers touched him tentatively.

"Yeah, I'm-" He took stock. He'd turned off regeneration before the sex, concerned it would interfere with the high. His ass felt like tenderized meat. Now that he focused on it, it throbbed and ached constantly. He suspected the pain had been what had pulled him out of the fugue. He turned his powers back on, feeling the pleasing tingle of knitting flesh. His head cleared, which was mostly good. While he lost some of the pleasant distracting buzz of the high, there was still enough of it there for him to bask in. "Good as new. All good."

"Kay," Peter said quietly.

Gabriel gathered him close. "Too much for you?"

"For right now, yeah," Peter said, burying his face against Gabriel's chest, his warm breath tickling against the curly hairs. "Usually, it's the bottom that drops. I've heard of top-drop, but not like this, not immediate … That was fucking intense. The feedback … I could feel your emotions."

"Mmm," Gabriel hummed, stroking his back. "Good, bad, too much?"

Peter was silent for several moments, finally saying very honestly, "I don't know. But I want to do it again sometime."

Snuffling at Peter's hair, Gabriel felt his heart swell. The compromise wasn't that he had to go without. "We will."


	384. Parenting Strategies

_Late September, 2011_

The first two efforts had seen the work left incomplete. Now Gabriel was taking matters into his own hands. He sat tensely across the dining room table from his eldest son, Simon, watching as the boy struggled through his math homework. Both of the previous times, Simon had managed to slip off furtively and escape having to report to his mother that he had left his assignment unfinished. The first time he'd intercepted the graded paper when it came back from the teacher. The second time, he wasn't so diligent.

Gabriel's index finger rubbed slowly along his bottom lip as he observed each and every problem get worked. It was painful to watch, even though Simon wasn't stupid. He was smarter than Peter, by Gabriel's estimation, but he'd hardly married the man for his brains. Simon glanced up at him and then ducked his head, thoroughly intimidated by his father's authoritarian presence and resentful of it.

_Of course, if you'd done your work in the first place, I wouldn't have to be doing this,_ Gabriel thought, dropping his hand and intensifying his glare. _If I'd lied about doing my homework back when I was in school, my mother would have beaten me black and blue. Well … she did. Anyway. But whatever_. Nathan had gotten off considerably lighter, but then again the looming specter of disappointing his father had been a tremendous motivator. One deep, disapproving sigh from Arthur, a frown and a refusal to look on his son had been all that was necessary to have Nathan falling all over himself to improve. Arthur seemed like a safer role model than Virginia for how to handle this.

Unfortunately, Simon was not the conformist that Nathan had been. He was more of an innate rebel like Peter. Gabriel scowled at how likely this plan was to backfire. Taking a hard line with Peter was … well, it just didn't work. Peter didn't have any kids of his own yet, so Gabe doubted he'd have anything useful to advise. Heidi thought that increased monitoring, clear communication of expectations and consistent rewards and punishment would do the trick – and so here he was. He sighed, uncomfortable with the nagging feeling that he was missing something obvious here. Maybe this, too, was one of those things he should bring to the group and ask for advice on. It wasn't like he had to call a special meeting now that they all lived together under the same roof.


	385. Claire vs the Zombie Queen

_October, 2011_

Claire got out of the car and frowned at the roadblock in front of them. Strung between two posts was a chain across the road, with two frayed tires on the chain for some inexplicable reason. Claire's partner, Anita, got out a moment later and walked up to the obstruction. She checked the padlock, just in case someone had set it to appear closed when it wasn't. "Locked," she said.

She got to work on it, while Claire headed back to the trunk for her equipment. She didn't hurry, but she'd watched plenty of movies and worked with Anita long enough to know her lock-picking skills weren't always as shown on TV. Claire removed a large set of bolt cutters and walked up next to her work partner. Anita, who was still fiddling fruitlessly with the padlock, paused to frown mightily at the tool. Claire matter-of-factly clipped the chain in two.

"As my father always said to me," Claire espoused, "'Man: the tool user.'"

"I _was_ using tools!" Anita held up her picks in exasperation.

Claire smiled. "Sometimes you have to use bigger ones." She waggled her eyebrows and hefted the bolt cutters, then walked back to the car.

Anita sighed and stomped to the vehicle. "Now they'll know we're here."

Claire closed the trunk, putting away the bolt cutter. "They're supposed to know we're here. It's not exactly a stealth mission, you know?"

Anita slid into the driver's seat, saying, "Your_ father_ is well known in the Company for not having any_ finesse_. And neither do you."

"There are worse people I could be like," Claire grumbled as they got underway. Claire still hadn't gotten the hang of proper teamwork, despite several missions, a lot of coaching and a couple seminars on the subject. She and Anita continued to snipe at each other as they rolled down the winding track, deeper into the woods.

They were in western Wisconsin in October, investigating a rumor of a family of people with abilities. Regeneration was the rumor. A woman and her daughter had been involved in an auto accident. Paramedics on the scene had confirmed the woman's death, though the daughter, a teenager, had suffered only bruises and being severely shook up. Before the paramedics could take them away, the mother had regained her senses, attacked the EMTs, and fled with her daughter.

An investigation was held and their vehicle led straight to their address, where an unidentified young man had assaulted the pair of policemen who had come by to see if the mother was there. He was shot several times, but recovered each time. One cop was battered to the ground and the other retreated to their car, only to see the whole family - mother, daughter, father and young man - run to the car in their driveway and escape.

The initial pursuit was bungled and the family managed to make good on their getaway, but the Company, with Molly Walker's ability, had located them in a remote cabin. Claire and Anita had the mission of finding them, identifying their abilities and if possible, bringing them in so the Company could handle them until the heat from the authorities died down.

They came up on the cabin suddenly, as the almost claustrophobic greenery gave way to a tiny clearing next to a stream. In the clearing was a small, rustic farm house that had seen better days. They killed the engine of their car, leaving it in the driveway, blocking the exit. When they got out, they found why their approach hadn't been noticed - the noise of a badly maintained generator had covered them.

Claire walked up on the porch while Anita circled to one side of the house, looking around. There was motion inside, then noise as people scattered, but there were no voices. The front door flew open and a large man, the father, crashed into Claire. Unarmed and taken by surprise, she was initially overwhelmed by the man's mass and strength. Her forearm made a gruesome snapping noise as she felt the bone dislocate. She wrenched it from the man's grasp anyway and kicked him hard.

He grabbed for her again, eyes vapid and expression blank and that was when she began to suspect something was wrong. She scrambled backwards as he made a feral groan and grabbed at her repeatedly. He got hold of her shirt and ripped it, then her left arm as she gave up on trying to backpedal and pulled her gun with her free hand.

She'd never shot anyone.

And she didn't now.

While she froze up with indecision over ending someone's life, he grabbed her throat and began to try to tear her left arm from her body by simple expedient of pulling in different directions. His expression was still fixed. He wasn't even breathing hard. In all the motion though, his mouth had fallen open and it remained that way. There was something decidedly inhuman going on here and not in a way that spoke of abilities. This was no regenerator like herself. She didn't know what he was, but he didn't even seem coherent. The pain in her shoulder was unbearable as it seemed he was strong enough to accomplish his aim - too strong.

She fired the gun, downward, hoping to hit a leg. He didn't even react to the noise and apparently she missed, but she couldn't see because of the death grip on her neck. She fired again and again until suddenly he buckled and fell, not losing his grip on her, but losing the tension for a moment until he started trying to tear her apart once more. Her body desperately tried to heal as Claire realized he wasn't done. She brought the gun up to his arm, put the barrel directly against it and pulled the trigger.

Cold flesh splattered across her face and the grip on her neck ended. She twisted away, wrenching her forearm even more in the process, and rolled as far away as possible before leaping to her feet. The man, or the creature that looked like a man, struggled to stand, seeming perplexed as to why he couldn't with a shattered femur.

Claire stared at him. He wasn't healing. She wiped the tissue from her face. It wasn't fresh. It was ripe, slimy and almost… rotten. She looked back at the still-blank expression on the man's face. "Oh my God."

Gunshots from the rear of the house yanked her out of the moment, reminding her that her partner was out there somewhere and unlike Claire, Anita couldn't heal. She had no abilities at all, except being a bitch and a hardass. Claire sprinted for her, leaving the confused zombie behind.

She found Anita on the ground, being strangled by the young man as the teenaged girl watched in fascination and the mother stood by blankly, staring off into space. For a second, Claire took in the scene, from the asphixiation-blue skin of her partner to the smirk on the teenager's face. Claire put her gun to the young man's head and pulled the trigger immediately. Brains blown out, he convulsed and collapsed on top of his victim, but Claire was relieved to hear Anita suck in air.

The girl yelped in fear, staring at the man. Claire pointed the gun at her. The mother began to move towards her, but Claire yelled, "Make her stop or I'll shoot **you**!" After one more step and Claire's finger twitching on the trigger, but not enough, the older woman stopped.

Anita shoved the man's body off herself and rolled over, taking in great gulps of air.

"You can't _regenerate_," Claire said to the teen. "You can animate the dead; create zombies. You turned your family into undead!"

The girl trembled, eyes darting around as she tried to figure out what she could do with only one functional servant left and a gun pointed right at her.

"How did they die?" Claire demanded.

"My… my… my boyfriend… My dad had a heart attack. My mom freaked out. I didn't… and then… and so I didn't… but if they'd just done what I told them to do… I didn't… He deserved it!"

Claire resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She relaxed her grip on the gun and lowered it a little as Anita got to her feet and said, "What the hell? I shot him six times!"

"They're zombies, I think. They've already been dead for days. She controls them. She's like a puppet master of the dead." Claire grimaced and looked at Anita as the other woman bent to retrieve her own sidearm. She looked okay, other than the terrible marks on her throat.

But Claire had taken her eyes off the enemy and the next thing she knew, the mother slammed into her, taking her down. Anita had emptied her gun on her attacker earlier and now while Claire struggled not to be torn apart, her partner raced to reload. Claire expected Anita to blow out the older woman's brains and for a second, after the gun went off, that's what she thought had happened, because the body on top of her began to shake and fell to the side twitching, eyes rolled back in her head.

Anita had shot the girl and now shot her several more times, center of mass, just in case. Claire yelled, "NO!" and ran forward, but it was too late.

Anita rubbed her throat, standing over the teenager, and said, "Fucker."

Claire panted. "You didn't have to kill her!"

"Claire, that thing was going to tear you apart! I already tried shooting the other one. Didn't stop it."

"It did when I blew its brains out!"

Anita frowned and stared at Claire for a moment, having not caught that part. But it made sense. She'd been nearly blacked out at the time. At a noise, both of them spun to see the older woman had lurched to her feet and now scrambled off towards the woods like some manner of two-legged savage animal.

"Oh shit," Claire said.

Anita shot at it a couple times, but the few bullets she had left didn't even slow the thing down. It disappeared into a wall of plants, lost in the woods.

Panicking, Claire said, "We need to get out of here!"

Anita glanced back down at their target, then at the woods. "Yep. I agree." She was shaken too. As they left, she stopped to shoot the man in the head, as the zombie had stopped struggling to stand and was instead trying to drag itself away. The head injury seemed to end it.

As they drove out, Anita said, "You were right. It wasn't exactly a stealth mission."

Laughter born of hysteria bubbled from Claire's lips.


	386. Warlock By Any Other Name

_October, 2011_

Gabriel got out the knives while his sons argued over which pumpkin belonged to which boy. He ran his thumb along the blades, pausing as he nicked himself on one. _Are they less likely to cut themselves with a dull knife, because it's dull, or a sharp knife, because they don't have to apply as much pressure to use it?_ He didn't know, so he gave the sharp one to Simon and the dull to Monty.

"Now _**be careful**_ with these. Do you understand? Do you want me to show you how to use them?"

Simon said, "No, I know how to use a knife!" He picked it up eagerly and at least held it correctly. Monty picked his up too, watching his brother and copying him.

"Before you start carving on those, have you decided what sort of pattern you want to use?"

"I wanna do the Green Goblin or Frankenstein or the Hulk and then use a green light bulb in it to make it green!" Monty exclaimed.

"We don't have a green light bulb. Are you sure you want to do that?"

"We can get one," Monty said.

"Yeah, we could," Gabriel said, moving to sit at the bar. He pulled over the newspaper, but kept watching the kids.

Simon said, "Let's draw out our patterns first, okay?" Monty agreed and they fetched paper and pencils. When they got back, Gabriel was engrossed in an article in the world news section, brows furrowed and lips pursed. He glanced up at them as Simon pulled the kitchen stool over to the island and the boys began arguing again – this time about who got to use the stool.

"You're taller!" Monty said.

"Yeah, so I'm bigger than you and that means I get to use it. Besides, I brought it over here. Go find your own!"

"I'll just keep pushing you off and then you won't get to use it at all!"

"Monty," Gabriel said, "Come get a bar chair. Stop fighting with your brother." Gabriel went back to his article. In the last year and a half, he'd heard enough spats like this not to take much notice of them.

"But the chairs are heavy!" Monty whined.

"Simon, help your brother move the chair."

"He didn't help me get the stool!" Simon said, outraged.

"Do what you're told." He kept reading.

There was a moment of silence. Monty walked over and started pulling on one of the bar chairs, probably deliberately acting weaker and more pathetic than he needed to. Gabriel looked up at Simon, who exhaled suddenly, not quite willing to push it _this time_, and went to do as he'd been told.

Gabriel went back to reading about the latest policy in regards to Israel. Simon was maturing early and acted more like a teenager than the barely eleven year old that he was. He was big for his age, too. As Gabriel recalled, Nathan had matured early as well, but instead of rebelling against his father, he'd worshipped him. Gabriel was having quite a few more problems with the boy than Arthur had had with Nathan. Peter was far better with Simon than Gabriel was, which was annoying and a relief at the same time. But Peter was out with Emma tonight and Heidi was watching TV, so it fell to him to supervise the great pumpkin carving.

Together the two boys moved one of the bar chairs to the kitchen island, whereupon they began to bicker again. Simon climbed up in the bar chair and Monty whined, "Hey, this was mine. You were using the stool."

"This wasn't _yours_. We just had to get it. You couldn't have gotten it without me."

"But I want to draw my pumpkin face!"

"Use the stool. I like the chair better and I'm bigger so I get to pick."

Gabriel reached up and massaged his brow. As expected, the next line was from Monty, appealing for help: "Dad! He's taller than I am and the chair puts me up higher and Simon's taking the chair and I can't draw so good from here!"

"Simon, you got the chair for _him_. Let him use it."

True son of a long line of lawyers, Simon answered, "We didn't get the chair for _him_. We just got it. Either one of us can use it."

Gabriel lifted his head only a little, glaring at the boy from under heavy brows. It was the steady, intimidating gaze of someone who had killed an awful lot of people. Somehow that resolve communicated itself no matter what form he took. After a moment, Simon scrambled off the chair.

Simon didn't understand it, but since his father had moved back in with them a year and a half ago, he'd been occasionally very, very scary. It was a lot unsettling. His dad hadn't been like that before and in a perverse way, the difference provoked the hell out of Simon. Even as it scared him, it made him needle his father, digging for those discrepancies even if he didn't know what they meant. He was a very smart kid – far more so than most people gave him credit. He was more like his grandfather Arthur than any of the other members of the Petrelli clan.

One of these days when his dad looked at him like that or did something to scare him, Simon resolved, he wouldn't back down. One of these days… but not today. Today he was carving pumpkins with his brother and he forgot about Gabriel's glare in short order, pulling over a piece of paper and starting to draw. Gabriel shook his head slowly and went back to his article.

Simon said, "I'm going to put Mr. Buchfink's face on my pumpkin." Mr. Buchfink was one of his instructors at the military-prep boys school he'd been sent off to, precisely because of the disciplinary problems they'd been having with him at home. He was home now on fall break.

"Why?" Monty asked. "I thought you hated him."

"Yeah, I do. It's so when Halloween is over, I can smash it!" He made mock gestures of destroying the pumpkins. Gabriel frowned and tried to tune out their conversation. He was largely successful, picking up only that the intervening discussion had something to do with Batman and Shrek and various other cartoon figures. He jerked his head up suddenly though when Simon said, "Because Uncle Peter's gay and Shrek is totally lame! Everyone knows that."

"What?" Gabriel said.

Simon said, "Shrek's lame, not _gay_. Only little babies still think Shrek's cool. He's for little kids, like Monty." Monty looked upset about this, but that wasn't what had caught Gabriel's attention.

"What did you say before that?"

Simon thought about that for a moment. "Um… Uncle Peter is gay and you don't like it. He shouldn't be, I guess. Some of the upperclassmen were telling me about this class we'll have later where they tell us all about sex, but they said they lied in it."

He wondered what they were lying about, but the more pressing question was, "Why do you think Uncle Peter is gay?" It wasn't like Peter went around with a sign on his forehead that said 'GAY' or 'NOT GAY', but Gabriel had only discussed the basic mechanics of sexuality with his sons. He hadn't seen a reason to get into the orientation of their relatives. Of course, it was possible that Peter had told him, as he'd spent a lot of time with the boys recently, but it didn't seem like a normal conversational topic.

Monty answered, "Because we saw him was kissing you the other morning and you pushed him away and told him to cut it out. I-"

Simon elbowed him. "Shut up!"

"What?" Monty looked confused.

"Oh," Gabriel said, rubbing the side of his mouth. Yes, Peter and he had shared a probably too-passionate kiss just a few days ago. He'd thought the kids weren't up yet, but now that Peter lived here, the opportunities for affection were outstripping his vigilance in keeping things discreet. His fingers passed over his lips in remembrance, then he jerked them away, realizing he was unconsciously tracing where they'd touched. He had been speaking playfully, telling Peter he had to cut it out if he wanted to make it to work on time, but he could see how that could be misconstrued. "I… uh… How did you see that? You guys usually take forever to get out of bed in the mornings."

Simon snorted at Monty. "See? I told you to shut up."

Monty realized his mistake now and mumbled something about being at the top of the stairs and just going to get a drink of water. The latter part of it rang with deceit, but it didn't really matter.

Gabriel said, "Peter got married to Emma just a couple months ago."

Simon gave an exaggerated shrug. "That doesn't matter." Simon's mind worked similarly to how Nathan's did – he formed an opinion, then arranged facts to support it. Someday it would serve him well in law and politics, but for now it was annoying. "It's against the law for gay people to get married, so if you're gay and you want to get married, then you have to marry a girl. Unless you _are_ a girl."

"Ew!" Monty exclaimed. "No one here is a _girl!_"

"I know that, doofus," Simon said.

"Hrm. Yeah." Gabriel shuffled his newspaper uneasily. "You know, people aren't just gay or straight, one or the other."

"Uh-huh." Simon turned back to his drawing, uninterested. He'd been embarrassed enough to be sat down to listen to the birds and bees discussion last year. He was pretty sure this was a direct result of him saying that Rebecca Bell was 'really hot.' Not wanting a repeat of the uncomfortable discussion, he bent to his paper and said, "Mr. Buchfink has really big ears."

Gabriel watched his sons for a long moment, trying to decide if he needed to explain anything. They were awfully young, probably too young to understand. And neither of them really seemed to care. His right hand went to the left, touching his wedding band and then his watch – signs of his devotion to Heidi and Peter, respectively. He had only recently become comfortable with their complicated relationship himself and most of society couldn't wrap their minds around what he was doing. It was so much easier to say Peter and Emma had moved in with them to share child-raising duties and deal with the stress of Emma's residency than to admit they loved each other. Task management passed public scrutiny; love did not.

Angela had asked him, only a few months back, if he was willing to explain about his relationship with Peter to his sons. It had been a challenge, thrown down in anger. He'd told her he would, or at least that he would as much as he'd explain any other affair. Of course, what he had with Peter wasn't an affair. Monty at least had seen them kissing and now both of them had jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Swallowing, he spoke up, "When I told Peter to cut it out, I wasn't telling him I didn't want him kissing me. I just told him that so he wouldn't be late for work."

"Okay," Monty said, obviously not seeing anything unusual with the idea of his father kissing Peter in the not-platonic manner that he had.

Simon was silent, gears turning in his head. He didn't say anything, instead moving on to pick up his knife. Gabriel got up and moved to intercept him. "Simon, let's take your drawing and trace it out on the pumpkin first. Then we'll cut it out."

XXX

An hour later, they were finishing up. Gabriel was washing the seeds in a colander in the sink, expecting to bake them later. The kids were talking as they cleaned up the island. Simon was putting their pumpkin patterns into the trash.

Monty said, "Hey! Don't throw that picture away. You ought to use it to put a curse on Mr. Buchfink."

"I can't do that."

"Yeah you can. Just take that drawing of him and burn it while saying something really bad that you want to have happen to him!"

"That won't work."

"Yeah it will. It's magic! Magic can do anything."

"There's no such thing as magic."

"Yeah there is!" Monty argued. "How do you explain people flying?"

Gabriel started slightly, but kept himself from turning around. He continued picking out bits of pulp, separating it from the pumpkin seeds.

"People can't fly," Simon said. "At least, not unless they're in an airplane or they have a jetpack or something."

"They can too!" Monty insisted.

"Dad, tell Monty people can't fly."

"Oh, I don't know. I've been known to fly a few times." He was grinning, but still facing away. He shook his head. _Kids say the darnedest things._

Simon didn't say anything. Monty said, "See!"

"You can't fly," Simon said uncertainly.

"Yeah, actually, I can." Gabriel didn't know why he was telling them now – maybe because it was easier to confess to his powers than to his relationship. He'd been talking about telling the boys about abilities for the better part of two years, but somehow he'd never gotten around to it - which was kind of dumb, since he'd heard of dozens of people who had manifested their abilities even younger than Simon and Monty were.

"Oh!" Simon called out loudly. "I get it. I said of course people can fly if they're in an airplane or a jet or something. So, yeah… and… like if you had a parachute or you were jumping off something… that's more like falling though."

Gabriel washed his hands and turned around, drying them on a towel. "No, I can _fly_. And this is a family secret that I'm going to have to make sure you don't… and can't… tell anyone else other than myself, your mother, Peter, Emma, or your grandmother. Or Maury Parkman, I suppose, since he's…" He sighed. Maury had become an unfortunate fixture in the family, annoying as Gabriel found that.

Monty provided, "He's gramma's friend."

"Yeah. So-"

Simon had been waiting patiently and now interrupted, "So what's the flying trick?"

Gabriel held out the towel and let it go. It hung in the air. He moved it over closer to the boys, who stared at it.

"What?" Monty said. "How did that-"

Simon grabbed it out of the air and examined it. He looked his father over with narrowed, suspicious eyes. The towel yanked out of his hands and hung in the air again. Monty jumped for it, laughing. He held the towel, obviously waiting for it to take off from his hands. Gabriel obliged him.

Simon watched, perplexed. "How are you doing that?"

"The power of my mind. It's an ability I have." He thought briefly of Brian Davies. "Someday, you might realize you have a similar one. Or you might not. It's hard to tell. It's inherited, but very few people have the ability anyway."

"You're a witch!" Monty said, waving the towel over his head and whooping. "My Dad's a witch! Woo-hoo! We're witches!"

"Men can't be witches!" Simon snapped, feeling angry because he thought his father was pulling a trick on him and he couldn't see why. Or how.

"Yeah they can," Monty said. "They're man-witches."

"Manwich is a… a thing you eat. Like sloppy joes."

Monty stopped. "Oh, yeah."

Gabriel offered, "The word you're looking for is 'warlock.' That's a male witch. Or 'wizard', which is more gender neutral. But I'm not a witch, a warlock, or a wizard. This isn't magic, but I'll agree it's not science. Some people have special abilities. Most don't. I happen to be one of the special ones." He moved his hand and floated the pumpkins from the island over to the counter of the bar.

Simon was still angry. He stared at the floating jack-o-lanterns with bared teeth. "How are you doing that?!" he almost yelled, frustrated that he still hadn't been let in on the secret.

Gabriel put the pumpkins down. "Simon, calm down."

"No! Not until you tell me how you're doing that! It's a trick! It's fake!"

"It's _magic!_" Monty said, still exuberant about it.

Simon wheeled on him, fists clenched. "There's _**no such thing**_ as magic! _**No such thing!**_ It's a trick! He's just tricking us!"

Gabriel considered his son's fury. An overt display would be harder to deny. If he could just get through the denial, he figured Simon would calm down. He squatted down. "Now watch." He shape-shifted into Peter. Simon stared at him, eyes wide. He said nothing, but he hadn't stopped thinking. He came to a conclusion immediately as a whole lot of things clicked into place at once. Gabriel shrugged a little at the lack of visible reaction and shifted into Heidi, then Angela, then Noah Bennet.

"Wow," Monty breathed in wonder.

Simon swung his fist at Gabriel's face as hard as he could, yelling, "**YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!**"

Gabriel jerked his head back instinctively, dodging the blow, but the boy threw himself on him in a thrashing of angry limbs. The man grappled with the boy to stop his attack. Simon seemed berserk. Monty stood there gaping.

"Simon! Simon! Stop it!" The boy kept struggling and writhing, kicking and lashing out. Finally Gabriel commanded, "Stop fighting me."

Simon did, but as soon as he got a breath he started yelling, "LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

Gabriel did, and Simon raced away, feet hammering up the stairs, followed by the distant slam of his bedroom door. Gabriel sat on the floor, not moving while Simon made his progress to sanctuary. He looked at Monty, who seemed calm, but bewildered.

Monty asked, "Are you Noah, or Dad?"

Gabriel touched his face and shifted back into Nathan's image. "I'm your dad," he said softly, wondering where things had gone wrong with Simon. It occurred to him, _now_, that denial had always been a strong suit for the Petrelli family.

"Okay," Monty said, accepting it as easily as he had accepted everything else. He looked in the direction of Simon's room with a worried expression.

Gabriel got to his feet. "Monty, you can't talk about these powers with anyone other than myself, your mother, your grandmother, Uncle Peter, Emma, Noah Bennet, or Claire. Or Maury Parkman," he added. "You can't tell anyone about abilities, that I can fly, or use magic, or change shape, or anything like that. It's not allowed. Do you understand?"

Monty nodded and asked, "Can I talk to Simon about it?"

"Yes, you can. You can talk to Simon too about it. You won't talk about it where other people might overhear you. This command applies to talking, showing, writing things down, texting, filming, typing or anything else that lets someone else know what you mean." He waited a few beats, listening to Monty's thoughts and making sure the command didn't cause too much conflict. Gabriel had given his sons only one other lasting command, which made them see him as their father whether he wore Gabriel's face or Nathan's. He wondered now if that had something to do with Simon's outburst.

He ran a hand through his hair. He had no idea. He was trying to think of what to do, when Monty asked, "Are you a werewolf?"

"No," he answered absently. Distantly, he could hear Heidi's voice upstairs, probably outside of Simon's door investigating what had caused all the yelling.

"A vampire?"

"No."

"A superhero?"

"N-…" He looked at Monty and smiled. "Sometimes I try, but no, not really."

"Are you one of the bad guys?"

"No." _Not anymore. Not if I can help it._

"Can you really fly?"

"Yes. Monty, go on. I need to go up and talk to Simon." He patted Monty on the head and went upstairs slowly, trying to think of what he was going to say. Heidi was waiting for him outside. He gave her a brief kiss and said quietly, "I tried to show them abilities."

She nodded. "It's a hard thing to believe, when the rest of the world doesn't support it."

Gabriel knocked solidly. "Simon?"

His son's voice called out immediately, "Go away!"

Gabriel considered that. He used telekinesis to feel his way through the doorknob. It was locked. He unlocked it. He considered that he didn't have much of a right to barge into Simon's room. It was a boundary he probably shouldn't cross. He opened the door anyway.

Simon's eyes widened at the intrusion and he scrambled across the bed. "Stay away from me!"

Gabriel stood in the doorway, trying to think of what he could do to fix this. Heidi's hand fell over his arm as he started to move into the room. "Let me handle this," she said. He nodded, repeated the commands he'd gave to Monty, and went back downstairs.

XXXXX

Later they sat down around the dinner table. Simon shot uncertain looks at his 'father' and didn't eat much. Monty seemed confused by the tension and kept trying to talk about how wonderful it would be to be able to fly or make things float. Heidi and Gabriel were quiet. After they ate, Simon came over half defiant, half afraid, and asked, "How do you do all of those things? You can't do things that don't make sense."

Gabriel said, "It's not something I can just explain. It's like trying to describe the color orange to a blind person. I can tell you about it, but if you don't have the ability I'm talking about, then you won't understand what I'm trying to say."

Simon huffed. "So you're not going to tell me?"

"Do you still think it's fake?"

"It's gotta be fake." There was such unwavering certainty in his voice. No matter how many times Heidi had told him it was true, he hadn't believed it.

Gabriel smiled and shrugged. "Okay. That's good."

Simon's eyes narrowed. "Why is that good?"

"Because if it's fake, then there's no way I'm not really your dad, is there?"


	387. Tricks and Treats

_Halloween, October 31, 2011_

The garage door opened just as they were arranging Noah for a picture. Gabriel called out, "Simon! Go see if Peter and Emma need help with the groceries."

"Please," said Heidi, trying to get Noah to stay against the backdrop and not crawl off.

"Sure," Gabriel said, reaching out with telekinesis to prop the child up.

She gave him an exasperated look and said, "No, I meant you should say 'please' to Simon."

"Oh." He looked back at the boy, who was already nearly to the door. "Thanks, Simon."

Peter and Emma exchanged greetings with Simon as they three returned from the garage, Peter and Simon carrying the bags. Emma was asking him about his expectations for the night. He'd taken out a bet with one of his friends over which one of them would end up with the most candy, and enthusiastically told her about it. Heidi scooped up Noah and said of the picture shoot, "Let's just wait and try again in few minutes, okay?"

Gabriel nodded and fiddled with the camera a little more. He called over his shoulder to greet the new arrivals. "Hey Peter, Emma."

Emma walked over to Heidi, looking at the impromptu photo studio and Noah in his pumpkin outfit. "Picture's not going well?"

"Not really. He's being a little squirmy tonight." Heidi handed him over and walked to Peter, who had emerged from the dropping things off in the kitchen. She gave him a short hug and a quick peck on the cheek before looking him over. "I thought you were going to a costume party later?"

"Yeah, we are." He hefted a small bag. "We'll change later."

"What are you going as?" Gabriel asked, finished with the camera for now.

Now it was Peter's turn to blush. "Um… I'll… uh… yeah."

"Oh come on! You wouldn't tell me the other day either!"

Peter just shook his head, looking embarrassed.

Gabriel huffed and left it alone. He turned and called out, "Monty! Monty? Come on, we're almost ready." He turned back to Peter. "Have you called Mohinder?"

"No, I'll do that now." He pulled out his phone and walked to the side, setting down their bag for later. While he did that, Heidi and Emma got Noah to finally hold still in front of the backdrop long enough for Gabriel to get some decent pictures. They'd already taken photos of the older boys, so when Monty came bounding in a few moments later, they were ready to go.

Peter hung up the phone and asked the younger boy, "So what are you dressed up as?"

Monty looked like he was wearing a grey bathrobe or a funny-looking dress, tied at the waist with a rope. He had a plastic sword on one hip and his candy bag tied to the other. "I'm a wizard! I can fly and make things float around and call lightning and look like different people!" He held up one hand and made only slightly exaggerated gestures that looked very much like Gabriel's motions when he used telekinesis to manipulate things.

Peter straightened and shot Gabriel a look. Gabriel said simply, "They know."

"Oh," Peter said. He suspected that explained what Gabriel had wanted to talk to him about the other day. He looked back to Monty. "Eight years old is really young for a wizard. You might not want to be letting people know you can do that sort of magic."

"I took care of it," Gabriel said. "I'll talk to you about it later." Peter nodded to him.

Heidi brought over Monty's fake grey beard and hooked it around his head, adjusting it on his chin. He told her, "That itches!"

She said, "You don't have to wear it if you don't want to. We talked about it earlier."

"No, I can't be a wizard without a beard. No one would believe in me."

Gabriel said, "Believe in yourself. One of these days, Monty, you'll have an itchy beard whether you want it or not. I think we're ready?"

XXX

It was a short drive to the apartment Mohinder and Molly were staying at. Emma and Heidi were staying behind with Noah, whom they would take to the neighboring houses for his first trick-or-treating and then they would stay at their house giving out candy for the rest of the evening. Peter and Gabriel took the two boys to Mohinder's, where they were to pick up Molly. She'd been out of Company lock-up for almost three months now. An unmentioned part of her supervised probation was frequent socializing and trying to build for her a helpful network of friends and adults. Peter knocked on the apartment door.

Mohinder opened it, smiled politely and ushered the four of them inside. "How is everyone doing this evening?" he asked.

"We're doing good," Peter said. Gabriel nodded in agreement.

Mohinder said, "Molly's almost done." He turned to the boys. "Now what are you two dressed up as?"

Monty excitedly described his outfit, but now the description focused on how he was dressed as Gandalf and he omitted the portions that might hearken back to abilities. Peter didn't miss the look the boy gave his father, as if making sure he'd said the right things. Gabriel nodded to him.

"And what about you, young sir?" Mohinder asked of Simon.

"I'm a mad scientist," Simon said proudly. He was dressed in a long white lab coat, with elbow-length rubber gloves and funny-looking goggles that he wore on his forehead.

"Strange," Gabriel said sotto voce, "He doesn't look anything like you, Mohinder."

Mohinder heard him though and glared at him. "Ha, ha," he said, deadpan. But the viciousness between them was largely gone. They – Mohinder, Gabriel, Peter, Maury, Micah, and Molly – had had a lot of meetings and lunches and long discussions together about what they were trying to achieve. Molly had finally come around to the idea that having Gabriel murdered wasn't the right thing to do. It would take her years to work through the issues, but she was getting better.

Simon hadn't caught the exchange and continued, "I picked this because everything can be described by science."

Mohinder smiled warmly at the boy. "Why, yes, Simon, everything _can_ be described and defined by scientific principles."

"Even the magical stuff," Simon said staunchly.

"Yes!" Mohinder looked pleasantly surprised. "Especially the magical stuff. You know, of course, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?"

Simon nodded eagerly and he and Mohinder began to talk together. Gabriel rolled his eyes and turned away. Peter chortled. If Gabriel had trouble handling his eldest son, then of course fate would decree that Simon must immediately bond with someone Gabriel didn't like.

They were distracted from it though by Molly coming out of the bathroom, outfitted in a pale blue dress that on first glance looked like a miniature ballroom gown. Closer inspection would reveal it to be a cheap, but very good, imitation. She had her hair done up expertly for a thirteen year old and make-up applied to enhance her already pretty face. Simon had stopped talking the second he saw her.

Into the silence, Peter said quietly, "Molly, that's gorgeous. You're beautiful."

She blushed and grinned and ducked her head. Monty hurried over and started telling her enthusiastically about his costume, how she could be a princess or an elf woman, and they could be from the same castle.

Gabriel leaned over to Peter and said quietly, "I think the testosterone's starting to affect him too. He's not even nine yet!"

Peter shook his head. "No, he can still talk to her. Look at Simon. He hasn't said a word."

Gabriel looked at his older son, who was beet-red and silent, still staring at her. "Point." In a normal volume, he said, "Okay, what time do you think you'll come by to pick up Molly in the morning, Mohinder?"

"Oh… um…" He looked uncertain. "I don't really know how long these things go… If I were to meet someone…"

Gabriel frowned, but said, "If you want to stay out all night partying, that's fine. How about you come by at 1 and pick her up after lunch?"

"That's… ah… that's very generous of you. Thank you." As a basically single father, Mohinder didn't get much time to himself. This solution was a win-win for everyone.

Gabriel grumbled something completely inarticulate and Peter opened the door. Peter looked to Mohinder and said, "Enjoy the party. Good luck. You have our number."

"Yes. Yes, thank you."

Peter and Gabriel made their way back to the car with the three kids in tow. Peter suspected the kindness had more to do with not having to wait up for Mohinder than it did with giving him a whole night free to indulge himself.

XXX

Nearly two hours later, the kids were starting to get tired, but they showed it in different ways. Simon was grumpy, Monty was manic and Molly just seemed drained. Monty might have been sneaking too much candy, because his hyperactive behavior was starting to push the limits of normal for him.

As they approached the last house on a block, the two boys raced ahead, getting there in front of a larger group of trick or treaters. Peter, Gabriel and Molly walked more sedately, falling into line behind them. The boys got their treats and started to roam off. Gabriel called out to them, "Don't go any further than that fire hydrant. It's too dark out here to be running around." Simon nodded, but of course having been given a boundary, both boys headed straight for it, getting as far away as possible.

Gabriel said to Peter, "I think we should head back after this house." Peter nodded, leaning out to watch as a couple up ahead showed off their toddler, who was adorable in a baby chick outfit. Gabriel leaned out to watch the same, smiling.

There was a sudden, sharp yell behind him. It was Simon's voice and that was the only reason he turned, because there was also a group of six or seven young teens passing on the sidewalk behind them, being noisy and raucous. The group was between him and his sons. Gabriel saw Simon pelting away as fast as he could run. He saw Monty start to give chase, but one of the teens tripped him. Until that, he'd thought Simon was pulling a prank on Monty or doing something wrong. He had a sudden shock of adrenaline at seeing his son attacked. He moved immediately.

The kids saw him coming and scattered fast - a few were laughing, but most just cleared out. Gabriel glared at them, wanting badly to hurt someone or do something worse than hurt them. His intent was clear in his body language and they reacted to it even if they didn't think about it consciously. Monty picked himself up, sniffling, as Peter hurried over with Molly. Gabriel was standing next to his son, stiff and angry and staring at the other kids. As soon as Peter got there, he moved immediately in the direction he'd seen Simon running.

Behind him, Peter asked, "Monty, are you okay?"

Gabriel ran easily across the yard and immediately ducked into the alley that presented itself. If he had been running away from something, this was where he would have gone. He wouldn't have stopped at the entrance either, so he didn't. He got about halfway down, in the darkest part, before stopping abruptly. He'd heard a noise - adolescent male voices, garbled and indistinct, followed by footfalls on grass and the rattle of chain link. He turned to the space between a hedge and garage to the side. There were more footfalls, faster, coming towards him and walking on concrete.

A form walked out and he heard the tones of his son's aura. Simon paused in the alley, not seeing Gabriel in the darkness, and headed back the way he'd come. He walked evenly, unhurt, even if he was carrying a noisy plastic sack now in addition to his cloth candy bag. Gabriel tilted his head, but heard nothing else. He followed Simon towards the end of the alley, where Peter, Molly and Monty were now standing, peering into the blackness.

About halfway down, Gabriel made slightly more noise than he had before and Simon heard him. He glanced back, seeing the dark silhouette of an adult male closing on him, and yelled in fear. He raced towards the entrance. Peter heard the boy's call and a light flooded the alley as though from a halogen flashlight. It was an ability he had. Gabriel held up his hand, shielding his eyes. Simon skidded to a halt and looked back, realizing he was running from his own father.

"Everything all right?" Peter asked, his voice mild as he tried to calm the situation by emoting calm himself. He turned off his 'flashlight' as soon as he saw there was no threat.

"Fine, I think," Gabriel said. He looked at the scuffs and dirt on Simon's white costume once they got out of the shadows. "Are you okay, Simon?"

"I'm fine," he answered angrily, covering up his earlier fear with another emotion. He wheeled and marched over to Monty, handing him Monty's candy bag and dumping contents of the plastic bag into his own.

"What happened?" Molly asked.

Simon took a deep breath and puffed out his chest a little. "One of those kids stole Monty's candy, so I chased him down the alley and got it back. He dropped his candy too, so I picked it up."

"Oh! That was brave!" she smiled at him and Simon, still riding high on the excitement of the moment, nodded enthusiastically. She gave him a spontaneous hug and a moment later he was grinning widely.

Gabriel tousled the kid's hair and said, "Okay, that's enough trick-or-treating for tonight. Let's go home, hero." He patted his son on the shoulder and leaned in, saying, "Good job taking up for your brother. I'm proud of you." Simon nodded and his smile faltered a little in surprise, not because he wasn't happy. If anything, he was smiling even wider after. He walked tall, hero of the night.

As they walked back to the car, Peter asked, "The other kid was okay?"

"Well, I heard him run off at least. If he's out mugging my kids, he gets what he gets. It's Halloween. You pull tricks - you don't get any treats."


	388. Skimpy Costumes and Guilty Pleasures

_Halloween night, October 31, 2011_

Gabriel was kicked back on the couch in the apartment he and Peter still rented, reading a magazine about cars. He had a small stack of books and similar rags next to him. He'd been thinking about getting a muscle car, for the simple reason that he wanted one. It was cool; he was cool - obvious, instant chemistry, no?

He wanted to live a little and he'd been feeling stifled lately as he adjusted to the crowd in his house. While he adored the company and support, some part of him longed for a solitary indulgence, something that would be just his own. Flying was too ostentatious, but a really fast car… Even Angela had suggested it. It was either that, or hunt someone down and steal their ability.

He turned the magazine sideways like it was a centerfold and grinned at the 1966 Pontiac. "Hmm. Lovely."

"Hi."

He jumped and snapped down the magazine like it was a dirty pleasure he didn't want to be caught at - which it was. Peter had just popped into the apartment. He looked at the other man… and then he _**stared**_. Peter was clad in almost nothing at all. He had on leather moccasins that laced up the front and rose to just under his knees, what looked like a chamois loincloth over a leopard-print thong, and… well, he had little fur bracelets and Gabriel was pleased to see he managed to wear his watch and wedding band… but that was _**all**_. His hair was in stylish disarray, most of his body was oiled and just slightly, probably intentionally, dirty.

"That… that was your costume?" Gabriel choked out.

"Yeah." Peter grinned. "Tarzan. Lord of the Jungle."

Gabriel threw down his magazine and lurched to sitting upright. No car could compare with the allure of that much bare skin showing on Peter's body. "What the hell did Emma go as?"

Peter shrugged. "Jane, of course."

"What was she wearing?"

"Oh… pretty much a bikini."

"She's eight months pregnant!"

"Seven. Almost. Yeah." He shrugged again. "Pregnant women run pretty hot, you know, for body temperature. She said she felt great." Gabriel was still struggling to pick up his jaw from the floor. Peter smiled. "You know, not everyone is as inhibited as you and Heidi are." It felt great to be the winner of 'Kinkier Than You,' which was something of a game between them.

"You went… to a public function wearing _**that?**_"

Peter grinned. He was definitely winning. "Yep!"

Gabriel tensed all over, one hand coming up, fingers twitching in a pattern that usually meant telekinesis. But nothing happened. He took a deep breath, swallowed and asked, "Can I be rough?"

After a moment to prepare himself, Peter nodded. He'd sort of expected this, which… well, was a large part of why he'd picked something so skimpy. Gabriel surged up off the couch and grabbed his arm with one hand, his shoulder with the other. He kissed him hard and possessively, immediately working one hand into Peter's hair and making a fist. The other snaked behind him and held him close as his mouth worked against Peter's. Peter flexed his body against the embrace, running his hands up under Gabriel's shirt and working them past his waistband to grip his buttocks.

Gabriel pushed him away abruptly. "You let an entire room of people see you like this?" It was a growl. Peter grinned rakishly. Gone were the days when Gabriel's tone would have bothered him, frightened him or made him cautious. He had nothing to fear. Stirring Gabriel's passions was fun, not dangerous. They knew their boundaries and this was well within them. Peter was the one who struggled with jealousy, but Gabriel didn't… usually… didn't do anything to provoke him.

"I'm going to fuck the living shit out of you," Gabriel growled again, dragging his lover into the bedroom and flinging him on the bed. Peter caught himself and rolled. While Gabriel got out lube (for which Peter was silently thankful - Gabriel didn't always use it, or enough, for Peter's taste), Peter slipped out of the thong. He tossed it away, only to see it fly back and to Gabriel's outstretched hand. He put it to his face and inhaled.

Peter chuckled. "Do I need to send you care packages of my underwear?"

"If we're ever separated, that'd be great. But in the meantime…" He let the skimpy bit of cloth fall and closed on its owner. "I've got the real thing." Gabriel played with the edge of Peter's loincloth that still managed to conceal the bits and pieces. He ran his fingers along Peter's thigh, then under it to the back of his knees. Peter lifted his leg and Gabriel ran his hand down the calf, over the rougher texture of the leather. He bent to mouth the footwear and then bit Peter on the shin through it.

"Mm! Get out of your clothes, good-looking. I want you."

Gabriel grinned and obeyed, stripping with ruthless efficiency. As he did, he asked, "You let people touch you? Your butt cheeks were… Good grief, Peter, you were virtually naked!"

Peter sprawled out, legs hanging over the edge of the bed and leaned back on his elbows. "A few people touched me." He tilted his head to the side, watching as Gabriel shucked his pants. "I mean, _come on_… this outfit is virtually an _invitation_. I _wanted_ to be touched."

With a snarl, Gabriel fell on him, mouth seeking Peter's, his hands running up and down Peter's body. His hips ground against the other man's, the chamois leather catching between them.

"Oh, yeah!" Peter laughed as Gabriel's hungry mouth roamed down his cheek to his neck, biting and sucking at him. Peter held Gabriel to him, running his hands up and down the other man's back, then slipping one between them. Gabriel hesitated long enough to hand him the lube. A squirt later, Peter's hand, stomach and Gabriel's cock were sloppily wet. He pulled the chamois out of the way and slicked himself all the way down. Peter shifted a bit and worked at opening himself. He was fairly sure he'd do a better job of it than Gabriel would, assuming Gabe was in the mood to do it at all.

As he loosened himself, he whispered, "There was one woman I danced with who kept getting her hands under the leather. She kept running them over my ass, digging in her nails, playing with the strap of the thong…" Gabriel bit him, hard, and sucked at him, bruising his skin. Peter moaned and called out, "Gabriel! Oh, God, Gabriel!"

"Fuck!" Gabriel shifted down and reached to nudge Peter's hand out of the way. He started to push inside, hot, hard and demanding. Peter spread himself and groaned as the other man shoved inside of him in shallow, rapid jerks. Gabriel reached down and dug **his** nails into Peter's ass and Peter let his head fall back, grinning. He wrapped his legs around Gabriel and pressed the other man into him a little harder. He wouldn't break. That was abundantly clear even if it hurt a little to start with. He was crazy turned on though.

Peter went on, "She drug me into the hall, where no one could see us… uh!" Gabriel slammed deeper into him, moving his hands up to Peter's hips for leverage. "She trapped me against the wall… her hands were all over me… the oil was her idea… slicking me up." Gabriel was fucking him hard, plunging into him. "She had her hand under the loin cloth, where no one could see even if they came into the hall. She was cupping me and oh my God, Gabriel, it was making me _so hard_…" He whined as Gabriel bucked into him energetically.

Peter panted, reaching over to guide one of Gabriel's hands to himself. The other man obligingly began stroking him. "Oh my God, do you know how tough it is to hide a boner in this get up? Oh! Oh! Yeah…" Gabriel's thrusts were perfect, hitting him expertly, driving him over the edge. Peter had intended to prolong the dirty talk and tell about the blow job she'd given him, but he was soon moaning and calling out and yelling "Oh Gabriel!" time after time until he came.

Gabriel finished only a few strokes after, hanging over him and breathing hard afterwards. When he'd finally caught his breath, he said, "Emma?"

Peter smirked at him, lids heavy with fulfillment. "Ya think?"

Gabriel laughed a little and pulled out slowly, stroking Peter's leg tenderly. "I love you, Peter." He ran his hand across the leather of Peter's outfit. "The things you do for me…" He laughed a little more.

Peter waggled his eyebrows and telekinesed a towel for clean-up. Gabriel stowed the lube and climbed on the bed. He pulled Peter up and flopped him onto his stomach. Peter let himself be manhandled. Gabriel began rubbing his back very slowly, kissing and nipping at his spine and occasionally rubbing his face against him. Peter was utterly relaxed and let the other man's hands roam across him, possessing him in a less sexual, but no less thorough manner.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, Gabriel lay down next to him, still touching, but calm now that he'd fucked what was his and rubbed his scent all over the other man. Peter turned his head to look at him. "So. You've told the boys about abilities?"

"Yeah," Gabriel said, his voice telling that he was as relaxed as Peter felt.

"Do you trust them not to tell anyone? They're just kids. That sort of secret is a big responsibility."

"I gave them commands not to tell anyone other than a few. You and Emma are okay. So's me and Heidi, Angela and Maury, Noah and Claire."

"But not Mohinder or Molly."

"I didn't think about them. I guess maybe I should have said they could talk to anyone who already had an ability."

"But then what would Noah Bennet's ability be?"

"Enhanced bad-assery."

Peter broke out laughing. He reached out and slapped Gabriel lightly. Gabriel said, "Well, it is!"


	389. Something Thanksgivingy

_November, 2011_

Angela, Gabriel, Peter and Heidi were all gathered in the kitchen, bustling around and getting in each other's way. Except for Maury, who was leaning on the bar snacking off the pickle and olive tray.

"You're not supposed to be eating those!" Angela scolded him.

"They're food. What am I supposed to do with them - use them as paperweights?"

"The hors d'oeuvres are not to be eaten until everything is cooking, when we enjoy a few moments of rest until the main meal is served. You _could_ be helping."

"Hm." He shrugged, eating a small pickle. "No. Unlike just about everyone else in this house, my self-image is pretty healthy. I don't need to seek approval by being compulsively helpful."

Angela huffed at him.

"Besides," he said, "I'm a lousy cook. I'd just screw things up." He ate a green olive stuffed with blue cheese curds. "These are really good. Even better in a martini though."

"Compulsively helpful," Peter grumbled as he poured hot water over loose leaf tea and set it aside to brew.

"There might be something to that," Gabriel said quietly as he unwrapped sticks of butter and set them out. "You've been in a mood all day, Peter."

"I'm not seeking approval," he said, still in a grouchy tone. "I just don't like the holidays anymore. _Especially_ Thanksgiving." Peter put up with the holiday grudgingly, though he would prefer the whole world simply stopped observing it. He'd gotten through last year's with an effort. They'd had it here at Gabriel and Heidi's house and it had been thankfully boring, though tense. The year before had been when Nathan had reverted to Sylar and Peter had found out the truth. He'd lost a lot more than his brother that day.

A touch on his shoulder brought him back to the present. Heidi was stepping away from Gabriel, who had put a hand on Peter's shoulder. Peter assumed he'd spaced out for a moment, something he'd done more than once already today. Gabriel said, "We're done for now. Let's go in the den and watch the parade with Emma and Noah."

"I don't want to watch the parade," he said, reflexively objecting to anything suggested, without even thinking about it. He actually liked the Thanksgiving Day parade a lot. It hadn't featured in any of his stresses.

"Then come be with us. Come on," Gabriel said, pulling Peter along with him.

As they walked into the den, Peter asked, "Is this Maury's idea of therapy?"

"No. Actually, it's Heidi's."

Emma was sitting on one end of the couch, a nearly full-term pregnancy sitting on her lap like a separate entity. The impression came from how the rest of her body was just like it always had been, but her stomach was huge. Heidi was envious - she still hadn't shed her accumulated baby fat, but her age played a big factor in that as well. Little Noah was playing on the rug in front of them, absorbed in arranging tiny cars around blocks.

Peter settled in next to his wife and put his hand on her leg. Gabriel settled in next to Peter just the same, with an almost identical gesture of affection. It brought a smile to Peter's face. "You doing okay?" Peter said to Emma.

She nodded. "Just tired." She hadn't been sleeping well, which Peter knew. She shifted and rested her head on his shoulder. He slumped down a little to allow it.

Gabriel rubbed Peter's thigh a little and Peter smiled, bringing his hand up to twine their fingers together. _Jealous twit_, Peter thought, but he was happy about it. Most of the time, Emma didn't mind. He sat there, warmly ensconced between two people who loved him, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade unfold on the TV, with one of his nephews playing quietly in front of them. Very slowly, Peter felt the day's tension flow out of him. Seconds flowed into minutes, then a quarter hour, then half. They shifted positions a few times, but stayed together. The touch was more than mere physical contact for Peter and all three of them knew it.

Heidi came in a little after carrying one of the hors d'oeuvre trays. She passed it down the couch and each took a few things. Seeing their disposition, Heidi nudged Gabriel to scoot into Peter, who scooted into Emma, who moved over as much as she could, and the four of them sat on the couch all together. Gabriel looped his arm around behind Heidi and they both sighed together.

Peter started laughing a few minutes later, unable to contain himself.

"What?" Gabriel asked.

"We are so messed up," he said, chuckling.

Heidi offered, "Just wait until Noah's birthday rolls around, Peter. I'm already dreading it."

"His birthday?" he asked, then said, "Oh," as it clicked for him. She'd been abducted from her home, tortured, vivisected by her father-in-law, murdered, had her child removed from her and killed, was resurrected, had her husband killed, was drained of the catalyst, activated her abilities, and was rescued. So… yeah, it was probably a pretty traumatic date.

"And come to think of it, Emma, I've talked to you about this, but I'm going to tell you two here… after she delivers, you are **not** to leave her alone. Not to leave the house. Not to go run an errand. Not to go stop by work. Nothing. At least one of you has to be with her all the time."

"Me?" Gabriel interjected, a little surprised.

"Yes, both of you. No one person can be there all the time." Her voice shifted and emotion infused it suddenly. "There's going to be none of this abandonment crap going on, like what you did to me, Peter Petrelli, and you listen good because I've never told you just how _horrible_ it felt for you to desert me like that, after everything that happened to me, all of you just leave me in the house with _**this man**_, who could have been anyone and I hardly knew him at all!" She was starting to get a bit shrill.

Peter was leaning forward, looking at her with big eyes. Gabriel was leaning back as far as possible, trying not to be in the line of fire. Emma was trying to stifle giggles. Little Noah came toddling over, looking around uncertainly. Emma extended her arms and held him, offering him a bit of black olive from the tray next to her. He declined, distracted by the drama.

Heidi continued with her tirade, "You _left_ me with him. He could have been a monster! You acted like he _was_ that night, and you _left_ me with him. You just _**left!**_ I'd only found out a few weeks before he was a killer and he killed people with abilities-"

Gabriel tried to shush her and she shoved him back with a sharp, "Stay out of it! You're the one who wants me to get along with him, and if I'm going to, then I'm sure as hell going to get to say this!"

Peter put a hand on Gabriel's arm and pressed a little. "It's okay," he murmured, but he wasn't sure if it was heard as Heidi was going off again.

"And there I was with an ability and a baby and him! All _**alone!**_ You might have left me to **die**, Peter Petrelli. You didn't know. You didn't care. You were too busy being pissed about whatever, maybe he didn't really love you or something, that you left a new mother and her baby in his care. Angela at least can claim she knew it was going to turn out okay. YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT! But you sure as hell knew what he was capable of and yet you left me with him when I was too messed up TO GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT _HELP!_"

She glared at him. Peter shrunk in on himself a little. Emma gave Peter a little supportive pat where Heidi couldn't see the gesture. Noah reached out and patted him too, copying her. In the other room, where she had been quietly talking with Maury, Angela made stifled noises.

"I'm sorry," Peter said. He was very heartfelt and he was sure there were a lot of other things he should say, but none of them came to mind at the moment.

A moment later, Maury's voice called out from the kitchen, "Hey! There's something beeping in here. I think it's the turkey. One of you guys with telekinesis come get it out of the oven, because I can't find the oven mitts!"

Peter jumped up from the couch and was out the room so fast that teleportation would have been slower. Heidi opened her mouth for some reason - shock, or maybe to say something sharp in parting - but Gabriel kissed her and she shoved him back, saying, "Get off of me! I'm mad!"

"I know, I know. You're so sweet. I love you, I love you."

"Gabriel, you stop that right now." Her voice was sharp as a knife, but for the last few months, she'd been gradually calling him 'Gabriel' more and 'Nathan' less.

He pulled away from her obediently. "Thank you, really. Thank you for getting that out. Thank you for telling him. Thank you for getting his mind off of everything that's happened to him this day and reminding him of how he can help others."

"I wasn't doing it for _him!_ Or for _you._ I was doing it for Emma and the baby. Really, you can't be leaving her alone."

"Okay, okay. It'll be okay." He hesitated and added, "This _is_ their first child."

Heidi snorted. "That's why I'm trying to tell them …" She sighed. "They'll figure it out. And if they don't, we'll be right here to help." She stood up. "Now I need to go make sure he doesn't butcher the turkey. Carving duties should never be left to vegetarians."

After she was gone for a moment, he looked back at Emma and tapped his temple. She nodded and he spoke to her telepathically. _Is there anything I should know about how things are going? Is Peter having bad dreams, or has Angela said something to you about the future?_

She shook her head. _No. It's okay. I think Heidi is just upset about what happened to her and my pregnancy is bringing it all back for her. I don't know how much help I'll need. If we all fight all the time, I can always move out. But I think she might follow me! She's being worse than my mother for smothering me._

_Do you want me to tell her to knock it off?_

Emma grinned. _Would she?_

_Um … no._ Aloud, he said, "Well, I'll go see if they need help in the kitchen. I'm feeling 'compulsively helpful.'"

She smiled and nodded, having not heard Maury's earlier comment and so not getting the context.


	390. Double Duty

_December, 2011_

Gabe didn't know how he was going to manage this or if it was even going to work. Uncertainty was rife. It was usually so much easier to hold down his fears, dismiss them, be rational and distant and removed. But this new way of being threw everything to the forefront of his mind and broke down his ability to ignore and partition. He squirted twice as much chocolate syrup as he needed to into his milk, trying ignore the prying eyes of the man leaning on the doorframe of the kitchen. _Do I really look like that when I glare at people? That's really rude._

"You just need to relax," Sylar told him.

"That's easy for you to say!" Gabe snapped back irritably. He stirred his drink faster than necessary, but was still careful enough not to slosh any out. Chocolate milk had always been a soothing treat after he'd moved out into his own apartment and was at liberty to buy such an indulgence. At the moment, he needed it. His nerves felt like a bag of nails, sharp ends poking him at every turn. "He'll be here any minute."

"So?"

"So we shouldn't be doing this! He's already sensitive about shape-shifting. What if this freaks him out?" Sylar had flatly refused to reverse the process, which was problematic because apparently it was going to take the cooperation of both.

Sylar shrugged, walking into the kitchen to snag the bottle of syrup before Gabe put it away. "He'll deal with it. He's not nearly as fragile as you think he is."

"He's not nearly as _tough_ as _you_ think he is, either!"

They both heard the dull pop that signaled Peter's arrival via teleportation. Gabe stared at the kitchen doorway, terrified at what this might mean. _What do I do if he freaks out?_ Acting overly casual, Sylar used his thumb to flip open the squeeze bottle and poured a shot of courage directly in his mouth - fuck the milk.

"You are _**so**_ gross," Gabe complained.

Peter came to the entry to the kitchen and arrested, eyes flicking between the two of them. He'd known the plan for the day and even, after it was explained to him, helped set it up. More than that, when he got a call from work that morning to fill in on his day off for a sick coworker, he'd asked Gabriel if he could handle the procedure on his own. Floored by the degree of trust that showed, Gabriel had said yes and Peter had gone to work, leaving Gabriel to deal with Eli by himself. Obviously the result had not been quite what any of them had expected.

"So … uh …" Peter started, paused and then resumed with the obvious question, "how's Eli?"

There was a long moment of silence as Gabe waited for Sylar to tell him and Sylar waited for Gabe to do it. In the meantime, Peter got tense. Gabe broke first, but he was vague. "He's fine," he said sulkily. He wanted to be bitchy that Peter obviously cared about Eli, a relative stranger, more than himself, but it _was _an obvious question. And besides, Peter probably didn't realize the differences between the current manifestation of the cloning power and what Eli did.

"'Fine' fine?" Peter asked, unsure of how to be delicate about asking 'You didn't kill him, did you?'

Sylar answered, "Yes, he's _perfectly_ fine. Nothing to worry about."

Peter looked between the two of them several times as he began to put two and two together. They looked very different. Sylar was in faded, worn jeans with a short-sleeved, loudly colored plaid shirt that had the top three buttons undone. His thick, curly chest hair was peaking out in a display of unabashedly masculine virility. He was wearing sneakers. His hair was short and spiked. Gabe also displayed his love of hair gel, but his hair was longer and ruthlessly slicked back, not a strand out of place. He was wearing a sedate, long-sleeved, light green dress shirt with a darker green, patterned sweater vest over it, black slacks and dress shoes. He also had on those nerdy glasses that Peter so loved. Sylar looked taller, because he naturally stood straighter. Gabe was slouching uneasily next to the counter.

"So, which one of you is the … primary?" Peter asked. When Eli used his power, all his clones were identical. Peter knew that. He'd been there for the initial interview with Eli where they'd worked out all the logistics and remuneration for his permission. Sylar and Gabe were _different_, not only in appearance, but in how they moved and acted.

"He is," they both answered in unison, each indicating the other.

Peter's face screwed up in confusion. "How is it that neither one of you is lying?" he asked, mostly of himself.

Sylar snorted and upended the syrup bottle for another squirt. He wasn't going to admit to his own uneasiness, but his actions gave it away as far as Gabe was concerned.

"Stop that!" Gabe chided him a second time. "Other people in this household have to use that! I don't want anything your _mouth_ has been on. It's disgusting." He knew he sounded just like his mother, Virginia, but … well, on this she had a point. Sylar was being very rude. People shouldn't slurp out of bottles.

Sylar smirked. "You don't want anything my _mouth_ has been on, do you? Well, that's good for me." Bottle still in hand, he sauntered over to Peter, who pulled back against the doorframe and looked up at the other man. It wasn't an unwelcoming expression, but Peter was clearly still trying to work out what was up. Sylar tipped the bottle to ooze out just a little dark syrup on his index finger and then raised it to Peter's lips. Peter looked from it to Sylar's face, letting Sylar finger-paint it onto his mouth. Sylar leered briefly at Gabe and then leaned in to slowly lick the sweet stuff from Peter's lips. Peter looked nervously between the two of them, bringing up a hand to touch Sylar on the side uncertainly. But he definitely wasn't turning him away.

Gabe steamed, but behind the anger was fear. _Can Peter handle this? Can __**I**__ handle it? We need to __**talk**__ about this, not … whatever he's doing._ As he stood there and did nothing, he saw Peter relax and run his hand lightly up and down Sylar's side as Sylar deepened the kiss. _He's responding. Peter's responding to __**him**__. What if he likes him more than me? Well … why wouldn't he like him more than me? I'm nobody. I'm just an extra, a byproduct. I'm not sexy like __**he**__ is._

Sylar groaned slightly and leaned forward to press his body against Peter's in a slow grind. Gabe caught a shadow of the feeling of that motion, because there was no way he could ignore what his duplicate was doing. There would be no cutting himself off from this and pretending it wasn't happening. He'd feel whatever they did as a phantom sensation. His penis felt itchy and uncomfortable in his slacks as it tried to rise in sympathy with the hardness he knew was growing in Sylar's jeans. Jealousy and possessiveness and worthlessness shot through him. He wanted to peel Sylar off of Peter and pummel him into the wall.

Snarling, he walked over and jerked Sylar back by his shoulder. "Get away from him! He doesn't want this. You're forcing yourself on him!"

Peter's voice was husky with arousal as he said, "It's okay." He still looked uncertain. Another thing about Eli's clones - they didn't argue with the primary or fight with each other any more than one's hands disagreed with what the mind told them to do. Such automatic obedience wasn't a trait that either Gabe or Sylar had at the moment.

Sylar gave him another of those oh-so-annoying smirks. He wrapped his fist into Peter's shirt and grinned. "Bedroom," he said, dragging Peter with him. Not that Peter was objecting, but he did at least look a little thrown by the situation. He looked over his shoulder twice at Gabe as he was pulled through the living room and into the bedroom. Gabe followed at a distance, wondering if he should save Peter and make Sylar cut it out, or what. Sylar shoved Peter on the bed roughly. "Clothes off." He set down the bottle of syrup on the nightstand and began his own undressing.

Peter started unbuttoning his shirt. "Ah … Gabriel?" Neither of them responded.

Gabe hovered uncertainly at the door. "You don't have to do this, Peter."

Sylar laughed. "Go drink your chocolate milk, Gabe. Grown-ups are going to do grown-up things. Jerk yourself off in a corner somewhere if you have to."

"Hey," Peter said, "that's uncalled for." He'd peeled off his shirt, but hesitated on his pants.

"Fuck him," Sylar snapped. "You want **me**, not him. He's a temperamental little mommy's boy who can't get past his own inhibitions and actually enjoy himself. You like me better in bed, Peter. All of us know it." Sylar shoved his jeans down.

Brows pulling together, Peter got off the bed and started to go to Gabe, who had backed off a few steps at Sylar's harsh, but probably true, words.

His feet still tangled in his jeans, Sylar couldn't stop Peter physically, so he resorted to telekinesis, jerking him back onto the bed. Peter yelped and flailed, a disturbed sound that brought Gabe fully into the scene to protect him.

"Stop it!" Gabe yelled, shoving Sylar over. It would have been much more satisfying to see Sylar sprawl on his ass, but he caught himself with flight instead and hovered, finally managing to kick his jeans off while Gabe went to Peter. "Are you okay? You don't have to do this," Gabe said, repeating his comment from earlier.

Peter said, "Hey, are **you** okay with it? What's going on here?" He reached up and touched Gabe's forearm, letting his hand slide down the limb to take Gabe's hand and give it a squeeze.

Gabe explained a little. "Things didn't work out right. Eli's okay, but we can only make one duplicate and it's not really … a duplicate, exactly. I don't think it worked right."

Sylar came up behind him. "It worked fine for what it was. If we'd done Eli himself rather than one of his clones, then we'd have gotten the full power. Instead …" He grinned. "Well, this certainly has potential." He shoved Gabe onto the bed. Gabe fell, turned and scrambled backwards, still fully clothed. Sylar was fully naked. Peter was caught in the middle.

Peter said firmly, "I'm not doing this unless everyone is in agreement." He looked between the pair. "That's final."

Sylar scoffed. "All you want is deniability, Peter. Don't worry about it. No matter how much you kick him, he'll still follow you around like a puppy." He reached down and grabbed Peter's hair like he was deliberately trying to provoke him.

It was working. Peter jerked back, forcing Sylar to decide between yanking his hair out or letting go. He opted for letting go. Gabe jumped forward, awkwardly inserting himself between them. "Leave him alone! You're the asshole who keeps hurting him! You're _obsessed_!"

"We're both obsessed," Sylar observed.

Gabe opened his mouth to argue, but stumbled on the words because Sylar had agreed with him. _Maybe we both need to stay away from Peter. For his own good. He doesn't really want either of us. We're too clingy, too aggressive, never right ..._ Then Peter's hands were on Gabe's back and shoulders, the first time he'd willingly touched him. Gabe pulled in air, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.

"It's okay," Peter said softly. "It's okay. I get it now. I love you both. _Both_ of you. I'm not picking one over the other." He rubbed gently, looking up over Gabe's shoulder at Sylar, who was standing at the edge of the bed, watching silently for the moment.

"You … but," Gabe tried, "you don't want me."

"Yes, _I do_," Peter argued gently, scooting to put himself behind Gabe where he could kiss him on the ear and then the cheek, still looking up at Sylar. "I've always wanted you." He kissed him again, delicately removing the nerdy glasses to press his lips against Gabe's temple. Peter shot Sylar a look and a quick dart of his eyes at Gabe. Sylar pouted his lips in thought and then arched his brows briefly in a 'sure, why not?' expression.

Sylar reached out and touched Gabe on the opposite cheek. Gabe tried to pull away, but found it difficult with Peter holding him from behind. "What are you doing?" he asked Sylar.

"Learning to love myself, apparently," Sylar quipped. "Now hold still." He took away the glasses and set them on the nightstand before returning to run his fingers gently across Gabe's face.

Gabe looked up at his alter in surprise, not sure how to take the caresses he was getting. Peter kept lipping and kissing along the other side of his face, the empath's hands starting to stray from Gabe's shoulders to wrap around his chest. They drifted lower, pulling his shirt from his slacks and exploring the warm, bare skin underneath. Gabe whimpered, staring up into the dark, smoldering eyes of … himself. Sort of. He'd done something like this a long time ago, and well before that was Candace's offer. His eyes dropped to Sylar's swollen cock, wondering what it tasted like and if he would be forced to find out. He hadn't done that before.

Boldly, Sylar ran his hand into Gabe's hair and gripped, tugging his head back and provoking another whimper, this time accompanied by a surge of arousal. Peter made a sound as well, feeling the lust. He pushed up Gabe's shirt and sweater to his armpits, baring skin to run his greedy, searching hands across. Sylar pulled Gabe forward and down to where his face was even with Sylar's groin, doubling him over.

Gabe struggled weakly, overwhelmed by the sensations and memories he was usually able to deny the existence of so well that he hardly realized they'd happened. He'd begun to realize that just as his 'father' Martin had few memories of Gabriel's childhood, that attempts had been made to suppress and alter Gabriel's as well. They were still there, though, gradually recovered through regeneration. Peter chewing along his spine wasn't helping his thought process any. Gabe could smell the musky, masculine scent of Sylar's body, pubic hair scratching and tickling against his cheek. "That's sick … no …"

"Get me hard, boy," Sylar commanded, playing out roles from long ago. Peter glanced up in worry, not sure what he was seeing here and probably feeling a lot of deeply buried things being trotted out for examination. Sylar shoved his hips forward, tugging Gabe's mouth onto him. Clumsily, Gabe began to fellate him. Sylar, knowing what was expected, wrapped his free hand around the back of Gabe's neck, squeezing with each bob and motion of Gabe's head. He locked eyes with Peter, who looked apprehensive. "Only I can do this to him. You ever try it and I will bite your dick off."

"Got it," Peter said immediately. He was still holding still, hands frozen on Gabe's back.

"Don't you dare back away from this, Peter," Sylar told him. Peter gave him a single nod, looked down at Gabe, and lowered his head to kiss his back again.

Gabe whimpered, sucking inexpertly at flesh that tasted so familiar, feeling it harden and stiffen in his mouth and start to choke him. He wrapped his hands around Sylar's legs timidly. He'd never been allowed to touch as a boy - not that he'd ever wanted to. But this wasn't the same. This wasn't the storage room in the back of the watch shop. This wasn't his 'uncle' or what he'd thought was his father. This was … Sylar. In a way, it was his own twisted desire to expunge the darkness by mastering it. He let his hands slowly slide up to Sylar's ass and dug his fingers in as he gagged himself on his doppelganger's dick, feeling his own arousal surge and burn within him. He groaned as Peter's nails raked down his chest.

"Oh, yeah," Sylar breathed, pulling him off roughly. "Fucking greedy for it, aren't you, boy?" He pushed him back. "Get your pants down."

Gabe started to obey, but Peter was taking the opportunity to pull his sweater and shirt off over his head, or at least trying to. The buttons caught around his neck and it wouldn't come off. Peter started giggling, which really wasn't the reaction you wanted from your partner in bed. Peter tugged, Gabe struggled to figure out how to unbutton it with telekinesis, and Sylar reached in to neatly slice the fabric from collar to hem. "We'll fix it later," Sylar said, yanking the troublesome cloth out of the way.

As Gabe turned to shuck off his pants, Peter did the same with his own. When he turned back, Peter was on his back on the bed. Gabe went to him, crouching between Peter's legs and for the moment ignoring Sylar. He wasn't quite ready for what Sylar was probably going to do to him, despite the hardness of his erection and the tingling of his skin. He wanted to be genuinely loved, not just used. He'd liked touching Sylar. More than that, though, he wanted to touch Peter. He stroked Peter's knee tentatively. "You want me?"

"Oh yeah," Peter asserted. He looked over at the nightstand and summoned the syrup to his hand. He popped open the cap. "Help me out here, baby." He upended it to let the dark liquid dribble out across his fairly hairless chest and abdomen.

"You're making a mess!" Gabe exclaimed, equally fascinated and disturbed.

"Then clean it up," Sylar said, now taking Gabe's head and forcing him down on Peter's belly, climbing up behind him. Worry crossed Peter's face, but Gabe began lapping at it, submitting to the handling. Sylar cupped his body behind Gabe's, a warm line of skin that made him shiver. He licked at the chocolate, sucking and chewing, his anticipation of being fucked driving him crazy. He knew what Sylar intended to do, but Sylar apparently had caught that Gabe wasn't there yet. He released Gabe's hair in favor of stroking his back and fondling his ass. Peter took over in front, caressing Gabe's face and combing his now haphazardly tousled hair back out of the syrup.

Gabe licked his way upwards, following the trail of rich chocolate while Peter squirmed and made appreciative noises. He could feel the heat from Peter's erection between them, too, and he paused to suck at a nipple, swirling his tongue around it and nibbling. "Ah!" he said abruptly as Sylar spread his cheeks and pressed a finger wet with saliva against him. Gabe shuddered, falling forward a little as he was breached none-too-gently. Chocolate smeared on his cheek and brow, but the feeling of a finger probing inside him while Peter's nails dug into his scalp distracted him from the mess. Sylar's dick was dripping precome onto the back of his thigh, which was so fucking dirty that he whined at that alone.

Peter pulled him up and Sylar's intrusive, questing finger followed, making Gabe wriggle and mewl. Peter glanced at his countenance and grinned, then licked the side of his face, cleaning him like a cat with a kitten. Sylar added a second finger and Gabe gasped, barely holding himself up while Peter worked his face. He had no idea how he was going to manage getting fucked like this. He was about to pop as it was. Peter paused from sucking on his eyebrow of all things to tell him, "I want you to fuck me."

"What?" he said dumbly. Sylar turned his fingers and stroked downward across his prostate. As if on cue, Gabe said, "Oh yes! Oh!" and quivered.

Peter grinned and raised a foot to nudge Sylar. "Lube!"

"Use the syrup," Sylar told him.

"It's too sticky. Get lube," Peter reiterated.

There was a moment of silence before Sylar asked, "How do you know it's too sticky for sex?"

"Because I _know_, asshole. _**Lube**_," Peter demanded, poking him again with his foot. Sylar grumbled and procured it from the nightstand via telekinesis without having to leave his position. Peter took advantage of the pause to heft the aforementioned syrup and squirt it crazily across Gabe's back.

"What? What are you doing?" Gabe said in response to the coolness across his skin and the burbling noise from the squirt bottle.

"Giving Sylar a treat." Peter capped the bottle and threw it out of the way, taking the open lube container Sylar offered.

"You have such wonderful taste, Peter," Sylar murmured, leaning over Gabe while his fingers still worked his ass. "Thank you." He licked a long, hot line along Gabe's back. Peter's hand slipped between them to slick up Gabe's penis and then himself. Coming back, he pumped slowly at Gabe's member.

"Oh God," Gabe whimpered, putting his forehead down on Peter's shoulder. "I can't … I can't … I won't be able to …"

"I don't care what you want," Sylar growled. "You won't come from this. That would show you were enjoying it, and we can't have that, can we? That would be perverted …" He backed up a little, pulling his fingers out suddenly. Gabe yelped. Peter lined him up for entry, with the empath shifting his own hips up. Sylar continued, "Disgusting …" Gabe shivered. He could feel Peter pressing his tip against the opening just as Sylar was doing the same to Gabe's asshole. "Sick!" Sylar said, shoving inside in one long, painful, barely-lubricated stroke, driving Gabe forward and into Peter, feeling Peter's heat envelope his penis, his tightness snug and slippery at the same time.

"OH!" Gabe cried out, shuddering right on the brink of release.

Clearly knowing that, Sylar grabbed his hair, twisted it and yanked so hard he saw stars. "_Not yet!_" he hissed.

"I can't, I can't, I can't," Gabe whined, clinging to the pain as the only way to hold off coming right this instant.

"You _**can**_," Sylar asserted. He shoved into Gabe, pressing him even more tightly against Peter, who moaned as he held Gabe's shoulders. "You _**will!**_ I am going to _**fuck**_ you as long as I need to, boy! Whenever I want, as long as I want, and you will never say anything to anyone about it. You won't even _think _about this. _**Ever**_. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Gabe whimpered. He was rock hard. He was fully inserted. His scalp hurt from where Sylar was still pulling his hair, arcing him backwards while he forced himself inside of Gabe's tight hole over and over again. His whole body was on fire. Peter's hands dropped from Gabe's shoulders to caress his chest and then Peter began to work his own aching cock with one hand. Gabe was too far gone to adequately service his partner, which made him feel guilty. Oh yes, so guilty. Guilty for enjoying it. Guilty for his body responding to Sylar's relentless, powerful thrusts and tugs at his hair, bruising fingers burying themselves in his shoulder or hip, yanking him back into the vigor of the motions. Sylar knew _exactly _what he wanted and needed and was giving it to him ruthlessly. Fucking Peter was just an afterthought.

Peter got that and to his credit, didn't seem to mind in the least. He wrapped his legs around both of them as much as he could and rocked himself up into Gabe's dick in time with Sylar's thrusts. Peter's asshole clenching around Gabe's shaft was better than any reach-around ever would be. Gabe was so grateful to have Peter. He put his hands on either side of Peter on the bed as Sylar let go of his hair to better manhandle his hips, and let himself be fucked on both sides; his consciousness a wash of endorphins and arousal, needy, desperate hands on his flesh; a foreign, violating presence opening him from behind, inside of him, plowing him, degrading him. He breathed hard, barely hanging on.

Peter was moaning wantonly, expressing everything Gabe wanted to about the situation. _Little slut_, he managed to think, watching as Peter's mouth gaped open and pulled to the side, nearly there with his orgasm. Sylar was close, too, ramming into him even harder with short, powerful bucks that jogged Gabe and Peter both. Peter's hand shuffled in a quick tempo against his stomach, stopping only when he cried out, filled and fulfilled, spurting onto himself.

Sylar didn't have to tell Gabe he had permission to let go, assuming that was even part of the game (assuming this _was_ a game). Gabe lowered himself down against Peter, letting himself have full body contact. He felt the ejaculate smear against his own stomach and reveled in it. _**He**_ had done to that to Peter. Fucking _**him**_ had made Peter come. Peter hugged him, whimpering at the continuing thrusts, accepting them into himself. Peter kissed Gabe's neck and murmured, "I love you, I love you, I love you," over and over as he got the breath to say it.

Gabe took over the pattern of fucking briefly from Sylar to push inside of Peter as deeply as possible, provoking more and louder sensuous moans. Peter clutched him, riding through his aftershocks, eyes rolling up in his head. Gabe released within him, gasping and shaking. Sylar came simultaneous with him, a strange side effect of the duality that Gabe dimly recognized. Barely able to sense anything other than his own blinding culmination, he collapsed on Peter, who was more than willing to bear him.

A moment later, there was just one of him. Gabriel pushed himself up a little, looking down at Peter uncertainly. Peter glanced around the room and then asked, "Gabriel?"

"Yeah," he chuffed out, flopping over to the side. He hoped he was being considerate by not lying on top of Peter too much. He felt boneless, dirty and deeply, deeply perverted. _Oh my God, I just fucked myself. Again. With Peter … like … watching. Participating. Whatever_. He looked over at Peter, trying to gage how his husband had been affected by the whole thing.

"Next time, I get to be in the middle," Peter said, which certainly answered _that_.


	391. Double Trouble

_December, 2011_

Peter had left for work. Gabriel knew he, too, should theoretically be heading home soon to see Heidi, but he wanted to play around with his newest acquisition a little more: cloning. It hadn't gone like he'd expected, but he thought he could control the division if, perhaps, he just concentrated on it a little more. He settled himself in the middle of the couch and focused on the ability. Previously, it had divided him into two facets of his personality. He wasn't thrilled with that, but it had been manageable. Still, he'd rather have it create an obedient drone like Eli's power, where he didn't have to worry about his clone having a mind of its own.

Gabriel thought about his identity. He thought about who he was and how he saw himself. He pulled together everything that had split before, into Gabe and Sylar. He ran his thoughts over those two personalities several times. Holding tight to that mental image, he activated the ability and felt something deep within himself pull and stretch like taffy, shredding a little painfully at the ends before separating with a pop of relief like a release of sinus pressure.

He blinked his eyes open, having not been aware they'd even shut. He was sitting a foot or two to the left of where he'd been earlier. To his right was his … He stared at the person on his right. _Fuck me_. Looking back at him, very warily, was none other than one Nathan Petrelli. _Jesus fucking Christ. Seriously, just fuck me now._ Nervous, he shifted slightly. Obviously though, he wasn't the only one unhappy with developments, as the tiny motion caused Nathan to surge up off the couch. Not to be outdone, Sylar followed a half-beat behind. Nathan staggered back from him, looking like he expected to be attacked at any moment.

_Shit! Shit, shit, shit. Does he have my memories? Does he have my abilities? Or does he only remember me as the guy who killed him? _Sylar balled his fists, keeping them tightly at his sides so as to not make any motion Nathan would interpret as a threat. _How the hell am I going to get him to merge with me again?_ Sylar blinked as a thought struck him. _Wait … do I … __**want**__ him to merge with me again?_

Nathan looked over at the door hopefully, then back to Sylar with wariness. Edging further away, he started towards the way out.

Despite his thoughts, Sylar wasn't interested in letting Nathan get away and thereby limit his options. _Where does he think he's going? I'm not done with you yet! _He raised his hand now, seizing Nathan with telekinesis just as the man reached for the doorknob. A second later the power vanished as it was nullified. Nathan turned to face him, eyes blazing with hate. _Well, that answers whether he has my abilities. Thief. I worked really hard to get those. He doesn't deserve them._ In that fraction of a second of thought, Nathan raised his hand, fingers curled yet palm towards him, and made a jab towards Sylar with the heel of his hand. _What's that gesture? That's not the way I- _Sylar was shoved back forcefully into the shelf set as Nathan whirled away and pulled open the door.

Sylar started to scramble up as something heavy fell from the very top of the shelves. He had a snap decision to make – stop Nathan, or grab the object. Having a good idea of what that heavy thing was, he snatched it out of the air with telekinesis a scant two inches from the floor. Books rained down around him as he stood, whacking him and endangering his focus, but he stayed fixed on keeping the precious, battered mantel clock from taking any further damage. The old timepiece meant a lot to him. He set it to the side on the couch, relieved it was basically unharmed, and hurried to the hall. As he'd expected though, it was empty. The window at the end was open, blinds rattling in the sudden breeze as testament to Nathan's speedy departure. _Damnit!_

He stalked back into the apartment and stood quietly, thinking. _Where would he __**go**__? _He combed through Nathan's memories - useful things - he was glad he had them but it only confirmed that Nathan had a complete copy of his own as well. _He'd go to Heidi, Peter, Angela, or to sulk somewhere. His best sulking spots are that bridge or his old office – the bridge is out because it's daylight and the office doesn't belong to … me, him, us, whatever, anymore. Angela – he probably won't go there. So Heidi or Peter. He always went to Peter when he had trouble._

Sylar pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial. He stared at the device, his brows pulling together slightly. _Speed dial. I have __**Peter Petrelli**__ on my speed dial?_ He heard it ring once, twice, a third time, and he hung up. _Why am I calling __**Peter Petrelli**__?_ He cocked his head in curiosity at his own action, feeling a bit of vertigo as his perspective on the entire world shifted and changed. _I'm __**Sylar**__, not that person who I was before the split. Why would I go to Peter?_

_What … should I do with my life? Why should I care what Nathan is doing?_ He slid the phone back in his pocket, ignoring the call coming in even though he recognized the ring tone as Peter's. No one else on his phone had an orchestral version of the 'Greatest American Hero' ring tone. He absently made a mental note to get that sappy crap off his phone at the earliest opportunity.

_Let Peter have his brother back. This might be the answer I've been looking for. He can have Nathan and I can have … who? No one. There's no one for me. I … I … _The thought of being utterly alone - no mom, no clock shop, no quest for powers driving him on, no job, no place in the world - it left him cold, frozen to the spot. He hadn't had an empty bed in over a year and that was something he cherished. If he left, he would have nothing. Nothing but a bunch of powers and a hollowness inside.

Peter teleported into the living room, startling him a little, even though he showed it only with a widening of his eyes and snapping his head around. Teeth set together and just a sliver of them showing between his slightly parted lips, Sylar eyed the man who was still in street clothes, having not yet changed into his paramedic uniform at work. He didn't bother to ask why Peter had come back. _Well … I __**did**__ call him. _He snorted disdainfully, looking for something else in the room to look at. His gaze fell on the old mantel clock.

"What happened?" Peter said, looking at the ruined shelving unit with the books in scattered disarray around it.

Sylar picked up the mantel clock and retired with it to the nearly table. He took a seat, frowning to himself, not sure how or if he should explain.

"Gabriel?"

He looked up at Peter balefully, shook his head mutely, and set himself to unscrewing the backing of the clock. It wasn't running. The sudden shift of falling, the changed angle and trajectory, had created enough momentum to knock the delicate pendulum mechanism askew. It would be a simple fix and he could do it from memory with simple telekinesis, but he liked this old clock. He wanted to put his hands on it as he had so many times as a boy. This was one of the four clocks he'd taken apart and reassembled over and over to learn his trade. He'd been ecstatic to find it months before and doubted it was the real thing - psychometry had assured him it was the genuine article. He'd rescued it from the antique store he'd tracked it to and put it in a place of honor in the apartment. _My apartment? Our apartment? His? _He glanced furtively at Peter.

"Sylar?" Peter asked softly.

Sylar sighed and shook his head in denial again, even though he felt that asking for an explanation was hardly out of line. Peter had stood by him through a lot. Sylar recognized that even if the person Peter had supported wasn't exactly who he was now. Still … Peter was a powerful man. There was no reason to make an enemy of him. He'd seen how that turned out before, anyway. _Maybe we could stay … friends?_ "I used cloning again and-"

Sylar stopped talking abruptly. His eyes had risen to Peter's face. He was struck dumb by the realization that he'd kissed those lips. Over and over and over again. _TMI. Oh my fucking God, TMI._ He had memories of touching that face. He could recall doing it lovingly, tenderly, and softly, in wondering exploration. He remembered the feel of the back of Peter's neck, the texture of his hair, the smooth, rounded shape of his naked shoulder … and other things. He knew things about Peter he had no right or desire to know, but they were there, branded into his brain so firmly that even as the person he was now, his first instinct, just like Nathan's, had been to call Peter. _Good God, we fucked just yesterday!_

_I'm … I'm not … I'm not gay. Does he think I'm still his husband? _Sylar's eyes widened in growing horror. _If he has Nathan as his brother, is he going to expect to have me as his … No. Just no. We could … friends. Right - friends. He's said it could be platonic before. But what the hell would I __**do**__? I suppose I could work for the Company. _But being a director seemed out. He didn't think anyone in their right mind would trust him. He certainly wouldn't. He didn't think he would be able to hack the position. He had a good idea of how much of his competence as a director was due to Nathan's personality traits and leadership skills - things that, well, had gone off with Nathan out the window down the hall. He swallowed roughly.

"Okay," Peter said acceptingly. "Is there anything I can do?" He started forward and Sylar jerked back.

"Don't touch me! I'm not …" Sylar realized he sounded a little too stressed there, maybe even on the edge of hysteria. He trusted Peter - they weren't enemies or strangers. But he had no desire to fill the role of lover in Peter's life. Peter stopped. Sylar took a deep breath and let it out, forcing his voice back to normal. "Yes," he muttered. "An explanation. I'm not your husband. Um … I'm … not into men."

Peter blinked a few times, but his expression stayed surprisingly neutral. Kind, even. He moved to the other side of the table and pulled out the chair, taking a seat.

Sylar relaxed a little. Maybe this would be okay. Maybe he could figure something out. In the meanwhile, he worked at the clock in order to have something purposeful to do, so he didn't look as lost and unsettled as he felt. He finished opening the casing, tilting it up to take a look inside. It was out of balance; there was no other damage. It would be easily fixed. He set it back down. Peter's obvious concern for him was annoying. It made him feel obligated and hemmed in, smothered by too much attention. _Go away, Peter. I didn't ask you to come here_. "You have your brother back," he said, lowering himself so he could see what he was doing as he reached inside the clock.

"What do you mean?" Peter asked.

"There's me. And there's Nathan. The ability divided us." He reattached the mechanism and took a moment to summon a few memories of him as a kid. He'd had his problems then, too, but the window into the past was still interesting. He'd been learning something here, with this clock - a trade, how to fix things, how things affected one another. He gave it a push to get it going and was pleased to hear the _tick-tick-tick_ start up, even and sure. He smiled up at Peter with an innocent pleasure at that. A moment later, as the smile faded slowly, he thought about how regardless of who he was, he still felt that he was safe to share that with this man.

"Sylar," Peter said, his voice a little deeper than usual and that caught Sylar's attention, "Nathan … is dead. He passed away two years ago." Peter sighed, having had his own emotional response that Sylar really hadn't paid attention to until now. Sylar wasn't sure what to do with it, so he sat there quietly and listened as Peter continued with, "Whoever else is out there might think they're Nathan, and maybe with shape-shifting they look like Nathan, but they aren't Nathan."

"He's Nathan, as much as he is anyone else," Sylar responded. He summoned a dish towel from the kitchen using telekinesis, then used it to dust the clock off. Being at the top of the shelves, it hadn't been dusted on the top or back. He took care to clean it properly now. "You should go to him. I'm sure he'd like to see his little brother."

Peter's voice was thick with sudden emotion - whether grief or wrath, Sylar couldn't quite tell. Peter got out, "You're being cruel."

"Am I?" Sylar looked up at him, eyes intent. He supposed Peter was right, but he didn't care. "I thought I was only pointing out the obvious. You have your brother now. That's what you wanted all along. You can have him, and I can go on my way." _Once I figure out where that is._

"I want _**you**_," Peter said, and now Sylar was a bit clearer that it was sadness in his voice.

"Peter," Sylar said softly, having an idea of how sharp the knife was that he was using to slice into Peter's heart, "I don't want _**you**_."

Peter's hands balled into fists and his eyes shut tightly. Sylar rose, taking the mantel clock with him. He felt a sick sort of satisfaction because for once, he wasn't conflicted and it really was that simple. He liked Peter, yeah, fine, hopefully they could be friends, but what Peter had with Gabriel was not something Sylar could share. Even though, he had to admit to feeling envy and longing for the lack of it now. He moved the clock onto the kitchen counter and pushed it to the backsplash. Hopefully it would be safe there, because he had the impression that Peter was about to explode.

"Sylar," Peter said with an effort at being calm, "I've known Nathan all my life. But the man I fell in love with, that I married, was **not** Nathan."

Sylar eyed him. "He was your brother. You couldn't marry him."

Peter exhaled heavily, staring at the table. "Nathan and I fucked, okay? We fooled around a lot. We loved each other as brothers. Maybe we loved each other more than that. But I never felt like I wanted to move in with him, wake up next to him as often as possible, felt my heart jump whenever I saw him, and felt like there's almost nothing better in the world than him smiling at me." He held up his left arm, showing the watch that he wore, the mate of the one on Sylar's arm. "I never let him call me _his_. I never let him change my life. I never let him change _**me**_."

Sylar frowned, not sure what to do with the guilt that was surging around in his chest, making him uneasy and nauseated. He wanted to take his watch back from Peter's arm, but at the same time he could remember how thrilled he'd been to see it there the first time, how taken aback and startled, how his own heart had leapt and he'd wanted to go to his knees in gratitude. His face pinched with unhappiness. He was upset because he didn't think he deserved the emotional pains he was feeling. He just wanted things to be simple. He wanted the world to be a mechanism that he could put to rights as easily as the mantel clock. He wanted to stalk out and leave this all behind, but to go where and do what? What he'd found here in this weird, fucked up family he'd joined was a sense of belonging, support and of being loved that he'd never had anywhere else. He was reluctant to leave that.

Things would be so much easier for Peter if he just took Nathan and ignored Sylar, but here he was fighting and arguing for Sylar to stay. Sylar was wanted. Someone thought he was special. His shoulders sagged a little and he looked down, brows peaked in an expression of disappointment because he didn't think this could possibly work out. Not as he was. "I'm not part of your family anymore, Peter."

Peter turned towards him quickly, a little too fast and Sylar's hand flew upwards, making it about halfway to an attack before realizing Peter was only posturing. Peter looked at that hand. Sylar let it drop. Peter's eyes went back up to his. "You are, too. You have a **son**."

_Sons_, his mind provided traitorously, as he remembered his strange pride and sense of self-worth from being a good father to Nathan's boys. "Nathan …" He breathed out unsteadily because he didn't like what he was about to suggest. "Nathan can take care of him just like I took care of his boys."

Peter's eyes narrowed in anger. "You have a **wife**."

"Heidi … she has Nathan now."

Peter stood, bristling with rage. "She married _**YOU!**_"

Sylar resisted the urge to flinch and instead glowered threateningly, pulling himself back up to his full height.

Not that Peter seemed at all impressed by that. Peter stabbed a finger at him, repeating, "She married **you**, because she knew you were **not** Nathan! She knew you were different. She knew it!" He took a threatening step closer and added, "And you know what? You've been a damn better husband to her than Nathan ever was. You do **not** get to walk out on me, or her, or Monty or Simon or Noah. You _**don't**_, Sylar."

Sylar was doing his best not to cringe back, because oh shit was Peter ever intimidating. He was scaring the shit out of him and Sylar suddenly recalled all those people Peter had put off just by looking at them in annoyance. He'd never looked at Sylar like this - furious, righteous indignation that looked to be a whisper away from action. Sylar didn't even know what that action was and it didn't matter - his subconscious told him it would be whatever was worst, because that's how Peter's power worked anymore.

Peter put out his left hand, palm upward, clearly asking for Sylar to take his hand. "We're going to Heidi's to find Nathan. You're coming with me. We're going to put a stop to this."

Sylar looked at that hand and hesitated.

XXX

He let Peter teleport him into the Petrelli mansion. Sylar knew he was walking into his death, or at least an oblivion that amounted to death. He wondered if Peter saw it that way, or realized what he was asking of Sylar. He didn't think Peter did. Peter had always been a little … oblivious. Odd, really, for an empath, but Peter often seemed unaware of the impact his actions would have on others - flinging himself off buildings, asking teenage girls to shoot him, that whole weird traveling back in time and shooting Nathan thing (Sylar supposed even future-Peter wasn't immune to Peter's basic flaws), and of course the way he'd treated Sylar.

It wasn't something that could be blamed off on the limited form of Peter's ability, because he'd had it before, back when he'd had the full-powered version, too. Sylar, for all his callousness, generally seemed more aware of how people could be hurt than Peter was, even if the killer didn't often care. Peter cared - he just didn't always _notice_.

They'd teleported into the study. Sylar took a moment to admire the lovely skeleton clock over the door. It had previously graced the wall of Nathan's office at the law firm. Peter didn't spare it a look as he headed out, though he did at least glance back to see if Sylar was coming. _Yes, of course, Peter. I'm tagging along. I wouldn't have let you bring me here if I hadn't already made up my mind._

There were things that were worth dying for. Love was one of them, Sylar felt. Not that he loved Peter, nor did he think Peter would love him as he was. There wasn't much point to Peter **trying** to love him as he was - maybe they could be friends, but that was it. No, it was _Gabriel's_ love for Peter that Sylar was willing to die for, and more distantly, willing to allow his death for Peter's love of Gabriel. Even though he'd never really met this 'Gabriel' person, though he was of course aware he was a constituent personality. It seemed like a worthwhile way to go, all things considered.

There would be no love between Peter and Nathan the way Peter had confessed to loving Gabriel. They couldn't even play at it and be discreet - not if Peter wouldn't accept Nathan as Nathan, and insisted on seeing him as a facsimile or an incomplete replacement. His brother was dead to him, really dead to him, which was a very interesting thing for Sylar to find out. This other Nathan would not do and so if Sylar did not sacrifice himself, then they'd _both_ be doomed to lives of misery.

"Heidi?" Peter called out as he exited the hallway.

"Peter?" she answered as she came out of the kitchen, giving him a concerned look. He was supposed to be at work. Then, of course, her eyes went past him to Sylar. She was always so startlingly perceptive. She knew he wasn't her husband, nor even the Sylar she knew from before, the second she saw him. She started to say something, then just sagged a bit against the doorframe as if tired.

"Are you okay?" Peter went to her. Sylar wandered into the den, looking around at all the familiar things. He was the one out of place. _Odd, considering I've been living here for a couple years._

"In a different life," Heidi said slowly, "I should scream in terror and make a big scene, but," she sighed, "I don't think that would do any good. You know he's not him, right?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I know. You know yesterday he was going to get cloning?"

"Yes. He told me over dinner that it worked." Heidi pitched her voice to make it clear she was talking to Sylar. It was something of an accusation.

"It did, obviously," Sylar chimed in from near the shelves, where he was peering at a miniature bride and groom, carefully protected from dust under a bell jar. It had topped Gabriel and Heidi's rather conservative cake.

"I suppose," she said, "you haven't been up on the balcony, then?"

Peter glanced up the stairs. "No. Why?"

"Well … I saw Nathan up there, but he was staying outside, so I let him be. I didn't get a very good look at him, which must have been intentional on his part. I came down here and made some tea."

Peter said, "Okay. Thank you. That answers my next question, which is where Nathan is." His phone rang. He pulled it out and looked at it, grimacing. "It's my work," he grumbled, answering it.

Sylar waited until Peter was wandering back down the hall, one hand combing through his hair while the other held the phone to his ear, making excuses. Then Sylar headed up the stairs to take matters into his own hands. Heidi followed quietly behind him. He tapped on the glass. Nathan looked back at him and scowled. Sylar lifted his brows and tilted his head. He was clearly asking, though what he was asking was probably unclear, other than permission to be in Nathan's presence. After a few seconds, Nathan made a curt hand signal and turned away.

Sylar opened the door and slipped out. He didn't stop Heidi from following, but he didn't invite her, either. She came outside anyway. Sylar walked over to the balcony, on the opposite end from Nathan. He toyed momentarily with forcing their union, but it required Nathan's cooperation. He knew that. Gabe had tried the same thing the night before, with a different 'Sylar'.

"Peter's downstairs," Sylar said.

"I gathered," Nathan returned. "Why are **you** here?"

"Peter brought me."

"And now you do what Peter wants, is that it?"

"When he's right."

"What's he right about?"

"He knows who he loves and it's not me and it's not you."

Nathan glanced over at him. "I'm his _**brother**_."

"True." Sylar leaned on the railing. "He tells me you're dead and he wants the man he married. Not you. Not me."

Heidi made an inarticulate noise. Both men looked back at her. She shook her head, refusing to make her thoughts any more verbal than that.

Nathan glared briefly at Sylar. "I was afraid of that."

"Hm."

"This isn't going to work out. That's what I've been thinking about, why I came here instead of going to Peter's work."

"No, it's not going to work out."

Nathan sighed. He reached up and scratched at his chin. "I thought this was my chance," he said wistfully.

Sylar glanced back at Heidi, at the door, where he could hear Peter's feet rattling up the stairs quickly. _He could have teleported. It would have been faster. Or flew. Oh, Peter, you amuse me so._ Peter let himself onto the balcony, but Heidi shushed him and seized his arm, making him stay with her next to the door. She at least realized this was something for Sylar and Nathan to work out themselves. No one else could force it, but they sure as hell could fuck it up.

"Perhaps it was," Sylar offered.

"So that's that, huh?" Nathan said.

"I guess so. Are you ready?"

"Almost." Nathan gave Sylar a smug grin. "This might be the end for me, but you do know that you'll **never** escape me."

"Of course." Sylar gave him a sneering look in return. "I think about that every time I fuck your wife, or your brother."

Everyone but Sylar responded - Heidi by gasping like a fish, Peter by yelping, "What?" and Nathan by snarling and closing the distance between them to throttle Sylar. He must not have gotten that good a grasp, though, because Sylar had one more thing to say: "If it wasn't for you, ng, I wouldn't be fucking anyone."

Nathan hesitated, his grip slackening. There were two possible ways to interpret that sentence - Sylar meant both of them and Nathan knew that. "You wouldn't be fucking anyone at all, you piece of shit. You're _nothing!_" Nathan released him, starting to back up, lip curling in disgust.

Sylar's hand reached out and seized Nathan's shirt, jerking him in. "I'm _**you**_." There was a ripple in the air and only one stood before Peter and Heidi.

Gabriel stared at them like a frightened deer for a moment, then began to look embarrassed. He racked his considerable brain for the appropriate comment to cover his bizarre behavior - splitting into two people, arguing with and insulting himself, stirring up his lovers. He couldn't think of one. "I'm sorry I'm so crazy," he offered.

Heidi burst out laughing and ran over to hug him without restraint. He hugged her back, burying his face in her hair, eyes shut for a moment. He opened them after a deep inhalation to eye Peter, who had walked up more slowly and clapped him on the shoulder.

"You going to be alright?" Peter asked. Gabriel nodded mutely, still feeling ashamed of himself for losing control and letting too much of the crazy out of the box. Peter smiled tolerantly. "You got this, Heidi?"

"Yes, I do," she said, pulling back a little from the hug, turning so she still had an arm behind Gabriel's back. "Do you want to have some tea with us?" she asked Peter.

He shook his head. "No, I gotta get to work." Looking to Gabriel, he said, "I'll see you tonight. Make sure it's just the one of you this time, okay?"

He wanted to say something snippy about knowing how to use his powers, but it seemed wiser to just keep his mouth shut. He nodded silently again. Peter clapped him on the shoulder once more and stepped away to teleport off.

Heidi tightened her arm around him in a brief squeeze. "So, you can be two guys at once, huh?"


	392. Double Down

_December, 2011_

Gabriel looked into his own eyes, still working out how this power of limited cloning worked. There were two of them sitting on the couch, facing one another, identical in all respects this time around. It had seemed only prudent, of course, that he work out the 'kinks' of the power before subjecting his family to any more outbursts.

Both of them leaned back just a little at the same time. Gabriel, due to the positioning of the cushions, was a tiny bit lower than his double. That small difference was important. He straightened to be taller and that shift in body language provoked the other to slap him, fast and hard. He fell back and froze, eyes wide and nostrils flaring as he assessed the threat and decided to leave abilities out of it. Otherwise, the apartment would be trashed. The aggressor, after the briefest pause (probably thinking exactly the same thing), swung again. Gabriel dodged and came up, grappling, and bore his attacker to the floor where he landed with a sharp exhalation.

Gabriel balled his fist and struck his foe, who let out an, "Oh!" and a pained groan at the direct blow. He gave no other resistance, lying limp on the floor and gazing up, bleeding mouth slightly open. Apparently, in addition to deciding not to use active abilities, his double had turned off the more passive ones like regeneration as well. Gabriel followed suit as lust bloomed for both of them. Gabriel felt the surge to his groin, completely triggered by the wanton, receptive expression of the man below him. He hesitated, fist half-raised in threat, but there was no provocation. Instead, the other tilted his head back, baring his throat. Gabriel reached for it, long fingers sliding around soft vulnerability, evoking a low moan from his victim and another electric twitch from Gabriel's filling cock.

"This isn't fair," Gabriel grumbled, scooting back a little for better positioning, groin to groin as he crouched over him. "I want to be _you_."

"You shouldn't have hit me, then." The man under him pressed up and ground into him with a smug expression on his upturned face. He licked his lip, smearing the blood, knowing what effect that would have. "You can go next."

Arousal, jealousy, and desire spiraled up fast inside of Gabriel. Heart hammering, he snarled, "I want to go _first!_" His fingers tightened around the neck, digging into the tender flesh. The other man whined and squirmed, hands seizing Gabriel's thighs, gripping him but not resisting. Gabriel slapped him, hard, then released his neck to bury fingers in hair, jerking his head around. "Fuck me!" he demanded.

"If you ask nicely," the other managed to snark, grinding up into him again and thoroughly getting off on the treatment.

"Fuck that!" He opened his pants, then rolled off to the side to shove them off along with his shoes. His opposite number sat up slowly, wiping at his mouth, lids heavy. The double pulled off his shirt and cast it aside as Gabriel got to his feet. He grabbed him by the hair again, pulling his face to Gabriel's turgid organ. "Open."

"Still not polite," the other challenged, refusing to open his mouth more than the bare minimum needed to speak, lips moving against his cockhead so tantalizingly.

Gabriel backed up a little and hit him again and then again, open-handed slaps to the face and the side of the head as he held the man by the hair. The shock and pain was enough to make his victim gasp and struggle, hands coming up to defend himself despite his desire to be hurt. Gabriel shoved his back against the couch, putting one of his own knees on the cushion, and leaned his groin in. With one hand still holding him by the hair, the other found the point in the side of the face over the jaw, thumb pressing in and forcing it open. He pulled him to his cock.

It slipped inside a willing mouth, tongue licking at his shaft as it slid within. Gabriel stopped holding open the jaw and moved that hand to the back of the neck, stroking it gently in a small show of gratitude. He knew how this would play out, what danger he was and was not in, because he knew his double had the same thoughts and mind that he did. He wouldn't bite – not once he'd been overpowered, and even being overpowered was something he'd basically allow if he thought he deserved it. What he deserved at the moment was to be choked with Gabriel's cock. There was no condom this time to protect him from the fluids. None of Peter Petrelli's over-careful concessions. He would have secretly loved it if Peter would have held him down and done _this_ to him.

He rammed his cock in further, feeling the other man gag and buck beneath him. He kept it up until the signs of submission became frantic and uncalculating … authentic. He pulled out, stroking his saliva-covered organ as the other trembled and gasped, trying to hold down the heaves. Gabriel petted his head soothingly, brushing the hair out of his eyes. He had no apology. This was a necessary step to establish who was in charge and who wasn't. The other got himself under control and came back to him, licking eagerly around the sensitive flange of the head, then sucking the end into his mouth, tongue swirling on it.

Peter gave better blow jobs, Gabriel realized. That was irrelevant, though. This way he had his own sweet face looking up at him with rapt attention and adoration. He knew the double's brain had clicked over into the headspace of complete submission. The guy was flying and he would be to varying degrees for _days_. The head trip of allowing (and surviving) such total domination would feed him endorphins for most of a week. Gabriel knew; he'd had it. There was no 'you next' involved. They'd merge after this. Next time they used the ability, they'd be all-new clones. Like he'd said, it wasn't fair.

But lots of things weren't fair. He could still get ridden well, even like this. His doppelganger was now greedily sucking him, hands on his ass cheeks as he swallowed him down to the best of his ability. "Open me," Gabriel purred.

The double obediently pulled off to spit on one hand, fingers exploring behind and probing into his cleft as his mouth returned to his dick. Gabriel spread his legs, one knee still on the couch. A wet finger touched his hole, provoking the usual involuntary constriction. He took off his shirt, tossing it over that of his companion, then ran his fingers through the other's hair, stroking and petting, caressing as he was serviced orally. His asshole was teased and tickled, prodded and prepared. He shuddered. He didn't want too much prep. Pain was something he sought for this – with it, he could at least catch a shadow of the other's high – maybe more if he could get the other to abuse him enough.

He pulled away, going to all fours on the floor and presenting himself. A practiced hand went to his crack and fingers probed at him again. His double bit one ass cheek, then kissed, kissing and licking a trail up his spine as the other slowly shifted into position. As the mouth reached his shoulder, Gabriel turned his head to look back. "Ride me hard."

Heavy-lidded, lust-dazed eyes just looked back at him. He felt the two fingers in his ass twist, stroking down over his prostate. The surge of pleasure sent him forward in supplication, ass up, head down, a moan torn from his throat. A moment later, the fingers withdrew. There was a teasing pressure as the precome-slicked head of the penis rubbed against his opening, finding just the right spot. Then it began. Another moan, almost a scream, was ripped from him as the other shoved into him in one brutal push, all the way in, friction dragging the whole way as his body resisted the intrusion. A hand came down between his shoulder blades, pushing him solidly to the floor as he began to thrust immediately.

At that, Gabriel did scream. He writhed and struggled in the ecstatic experience of pleasure-pain. His ass spasmed and his hands clenched and unclenched. His legs kicked and jerked to either side. He vocalized; he opened; he let go and surrendered to the violation. A harder push on his back pinned him to the floor. He whimpered as the anal assault sped up, the relaxing of his muscles allowing a faster pounding. The double's other hand was hooked into his hip, keeping him in position to receive. Gabriel wished only that he had someone giving him orders, dominating _him_ in turn, but this was the best he could do alone. This was masturbation – violent, exciting, incredibly arousing masturbation.

The other gave it to him hard, as ordered. Gabriel moaned, limbs shaking as he let it all out. No one was here to see or care – no need to modify or moderate his performance. His ass was being plunged so vigorously that his legs shuddered and struggled to keep himself up enough to take the punishing thrusts. He could feel the tip of his cock bumping and sliding against the floor but he was powerless to help himself. He wanted attention there, but he, too, was losing himself in head space. He whined, begging inarticulately for release.

The other knew. Burying himself to the hilt, he cupped his body around Gabriel's, rocking his hips back and forth, buttocks flexing. Gabriel was so close. He jerked spasmodically with every brush and shift of the other's body. He was bitten on the shoulders and the back of the neck. One hand came down next to his face to steady the double while the other hand slipped under him. The clone's fingers played so gently, too gently, along his straining shaft. A cock was fully inside of him, stretching and filling him; a hand was teasing along his length, sadistic in how it absolutely refused to give him the intensity he needed.

Tears leaked from his eyes as he broken down and begged. "Please! Please! _Please!_" He gripped the wrist of his partner, his other hand reaching back to stroke fitfully at his knee. "Fuck … Oh God. Oh God ..." He was going to come anyway. He could feel it. Despite the other's hand giving him no more than tickles around the head of his dick, and the leisurely, rhythmic flexing of ass, driving the cock so slowly back and forth within him … he could feel the orgasm coming anyway. He could feel every blinding facet of it as his nerves lit up, his eyes rolled up in his head, and his cock swelled even more. The doppelganger wrapped his fist around it, around just the tip of it, and squeezed, jogging his hand up and down a little as Gabriel's whole body jerked with the force of his climax.

Everything went out of focus as he experienced pure rapture. Nothing important seemed to exist but his body and the blissful feelings coursing through it. He had merged again, he realized as he collapsed to the floor, lying there in his own sweat, come, tears, and drool. Minutes passed before he could do anything more elaborate than relearn how to breathe properly. He was getting cold. And yet the effort of getting to the bed seemed too much. His mind was still lost in the fugue of subspace. He was lonely and frightened. He wanted to withdraw and hide. He wanted help, but just like when he was getting fucked, it seemed antithetical to take action himself. He had to, though. After more long minutes, he extended his hand, finding enough concentration to summon pants to him. He found his phone in the pocket and pressed the right buttons. He held the device against his damp brow as it rang. Only one ring, because _this _time, Gabriel had had enough sense to alert Peter and Heidi to his experimentation beforehand. Though he hadn't expected it to go straight to sex. Honestly, him and his filthy mind.

"Hello?"

"Come … to ..." He couldn't think of the word for apartment. "Wrrr. Me?"

There was not even an acknowledgement before Peter popped into existence a few feet away.

"Gabriel!" Peter hurried to him.

He slumped, dropping the phone. It began to beep.

Peter glanced over his nude form, turning him over gently. "Gabe?"

Gabriel made a deep sigh of contentment as his fears and loneliness faded. Peter was here. Someone who loved him was here. It was all better now. Peter would take care of him. All was right with the world. "Bed, please?" He reached out for Peter languorously, infinitely pleased when he was gathered in and teleported to the bed a moment later.

Peter settled him in under the covers, leaving only to stop the phone from beeping annoyingly in the background. He returned immediately. "Are you okay?"

Gabriel smiled sloppily at him. "Get in bed with me. Cuddle. Fuck me later. I'm … I'm great. Greatest ability ever. I love it. I love you. I might even love me." He felt stoned and he knew his words were coming out somewhat slurred. He felt fantastic – thoroughly and naturally high. He determinedly left his abilities turned off, wanting to hold onto this for as long as possible and fearing that regeneration might purge the sensation and normalize the hormones flooding his bloodstream. Peter could get him into this state, too, on occasion, when they did it rough, but that wasn't a common thing between them.

Peter grinned suddenly, straightening. "I love you, too. The emotions coming off of you are _incredible_." He started getting undressed, shaking his head slightly. Gabriel watched him with a sappy grin that only broadened when his husband climbed in bed with him. Gabriel snuggled up, so happy.

"I love you," Peter whispered.

All was right with the world.


	393. Beginnings

It was New Year's Eve and Emma was very ready to have her baby, two weeks past her due date now and bursting out all over. She wasn't worried (much) about the progress of the pregnancy, because she believed Peter's mother when Angela had made a Christmas gift to all of them of a dream she'd had – the child would share a birthday with Noah Petrelli and the birth would be long, but otherwise uneventful. But what she _was_ worried about was the complicated world her daughter Alisha was being born into. It wasn't a world Emma understood – not even the shameful events that had led to her uncle and father being the same person. One of these days, she knew, her child was going to ask for explanations. She wanted them to be better than the evasive ones her own mother had supplied.

She set aside the book she'd been reading most recently (having chewed through Activating Evolution and ending with more questions than answers). This latest was the history of the 1960s jazz scene in New York, as she tried to come to terms with the world her father Chris Coolidge had been living in, to understand why her so very sensible mother had taken her brother as a paramour. Chris was long dead and her mother wouldn't explain herself, but Emma happened to be sitting across from a man who was an expert on motivations. She asked, "How did it all begin?"

Maury snapped his attention from whatever it was he'd been contemplating. "What?" He'd been assigned as one of her _two_ bodyguards (the other being Peter), a necessity she'd argued against but lost. The anniversary of Noah's traumatic birth had made both Gabriel and Heidi very anxious and the only way they'd leave the house was if proper protection was in place for both she and their youngest son Noah. That was how she'd ended up across the living room from Maury Parkman, watching him fondle an unlit cigar and stare off into the distance until her question pulled him out of it.

Peter was curled up in an easy chair with little Noah wedged between him and the arm of the seat. The nearly one-year-old had fallen asleep there after playing to exhaustion in his uncle's lap. Rather than move him, Peter had telekinesed over a laptop and was now streaming a report sent to him by Micah on some Company business. At her question, he raised his head to look between them.

Emma repeated herself in case she hadn't enunciated properly. "How did it all begin?"

"Specials?" Maury said, probably having plucked the subject from her mind. She nodded. "You mean all the way back? She nodded again, although her initial question had only been about the factors that had influenced her immediate family and perhaps that of Peter's. But if there was more, she wanted to know it. "How did specials begin?" Maury laughed a little. "You do like the big questions, don't you?"

Emma waited, pushing her book a little further away on the end table next to the couch to make it clear she wanted to hear him instead.

Maury sighed and put the cigar down. "All the way back, huh?" She nodded, leaning forward with interest. "Okay." He shot a look at Peter, who looked interested as well. Even though Peter's curiosity about abilities was notably limited, it was a more intriguing topic than Company work. The old telepath leaned back, assessing his audience and then letting his thoughts turn to the subject. '_Why am I here?_' was the real question she was asking. It was one of those fundamental ones people always asked, along with '_where did I come from?_' and '_what's my purpose in life?_' Maury didn't have the answers to those, mind-reader or no, but he did know a lot about the events that had led up to this point.

"I'm not sure how far back abilities go. Earliest evidence I've heard of is from ancient Egypt." He rubbed at the scruff on his chin, casting his thoughts back to lively debates and arguments back in the 60s, before either of his listeners had been born. It felt weird to realize not only were they here now, but that members of the next generation were already among them. Back then, he'd been a young man with as many questions as thoughts. No one had told him the story of how they'd come to be. He'd had to scrabble it together from clues and then hoarded the knowledge like the most valuable commodity. At this advanced stage of his life, there wasn't much benefit to keeping those things secret anymore.

"The first we have is some inscriptions about how the pharaoh had a man killed for possessing one of the 'god's' powers. They didn't think of them as normal people with abilities, the way a lot of folks do nowadays. What they could do was direct evidence of the divine and the supernatural. The people with abilities were revered, and given the animal-based religions they had in the day, they each picked an animal spirit, a totem, to represent them. Like a sports mascot." He smiled at how little the psychology of people had changed over the last three or four thousand years. He gestured loosely. "You can see them in the hieroglyphs they left behind – the bodies of men and women with the heads of an ibis, a jackal, or a hippo, maybe a cow. They had a whole religion around it and we have a bunch of signs that the people they were worshipping were like us – 'special'," he said, using the word that the latest generation seemed to favor.

"What happened to them?" Emma asked.

He shrugged. "If they weren't immortal, then they probably just died. I suppose it stopped breeding true at some point. They knew abilities were passed down genetically and you can see that in the way the royal family propagated itself. They married brother to sister, father to daughter, mother to son. And cousins, but the closer the better. I'm not sure how healthy that is in the long run. A lot of people tell me it's not. All the domestic animals we do that with … well, apparently it's really tough to keep a line pure and strong at the same time. And if I know anything about human nature, I'll bet that the breeding wasn't as closely controlled for the pharaoh's lineage as it is for English Spaniels." Even in the Founder's little claque of specials, infidelity had been the rule rather than the exception. Arthur's theory was that their nature as superior beings came with a drive to spread that gift to others, at times more literally than others.

"The ..." Emma made a sign for incest, uncomfortable with speaking the word out loud even though Noah was asleep and his vocabulary was rudimentary at best. "It happened even back then?"

"Yeah. And I think that might be where our person got the idea."

"Our person?" Emma paused, but there was only one entity she knew of who Maury persistently refused to name. "You mean Lilith?"

Maury smiled, embarrassed a little as his habitual avoidance of the name. "You know, once upon a time we thought that saying her name drew her attention, but yeah, Lilith. Selective breeding of people for abilities was her idea, but it wasn't a new one. People have been marrying up animals and people with the goal of getting better traits out of the progeny since the beginning of civilization. Plants, too. Some of the earliest writing we have is about picking which seeds to save and the Egyptian writings are explicit that the royal family wanted their kids to inherit their 'divinity'. At some point, though, it didn't work and I don't know why. Egypt wasn't the only place it happened, either. You can find some pretty damning evidence in India, China, and northern Europe. Some more speculative in Mesoamerica. If we could get the Dalai Lama to share, we'd know a lot more – he's a special, with an ability that's a match for that person … eh, Lilith's. Some people have run their mouths about the Judeo-Christian prophets, but I don't know about any _that_ for certain. Just because people report miracles or UFOs doesn't mean anything really happened."

Peter snorted softly at the strangeness of Maury believing in the abilities of the Dalai Lama and various Egyptian gods without a problem, but balking when dealing with his own faith.

Emma asked, "What about time travel? Didn't anyone ever go back to see for sure?"

Maury waggled his head ambivalently. "You know, time travel's not all that different from painting the future or having prophetic dreams – you don't get to pick where you go or what you see. A really powerful traveller can _force_ it, but doing that screws up the grey matter. They're trying to plow upstream, direct against the current of history, and that's more than a human being can process. It would be like Gabriel trying to use his telekinesis to stop the Earth from rotating – just not possible. He'd give himself an aneurism first. So we can't send someone back to 1865 to stop John Wilkes Booth from shooting Abraham Lincoln, much less to see if Moses really parted the Red Sea. There's too many events downstream that would change. All that weight and momentum of history against the fragility of the human brain? The brain gives way first.

"It doesn't work. We've played around with related powers. There's one that lets you paint the past, for example. Might not seem the most useful, but it's sure interesting. Then there's object-reading, like your husband has." Maury paused for a moment, confused by her thoughts. "No, I meant the other guy. Gabriel." Another pause. "Well, yes, he's not your direct husband, right. Whatever. You young people and your hippy free love," he laughed jokingly. "And anyway, Peter has that ability, too, I think." He glanced over to see Peter bob his head briefly. Maury went on, "None of those powers go very far back – a few years normally, maybe a few decades for a vision that's really important and personal. It ain't gonna get you to Bethlehem."

"So … what _do_ we know for sure?"

"What we know is that around 1500, the man we call Adam was running around. Hiro Nakamura left contemporaneous writings confirming it, but the main source of information is from me getting inside his head – Adam's head, that is. No one's sure how old he is, not even Adam."

"Is, or was?" Peter said, tilting his head to one side.

"Oh … well … he lived for so long," Maury said drily. "Was. Anyway." He turned back to Emma, ignoring Peter's narrowed eyes and continuing, "Adam's earliest memory was of waking up on the western shore of Japan after a storm, washed up with planks and crates. He didn't bother to check them for writing and he's always regretted that. He had reason, a lot of reason, to believe he'd regenerated extensively. Part of that reason was his lack of personal memories. He still knew English and a few other languages, along with a little history and vague memories of places he'd been – nothing specific, though. He staggered inland and sold his services as a mercenary. He didn't know he could regenerate at the time. Hiro showed him that later. Adam just kept thinking he was having miraculous escapes and injuries that weren't as bad as he'd thought at first blush."

Maury toyed with his cigar again, thinking back through all of the immortal's many memories. "We had him … in a cell at the Company for nearly thirty years. The incarceration wasn't a big deal for him, but the Company … we ... did some things that were beyond the pale." He rolled the cigar back and forth between his fingers. "Vivisection, killing him a lot, but most of all, the utter lack of treating him like a person who had any dignity or right to it. We shunned him, ostracized him, cast him out even though we kept him there in a cell and made him deal with our disapproval of him day in and day out. They brought me in to sort him out, because he got to where he wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't talk, wouldn't do anything but lash out.

"He hadn't gone crazy, you see," Maury said, circling his finger near his temple. "Not the same way we understand mental illness today in terms of unbalanced neurochemicals and such. Regeneration prevents that. But when the rational, sane, mentally stable response to your environment is to remove yourself from it … well. I had to go in there and bring him back and the only way to do that was to make 'back' somewhere he wanted to be. The main problem wasn't in _his_ head, it was in mine. And that of the other Founders." He glanced over at Peter, who had put aside his laptop and, with one hand on baby Noah's leg, was watching Maury intently.

"How's that?" Peter asked.

"They had to quit hating him. We, that is. People can't survive as an object of hate. Worst punishment possible in most ancient societies wasn't killing someone, it was shunning them. He couldn't take it. He had to have at least one person who understood, who empathized." Maury rolled the cigar pensively between his fingers and looked to the former empath. "You know what I mean, Peter."

"How did that happen?" Peter asked softly, projecting his thoughts so Emma could hear him without watching his lips. "It was you who gave him that connection, right?"

Instead of answering, Maury sighed and said, "You know what pisses me off? No one wanted to know that. They didn't want to know what I'd had to do. They didn't want to know who Adam was or what had happened to make him a man who thought wiping out most of humanity was a good answer. They just confirmed every reason he'd ever had in how much not a damn one of them gave a shit!" The cigar broke between trembling fingers. This was something Maury had never shared with anyone – his reasons for siding with Adam, along with Daniel, Bob, Carlos, and Paula. But they were all dead, even Adam, despite Maury's unintentional slip of the tongue and deliberate vagueness with Peter. Maury was the only one left from one side of a feud so few knew about, but had nearly torn the world apart several times.

"I understand," Peter said simply and Maury's head pulled around to him after he finished brushing off the stray tobacco leaves. Maury probed to see what it was Peter thought he 'understood'. In a moment, he could see it. The world had abused Gabriel and neglected him, creating a man who could casually murder. Deed accomplished, Gabriel was then held to task for the sins he'd never wanted to commit – for being the person everyone in his life had made him to be. It was such a disgustingly elegant and simple trick, leaving all of the perpetrators guiltless while they blamed the instrument of their inhumanity. Peter saw a parallel between Gabriel and Adam, between the world who framed Gabriel and the Founders who were too afraid to look into Adam's motivations.

"You saved yours," Maury told him.

"You helped."

"That's just because I'd seen it before," the old man grumbled. "You're right – same pattern. But him killing my son was hard for me to deal with."

Peter nodded. "Was that … was that the beginning of the rift between you and my father?"

Maury snorted. "Not really. There were a lot of things. Your father was always fine with pushing people harder than they could take. If they broke, he didn't care. Everything and anything was possible with abilities."

Peter's eyes widened, as he'd said something very similar to his mother when he'd set himself on the course of getting Nathan 'back' from Sylar after that fateful Thanksgiving. "And you didn't agree?" It was weird and startling to see Maury as the moral one here.

"Given that I was usually the one tasked with putting people back together … it wasn't that I didn't agree, but that I couldn't ignore the impact of what we were doing. My own son ..." He shook his head and then gave an example. "We had a program for a while, a school for the kids of specials where we thought we'd train them up in their abilities so they'd be comfortable with them – a sort of 'school for the gifted'. Didn't work. I used telepathy to try to augment their learning, make them focus, concentrate, and hopefully tap into their powers early. Instead, it fucked them up. Gave Matt some sort of dyslexia. Gave one of our youngest girls a split personality. They started to disintegrate, because you can't heal with a scalpel. I quit, walked out, but your dad thought those were acceptable casualties. He was always okay with certain costs and losses."

"What did my mother think of that?" Peter asked, leaning forward with an odd intensity in his eyes.

"She was against Adam's plan from the start. So was Arthur, but for different reasons – you can't have a new world order without anyone in it. Angela's motivations stemmed more from the apocalypse she was always trying to avert. Her ability would show her disasters we'd try to avoid and Adam's was one of them. For a while, her goals and Arthur's were the same, but as the years went by, they diverged. Whenever she'd try to oppose him, he'd fix her with mental commands. Like I said," Maury shrugged, "with Arthur, losing her was just as acceptable a casualty as Nathan or you."

"Why didn't she see that in him?"

Maury smiled sadly. "Peter, it is a lucky thing for men that women don't see us as we are." Emma rolled her eyes at the casual sexism and Maury went on with a nod to modern sensibilities and the family of his companions, "Or our partners. Love blinds, regardless. But in any case, in the early days of our little group it was Charles and Bob and Angela and a few others. They tried to accomplish things the soft way and honestly, it didn't work. There's a level at which force needs to be applied and I'm not trying to defend your father – I think he went overboard – but he brought a mentality and a severity to the group that got things done. That was attractive." He sighed. "I think your mother doubted herself a lot. She went through a period of being addicted to sleeping pills and even in the beginning, your father was good at twisting things around."

On that depressing disclosure, the group was quiet for a while until Emma said, "So there were Egyptians and different ancient groups, then Adam several hundred years ago, then the Company. Was there anything in between?"

"There's a few disconnected occurrences here and there, but nothing had a bigger impact on where we are today than Lilith. Adam ran into her in the 1850s. It wasn't the first special he'd come across – he'd seen a few of those, but it was the first one he'd seen who might stick around like he did. Adam was in America at the time. He'd just lost the love of his life – was with her nearly sixty-five years, longer than most people lived – and a friend was trying to hook him up with young women. The lady he was introduced to had a checkered past and a child out of wedlock, but she was rich, widely traveled, smart, and sexually unrestrained – not the usual combination, but his friend knew Adam well enough to know they might hit it off famously.

"They didn't, but they became good friends and palled around for a year or so, finding out they had more in common than Adam's friend had suspected. Adam wanted to love her, desperately, and for a while he was in love with the _idea_ of loving her – another immortal, someone he'd never lose. But it didn't work. They had sex, don't get me wrong, and they could have been as loving a couple as a lot I've seen, but they'd both lived long enough to know what did it for them and it wasn't one another – for whatever reason.

"At that point in time, Lilith only had one ability and Adam was pretty sure of that. She could possess people and that was it. She confessed to Adam that she'd been born around 1800 and had burned through a couple bodies in the process to getting where she was now. She was smart enough not to give details of her power, but it was clear she had no natural born body of her own she was tied to and that she could survive the death of her host just fine. That's an incredible power, but it's not beyond the ken of a really accomplished telepath or psychic. Like I said earlier, the Dalai Lama does the same thing."

Peter asked, "So … he's … that stuff about the Dalai Lama's spiritual transference is true?"

Maury's brows lifted at how Peter put faith in his God without proof, but questioned someone having an ability he'd personally seen in action. "Did you ever doubt Adam's age?"

"No."

"There you are. Yeah, it's true. But like I said, he doesn't want to talk to us about his ability. He's a little too wrapped up in spiritual fulfillment and peace and harmony and all that crap."

Peter snorted and laughed, then cut himself off when Noah squirmed next to him. They all observed a moment of silence as the toddler stretched and yawned adorably, then settled into a new position, burrowing against Peter's outer thigh.

Eventually Maury continued. "Actually, the Dalai Lama is a good example of something you two know as well as anyone: having abilities doesn't make you not a person. You've still got goals and intentions and all that, loved ones and enemies, prejudices and maybe even superstitions. Mr. Holy Harmony there has his own mission in life, or lives, or whatever. Adam never really settled on one, which was why he wasn't meshing up with Lilith too well. She had her own goal. She lost her son to disease within a few months of meeting Adam and ever after she was obsessed with the idea of having a family of people like her. Maybe talking to Adam about all the women he'd married over the years had an influence on her. She was the one who knew about the Egyptians. I don't know where she got that piece of information, but she told Adam, who told the Company Founders, who were able to verify a lot of it, so it seems to be true.

"That's so stereotypical," Emma complained. "A woman wanting a family."

"Says the woman so pregnant we ought to be thumping her belly for that hollow sound watermelons make when they're ripe," Maury shot back. Emma frowned at him and Maury went on, "You know what's also stereotypical? That you're assuming she's a woman at all. According to Adam, she'd just left twenty or thirty years of being a man and she'd mentioned men before that whom she'd possessed. She was _presenting_ as a woman when Adam met her, but I've seen her in more male forms than female over the years. The only reason we all," Maury paused for a moment, "and by 'we' I mean the Founders, call her female is because Adam did. And I think the only reason Adam did was because he wanted to be in love with her and couldn't imagine having that feeling for a man."

Peter dipped his head and Maury, currently the recipient of all of Emma's attention, declined to shoot the younger Petrelli a look. He hoped Adam had found a little human connection after getting out of that prison. He'd certainly needed it and Peter probably had, too. But obviously it hadn't lasted, whatever they'd shared.

"Maybe that's the real reason why it didn't work out between Adam and her – because maybe at some level it was Adam and _him_ and Adam wasn't that way for anything long term. She had the idea of getting more specials in the world and to do that, she started trying to locate the ones who were already out there. It was only a few years later that she and Adam parted ways, but they kept in touch by letter for a while. She could hook people up with who she wanted by the simple trick of hijacking their body for a bit, getting it on with whoever she thought was a good candidate, and then bailing out to pull the same trick on the next victim. Black out periods and hysteria were kind of a fad in psychology at the time. It makes me wonder."

"She was a body snatcher," Peter said with a curl of his lip.

Maury nodded. "Around the turn of the century, Lilith picked up another ability – pretty much Molly's. Don't know how she got it, but it wasn't the only time she picked up something new and kept it when she transferred from body to body. As decades passed, she quit sending letters and because she could telepathically contact Adam at a distance. After a while, she could detect specials and then she seemed to develop different powers of precognition and understanding probabilities … maybe other stuff. It wasn't like she blurted out everything she could do to Adam, who was off living his own life for most of this. He was happy about having a pen pal through the decades and they stayed aware of one another's projects, but they didn't work together much.

"Lilith had a lot of involvement in eugenics circles, so it shouldn't surprise you that she was in Nazi Germany for a lot of the build-up to World War II, but it might surprise you that she was more interested in preserving the Jews than the Aryans. Adam was there, too. It was kind of a focal point. A lot of people with abilities, like my family, she pulled out of camps and got us to the US. I didn't know it at the time – I was just a kid. But the Zimmermans, the Liebermans, and the Parczaks were projects of hers. We anglicized to Parkman when we got to the US. Given that none of us knew she was involved and there's no guarantee she was using the same face all the time, we probably talked to her off and on without realizing it."

"Wait," Peter interrupted. "Are you saying that Lilith and Adam caused the rise of Nazi Germany?"

Maury blinked at him for a moment, then laughed a little. "No. Absolutely not. What I'm saying is that like anyone else living around that time, they had opinions that put them on one side of the fence or the other. Check your history – the US was rife with their own selective breeding crap, miscegenation laws, sterilizing different segments of the population. Same for Germany, but a little more intense. Lilith was looking for opportunities to breed people, so of course she went to where it looked like it might be easiest. Adam was just there because he was – no particular reason except that he'd been bouncing around Europe for quite a while at that point."

"She wasn't a Nazi?"

Maury shrugged. "I have no idea, but like I said, the people she was working on at that time were Jewish, not Aryan. Not that she's particularly pro-Semite either. She hit a lot of different racial groups, which only makes sense as abilities show up across all races."

Emma's brow furrowed. "What happened to the people after she possessed them? Didn't they notice? You mentioned black-out periods earlier."

Maury shrugged. "Depended. From what Adam said, the first people she possessed, she rode to the grave. But later on, she got to where she just skimmed. Now whether that's a natural evolution of her own power, or something she could do all along and didn't, or something she picked up later is anyone's guess. But it's clear that by the last half of the 20th century, she could control a person's every action like the body was hers, or she could ride inside of their consciousness so deeply buried that not only did they not know it, but even a telepath like myself might miss it." His dry tone of voice left little doubt that he thought he'd been duped at times. "We also know that some of the people she possessed worked with her willingly and others had no memory of what had happened while under her sway. By the time I was savvy enough to be chasing her, she had more skill with telepathy than I'll ever hope to have, so what state she left people in was really up to her.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was talking about her 'projects'. Jews weren't the only ones. She had others - different groups, different places. Aside from direct possession, by the 1930s she had enough mental power to compel people together, long enough to have the kids she wanted them to have. We've speculated that she had some power of fertility, too, but at some point we'd started to think she had every scary, bogey-man power known. There was just a hell of a lot of coincidences."

Emma put her hand on her stomach. "Like how Alisha and Noah will have the same birthday, Gabriel and Heidi conceived right away, and Peter and I …?"

"Yeah, those sorts of things. You start looking back through history at narrow misses and unlikely events, ships passing in the night and unexpected one-night stands resulting in a kid who has powers … makes you wonder. Triggers off all the superstitious fears a person might have. We started calling it 'Fate', 'Destiny', sometimes 'Serendipity' if we were feeling generous. You see, this was before we got crossways with her in the mid-70s. Before that, we didn't know she existed. We knew what had happened, but the idea there might be one person behind all of that?" He made a rude, disparaging noise. "We wouldn't have believed it if we'd been told. We had to see it for ourselves to really get it. We'd been pulled together to Coyote Sands and then after, it just sort of snowballed – more and more specials came to our attention. Adam showed up with the idea that we put science to work finding out where abilities came from. I think he was working for her then, setting us up to be an arm of her globe-spanning plans. She was riding Chandra in those days."

"Chandra Suresh?" Peter asked softly.

"Yep. He wasn't the same man in those days as the guy you met."

Peter shook his head slightly. "I never met him."

"You didn't?" Maury looked over at him.

Peter shrugged. "I tried. But by the time I found out about him, I was meeting Mohinder."

"Huh. Well, the original Chandra showed up to us in the early 70s and several remembered him from the Coyote Sands. They didn't trust him, but he didn't care. Chandra talked about these trials of testing that had been done on children, two to three years old, trying to short-cut the breeding process and create abilities in them directly. Didn't work. But for whatever reason, he thought it would work to round up a bunch of kids of specials and inject _them_." He nodded towards Peter. "That's how Nathan got his power. Remember what I said about your dad and acceptable casualties?" Peter nodded. "Most of the kids survived. Not all, though, and that started a backlash. It took a while, because the people Lilith was dealing with had all just sort of coincidentally been okay with letting some weird Indian guy inject their precious baby with an untested compound, but it's really tough to brainwash someone into thinking it's okay for you to kill their kid.

"How did you know it was her?" Emma asked.

"We didn't at first. We blamed Chandra. We'd been researching Coyote Sands for a while and we decided he must have some power beyond what we'd expected. People with multiple abilities weren't unknown to us, so we assumed he had more than we knew of. We went after him for using mental commands to coerce people into letting him experiment on their kids, experiments that killed some of them.

"After we failed to corner Chandra a few times, Adam … more or less came clean with us. What he left out was that he was still occasionally talking to her even while we were fighting her. But he told us the rest of what he knew about Lilith and we organized against her. He had no idea how to kill her. At first, we thought she was mortal just like any of the rest of us, aside from the body jumping. We killed her, or at least her hosts a half dozen times. Never took. At first, we thought we were handling the body wrong – maybe burial wasn't good enough and we needed to cut the head off, then next time we tried cremation and so on. We had all kinds of wild theories. I don't know if I can convince you of how paranoid a person gets when they don't understand how something like that works.

"All in all, it was kind of pointless because she wouldn't stay dead. We'd have done better if we'd tried to talk things out with her, but although different people would suggest that at different points, there were a few too many dead babies and rapey liaisons for negotiations to go very far. By 1977, we thought we'd finally won, but fighting her had caused us to put a lot of energy into trying to come up with super-weapons to use against her."

"Wait," Peter interjected. "What were you guys doing to stop her?"

Maury sighed. "It was a big, frustrating, cat-and-mouse game. We'd track down the people she was working through, like Chandra, the other scientists working on her projects, different employees, and the like. We'd check them for any signs of recent personality shift. We'd go read their minds. When we found her, we tried different things, like I said – shooting, incineration, whatever. We tried locking her up once, but she just bailed out of the body at some point."

"Was this here in the US?" Emma asked, trying to get some context.

"Most of it. And some in India. We thought if we could just get the right abilities, we could stop her. So Victoria came up with this formula and Adam brought her the catalyst."

"What _was_ that?" Peter asked of that mysterious power that had reactivated his own original ability. "The catalyst – what was it?"

Maury's face did something strange – it formed a small, sweet smile while he considered the answer – before his eyes cleared and he focused on Peter. "Love."

"L … love?"

"Love. 'For He so loved the world that He gave his only …' the only life he had to give." Maury watched as Peter blinked at the unexpected Biblical paraphrase, then waited patiently for the old man to explain. "Love of another great enough that you would extinguish yourself for them. And not just that you would, but that you _have_. Surrender your life force, martyr yourself willingly for another, and your love will outlast you. Adam called it a 'Deeper Magic', but he'd read that out of some idiot book he'd read twenty years before. The thing is, the human soul has a power. I don't think you'll argue that." Peter shook his head to show he wasn't arguing; Emma nodded to show she agreed. Maury was amused, but understood the meaning behind both gestures. "Our abilities come from our souls and they tend to defy scientific explanation. I'm not going to try it now. Maybe someday someone will be able to quantify all of it in replicable experiments, but what we knew for certain was that without the catalyst, the formula was just a mindless mutation. Variations of it included viruses that could kill billions of people. But if you add the catalyst – love, empathy, humanity – and instead of bringing death, it brought miracles."

"'In the end, all that matters is love'," Peter muttered.

Maury smiled a little. "Charles used to say that."

Peter nodded, because that was who had said it to him.

Emma said, "It sounds like magic."

Maury's smile broadened. "And what would you call my telepathy or your ability to manipulate sound?"

Emma cocked her head, lips pursed and hand rubbing her tummy. "I don't like the idea of magic. It's too unpredictable."

Maury shrugged. "Fear it or not, it's here. And abilities seem to follow _some_ logical rules. Just not very many."

With a perturbed sigh, Emma brought the conversation back to something more definable. "Was that Lilith's plan? To have you come up with this catalyst that would let you give people abilities?"

Maury puckered his lips. "No. I know it's tempting to imagine it was all one grand, evil scheme with a single villain orchestrating everything, but we came up with that on our own. Now I'm not going to say it wasn't an arms race. Once we'd found out about her and been unable to get rid of her, we poured a lot of energy into coming up with how to get bigger and better powers."

Peter's mouth dropped open for a moment before he said, "I was born in 1978. My … they said …" He blinked a few times. "They said they said they went to a lot of trouble to get me, that I was bred for this."

"And so you were."

Thinking more on a conversation Peter had had with his father, months before when his father had been stripped of abilities and jailed by the Company, he remembered something else. "He quoted something to me out of that book, about the great evolutionary agency of the universe being love." His eyes met Maury's. "They made me to stop Lilith, didn't they?"

"Well," Maury said, "I can't say I was privy to your parent's plans until recently, but yes, that's true."

"And … Gabriel?"

"Their plans for him don't have anything to do with Lilith."

"Yeah, but what about the rest of their plans for him? I know they had them. Have them."

"I'm not going to speak of the future." For several long, tense moments, there was silence.

Emma said, "Can you tell us more of history, then?"

"Of course," Maury said cooperatively. "What would you like to know?"

"You said you thought you'd won in 1977. What happened next?"

"The Company consolidated. We started pursuing a pattern of persecution against specials – anything to drive them underground. We threatened. We isolated. We hunted. We trained an entire generation of mundane and special agents to feel nothing for the people they were after. We inculcated a philosophy that specials were less than human, a danger to everyone."

"But ..." Emma asked, perplexed, "you were specials."

Maury laughed a little. "Yeah, kind of fucked up, isn't it? We did it anyway. We were afraid of what Adam had almost unleashed. We were afraid of all the artificial specials Lilith might have made. We were afraid of all the ones being born that we didn't know about. And then in 1985, we got a rude shock when we found out Lilith was alive and well, hanging out in one of our own facilities. She'd come in to talk to Adam in the flesh, so to speak, and after she was done with that, she went snooping through our files. Adam had the impression she was pissed at him for not telling her she'd finalized the formula. It seemed to be what she was looking for. She stumbled across Charles, who realized who he was dealing with, then she fled when she couldn't immediately convince him to forget it. The chase was on, then. We tailed her back to India and after a lot of adventures managed to corner her as Chandra, and drained every memory and power she had. Or at least that Chandra had, not that he'd ever had any ability other than being able to detect specials."

"He could detect specials?" Peter said, startled by that even though it made perfect sense.

"Yes. Originally. Your father took that from him. I checked Chandra out from one end to the other, destroying everything that he was in a lesser version of what Matt did to Sylar. It was revenge. We were torturing him for having been her willing vessel, though I'm not sure how much free will anyone had in dealing with her. We left him a husk whose major accomplishment was being potty-trained. We _**thought**_ that his later rapid recovery was because he'd had a lot of friends with abilities. He still had a family, people who knew him, and all that. We thought they'd pitched in to help. He certainly didn't come back fully healed – he wasn't the brilliant scientist he once was. Since then, I've realized Lilith must have lent a hand in putting him back together as much as possible. I saw something similar with Mohinder last spring. It's not like the damage never happened, but Chandra was able to walk and talk and even teach classes pretty soon."

Emma snorted this time. Given the questionable capability of some of the tenured university professors she'd seen in her day, being able to teach class wasn't necessarily an accomplishment.

"Ye-ah." Maury smiled thinly at her thoughts. "We thought she was gone, though – for the second time. It was kind of a problem for us that one trait she never had was vengefulness. You know, you wrong some people and they'll keep trying to wrong you back for the rest of their lives. Her, though? Nah. She was just more careful about the next time. That made it awful tough to tell when she was dead and gone or just off doing her own thing somewhere else."

"Couldn't you use someone like Molly to locate her?" Emma asked.

"Good idea, but it didn't work. We had a guy who could enter people's dreams, but he had to know them first. Molly had a similar limitation. You can't just say, 'Hey, find this person who possesses people, but we don't know who they're possessing right now, or what they call themselves, or who they were born as, or where they've been lately, but we want you to find them anyway.' Or, well, we _could_ say that, but it isn't enough to go on." Emma nodded, seeing the problem. "What we ended up doing instead was investigating and tracking the people she _might_ be possessing and then using telepathy, empathic reading, and related powers to do the final identification. It was costly in terms of time and labor, but it made us _really good_ at tracking normal specials. We built a whole infrastructure around that."

"What else was going on with the Company aside from dealing with her?"

"Well … after the Chandra incident, the Company started taking on a biomedical route. In the course of tracking them down, we'd uncovered a lot of research that looked really promising and we were finally big enough to start employing mundane scientists rather than just working off of Vicki's ability to manipulate organic molecules. Victoria had parted ways with us anyway and Charles and Kaito had largely retired, too, putting their families before the business. Remember those Zimmermans I mentioned? They got hired in to run it. Arthur and some of the others who were still active wanted the Company to go back to figuring out how to enhance and grant abilities. For the next fifteen years, they'd find people with abilities and bring them in for a round of experiments, then wipe their memories and dump them back out. We expanded the organization, built facilities on every continent, recruited and trained heavily, and became the juggernaut you saw five years ago when your abilities first manifested," he said, with a nod at Peter.

"We had two satellites in orbit, we had developed an injectable radiographic or something substance that could be detected from space," Maury went on with a hand wave to indicate he didn't understand the details of the advance but just that it had been done, "and we had this program for bagging and tagging with a big database to track people. We had a really good idea of what abilities were out there, what they were capable of, and how they worked. We'd done things like what happened to Elle – pushed her as hard as possible, traumatized the shit out of her, and left her mentally warped, just to find out how those things worked."

"And that," Peter said slowly, feeling his way through how he would have responded in that environment, "was the backdrop for my mother and father … how did you put it? Not agreeing with each other anymore? And then he was using mental commands to make her go along anyway."

"Yep. The Company had become callous and inhuman. Arthur was the chairman and he'd become a really, really frightening man. He'd accumulated so many powers that he put even Samson Gray to shame. The power differential was so extreme that none of the other Founders really had much say in things. He made sure none of us who were still active got too uppity with our opinions. I went back to doing field work – finding people with powers and convincing them not to show them to anyone. Daniel and I ended up working together a lot."

"You and Daniel were close?" Peter asked.

"Platonically. Fraternally might be a better word. He saved my life a lot. He'd gotten tired of playing second fiddle to Arthur's pomposity. Daniel had a little trick he could do with his power that wiped out all of Arthur's commands on a person's mind. After Arthur tried to have Nathan killed and ordered Angela not to know about it, Daniel stepped in and healed her."

Peter nodded, putting it together in his mind. For a long time, he'd harbored a lot of anger towards his mother. Knowing more of her story and how she came by her decisions made so much of it more understandable.

"What about 9/11?" Emma asked. "And the different things happening in the world. Were specials responsible for any of that?"

He shrugged. "Not particularly. You know, we made a difference here and there, but by and large every member of humanity does their own thing and the gestalt moves forward at its own pace. There's no Illuminati running everything, even if there are groups that have more power and influence than others. Specials – they have a lot of power and influence, more when they work together. Halo might have had something to do with 9/11, but it's not like people can't get themselves into wars and terrorism without someone with an ability at the bottom of it. The Company wasn't about to take sides or try to take over an actual government. There were some noises about that when we all got together towards the end of 2005. Several precogs were predicting the same event with a high degree of certainty, which had caused the Founders to pull together a big meeting to discuss it. Even those who had left the Company showed up."

"The bomb?" Peter guessed.

"Heh. You wish." Maury said, amused at how Peter thought things revolved around him. "No. The _eclipse_. It was going to cause a mass activation, more manifestations than we could predict and intercept. And in the fallout from something that massive, yeah, the bombing of New York was a strong possibility. We spent most a month bashing our brains out about the problem. Your parents and Daniel came up with this 'brilliant' plan to blow up New York City and then Nathan would become president. A lot of people didn't like that. It was too Petrelli-centric. Old grievances were aired. Kaito and Victoria bowed out, Charles was on his last legs anyway health-wise, others took off in different directions. Since no one was sticking around to object, the plan went forward.

"For about two months. That was when, in the course of examining his eldest son for fitness in holding the highest office in the land, controlling the government of the most powerful nation on Earth, Arthur discovered he'd been secretly buggering his baby brother for the better part of a decade."

Peter cleared his throat uneasily and muttered, "It wasn't that long." Maury shrugged at the minor equivocation. Emma looked distinctly uncomfortable with the topic, regardless of exact number of years.

"Doesn't matter," Maury said. "Arthur went off the deep end. Really, he'd handled his wife's infidelities a lot better than his kid's peccadillos." Peter sighed prominently, uncomfortable in how much and how little he agreed with his mother's adultery. "That was when I left. It wasn't like I hadn't had hints between you and Nathan, but really, I hadn't been looking. Paying attention to Arthur and Angela's brats wasn't on my list of things to do and I didn't come around all that often anyway. People entertain idle fantasies all the time and so even though I'd overheard a few things, I'd ignored them. But in the state Arthur was in, finding out that I'd known something and hadn't mentioned it might have been fatal, so I skedaddled."

Drily, Peter said, "I thought he was just angry I was actually graduating as a nurse."

Maury gave him an odd half-smile. "That didn't win you any points, let me tell you. But while I was out, the whole thing fell apart. Next thing I know, you're lighting up the sky the evening after the election. Everything after that was scrambling for damage control. I think you've been more or less in the loop for that."

Peter nodded, but he was looking at Emma, who nodded as well after a moment.

"Our children," Emma said slowly, "are being born into a very dangerous world. How do we keep them safe?"

Maury leaned forward, speaking seriously. "Over the years, the things that have worked are working together, protecting each other, knowing as much as you can, and having each other's backs when the going gets rough. The things my generation failed at, that it looks to me like you guys might get right, are in being supportive, forgiving, and trusting." He smiled, tears dampening his eyes as he thought about all the hate, fear, and unresolved grudges he'd seen. "Like Angela says, we mortgaged our souls for you, to make a world where you could find one another and find love. The debt's paid; invest wisely."

* * *

_This, dear readers, is the end of the Shattered Salvation alternate universe. Thank you so much for coming with me on this adventure._


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